Free Wildcard by Ken McClure Page B

annual job appraisals suggested that his career had been in the doldrums for the past few years, his performance never being assessed any higher than ‘satisfactory’ during the past four. Illness had played a part, in that he had suffered intermittently from heart problems, although this had apparently been put right after surgery earlier this year.
    Barclay’s being sent to Ndanga had been seen as a bit of a test by his superiors to find out if he merited promotion to the next grade after all. Barclay himself had been made aware of this and had been keen to do well, according to his superior, Sir Bruce Collins. Confidential vetting reports obtained from Special Branch suggested that there was no scandal in Barclay’s life. He was honest, straight and reliable to the point of being dull. Steven sighed and moved on to the next file.
    Ann Danby had been thirty-three at the time of her death; she was unmarried and lived alone in Palmer Court, an expensive apartment block on the West Side of Manchester. She was a graduate of the University of Manchester in computer studies, and worked as an IT specialist with Tyne Brookman, a large academic publishing firm in the city. Her parents also lived in Manchester and she had one brother, John, who lived and worked in London for a public relations firm. By all accounts, she had been settled and content, even if regarded as a bit of a loner by her neighbours – although university involvement in a whole variety of societies had suggested otherwise. No one interviewed could suggest a reason why Ann Danby should want to take her own life, and the possibility of this action being connected with her illness seemed entirely plausible. She had not been outside the UK since 1998 when she had taken a package holiday to Majorca, apparently alone. She had never been to Africa, nor had she any known connection with anyone who had.
    Steven shook his head and sighed again. There was absolutely nothing in these two biographies to suggest an opening course of action. He couldn’t see a first move and first moves were all-important, be it the first leg of a journey or the first move in a chess game. Get it wrong and it could be hard to recover lost ground. He moved on to the list of ‘Secondary Victims’ but found nothing helpful – it was quite clear how these people had contracted the disease. It was impossible not to be struck by the tragedy of so many young lives being wiped out; the stewardess and the nurse had both been well under thirty.
    Steven noted down some key points for a plan of action. He saw the impending report from Porton as being critical, because it would establish whether or not the two outbreaks had been caused by the same virus. If, by any chance, they had not – and he sincerely hoped against hope that this might be the case – he would concentrate all his efforts on finding out where Ann Danby had picked up the disease, starting first with any animal connection he could establish. If, as was more likely, the two viruses turned out to be one and the same, he would have to gamble on there really being a connection between Ann Danby and the Ndanga flight, despite the authorities’ failure to find one. Either way, Manchester was the place to be. He would travel up there in the morning. In the meantime, he would read up on filovirus infections and in particular the reports on any recent outbreaks of the disease. He started with the 1995 epidemic of Ebola in Kikwit in Zaire where 80 per cent of the 360 cases identified in the outbreak died.
    * * *
     

    Steven’s arrival in Manchester coincided with the newspapers getting hold of the story. ‘Killer Disease Stalks Manchester Hospital’ was what he read on the first billboard he saw in the station. He bought several papers and flicked through them while he had a weak and slightly cold coffee in the station buffet. The press had the basic story but not much more. They knew that several people connected with the hospital had