Wildcard by Ken McClure

on. He rang down to the desk to order a taxi and had a quick shower before changing. The cab driver was none too pleased at having to wait, but money smoothed the way as usual, and before the journey was over the driver was giving Steven his thoughts on the current outbreak at the hospital.
    ‘Bloody junkies – they should shoot the lot of them. Once a junky, always a junky, that’s what I say. All this shit about rehabilitation is just a bunch of crap, a waste of bloody money. And now they’re passing on their diseases to innocent people. Bloody criminal it is.’
    ‘I didn’t know drugs were involved in the outbreak,’ ventured Steven when he managed to get a word in.
    ‘Drugs are involved in most things these days, mate, take my word for it. Ninety-nine per cent of all crime in this city is drug-related, one way or another.’
    ‘But I don’t see the connection with the problem at the hospital,’ said Steven.
    ‘The junkies are riddled with disease, mate, all of them. AIDS, hepatitis, salmonella, the lot, and then when they land up in hospital they start giving it to the nurses, don’t they? That’s how it happens, mate. Those poor girls have enough to contend with without those wasters giving them things. Shoot the bloody lot of them. It’s the only answer.’
    Steven got out the cab thinking that desert islands might have a lot going for them. He was preparing to apologise for his lateness as he entered the room, but found to his relief that the meeting had not yet started and there were still two other people to come. In the interim the medical superintendent, George Byars, introduced him to some of those present. There were too many names to remember, so Steven tried to memorise them in groups. There were three senior people from the Manchester social work department led by a short squat man named Alan Morely who obviously had a liking for denim clothes, and a team of five epidemiologists led by a sour-faced, grey-bearded man introduced as Professor Jack Cane. These people seemed seriously academic, thought Steven, narrow shoulders, bad eyesight and an ill-disguised impatience with the perceived stupidity of the rest of the world. There were four senior nurses, including the hospital’s nursing superintendent, Miss Christie, for whom no first name was proffered, and finally a small delegation from the Department of Health in London. This last group was fronted by an urbane-looking man named Sinclair who smiled a lot but looked as if he might be good at playing poker.
    Steven accepted a mug of coffee but was conscious while drinking it of hostile glances from the epidemiology group and he suspected they might be resentful of his presence. This was a situation he was not unfamiliar with, having encountered it often enough before on assignment. Outside investigators were seldom welcomed with open arms by those already on the ground.
    As a consequence, he had simply learned to be as self-sufficient as possible. If anyone offered help it was a bonus. John Donne’s assertion that no man was an island might well be true, but over the years he had become a pretty accomplished peninsula. In his view, team players – those whom society set so much store by – moved at the pace of the slowest member of the team. That the earth went round the sun was discovered by Galileo, not by a team or a group led by him.
    The two missing people arrived; both were senior doctors from the special unit.
    ‘We’ve lost another two,’ said one by way of explanation.
    ‘The two you thought this morning?’ asked Byars.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Any new cases?’
    ‘No, but assuming a ten-day incubation period at the outside – it was actually less for the Heathrow people – we’ve still got four to go. Touch wood, things are looking good at the moment.’
    ‘Then I think we have cause for optimism,’ said Byars. ‘How have the barrier nursing courses been going, Miss Christie?’
    ‘Very well. There was a good response to the