The Longest Pleasure Page 3

  “Let me explain. You just said you would expect the Director of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre to be alerted at the first signs. He won’t be so alerted.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Because botulism—as such—is not a notifiable disease.”

  “It’s not?” queried Green, astounded by such a revelation from such an authority as the Professor.

  “Not in its own right, though it may come to be notified as food poisoning. It is quite simple, gentlemen. The notifiable diseases are cholera, plague, relapsing fever, smallpox, typhus and food poisoning—all diseases which spread. Botulism is—or may be—regarded as a form of food poisoning, but it doesn’t spread from person to person and so is non-communicable. But remember that food poisoning is difficult to define. The most common form is acute enteritis and so, through common usage, it—that is food poisoning—is now accepted as meaning gastroenteritis following the consumption of unwholesome food or drink. And so we do not include specific infectious diseases like enteric fever in this category, even though they are often spread by infected drinking water.” He looked round and said, parenthetically. “When I said often, in this context, I do not mean that outbreaks of enteric fever are common in this country. Indeed, they are extremely rare. But where and when they do occur elsewhere in the world, contaminated water is frequently the cause.”

  “Thank heaven for that bit of reassurance,” said Anderson gloomily.

  Convamore continued.

  “Nor does one include as notifiable food poisoning illness due to a food idiosyncrasy or food allergy, since the food that has been eaten in such cases is wholesome—like shellfish—and it is the patient’s reaction to it that is abnormal. There are other categories, too. Food that is too rich, like fat and cream, and food that is mechanically irritating, like unripe apples. All these can cause apparent food poisoning. So, gentlemen, the doctor who first sees a case may, to begin with, consider he has not met one of the complaints he is obliged to notify. And I would add that he may well be misled by botulism, because the chances are thousands to one against him having encountered it previously. Furthermore, he may not even suspect that the trouble has anything to do with food because food poisoning, classically, causes diarrhoea, whereas botulism does not.”

  “Never?” asked Anderson.

  “The answer to that,” retorted Convamore, “is a lemon.”

  “You mean there could be exceptions to the rule?”

  “Precisely. And not always due to the botulinum bug, either. So often people have minor tummy upsets which do give them the trots. Give them a dose of botulism on top of that and it could be totally misleading because, one would imagine, another severe disease of the stomach could well exacerbate one already there.” Convamore gestured with both hands. “All in all gentlemen, botulism is often far from easy to suspect, let alone confirm.”

  “You’re warning us to expect more cases,” said Anderson glumly.

  “All I am saying is that it would be unsafe to assume there are no more to come.”

  “Not much difference,” grunted Green.

  “And just one more thing. Assistant Commissioner.” Convamore leaned forward to make his point. “It is the duty of the doctor examining the patient to furnish the Community Physician for the district with the details of the communicable disease or the poisoning the patient is, or is suspected to be, suffering from. Community physicians are doctors, but by reason of the posts they hold, they are also part-bureaucrats. So you can imagine that, before they start spreading alarm and despondency, they’re going to want to be doubly sure that the diagnosis is pretty certain. I only add this bit of information to let you know that there could be a slight bureaucratic hesitation before a case is openly declared to be botulism.”

  “Christmas night!” growled Green. “It’s a wonder we ever get anywhere with this sort of thing.”

  “I’d like to get on,” said Anderson querulously, thereby rebuking Green for his remark. “Specifically I want to explain to Masters and Green why they should have been called in on a case that is ostensibly the responsibility of the local health authorities concerned—with the aid of local police if needs be.”

  “The Yard,” said Wigglesworth plummily, “is at the disposal of any police force, world-wide, should its services be required.”

  “Not required,” snapped Anderson. “Requested.”

  “Quite,” said Wigglesworth. “The Home Office, as the supreme police authority in the country has—er—requested the help of the Yard. No Yard involvement would have been contemplated had all three attacks of botulism followed the ingestion of one single type of food. Had all the victims eaten, say, tinned ham, it would have been assumed either that one complete batch of ham was infected or that the canning factory involved was to blame and that all its output would be suspect. But as you already know, there are three different foods involved, made by three different manufacturers in three different countries. That is the reason for our suspicion of criminal involvement.”

  “Also,” said Anderson heavily, “there is the fact that all three infected tins came from the same chain of stores. Different branches, perhaps, but the same chain.”

  “Ah!” said Masters. “We hadn’t heard that.”

  “Redcoke Stores,” said Wigglesworth.

  “My missus shops there,” said Green.

  “And mine,” added Anderson. “Which woman doesn’t? And that highlights our problem, George. If there are any other outbreaks—from different foodstuffs—we should have to close down every Redcoke branch, and that’s the equivalent of shutting almost half the grocery outlets in the country.”

  “Not only that,” said Moller. “Most housewives will have a few tins of Redcoke products on their shelves. My wife uses their tinned carrots among other things. I mention carrots because we eat a lot of them and we always have half a dozen tins in hand. Botulism, as you probably know, is not confined to fish and meat. It goes for vegetables, too, particularly those in close contact with the soil. In fact, I think I’m right in saying that there are several outbreaks every year in the States due to imperfectly preserved vegetables. They do a lot of domestic bottling and canning there, of course, whereas there is very little done in this country. My point is, if three Redcoke lines have already caused botulism, with the likely prospect of more to come, scores of millions of pounds’ worth of probably wholesome food will be ditched in panic.”

  “A costly business for the country,” observed Convamore. “One the nation cannot afford, let alone individual citizens.”

  “Heaven only knows what it will do to the Redcoke trade.”

  “It could mean complete closure for them, George.”

  “And another few thousand unemployed,” grunted Green.

  “Quite. So we appreciate how important it is for us, the police, to discover how their goods are becoming infected and then how to stop it happening. The various health authorities, meanwhile, will deal with the medical problems. Does that look like a fair division of labour, gentlemen?”

  Green sniffed, as if to imply that Anderson was suggesting the impossible. “We don’t even know for sure that there has been criminal activity,” he said. He looked across at Moller. “Isn’t it up to the Horseferry House boys to examine everything, backwards down the line to stops and then to call George and myself in if they reckon they need us?”

  Anderson looked across at Moller for his reaction to this suggestion. The scientist replied: “The Forensic Science Service will do exactly what Mr Green has outlined—as far as we can. In fact, our people are already on the way to collect the three tins for examination and comparison.”

  “Comparison?”

  “There are several types of botulism,” murmured Convamore. “Just to complicate things.”

  Moller continued. “We must know whether the same type is implicated in all the outbreaks. If they are not all the same . . .” He shrugged. “If there are two different types implicated, we’ve come up a
gainst a million to one chance—at a conservative estimate. If there are three types, the chances are scores of millions to one. But we shall test all three tins here, in our own laboratory—and keep our fingers crossed. Then, Mr Green, depending on what we find, we shall work backwards just as you suggested. But going back to stops, as you put it, will be easier said than done because each of the products, as you already know, originates in a different foreign country.”

  “International difficulties,” said Wigglesworth. “The Ministry will want to avoid those.”

  “Exactly,” said Moller. “So, Mr Green, as I believe coincidences or longodds or whatever you like to call them are an occupational hazard of your everyday police work, whereas we forensic scientists only state what we actually see under our microscopes, we shall need your help from the outset.”

  “Fair enough,” said Green. “What you’re saying is that three outbreaks at once almost certainly suggests hanky panky. If there were three different types of botulism implicated, it would be certain.”

  “Precisely.”

  “The international implications . . .” began Wigglesworth.

  “There won’t be any,” said Masters quietly. “Not unless we make unfounded accusations or wild guesses. And I feel sure that each of the producing countries would co-operate with us willingly, either to preserve their own good names or in the interests of world health—should the need arise. You may assure the Ministry that any investigation carried out by Green and myself will be done diplomatically.”

  Having dealt with Wigglesworth, Masters turned to Anderson. “I think, sir, as the question of diplomacy—and with it, of necessity, the business of public information—has now arisen, that we should decide on a single spokesman, so that we shall not all make statements which could be contradictory and, because of that, could give rise to more mischievous speculation than might otherwise be the case.”

  “I take your point, George. We can’t muzzle the reporters but we must be firm and single-minded in what we say.” He turned to the Co-ordinator. “What about you, Mr Wigglesworth? You would represent the Home Office as well as the Police.”

  “No, no, no,” objected Convamore. “The Chief Super doesn’t know enough about the disease and its implications.”

  “Well . . .” began Wigglesworth, a wealth of affront in his tone.

  “We want a boffin to do it,” continued the Professor paying no heed to the hurt he had done the Co-ordinator. “A boffin won’t be blinded by science from some of these sassy young inquisitors from the media—so called.”

  “Whom do you suggest? Yourself?”

  “Not me. Moller. He’s an investigative scientist and he’ll be in charge of that side of our affairs.”

  “I second that, sir,” said Masters. “As yet, Green and I have no specific lines of investigation. Dr Moller is already involved. Besides, his techniques—experiments and such—make much more interesting copy than the routine stuff the Professor and we shall be doing.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Convamore.

  Anderson nodded his agreement.

  “In that case,” said Moller, “I’ll deal with all press matters if you others promise to arrange for all queries to be directed to Dean Ryle Street.”

  “The Computer Unit and all the others in Horseferry House won’t like it,” counselled Green. “Scads of reporters and TV cameras cluttering the place up.”

  “They’ll have to like it or lump it,” said Moller. “I can see myself incarcerated in my office for days, if not weeks, over this little party. And if I can’t get out to go home, I’m certainly not getting out to answer questions.”

  “That’s the ticket,” said Convamore approvingly. “This show is going to be a big enough headache without the sensation-mongers cashing in. The last time those boyos interviewed me they cut me down to less than two minutes. Left me dangling in mid-air like a nit-wit who hadn’t let go of his kite.”

  “I remember it,” said Green. “It was the only academic interview I’ve ever heard that ended with the word arse.”

  Convamore laughed. “Actually, I said arsenic, but they cut me off between syllables.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Anderson tetchily, “can we please get on?”

  “What else is there to discuss?” asked Convamore. “I shall look after the pathology, Moller will tackle the technical side, while Masters and Green do their stuff, drawing information from both of us as welt as from their own investigations.”

  “Botulism itself, Professor,” said Masters. “Green and I must know something about it.”

  “For background? Of course.”

  “In understandable terms,” added Green.

  “Well now . . . where to begin . . .?”

  “Perhaps it would help,” cut in Masters, “if we were to know how botulism gets into tins. Every day we blithely eat tinned food without giving botulism a thought. We rely on the fact that rotten food will blow a tin, and so we avoid using damaged or distended cans. Why haven’t the contaminated tins shown themselves up in this way?”

  “I get your line of thought,” said Convamore. “I’ll try to explain in simple terms. Moller, perhaps you would chip in if you think of anything I may miss.”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Remember please,” said Masters, “that with no real evidence to help us, Green and I have been asked to presume the probability of crime. If we are to confirm its presence and then run it to earth, we must understand what we are dealing with. So, though we want an explanation in terms a child would understand, we must have every detail.”

  Convamore nodded his understanding. He was a big man, but already showing the signs of natural shrinkage that comes with age. His head was almost completely bald: the close-cropped fringe that remained was grey. His broad shoulders had an academic stoop—a roundness emphasised by the thinness of the material of his fawn jacket which embodied none of the usual tailor’s padding or stiffening. Yet he was fully alert and showing no signs of fatigue despite the hour. He struck Masters—who had worked with him on several previous occasions—as a man who enjoyed work and drew his energy and enthusiasm from participation in the job. Even a matter so serious as three simultaneous outbreaks of botulism seemed to cause him pleasure: not pleasure at the events themselves, but delight at being required to deal with them once they had occurred.

  Moller, though not cast in the same physical mould, appeared to be reacting in exactly the same way as Convamore. The repercussions and dangers were seemingly forgotten in the enthusiasm for tackling the job with which he was now faced.

  Masters could understand Moller’s attitude. Some time previously, he, Masters, had endured a conducted tour of the forensic laboratory. The scientist who had accompanied him had been justly proud of what he had to show and describe. Much of it had been above Masters’ head, but he had remembered something of what he had been told. The number of tests that could be—and were—carried out to determine the identity of even the minutest specks of suspect substances. The benches on which the painstakingly detailed work was done. The equipment—melting point apparatus, polarimeter, refractometer, spectrophotometer infra-red spectrophotometer, photoelectric colorimeter, and chromotography apparatus—just a few of the items he had remembered. And the tests themselves: for the separation of poisons, for reactions with reagents with names some of which were familiar, others not—benzedine-copper acetate, Prussian blue, silver nitrate, ethyl acetate and a hundred more. Tests named after the scientists who had introduced them—Leibig, Schilt, Cole, Rozeboom, Sawicki and Stanley and so on and so on.

  Masters wanted none of this. He and Green would simply founder—not just blinded by science, but drowned by it. He felt he had to make certain from the outset that the differing enthusiasms of the pathologist and forensic scientist should not be allowed to fog his own investigation. So he repeated his injunction to the two scientists: “Every detail, please, gentlemen, but in lay terms.”

  “Right.” It was Convamore who started
off. “There are two difficult words which you must know if we’re to understand each other. The first is proteolytic. A proteolytic organism is one which causes food to decompose and to smell bad.”

  “Are any of the botulism types proteolytic?” asked Masters.

  “Yes, praise be! It helps us to isolate the type that’s causing the trouble. Types A, B and E are the ones which usually cause human disease. But of these, types A and B produce gas which causes blown tins. They are proteolytic.”

  “So,” said Green, to show he was taking it all in, “unless the three lots of people who ate the contaminated food were all blind and had no sense of smell, the botulism we are looking for is type E.”

  “Correct—so far as we can say at the moment, but while concentrating on type E, keep an open mind—just in case.”

  “That’s a great help,” said Masters. “Elimination of alternatives is always good.”

  “Not this time,” said Moller. “Or rather, I should say, it could well be a complication.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” said Moller, “types A and B are those usually found in Britain. Type E is extremely rare here.”

  “I knew it,” said Green glumly. “We’re on a needle-in-a-haystack job. We’ve now got to look for a source of trouble that doesn’t exist in this country.”

  “It looks a bit like that, I’m afraid.”

  Anderson got up to pass the plate of sandwiches round. His face and manner showed that he was as pessimistic as Green had sounded.

  “Extremely rare?” asked Masters. “Could scarcity be a help to us rather than a hindrance?”

  “I reckon not,” said Moller, talking through a mouthful of sandwich. “Types A and B are rife in Britain . . .”

  “Rife?”

  “Everywhere in the soil. The bacteria themselves, that is. But the bacteria are harmless to humans. It’s the exotoxins they produce under ideal conditions that do the damage. The Clostridia produces a spore—like a vegetable produces a seed—and this vegetative growth produces the poison—known as an exotoxin—but only, I repeat, under suitable conditions.”