Four Below by Peter Helton Page A

patient by a thick glass
window. It reminded DI Fairfield of the mortuary viewing suite, the difference being that this junkie was still alive. Just. His sallow skin was stretched tight across his skull, his arms covered
in dark lesions. He was hooked up to heart monitor, oxygen and a drip. The diagnosis of anthrax had been confirmed.
    ‘Will he live?’ Fairfield asked.
    ‘We’re giving him high doses of antibiotics,’ the doctor continued. ‘It’s a lethal disease. It’s not invariably fatal. But close enough when it gets to this stage. He has a small chance of pulling through. His chances would be a lot better had he been brought in earlier. That’s what I told the girl as well.’
    ‘What girl?’
    ‘The one who brought him in yesterday. She was here a minute ago. Still wouldn’t give her name. Or his.’
    ‘Damn. What did she look like?’
    ‘Thin. Mousy hair. Blue tracksuit bottoms, grey hooded top.’
    The inspector was already running.
    ‘Like a half-empty sack of potatoes,’ the doctor called after her. ‘The way they all do.’
    Fairfield ran along the corridors and took corners at a skid. If they were to stop the hospitals filling with half-dead junkies infected with anthrax, then they had to find out where the
contaminated drugs came from. This was only the second victim they knew about, but across the city there could be hundreds of users infecting themselves. She didn’t see anyone fitting the
girl’s description until she reached the main exit, when she spotted her getting into the passenger seat of an old red Polo, dull with grime. The hard-faced girl looked straight at her as the
driver pulled away. Fairfield only got a partial look at him, but thought he was young, with very short hair. She noted the index number of the car, requested a check and waited behind the steering
wheel of her Renault for the results. It came back after three minutes.
    ‘Car is logged as having no keeper. No insurance or MOT.’
    ‘Par for the course.’ She requested a marker to be put on it and drove off towards Albany Road. What she really needed was a decent coffee.
    There was now a permanent incident room at Albany Road station, which for obvious reasons many called the Murder Room. All information regarding the Leigh Woods murder was
gathered in the incident room, all actions were planned and most briefings given there. CID officers and civilian computer operators worked side by side. The room had a wall map of the city and one
of the county, picture- and whiteboard, printers, phones and desktop computer units, no air-conditioning, strip lighting and probably several miles of cable. There was a gap where, until recently,
the kettle had sat. The windows afforded a similar view as the one in McLusky’s office, and the beige plastic blinds looked like they were 1970s originals and were permanently at
half-mast.
    McLusky’s desk faced Austin’s and the door to the corridor. An internal window beside it allowed the inmates to see anyone approaching from the left; unfortunately the superintendent
had a habit of approaching the incident room from the right. McLusky thought it might be a good idea to install a bicycle mirror as an advance-warning system, though he would be the first to admit
that the superintendent was preferable to the universally disliked DCI Gaunt, who was at present safely hospitalized.
    In front of him on his desk he had spread out a series of photographs of the body in Leigh Woods, taken before the tent had been erected. They showed the grizzly find from all angles. It was
easy to see how the six of them had missed it in the mist; from any distance it looked like so much twig, stone and leaf. Only from certain angles was it obvious what the camera had captured. The
pictures of the partial hand were there too, not that there was much they could do with them. He was about to lift the receiver to try and put pressure on forensics when Austin came in.
    ‘Result! We got a