Lethal Outbreak by Malcolm Rose

the edge, hasn’t it?’ Troy asked. ‘And a line – not quite vertical – in the middle. Weird.’
    ‘I’m sure it’s the impression of a button. The card’s corrugated, so it’s soft, and I think someone wearing a long-sleeved shirt or blouse has leant on the card when they arranged the message. If the sleeve had a cuff, pressing down would leave adent in the shape of the button. That’s what we’ve got. The line’s the thread between the holes, I think.’
    ‘Fantastic. Can you measure its size?’
    ‘Not directly,’ Lexi replied. ‘But I measured the height of the letters of DIFFERENT from a life-size version of the online food magazine. That gives me a scale to work to. If I use the same ratio on the impression of the button, hey presto, it’s got a diameter of twelve millimetres. Plus or minus half a millimetre.’
    ‘Great. We’re looking for someone wearing a sleeve with a cuff held together by a twelve-millimetre button.’
    ‘Not a four-hole one. It’s a two-hole button because the thread’s just a line.’
    ‘Nice work,’ Troy said, nodding at his partner. ‘It’s a little needle in a big haystack, but it’s a lot better than nothing.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Troy pointed to the left of the impression. ‘Is that orange mark part of the cardboard?’
    ‘I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. It’s like a grain of sand. But I can’t do much with a photo. If I had the actual thing in front of me, I’d be able to tell you. There’s another orangey brown splodge near the topas well.’ She shrugged, frustrated by the lack of physical evidence.
    Remembering that they needed to find out if Precious Austin worked on SUMP or knew about its toxicity, Troy called Julia Neve Nineteen at Shallow End Laboratories and asked, ‘When exactly did you get the Mars soil sample? And when did you start working on it?’
    ‘The beginning of March.’
    ‘What date?’
    Julia was silent for a while, obviously checking her records. ‘Tuesday the fourth.’
    ‘And did you start working on it straightaway?’
    ‘Almost. Once we’d housed it safely and split the sample between the three different cupboards, we began testing on the Wednesday.’
    ‘Did Precious Austin get involved?’
    ‘No. She was on a different line of research.’
    ‘Did you discover how lethal it was before she left on the twenty-first?’
    ‘Mmm. Let me … ’ There was a gap of about fifteen seconds before the lab supervisor replied. ‘Yes. We knew it killed outer cells by then. My notes on the eighteenth say we suspect there’s a Martian microorganism that incapacitates outers’ metabolism but doesn’t affect the cell chemistry of majors.’
    ‘So, Precious might well have known that result before she lost her job?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    Lexi listened to her partner’s conversation while she checked if she’d received any more messages. When Troy finished the call, she said, ‘Last night, I sent a request for information on what Dominic Varney had learned at the pharmaceutical lab he’d infiltrated.’
    ‘Didn’t he use an alias?’
    ‘Yes. I got that from the commander’s office first. The important thing is,’ she said, nodding towards her life-logger, ‘they’ve just told me he worked in all containment levels. Including four.’
    Troy raised his eyebrows. ‘Time to go and take a look at his shirtsleeves?’

SCENE 25
    Thursday 17th April, Late morning
    Lexi and Troy discovered Dominic Varney in his front garden. The undercover police officer turned to face Troy with a chainsaw in his hand. Just for an instant, Troy spotted annoyance in his face. When the fleeting expression vanished, Dominic nodded towards the nearest tree. ‘It’s an ash and it’s got a fungal disease. It’s coming down.’
    ‘That’s harsh,’ Troy replied.
    Dominic shook his head. ‘When there’s an infection going round, killing off a whole species, it’s best to be ruthless. Chopping down and burning reduces the