The Fungus

She left the Institute of Tropical Biology at 5.18 p.m. and a short time later was walking down Tottenham Court Road. At 5.22 p.m. she bought a newspaper to check the cinema listings. She was looking at the paper when she collided with Norman Layne…

6

Wednesday, 5.55 a.m.

Dr. Bruce Carter swore when he saw what time it was. A phone call before 6 a.m. meant two things: trouble, and not enough sleep to cope with it.

He reached out for the phone on the bedside table and picked it up. “Emergency,” said the familiar voice of the Duty Officer, confirming his fears. “Get to the Middlesex Hospital as quickly as you can.”

Carter didn’t bother asking what had come up. Even if the Duty Officer had the details he would be reluctant to give them over the phone. Security in the civil service was continually getting tighter under the Thatcher regime and a whole new set of regulations governing what it was permissible to discuss by telephone had recently been issued. The weather was about the only safe subject left.

He forced himself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. The sight of his face in the mirror was enough to jolt him into full wakefulness. He looked like his father. Or rather what his father had looked like at 50. The trouble was that he was only 43.

I’m working too hard, he told himself as he threw cold water on his face and then began to clean his teeth. At this rate I’ll be dead of a heart attack long before I reach retirement age. just like Dad.

And yet he enjoyed his job, in spite of the long, unsocial hours, and the pressures, and certainly didn’t want to be transferred into a less strenuous department. He knew he’d be bored doing anything else.

Dr. Bruce Carter was a medical investigator for the Home Office. His duties ranged over a wide area, dealing with everything from rabies control to tracking down the origins of outbreaks of communicable diseases like typhoid, TB and the like. He was also an expert on toxins and was often called in on suspected murder cases. All in all it was a fairly exciting and challenging job that didn’t follow any particular routine. He hated routine but he loved challenges.

He parked his car in Goodge Street at 6.25 a.m., pleased with himself at how quickly he’d made it into town. As be got out of the car he was aware of how quiet it was at this time of the morning. If only it was always like this, he thought, as he hurried toward the entrance of the Middlesex Hospital.

On the way he noticed something odd; growing out of a drain next to the footpath was a clump of the biggest toad-stools he’d ever seen. They were white, spherical things almost the size of footballs. He was tempted to examine them more closely but there wasn’t time. Later perhaps.

Inside the building he gave his name to the receptionist who, predictably, couldn’t find it on her list. Carter was patient. “Try looking under ‘C’,” he suggested politely.

She eventually found a Dr. Bruce “Cowper” on the list and agreed, a shade reluctantly, that it was probably him. “You’re to go to the Contagious Diseases Ward, Block C, Level two and ask for a Dr. Mason. Take that lift there and press the button marked two. Then. “

But Carter was already running for the lift. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. “I know the way.”

On the second floor he encountered a nurse heading toward him from the direction of the Contagious Diseases Ward. The look on her face disturbed him. Her expression was one of shock. It was rare for a nurse to display her emotions that way, no matter what she might have witnessed. Carter began to get an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He went through the door marked “Contagious Diseases” inbig red letters. Beyond, in a short passageway, sat a nurse at a desk. There was another nurse with her, talking in a low voice. They both looked up at him as he entered. Their eyes had the same expression of dull shock as the nurse he’d passed outside. His feeling of foreboding increased.

He gave them his name and one of them took him along into a small room. She handed him a plastic anti-contamination suit and told him to put it on. He stared at the suit with surprise. He’d worn such clothing before, but only rarely, in extreme situations. The last time had been during the investigation of a suspected escape of smallpox bacillus from a research lab.

He gestured at the suit’s self-contained oxygen supply and said to the nurse, “Rather drastic this, isn’t it? Isn’t your patient in an isolation unit?”

Tersely she said, “There’s more than one of them and, yes, they are in isolation units, but Dr. Mason advises the use of the suit just the same.”

He said nothing more as he climbed into the suit. When he was ready she checked the seals then indicated another door. “Go through there. You’ll find a door at the end of the passageway. Dr. Mason will be waiting to meet you beyond it.”