St Theresa of Jesus Nursing Home was perched on a top of a forested hill, overlooking the river Lagu and the middle class settled suburb of Ridgeway. It had once been a manor house, owned by one of Castel's many bankers who profited from the great sea journeys of the 18th century. For the past ten years, the pitter-patter of children's feet had given way to the hobble of Zimmer frames. St Theresa of Jesus Nursing Home had a reputation for excellent nursing care for exorbitant prices. Still it was Stephen's second visit to the home in the past 6 months and he wasn't happy.
"No sign in the window," Stephen remarked as he slammed the car door. "The first thing I always look for is that they've displayed a warning to visitors that an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea is going on".
Cynthia said nothing. She had been silent during the whole car journey, all twenty minutes of it. Stephen had never felt so uncomfortable. He found himself in auto-pilot mode rattling off what his job entailed as though she was any other passenger he was taking along on a visit. He was afraid to stop talking. He was afraid of what he would feel. He had been angry for so long, yet seeing her there in Castel, he wasn't sure. All his senses were numbed. It was like they had never met, that they were starting over.
Stephen rang the doorbell and a slight woman in a nurse's uniform opened the door and showed them into the manager's office. After making himself comfortable in an armchair next to Cynthia's dining room chair, Stephen pulled out his clipboard and a pen.
"What's that for?" Cynthia asked.
"This is a questionnaire that I fill out as I check the premises".
"Then what do you do?"
"Oh so now you're interested in what I do!"
He hadn't meant it to sound the way it did.
"I was only asking", Cynthia grumbled, wounded at his comment.
"If you must know, I take some samples, post them to the lab..."
"You put stools in the post?"
"You be amazed the amount of poo that gets sent in the post!"
A tall heavy set woman entered the room. She was middle aged with her blonde dyed hair set in a styled crop and her fingers were laden with trashy gold rings.
"Mavis," Stephen stood up briefly. "I'm back so soon. What's going on?"
"I don't know! They're all dropping like flies!"
"You have no sign in the window!"
"I know, I know", Mavis said dismissively.
"Where is it? We've talked about this before. You need to tell visitors to stay away until the outbreak is over."
"The outbreak is over!"
"No Mavis, the outbreak isn't over until I say it is!"
"You try telling them to stay away. They won't. They want to visit mummy or granny. They don't want to know".
"Have you told them, Mavis?"
Mavis flashed an insincere smile at Cynthia.
Stephen continued, sounding a bit irritated. "This isn't good enough. The sign is to go up today and I'll be checking. Next thing, do you have the list of those ill with dates of onset and symptoms?"
Mavis reached behind her and pulled a couple of sheets off the top of the desk and handed them to Stephen.
"Mavis, there are twenty patients ill and ten staff."
"I know, it's terrible! I have only three staff left. I've had to bring in agency staff and it's costing me".
"Have you told the agency there's an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting here?"
"Of course not, I wouldn't get any staff then."
"Mavis," Stephen lowered his voice and spoke slowly. "This is serious. We need to contain the outbreak. No one should be coming in or out of here".
"But I need staff, Stephen. Who's going to feed my patients, look after them, and change their pans?"
"You can still get staff, you just have to be honest with the agency. Then, anyone who decides to come to work here will know that they'll have to take three days off before their next job and will have to protect themselves from getting sick."
"Yes, yes".
"Now, is there any patient due to arrive?"
Mavis fidgeted with her rings.
"Yes," she answered. "Tomorrow".
"Postpone them".
"I can't do that! I have a living to make!"
"Ask the hospital to keep a bed for the patient a bit longer".
"Stephen I can't! They'll know I have an outbreak then and that's my reputation ruined!"
"Your reputation is going to be ruined anyway if someone dies or if someone finds out that this is the second outbreak you've had in the past 6 months".
"It's only a bit of diarrhoea! That's all old folk do!"
"Okay, I'm going to remind you again. When you have 2 people –whether they're staff or patients – get ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, you must let us know immediately. If you had told me last week, we could have stopped the outbreak from happening and you wouldn't be sitting here with shortfalls in staff and losing money".
Mavis was chastened.
"How did you find out?" She asked meekly.
"The GPs of two of your staff submitted stool samples to our lab".
Mavis rolled her eyes, as though she had been betrayed by the usual suspects. Just then, a nurse entered and whispered in Mavis's ear. Mavis excused herself from the room.
"I had no idea you could be so firm". Cynthia teased Stephen.
"Ah, you know me, good Northern lad. I don't mince my words".
"She's not going to do anything, is she?"
Stephen shook his head. "Unfortunately she's the owner. Last time, the manager was accommodating my recommendations, almost apologetically, but Mavis wasn't having any of it. There's not much I can do. The kitchen facilities are adequate and the cook is excellent at preparing and cooking food. The premises pass my colleagues' annual inspections."
Cynthia paused as a thought flashed into her mind. "Steve, both staff and patients were affected".
"Yeah", Steve leaned forward onto the arm of his chair as Cynthia placed the two sheets Mavis had prepared side by side in her hands.
"Look how these cases are spread out. Two or three people fall ill with vomiting with or without diarrhoea, then there's a break of 24 to 48 hours when another few become ill..."
"You're thinking virus! I thought so too. This is very like the last outbreak here. We never got confirmation but I suspected a virus, particularly when both staff and patients ill and the distribution of cases are sort of evenly distributed"
"Ah, but it's not any old virus. See here in the middle of the time frame there's a break of about 60 hours and then there's a resurgence of five people ill and it gathers momentum. Plus the vast majority of cases have reported vomiting. My hunch is a norovirus".
"The Norwalk-like virus?"
Cynthia nodded. "We'll have to get confirmation but it fits the epidemiological picture"
Stephen grinned. "I knew you get it. Every time you do your thinking brow"
"My what?"
"You know when you bring your eyebrows together..." Stephen's voice trailed off and embarrassed, he shifted his weight in his arm chair.
Cynthia chose to ignore the comment. "Okay, we need to put in control measures fast. Isolation for those ill..."
"All patients are in single rooms here anyway".
"Okay, well, as long as they stay there. For staff, we'll have to request no return until 48 hours after last normal stool".
Stephen chuckled. "Why don't you try saying that to Mavis!"
"There's one other thing, I'll need to find out how this started: who or what is the source!"
"Great, you're getting the easy job. I'm the one who's going to have to stop this spreading to more people!"
"Then, get cleaning!" Cynthia joked.
"You paged me over a parvovirus case?" Mike approached Rhonda in the HPU office with his mobile phone in hand.
"Oh this case is interesting", Gillian pulled up a chair next to Rhonda.
"I had a call about a suspected rubella case," Rhonda started in her cool measured voice.
"Which turned out to be parvovirus", Mike interrupted.
"Yes, but..."
"Well, parvovirus is commonly suspected to be rubella".
"Will you let her continue?" Gillian piped into the conversation.
Rhonda started again. "I got a call about a suspected rubella case so I went to visit the girl Sophia Thomas, to do the swab. I noticed that two of the other siblings had symptoms of parvovirus. The mother, Sandra, admitted that another had been ill the previous week and it's quite possible that the rest of the 6 children may develop the disease, especially since none of them were at school on a Monday afternoon and they all live together in a cramped flat."
"We've had no reports of outbreaks of parvovirus in schools". Mike said, still wondering why he had been paged during a meeting.
"The family had been visited by a district nurse", Gillian pointed out. "She was in the house a few days before the first child Robbie got a rash. She had contact with Robbie within the seven days before the rash appeared, the period that Robbie was most infectious. It's about thirteen days since her visit. She could very well be incubating and may be infectious."
"Right, so we have a health care worker who could be spreading the disease to vulnerable people. Well, you know the protocol".
"That's just it. We can't find her".
Rhonda added. "The PCT said that they don't employ a district nurse called Carmel Jenkins".
Cynthia was pleased to be finally out of the nursing home. Stephen had been unbelievably thorough in his inspection, checking every little detail from whether the mops were stored upright to what temperate they use to wash soiled garments in the washing machine and even what coloured cloths they used for kitchens and bathrooms. She had never known Stephen to be so exacting. This was the man who did no laundry until all his wardrobe had been emptied into piles on his bedroom floor. He may have changed, she thought. He certainly looked different. His hair had been chopped short, amplifying his chiselled facial features and the pot belly that she had so lovingly nudged in the past had been honed into a six-pack. Maybe, he finally took her advice and had kissed goodbye to those lunchtime pork pies. Still, he was untouchable now and they were separated by all that stuff that went on, which she didn't fail to notice was metaphorically represented by all the stool samples that he held between them. Soon Stephen placed them in the back of his Volkswagen and jumped into his driver seat, clicking his mobile phone into its rest by the radio. They had barely left the nursing home's premises, when the phone rang. Stephen pulled over to the side of the road and Douglas' voice crackled through.
"Hey sport! I've got another call for you. Castel High School has students down with diarrhoea and vomiting."
"What again?" Stephen responded. "I was there two weeks ago".
"I know, but I have an appointment for you with the headmaster at 4.30."
"Today?"
"Yeap, today. You're to meet him in his office. Hope you've been a good boy!"
Stephen grumbled as he switched off his phone. "My work is never done. I tell you what, I was going to the HPU anyway as I have to drop these samples off at the lab. I'll drop you off too. There's no need for you to do another visit today."
Before Cynthia could answer, Stephen had swerved back out into the traffic lanes. They had been travelling for about ten minutes when Stephen did another sudden manoeuvre. This time it was a quick u-turn by traffic lights and he slowly curb crawled outside a row of smog stained brick Georgian townhouses. Stephen pulled the handbrake up and turned the engine off.
"Steve, what is it?" Cynthia turned towards him. Steve kept his eyes ahead.
"See that house there in the middle?", he pointed at a four storey house. "Does that look occupied to you?"
Cynthia scanned the dirty windows. On the second floor, one of the sash windows was pushed up and gingham curtains flapped out and in.
"Don't know, could be", she said. Then she got a glimpse of a woman in a head scarf just inside the open window. "Yes, there on the second floor".
"Right," Steve started explaining. "We prosecuted the landlord of this house some months ago. He was totally taking advantage of immigrants, particularly from the east, and had them crammed into every room. How many rooms do you think this place has?"
"I guess about 3 on every floor so about 12".
"Almost right, there's a kitchen in the basement and another room, two rooms on the first floor, one room and a bathroom on the second and three rooms in the attic or third floor. So seven bedrooms in total, so you think seven tenants. Not this guy, he partitioned the rooms into four and had four people staying per room. Some of them had no windows. Others had set up cooking facilities in their rooms and all shared one bathroom. We told him he was breaching regulations but he ignored us. After months of issuing orders, we finally had to take him to court and the magistrate ruled that he can no longer rent out the house. I'm going to sit here for a while and see if there are any other signs of life in the place. Because if it looks like he's in violation of the court, we'll have to do something."
Stephen went quiet. His eyes were firmly on the house. Cynthia looked out her side window onto the street. It wasn't long before she got bored.
"So what brought you to Castel?" She eventually ventured.
"I was getting away from you" Steve replied bluntly but absentmindedly. He pushed open his car door. "I'm going to check around the back to see if there's anyone in the kitchen."
Stephen stepped out of view as he turned into the cobbled lane behind the row of houses. Cynthia was left alone with her thoughts. She had felt so awkward when she first got into the car. There had been so much said before he stormed out of her house, out of her life. And so much was left unsaid. He never let her finish explaining herself. How strange that the place she fled to is the one place he had chosen to escape to. Had fate brought them back together? Stephen reappeared in the windscreen. He had acted like she was any other work colleague. Saddened, she realised he may have moved on.
Stephen swung open his driver's door and sat into his seat.
"There was music coming from inside the kitchen but no sign of anyone. I'm going to come back later this evening for another look".
"Okay".
Stephen looked in his rear mirror and the two side mirrors before pulling out but neither he nor Cynthia saw the hooded man who had been watching them from the BT phone box, pick up a receiver and dial a number.
Gillian picked the phone up on the first ring. It had been three days since she had first heard about the renegade nurse, Carmel Jenkins and she was no closer to finding the woman. Rhonda had surmised on Tuesday that Carmel may be a hospital worker, moonlighting as a nurse for insurance companies in the evenings. None of the insurance companies had her on their books. Indeed there was no Carmel Jenkins registered as a nurse anywhere in the UK. On Wednesday, Gillian alerted the police to the possibility of an impostor. She had been waiting for so long for them to call her back but she was disappointed. On the other end of the line was a health visitor.
"Hi Gillian," spoke a soft female voice. "This is Jane Hawker, health visitor at Hollow Way Health Centre".
"Oh, hello Jane", Gillian replied, pulling out a query sheet. It was probably another question about an incomplete immunisation schedule for a child from abroad.
"I'm ringing you about a strange incident", Jane continued. "I was doing a check on a baby in Silver Street yesterday. The mum is pregnant again, about 16 weeks. She was quite surprised to see me because she had been visited earlier yesterday by another nurse, a nurse called Carmel Jenkins. She's not one of my team nor is she part of our district nurses for that area. I was a bit concerned that this nurse took blood from her for 'tests'. Is she one of your nurses? Is she new?"
"No," Gillian responded. "I can't find any record of her registration".
"That's worrying. My main concern for calling you in the first place was that this nurse had recently visited a neighbour, whose children are all ill with fifth disease. Is there any risk of fifth disease to a pregnant woman?"
"How long is she pregnant?"
"16 weeks."
"Right, well there is the possibility that infection during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy can lead to intrauterine death but this is a small risk. However, we do not know whether she has been exposed to someone carrying parvovirus B19 and even if she is, she may or may not develop the disease. There's no prophylaxis to take so all we can do is wait and see. If she does develop symptoms, she needs to contact her GP immediately. Jane, you are right to think that the nurse could be a carrier. Rhonda visited a family on Monday in Silver Street who had parvovirus and we first found out about Carmel then. We have been trying to locate her just in case she is incubating. However, I've had to tell the police that we may have someone posing as a nurse on our patch."
"Oh dear, is there anything I can do?"
"Keep an eye out for her. If she's working the area, you or your colleagues could come across her."
"Will do".
"Just one thing more, can you give me some details about this pregnant woman?"
Gillian scribbled down Mary Threakston's name and address onto her query form. She finished her call to Jane and walked over to Rhonda's desk.
"We have a second witness".
"Oh darling, I'm going to have to leave you on your own for this one. My son's just rung. They're shutting his school today. I've to go to collect him and his sister".
"Shutting, why?"
"They're at Castel High School. I think Stephen inspected it on Monday. My son said that they're shutting it for a couple of days whilst they get cleaners in."
"If you hang on a tick while I grab my coat, I'll walk out with you. I may as well visit Ms Threakston straight away".
"You know thanks to you I can't get that song out of my head all week", Rose half joked to Paul as he passed her by the photocopier.
"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..." Paul sang as he continued walking into the conference room.
"Great, now I'm going to be humming it!" Douglas said, placing his files in front of him on the table in the centre of the conference room.
Stephen shuffled past Douglas's chair and sat next to him, handing him a black coffee.
"Cheers!" Douglas replied in his distinct Glaswegian accent.
Cynthia took her place across from Stephen, next to Paul. Mike was already seated at the top of the table, legs and tapping a pen against a notepad. He glanced at his watch. "I suppose we should start. Rhonda is unable to come today, for reasons Stephen will no doubt be telling us!"
"What have you done now?" Douglas elbowed Stephen.
Stephen explained the situation. "The principal decided this morning to close Castel High School for a deep clean. This is the second time in three weeks that there has been a surge of vomiting and diarrhoea amongst students. He's hiring outside cleaners. I've advised an initial clean of hot soapy water on all surfaces, with particular attention to the toilet and kitchen areas. Then they will disinfect...."
"Hard surfaces with a 0.1% hypochlorite solution," Paul finished Stephen's sentence as though he had bussed in on a TV quiz show.
"With bleach and tepid water", Stephen continued, giving Paul a hard look.
"Why the resurgence? Is this a new strain of norovirus that's resistant to cleaning products?" Paul darted his questions at Stephen.
"We've not yet received confirmation that it is a norovirus. I think that the school didn't adequately clean last week. When I spoke to the cleaner, she said that she used hot water with the bleach. Bleach will evaporate when mixed with hot water so all you get is a strong smell of chlorine and the bugs remain."
"Isn't it odd that we're seeing winter vomiting virus in September?"
"Not really, the weather's been so cold and wet lately that people are keeping their windows closed. The lack of ventilation is good for keeping viruses in the environment."
"Is this linked to the outbreak at the nursing home?"
Stephen laughed. "This is like being at an inquisition!"
"Paul harbours desires to be a 'disease detective'", Douglas gleefully pointed out.
Cynthia raised an eyebrow. "Disease detective?"
Paul flushed. "I was surfing the CDC website and they have a programme called the Epidemiological Intelligence Service and they call their epidemiologists 'disease detectives'".
"Paul Simmons, Head of the Castel Epidemiological Intelligence Service" Douglas chuckled. "I love it! We should use that!"
Mike tapped his pen on the table. "Cynthia, do you want to report on your outbreak investigation?"
Cynthia quickly gathered her thoughts. "On Monday, I heard that there had been an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting at St Theresa of Jesus Nursing Home. Twenty of twenty nine patients were ill and ten out of thirteen staff members were also ill, mainly with projectile vomiting. I accompanied Stephen on his inspection. We took samples and the results are pending. Given the epidemiological picture and the fact that it was taking place an institution for the elderly, we suspected norovirus. This was later collaborated by each case recovering within 1 to 3 days, a classic characteristic of norovirus. We immediately instigated the control measures of isolation, environmental cleaning and basic hygiene around those infected. I recommended that all those sick are kept hydrated. Since then I've looked at the three modes of transmission – person to person via the faecal-oral route, food contaminated by an infected case and environmental contamination from projectile vomiting or aerosols."
"How did you do that?" Paul injected.
"I interviewed as many cases as I could. Anyway, none of the cases had prepared food nor was there a common source of food between all those ill. So I ruled out food as a vehicle. I suspect that the spread was largely person to person. Once our control measures were in place, we have not had a single case since Monday".
"Can you tell me more about your control measures?" Mike asked.
"Steve, I mean, Stephen ordered the soft furnishings to be steam cleaned and the premises to be disinfected. This was done on Tuesday morning during Stephen's second visit. When questioning staff, it appeared that they weren't always washing their hands between patients, particularly after empting bed pans or commodes. In both sluices, there was a lack of liquid soap and paper towels. After much debate with the owner, this has been rectified". Both Cynthia and Stephen smiled at the memory of Mavis's reluctance to spend money on soap.
"Who's the index case? How did this outbreak start? Can you distinguish the real cases from those who are taking sickies?" Paul quizzed Cynthia
"Actually, all staff were genuinely ill. I believe my index case is a 90 year old woman who was admitted to the home two weeks ago. She had been a patient at Castel Royal Hospital in Ward 6."
"Wasn't that the ward that had the outbreak of vomiting a couple weeks back?" Paul glanced around the table.
Stephen and Douglas nodded.
"Good work, Cynthia". Mike said. "Paul, will you help Cynthia put together her report? Good. Okay, shall we move on with our review?"
"Shouldn't we wait for the dragon?" Douglas cheekily asked.
Mike looked at the empty chairs at the table. "Where is Gillian?"
Gillian was surprised to see a police car parked outside Mary Threakston's door on Silver Street. Surprise soon turned to alarm when Gillian met a tearful Mary practically tearing her hair out. Her baby had been taken. The two police officers were desperately trying to calm Mary down and get her to utter coherent words on what had happened. Gillian knew in the pit of her stomach that Carmel Jenkins had something to do with this. She had heard about women posing as nurses in the past, pretending to check babies while planning to snatch them. Gillian's heart filled with sympathy for Mary. She knew what it was like to lose a child. She had to help. Gillian leaned her head against the door frame. It was no good alerting GPs to the possibility of a woman presenting with fifth disease. She may never seek treatment or she may not develop the disease. What kind of woman would do this anyway? Then it dawned on her. She had to talk to the midwives at the maternity hospital.
Mike had just got back from his Friday lunchtime meeting with the other public health doctors when Phil Doyle sauntered into his office.
"I've got your lab reports", Phil announced in his Northern Irish lilt.
"This must be good if you're delivering them in person".
"Ach no! I needed the exercise".
Rose entered holding a stack of papers. "Dr Doyle, I didn't expect to see you upstairs".
"I fancied the change of scenery. Besides, it's quite lonesome down in the basement all on my own in the dark".
"What happened to your new assistant?" Rose responded, detecting the flirtations in Phil's voice.
"She just can't make tea like you do. It's just not as sweet. I don't know what it is. There's just a bitter twang in it."
"That would be the lemon," Rose coyly tucked a hair behind her ear and exited the room. Mike presumed she was off to make Phil his tea. She had been Phil's secretary for years before she quit to nurse her terminally ill husband.
"Your rubella was not a rubella", Phil flipped open his Manila A4 folder. "That you probably expected. You do have norovirus again in Castel High School - a norovirus II.4 to be exact. I sent the stools to the reference lab for typing. What is interesting is it's not the same strain as the norovirus that was there two weeks ago".
Mike sat up in his desk. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, but it is the same strain as the norovirus in CRH a couple weeks back plus I found it in the stool samples from St Theresa of Jesus Nursing Home".
"They're all linked".
"They're all linked", Phil echoed, closing his file. "Now if that's all you have for me, I'm off to have some tea and finish on time for a change".
"Have you got something planned for the evening?" Mike was curious as Phil had a bit of a reputation with the ladies.
"I've got my eye on a great seat in my local. Ireland are playing in the rugby tonight. Nothing's coming between me and the screen".
Mike laughed.
"Hey!" Phil responded with a mock hurt look. "If you spent the past few days looking at bloody stools through an electron microscope, you'd be needing a pint too!"
"Was there blood in the stools?"
Phil rolled his eyes. "Honestly Mike, you work too hard. Why don't you join me at the pub?"
Mike flicked his tie out. "I can't. I'm on call".
Rhonda was working on her rubella presentation when Gillian hurried past and grabbed her post from her desk.
"Where have you been?" Rhonda stopped Gillian from leaving immediately. "Mike's been looking for you".
"I found her", Gillian replied, her face animated with excitement. "I found Carmel Jenkins".
"How? Is the baby with her?"
"I don't know. I'm hoping so".
"Go on, tell me!"
"I had an inkling that Carmel had recently lost a baby – either a miscarriage or the child died at birth. Either way, she was looking for a baby to care for".
"How did you work this out?"
Gillian swallowed the lump in her throat. "When you lose a baby, you grieve. You feel like it's your fault and you'd do anything to prove that you can be a good mother. I had heard of women driven to distraction, grabbing babies to raise as their own. I went to the maternity hospital and asked about Carmel. A woman of her description had been hanging around the neonatal unit for the past few weeks. I checked the records, she didn't give birth".
"She had a miscarriage?"
"No, an abortion, apparently her partner made her have one".
"How did you find all of this out?"
"Just old fashioned detective work and the help from our troop of friendly practice nurses".
"You rang round!"
"Anyway, I've located her and called the police. They're on their way. I'm going to meet them there".
Rhonda frowned. "Gillian, I don't think that's appropriate".
"Why not? I helped them find her."
"It's a police matter now. She pretended to be a health care worker and kidnapped a baby".
"She may have spread parvovirus to vulnerable people!"
Rhonda placed her hand gently on Gillian's arm. "You've done everything you can, you saved the day. Now, let the police do their job."
Gillian's eyes welled with tears. She broke free from Rhonda's hold and marched past Phil into the ladies' toilets.
Cynthia looked up from her computer. "Is Gillian alright?"
Rhonda nodded, unsure if she was trying to reassure herself or Cynthia.
"Isn't Phil a sweetheart", Rose gushed at Cynthia's side. "Don't you just want to pick him up and take home to your mother!"
Cynthia peered at the long haired scruffy Irish man swaggering down the corridor in his white coat.
Rose interjected Cynthia's contemplation on Phil's attractiveness by switching the office machine on. "Four thirty girls! It's Friday, time to go home! Doing anything nice this weekend, Cynthia?"
"Flat hunting, actually".
"Oh really, well Phil is looking for a flatmate"
"Not sure that I'd be able to pick my mother up and bring her home to him!" Cynthia laughed.
Paul walked past in a red fleece. "Have a good weekend, ladies!" As the door to the stairwell closed, his singing wafted into the office. "Parovirus on noses, norovirus in kitchens..."
"Great, I'll be stuck with that Sound of Music tune all weekend now", Cynthia moaned.
Rose went to turn the office lights off but thought better of it when she saw Mike's office door was still open. He would be there for hours yet. He was known to be a workaholic that never left the office. Rose knew that it was because he was afraid to go home.
"Well, everything seems in order", Stephen looked up and down the kitchen counters in St Theresa of Jesus Nursing Home. "No more cases?"
"Not one," Mavis quickly replied.
"Good," Stephen continued. "I think we can say that the outbreak is over".
"Thank God. It was costing a lot of money!"
"And you charge a lot of money!"
Mavis laughed. "Do I look like I'm made of it? It costs to run this place".
"As I said before, it could have all been avoided." Stephen headed towards the front door and looked at the back of the hand written outbreak warning sign taped to the inside of the glass panel of the door. "Had this gone up sooner, the Castel High School wouldn't have had to close for a few days".
"What? That wasn't my fault!" Mavis protested.
"A 13 year old boy visited his grandmother here during his lunch break from school and picked up the bug".
Mavis face whitened. "You can trace it to one person?"
"Just be thankful we were able to contain it in the school and it didn't hit the community".
Stephen left Mavis standing in the porch and got into his car. His mobile phone had 7 missed calls. They were all from his girlfriend Stacey. Stephen supposed that Cynthia was at home, cracking open a bottle of white rioja or some other bottle she had picked up from Oddbins. They couldn't have been more different, he thought; her with her wine tasting and him, a simple larger drinker. He paused at the end of the driveway, looked at his mobile phone and changed his indicator from left to right.
"Hey neighbour!" Phil roared as Stephen entered the Pig n' Whistle pub. "Didn't expect to see you here, weren't you doing something with Stacey tonight?"
"Night off!" Stephen replied pulling a stool up next to Phil and Douglas.
"Did you know that old Douglas here was named after the place he was born in?" Phil put his hand on Douglas's shoulder.
"Yeah," Stephen answered looking at Douglas's grinning face. "Do any of you need another pint? I'm heading to the bar".
"Another Tetley's for me, cheers mate", Douglas answered.
"Guinness please, my good man!" Phil turned to Douglas. "But the Isle of Man? When your parents were leaving China and they had anywhere in the world to go to, what possessed them to think Isle of Man?"
Stephen could see Douglas shrugging but couldn't hear his response that cracked Phil up. All the laughter and chatter around him blended and escalated into noise. He was oblivious to the merriment, to the raucous retelling of jokes and sport commentary amongst the males in the pub. He felt raw, just like he did that night when Cynthia broke up with him. He never found out why. Stephen paid for his drinks and joined the others. Behind them, was a man in dark clothing, alone in the corner, smoking. He wasn't laughing or talking or cheering at the rugby. He spent the evening studiously dictating the conversation between Phil, Douglas and Stephen and took photos of them on his mobile phone.