Anyone who visited him before he got sick would be safe, unless they did something highly intimate, like sharing a hypodermic needle. Anyone who came here when he was showing symptoms would surely have called a doctor. So there's a good chance he has not passed the virus on." Toni was playing it down. If she had been talking to Kincaid, she would have been more candid, for she could have trusted him not tostart a scare. But Frank was different. She finished: "But obviously our first priority must be to contact everyone who might have met Michael in the last sixteen days. I've found his address book."

Frank tried a different tack. "I heard you say he was troubled about cruelty to animals. Did he belong to a group?"

"Yes-Animals Are Free."

"How do you know?"

"I've been checking his personal stuff."

"That's a job for the police."

"I agree. But you can't go into the house."

"I could put on a suit."

"It's not just the suit,it's the biohazard training that you have to undergo before you're allowed to wear one."

Frank was becoming angry again. "Then bring the stuff out here to me."

"Why don't I get one of my team to fax all his papers to you? We could also upload the entire hard drive of his computer."

"I want the originals! What are you hiding in there?"

"Nothing, I promise you. But everything in the house has to be decontaminated, either with disinfectant or by high-pressure steam. Both processes destroy papers and might well damage a computer."

"I'm going to get this protocol changed. I wonder whether the chief constable knows what Kincaid has let you get away with."

Toni felt weary. It was the middle of the night, she had a major crisis to deal with, and she was being forced to pussyfoot around the feelings of a resentful former lover. "Oh, Frank, for God's sake-you might be right, but this is what we've got, so could we try to forget the past and work as a team?"