Black and white? Not really my style,’ he said. ‘That was Dr Bramble’s idea and between you and me, I’m not sure it was a good one. That list of symptoms is more like a list of guesses we’ve cobbled together from questioning family and friends of the infected. They were all pretty vague and contradictory, nobody seemed certain of much at all. I’m not convinced there are any proper symptoms before culmination.’
‘You did tell Dr Bramble about the eyes, though, didn’t you?’ Morrigan pushed. ‘Because that’s not a guess. I saw it. Three times.’
Jupiter set down his cutlery and leaned his chin in one hand, looking at her seriously from across the table. ‘I did tell her and we are taking it seriously, I promise. But Mog, so far there haven’t been any other witnesses who’ve seen it.’
‘But you believe me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said emphatically. ‘I believe you’re telling the truth.’
His careful phrasing wasn’t lost on her. She scowled. ‘You believe I’m telling the truth … but you don’t believe I saw what I think I saw. Right? You think I just imagined it or something.’
‘No. I think it’s entirely possible you did see that, but I’m afraid you’re the only one who has.’ He chased a single pea with his fork, trying to pierce it but never quite gaining purchase. ‘But that’s not why it’s not on the posters, Mog. I discussed it with the task force and the Elders, and we decided that it’s not a good idea to talk about Wunimals having “glowing green eyes”. We’re worried it might send the wrong message.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘People are already frightened,’ he said. ‘They’re already poised to view the infected as attackers, rather than victims of an illness they can’t control. If we describe them as having glowing green eyes, you can be sure some numpty will claim they’ve been possessed by demons or some such nonsense.’
‘Who cares what some numpty thinks?’
‘The thing about numpties, Mog, is that they can always find plenty of other numpties to believe their numpty nonsense. You know what they say: you’re never more than six feet away from a numpty.’
‘I think that’s spiders.’
‘Either way,’ he continued, ‘we’re keeping it under wraps for now. If it’s a symptom that only shows up during the culmination period, it won’t matter much anyway. We don’t need glowing green eyes to tell them apart when they’re tearing through town on a rampage.’
Morrigan supposed that was true enough. She stabbed a bit of roast chicken with her fork, but didn’t eat it. ‘What’s happening with all that, anyway? The task force. Is Dr Bramble any closer to finding a cure?’
‘I don’t think so. And the numbers of infected keep ticking upwards.’ He closed his eyes for a few seconds, still leaning his head in his hand. Morrigan almost thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he sat up suddenly and shook it off. He looked miserable and exhausted. ‘The problem is, we’re only finding infected Wunimals at the point of culmination, or after the virus has left them catatonic, so what have we got to study? If we could at least prevent some of the attacks before they happen … but it’s impossible because we don’t know who’s infected or how they get infected. We can’t have eyes on every Wunimal in the city.’
‘Why don’t you tell the public?’ Morrigan suggested. ‘Then if they see someone acting weird, you could go and investigate.’
‘I think we’ll have to, sooner or later,’ he admitted. ‘But that’s going to come with a whole new set of problems. Imagine! “Hi everyone, please look out for Wunimals who might have a disease that could cause them to violently attack you. Oh, and you won’t be able to tell who it is until they attack you, because we don’t really know what the symptoms are, we’re just guessing that it might be these perfectly normal things that anyone could reasonably feel at any time, whether they’re infected or not. Good luck!”’ He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Bet Holliday Wu can’t wait to broadcast that message.’
Morrigan had never seen her patron so dejected. She didn’t know what to say, so she poured a glass of water and pushed it across the table towards him. He accepted it with a grateful smile.
‘Have you seen any of the infected?’ she asked. ‘What do they look like afterwards? To you, I mean, as a … you know. As a Witness.’
Jupiter took an enormous bite of chicken,