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pontoon and done twenty press-ups to prove it. Nothing and no one could talk her into hospital for the rest of the day, and that had turned out to be a good thing because within two hours the team had had another call-out – to collect the sixteen-stone body of a fifty-six-year-old man who’d died on the toilet in a block of flats in Redland. He’d been sitting there for eight days, pyjamas round his ankles. Toilets were the worst because there was never any room to move. It had taken them three hours, start to finish, to get him out. Back at base they’d decontaminated their chemical-incident suits. They’d laid them out on the floor and scrubbed with long-handled brushes, rinsed and sanitized and changed the five phase filters in the masks, then sprayed everything down with antibacterial solution for good measure. Everything had been done by the book.
    But the smell of the man was still there.
    Flea went into the locker rooms where all the team were getting changed. She wasn’t thrilled about the way they’d heard her in narcosis yesterday. So far no one had teased her about it but she wouldn’t put it past them. ‘What’s the smell, guys?’
    ‘Your banana bread?’
    ‘Funny. We did the decontamination. It shouldn’t smell like that in here.’
    Wellard shrugged. The others shook their heads.
    ‘OK. Go on.’ She made a shooing motion with her hands. ‘All of you. Do it again. Use the Janitol.’
    No one moved. They all gazed back at her steadily.
    ‘What?’
    ‘We’ve already done it. Again . While you were in the office. Done it twice.’
    ‘Twice? Then, where’s the sodding smell coming from?’
    ‘Your banana bread?’
    She went into the decon room where the suits were hanging up to dry – ghostly, like a line of people standing there – and sniffed. She went back into the hallway and sniffed again. The smell was unmistakable. She went to the dustbin that they’d used to transport their soiled suits off site, put her face into it and took deep breaths of the air in there. Wellard appeared next to her, keeping pace, watching her forage in the bins for the liners they wrapped used bootees and gloves in.
    ‘It’s not that.’ He folded his arms. ‘I checked. The cleaner took them.’
    She straightened. ‘I give up. Where’s it coming from?’
    ‘Haven’t got a clue.’
    She sighed, took a green apron off the hook, pulled it on and tied it. ‘And I was planning to go jogging.’
    ‘You shouldn’t be jogging, not after yesterday.’
    ‘Well, I’m not, am I? I said I was planning to.’ She pulled on nitrile gloves. Pumped some air into the pressure spray. ‘Instead I’m going to clean these suits. Again. Do your job for you.’
    ‘Ooh. Arsy.’
    ‘Not arsy, Wellard, hormonal . I’m a woman. I’ve got ovaries. I get hormonal.’ She went to the store and pulled out some things. A cylinder. An air hose. ‘Come here.’
    He looked at the air hose. ‘Good God, boss. I didn’t mean it.’
    ‘Give me your hand.’
    ‘At least make it quick.’
    ‘Attach this,’ she slapped the hose into his palm, ‘to the valve. That’s the way. Good boy. Now, while I redo the decontamination, you go round the buildings and sniff the drains. If anything smells, run some water into it. If it backs up, use this.’
    ‘Compressed air? In the drains? Sarge, we’ve got a caretaker somewhere in the building, I’m sure we have. He’s a lovely man. He’ll have some rods. Better for the interior decoration than air.’
    ‘Wellard?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘JFDI, mate. Just fucking do it.’
    The Arctic Monkeys CD was on the player. Flea turned it on, jacked up the volume really loud and got stuck in. Scrubbing and spraying. Sluicing water into the drain. The umbilical lines that had ruptured yesterday were in a yellow nylon bag pushed up against the tiled wall, waiting for the HSE lab to pick them up. They’d take months. The lab would subject them to a battery of tests trying to work out what had gone