CHAPTER 16
Hilary Newton was awakened at six-thirty a.m. by the incessant ringing of the telephone, downstairs in the surgery. Shaking the sleep from her eyes, she pulled on her warm woollen dressing gown and hurried to answer the call, thinking that another of the residents of Olney might have contracted the disease and needed her services. Instead she was surprised to hear the voice of a man who identified himself as Charles Macklin, assistant to Douglas Ryan, the government’s chief virologist at the Ministry of Health. Macklin wouldn’t tell Hilary the reason for his call, insisting instead on speaking to Paul Trent. Leaving Macklin hanging on, Hilary walked across the hall to the sitting room, knocked and entered the room and found Trent awake, obviously woken, like her, by the ringing
