On a fine Cumbrian morning, it starts with a violin.
And that is how Sherlock will always remember the beginning of it all – criticising a violin performance playing on a cd in the milking parlour, instead of listening to the news. Ignoring Mycroft's persistent phone calls for a day and a half instead of answering them. (She would have been prepared if she'd answered even once, would have adjusted to the possibility). Later, in the house with her mould analysis. The phone slipping from her fingers when Irene convinces her to turn on her television and she finally sees it all for herself.
"The remaining pigs in the abattoir will be slaughtered and disposed of while the Ministry traces the origin of the infected animals." Well, they would have been slaughtered anyway so not too much of a tragedy but the slaughter won't end there.
The television shows old footage of funeral pyres, the flames stretching towards the sky and going on and on in a line that seems never ending. Through the flames Sherlock can see the stiff legs of the carcasses. In 1967 there were 430,000 animals slaughtered, mostly in Shropshire. In 1981, on the Isle of Wight, there was between 5-600 slaughtered. Sherlock's uncle, Andrew Vernet, lost his herd in that one. Where will this new outbreak fall? Somewhere between the last two? Lower? Higher?
The straight-faced newscaster with a city background talks about the thousands slaughtered before, and the magnitude of it doesn't seem to dawn on her. But Sherlock is just about old enough to remember '81, and hearing about her uncle's place. His cows getting shot for the blisters that erupted on their tongues and between their toes. The memories are vague in her mind, blurred by time and distance and so many other things. Still, vague though they may be, they are strong enough that she turns off the news, and cuts off Irene mid-sentence before grasping her violin and bow and walking outside to the cow shed.
It won't come here, she tells herself, straddling the low wall and putting bow to strings, commencing to play. Logically, there is no need to worry, merely to keep a weather eye on things and secure the boundary.
The cows don't look up from feeding through the barrier, used to such performances. Essex and the pig abattoir is a long way away from here. They'll contain it and it will pass like an inconvenience. All will be well.
At least, she tries to convince herself it will.
To say that S- has been unnerved by this outbreak would be an understatement.
Irene sighs into her diary. Hardly twelve hours since she called Sherlock to be sure she'd heard the news, and the life they've known together has been upheaved. Irene got back to the farm about six hours ago, to find that everything has changed. Suddenly, the roadway is covered in a thick bed of straw, and she's fairly certain that she caught a whiff of disinfectant as she drove up, even with the car windows closed.
I've never known her to be so gripped by paranoia.
Paranoia? That hardly begins to describe it. Foot and mouth is hundreds of miles away in Essex yet here in Cumbria Sherlock has declared the farm a quarantine zone. Nobody gets in, and nobody gets out. Irene had to ring the post man to tell him to leave any letters at the end of the roadway. And poor Mrs. Hudson has been commissioned to do their grocery shopping.
And it's only the first day!
I think I'm going to mad within this house.
There's no news on. Why is there no news on? Something of this magnitude, surely there should be one somewhere. Do people not realise what is going to happen? Are they so dense that they can't see what this means?
"Stop abusing the television and come to bed." Irene is in the doorway, clearly just finished typing her diary, fingers showing the recent keyboard use. "Please, Sherlock."
Sherlock gestures towards the television where Gene Wilder - and how does she know that name? - looks flustered. "Why is there no news on?"
"Probably because it's half-past twelve at night and all of the newscasters are in bed."
"There should be something about it."
"It's an isolated case, Sherlock. It'll blow over in a few days. You're just panicking yourself for no reason."
Panicking? Well. "I am not panicking. Panic is irrational when the chance of foot and mouth crossing the country to here is so hypothetical." There.
Irene snorts disbelievingly. "The disinfectant-soaked straw on the roadway and the big Keep Out sign would beg to differ."
"I'm simply taking the necessary precautions. It is wise to be prepared."
Irene sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Please. Come to bed. There'll be plenty of news on in the morning for you to keep up to date. And if you're that concerned you could call Mycroft."
"And let him know that I'm concerned? Not happening."
"He's your brother. I strongly suspect he already knows."