Dawn Sturgess’s death in Salisbury District Hospital almost came as a surprise. After all, four months ago Sergei and Yulia Skripal survived their exposure to the novichok nerve agent and so the widespread assumption – at least in public discourse – was that Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley would recover too.

It may be of course that Sturgess had underlying health problems that made treatment more difficult. And as yet it remains unclear exactly what level of contact she and Rowley had with the novichok: they may, despite the time lapse, have experienced a more concentrated level of exposure than the Skripals. The police and medical authorities will perhaps say more in due course.

Whatever information emerges, however, we would do well to remember that at the centre of this incident are two innocent people – one of whom has died, the other still fighting for life. There may be bigger forces at play, diplomatic relations at stake, but Sturgess and Rowley should be treated with humanity – not simply discussed as pawns in a game that pits Russia and the UK as inexorable foes.

When news of their poisoning first broke, there was considerable focus on the suggestion that the couple were recovering heroin users (it isn’t clear if Sturgess had experienced such drug problems). Rowley, it was noted, had visited a pharmacist in Amesbury to pick up a methadone prescription on the day they fell ill. Sturgess, meanwhile, was reported to have been living in a hostel and to have struggled with alcohol dependency.

None of those details were necessarily out of bounds for the media’s coverage of the incident, as reporters described the leads being followed by the police. Nevertheless, from the outset they gave fuel to conspiracy theorists who wished to disbelieve that there was a connection with the Skripals’ case or that novichok was involved. To online cynics, these were just two down and outs who could be used by shadowy elements to re-energise diplomatic tensions between Russia and the West.

If the web conspirators were at one end of the dehumanising scale, even a fairly straight reading of much of the media’s coverage would see Sturgess and Rowley more as collateral – even as clues – than as people who had (and have) lives and loves and families.

As speculation rumbled on last week about just how the pair had come into contact with the nerve agent, one theory emerged that they might have picked up a contaminated fag end because they were apparently in the habit of smoking the dregs of discarded cigarettes. It was also said that they would go through rubbish bins to find odds and sods that might be saleable.

Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Show all 40 1 /40 Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Forensic investigators, wearing protective suits, emerge with bagged evidence from the rear of John Baker House in Salisbury, after it was confirmed that two people living in Amesbury had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok. Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Dawn Sturgess, a mother-of-three from Durrington, died after being exposed to novichok Facebook Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok British police are scouring sections of Salisbury and Amesbury in southwest England, searching for a container feared to be contaminated with traces of the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Officers hope that Charlie Rowley, whose partner Dawn died in hospital, can help them establish how the couple came to be contaminated AFP Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok An investigator in a chemical suit works behind screens erected in Rollestone Street PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Fire and Rescue Service personel arrive with safety equipment at the site of a housing estate on Muggleton Road, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent novichok, in Amesbury Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Forensic investigators at John Baker House Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police and military personnel seized a car from a quiet residential street in Swindon as part of their ongoing investigations into the nerve agent incident in Salisbury and Amesbury SWNS Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Emergency workers in military protective suits search the fenced off John Baker House AP Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok A forensic investigator, wearing a protective suit, emerges from the rear of John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls HENRY NICHOLLS Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Forensic investigators at John Baker House Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Emergency services arrive at John Baker House EPA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Dorset Fire and Rescue Service at the house PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Tents set up by search teams are seen at the end of Rollestone Street, outside the John Baker House for homeless people in Salisbury. British police are scouring sections of Salisbury and Amesbury in southwest England, searching for a container feared to be contaminated with traces of the deadly nerve agent Novichok. AP Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Dorset Fire and Rescue Service at the house in Muggleton Road PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Fire and Rescue Service safety equipment Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police activity at the house in Muggleton Road PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Emergency services arrive at John Baker House EPA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Fire and Rescue Service safety equipment PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police tents are erected outside a residential address in Amesbury, southern England, on July 6, 2018 where police reported a man and woman were found unconscious in circumstances that sparked a major incident after contact with what was later identified as the nerve agent Novichok. Police on July 6, 2018, raced to find the object that contaminated a British couple with the Soviet-made Novichok nerve agent in southwestern England where a former Russian spy was poisoned with the same toxin four months ago. / AFP PHOTO / Chris J RatcliffeCHRIS J RATCLIFFE/AFP/Getty Images CHRIS J RATCLIFFE AFP/Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Emergency services arrive at the house in Muggleton Road in Amesbury PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Members of the emergency services at the house in Muggleton Road PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Gas masks AFP/Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Forensic tents outside John Baker House on Rolleston Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, where counter-terrorism police are investigating after a couple were left in a critical condition when they were exposed to the nerve agent Novichok. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 6, 2018. Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, were taken ill on Saturday in Amesbury, around eight miles from where former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with the same substance in Salisbury in March. See PA story POLICE Amesbury. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire Sam Blewett PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Fire and Rescue Service personel prepare safety equipment Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police investigators arrive at the site of a housing estate on Muggleton Road Reuters Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok A police officer stands guard behind the housing estate REUTERS Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police on the scene Getty Images Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok The couple remain in a critical condition at Salisbury District Hospital AFP/Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok In March Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were poisoned with the Russian-made Novichok in the town of Salisbury. British Prime Minister Theresa May has accused Russia of being behind the attack on the former spy and his daughter, expelling 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation Getty Images Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok British police are cordoning off places the people are known to have visited before falling ill EPA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok British police officers stand outside a residential property in Amesbury AP Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Deputy Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police Paul Mills makes a statement to the press outside The Bowman Centre after Wiltshire Police declared the situation a major incident Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Amesbury Baptist Centre PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Amesbury resident Sam Hobson, speaks to assembled press outside Amesbury Baptist Centre claiming to be a friend of the man and woman exposed to an unknown substance Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok The pair were found unconscious at an address in Muggleton Road, Amesbury Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police cordon at Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury. The town is around 10 miles from Salisbury where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in a suspected nerve agent attack PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Deputy Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police Paul Mills makes a statement Getty Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Police officers stand outside Boots pharmacy, near to the Barcroft Medical Centre in Amesbury PA Amesbury major incident after couple exposed to novichok Amesbury Baptist Centre PA

Those notions might have reassured others living in Salisbury that the risk of further novichok contamination was low in the general run of things. But once again, the information created a bleakly negative picture of Sturgess and Rowley, even hinting that they were somehow to blame for their own misfortune – rather than being the belated, tragic victims of an individual or individuals set on murder.

Indeed, much of the narrative around their poisoning has pitched the couple merely as new leads in the hunt for whoever was behind the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The movements of the secondary victims took on added importance because it might give the police and MI5 further clues about the identity of the Skripals’ would-be assassin.

It goes without saying that there is a strong imperative to track down whoever was responsible for tossing novichok around Wiltshire. Given the conviction of the British government that the chemical was produced in Russia (and that the initial attack might have happened with the Kremlin’s connivance), the matter has international significance. And now that the police have opened a murder investigation following Dawn Sturgess’s death, the consequences of the attack are plainly graver than ever.

They are especially grave for those who knew Sturgess: for her three children, for the rest of her family and for her friends.

She and Charlie Rowley may have unwittingly become embroiled in a web of espionage; their poisoning – and especially Sturgess’s death on Sunday – may cause further fracturing in UK-Russia relations (if that is possible); and they will, inevitably, be the subject of debate in the darkest, conspiratorial corners of the internet until the end of time. But they are real people. Sturgess’s death is real too, her poisoning no doubt painful and terrifying.