A Lovely Way to Burn

by Louise Welsh

  The needle pierced Stevie’s flesh and she gasped. William’s groin was pressed against her rear. Stevie felt his excitement, and bile rose warm in her throat. She swallowed and said, ‘I promise to co-operate, if you tell me what happened.’

  The chemist withdrew the syringe, leaving a small valve attached to her vein. He inserted a tube into it, and then looked beyond her, at his son. ‘William, can you help Ms Flint on to the couch please?’

  Stevie said, ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  The chemist nodded and William let go, but Stevie had already felt a tremble in his body that might have been arousal, or something else. She sat on the camp bed. A small, clear plastic bag was resting on top of its mattress. Buchanan attached the tube in her arm to it. He said, ‘Simon always had an impulsive side. When he was young he had the energy to work as hard as he played, but he’d become careless, one might even say, lazy. No amount of brilliance can compensate for complacency. Simon was a good surgeon, but he was a shade short of brilliant.’

  The blood was leaving her arm, darker than Stevie had anticipated. It was as if she could see her strength deserting her. But she could also see the perspiration behind William’s mask and knew that it was vital to keep the chemist’s attention focused on her. She asked, ‘How much blood are you going to take?’

  ‘An armful,’ the chemist joked. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not vampires. We won’t drain you.’

  William made a small spluttering sound. He said, ‘This bloody suit is too warm.’

  ‘It’s necessary.’ Buchanan squatted in front of Stevie, his bedside manner at odds with the gun still pointing at her head. He said, ‘Clench and unclench your hand. It will make the blood come quicker.’

  Stevie made a fist and released it, made a fist and released it; fist, star, fist, star, fist, star. Her arm ached. She said, ‘Why did you poison Simon?’

  She had expected a denial, but the chemist asked, ‘Why do you care so much?’

  ‘Because I loved him.’ It was the first time Stevie had said it out loud, and the words surprised her.

  The chemist glanced at his son.

  ‘There is a theory that believing yourself to be in love can subtly alter the chemical compounds of the body.’ He looked at Stevie. ‘It’s possible that your love for Simon is a factor in why you’re still alive.’

  William had been staring at her face, as if trying to decide whether he would prefer to kiss Stevie or shoot her, but he glanced at his father.

  ‘If she fell out of love, would she lose her immunity?’

  ‘That would be an extreme reaction, but who knows, it might be possible.’ Alexander Buchanan’s voice was amused, as if he had long come to terms with his son being a fool. He touched the bag, warm with her blood, and looked at Stevie. ‘Are you willing to risk destroying Simon’s spell?’

  Stevie nodded. William’s plastic visor was beginning to mist up. She wondered if Buchanan had noticed. Harvesting her blood had given the chemist a boost of energy. His face beamed inside his helmet, making him look like a spaceman who had managed to slip into the orbit of a planet he had feared he would never reach.

  ‘Simon never dated what my mother would have termed his social equals. He preferred the kind of girl who would be impressed by the fact that he was a surgeon.’

  Stevie asked, ‘You didn’t find it impressive?’

  William said, ‘Dad thinks a sawbones is one step up from a car mechanic.’

  ‘Harsh but true.’ There was a dreaminess to the chemist’s voice. He glanced at his son and Stevie wondered how he could miss the fog of moisture, the glistering skin. He said, ‘Simon was a good surgeon, but outside the operating theatre he left most of the work to John Ahumibe and me. He was willing to take a third of the credit, but was too busy having a good time to do a third of the work. Perhaps that was why our arrangement was a success. I liked being in control and he was happy to leave me to it.’

  Stevie looked at the bag, almost full of her blood.

  ‘Shouldn’t you unhook me?’

  Buchanan said, ‘In a moment.’

  William coughed again. ‘Forget the bedtime story.’ Buchanan smiled at his son. ‘Aren’t you curious to discover whether the truth about Simon will have an effect on Ms Flint’s health?’

  William said, ‘I don’t see what difference it makes, given what comes next.’

  Stevie asked, ‘What comes next?’

  Buchanan’s voice was soothing. ‘Nothing you need worry about.’ He slid the needle from Stevie’s arm and passed her a pad of cotton wool and a plaster. ‘Here, hold this over the puncture.’ The chemist lifted the bag of blood and looked at it. ‘We should offer you a cup of sweet tea and a biscuit, but this is the best I can do under the circumstances.’ He reached into the pocket of his overalls and tossed her a cereal bar. ‘Stay still until you get your strength back.’

  Stevie glanced at William. His shoulders had lost their bold stretch. He was looking at the floor and she thought she could hear the sound of his breathing. Her appetite had deserted her, but Stevie unwrapped the paper, peeling it slowly, the way Joanie had taught her would hold an audience’s attention. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Tell me what happened to Simon, and I promise to stay as still as a mouse.’

  William said, ‘Mice aren’t still.’

  ‘As still as a stone,’ Stevie said.

  William sank on to the bed beside her and took her hand in his gloved one.

  ‘Stone dead.’

  Buchanan said, ‘Leave her alone, William.’ But his son stayed where he was. The chemist hesitated, as if considering whether to press his point, but then he looked at Stevie and said, ‘I would have refined the formula before Simon noticed anything was amiss, but we had a setback. A child died.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sick children do occasionally die, but the girl’s family took it badly. Her father confronted Simon.’

  Stevie took another bite of the cereal bar. William’s hand trembled in hers. Dr Ahumibe had said the sweats could be on you for days before they hit home, or they could fell you in an hour or two. She said, ‘I’m assuming the parent was Melvin Summers.’

  ‘You’ve done your homework.’

  ‘I met him. His daughter’s death killed his wife and destroyed his life.’

  ‘If you met him, then you’ll know that Mr Summers is …’ Buchanan hesitated, as if something had just occurred to him. He raised an eyebrow and asked, ‘Is or was?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘… is, or was, an unstable alcoholic. I doubt very much whether Summers would have managed to muster the self-control to put together a convincing case, but somehow he ruffled Simon’s complacency enough to inspire him to re-examine the original research results.’

  Stevie said, ‘So perhaps he wasn’t as lazy as you thought?’

  The chemist shrugged. ‘On the contrary, Simon proved he was a lazy thinker. He went into a blue funk and threatened to down tools.’

  ‘Down scalpel,’ William muttered.

  Buchanan threw his son an irritated glance, and Stevie realised that the chemist was building towards his punchline, the revelation that would show she had been wrong about Simon. She prompted him, ‘But …?’

  Buchanan snorted. ‘… but as usual Simon didn’t consider the consequences. We had borrowed from our sponsors to set up Fibrosyop. If we called the treatment into question, not only would we have been bankrupt, but our professional reputations would have been destroyed. Worse than that, if it could be shown that we had knowingly continued, after we’d realised the treatment was compromised, we might well have faced criminal prosecution and prison.’

  Stevie said, ‘But Simon didn’t realise that the treatment was no good until Summers alerted him. You and Ahumibe had already discovered it was useless and decided not to tell Simon because you knew he would call a halt to the operations.’

  Buchanan put his head on one side. It was a coquettish gesture, sinister combined with the protective
suit and headgear.

  ‘Simon should have worked it out. He would have, if he’d been doing his job properly.’

  William looked up at his father. ‘You killed him. End of story. Who cares?’

  ‘Ms Flint cares,’ Buchanan said, softly enunciating the words, as if explaining an obvious fact to an imbecile. ‘Because she loved him, which is rather beautiful considering all the destruction going on around us. I loved Simon too.’

  William said, ‘Fuck Uncle Simon.’ He got to his feet, stood behind Stevie and lifted the bag of blood from the bed. ‘Shouldn’t this be in a fridge or something?’

  Buchanan whispered, ‘Careful, William.’

  His son flopped the blood bag back on to the mattress. A soft red-black jewel that reminded Stevie of sea urchins she had sometimes seen attached to rocks at the bottom of cliffs.

  William remained standing behind her. The back of Stevie’s skull, the bit she thought might make a good target, tingled, but she asked, ‘What did Simon do, after you pointed out the consequences of coming clean?’

  Alexander Buchanan’s laugh was so abrupt that Stevie suddenly wondered if he had dipped into his chemical supplies.

  ‘He tried to buy himself out of Fibrosyop. God knows where Simon got the money from, but he presented me with what he referred to as “the first instalment”, in cash, as if actual notes would be more persuasive than the promise of a funds transfer.’

  Stevie said, ‘He borrowed it from Hope Black. That’s why she was at his apartment the day William went there looking for me. She wanted her money back.’

  William muttered, ‘I didn’t see the signs on her until she was on the ground.’ He stroked Stevie’s head. ‘I was wearing gloves, but I was in the same room. I breathed the same air.’ He looked at his father. ‘You were working on the vaccine.’

  William’s touch made the hairs on the back of Stevie’s neck rise.

  Buchanan said, ‘Simon took holiday leave. I thought he might bolt, so I asked William to keep an eye on him.’

  Stevie slowly turned her body and looked at William. The tremble in his gun hand echoed the flutter in her stomach. She said, ‘You and your father were close, even before the sweats.’

  ‘We’ve had our differences, but blood is thicker than water. Uncle Simon was scared. You could see it in the way he walked. He kept looking over his shoulder. I didn’t bother to hide myself. I thought, let him see me. Let him be scared.’

  ‘I would have preferred a little more subtlety, but never mind.’ Buchanan glanced at the clock on the laboratory wall and then back at Stevie. ‘I think we’ll give it another minute before we move you. We don’t want you fainting on us.’ He leant against the worktop. If it wasn’t for his protective mask and overalls he might have looked like a man at a party, shooting the breeze over a few beers. ‘What really hurt was Simon’s lack of faith. We’d known each other since we were boys. I’d already explained that all I needed was a little time. I was so close to perfecting the formula. I dreamt about it every night.’

  Stevie said, ‘You told me that Simon had come round to your way of thinking, but he hadn’t, had he?’

  ‘You’re wrong. After I refused to let him off the hook by buying himself out, Simon agreed to allow me three more months to work on the formula. He also agreed to undertake the operations we already had scheduled. If you really knew him, then you’d know that was the way it always went with Simon, a compromise, which was generally followed by another compromise, until finally he was convinced that whatever it was he’d initially disagreed with had been his idea all along.’

  ‘But you killed him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Buchanan’s ebullience left him. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I was forced to.’

  William said, ‘This fucking suit is suffocating me.’

  His free hand went to his protective helmet. Buchanan snapped, ‘Keep that on.’ But William pulled it free and Stevie saw his face close up for the first time. His hair and eyes were the same watery pale as his father’s, but his cheeks were flushed scarlet, his skin drenched in sweat.

  Buchanan said, ‘Put your mask on.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ William held out a hand to his father, but Buchanan took a swift step backwards.

  ‘We need to get you into isolation.’

  ‘You won’t leave me again, will you, Dad?’

  William’s gun hand shuddered. It was the moment Stevie had been waiting for. She grabbed the bag of blood from the bed, slammed it into William’s face and threw herself on to the floor. The plastic split on impact and her blood arced in a spray around the room, splattering all three of them. Stevie smelt herself, rich and iron, tasted her life-force sharp on her lips. The gun rattled on to the laboratory’s tiled floor. She wiped her eyes and scrambled to where it had landed.

  Stevie expected Buchanan to race her, but there was no hand at her heels, no harsh breath or panicked shouts, just the sound of William groaning. She seized the gun, spun on to her back, and pointed the muzzle in front of her, ready to shoot whichever of the Buchanans came at her first.

  Forty-Four

  Alexander Buchanan wiped the blood from his visor. His white overalls and mask were splattered with gore, as if he was a chainsaw killer fresh from a spree. He lifted a glass beaker in the air and said, ‘An extreme game of paper, scissor, stone. Acid versus a bullet.’

  Stevie was still on the ground. She scooted backwards, through the slick of blood, until she felt one of the workstations at her back and propped herself against it, the gun pointed at Buchanan.

  William had sunk on to the couch. He whispered, ‘Dad, I’m scared.’

  Stevie said, ‘You should look to your boy. He’s dying.’

  Buchanan kept his eyes on Stevie.

  ‘William, I want you to take the gun from Ms Flint, give it to me and then go to bed. I’ll come and see you soon, I promise.’

  Buchanan’s son had taken the worst of the blood bag’s impact and his white-blond hair, flushed face and overalls were drenched scarlet. He put his head in his hands and coughed as if he was trying to expel his lungs. Stevie felt an unexpected stab of pity.

  ‘Don’t let your father send you on another suicide mission, William. He could have kept you safe from the sweats, but he sent you out to do his dirty work instead. You’re going to die soon. It’ll be sooner if you take a single step towards me.’

  William wiped a hand across his face. He looked at his father.

  ‘What you were working on might cure me.’

  ‘It’s not ready yet.’

  ‘Then make it ready. I don’t want to die.’

  ‘I can’t, son, not while Ms Flint is pointing a gun at me.’ The acid shimmered in its flask, so clear Stevie thought that if she didn’t know what it was, she might drink it without a thought. Buchanan said, ‘Take the gun from her, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘If your father was capable of making a cure, he would have done it by now,’ Stevie said. ‘I saw signs of the sweats on you hours ago, William. Your father must have seen them too. But he wanted to use you, the way he’s used you all along.’ She got to her feet, keeping the gun trained on Buchanan, ready to switch aim if his son made a move towards her. The only exit from the room lay behind the two men. She said, ‘Get out of my way.’

  Stevie caught a cartoon glimpse of how it would be if she managed to shoot the flask of acid, the chemist dissolving from the feet up, his mouth and eyes the last to go, his scream sizzling to a fade.

  Buchanan said, ‘Has anyone ever told you how impressive you are?’ His voice was like silk. ‘You’re astounding, far too good for Simon.’

  Stevie stepped slowly towards the other side of the room. The rows of workbenches hampered her escape, and so she moved in a straight line, her back to a counter littered with equipment. She asked, ‘Why did you kill him?’

  It was the question that had driven her, but now that Stevie was on the edge of finding an answer, it seemed unimportant. Simon was dead and there was no resurrec
tion in sight.

  ‘I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘This virus, the sweats, whatever it is, is programmed to kill. It doesn’t have any choice. You did.’

  She had reached the middle of the room. Someone had been looking at samples in a microscope, and slides were scattered across the surface as if the viewer had suddenly been interrupted. Buchanan was straight ahead of her, three workbenches away, the acid still cradled in his hands. He said, ‘Why don’t you ask me about Geoffrey Frei again?’

  ‘Did you kill him too, or was he another of your son’s victims?’

  ‘Neither.’ Buchanan held up the flask, as if admiring it. The light hit the liquid and projected a small rainbow against the wall. ‘Frei was Simon’s conquest.’

  Stevie could feel the chemist’s eyes on her, watching to see what effect his revelation would have.

  She said, ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Buchanan looked at his son. ‘Ms Flint never believes anything I tell her.’

  Stevie glanced quickly at the door, wondering if she should make a run for it, or keep her back towards the wall and continue her slow progress. She shouted, ‘How are you doing, William?’

  Buchanan replied for his son, ‘William’s strong. He’ll pull through.’

  Stevie marvelled at the jocular note in the chemist’s voice and wondered again if he had been self-medicating.

  ‘Why would Simon kill Frei?’

  Buchanan swirled the acid in the flask and held it up to his visor, regarding her through the eddying liquid.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious. Frei had got wind of our little difficulty, via Mr Summers. It was Frei’s wet dream. A chance to get back at the boys he hated at school.’

  The blood was crusting on Stevie’s skin and hair, turning to powder on her eyelashes.

  ‘I thought he was one of your set.’

  ‘Every schoolboy gang needs a whipping boy. Frei was ours. He was John Ahumibe’s pet really. That was the reason we tolerated him at first, but he found his place. Simon was our noble leader, I was his deputy and John Ahumibe was my faithful lieutenant. We were all officers and no men. Without Frei we would have had no one to lead.’