Cold, Cold Heart

by Christine Poulson

  Daniel realized that Cameron believed that Flora was dead – or perhaps to hope was too painful.

  Cameron straightened his shoulders. “Anyway… About these papers…”

  “It would be helpful to see what Flora was working on… any notes, for example.”

  “Of course.” He lifted the purring cat off his lap and placed him gently on the floor. “There’s a little room off the hall that we use as a study. They’ll be in there.”

  They went into the house, the cat close on their heels. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of human company.

  It was cold in the study and the air was musty. Surely no one had used this room in a while. Cameron looked around, frowning. There was a desk, but no papers.

  Cameron said, “She might have decided to work in the sitting room. I saw she’d made a fire in there.”

  They went across the hall. The sitting room had a shabby, comfortable feel. It had been furnished in a country cottage style with sagging chintz chairs and a row of earthenware jugs on the broad white-painted windowsill. A big mahogany table was positioned for a view of the garden. A chair had been pushed back from it. A pen, pencil, and eraser lay scattered on the table – but no papers and no lab books.

  “I’ll check upstairs,” Cameron said. “Maybe she hadn’t unpacked them.”

  He went out. Daniel wandered around the room, inspecting the framed prints and watercolours, a pleasantly random collection, probably picked up in local antique shops. On the mantelpiece was a line of pink lustre plates on stands. The house told the story of a long marriage and a holiday home lovingly furnished and decorated over many years. He felt sure this was the work of the first wife. Probably she had kept the family home and Cameron had kept this.

  The cat jumped on the windowsill and began to watch a bird.

  On the hearth were the remains of a fire that had died down leaving half-consumed logs and scraps of paper. If Flora had laid the fire, that meant that she had at least had time to begin settling in before – well, before whatever it was that had happened. He looked again. Scraps of papers… He took a pen out of his pocket and gently stirred the charred fragments. Underneath there were parts of pages that had escaped the flames. He saw part of a formula written in a large, looping hand.

  He had solved the mystery of the missing lab book.

  CHAPTER 16

  ELY

  “It’s not fair. Harriet doesn’t have to go to the hospital! She doesn’t have to have a needle stuck in her every night. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  Chloe ran upstairs and they heard the door of her bedroom slam.

  Daniel put his head in his hands and groaned.

  “That went well,” Rachel remarked.

  “We had to talk to her. We don’t want her growing up thinking that she’s a special case – that it’s OK to be mean to other people when you’re miserable.”

  “Of course. But maybe we didn’t have to go in mob-handed? Just one of us would have been enough.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he conceded.

  There was the ping of an incoming text on Dan’s phone; he looked at the screen. “It’s Lyle. I’d better ring him. Do you mind, love?”

  “I’ll go and check on Chloe.”

  Chloe had calmed down and was chatting to Quack-Quack, a small stuffed duck. That was one thing about her: she wasn’t a sulker, thank goodness. She was already in her pyjamas and had brushed her teeth earlier and – thank God – tonight was one of the two nights a week when she didn’t have an infusion. Rachel eased Chloe under the covers and tucked her in. She switched on the pink-shaded bedside light, switched off the overhead light, and sat down in the little chair by the side of the bed.

  Chloe’s favourite story was currently Cinderella. Rachel had only got as far as the coach arriving at the ball when she saw Chloe’s eyelids drooping.

  She went on sitting by Chloe’s bedside, glad of a quiet space and time to think.

  She wished now that she had told Katie the truth, when they had talked about why Rachel hadn’t tried to have another baby. She had sensed that Katie was puzzled. All their friends and family had accepted long ago that there wouldn’t be another child. The fact that Rachel had almost died giving birth to Chloe and that there was a significant risk of another postpartum haemorrhage had been accepted as sufficient reason. But it wasn’t, not really. Katie from her medical knowledge and what she knew of Rachel had guessed that.

  Then, as she gazed at the face of her sleeping child, it happened: without warning the warm bedroom dropped away, she was back in the maternity unit. It had been a routine C-section. Daniel was holding her hand. The midwife lifted up her baby for her to see and someone said, “A perfect little girl.” And then everything had changed. She’d had an epidural, so she felt no pain – and she couldn’t see what was happening. The first thing that registered was the shock on Dan’s face, then the pressure of the surgeon’s fist as he jammed his fist into her uterus in an attempt to stem the bleeding. Then a bitter, coppery smell. Dan went as white as a sheet. The next moment they had put the baby in his arms, and he was being hurried out of the room.

  Someone said, “We’ve got to get more blood into her” and someone else was searching her arm for a vein. There were urgent voices, telling her to stay awake. They were trying to keep her with them, and she wanted to stay, but it was no good… She was drifting away. She knew that she was dying and a strange peace settled on her. There was no regret or sadness. She had given birth. Their baby was fine. Dan would take care of her. She was so tired, so tired, fading… fading…

  Chloe murmured something in her sleep – and Rachel was back in the present, her heart beating fast.

  “Rachel… Rachel,” Dan was calling softly up the stairs.

  “Coming!”

  She gave herself a few moments. In the first year after Chloe’s birth she had often had these flashbacks, then they had been fewer and fewer and eventually they had stopped altogether. Perhaps this one had been triggered by the worry over Chloe.

  When she went down the TV was on for the news, and a full-face photograph of a fair-haired woman filled half the screen.

  “Is that –?” Rachel began.

  Dan held up a hand.

  The newsreader was saying “went missing from her home near Walsingham on or around the nineteenth of February”. There was a picture of a pretty Georgian house. He continued, “Doctor Flora Mitchell is a leading cancer researcher. Police are asking anyone who has seen her to contact their local police station or ring this number…”

  When the newsreader had moved on to the next item, Dan clicked the TV off.

  “That’s the house that you went to today?” Rachel said.

  He nodded. “Her husband’s beside himself with worry.”

  “What do you think’s happened?” She sat down next to him.

  Dan shook his head. “Doesn’t look good. It’s a long time to go missing. Lyle fears the worst – that someone took her. Either that or that she’s had a catastrophic breakdown of some kind.”

  He told her about finding the lab book burned in the grate. Luckily there was a PDF, but still, a scientist’s lab book was precious. If Flora had destroyed that, then she was in a bad way. But if it was someone else who had done it, well, that was worse, because that meant it was a deliberate and malicious act.

  “She looked young in that photo,” Rachel said.

  “She was – is – young. Only mid-thirties. Oh well, let’s hope for the best. Perhaps the publicity will flush her out. Maybe she’s taken off with some other man – or woman – and once she’s got over the embarrassment of being splashed all over the headlines, she’ll be back.”

  “Do they have children?”

  “Children? No, no, they don’t.”

  “What’s this going to mean for you – and for what she was working on? How important was it?”

  “Very important. It could usher in a whole new generation of cancer treatment. Flora was the lead researche
r. On the other hand very few people are indispensable. I guess the actual work will go on one way or another. For Lyle it’s a matter of whether or not the investors are going to get the jitters. As for me, I’m just the hired hand. I work with what I’m given. I’m going to talk to Sara, the woman who worked with her on the earlier research. In fact,” he glanced at his watch, “I’m supposed to be putting through a call around now.”

  “Funny her being in Antarctica and Katie being out there as well!”

  He laughed. “Only if you don’t know Lyle. Typical of him to have a finger in every pie. Nothing he likes better than pulling strings!”

  * * *

  The line wasn’t great and at first Sara McKee didn’t seem to grasp what he was saying.

  “But where did you say Flora had gone?” she kept saying.

  “That’s just it. No one has seen or heard from her for three weeks.”

  Finally the penny seemed to drop. “You mean she’s gone missing? But what can have happened?”

  “We don’t know.” Daniel was afraid that the connection was going to be broken at any moment and was anxious for Sara to get the point. “That’s why I need to talk to you about the apoptosis research. I’m reviewing the patent application and there are a few details I’m not absolutely clear on. Can you think back to the summer when you and Flora made the apoptosis discovery? I’ve got your lab book here.”

  There was silence and he guessed that she was trying to call up her memories.

  At last she said, “What you’ve got to remember is that I was the junior partner. Flora was the senior researcher. I was decent enough at what I did, but I didn’t have her flair. That was what made me realize that I was never going to be more than mediocre at best. And besides, I missed working with people. That’s why I decided to go back to medicine.”

  “So, the apoptosis research?” he prompted.

  “That’s an example of what I mean. I’d never have come up with that on my own. It was a stroke of genius on Flora’s part. She came in one morning and said why don’t we try delivering excess cytochrome c directly into the cytoplasm and triggering apoptosis. Well, it was a bit more involved than that of course with self-assembled viruses and monoclonal antibodies and a whole load of weird chemistry I’d never heard of, but she had worked out a protocol and had a guy over in chemistry help us out and it worked. Complete cell death in two lung cancer cell lines in vitro! It was a game-changer. We had both our names on the research paper that we submitted to Oncogene, but it came from her really.”

  “Do you mean it didn’t come directly from what you were already doing?”

  The line crackled and he missed what she said next.

  “What was that?” He found himself raising his voice – as if that could make a difference. Then suddenly he heard her loud and clear.

  “I said, yes and no! Using monoclonals was one of the options, and we’d probably have got a result, but this came out of left field. No one was expecting something so radical.”

  “You rate her highly.”

  Sara said, “I think some people have an instinct for what will work. They make a leap of the imagination. It’s like…” she paused as she sought for the word, “an intuition, yes, a kind of intuition. Flora has it. That’s what makes her such an exceptional scientist. I just did the donkey work. Is that what you need to know?”

  “I’ve got a clearer picture now, thanks.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “I suppose you haven’t heard from her yourself recently. You can’t shed any light?”

  Sara hesitated. “We didn’t keep in touch. We, well, we weren’t friends, not really. I mean, I respected her and admired her as a scientist, but she wasn’t –”

  And then, quite suddenly, the connection was severed and the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 17

  ANTARCTICA

  There was something wrong with Sara. They were in the surgery and Katie had been telling her about the latest set of data, but she just wasn’t listening. Ever since the phone call with Dan last week, she’d been distant and distracted. She hadn’t even noticed that Katie had stopped talking. Katie waited.

  Then Sara did notice and said, “What was that?”

  “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?”

  She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Katie.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I keep thinking about Flora. I emailed that lawyer, that friend of yours, Daniel, again this morning, but there’s still no news. I can’t stop wondering what’s happened to her.”

  “Perhaps it all got too much for her…”

  “But it seems so unlike her. She wasn’t the type to buckle under stress.”

  “Is there a type? Can’t it happen to anyone under the right circumstances?”

  “Maybe. But what circumstances? Her career was going from strength to strength and she’d recently got married. And then I keep thinking about the questions Daniel asked me, about our research and how we came up with the idea. At the time I didn’t think there was anything wrong and I still don’t see how there could be. But he got me thinking…” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, it can’t be anything,” she concluded.

  “Tell me,” Katie said.

  “Well, something happened very soon after our research was published. Someone showed up at the lab – a man, he managed to blag his way in and claimed that we’d stolen his work. He was clearly unbalanced, well, raving really. We had to get security to remove him from the building.” She frowned, trying to remember. “I can’t think what his name was. Did it begin with a K? One of those Irish names. Kieran something, maybe? It turned out he was a scientist, but he’d had a psychotic episode and had managed to walk out of the hospital where he’d been sectioned. We’d never heard of him or his research project, so there was no possibility that we could have been influenced by what he’d been doing. But he just didn’t believe us.”

  Katie nodded. It happened often enough that people were working on parallel lines. And though it was unusual for people to be unaware of similar research projects, it did happen.

  Sara said, “Oh, there can’t be anything in it.” She broke off. “What was that? I thought I heard…”

  Katie thought she’d heard something too – a sound out in the corridor. “Someone waiting to see you?” she suggested.

  Sara shook her head. “I’m not expecting anyone.”

  Katie got up and opened the door. She looked up and down the corridor and shrugged. “No one there. What were you about to say?”

  “Oh, it was obvious that he was suffering from paranoid delusions, poor guy. It’s just that – Flora going missing. It’s spooked me. I mean what if he still thinks that and, well, somehow got to her…” Sara looked at Katie. “I’m talking rubbish, aren’t I?”

  Katie wasn’t so sure. “I think you should tell Daniel. He can hand it on to the police. It’s like you say, probably nothing in it, but if someone threatened her, I’m sure they’ll want to know. What’s she like, this Flora?”

  Sara considered. “She wasn’t an easy person to know. She was so focused on her work. And she wasn’t really interested in socializing outside the lab. On the other hand I did work at the bench next to hers for two years so I did get to know her to some extent.”

  “Was she in a relationship?”

  “I think there was someone. Sometimes she’d let drop that she’d been somewhere that you’d usually only go as a couple. A weekend away – that kind of thing – but she never went into detail and I can’t remember hearing a name. Actually, I wondered if he was married.”

  There was a thump on the door. They heard Graeme’s voice. “Sara. Katie. Come on. It’s nearly time. Get yourselves kitted up.”

  “We’d better go,” Katie said. “But look, why don’t you get on the phone to Daniel this evening? Probably it is nothing, but once you’ve told him about it, you can stop worrying.”

  * * *

  They dressed in their outdoor gear and went o
ut to join the others gathered on the ice. They waited in silence, their eyes fixed on the horizon. Luckily it was a clear day. Then it came, a flash of red as the edge of the sun appeared. Moments later it was swallowed up again. It was as if a day had passed in a flash, sunrise followed immediately by sunset. Over four months of night had begun. It wouldn’t always be total darkness. Sometimes there would be moonlight or starlight or the aurora australis, but they wouldn’t see the sun, their source of heat and light and energy, until August.

  Sara, standing next to Katie, said something that Katie didn’t catch.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “‘The bright day is done, and we are for the dark.’ Shakespeare. From Antony and Cleopatra.”

  Katie couldn’t see Sara’s expression under her ski goggles, but her tone was sombre and Katie felt a chill that wasn’t just from the cold. Yes, they were for the dark. And that was scary. No wonder people used to feel a superstitious dread of solar eclipses and feared that the sun had been swallowed up. They were right to fear that. One day – millennia ahead – the sun would grow old and die, turning their Earth to a dead, dark, cold sphere spinning lifeless through space.

  Graeme as the eldest on the base climbed onto the roof to lower the British flag. It had been there only since sunup the previous year, but was already bleached and tattered from its exposure to a summer of intense twenty-four-hour daylight and the blizzards of early winter. A fresh flag would be hoisted by Adam, the youngest, when the sun returned in the spring.

  Graeme clambered back down. “Have a good winter,” he said. He went round the group, slapping the men on the shoulder. “Have a good winter,” they all chorused.

  When he reached Katie, their eyes met and on an impulse she opened her arms and went in for a hug. They were both so heavily padded that Katie was reminded of two sumo wrestlers grappling and said so as he released her.