Deep Water

by Christine Poulson

  He looked about forty and had a kind, tired face. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and his tie had been pulled loose. He gave her a brief smile and turned his attention back to his papers. Clearly Katie had interrupted him at work.

  She glanced around, trying not to seem nosy, but curious to see where Rachel lived. This was the kind of place that she’d like to have – if she could ever afford it – a lovely red and blue rug on the floor, an entire wall covered in bookshelves, alcoves containing plants and pottery. Katie remembered that Rachel was a woodworker and wondered if she’d made the shelves herself.

  Just as Rachel emerged from the kitchen at the back, a little girl appeared at the top of an open staircase on the right. She was wearing a fairy outfit complete with wings and a tiara trimmed with pink feathers.

  “Are you Katie?” she asked, advancing down the stairs. “Are you going to live on our boat?”

  “Well…” Katie wasn’t sure how to answer. But an answer didn’t seem to be required, because the next question came immediately.

  “How old are you?”

  “Chloe!” Rachel chided gently.

  Katie laughed. “It’s alright. I’m thirty-three. How old are you?”

  “I’m four and I’m starting school next year. Are you married?”

  Rachel said: “That really is enough, young lady. It’s time you were getting your night things on.”

  The child’s face crumpled. “But I want to come with you to the boat. Can I, Mummy?”

  Rachel hesitated.

  Daniel looked up from his work. He gave Chloe a wink. “Oh, let her go,” he said to Rachel. “You’re not going to be long, are you?”

  “Well, if Katie doesn’t mind…”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Katie said.

  Chloe’s face lit up.

  Rachel laughed. “OK, quick then, wings off, coat and wellies on.”

  Katie was amused to see that both coat and wellies were pink too.

  The three of them set off, Chloe skipping ahead. The old-fashioned cast-iron street lights shed a watery, yellow light. The pavement was black and slick with rain and reflections.

  “The Matilda Jane’s moored down the other end near the railway bridge,” Rachel explained.

  “What sort of boat is it?” Katie asked.

  “She’s a Dutch barge, a Steilsteven, built around 1926. She was a total wreck when I bought her. I restored her myself.”

  They passed beneath two vast weeping willows whose leafless, dripping tendrils almost brushed their heads.

  “You actually did all the work yourself?” Katie asked.

  “Most of it, yes. Took me five years in my spare time. Couldn’t afford to buy a house or a flat, though actually now that she’s been restored, the barge is worth as much as a house. I’d always fancied living on a boat. And I loved it. It’s a world all of its own – a real community.”

  They passed the Maltings, now a cinema and restaurant, and then an open grassy space with a bandstand. On the other side of the water, cabin cruisers rocked gently at their mooring and lights glowed on the jetties.

  The floodlit cathedral came into view, floating above the town, blurred and hazy in the damp air.

  They had just passed a pub called The Cutter when something moved in the shadows and a small ginger cat appeared.

  Chloe gave a cry of delight. “Orlando!”

  The cat wound himself around her legs. She bent down and with an effort picked him up and clutched him to her chest. She staggered along for a few yards, he struggled, and she dropped him. He followed along behind them.

  “Is that your cat?” Katie asked.

  Rachel nodded. “He was a stray. Adopted me when I was living on the boat. Chloe adores him.”

  They reached a smart-looking restaurant called The Boathouse and a row of cottages. Then the street lights ended and Rachel produced a torch from her pocket. “Chloe, stick close now, please.”

  Chloe put her hand in Rachel’s. She reached up and took Katie’s too. The little gloved hand was warm in hers.

  Orlando ran ahead of them and vanished into the gloom.

  They moved out of the light into the dark. There was a smell of rotting leaves and the ground was slippery underfoot. The dark shapes of the willows that overhung the path were only just discernible against the night sky. The beam of Rachel’s torch caught the white surface of a sign that warned of deep water and a strong current.

  There was a rumbling and ahead of them the lights of a train crossing a bridge were briefly reflected in the water.

  Rachel said, “There are plenty of people around during the day, even in the winter, but even at night it’s not as lonely as it looks. The people on the next boat – Frank and Daisy – live there all the time and they keep an eye on things for me. I can introduce you to them.”

  The path continued under the railway bridge, then over a little bridge that spanned the entrance to a large boatyard. There weren’t many boats moored along here, just a few long dark shapes.

  Rachel stopped by one of them. She shone the torch along the side of the hull and picked out the words Matilda Jane in white cursive script. She led Katie along the length of the boat to the wheelhouse.

  “Here – would you mind holding the torch?”

  Rachel climbed aboard and Katie shone the beam on the door, while Rachel unlocked it. The door swung open. Rachel reached in and switched on a light. Then she leaned forward, seized Chloe under the arms and swung her onto the boat. Katie followed them into the wheelhouse and down a flight of stairs. A short corridor opened into a room with wooden floorboards covered with brightly covered rugs. Katie saw an L-shaped kitchen and a scrubbed oak table at the near end, and at the other, a sitting area with a slim black leather sofa and easy chairs. A full-length mirror on one wall gave an illusion of depth and space. Between the oblong windows were built-in shelves and cupboards made of pale wood. Was that beech? Katie recognized the style that she’d seen in Rachel and Daniel’s house.

  “It’s a bit chilly in here at the moment,” Rachel said, “but there’s a little wood-burning stove in the corner there, and it soon warms up. This is the main living area, and through here in the stern is the master bedroom.”

  Rachel led the way, explaining as they went. “There’s an en suite bathroom… just a shower, of course, but it’s a good one…”

  The double bed with its blue and white checked cover, the two portholes on either side, and the white-painted wall: it was all so spic and span and yes, shipshape – that was surely the word.

  Katie said, “It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”

  “You were probably thinking of a narrow boat. They’re only about seven foot in the beam. The Matilda Jane’s sixty-five feet long, about the same as a typical narrow boat, but she’s fourteen foot in the beam.”

  “Where’s Chloe?” Katie asked, looking round.

  “Come and see,” Rachel said, smiling. She led the way back through the living room to the corridor they had come in by. There was a door there that looked as if it ought to be a cupboard, but when Rachel opened it, Katie glimpsed bunk beds on the right and another door on the left. “This is the guest room, with its own en suite shower room,” Rachel explained. “Chloe sleeps in here when we are on board.”

  They squeezed in. Chloe waved from the top bunk. The room had the charm of all small tightly organized spaces.

  “It’s all so compact,” Katie marvelled.

  “It’s a bit like being in a submarine,” Rachel said. “You have to have a place for everything and put things away as you go along.” She ran a hand caressingly along a shelf.

  You really love this place, Katie thought. All the work you’ve done on it… you’re the kind of person who gives 100 per cent. I like that – and I like you.

  Rachel said, “In the summer we spend as much time here as we can, cruising the river or just hanging out, sitting on deck with a glass of wine. There’s nothing like it. But we usually shut it up fo
r the winter and move back into Daniel’s house. I don’t really like it being empty, so if you’re interested…”

  “Interested? I love it! What would you want for rent?”

  When Rachel hesitated, Katie said firmly, “I’d have to pay a proper rent.”

  “Of course,” Rachel said hastily, “but you’ll be a kind of caretaker, too, so I’ll take that into account. So how about – ” and she named a sum considerably lower than Katie was currently paying. “And if we say for three months? That’ll take you just past the end of January.”

  “And the end of my contract. It’s perfect.” Katie looked at her watch. “And now I really ought to get going. I need to get back to the lab.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Working late again, Dr Flanagan?” Malcolm said as he turned the signing-in book towards her. He was one of the night porters. “Ought to have better things to do at your age.”

  It could have sounded flirtatious, but Katie knew it wasn’t intended that way. Malcolm was the fatherly type.

  “What about you?” she said, as she picked up the pen.

  “Oh, me? I’d just be watching the box at home. My wife works shifts, too. She’s a nurse at Addenbrooke’s. So I might as well be working. Then I get to go fishing during the day.”

  She glanced at her watch. Quarter to eight. She wrote it in the book.

  “Is it just me in tonight?” she asked as she scribbled her name.

  “Only Dr Orville’s left in the lab.”

  So hopefully she’d have the darkroom to herself. The western blot that she was planning to run should prove that she’d succeeded in introducing the growth factor into her stem cell.

  As she walked along the corridor to the lab, she saw that a door to one of the offices was ajar. She glanced in as she passed. She’d gone a few more yards down the corridor before she took in what she’d seen and came to a halt. Will was in there, lying back in an armchair with his eyes closed, his face so haggard that she wondered if he was ill.

  She went back and knocked on the door.

  He sat up and opened his eyes.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, pushing the door further open. “Oh yeah, I’m OK. Had a bad day, that’s all. Just trying to make up my mind to go home. Come in, why don’t you? How’re you settling in?”

  “Fine, thanks. What’s gone wrong?”

  “How long have you got?” he said.

  “I saw Professor Masterman come into the lab earlier.”

  He gestured to a chair. Katie sat down.

  “She’d just had a phone call from our lawyer – well, I say ‘our lawyer’. He’s working for Calliope Biotech. I don’t know if you know anything about the work we’ve been doing…?”

  She did know about it, but she let him tell her anyway: about the discovery, almost accidental, of a possible therapy for obesity, the shock of the death in the clinical trial that he and Honor could not have foreseen, the regrouping that took place afterwards. She guessed that it was an account he’d given many times before and the emotion had leached out of it. He knew the death was shocking, but at the same time he’d got used to it, and anyway, he’d been absolved of blame.

  He grew more animated when it came to recent events and the claim from a rival team of researchers that they had got there first.

  “I’m sure it was us, we were the first, but whether we’ll be able to prove it… That woman who was killed in a car crash out towards Cambridge a couple of days ago. It’s been on the local news? She was our lawyer.”

  “Oh!”

  “It’s awful,” he said, “just awful. When it’s someone you know – and then there’s what this means for the project… We’ve been so unlucky – it’s as if it’s jinxed. And that’s not all. There’s a new hotshot lawyer on the case, Daniel Marchmont – ”

  “Marchmont?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “How funny – I’ve just been to his house. No, I don’t know him, but his wife’s renting out their barge to me. Sorry – go on.”

  “He rang Honor earlier today. That’s what she was telling me about. Apparently one of our lab books – one of my lab books – has got lost. And would you believe it? Jennifer – that’s the lawyer – didn’t keep a copy.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Katie groaned in sympathy. Only another scientist could fully enter into this. To be the first in the field with a dazzling new discovery – and not to be able to prove it…

  “You don’t keep a rough notebook, then?”

  Lots of researchers did, though not Katie. She wrote everything in her lab book as she went along.

  He grimaced. “I do now.” He gestured to a notebook with a black cover lying open on the desk. “But I didn’t then. I’m just hoping that the lab book’s got mislaid somewhere in Jennifer’s office.”

  Katie said, “Where else could it be? Surely it’ll come to light?”

  He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Hope you’re right. But in any case, I’m not doing any good here. Too tired. Oh well.” As she watched, he sat up straight and seemed to shake off his despondency, like a dog throwing off water. “There’s always tomorrow,” he declared.

  He closed the notebook, opened the drawer in his desk, and tossed it in. She glimpsed other notebooks in there. He closed the drawer and locked it, slipping the key in his pocket.

  He smiled at her. There was something uncertain about that smile, a hint of shyness that was at odds with his confident demeanour. That was attractive.

  “Don’t fancy going for a drink, do you?” he said. “Could do with going out and sinking a few beers.”

  She shook her head regretfully. “Sorry, I’ve got a date with a western blot.”

  “Another time?”

  “Another time.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Katie went thoughtfully on down the corridor. Could she herself have gone on with the research after a death like that? She didn’t know. It must have been devastating, but Will had the resilience of the true researcher, willing to go on and on, no matter what the setbacks. She guessed that he was good, very good; as Honor Masterman’s postdoc, he’d have to be. He could still have a brilliant career ahead of him.

  She let herself into the lab with her swipe card. The door closed behind her with a pneumatic sigh.

  Katie had told Rachel that the lab was a home from home, and during the day that was true. But at night when the place lay still and silent under the sterile glow of the fluorescent lights, it was very different. Without the background noises – people coming and going, the whirring of extraction fans – she was very much aware of all the noises that she just ignored during the day, and it was surprising how many of them sounded like someone unlocking a door or trying a door handle. Working alone into the night, an uncomfortable feeling would come over her as if at any moment she might catch sight of someone – or something – out of the corner of her eye. She liked the quietness, but really it was better when there were one or two other people also working late.

  She walked to the far end of the lab to where her gel dish swayed lazily with the circular motion of the orbital shaker. In it, floating in a buffer solution, was her western blot, a piece of nitrocellular membrane, looking like an ordinary scrap of paper about six centimetres by four. The orbital shaker should have washed off everything except the antibody that would bind to her particular protein and so reveal that it was present in her stem cell. Down the left-hand side ran a series of narrow blue lines, her baseline band of proteins, like the rungs of a ladder. When she’d developed the western blot, another line would appear on the right-hand side. And that would be proof that her experiment had worked. It was a bit like a pregnancy test.

  She took the gel dish off the shaker and set it on the counter. She cut off a length of saran wrap cling film – but she was all fingers and thumbs this evening and it twisted back on itself. She threw it away, cut a second piece, and laid it on the counter. With a pair of tweezers she removed t
he western blot from the gel tray and laid it on the saran wrap. She mixed the reagents that would make her protein luminous. Using a pipette she spread the solution over the surface of the western blot and patted off the excess with a piece of kitchen roll. She wrapped the blot in the saran wrap and walked the length of the lab to the darkroom.

  When she pressed the switch for the infrared light that would allow her to expose her film, nothing happened. Oh, hell, the bulb had gone again. She’d have to manage with the small light over the sink.

  She bolted the door and switched the main light off. At first it was pitch black. Moving along the counter she stubbed her toe on a metal waste paper bin and let out a curse. Working mostly by feel, she got the photographic paper into the plate and waited for a few moments to let it dry. By now her eyes had adjusted and the faint red light was enough to allow her to slot the plate into the developer.

  As she waited, her thoughts drifted to Will and his problems with the obesity project. So much of scientific discovery came down to luck. That was what no one told you when you were starting out. It was impossible to predict whether your project would be the one to make medical history, no way of knowing if the horse you were backing would be the one to win the race. But soon she would know if her own gamble had paid off…

  She came to herself with a start. She had heard something so familiar that it hadn’t registered at first: the hiss of the pneumatic door just outside the darkroom. Someone had come into the lab. They had probably just popped in to check on a culture – she did that often enough herself. But she didn’t like not knowing who was there, and she found herself listening. Because if they were just checking something, it wouldn’t take them long and she’d hear them leaving the lab.

  But then time was up with the developer, it spewed out the photograph, and here it came, the moment of truth. She switched on the light and was dazzled. She seized the photograph. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. She could scarcely have been more anxious for the result if it was a pregnancy test. She held it up and couldn’t immediately process what she was seeing. There was just a ghostly grey outline. As she went on staring at it, her hands began to tremble. Her protein hadn’t appeared. This wasn’t just a weak or ambiguous result. This was no result at all.