Deep Water

by Christine Poulson

  As soon as he’d hung up she said, “Come on, come on, they might get away – and Will’s on his own up there – ”

  “Hold your horses, hold your horses,” he muttered.

  He looked around as if searching for a weapon of some kind. He reached behind the desk and grabbed a large torch.

  “You stay here,” he said.

  “Oh, no, no!”

  “Yes.” He was adamant. “Someone needs to let the police in. Come round here. This button opens the door.”

  Reluctantly she went round the desk and sat in Malcolm’s chair. She watched him head up the stairs and disappear from view.

  There was a large clock on the wall by the desk. She watched the second hand jerk round. A minute passed, then another. She couldn’t help listening for the police to arrive, straining to hear sirens, though she knew they couldn’t possibly be there yet.

  As it came up to the four-minute mark, something happened. There was a vibration that she felt to her core, as if something had seized her and shaken her. Afterwards she recalled that time seemed to be suspended and that she had to wait for the sound of the explosion to reach her, but in reality it could only have been a split second. The silence that followed rang in her ears. Then the fire alarm went off and the air was full of its clanging racket.

  She got to her feet as calmly as if she had all the time in the world. Her thought processes had slowed almost to a standstill. She was half way to the stairs before she thought, No. She went back to the phone. She noted with interest that her fingers trembled as she pushed in the numbers. She told the operator to send an ambulance and alert the fire brigade. She hung up and pressed the button that released the door and propped it open with a waste paper basket.

  She sprinted up the stairs. As she reached the first floor, a billowing cloud of plaster dust came tumbling down the stairs towards her. She pushed on, gasping and coughing.

  At the top of the stairs to the third floor she found Will lying on the floor, struggling to raise himself on one elbow. He was coated in plaster dust. When she bent down to ask him if he was alright, he looked at her as if he didn’t understand. She asked again, but he shook his head. She realized that he had been deafened by the blast.

  The corridor was in darkness, and automatically she put up her hand to switch on the light. Will grabbed her leg and she looked down to see him frantically shaking his head.

  “Gas!” he shouted.

  He was on his knees now and she helped him stagger to his feet.

  “Where’s Malcolm?” she shouted, forgetting that he couldn’t hear. But he understood anyway. He shook his head and pointed down the corridor. It wasn’t just dark, it was opaque with dust. He went groping into it, coughing and spluttering, and she followed him.

  At the door of the lab Katie fell over Malcolm, landing heavily on her knees. She could hear him groaning – he was alive at least, thank God. She groped around, found his hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back.

  Cold night air flowed over her. Will must have gone into the lab and opened a window.

  Behind her came the sound of boots thudding up the stairs. A powerful flashlight raked the darkness in which dust was slowly settling. Then strong arms were round her. She wanted to protest, to say that she couldn’t leave Malcolm, but it was no good, the virtue was draining out of her. Her legs were trembling. She was weak now, too weak to resist, and she let herself be lifted to her feet and led away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Have you heard the news?”

  With an effort Daniel tore his attention away from the lab book. Alison was standing in the doorway. She was still wearing her outdoor clothes, including a bobble hat, at odds with the rest of her svelte appearance.

  He glanced at his watch. Half past eight. He’d arrived in the office at seven. He’d got up without waking Rachel and left her a note. He sometimes did this when he was really up against it at work, and she wouldn’t think anything of it.

  On the way in, he had posted the toothbrushes to the DNA testing lab.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “There’s been an explosion at Calliope Biotech. I heard on my car radio on the way in.”

  “No!”

  “It’ll be on the BBC News website.”

  She came and stood behind him while he called it up. Under “Breaking News” he read: “Explosion at biotech lab near Ely late last night – reports of casualties.”

  He opened his inbox to see if there was anything from Honor. He hadn’t looked at his emails yet, preferring to make the most of the quiet time before everyone else arrived in the office. But there was nothing – not even an answer to the email he had sent her the night before.

  “Can you get me Honor on the phone, Alison?”

  She came back a few minutes later to say that she couldn’t get through.

  “Go on trying, and keep an eye on the website, would you, and let me know if there are any developments?”

  She nodded. “Coffee?”

  “Please. And don’t put any calls through unless it’s Honor. I’ve got to get on with this.”

  He focused on the lab book and put everything else out of his mind. He was working on the one that came chronologically before the one that had been missing. He grew more and more absorbed, following the ups and downs of the research project, making notes as he went. He could enter into Will’s frustration and impatience when things seemed to reach a dead end, and the hope when a way round was discovered, or a flaw in an experiment detected. He reached the end of the lab book. There was important work in it, but he would have to work his way through the next one – the one he’d found at Jennifer’s – and the one after it before he could be certain of their case.

  Around ten o’clock, Alison brought in another cup of coffee and a croissant.

  “I still haven’t managed to get hold of Honor,” she said. “But there’s more news on the website. Two men were injured and one of them’s in a critical condition. It didn’t give their names.”

  “Keep trying Honor,” he said.

  She nodded and went out and he turned his attention to the lab book, the one that they had found at Jennifer’s house.

  Half an hour later he pushed his chair back, frowning. Was there something not quite right here? On the face of it, the lab book was perfectly OK. The writing was Will’s alright, and the whole style of record-keeping was what he’d expect from the earlier lab books, right down to the scribbles in the margin. Perhaps it wasn’t the actual book that was bothering him but the circumstances in which he’d found it. He had been so preoccupied with Harry and the DNA testing that he hadn’t really thought that through. In spite of what he’d said to Bryony, was there something odd about Jennifer going to such lengths to conceal the lab book? Something even a little bit paranoid? OK, so she had taken it home to work on it over the weekend – which she absolutely should not have done without making a copy – and she had decided to put it somewhere safe. Why wasn’t it safe enough in her study, locked away in a drawer? It was hardly likely that anyone would break in and steal it. It was only valuable to Calliope Biotech – or maybe to the opposing firm in the suit. It wasn’t the kind of thing that an ordinary burglar would take. He remembered what Honor had said about a missed appointment and that she wished she’d asked Lyle to take Jennifer off the case. And Jennifer must have been under a lot of pressure, if she was planning to fight Nick for custody of Harry. He couldn’t imagine the Jennifer he had known letting things slide. But then the Jennifer he’d thought he knew wouldn’t have committed adultery either.

  He rubbed his forehead. There was a tightness around his eyes and he had a headache coming on. Too little sleep, too much coffee. He drank some of the mineral water that Alison kept him supplied with and ate the croissant.

  The effect on his blood sugar was almost instant. His mind cleared and he felt a surge of energy. He saw that he’d overreacted. Understandably; there was a lot of stuff muddying the waters, the involvement of
Jennifer, the mishaps at the lab, and all this with Harry. But once you looked beyond that, was there really a problem? He had the lab book – that was the main thing – and now that he looked at it again, it was really no different from all the others that he’d seen over the years. He riffled through it. No pages missing. They had all been signed off by Honor, who would surely have spotted anything amiss.

  As for Jennifer, he shrugged, no way now of knowing what she’d been thinking. It was simply that he had been spooked by the trip to her house and his sense of her presence there. Rachel had been right. It had been a mistake to take the case. And yet, and yet, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have realized about Harry, and if Harry did turn out to be his son…

  He shook his head, annoyed with himself. He was doing it again – letting his mind wander.

  He bent his head over the book.

  Ten minutes later, Alison buzzed through to say that she had Honor on the line.

  Daniel picked up the phone.

  “Daniel?” she said.

  “What’s happened, Honor? Who’s been hurt?”

  “One of my security staff was injured, but not too badly, he’ll be OK. But my chief technician is in the head injuries unit at Addenbrooke’s. He’s in a critical condition.”

  She sounded exhausted and he guessed that she hadn’t had much sleep last night. A thought struck him.

  “Your chief technician? Is that the guy I met yesterday in the car park?”

  “That’s him, Ian Gladwill.”

  Ian Gladwill! The guy had rung him yesterday and it had gone clean out of his mind. He had meant to ring him back, but he hadn’t.

  “How did it happen?”

  “It was gas. But we don’t quite know what happened yet. The police are looking into it.”

  He sensed that she was holding something back.

  She went on. “I need to go over to the hospital. I only just read your email a few minutes ago. It’s good news. You’ve got everything you need now, haven’t you?”

  “The lab book – the one that was missing – is open in front of me as we speak.”

  “Ah good, that’s fine then. I’ll let you get on.”

  They hung up.

  Poor guy. Daniel wondered what Ian had wanted to tell him. Probably something to do with the orders for materials which he said he would look out for Daniel. Those could have filled in some of the gaps if he hadn’t found Will’s lab book.

  It wasn’t anything that could matter now.

  Katie was trying to load up the PCR machine, but she was all fingers and thumbs. She kept dropping the pipette or sucking up too much. And now she was running out of time. And the awful thing, the dreadful thing, was that a child was going to die if she couldn’t get this done tonight. And now someone was knocking at the door of the lab. Why couldn’t they leave her to get on with it?

  She broke the surface of her dream. She was in bed. The sense of relief was exquisite. The knocking began again. So that bit had been real. She groaned and groped for her watch. Half past eleven! How had that happened? And then she remembered. Last night – the explosion…

  She struggled out of bed and pulled a big, warm woolly over her pyjamas.

  The knocking had ceased, but now it began again. “Alright, alright,” she muttered. She went through the saloon and up into the wheelhouse. There was someone standing outside the rain-streaked door. It was Will.

  She unlocked the door, aware as she did so that she hadn’t even brushed her hair.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  A gust of damp, cold air came in and she shuddered.

  “Come in.”

  He came, moving slowly. “You weren’t answering your phone – I just wanted to be sure you were alright. After last night – ”

  She raked her fingers through her hair. “Must have switched it off. I’m fine. I think.”

  “I’m sorry – ”

  “No, no, come through, sit down.”

  He followed her down into the saloon and lowered himself onto the black leather sofa.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “Some nasty bruises – I went down heavily on my backside – and I’ve still got some ringing in my ears.”

  She shivered. “Just let me go and put something on my feet. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She went back into the bedroom and worked her feet into the thick hiking socks that she wore instead of slippers. She gave herself a few moments to orientate herself and brush her hair. Her memories of the night before, after the police had arrived, were just a jumble of snapshots… Malcolm on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance; the horror on Honor’s face when she’d arrived on the scene. The paramedics had checked Katie over and she’d been taken home in a police car. She’d thought she would be too wired for sleep, but she had gone out like a light.

  She went back to the saloon. Will was sitting back with his eyes closed.

  “I’ll light the fire,” she said, and he opened his eyes and smiled.

  She assembled logs and screwed-up paper, and struck a match. When the paper had caught, she closed the door and opened the vents. The flames roared as they took hold.

  “Is there any news?” she asked. “Will Malcolm be alright?”

  “Honor rang me earlier. She says he’ll be OK.”

  Katie sat back on her haunches, warming her hands. “And what about the other person? Who was it?” The last thing she’d seen as the police car drew away was someone else being loaded into the ambulance.

  “Katie.” He reached out to put a hand on her arm. “Come and sit down for a minute.”

  She got up and sat beside him on the sofa, wondering what was coming.

  “There was another person in the lab,” Will said. “Ian was there and he was badly hurt. He was thrown back against a bench and hit his head.”

  Katie stared at him. “Ian? But…”

  “There was no one else in the building. They’re saying that he was the intruder.”

  Intruder! The word conjured up a faceless and shadowy figure dressed in black, wearing a balaclava. She laughed out loud. “Don’t be silly. Ian belonged in the lab. He must have had a reason for being there.”

  “I can’t get my head round it either.”

  “But isn’t it obvious? He must have been working late and heard what we heard. He came to investigate.”

  Above their heads, rain pattered on the roof of the boat.

  “He hadn’t signed the late book,” Will said. “Don’t you remember, we were the only ones in?”

  “Well, people don’t always, do they? Or he might have signed out, then remembered something he’d meant to do and popped back upstairs, thinking he’d just be a few minutes. I’ve done that before. Haven’t you?” Katie shrugged. “And then, you know how it is, one thing leads to another…”

  “It’s easy to lose track of time,” he agreed. “And his office is on the other side of the corridor so we wouldn’t have seen the light on.”

  She could see that he wanted to be convinced.

  Then his face clouded over. “But it doesn’t stack up. Think about it, Katie. What was he doing there in the dark? And why didn’t they find anyone else in the building?”

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” she said stoutly. “There was plenty of time between me leaving Malcolm’s desk and the police arriving for someone to escape.”

  He thought about that.

  A cabin cruiser chugged past, leaving a wake that rocked the boat. It was raining harder now, streaking the windows, blurring the view.

  “You’re right,” Will said. “We should keep an open mind. At least until we see what the police come up with.” He winced and shifted his position.

  “Let’s have some coffee,” Katie said.

  “Good idea.”

  She went over to the galley, and put the kettle on. She needed the loo and went into her bedroom to visit the en suite bathroom. As she washed her hands, she brooded over the fate of her PCR. Would the vibrations
from the explosion have damaged the calibration? It was awful to be worrying about her work when people were lying injured in hospital, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe the whole building was unsafe and they’d have to close the lab completely. She’d already lost so much time.

  She came out of the bathroom. The day had a time-out convalescent feel to it, something to do with still being in pyjamas. The paramedics had warned her that she was probably suffering from shock, and the after-effects could be unpredictable. She felt sleepy, disinclined to make an effort, and a bit chilly. She pulled open one of the drawers under the bed to see if there was a blanket she could wrap herself in.

  The bedroom door was open into the saloon and she heard the theme tune from The Wire. It was the ringtone on Will’s phone. She smiled and shook her head.

  “Oh, hi,” she heard him say, and then, “What?”

  She paused in what she was doing, struck by the concern in his voice. He lowered his voice to a murmur and she didn’t catch what he said next.

  She went on with what she was doing, found a fine wool plaid blanket, more like a shawl, really, and draped it round her shoulders.

  By the time she went into the saloon, he had ended the call and was putting the phone back in his pocket.

  “Everything alright?” she asked.

  “Yeah, fine, thanks; that was Honor.” His tone was casual. “She wants to see me. Logistical problems of how we’re going to keep the work going while the lab – or some of it – is out of commission.”

  “No news about Malcolm or Ian?”

  “Nope. I said I’d go round to her house.”

  He had recovered himself well and if she hadn’t overheard his initial response, she might not have known anything was wrong. Even so, the signs of strain were evident. He couldn’t conceal the tension in his body and he was distracted, not quite there with her.

  He drank his coffee so quickly that he must surely have burned his mouth, and then he said he had to be off.

  She watched through the glass window of the wheelhouse as he limped down the tow path in the rain.

  She went thoughtfully back to the saloon. Maybe it had been Honor on the phone, but she wouldn’t mind betting her next research grant – always supposing there was one – that there was more to it than he had let on.