An Air That Kills

by Christine Poulson

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  * * *

  The evening was still and, as Katie and Bill walked up towards the house, their feet crunched on the gravel. There was still a little light left in the sky. As they walked, they chatted, and Katie was not surprised to learn that there was a thriving online community of what Bill called moth-ers and that Bill’s twitter handle was hashtag Moth-er.

  They took a path through the wood that Katie hadn’t explored yet and came out at a gazebo that overlooked the headland and the sea.

  “I keep the trap well away from the house so that the light doesn’t bother anyone,” Bill explained. “And also so that the lights of the house don’t attract the moths. It’s part of a national scheme. I record them once a week.”

  The moth trap was a large wooden box with a bulb standing up in it like a standard lamp without a shade.

  Bill went on, “I use a mercury vapour light. The moths are attracted by it and spiral down into the box. I never know what I’m going to find in the morning and that’s what keeps me going. Of course at this time of the year, it’s often slim pickings.”

  “I’ve often wondered what attracts them to the light,” Katie said.

  “No one really knows for sure, but the best guess is that they use the moon and the stars as navigational aids. They fly at a constant angle to, say, the moon, but when they fly past the man-made light, the angle is different and their flying pattern is disrupted. I don’t just rely on the light, though. I’ve got a pheromone trap inside as well.”

  Once the trap was set up, they headed back to the lab. Katie was considering how best to broach the subject of her predecessor. She judged that the direct approach would work best with Bill. She didn’t think he was the subtle type. She was about to plunge in when Bill spoke.

  “How are you settling in?” he asked.

  She seized her chance. “Oh, fine thanks, though it was a bit of a scramble getting here at such short notice.”

  “Lucky you were available.”

  “Yeah, I’d just got back from travelling, so I was able to do it. Must have been a humdinger of a row that my predecessor had with Claudia. I haven’t liked to ask her what it was about.”

  “Oh, something and nothing, I would guess,” Bill said vaguely. “And with women, you know... it can be difficult –” He broke off as he realized that Katie had stopped walking and was staring at him.

  “What can be difficult?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t take it all that seriously. I mean, two women in a kitchen and then maybe the time of the month and all that,” he mumbled, not meeting her eye.

  “You’re not seriously suggesting that Sophie did a bunk because she was suffering from PMT?”

  “Well, when you put it like that, no, of course not, but –”

  “And she wasn’t the first technician who didn’t last long, was she? One of the others was a man. He didn’t have PMT!”

  “Sorry, Caitlin. I’ve put my foot in it. I don’t really know what went wrong between Sophie and Claudia. Probably a personality clash – one that had nothing to do with them being women,” he added hastily. “It does happen.”

  Katie relented. “That’s true. All the same, if Claudia can be difficult, I’d rather know. Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Bill thought about this. “She’s been alright with me, but of course we don’t work together. I haven’t heard anything – honestly – and anyway, I was away on a field trip until recently.”

  Katie was inclined to think that he really didn’t know what had gone wrong between Claudia and Sophie. She wasn’t sure that he had the social skills to dissemble, and anyway he was the kind of guy who’d probably be oblivious to swirling undercurrents of emotion.

  CHAPTER 14

  Back in her flat she got undressed and put her pyjamas on.

  When she was out shopping for her new wardrobe, Vicky had indicated with a raised eyebrow that the jeans she was already wearing were hopelessly uncool. She tried on the ones Vicky had selected and she had complained, “They’re so tight. It’s like wearing a corset.” “That’s kind of the idea,” Vicky had said. Now Katie peeled them off with a sigh of relief.

  She uncorked the bottle of wine she had opened the night before and poured a glass. She made herself an omelet and had some cheese and fruit. If she had lunch in the canteen every day, she was going to be able to subsist for a while on what Justin and Siobhan had provided and needn’t go shopping on the mainland.

  After supper she got out the iPad and sent an email to Lyle: “So far, so good. I’m going to give myself a couple of days to get my bearings, and then I’ll find an opportunity to photograph Claudia’s lab books.”

  It was unfortunate that Claudia, too, lived on site. What had been the kitchens of the old house had been made into flats and she was in one of those. It was going to limit Katie’s opportunities for prowling around the lab without the risk of Claudia coming in and asking her what she was doing. It would have been better if she’d lived on the mainland. However, she had a boyfriend in London and was away at weekends a lot, so that would help.

  She took her glass over to the window-seat. As she sat gazing out into the night, she took stock.

  So, the first day was over and Maddie was her new best friend. She felt a twinge of conscience, but reminded herself that she wasn’t spying on Maddie. Her undercover work was solely concerned with Claudia and her research. Lyle had made it clear that he couldn’t care less about who was sleeping with whom or if someone was pinching Post-it notes from the office. She’d been instructed to ignore anything like that. So her friendship with Maddie couldn’t do Maddie any harm, and anyway she did genuinely like her.

  But who was she fooling? Katie was sailing under false colours and lying by default. Maddie was bound to be upset when she found out. Though – did she have to find out? Suppose there was nothing wrong with the work that was being done here? If Katie could establish that, she could leave and be just one more person who hadn’t been able to hack it at Debussy Point.

  Still, there was something corrupting in a subtle kind of way about Katie’s situation. Yes, she was genuinely interested in getting to know people, but at the same time, she was constantly assessing them in terms of how useful they were likely to be for her project.

  She poured out another glass of wine and roamed around the flat. It was awfully hot. She turned the central heating down and opened the window a crack. She went into the bathroom and cleaned off her make-up. What a bore that was and she hadn’t anticipated how exhausting it would be – living a double life, having to think about every word that came out of her mouth. Even then she had nearly broken her cover by almost mentioning that she’d been in Antarctica. She was going to have to be so very careful.

  It was a lonely business. Should she ring Justin for a chat, she wondered? She had both her phones – the Caitlin phone and the Katie phone – on the kitchen work surface. One of them buzzed. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that it was the Katie phone and there was a text from Justin. “Let’s FaceTime. You can show me round your flat.”

  “Hey, it’s really nice,” he said later, as she walked him round on a virtual tour.

  “It is,” she agreed. She didn’t want to tell him that, though she was fine once she was in the apartment with the door locked, she didn’t like the walk through the shrubbery in the dark, and the stuffed birds in their cases on the landing gave her the creeps.

  “I wish I was there with you,” he said. “It’d be a great place to do some star-gazing together. There won’t be much light pollution. Nothing like as good as the Antarctic, of course, but pretty clear all the same.”

  Katie thought of the times they had gone out together, muffled up in layers and layers of clothes, to gaze at the night sky and to watch the rippling Southern lights.

  She sighed. “I’d love to do that. I wish I could invite you. But it’s too risky. I’ve go
t to keep my life here and my real life separate.”

  “I know. But I’ve been thinking. Surely there’s nothing to stop us meeting somewhere else; somewhere we’re not likely to run into anyone from Debussy Point. Bath, maybe, or Wells? We could book into a hotel.”

  She was in the bedroom by now. She propped herself up on the pillows with the iPad resting against her knees.

  “Well...” She was tempted, not so much by the thought of the city as by the thought of Justin and a night in a hotel. Surely celibacy wasn’t part of the deal? And there’d be the opportunity to talk things over, to relax and be herself. It was clearly going to be a strain, playing a part all the time.

  On the other hand, she had a lot of work to do. It didn’t seem right to go off for the weekend so soon. But how she longed to see Justin – to feel his arms around her.

  She said, “I ought to make the most of the labs being more or less empty on Saturday, but perhaps I could get away in the late afternoon and then stay over. I’d have to be back by Sunday evening.”

  “Great! What do you say to Wells? It’s midway between us and it’s a nice little city – got a cathedral, good hotels, and places to eat out.”

  “That’d be lovely.”

  “I’ve got TripAdvisor up now,” Justin went on. “The White Hart sounds nice. View of the cathedral. Eggs Benedict for breakfast. What do you say, Katie?”

  Five minutes later the room had been booked and they’d agreed to meet there for dinner at seven thirty. That would give Katie the day to work and she could leave Debussy Point around five for the two-hour drive. The thought of their meeting would be something to hug to herself for the rest of the week.

  They said goodnight and hung up. She ought to go to bed, though it would probably take her ages to get to sleep. She had plenty of books on her Kindle, but it would be better not to be looking at a screen. There was a shelf with a few books that had been left by the previous occupant, including one about Debussy Point and the history of the house and garden. She took that to bed with her.

  She learned that the banqueting hall in the old house was decorated with stained-glass panels designed by Morris and Company, telling the story of the Quest for the Holy Grail. She decided to have a look at them in the morning. There was a map of the garden, and apparently the statues in the garden were of Arthurian figures too: Merlin, Launcelot, Morgan le Fay and so on. Oh, and there was a maze! She hadn’t seen it this morning because it was on the other side of the house. That would be fun to explore.

  Her eyes began to close, so she put the book to one side. She dropped off quickly, but had a restless night, never far from the surface. She’d never liked insects and there had been something disturbing about the visit to the insectary. Her jumbled, broken dreams featured swarms of mosquitoes. She woke with a start, certain that she’d heard a droning buzz close to her ear. She lay on her back, her heart thumping, listening intently. Of course there was nothing. The mosquitoes were safely shut away deep below the ground in the basement of the laboratories. It was only a dream.

  CHAPTER 15

  TUESDAY

  The brilliant winter sunshine shone through the glass panels and dust motes, dyed sapphire, emerald, and ruby danced in the rays.

  Katie had gone into the banqueting hall for a quick look before she headed down to the lab. It was an impressively large room and her footsteps echoed on the parquet floor.

  She gazed at the panels, struck by the richness of their colour and the intricate patterns of knights and horses, shields and spears, flowers and foliage. There were labels on the wall below them, telling the story. The first panel showed King Arthur and the Round Table, and a damsel summoning the knights to the quest. Katie followed the story from one window to the next: the arming and departure of the knights, the failure of Sir Launcelot because of his love for Guinevere, the failure of Sir Gawain. There was a sadness and a solemnity to the procession of figures.

  She came to the last window. It showed Sir Galahad in a chapel with the Grail depicted as a jewelled chalice on an altar.

  “That’s my favourite,” said a voice behind her.

  She turned and saw Caspar.

  He said, “I saw the door was ajar and I wondered who was in here. Oh, don’t worry –” seeing the question in her face –”it’s absolutely fine. I often pop in here myself when I need a few moments’ peace and quiet. Galahad was the only knight who could actually see the Grail, because he was the only one who was pure enough. It’s rather touching. It is actually a memorial window. Sir Galahad is a portrait of Arthur Benton, the only son of Hugh Benton.”

  Katie saw now that there was an inscription: “In memory of Arthur Thomas Benton, died 23rd August 1914, aged 20.”

  “That’s so sad,” she said.

  “His father left his fortune to the university, along with this house and land, on condition that they established a centre for veterinary medicine. The son had been a keen horseman, you see, and he was in one of the cavalry brigades. You can see the crest there in the glass.”

  “I’ve been wondering – what actually was the Grail?”

  “It was supposed to be the chalice that Christ drank from at the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to collect the blood of Christ on the cross, and there’s a myth that he brought the Grail to Britain. He was supposed to be associated with Glastonbury. If you’re interested, I could lend you a copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. That tells the English version of the quest.”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  It struck her that Caspar was like Michael, her old supervisor, who had died so tragically early – a dedicated scientist, but someone with a hinterland. She still missed Michael and the stimulating conversations over lunch that might begin with gene sequences and mitochondrial DNA and end with Albert Camus or the late Beethoven quartets. That was the kind of scientist she aspired to be.

  “I often think that we have something in common with these guys,” Caspar mused as they went on gazing up at the window together. “We’re all on a quest, aren’t we, looking for a cure for cancer or malaria?”

  “Or trying to anticipate and prevent a flu pandemic,” Katie agreed.

  They hadn’t noticed the door into the hall opening. “You’re such a romantic, Caspar,” a woman’s voice said. And not in a nice way. Caspar flushed.

  Katie recognized her from her photo in the dossier – this was Gemma Braithwaite. She was wearing what Katie, newly conscious of other people’s clothes, recognized as a very expensive sweater in fuchsia. Cashmere, for sure. It suited her dark colouring. With her high arched eyebrows and the hair that sprang back from her forehead, she was a handsome woman.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, looking at Katie.

  “Oh, haven’t you met yet? This is Caitlin Marsh,” Caspar said. “Caitlin, this is Professor Gemma Braithwaite.”

  Gemma frowned. “Should I know –”

  “She’s your new technician, Gemma,” Caspar protested.

  “Oh, sorry. Yes, of course. How are you settling in?” The apology and the enquiry were perfunctory. As she spoke, she pulled up a sleeve and scratched her arm, frowning.

  “Fine, thanks,” Katie said, amused by her rudeness. It was so blatant. Gemma regarded her as so far down the pecking order that she hadn’t bothered to remember her name and didn’t feel the need to disguise this. Or to refrain from scratching. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that Gemma had no idea who the new technician really was.

  Gemma pulled her sleeve down and turned to Caspar. “I need to have a word with you. You’re free, are you?” It didn’t sound like a question.

  He nodded. “My office?”

  She nodded and turned to lead the way, expecting him to follow her. It was almost as if she were the one in charge.

  Katie looked at Caspar. He rolled his eyes and made a gesture of apology before he set off across the hall.

  As Katie went to the lab, she wondered if Gemma being so unpleasant could have anything
to do with the rapid turnover of technicians. But Claudia had said that Gemma was rarely in the lab, so it was unlikely she would have had many opportunities to upset Katie’s predecessor. Even so, it was worth thinking about, because the people higher up the pecking order did tend to set the tone.

  She felt sorry for anyone who was in Gemma’s power. It would be worth digging further into how Claudia felt about her. The relationship between the principal investigator and their postdoc researcher could be fraught. Gemma would expect results and Katie suspected that she wouldn’t be above exerting pressure to make that happen. Claudia might be tempted to cut corners to please her boss.

  On the other hand, Gemma might be an entirely different person when dealing with an admiring protégée. Some people were like that. Though come to think of it, the brusque way she had spoken to Caspar, and that little dig, suggested that she didn’t discriminate. Perhaps she was just nasty to everyone.

  Was there perhaps some history between Caspar and Gemma? They had spent time together doing research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – she remembered reading that in the dossier. Perhaps their relationship hadn’t been purely professional? That would explain a lot. Caspar was married, she knew, but his wife was another high-flying academic working in the States, so they spent a lot of time apart. Details of both his and Gemma’s marital status had been in the dossier from the agency. Gemma was divorced, with no current partner as far Julia had been able to ascertain.

  CHAPTER 16

  As Katie headed for the lab, she thought about the Grail legend. She wondered why Sir Gawain had failed in the quest. The label hadn’t explained that. The Arthurian legends were one of those things that you thought you knew about from films and watching episodes of Merlin on TV, but how much did she know really? It might be interesting to find out more.

  Someone was walking behind her, feet crunching on the gravel. She turned to see a young man dressed in a red and black plaid jacket with binoculars on a strap around his neck. His hair was cut in a slicked-back pompadour, he had a big, bushy beard and an earring in one ear. This had to be Tarquin.