An Air That Kills

by Christine Poulson

  There was no more news from the hospital that day. Katie put in a full day in the lab doing her work as a technician. She went back to the flat, updated Lyle, and made supper. Then she went back to the lab to do her second, secret job, starting all over again to duplicate Claudia’s experiment.

  At about ten, she called it a day and headed back up the hill. It always seemed so dark once she was beyond the security lights of the lab building. Just after the arcade with its battered statues, and before she reached the trees, she paused to look up at the stars. She turned off the torch on her phone and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. What an extraordinary feeling it was, gazing up at the night sky. She almost felt she could lose herself in its vastness. In spare moments over a meal or a cup of tea, she’d been looking at the Pocket Sky Atlas that Justin had given her. She tried to look for the constellations she’d seen there, but it was difficult with the naked eye. She could see Orion and the Milky Way and –

  The next moment her body had stiffened and all her senses were on high alert. She’d heard something, but what? And where had the sound come from? Somewhere behind her?

  She fumbled with her phone and managed to get the torch back on. She swung the beam round and pointed it back the way she had come. The light that had been adequate for finding her way seemed hardly to penetrate the darkness. She ran the feeble beam down the path and along the arcade of statues. Nothing moved. She stood and listened. No sound. Then a little rustle in the shrubs close by. That was probably what she had heard before. Some small nocturnal animal, that was all.

  She let out her breath in a sigh of relief and walked on. Her contemplative mood had gone and even though she knew rationally that there was nothing to fear, the back of her neck was prickling as she made her way through the trees. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that she wasn’t alone. She had reached the woods now and it was all she could do not to run the rest of the way. But she couldn’t let herself lose control. She forced herself to walk in a measured way.

  Safely back, it was good to know that all being well she wouldn’t have to work so late again. She was exhausted but strung out and she knew she’d find it hard to sleep. She wanted to talk to Justin and sent him a text to see if he was still awake, but got no reply. She made herself some hot milk and put a good slug of whisky in it. She got into bed to drink it.

  Lying back on the pillows, she thought about her conversation with Tarquin and the way Maddie and Bill had avoided her questions. She felt sure that there was something they weren’t telling her. She thought of those scary movies where a community harbours some dark secret – The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby. Absurd, of course, but all the same she didn’t like it here. She wondered how soon she could reasonably get away if it turned out that there was nothing wrong with Claudia’s work. A few weeks, a month? How would Claudia feel about losing yet another technician?

  The milk had done the trick. She was beginning to feel drowsy. She turned off the light and snuggled down in bed. She was on the very edge of sleep, almost dreaming, scenes from the day drifting into her mind, when she was jolted awake by a sudden realization.

  She knew now that something had not been right earlier. When she had swung the beam of light along the arcade, there had been a statue in every niche. And there shouldn’t have been. There was one niche that should have been empty.

  * * *

  Perhaps she’d been mistaken and that niche was not empty, or maybe the missing statue had been repaired and replaced. But that hope was dashed when she passed it on her way down to the lab the following morning. The statue was still missing. Perhaps she’d imagined seeing it the night before? It had been so dark. And how closely had she really looked?

  She stood where she had stood on the path the night before and tried to remember what she had seen.

  The niche was the one that was most distant and she was looking at it from an angle. Had she perhaps seen the shadow cast by the side of it, rather than an actual figure?

  That must be it. All this cloak and dagger stuff was having a bad effect on her. Why would anyone have been following her? She decided to put it out of her mind.

  But that was easier said than done. She couldn’t help thinking about Tarquin’s stories of a ghostly figure. But wasn’t the ghost of Debussy Point supposed to be accompanied by a black dog? Oh, but this was ridiculous! It was probably all her imagination.

  She was still distracted and troubled as she entered the lab. Nevertheless, she got down to work at her desk.

  It was nearly time to get up and go to the canteen when Maddie came rushing in, her face a picture of horror.

  Katie pushed her chair back. “What on earth’s the matter?” Everyone else had already left for coffee and they were alone in the lab.

  “They’re closing my lab!” Maddie blurted out.

  “What?” Katie got to her feet.

  Maddie was on the brink of tears. She flapped a hand at Katie to indicate that she couldn’t speak.

  “Here, sit down.” Katie pushed a chair round and Maddie sank down into it. Katie put her hands on Maddie’s shoulders and looked into her scared white face. “OK, slow deep breaths. That’s it.”

  Katie waited while Maddie got herself under control. She sat down opposite and said, “Now tell me all about it.”

  In a voice that still quavered, Maddie said, “Bill’s just rung me and told me that I can’t go into our Cat 3 lab. The health and safety people are sealing it up. They’re down there right now.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, Caitlin. Gemma’s got malaria! She’s got falciparum malaria!”

  “No!” Katie stared at her in horror. Falciparum malaria! That was the most dangerous kind. Though Katie had been the one to suggest it, she understood now that she hadn’t really believed it. It had been a remote possibility – well, hardly even that. It had been way out there on the spectrum; something it would be prudent to exclude. But now that the diagnosis had been confirmed...

  “So they’ve started treatment?”

  “Yes, but she’s still very, very ill. Bill told me that her sister’s arranging for a priest to visit her. Does that mean they think she might be dying? Caitlin, she’s only forty-two!”

  They sat and looked at each other. Even though Katie had suspected something pretty serious, this still came as a shock.

  “I don’t think it necessarily means that,” she said, while wondering if it did. “Now that they know, they can get going with the right treatment and she can start getting better.” She only hoped they were in time.

  Maddie said, “How could she have got it from our lab?”

  And if she did, could it somehow be your fault? Katie knew that was what Maddie would be thinking, because it was what she would be thinking.

  Maddie began to cry, soundlessly, tears welling up and rolling down her cheeks. Katie pulled a handful of tissues out of the box on her bench and pressed them into Maddie’s hands.

  “OK, OK,” Katie said, “let’s calm down and just think this through. Of course they have to close the lab. That’s the protocol. They have to eliminate the possibility. But it doesn’t mean that they really think she got it from there.”

  “I just can’t think how it could have happened.” Maddie dabbed at her face.

  “And that’s because it’s virtually certain that it didn’t. It isn’t as if Gemma was working in your lab. I mean, has she even set foot in it? For goodness’ sake, she hardly ever visited Claudia, who’s actually her own postdoc.”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing her down there. And even if she had been, why would she have gone through to the Cat 3 area? That’s the only place there’s any risk of contact with mosquitoes that are carrying malaria.” The colour was coming back into Maddie’s cheeks. “That’s right. Now that I think about it, there’s really no way she could have caught it from our mozzies.”

  “And no one is in a better position than you to know that,” Katie pointed out. “The way you run that lab – you�
��re always so careful in your record-keeping.”

  “Of course.” She took her phone from her jeans pocket and checked the time. “I’ve got to meet Bill down in the lab. Better go. Thanks, Caitlin. I was over-reacting. I was just so upset about Gemma, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  She got to her feet and they hugged.

  Maddie said, “Are you going to the Burns Night dinner?”

  “Oh, it’s tonight,” Katie said. In the rush of events she’d forgotten all about it. “Will it still be on, do you think?”

  Maddie thought about this. “I’ll check with Tarquin. And thanks again. Meet you a bit later for a cup of tea? I’ve brought in some chocolate éclairs.”

  “Lovely. See you in the staffroom about four?”

  Maddie went off, looking much brighter.

  But after she’d gone and the others began to return from their break, Katie went on pondering the situation. It was true, what she had said to Maddie: it was almost impossible to see how Gemma could have got infected in the lab. It wasn’t that accidents couldn’t happen, but with a blood-borne disease you generally knew that they had happened. The most common was a “stick” accident; in other words, a slip that resulted in a hypodermic needle penetrating the double gloves that were always worn. But for that to happen, Gemma would have had to visit the Cat 3 malaria lab, which was the only place where the mosquitoes were infected with malaria – and she hadn’t. She wasn’t involved in malaria research. She would have no reason for being there.

  She must have contracted it in the field, even though it was vanishingly rare for falciparum malaria to lie dormant for that length of time.

  In theory, Gemma could not have contracted malaria, but in fact she had.

  Katie wondered if they would definitely be able to rule out the involvement of the lab. She hoped so, because one possibility was that the source of Gemma’s infection would never be known for sure, leaving a shadow over the lab. Something tugged at her memory. Hadn’t there been a case? Smallpox, wasn’t it? She went online and yes, in 1978 Janet Parker, a medical photographer at the University of Birmingham, had somehow contracted the virus, which had been grown in a research lab on the floor below her workplace. There’d been no doubt about the source, but the mode of transmission had never been fully established. She had been the last person in the UK to die of smallpox and it had been a terrible scandal.

  Of course, smallpox was airborne, whereas for malaria, you had to have been bitten by a mosquito carrying the parasite, or been infected somehow in the lab. Could an infected mosquito have somehow managed to get out of the Cat 3 lab? Katie thought of the lab’s negative airflow and HEPA filters. They were designed to prevent the escape of something as small as an airborne virus, and would have no trouble coping with something as huge – in relative terms – as a mosquito. She considered the distance from the lab up to Gemma’s cottage and the bitter January weather. No, even if a mosquito had managed to escape – which it couldn’t – then it wouldn’t have survived long enough to infect Gemma.

  * * *

  It was just before four when she made her way to the staffroom. The glass door was ajar and, as Katie approached it, she saw a reflection of Claudia standing in front of the open door of the fridge. Katie stopped in her tracks, alerted by something furtive in Claudia’s demeanour. It came to her that perhaps it was Claudia who was the sandwich thief.

  Claudia looked round as if to check that no one was watching. Then she reached into the fridge for something – Katie couldn’t see what – and slipped it into her handbag.

  Katie hung back for a few more moments and made plenty of noise coming in so as to give Claudia time to get away from the fridge.

  She was standing by the sink, filling the kettle. She turned and smiled a friendly, relaxed smile. A butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth smile. “Oh hi, Caitlin. Fancy a coffee?”

  “Yeah, great. Thanks.” Katie went and got two mugs off the shelf.

  “Milk?”

  “Please.”

  Perfect. That would give her a chance to see if Maddie’s éclairs were still there.

  She opened the fridge, reached for the milk carton, and scanned the shelves at the same time. No éclairs. Katie straightened up, carton in hand, and looked round the room. Claudia’s shoulder bag was now hanging from the back of a chair.

  At that moment, Maddie came in and Katie’s suspicions were confirmed. Maddie looked in vain for the éclairs. When Katie saw the disappointment and anger on her face, she toyed with the idea of “accidentally” knocking Claudia’s bag off the chair so that the contents spilled onto the floor. But no, better not to let Claudia know that she suspected. Best for now to keep it to herself.

  Maddie said, “Who can be doing this?”

  Claudia tut-tutted. “It’s too bad,” she added.

  Katie had to admit that she put on a convincing show. This was interesting, very interesting. She needed to think about it. She was pretty certain that it was Claudia who had taken those éclairs. If so, Claudia was a thief who didn’t have any scruples about stealing from her colleagues. And was perfectly happy to lie about it. There was a meanness there that was deeply unattractive. She surely didn’t need the things she was taking. So why was she doing it? Because she could and she liked getting one over on other people? Or was it that she saw something she wanted and just took it, as simple as that.

  Of course, it didn’t necessarily follow that Claudia was faking her results, but it did throw a less than flattering light on her character.

  CHAPTER 29

  “Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,

  Great chieftain o’ the puddin’-race!

  Aboon them a’ ye tak your place

  Painch, tripe, or thairm:

  Weel are ye worthy o’ a grace

  As lang’s my arm...”

  Tarquin was giving the recitation everything he’d got. Katie saw from the programme that the “Address to a Haggis” continued for another six verses. She settled back in her seat.

  Earlier, Tarquin had told her that there had been some debate about whether the Burns Night supper should be cancelled, but in the end it was decided to go ahead. Hopefully now that the diagnosis had been confirmed and treatment started, Gemma would soon turn the corner. The dinner was a bigger affair than she had imagined, with outside caterers and a greater degree of formality than she was expecting, even a printed menu and souvenir programme. She was impressed by the extent of the organization that had gone into this.

  The event took place in the main hall of the house. The long mahogany table gleamed in the light of candles set in a silver candelabra. The stained-glass panels glowed, the candlelight picking out rich tints of ruby, emerald, and sapphire.

  There were about thirty people there. Caspar was at one end of the table and Tarquin at the other. Katie was sitting to Tarquin’s right, with Maddie’s boyfriend Patrick, a shaggy-haired outdoor type, on her other side. She had spotted Bill further down the table. She wondered who had arranged the seating plan. Tarquin, presumably, but whatever, it suited her very well and she intended to take advantage of the occasion to pump him.

  The invitation had stipulated evening dress. She had fretted about what to wear in her persona as Caitlin and in the end she had consulted Julia at the detective agency. She had drawn the line at wearing a jumpsuit, which was what Julia had said was “very on-trend”. They had compromised and Katie was wearing chiffon trousers in petrol blue, with a satin stripe down the side and a halter-neck top to match. Julia had rushed them to her by special delivery, along with a pair of what were apparently called sock boots – who knew? They turned out to be a kind of ankle boot with very high spike heels in glittery green. Not for the first time Katie thought, My own mother wouldn’t recognize me, as she examined herself in the mirror.

  She had been relieved to see that everyone else was also dressed up to the nines. Tarquin was looking terrific in Scottish evening dress: a kilt and sporran, a black evening jacket and black bow-tie,
and knee socks with well-polished black brogues.

  They had had drinks in an ante-room and she had allowed herself a whisky. Then the guests had processed into the dining room accompanied by live music played on the bagpipes. Robbie, one of the security guards, glamorous in tartan trews, had been called on to say the traditional Selkirk Grace.

  “‘Some hae meat and canna eat,’” he intoned. “‘And some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat and we can eat, sae let the Lord be Thankit.’”

  The first course had been cullen skink, a soup of smoked haddock and potatoes, and then they all stood while the haggis, the centrepiece of the supper, was paraded around the hall, followed by the bagpiper playing “A Man’s a Man for A’ That”. She knew it was this because she’d heard Tarquin singing it under his breath. The plangency of the tune, both rousing and mournful, had sent the hairs up on the back of her neck.

  She became aware of a sudden movement beside her and looked round to see Tarquin raising a large knife above his head. “‘His knife see rustic Labour dight, An cut you up wi ready slight’,” he declared. There were cheers around the room and the knife flashed down into the haggis. It burst open, spilling the savoury contents of minced lamb’s offal, oatmeal, onion, and spices. Steam rose up and people clapped.

  There were still several verses to go, but, at last, it was over and they could actually eat the thing. Waitresses in black with white aprons began serving up haggis with potatoes and mashed swede – or “neeps and tatties” as the menu had it.

  Tarquin said, “Caitlin, can I help you to a glass of wine, or are you sticking with Scotch?”

  “A glass of red, please,” Katie said, adding to herself, And only a glass or two at the most, more’s the pity. Julia’s advice was ringing in her ears: “Do not, do NOT, I repeat, have too much to drink. That’s when you’ll give yourself away. You’re not there to enjoy yourself. You’re there to do a job of work. On the other hand,” she’d added with a glint in her eye, “I couldn’t possibly advise you to ply anyone with alcohol, but if someone else should choose to have too much to drink, I will just say that people are much more likely to spill the beans when they are under the influence.”