An Air That Kills

by Christine Poulson

  Tarquin was already hitting the whisky pretty hard, Katie noted. On her other side, it had become apparent that she couldn’t expect anything in the way of polite conversation from Patrick. He only had eyes for Maddie. For her part she certainly seemed to have bounced back from her misery of earlier in the day. They began telling each other kilt jokes in cod Scottish accents.

  “Tell me, my good man, is anything worn under the kilt?”

  “Och, no, madam. It’s all in purr-fect working order.”

  They were in fits of giggles. Katie sighed. Tarquin rolled his eyes.

  Luckily the woman on Tarquin’s left – one of the secretaries – was also fully engaged with her other neighbour, leaving Tarquin free to be monopolized by Katie. She used the time-honoured technique of making herself agreeable: she asked him about himself. She already knew that he had attended Fettes College, the prestigious Edinburgh boarding school where Tony Blair had been educated, and had gone on to Balliol College, Oxford, but she pretended that she didn’t. Then she went on to ask him about his research, and there she didn’t have to feign interest. She aimed to steer the conversation in the direction of Claudia and her research as soon as she judged that the whisky had kicked in and Tarquin’s tongue was loosened.

  But though Tarquin was still putting the whisky away, it seemed to have had little or no impact. He could certainly hold his liquor. And she had reckoned without his good manners. As the haggis plates were cleared away, he said, “But that’s enough about me. What about you, Caitlin?”

  “Oh, I’m not very interesting.”

  “I’m quite sure that’s not true,” Tarquin said, smiling. “Here, let me pour you some more of this rather splendid Burgundy.”

  She shook her head and put her hand over her glass. He would go far. She could imagine him in Caspar’s place, running some prestigious institute in ten or fifteen years. He had the same seemingly effortless ability to manage a conversation and put the other person at ease. She found herself feeling warmed and flattered by his attention, but she couldn’t afford to relax her guard.

  The pudding came, listed on the menu as cranachan and described as a mixture of whipped cream, raspberries, honey, toasted oats and, of course, whisky. It was delicious.

  “So, where did you work before you came here, Caitlin?” Tarquin asked.

  That gave her a jolt and it was a moment or two before she could summon up her story. Thank goodness Julia had based it on Katie’s real-life travels. She was able to give a decent account of her travels in India and Thailand.

  “And before that I worked in a lab in Christchurch. I stayed with an old school friend whose family had emigrated to New Zealand.” That last bit was true. She said a silent thank you to Julia for preparing her so meticulously. In fact, she had to stop herself from going into even more detail. To offer too much could be worse than not offering enough, but it was tempting to do that when she had worked so hard to remember everything.

  Tarquin took a sip of whisky and Katie caught a whiff of the heady fumes. “Which lab was that?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “D’you know, I think I know someone there.”

  Katie’s heart gave a little jump. Was she going to get caught out?

  Tarquin narrowed his eyes, apparently in an effort of recall. Was there something a bit phoney about that?

  “Yes,” he went on. “Tom – Tom Mitchell, was it? That’s right. I’m certain. He went there from UCL.”

  Katie wracked her brains. “Mitchell... Mitchell,” she said, trying to buying time. She thought she’d memorized the people she was most likely to know, but Tom Mitchell wasn’t one of them. What should she do? Admit that she didn’t know him or pretend that she did?

  Tarquin was watching her intently, and suddenly she was sure, quite sure, that there was no Tom Mitchell at the Christchurch lab. Tarquin was trying to catch her out.

  She looked into his eyes. He gazed guilelessly back at her. It was like a game of chess.

  She made her move. “No, doesn’t ring a bell,” she said. She curbed her impulse to go babbling on, offering suggestions as to why that might be.

  “Maybe it was Auckland,” Tarquin said. He tipped his whisky back and forth in the glass and gazed thoughtfully at it. He took a sip. “In fact, now that I think about it, I’m sure it was.”

  Katie got the impression that she’d narrowly avoided checkmate. It was time to change the subject.

  “I see that Claudia isn’t here,” she remarked.

  “Well, no, she didn’t buy a ticket. Claudia and I don’t exactly see eye to eye,” he admitted. “D’you know the old joke?”

  She shook her head.

  Tarquin gave what could only be described as a cackle. “I knew a girl who made you feel that the skies were going grey whenever you were with her. That’s the reason I stopped courting Claudia! Not, of course, that I ever started courting her, you understand. Not my style at all, as I expect you’ve realized.”

  For the first time she detected a slight slur in his voice. But she also became aware that a strange silence had settled over the table. She looked round. One or two people were looking at their phones and conferring in low voices. Others were getting out phones or scrolling down screens. Something was up.

  Then Caspar was on his feet and someone was tapping a wine glass to get everyone’s attention. Conversation ceased completely. Even Maddie and Patrick emerged from their loved-up huddle and looked towards the end of the table.

  When Caspar spoke, his voice was sombre. “I am sorry to interrupt the festivities, but I see that some of you are already aware of thedesperately sad news we have just received, and it would not be right to continue. I have just been informed that our friend and colleague, Professor Gemma Braithwaite, died two hours ago in Barnstaple Hospital.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Back in her tower bedroom, Katie slowly undressed, scarcely aware of what she was doing. Of course the rest of the Burns Night programme – the recitations, the toasts, the after-dinner speech – had all been abandoned out of respect for Gemma and her family. Gemma... dead. Katie thought of when she had met her not long after arriving at Debussy Point. Her beauty, her energy... She’d been arrogant, yes, but that too had been an aspect of her vitality. Katie hadn’t liked her, but she was rocked by her death all the same. Gemma had seemed like someone who had everything and now... How could it be? Only forty-two and she was just – gone.

  You go on from day to day, Katie thought, bumbling along through life, and every now and then you’re brought up short by something like this – the randomness, the unfairness of it.

  Her phone buzzed and she saw that it was Lyle.

  His first words were, “This is terrible news.”

  She was taken aback. “But – how did you know? Oh, I know – it’s already online –”

  “Yeah, it’s trending on Twitter. Her brother tweeted first, and the institute retweeted and then sent out its own message. Damage limitation, I’d guess. They won’t want to be caught on the back foot.”

  “Did it mention malaria?”

  “No, just an announcement – deep regrets, valued colleague, hearts go out to her family, that kind of thing. But it’s only a matter of time before it gets out. The media are going to be all over this.”

  “But Lyle, damage limitation? Will that be necessary? There’s no way Gemma could have caught malaria in the lab. I’m sure that’s what the enquiry will show.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck with trying to sell that to the media. It’ll be a while before the result of the enquiry is in and meanwhile, the more Caspar denies that there’s a connection, the more people will think there’s something in it. It’s the kind of thing that people find horrifying and fascinating in equal measure. And I’m finding this pretty scary myself. What the heck is going on out there, Katie?”

  “I don’t know! But Lyle...” Tears were welling up.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t help thinking – if only
I’d thought of malaria sooner. They might have started treatment while there was still time.”

  “Oh, Katie.” His voice was gentle. “The doctors who were treating her didn’t think of it, did they? So how could you be expected to? You’re not a clinician. You mustn’t punish yourself over that. But Katie...” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “Is this all getting too much for you? If you want to call a halt –”

  “No, no, I don’t want to do that. But what will be the status of the project now that the P.I has died? Will you be looking for a replacement for Gemma?”

  “Good question. Probably not. There’s only a few months to go. Claudia will be mostly writing up at this stage and looking to publish. Without Gemma supervising, it’s even more important to make sure that everything stands up to scrutiny.”

  “I still feel that there is something wrong and I still want to get to the bottom of it. The only thing is, I’m wondering if someone’s on to me.” She told him about the way Tarquin had put her on the spot about the lab in Christchurch.

  “OK,” Lyle said. “Have you tried Googling this guy to see if there really is a Tom Mitchell in Auckland?”

  “No,” she admitted. “It all went out of my mind when I heard the news about Gemma.”

  “I’ll do it now.”

  Moments later he said, “Well, what do you know? There is indeed a Tom Mitchell in Auckland, and he spent time at UCL, so it looks as if that’s Tarquin’s pal and he was on the level.”

  Katie was taken aback. “I must be getting paranoid.”

  “Nah, you’re just an honest person with a conscience, and you’re self-conscious about lying. And seriously, Katie, I meant what I said about calling a halt.”

  “No, I’m going to have another stab at replicating Claudia’s results and I also want to finish inventorying the stock, though I don’t really think there’ll be any discrepancies. I don’t think Claudia’s that dumb.”

  “No,” Lyle agreed. “If Claudia’s faking her results, it probably isn’t the first time, and she’ll know how to cover all the bases. Alright, but I want to speak to you every night.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “And Katie? There’s something else that’s ringing alarm bells. A few weeks ago I had someone from the Francis Crick Institute ask me if he could come and look at the work Claudia’s been doing. I said fine and told Claudia to make him welcome. He let me know today that she’s twice put him off. Why would she do that if she has nothing to hide?”

  After they’d finished talking, Katie rang Justin. When she told him what had happened, he said, “I could drive down this weekend – we could meet somewhere a bit closer to where you are this time.”

  She was tempted, but the sooner she got her work done, the sooner she could leave, and she told Justin that.

  “OK, but if you change your mind...”

  She could tell that he was worried and equally that he was trying not to make a fuss. But in the end he did say, “You know, I don’t like this, Katie.”

  “Well, neither do I, but Gemma’s death has nothing to do with Claudia’s research or with what I’m doing here.”

  There was a pause, then he said, “Yeah, I don’t see how it could have. Look, I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

  After she had hung up, she sat gazing out into the night. What is it doing to me, she wondered, living this kind of life where I am constantly on the alert, worrying about giving myself away? It was not only exhausting, it was corrupting. She had been so sure that Tarquin was trying to trap her. Because she was lying, she was beginning to assume that other people were too. She thought of others who had lived double lives, like the brave men and women who had worked in the French Resistance. They had been risking everything, but they knew they were fighting in a just cause. She was simply snooping on a fellow scientist and it was beginning to feel grubby. More than that, it felt downright mean when the poor woman had just lost her PI and mentor in such a horrible way. A couple of years ago Katie, too, had been orphaned professionally after the sudden death of her PI and she knew what it was like to be out there alone.

  But she felt in her water she was right, that Claudia was cheating, and if so Katie couldn’t afford to feel sorry for her. Time to put on her big-girl pants, as Maddie would say, and get on with the job she had come here to do.

  CHAPTER 31

  Elsewhere on Debussy Point, the killer was pouring a nightcap in celebration of a job well done.

  Not that it had been without its problems. It had been a close call when that jumped-up little lab rat, Caitlin Marsh, had tumbled to the fact that Gemma had malaria. It had all gone perfectly until that point. Gemma had no idea what had hit her – and ideally no one else should have suspected either, at least not until the post-mortem. But luck was on the killer’s side, as it so often had been in the past, and it was too late for the treatment to be effective.

  The rush of relief was almost overwhelming. Out from under the heel of that she-devil! Gemma had seriously overestimated her ability to control the situation. Bit off more than you could chew this time, didn’t you? It was almost laughable. She’d really thought she had the whip hand. She wasn’t even a very good scientist. Looked at all round, she was no great loss at all.

  But still, along with the euphoria came a niggling little doubt. How was it that Caitlin had come up with such an accurate diagnosis? It was something to put alongside the competent way she had handled the situation when Gemma had been found sick in the cottage. Was there more to Caitlin than met the eye? Was she really just a lab technician? Perhaps it was time to look a bit more closely at her. It couldn’t be, could it, that she suspected something? No, no, that wasn’t possible, but all the same Siobhan said that Gemma had been delirious when Caitlin was alone with her. Could Caitlin have heard something she shouldn’t have heard?

  Perhaps Caitlin was what she seemed – a technician who’d made a lucky guess. But, better safe than sorry. That was why it had seemed a good idea to follow her back from the lab last night. Had she realized that someone was walking behind her? There was a moment when it seemed that she had. Evasive action had been required. Not that there was any harm in throwing a little scare her way.

  And if the worst came to the worst...

  Swilling the last of the whisky around the glass so that the viscous liquid clung to the side, the killer went to the window and gazed out over the island. The sky was overcast. No stars were visible. On nights like this, it really was so very dark out there. And Caitlin did have that habit of wandering around the island alone. It was a dangerous place, Debussy Point. Those cliffs; that cold, cold sea...

  It wouldn’t be so very surprising if she came to grief one evening, would it?

  CHAPTER 32

  FRIDAY

  The atmosphere in the lab the next morning was hushed and uneasy. It wasn’t that many people had known Gemma well – or that she was popular, far from it. Still, she was a scientist, one of their own, and it’s always shocking when someone dies so young. And everyone was aware too that the Cat 3 malaria lab had been closed pending inquiries.

  Claudia arrived at work just after Katie. She looked stunned. She accepted Katie’s condolences and tried to settle down to work at her bench. Glancing at her from time to time, Katie could see that most of the time she was sitting with her head in her hands. Eventually she came over and told Katie that she needed to get away and clear her head. She was going to go out for a long walk and wouldn’t be back that day.

  The unworthy thought occurred to Katie that this was an ideal opportunity to crack on with her next attempt to replicate Claudia’s work, and she didn’t like herself for thinking that.

  But her own concentration wasn’t what it ought to be either. As she ploughed grimly on, she found herself brooding over the time that she had spent with the sick woman in her cottage. Had Gemma known she was dying? Whether she had or not, the things she said to Katie must have been among the last words she had spoken – perhaps they
were the last words. Now that she was dead they seemed to have a significance that perhaps they didn’t actually have.

  “Sangha fever.” That was what had been worrying Gemma. Katie was pretty sure that it was a haemorrhagic fever similar to Marburg virus or Ebola. She typed “Sangha fever” into Google and found, as she’d thought, that the first, and so far only, outbreak had taken place around two years ago in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Of the 268 people infected, 227 had died before the outbreak was controlled. Like Ebola it was highly contagious, spread through contact with bodily fluids, and no treatment or vaccine had yet been developed. And like Ebola, it had been named after a river near the point of origin.

  Sangha fever wasn’t something Gemma could have worked on. Research on a disease as dangerous as this was only carried out under the stringent conditions of a high security Category 4 lab. Those would include multiple containment rooms, positive pressure personnel suits, and intensive training. There were fewer than a dozen or so Cat 4 labs in the UK. Porton Down was the best known. Katie would have remembered if Gemma’s CV listed a Cat 4 lab.

  But had she perhaps been out there in the Congo at the time of the outbreak?

  And then there was someone called Mary, whom Gemma had wanted to see.

  Oh, this was no good. She really must get back to work.

  “Caitlin? Caitlin?”

  She looked round. There was a porter at the door of the lab. He said, “There’s someone at reception asking to see you.”

  Katie was puzzled and a little wary. Who could this be?

  The porter went on, “She says her name is Mary Bellinger and that she’s Professor Braithwaite’s sister.”

  So this was who Gemma had wanted to see!

  “Tell her I’ll come right away.”

  Mary was waiting for her. Katie saw a resemblance, but there was a gentleness in her face and something tentative in her manner that was very different from Gemma’s forthrightness, not to say rudeness.