An Air That Kills

by Christine Poulson

  Half an hour later she came to herself with a start, realizing that she must have drifted away. Her eye fell again on what Claudia had scribbled. And that was when it happened. She hadn’t been thinking about the problem – she didn’t know what she had been thinking about – and the idea seemed to come from nowhere. It was like an electric shock: a new connection had been forged between two separate elements. Katie seized a pen and her lab book and began writing. Twenty minutes later she threw the pen down and sat back. Her fatigue had vanished and she was elated. Would it work? There was only one way to find out and that was to run the experiment again, but with her modification. This was what she had missed about working as a scientist; this was what made up for all the tedium: the idea that came out of the blue and the thrill of chasing it down.

  She forgot that she was tired and ill, she forgot that she was hungry, and she got down to work.

  CHAPTER 39

  The light from the torch reflected off the eyes of the birds in their cases as the killer slipped along the corridor.

  It was time to find out just what Caitlin Marsh was up to. Getting into the house had not proved a problem. And as for getting into her flat, the time-honoured technique of slipping a credit card between the door jamb and the ancient, ill-fitting Yale lock did the trick.

  Once inside, the killer hesitated. It was surprising how much light was emitted by the starlit sky – enough to make one’s way safely across the sitting room to the window. The curtains were closed, the light went on, and the killer stood blinking in the sudden glare.

  Caitlin was still busy at the lab and would not be back for at least an hour; the killer knew that.

  She had not really put her stamp on the room. It was tidy enough, but there was nothing personal lying around. No pictures on the walls, no possessions scattered about. Maybe she wasn’t intending to stay long. So, up the spiral stairs to the bedroom. Hopefully there’d be more personal stuff there. There was. Propped up on the bedside table was a photo of a little girl. Nothing written on the back, so no way to tell who it was. Was there anything in the drawer of the bedside table? Yes, a mobile phone and an iPad. Ah, but this was interesting. Because Caitlin always carried her phone with her. This one hadn’t been forgotten, or it would have been left out on some surface or other in the kitchen or living room, not hidden away in a drawer. So this was an extra phone. Unfortunately it was – of course – password-protected, but its very existence suggested that there was more to Caitlin than met the eye.

  But did she know? How could she know? Judging by the questions she’d been asking, it wasn’t worth taking the risk. Things had been left long enough. It was time to take action before she got too close to the truth.

  CHAPTER 40

  WEDNESDAY

  That evening and all the next day Katie was hard at it in the lab, following her hunch. Claudia had called in sick, which made it all easier. Katie didn’t even have to pretend to be doing the work of a technician. At last she reached the point where there was nothing left to do but wait for the results to come in the following morning.

  When she got back to her apartment, there was a text from Justin: “Are we on for tonight?” It took her a moment or two to remember about the meteor shower.

  She rang Justin and they agreed to rendezvous at around ten o’clock. At nine thirty Katie set off for the headland. She would get a decent signal there and she would be well away from the lights of the house.

  The night was cold and clear, and the stars tingled above her, a good night for watching the meteor shower. But at the same time there was a bitter wind coming off the sea and she could taste the salt in the air. She wished Justin was there to wrap his arms around her, but still, it was a romantic idea, gazing at the same stars together though they were so many miles apart.

  Even as she walked through the woods, the wind grew stronger and she heard it moaning in the trees. When she reached the headland, strong gusts buffeted her. Far down below she could see white caps on the waves, luminous in the starlight.

  When she rang Justin it sounded as if he were standing next to her. She was bracing herself against the wind and gazing up at the sky, when someone or something hit her in the small of the back, knocking the air out of her and shunting her forward onto the fence around the edge of the cliff. For a few moments she hung there, arms flailing, desperately trying to get her footing. The fence gave way and she shot head first over the cliff. As she bounced off the side, she grabbed at the sparse vegetation, tearing out handfuls and breaking her nails. She hit the side of the cliff again and again and then she was in free fall. But she had managed to slow her descent and she had time to anticipate the shock of the icy water. At the last moment she managed to clap her hands to her mouth and nose before she hit the water. She couldn’t help gasping and tasted salt water, but she clamped her mouth shut, and the water didn’t reach her lungs.

  The water closed over her head. She bobbed up, broke the surface and saw the cliff rising dark above her. Her heavy down jacket was buoying her up, almost like a life-jacket.

  Her training kicked in. She heard her instructor say, “The first rule is: Don’t panic, get control of your breathing.” Floundering would only increase the strain on her heart and ensure that she lost energy all the faster. She lay back into the water and floated, still breathing in gasps and jerks. Gradually her breathing settled. Gazing up at the glittering stars, rocked by the swell of the sea, it was like being cradled in the vastness of the universe. Her clothes were growing heavier as they filled with water, but she knew not to try and get out of them. The layer of water trapped inside would help to insulate her. She fumbled with her hood and tightened the drawstring with fingers that were already going numb.

  She counted sixty seconds. One minute – ten minutes – one hour, said a voice in her head, telling her that she should spend a minute getting control of her breathing. After that she had ten minutes – maybe – before she lost manual dexterity and reasonable mobility. If she didn’t get out of the water she’d have about an hour before hypothermia set in. She would drift into disorientation and unconsciousness, and she would drown.

  I am not going to die. I am not going to give up, she told herself. She thought of her mother, she thought of her brother and his little boys, she thought of Justin, of Chloe and Rachel.

  The cliff rose straight up from the water. There was no way of climbing out. She pictured the coastline. Her best hope of coming ashore was to swim to the tidal bathing pool. It couldn’t surely be more than a few hundred metres. Time to move.

  Her clothes were cumbersome and she had to fight the instinct to get free of them. And yet she seemed to be moving fast. The tide was coming in, she realized. But she was tiring. The weight of the water was dragging her down. Her thought processes were slowing, becoming hazy. I’m not going to make it, she thought. It’s too far. She thought of Justin, of what might have been, the time they might have had together, of the children they might have had, a golden future that lay so close and yet just out of reach...

  She heard a voice and wondered if she were hallucinating. There it was again. Someone was hollering: “Hey, you, hey!”

  She craned her neck. She seemed to see – yes, as she was lifted up by a wave for an instant she glimpsed someone on the sea-wall. And then she was in the trough of the wave. She heard a splash as something landed in the water nearby. She saw a flashing light and she understood. It was a lifebuoy. With what felt like the last of her strength she lunged towards it. She tried to grasp it, but her fingers were too numb. With supreme effort she managed to raise herself up and hook first one elbow and then the other over the rim.

  “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, hang on!” someone was shouting.

  The lifebuoy was moving and she was going with it. She hung on for grim death. She was pulled through the entrance to the tidal pool into quieter water and washed up against the steps that led down into it. She felt the rough stone scraping her legs, but she couldn’t move. Her head was
above the water. Nothing else in the world mattered. She was spent.

  Someone seized her under the arms and began to pull her up out of the water, bumping her hip on the step.

  The light on the buoy was still flashing, but now something else was going on. There was the sound of an outboard motor and a brilliant light washed across the wall. And now she recognized the face looking down at her. It was Bill’s.

  * * *

  “I was out at the moth trap,” Bill explained. “The wind dropped for a moment and I thought I heard someone shout. Good job it was a clear night, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen you in the water.”

  They were at the hospital, where Katie was being treated for mild hypothermia.

  He went on, “I rang the emergency services and asked for a lifeboat, and then I climbed down to the swimming pool. It seemed forever until I spotted you.”

  Justin had heard enough to guess that Katie was in the water and he too had rung 999. He had had a desperate hour or so until she had managed to speak to him on Bill’s phone.

  “I thought you were a goner,” Bill said.

  And so she should have been. It was a combination of two factors that had saved her. First, she was an experienced swimmer and a trained lifeguard. And second, her medical training for Antarctica had covered the protocol for surviving a cold-water plunge. If she hadn’t understood the danger of cold-water shock and known what to do, that would have been the end of her.

  Now she wondered what exactly had happened on the headland. Her initial conviction that she had been pushed was fading a little. The police asked her if it might not have been a freak gust of wind – apparently those weren’t uncommon on this coast – and though they had been sympathetic, she had picked up the implication that she had been unwise to venture onto the headland on such a night. And she had to admit that she hadn’t actually seen anyone; she had simply felt herself propelled forward. And then there was the question – again unspoken – of why someone would want to push her off a cliff.

  CHAPTER 41

  THURSDAY

  The next morning Katie was discharged from the hospital. Siobhan had kindly sent in Lucy, one of the admin assistants, with some dry clothes and to give her a lift back to Debussy Point. It was mid-morning by the time they arrived and it was high tide, so they made the crossing by boat. Looking at the choppy grey sea, Katie felt a chill. She might so easily not have survived. She wouldn’t be going wild swimming with Maddie anytime soon, that was for sure.

  The jeep was waiting at the other side. Lucy climbed in, but Katie hesitated.

  Lucy leaned out and said, “Siobhan told me to drive you up and see you to your door.”

  “You know what? There’s something I must just do in the lab,” Katie said.

  Lucy shook her head. “You scientists! Are you ever off duty? Do you want me to wait for you?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” Lucy let in the clutch and the jeep moved off up the hill.

  Katie walked down the path to the lab. She had to know if she had succeeded in transferring the virus.

  She went down to the Cat 3 lab and got gowned and gloved up. She knew she was tired to the point of exhaustion, and her shoulder ached where she had bruised it on her way down the cliff, but she was running on adrenaline and the excitement of the chase.

  She could hardly believe it when she saw the result. She had done it. It had worked. She had transferred the virus.

  Mechanically she labelled the flask and put it safely away. As if in a dream she left the room, stripped off her gloves and gown and paper booties. All she wanted now was sleep. Of course she would have to tell Lyle, but even that could wait a few hours. She was so tired that she could have lain down and slept on the floor.

  As she went up in the lift it occurred to her that she should go round by the lab and pick up her lab book. She’d take it home and write it up later.

  It was nearly lunchtime, but there were still a few people in the lab, busy at their desks. No one looked up as she came in. As she stood by her bench, a wave of fatigue swept over her. She found herself struggling to remember why she had come in. She sat down. Time passed. And then there was a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Tarquin staring at her.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. “Should you be here, after what happened last night?”

  “Yes... no...” she began. “You were right. Claudia didn’t succeed in transferring the virus. But –”

  The door to the lab burst open. Claudia stormed into the room. All heads turned. She came to a halt in the middle of the floor. She was wearing paper overalls and booties. Katie realized with a jolt that she must have come straight from the Cat 3 lab without binning them. Anger radiated from her. The air was electric.

  “Just what do you think you’re up to, Caitlin?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know what –”

  “What’s this?” Claudia held up a flask.

  Katie said, “You haven’t – that’s not –” But she knew it was. Claudia had the flask containing Katie’s transferred virus. The shock got Katie to her feet.

  “Perhaps you’d like to tell me what else you’ve been doing behind my back.” Claudia spat the words out, incandescent with fury.

  “What’s that?” Tarquin pointed to the flash.

  “She’s taken it from the Cat 3 lab,” Katie said.

  They exchanged glances, aghast at this unimaginable breach of safety protocol.

  Claudia lifted the flask up. “Are you going to tell me what you are really doing here, Caitlin – if that is actually your name, because there seems to be a different name here? Though I see it’s your handwriting.”

  “OK, OK.” Katie held up her hands. “You were going to find out sooner or later. Lyle Linstrum sent me in to check up on you.”

  Tarquin broke in, “In other words, the gig’s up, Claudia!”

  Katie went on, “I know that you didn’t get the results you claimed.”

  Claudia’s face was grotesque with anger. “I did get those results! You just try to prove otherwise, you jumped-up little nobody! Like anyone’s going to believe you anyway – a lab technician!”

  “No, she’s not,” Tarquin said calmly.

  Claudia stared at him.

  He went on: “Caitlin’s not a lab technician. She’s got a medical degree and a track record of research into genetically inherited blood disorders. And, you’re right, her name isn’t Caitlin either.”

  Claudia was incredulous. “You mean, she’s a spy. She came here to spy on me.”

  Katie shot a glance at Tarquin, imploring him not to taunt Claudia.

  But he laughed. “Yep. And she’s just told me. You faked those results, Claudia. You’re a fraud, simple as that.”

  No, no, Katie wanted to say. Don’t, please don’t. Don’t confront her. That flask contains human cells that are infected with an avian flu virus. Give me a chance to get it away from her.

  But it was too late. Something was happening to Claudia. Her eyes grew wide, her nostrils flared.

  “How dare you?” she said. Her voice was very quiet.

  Katie took a tentative step towards her. She held up her hands to placate her. “Claudia. Please, please put that down.”

  Later Katie thought of the Norse legends and their stories of warriors who went berserk. She could almost see the red mist descending on Claudia. Her mouth went slack. Her eyes grew vague. She raised the flask above her head.

  The moments stretched out and everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Katie had time to see everything that would unfold if the virus became airborne. She saw it infecting the three of them, then the others in the lab and spreading out beyond Debussy Point with the slow inevitability of ink released into water. She saw people incubating the virus, boarding planes, taking their deadly cargo to all corners of the globe – an epidemic that would make Spanish flu look like a little local event.

  Should she make a grab for th
e flask? No, the danger of the contents spilling was too great. And anyway there wasn’t time. Instead she grabbed Tarquin’s arm hard, digging her fingers in. Startled, he looked round and caught the expression on her face.

  “What?” he said. He let her pull him away from Claudia.

  And then the moment was over. Claudia brought her hands down sharply and released the flask. It crashed to the floor and shattered. Slowly, slowly, its contents began to ooze over the floor.

  Katie stared, transfixed with horror.

  Tarquin said, “Katie, what’s the matter? She didn’t succeed in transfecting the virus.”

  “No, but I did!”

  She saw Tarquin take in the full enormity of this. An avian flu virus, potentially fatal to humans, had been released in an unsecure lab. Then his training as a first responder kicked in.

  Heads had turned on the other side of the lab when Claudia had first come in and the crash had brought people to their feet.

  Tarquin raised his voice. “Claudia, don’t move. Everyone else leave the lab immediately. Don’t wait to gather belongings, just go. Leave the building and wait on the forecourt.”

  People began doing as he said.

  Claudia stood with her arms hanging. She seemed dazed, unaware, as if her anger had drained away, leaving her limp. Katie wasn’t sure that she’d even heard Tarquin.

  Some of the contents of the flask had splashed onto Claudia’s feet and legs.

  “We’ve got to get her out of those clothes,” Tarquin said. He went over to the alarm on the wall and punched it to summon help. A klaxon began to wail.

  The klaxon seemed to bring Claudia to herself. She looked at Tarquin and Katie, confused by what was happening. “It wasn’t infected,” she said. “It can’t have been. It never worked for me.”

  Tarquin exchanged glances with Katie. He raised his voice. “Here’s the thing, Claudia. Katie thinks she managed to do it –”