An Air That Kills

by Christine Poulson

  Katie said, “I modified your sequence –”

  “No.” Fear leapt into Claudia’s eyes. Katie made a movement towards her.

  “Oh, no,” Tarquin said. He grabbed Katie by both arms. “You’re leaving too, Katie. I’m in charge here and that’s an order. No one goes near Claudia without a haz-mat suit until we’ve got rid of her clothes and we’ve got her into a shower.”

  Katie hesitated.

  “Go!” Tarquin said and gave her a push.

  Once she was outside, she looked through the glass panel. Tarquin must have tossed Claudia a pair of nitrile gloves. She was pulling them on so that she could strip off her paper suit and booties without touching them with her bare hands. Everything she was wearing would have to be incinerated. At the very least the lab would have to be closed and fumigated.

  As Katie walked down the corridor to join the others on the forecourt, she was passed by other first responders coming the other way, with Caspar at their head.

  I’m to blame, she thought. I couldn’t resist it. What did they call it? Hubris? Yes, she’d wanted to be the one to crack the puzzle where Claudia had failed. It wasn’t enough to unmask Claudia as a fraud. She had to go one better and show her that she was the superior scientist. She had let Claudia get under her skin. It was childish and now this has happened.

  She found herself hoping against hope that she had failed to transfer the virus, but she knew she had. Something terrible had been unleashed and there was no knowing what the consequences would be.

  Other people were streaming out of the building to wait on the forecourt and Katie joined them. She felt a touch on her arm and turned to see Justin. The next moment he had his arms around her.

  She thrust him away and as she held him at arm’s length, she saw surprise and bewilderment in his eyes.

  “What’s the matter? What’s happening?” He gestured to the people standing around in groups on the forecourt.

  “Oh, darling, you can’t be here!”

  “Last night I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “I just had to come.”

  “It’s too dangerous.” Her thoughts were racing. Perhaps if he left right away – but she knew it was too late. If only he hadn’t come, but he had. And now he was going to have to stay. And then she realized she wasn’t thinking straight. Even if she was incubating the virus, she wouldn’t be infectious yet. So Justin was safe for now. She drew him close to her.

  “I think I’ve succeeded in transferring the avian virus to a human cell-line,” she told him, “and I might have been exposed to bird flu.”

  To his eternal credit, he only hugged her the tighter and they were still standing like that when Tarquin came to tell her that Caspar needed to speak to her.

  CHAPTER 42

  Caspar was waiting for her by the porter’s desk. “We’ve got Claudia in isolation, but she’s hysterical and I can’t get any sense out of her. Tarquin says I need to talk to you. I don’t understand what the flu virus was doing out of the Cat 3 lab. It’s an appalling breach of protocol. What was Claudia thinking?”

  “She didn’t know what it was.”

  Caspar looked blank. “But how could she not know? She’d transferred it herself!”

  “No, she hadn’t. That’s the thing. It was all a fraud. She used a human virus instead of an avian one.”

  “So, it’s not a strain of bird flu that can infect human cells that’s been released?” He was puzzled.

  “Sorry, yes, it is,” Katie wailed. “It’s my fault. I feel terrible. I just couldn’t resist it. I saw where Claudia had gone wrong – and I did it. I transferred the virus. I wish I hadn’t, but I did.”

  Caspar was staring at her with his mouth open. “It was you that transferred the virus? But how –”

  “How did I know enough to do that? I’m not actually a technician – or rather I’m not just a technician. And my name’s not Caitlin Marsh.”

  “It’s not? So who are you? No, no –” He held up his hand. “That can wait. Just to be absolutely clear: Claudia has smashed a flask containing an avian virus that has jumped the species barrier?”

  Katie nodded. “That’s it.”

  His expression was grim. “OK.” He reached for the phone on the porter’s desk and she got up to leave.

  “Sit down over there,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  She listened while he issued instructions.

  By the time he’d finished, she understood that all physical contact with the mainland had ceased with the speed and efficiency of a shutter being dropped. The protocol was in place, of course, but still it was impressive, the decisiveness with which Caspar had taken charge.

  “OK,” he said. “I want to hear all about it.” The affable Caspar had gone and his face was stony. “Who are you for a start and what are you doing here?”

  “My name’s Katie Flanagan, Dr Katie Flanagan. I did a medical degree even though I didn’t go into clinical practice. Instead I went into research and got a PhD – I’ve had a couple of postdoc jobs, doing research into blood disorders. I’ve known Lyle for years. He thought there was something fishy about Claudia’s results and he fixed up for me to come and work here, so that I could, well...” Her voice trailed off. Katie couldn’t meet Caspar’s eye.

  There was silence. When she looked up, Caspar was still staring at her with an expression that she couldn’t quite interpret. It looked like... she wasn’t sure what it looked like, but it was somehow familiar. It reminded her of someone or something.

  “You came here to spy on Claudia and see if she was faking her results?” he asked.

  Katie nodded.

  He shook his head in amused disbelief. “That son of a gun! He slipped that past me alright. I had absolutely no idea.” To Katie’s amazement and relief, he started to laugh. He had every right to be furious and she was impressed by the sangfroid with which he was taking this revelation.

  “What’s going to happen now?” she asked.

  “I’ve alerted the public health people. Claudia stays in isolation until we know that she’s not infected. And the rest of us will have to be quarantined here at Debussy Point. We can’t risk something like this escaping into the general population. There’s no way of knowing how virulent it will be.”

  “There’s a difference between something working in a petri dish and it working with an actual human host,” Katie pointed out.

  “Sure. But we can’t take any risks. And the public have to be reassured. They need to know that we’re taking stringent measures. We have to work on the assumption that (a) it is likely to be highly contagious and (b) it could have as high a mortality rate as SARS or Spanish flu. One thing, we’ll know pretty soon if Claudia is infected. The incubation period’s not likely to be long, two or three days probably. Meanwhile we’ll take her temperature every few hours. Hopefully we can detect any infection before symptoms emerge and she becomes infectious. You and Tarquin are next in terms of risk, so I want you to quarantine yourself in your flat and I’ll get someone to monitor your temperature. Same for Tarquin.”

  “What about Justin?”

  He stared at her. “Who’s Justin?”

  “My boyfriend. He turned up at the lab immediately after the accident.”

  “He can’t leave the island. We’ll have to find accommodation for him here. He can stay in my flat if necessary.” He eyed her critically. “You look as if you’re on your last legs. Go and get some rest.”

  She left the building in a daze and looked around for Justin. Her head was swimming and black sparks were flashing before her eyes. Justin was frowning and hurrying towards her. Was there something wrong, she wondered hazily? And then she realized, yes, there was something wrong with her. Her knees were buckling and Justin reached her just in time to take her weight before darkness closed in.

  CHAPTER 43

  FRIDAY – TUESDAY

  Sheer exhaustion was the diagnosis. She was still suffering the after-effects of her fall into the sea, not to mention he
r immune system working overtime to fight off the attack of shingles. It was surprising she hadn’t collapsed sooner. They took her back to the apartment and she slept round the clock.

  Every few hours a nurse came in to wake her up and take her temperature. At one point Katie was awake for long enough to drink a mug of hot chocolate and eat a piece of toast that the nurse made for her. Then she sank back into sweet dreamless oblivion.

  On day two she spent most of the time dozing, watching Netflix, and contacting the outside world on her iPad and mobile.

  She had a long talk with Lyle.

  “I always get more than I bargained for with you,” he told her. “Still can’t believe that you pulled it off and transferred the virus.”

  “Claudia was so nearly there herself. To give her credit, she’d been working towards getting genuine results, as well as having a Plan B of cooking the data if things didn’t work out. The modification in the virus was actually something she’d prepared in parallel but had never tested thoroughly, because she had overlooked something in the protocol. She was too impatient to persevere when she didn’t pull it off first time round.”

  “It would be ironic if she...” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Katie knew what he was thinking. It would be ironic if, having faked her results, she caught the disease that she had failed to transfer.

  * * *

  It was Justin who told Katie the bad news that evening. “Claudia’s got a temperature of a hundred and two. She’s got aching joints and a sore throat. She’s just been airlifted to the high security isolation unit at the Royal Free in London.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Caspar said to tell you it’s only a precaution and that it’s not your fault.”

  It was typical of Caspar to know that she’d be blaming herself and to want to reassure her, but it didn’t do any good. She felt terrible. If Claudia should get worse... But no, best not to go there.

  Claudia did get worse. Next day there was a definite diagnosis of flu. She was being treated with antivirals, but they were so far having no effect and she was described as “very poorly”.

  On day four Katie woke up to find Justin standing by her bed with scrambled eggs on toast and coffee on a tray. She sat up in bed. Surely her quarantine had another couple of days to run?

  “It’s wonderful to see you. But should you be here?” she asked.

  “Claudia started showing symptoms a couple of days ago,” he said, “and given that you are still symptom-free – and so is Tarquin – that means you’re probably both in the clear.” He put the tray on the bed and leaned down to kiss her.

  “Well, yes, but –”

  “No buts. I’m here now and I intend to stay. Now get stuck into your breakfast. I’m going to go and clear up in the kitchen. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Is there any news of Claudia?”

  He hesitated. “Well, she’s no worse.”

  “But no better?”

  “Not yet.”

  Well, that was something at least. Katie ate her breakfast slowly, with the returning appetite of a convalescent. The patch of shingles behind her ear had almost completely cleared up and she wondered if the fact that she was already on antivirals had afforded her some protection from the flu.

  When she’d finished, she put on her dressing gown and took her tray down to the kitchen. Justin was washing up. She went up to him and put her arms round his waist and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He turned round and took her into his arms. “I wasn’t going to leave you on your own a moment longer than I had to. Not after what happened.”

  “After what happened?” she echoed.

  “You haven’t forgotten that someone pushed you off a cliff?”

  “Oh. Yes. Not forgotten exactly. But the shock of realizing that I might have triggered an apocalypse – that kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. And I know what the police think: there was a gust of wind and I stumbled.”

  “Here, let’s have some more coffee.”

  They sat down at the kitchen table.

  “That isn’t what you think, though, is it?” Justin said. “That it was just an accident.”

  “Well, no. But Justin, why would someone want to do me harm?”

  “I wondered about Claudia.”

  “Claudia didn’t know that I was on to her.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Katie saw again the shock and anger on Claudia’s face when Tarquin had blown her cover. Could Claudia have faked that? Katie shook her head. “I really don’t think she had a clue. And anyway, it doesn’t seem the kind of thing she’d do. Claudia is impulsive and can’t control her temper. Whoever it was must have planned it; must have followed me to the headland and waited for their moment. That’s very different.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Justin said. “Of course, I’ve never met the woman, but didn’t creating those fraudulent results involve a fair amount of planning?”

  “Actually, I think that was probably pretty impulsive too. And then once she’d taken the first step, she had to keep going. But even if it was her, she’s not in a position to do me any harm now. And what would be the point? Her secret’s out. Surely I’m safe enough?”

  CHAPTER 44

  WEDNESDAY

  For the next couple of days it was almost like old times. The way that they were cut off from the outside world reminded Katie of their time in Antarctica, but with the difference that they could be together openly. They cooked together, talked for hours, walked in the woods. In the evening they played cards or watched Netflix or gazed at the stars together.

  It was almost as if they were on holiday, except for the constant background hum of anxiety. With every day that passed and with every temperature reading that was normal, Katie was more certain that she hadn’t got bird flu. Tarquin had come through unscathed too. But the news about Claudia wasn’t good – she was now critically ill – and Katie was living in fear that her work on the virus might have led to someone’s death.

  It was the sixth day and the news was that Claudia was for now stable, though her condition remained critical. After lunch, the weather kept Katie and Justin indoors. Rain was lashing the windows and the line of the Welsh coast had disappeared.

  They were in the sitting room. Justin was working on his laptop. Katie was reading about the quest for the Holy Grail in the copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur that Caspar had lent her.

  She wanted to know why Gawain had failed in the quest. He was King Arthur’s nephew, the son of his sister, an important character and a fascinating, if flawed, one. He had initiated the quest for the Grail and that had led to the break-up of the Round Table and ultimately to Arthur’s death and the end of the kingdom. She could imagine the sort of person he was: charismatic, larger than life. He embarked on the quest in the hope of chivalric adventures – defending ladies, slaughtering foes – and of worldly glory. He hadn’t understood that the rewards would not be of this world and that he was too sinful to be allowed into the presence of the Grail. It was a sad story and she thought of what Caspar had said about the ways in which scientific researchers were like the knights of the quest. It was a romantic notion, but wasn’t there some truth in it? It was so hard to achieve anything worthwhile. There were so many disappointments and frustrations, so many dead ends, so many times when something should have worked and didn’t. You had to push on regardless, and that was just what Claudia hadn’t been able to do.

  Katie’s phone rang and it was her brother, Paul, calling from Shanghai. They chatted and she spoke to her nephews. She was smiling as she hung up. Paul was a big wheel in a bank and the father of two, but with her he was still the cheeky younger brother. That never changed. They got on well now, but when they were little they had sometimes fought like cat and dog. And now he was getting his come-uppance! Those little boys were just as naughty as he’d been at their age.

  She went back to her book. She
had reached the part about the last battle, which had been triggered by the queen’s adultery with Launcelot. There was an awful lot of smiting, and running people through with swords. Launcelot killed two of Gawain’s brothers by mistake – that kind of thing seemed to happen a lot in the legends – and Gawain swore vengeance. Launcelot hadn’t wanted to fight him, but Gawain forced his hand, and died of his wounds.

  In spite of the power of the narrative, she found her attention wandering. Something was tugging at her memory – something to do with Paul, but also something to do with what had been happening here at Debussy Point.

  She was on the verge of pinning it down, when Justin broke into her thoughts.

  “Do you think they’ll ever get to the bottom of what happened to Gemma Braithwaite?”

  Oh, and now it’s gone, whatever it was. She sighed and put her book to one side.

  “I’ve wondered about that too,” she said.

  “Funny business altogether. What do you think she was doing in the Cat 3 malaria lab that night?”

  Katie shook her head. “It’s a mystery. Gemma had no business being there. She only had clearance because she was on the list of first responders.”

  “Do you think that was when she was infected?”

  “It does seem the most likely thing.” She hesitated. “It even crossed my mind that she might have done it on purpose.”

  “Suicide by mosquito?”

  Katie shook her head. “Yeah, but I can’t believe it. It would be such a bizarre thing to do. And it’s a sin, isn’t it, in the Catholic church? Gemma was a lapsed Catholic, but it isn’t easy to escape something that’s been part of you from childhood.”

  “Did the security staff remember seeing her that night?”

  “No one saw her. She didn’t check into the building, and she wasn’t issued with a lone-worker alarm.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t actually her.”

  Katie thought that over. “You mean it might have been someone who got hold of Gemma’s key card and knew her code?”