It was dark when Katie left the boat. It had taken her a quarter of an hour to decide what to wear. She couldn’t help feeling that it was quite unnecessary to have so much choice and she did miss the simplicity of life in Antarctica, where everyone wore jeans and a T-shirt every day and that was that.
She made her way along the towpath towards Rachel and Daniel’s little Georgian house, only five minutes’ walk away on Quayside, guided in the dark by her mobile phone. She passed someone walking a dog, but otherwise it was deserted and only a few of the boats had lights. She could hear them creaking at their moorings. At the feeding place for the ducks, Canada geese – pale grey shapes in the dark – were settling down for the night. She was glad to reach the houses. From a lit floor-length window a black and white cat watched her go past.
Then she was at Rachel and Dan’s house, rapping the door knocker in the shape of an anchor. Rachel opened the door almost immediately. The downstairs was one big room with the kitchen opening off it. There was a delicious smell of what she guessed was a Bolognese sauce simmering.
Rachel said, “I’ve got a surprise for you. Guess who’s here!”
From a chair by the fireplace a long, lean figure unfolded itself.
“Lyle!” Katie exclaimed.
Rachel said, “Daniel rang earlier and said he’d be bringing him home for supper.”
Daniel was a patent lawyer specializing in biomed, whose firm in Ely got many of their clients from Silicon Fen, one of the most important technology clusters in Europe. It was a hub that attracted lawyers, big consultancy firms, and venture capitalists – like Lyle Linstrum.
He was a larger than life figure – a tall, rangy Texan nearing sixty – who always wore cowboy boots and looked as if he should be wearing a Stetson. Journalists liked to make much of his ranch and his horsemanship. Photos of Lyle on horseback wearing chaps and rounding up steers were endlessly recycled whenever he was mentioned in the financial pages of the quality papers.
He wasn’t just a money man. He was also a former academic, a scientist whose interest now was in the development of discoveries rather than toiling away in the lab. And for Katie he was also an old friend, the father of her best friend at university.
“Hey,” he said. “I’d have given you a ride from London if I’d known. But it was a spur of the moment thing. Didn’t know myself until lunchtime.”
He came over and enveloped her in a bear hug.
Of course she had been well aware that Daniel had handled patent work for Lyle on more than one occasion, but she was struck by how much at home he was here in this family setting. It wasn’t just a professional relationship; they were friends now. For a moment she felt aggrieved. How had this happened without her knowing? Rachel and Daniel were her friends!
She remembered something the base commander had told her: “When you’re out here it’s as if you’ve stepped off the world. And when you get back on, it won’t be like you left it. Everyone will have moved on – except you.” And that was true. Rachel was about to have her baby, Daniel had been made a partner in his firm. Whereas for Katie it was almost as if time had stood still.
And in that moment, something happened. It was as if a switch had been thrown and time had actually stood still, or as though a glass panel had appeared between her and the rest of the room. She saw these people who were her friends and the room that was so familiar, but it all seemed strange. She felt separate, detached, as if she was looking at a stage set and the people she thought she knew were only actors. They were not real. None of it was real.
Then there was a movement at the top of the stairs that led to the first floor and Chloe appeared in her nightdress. As suddenly as the sense of alienation had begun, it ended. Time began again and with it came a flood of emotion. These were her dear friends and she was so happy to see them.
Chloe looked at Katie and gave her a shy smile, then her gaze shifted to Lyle and her face lit up. She came rushing down the stairs, almost tumbling in her haste, and ran to him. He swept her up and lifted her high. She squealed with delight. As he put her back on her feet, she said, “I want you to read me a story.”
Rachel must have caught the expression on Katie’s face. She said, “Ten months is a very long time when you are only six.”
Lyle had picked up on it too. For all his brashness he was good at reading people.
He said, “Hey, but Chloe, look who’s here! It’s Katie. She’s back from the South Pole.”
Katie fumbled in her bag and brought out Penguin, the small soft toy she had taken to Antarctica. Chloe and her class at school had been following the blog posts that Katie had written in his name.
Chloe switched her attention to Katie. She reached for Penguin and clutched him to her. “I want to go to Antarctica!”
“I’ve got this book about a little girl who does go to Antarctica.” Katie took Sophie Scott Goes South by Alison Lester out of her bag. “I’ve brought it all the way from Australia for you.”
Rachel said, “Would you like Katie to read the story to you while I do your infusion?”
Chloe nodded. She slipped her hand in Katie’s and the three of them went upstairs to Chloe’s bedroom.
Katie sat down on the bed and Chloe climbed onto her lap. Katie opened the book and began to read. “‘I’m going to Antarctica and I can’t wait. Sophie Scott is only nine years old...’”
By the time they were a few pages into the book, Chloe’s shyness had gone. She had curled up into the crook of Katie’s arm and was listening, spellbound.
While Chloe was distracted, Rachel lifted up her nightdress and swabbed her leg. Every month or so Chloe had to have a blood transfusion and this had the unwanted side effect of laying down too much iron in her body, especially in the heart and liver. If it were allowed to build up, it would eventually kill her. So five nights a week she had subcutaneous injections to shift the iron deposits. The needle went into her waist or thigh and the therapy had to be delivered overnight via an infusion pump.
When the needle went in, Chloe flinched and buried her head in Katie’s shoulder. Katie hugged her close and went on reading and pointing to the pictures.
Rachel taped the pump to Chloe’s thigh and said, “All done. I’ll leave you two girls to it. Katie, I’ll call you when supper is ready.”
Katie went on reading and when Chloe’s eyes started to close, Katie shifted round and tipped her gently into the bed. Chloe sighed and pulled the duvet around her. Katie tucked her in and stood looking down at her. Her blonde hair was longer than it had been when Katie last saw her and a few strands close to her mouth were stirred by her breath. There was a faint flush on her cheeks. Looking at her, you’d think she was in perfect health, yet she was a chronically sick child kept alive by a punishing treatment regime. It would mean so much if the baby was a match for her and a successful transplant could be effected. It would mean nothing short of a complete cure as opposed to a life-long routine of transfusions and infusions, and perhaps a premature death.
Rachel called softly up the stairs and Katie went down.
The other three were sitting round the table, glasses of red wine before them. A discussion of some kind was clearly in progress.
Daniel was saying, “I still can’t quite see what you think might be wrong.”
A glass of wine had already been poured for Katie and as she sat down, Rachel pushed it towards her.
Lyle said, “Let me tell you a story. There’s a guy at the rodeo who sees a fine-looking horse that he wants to buy. Everything about the horse looks great, but the price is ridiculously low. There must be something wrong with it. The guy wants to know what the problem is. Perhaps it’s vicious? ‘No, it’s not,’ the owner says. Some health problem then? ‘Nope, nothing wrong there.’ So at last the guy decides to buy it. As soon as he’s handed over the money, he asks, ‘So, what is wrong with him?’ The owner replies, ‘There’s nothing wrong with him; he’s just not worth a hill of beans.’ That’s how I’m starting to feel. All the constituent parts are fine, and yet...”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Katie asked.
“Let Lyle tell you,” Daniel said, getting up from the table. “I’d better get the dinner.”
“This isn’t to go any further,” Lyle warned.
“Of course not.” Katie was a little offended.
“Sorry. But you’ll understand when I explain. I’ve invested in some research into influenza.”
Daniel brought a steaming pan to the table. He began to ladle penne and Bolognese sauce onto plates.
Lyle went on, “It all seems to be going ahead just fine. Claudia – she’s the postdoc who’s doing the work – is getting excellent results.” He pronounced the name in the Italian way: Cloudia.
“So what’s wrong?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble.”
“Isn’t there anything you can put your finger on?”
“There is one thing. There’s been a higher than normal turnover of lab technicians. Oh, all for perfectly good reasons, apparently. One got a better job elsewhere, another decided that she was too far from her family. But we’ve lost two in a year. Oh, I don’t know, probably nothing, but we are on to our third.”
Rachel passed round the parmesan cheese and said, “Is that surprising, though, when it’s such a remote location? It wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, would it?”
“Where is it, then?” Katie asked.
“It’s Debussy Point,” Lyle explained.
Katie raised her eyebrows. “That’s remote? It’s off the coast of north Devon, isn’t it?”
Lyle laughed. “Maybe not to an intrepid explorer such as yourself, Katie. The Antarctic it ain’t. But it is some considerable way from the nearest town and it’s cut off at high tide. There’s accommodation on the island the technicians usually live in. I guess it could get a bit claustrophobic.”
Daniel said, “Help yourself to wine. I’ll open another bottle. You don’t have to drive back to London tonight, do you, Lyle?”
“There’s a spare room on the boat,” Rachel said.
“I’ll have to make an early start, but yeah, great.”
Rachel said, “The isolation – is that because of the work they’re doing there?”
“No, no. It’s Category 3, but there are plenty of Cat 3 labs in cities. In fact they’re usually in cities, attached to hospitals and universities. Debussy Point is an exception, because it’s an outpost of the University of North Devon and deals specifically with animal diseases, so they need to have space for animal breeding. The highest category is four, which deals with diseases like Ebola, where there’s a highly infectious agent, most often lethal, and no known vaccine or treatment. Debussy Point is one down from that, but safety regulations are still very, very stringent because we’re looking at pathogens that can cause serious and potentially lethal disease through inhalation.”
“So what’s your interest, Lyle?” Katie asked. “Surely you haven’t switched over to animal diseases? I thought you said influenza.”
“That’s right. What interests me is the mechanism by which diseases jump the species barrier.”
“You mean like bird flu and swine fever?” Rachel put in.
“Actually, that’s a misnomer. Swine fever didn’t jump the species barrier.”
“But SARS did,” Katie said.
“That’s right. A strain of influenza can exist in one species for decades. The animals, birds maybe – bats, they think, in the case of SARS – might actually be asymptomatic, but they act as a reservoir for the disease. As long as the disease can’t jump the species barrier, it’s no problem as far as the human population is concerned. But viruses don’t stay the same. They evolve and out of the blue there can come a mutation that suddenly allows it to infect humans. Then it becomes a very big problem.”
“There’s something I don’t quite understand,” Katie said. “Where do you and the company come in? I mean, this sounds more like blue sky research than something that’ll yield a financial return any time soon.”
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that under Lyle’s leathery complexion there was a slight flush.
“Yeah, well,” he said, mumbling. “Pro bono and all that.”
“Pro bono! A hard-headed money man like you, Lyle?”
He laughed, a little shamefacedly. “I’ve always felt – well – you know how it is. Investment tends to go into diseases where the money is, and that’s mostly for drugs to treat Western diseases. And then, too, it can be hard for young researchers to get launched from a standing start. You need funding to get funding. So a little seedcorn capital –”
“The Bill Gates of biotechnology!” Katie teased.
“Hardly that. But the Biotech industry’s been good to me and I can afford to throw a few dollars at a good cause. I’ve got kind of a special interest. My grandmother died in the great Spanish flu epidemic in 1919. She was only twenty. My mother, who was her daughter, was brought up by an aunt. They still don’t know what made that strain of flu so virulent, but one theory is that it was caused by a mutation that jumped the species barrier. If we can develop a means of discovering and then disrupting the mechanism that allows interspecies infection to take place, we’ll be that much better equipped next time.”
“Next time?” Rachel asked.
“There likely will be a next time. It’s the view of some virologists that it’s a matter of when, not if, there’s another big flu pandemic.”
Rachel put a protective hand on her belly. “I’d rather not think about that.”
“Who’ve you got working on it?” Katie asked.
“Just a one man show, or rather, one woman show. A young postdoc, Claudia Carter, a real high-flyer, recommended to me by Professor Gemma Braithwaite, who’s the principal investigator on the project.”
There was a lull in the conversation while they turned their attention to the food.
Then Katie said, “You know, losing those technicians – it could just be that this Claudia is very difficult to work with.”
“Could be,” Lyle said.
Daniel said thoughtfully, “There’s something you might consider if you’re really concerned. There are firms of private investigators that specialize in planting employees in the workplace. It wouldn’t be hard to get someone in as a secretary or in an admin role.”
Lyle frowned and shook his head. “Nah, that wouldn’t work, sending in that kind of person. I’d need someone who really understood the work that was being done there. They’d need a scientific background. I think you’d have to get someone in as a technician.”
“Not beyond the bounds of possibility,” Daniel said.
“You could send me,” Katie heard herself saying.
There was silence for a few moments.
Lyle put down his fork. “Out of the question.”
“Oh yes? And why is that?” Katie asked. She waited as he marshalled his thoughts.
“OK,” he said, lifting up a finger. “One, you are grossly over-qualified. You have a career as a research scientist and you have a PhD.”
“Had a career. I am unemployed,” she pointed out. “And possibly unemployable. People still haven’t forgotten what happened a couple of years ago. I have a reputation as a whistle-blower, and for whistle-blower read trouble-maker.”
“Totally undeserved,” Rachel broke in. “It’s so unfair.”
Lyle raised a second finger and ploughed on. “Two, at the same time you are grossly under-qualified. You have never worked as a technician, let alone a technician in a Cat 3 lab.”
“That is true,” Katie admitted. “But when I was a postgrad I did plenty of grunt work. I have mixed culture media with the best of them. And I could easily get up to speed on the Cat 3 requirements. Is that all?”
“Not quite.” Lyle lifted a third finger. “While we are on the subject of whistle-blowing, let’s not forget that the last time you did a little undercover work for me, we all got more than we bargained for. I was sacked from my own company and you nearly wound up dead. So did Rachel and Chloe too, come to that.”
“Oh, Lyle. That’s not going to happen here.”
Lyle shook his head. “It’s a no go, Katie.”
Katie pressed home her advantage. “You’ve said yourself that it’s probably nothing at all. It’ll just be lab politics, or maybe those reasons for leaving are all on the level and you’re worrying unnecessarily. But at least you’d know.”
Lyle put up a hand, palm towards her, in the gesture that means stop. “I said no, Katie, and I meant no. And that’s my last word. Not going to happen.”