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.