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 the 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 –”
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.