An Air That Kills Read online

  AN AIR THAT KILLS

  “Nobody writes medical mysteries with more authority than Christine Poulson. She has the precious gift of engaging and informing us as we become involved in the lives of her characters. This is her biggest theme yet – it’s of global significance. The implications concern us all.”

  Peter Lovesey, author of Killing with Confetti, a Detective Peter Diamond novel

  “A thrilling, thought-provoking read. A real page-turner.”

  Kate Ellis, author of The Mechanical Devil, a Wesley Peterson murder mystery

  “A group of near strangers being thrown together on a tidal island is a classic crime setting ... and for good reason. But add a research lab full of disease-carrying mosquitoes, a heroine with no great skill at staying undercover, and the shadowiest of shadowy killers, and you can feel the tension ratchet up with every chapter. Poulson knows her way around a lab and is unmatched at depicting the lives of working scientists and demystifying their world for a general audience, while never letting the setting overpower the story. Here the stakes are high, the suspects are many and the solution is satisfying. I loved it.”

  Catriona McPherson, multi-award-winning author of Strangers at the Gate

  “A compelling and original mystery with a convincingly detailed plot. It highlights the perils of viral research when a scientist goes rogue. An atmospheric setting and a rich cast of characters ensure that this is a highly intriguing read.”

  Rebecca Tope, author of Secrets in the Cotswolds, a Cotswolds murder mystery

  PREVIOUS BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  Dead Letters (Murder is Academic, US)

  Stage Fright

  Footfall

  Invisible

  Deep Water

  Cold, Cold Heart

  Christine Poulson was born and brought up in North Yorkshire. She studied English Literature and Art History at the University of Leicester, later earning a PhD. She went on to work as a curator at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and at the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith before becoming a lecturer in Art History at Homerton College, Cambridge. As well as writing fiction she has written widely on nineteenth-century art and literature, and her most recent work of non-fiction was The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art, 1840–1920. Her short stories have been short-listed for several awards, including the CWA Short Story Dagger and twice for the Margery Allingham Prize. She lives in a watermill in Derbyshire with her family.

  www.christinepoulson.co.uk

  Blog: www.christinepoulson.co.uk/a-reading-life

  Twitter: @chrissiepoulson

  Text copyright © 2019 Christine Poulson

  This edition copyright © 2019 Lion Hudson IP Limited

  The right of Christine Poulson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published by

  Lion Hudson Limited

  Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park

  Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England

  www.lionhudson.com

  ISBN 978 1 78264 283 1

  e-ISBN 978 1 78264 284 8

  First edition 2019

  Acknowledgments

  Cover images: test tube © skodonnell/istockphoto.com; smoke © Makalish/istockphoto.com

  Extract on p. 123 from MONSTER MASH, Words and Music by Bobby Pickett and Leonard Capizzi © 1962 ACOUSTIC MUSIC, INC. and CAPPIZZI MUSIC – All Rights Outside of the U.S. and Canada Administered by Round Hill Music. All Rights Reserved – Lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Round Hill Carlin, NW1 7HB.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This one is for Anna, with all my love

  Into my heart an air that kills

  From yon far country blows:

  What are those blue remembered hills,

  What spires, what farms are those?

  That is the land of lost content,

  I see it shining plain,

  The happy highways where I went

  And cannot come again.

  A. E. Housman

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Two Years Later

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  NEWSPAPER REPORT

  Disturbing news has emerged from the Democratic Republic of Congo of an outbreak of a haemorrhagic virus similar to Ebola. Authorities were first alerted by two British medical researchers working in the field who came upon a village where the virus had taken hold and had already infected the entire population. Reports indicated that the virus is highly contagious, and mortality rates are almost 90 per cent. The researchers have since been quarantined, and it is not yet known if they have contracted the disease. Unconfirmed reports say that their interpreter did contract the disease and has since died.

  The outbreak has occurred in the south-east of the country and efforts to contain the disease are being hampered by the danger of attacks by armed groups. According to a spokesman from the World Health Organization, “Civil unrest, community resistance and the geographic spread of the disease are combining to create a perfect storm over the next few weeks and months”.

  Scientists are working round the clock to learn more about the virus and develop a vaccine, but a breakthrough could be many months, perhaps years, away. The virus – as yet unnamed – has marked similarities to Ebola and the Marburg virus, but appears to be a separate species. It is possible that the virus crossed from monkey to human through the consumption of bush meat, common in that part of the world.

  Medical teams from Doctors Without Borders have established field hospitals, providing nursing care and quarantining all who have come into contact with the disease in an attempt to halt its spread. Meanwhile the death toll is over a hundred and is expected to rise.

  TWO YEARS LATER

  CHAPTER 1

  MONDAY

  DEBUSSY POINT

  It was night, and down in the basement the mosquitoes were stirring. The covered trays were ranged on tiers of shelves and contained mosquitoes in every stage from eggs to pupae to maturi
ty. Their ancestors had not lived in the wild for hundreds and hundreds of generations. Yet still the mosquitoes followed the same circadian rhythms as their cousins in Africa – active when the sun began to go down, resting during the day. The humidity and light in the room were controlled to mimic the cycle of the tropical day, half day and half night, with brief sunsets and dawns. Over the years, researchers and technicians had come and gone, but here the mosquitoes remained in their endless cycle of birth and death.

  At night the only sound was the hum of the humidifier and every two hours the heavy steps of the security guard as he patrolled the corridor, pausing to check from the panel beside the door that the humidity and temperature were both at the correct level.

  But tonight was different. It was around 1:30 a.m. – ten minutes after a visit from the security guard – that a second, lighter set of footsteps approached the insectary and someone appeared at the door, carrying an insulated box.

  It was too risky to put on the light. That would show up on the central computer system and trigger an alarm. A torch would have to do. The beam settled on the shelves of plastic cages with mesh covers containing fully grown mosquitoes. One was selected and taken to the work surface, and an empty sterilized container was placed alongside it. From the equipment cupboard a pooter was taken, a suction device consisting of a clear glass tube covered at the mouth end by very fine netting. The other end was attached to a flexible plastic hose. The pooter was inserted through the mesh of the mosquito cage. It was easy enough to select a female and gently suck her into the pooter, partially blocking the end of the hose with a finger. Some people used a cotton-wool stopper, but what was the point when none of the mosquitoes in the insectary were infected? It was perfectly safe and the constant gentle suction kept the insect hovering in the tube. The torch threw up crazy shadows on the wall and gave a demonic cast to the face so intent on the work.

  The next step was to insert the end of the hose through the mesh of the second, smaller cage and blow gently. The mosquito was wafted down into the cage, the hose pulled out of the mesh, and, voila, there it was: one perfect little insect all ready for the next stage of tonight’s work. The procedure was repeated until the cage contained five female mosquitoes. For research purposes more would usually be collected, but for tonight’s mission these would suffice. They wouldn’t be missed.

  Time now to pick up the cage, put it in the insulated bag, switch off the torch, and open the door to the corridor. A pause for a moment on the threshold to listen and let the silence settle. Then a short walk along the corridor to the door to the containment level three lab.

  The CCTV camera, fixed to the wall outside, was out of action, so even if someone did come down the corridor – very unlikely at this time of night – they wouldn’t know that there was anyone inside. Even if a check was made later, no one would be surprised that it hadn’t been working. It was always on the blink. And, in any case, the key card used to gain access belonged to someone else – a stroke of genius, that! – and so did the code.

  The door to the first of three rooms seemed to take forever to swing slowly shut with a pneumatic sigh. That outer door had to shut before the second door into an ante-room could open, and it would be the same on the way out. Once inside the ante-room, a blue disposable lab gown was donned and paper bootees pulled on over shoes, then another code had to be punched into a pad to gain access to the secure lab.

  Off to one side of the lab stood the incubator. It was just over a fortnight since a cage of uninfected mosquitoes had been brought into the Category 3 lab. At the same time, the parasite had arrived in infected blood in a vacuum flask at thirty-seven degrees, body temperature. Using a Perspex glove box – a sealed cabinet with rubber gloves that allowed the safe release of the insects – the mosquitoes had been introduced into a jar and given the warm, infected blood to feed on. After they’d been allowed to engorge, the jar had gone into the incubator cabinet. The mosquitoes had to be three days old before they would feed and it took around fourteen days for them to be infected.

  The incubator was opened, the jar removed and held up to the light. There was no question of sucking up these little monsters by mouth or of working outside a glove box. Most if not all of them would be carrying falciparum malaria, the most deadly form of the disease – indeed, the most deadly parasite that affects humankind. Every year many hundreds of thousands of people die after being bitten by mosquitoes exactly like these. That was why they had to be contained in the security of a Category 3 lab.

  The jar was taken over to the glove box and placed inside. A second empty jar was added, and lastly the cage with its five uninfected mosquitoes. A mechanical pooter was reached for now. It was safer than sucking them up the old-school way, though in unpractised hands it was easy for the insects to be damaged. But these particular hands – clad in a pair of surgical gloves to provide a second layer of protection – were not unpractised. Slowly, carefully, the five mosquitoes were transferred from the infected jar to the empty jar. Their place was taken by the uninfected mosquitoes from the insectary.

  Now all that remained was to take the larger jar of mosquitoes out of the glove box and replace it in the incubator. It still contained fifty mosquitoes as listed on the label, but now five of them – indistinguishable from their relatives – were definitely free from falciparum malaria. In the other unlabelled jar, there now rested five insects from the infected jar. The infection rate was never a hundred per cent, so it was necessary to take five. It was virtually certain that some – with luck all of them – would be carrying the parasite. Yes, five should be enough, but even if it wasn’t, there were plenty more where they came from. There was always another night.

  The clock on the wall indicated that it was twenty minutes until the security guard was due to make his next round. It was time to leave, time to put the jar in the insulated bag, time to pause for a moment on the threshold to check that all was just as it had been; that there were no signs of this clandestine visit. A sharp intake of breath – the cage brought from the insectary was still there on the counter. That had to go back to where it came from.

  Out in the ante-room the paper robe and booties were thrust into the waste bag. Then through the door into the entry room. The door closed with frustrating slowness and the wait was irksome. But then a quick glance out into the corridor to make sure that no one was about and a swift walk back to the insectary. Replacing the cage, there was some hesitation – old habits die hard – because, really, it ought to be sterilized after use. But there was no time for that.

  Again, a swift look round. Nothing out of place. Time to turn the light off and get out of there.

  By the time the security guard appeared, yawning, on his next round, the thief, along with the deadly cargo, had vanished into the night.

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY

  ELY

  It was eleven months almost to the day since the last time Katie had got off the train at Ely and crossed over to the towpath by the river. She had left the UK last February, before the beginning of spring, and now she was returning in early January of the following year. While she had been in Antarctica, the summer had passed and now it was winter again. She had left the Edward Wilson base, far out on the Antarctic plateau, seven weeks ago in mid-November, as soon as the first plane had flown in. She had travelled home in easy stages, spending time in Australia and Thailand. There at least she had basked in the warmth of the sun. And she had taken the opportunity to visit her brother, who was living and working in Shanghai. It had been wonderful to see her young nephews again. But still, however long she lived, there would always be one less summer in her life.

  On arriving back in the UK she had gone straight to York to spend Christmas and the New Year with her mother. Now she was paying a visit that she had been looking forward to for months.

  Even now on a grey day, when the towers of Ely Cathedral were indistinct in the mist, everything looked so vivid – the grass, the weeping willows
and the brightly painted boats – almost painfully so, after the world of black and white that she had inhabited for nine months. And the smells... There are no smells on the Antarctic plateau. Was that a hint of wood-smoke in the air? And the loudness of everything, the rattle of her case trundling beside her – the sensory overload was almost too much, just as it had been in Thailand and Australia. She’d been warned that it might take a long time to wear off.

  As she turned a bend in the path, a figure came into view, at once familiar and strange. It was Rachel, walking with the slow, deliberate tread of a heavily pregnant woman. Her face lit up when she saw Katie.

  They embraced awkwardly. Katie had to lean forward to get her arms round her friend.

  “Oh, Katie,” Rachel said. “I meant to meet you off the train, but I laid down for a little nap and before I knew it, it was three o’clock. I’m sleeping so badly at the moment.”

  Katie held her friend at arm’s length and looked into her face. “You look well, though.”

  “I’m fine. Just that I can’t get comfortable and I need to pee all the time.”

  They turned and began to walk slowly on. Rachel said, “You’re staying on the boat. Hope that’s OK? We’re still halfway through getting the third bedroom ready for the baby.”

  “That’ll be lovely. Just like old times.”

  They drew level with Rachel and Daniel’s boat. The Matilda Jane, a sixty-five-foot Dutch barge, was moored not far from their house on Quayside and had been Katie’s home the winter before last when she had been working in a lab on the outskirts of Ely.

  Rachel produced a set of keys from her pocket. She hesitated, just for a moment, and Katie put out a hand to support her as she stepped up onto the boat.

  Down in the saloon the wood-burning stove had been lit and it was deliciously warm. It had been Rachel’s boat, which she had meticulously restored when she was single, and she had lived on it before she had married Daniel. She had not gone for the chintzy folksy look that a lot of boat-owners favoured. She liked clean lines and modern design. The seating area was furnished with a black leather sofa and matching chairs.