Catch Your Death

She rolled onto her side and coughed hard, spitting out black phlegm.

‘Kate!’ Denise appeared. ‘Are you alright?’ Her blonde hair was grey with soot, her cheeks and forehead smeared with it.

Kate sat up. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. But she was alive. ‘What happened?’

‘Don’t you remember?’

She concentrated. ‘I remember . . . devils. A scene from Hell. I thought I was dead.’

‘I thought we were going to die too. The Centre was on fire. It looks like the whole building we were in has been burned out.’

For the first time, Kate looked properly at the scene before her. In the darkness, clouds of smoke still rose from the long thin building that she’d called home for the last week. Fire engines stood close by, the uniformed men lined up with hoses, sending ribbons of water into the fire to fight its rival element.

‘We were lucky,’ Denise said.

‘Was anyone killed?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about Fiona?’

‘Fiona’s just over there. I don’t know where Sarah is though. They brought her out with us but I haven’t seen her since.’

‘She was here a minute ago. When I came round I saw her. She waved at me. Then I passed out again.’

‘Maybe they’ve already taken her to hospital . . .’ She trailed off. ‘There were other girls in there, though. I haven’t seen them bring anyone else out, but it’s too chaotic to know what’s going on.’

Kate pushed herself to her feet, her head spinning, her eyes blurring. She was so sick. What the hell had they given her yesterday? This was no common cold.

‘I’m going to check on Fiona and see if I can find Sarah,’ Denise said, touching Kate’s hand then disappearing into the chaos.

As Kate tried to steady herself, to stop the world rotating around her, a man in a white jacket came up to her. Kate squinted at him. He was tall and thin; kind of creepy. He reached towards her, uninvited, and laid a hand on her brow, making her flinch away. She knew she had a reason to be afraid of him, but in her delirium she couldn’t remember what it was.

‘Kate. You shouldn’t still be out here . . . you’re too unwell.’

She ignored him. ‘Do you know Stephen? Stephen Wilson? Have you seen him?’

He shook his head. ‘Come on – you really should rest. You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke. And you have a fever.’ He looked around as if searching for someone to help. He muttered something under his breath. Something about somebody interfering?

She didn’t hear any more because his words were drowned by her own coughing fit. Her throat felt like a raw wound.

The creepy man helped her sit down. He looked around again then said, ‘Stay here, okay? Just stay here.’

Another coughing jag filled her eyes with tears, and when it passed, he’d gone.

She needed to find Stephen. He’d told her he was staying late tonight. She’d been planning to meet him. He said he might have something to tell her. She stood up again, concentrating all of her remaining energy into staying upright, and headed towards the building and the firefighters.

‘Stephen,’ she tried to call, but her voice was too weak. She was dizzy and nauseous. She wanted to lie down, to sleep. But she desperately needed to find him – just see him and make sure he was okay before she could rest. There was no reason, really, to think he could have come to harm. His office was in a separate wing of the Centre. But still, she wanted to be sure. She loved him.

In the distance, she could see figures close to the building, the darkness and smoke reducing them to silhouettes. Two firemen were carrying out a stretcher with a motionless form on it; a form of approximately Stephen’s height and build. One arm flopped over the edge of the stretcher and, as they grew closer, Kate saw the familiar bulk of the chunky wristwatch Stephen always wore. It was blackened, like the arm to which it was attached, but she was certain she recognised it.

It was Stephen. She tried to run, but her own legs were too weak, her lungs too clogged. Her bare feet slipped on the grass and she lurched forward. When she got to her feet, the scientist – the same man who’d touched her forehead – blocked her way.

‘You have to rest,’ he insisted.

‘But Stephen,’ she said, reaching out towards the building, and suddenly there was movement all around her, an ambulance speeding past, firefighters running towards the Centre, and the scientist grabbing her arm and producing a needle which he stuck into her. A quick jab, and an even shorter struggle before haziness enveloped her. Once again, she passed out.

The last thing she saw was the scientist frowning down at her, while behind him paramedics crouched on the grass beside Stephen, and one of them shook his head.

She never knew if she actually did scream, or had just imagined it.

Chapter 1 Present Day (#ulink_faf2337f-3539-5a11-bdd3-c48f44bd6ee0)

The woman lying on the bunk appeared to be dead, until she sneezed; the violent motion making her skinny body spasm. She opened bloodshot eyes and lifted an arm, trying to pull a tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet. But as she reached out, her body spasmed again and she knocked the box to the floor. Too weak to pick it up, she lay still, until a further series of sneezes rocked her body like gunshots.

There were two men watching the girl. One was in his early forties but appeared younger because of the lack of lines on his face. His skin was tanned from a recent holiday in Bangkok, and at first glance he was unusually handsome, like a model in a commercial for razors or fast cars. But anyone gazing at his face for more than a few seconds would notice something strange. He still looked like a model, but a model in a magazine or on a billboard, frozen in time, unanimated. Worst of all were his eyes, which were small and lifeless like a shark’s. Secretly – because no-one dared criticise him to his face – he had been described as a robot.

His name was John Sampson.

The other man, whose name was Gaunt – nobody had ever heard him use his first name – was taller and paler, with skin that spoke of months and years spent in artificially-lit places like this. He was so thin he appeared to be wasting away. When he was locked in the laboratory, he often forgot to eat. Food wasn’t important. Nor was sleep. There was too much to do; too many exciting things to be discovered and tested. Nodding towards the woman on the bunk, he said, ‘She arrived last night. We picked her up at Heathrow and brought her straight here.’

Sampson said, ‘What is she? Chinese? Thai?’

She reminded him of a girl he’d met in Bangkok. He wondered idly if that girl’s family were still looking for her or if they’d given up by now. If they even cared.

‘Vietnamese, actually. Her name’s Lien. Twenty-three years old, resident of Hanoi. Doesn’t speak a single word of English – oh, except “please”. “Please, please, please.” She said that quite a few times, before she lost the ability to speak. I wonder what promises they made to her at the other end? A new life in England: a good job, a flat, a washing machine and a colour TV . . .?’

Sampson peered at Lien through the one-way glass.

‘What is it? Bird flu?’ he asked.

Gaunt, who wore a doctor’s white coat and spoke with an upper-middle-class English accent, took off his glasses and sucked on them. Finally, he said, ‘No. This is something new.’ He smiled. ‘It’s very impressive, actually. I have to hand it to our friends in Asia these days. Sars. Avian Flu. Both very impressive. But this one’s even better.’

‘It’s fatal?’

The doctor laughed. ‘Oh yes. Infinitely more so than Avian Flu.’

John Sampson looked at Lien again. She had tried, while they were talking, to pick up the glass of water that sat beside the tissue box, but she had knocked that over too. Water dribbled down the side of the cabinet and pooled on the floor.

‘I’d like to talk to her.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. She’s extremely contagious. She’d just have to breathe in your direction and you’d catch it.’

‘Shame.’ Sampson would have liked to find out how the girl was feeling.

‘Want to see exactly how contagious this is?’

Gaunt gestured for Sampson to follow him. They walked a little way down the harsh, bright corridor, beneath fluor­escent strip lights that flickered occasionally, and stopped in front of another small room with one-way glass. A second woman, this one Caucasian, with bleached hair and dirty roots, sat on the edge of the bed. She looked miserable and confused. Not as far gone as Lien, but she had a red nose, pink eyes, and she held a box of tissues in her lap.