Catch Your Death

Sampson waited for the doctor to explain.

‘She’s a prostitute. Serbian; she was brought here last night. She was clean – no viruses, no problems, remarkably healthy for a woman of her profession. How old do you think she is? About twenty six?’

Sampson nodded slowly. The girl was beautiful. He pictured himself holding her, sitting with her as she died. She would explain what her pain and suffering and fear felt like. He would stroke her dirty hair as she breathed her last breath.

Gaunt said, ‘We put her in a room with Lien for twenty seconds. They didn’t touch or even speak to one another. She started showing symptoms eight hours later. But she herself isn’t contagious yet. You can talk to her if you want.’

Sampson raised his eyebrows.

The doctor drummed his fingers on the glass and the girl looked up. A gold chain, bearing a locket, hung around her neck. Beneath the sickness, she looked angry and defiant. Her mouth moved but they couldn’t hear what she was saying. Maybe she was pleading. Or spitting words of fury. Whatever, her words were as futile as her hopes.

‘This is the most remarkable thing about this virus,’ the doctor said, ignoring the girl. ‘It has a safe period. For fifteen hours, the carrier isn’t contagious, even though they start to exhibit symptoms. My Asian contact told me they wanted to develop a virus that would be safe to work with for short periods. With this strain, the carrier can be safely transported to a far off place, just like Lien here. Could be useful in war. Like a time bomb. And it suits our aims perfectly.’

Sampson nodded, not taking his eyes off the young prosti­tute. ‘So the people who were on the plane with Lien will be fine.’

Gaunt continued talking. Something about how close they were to completing their plans. Sampson tuned him out and continued to watch the girl sniffling on the bunk. He was waiting for the doctor to shut up and open the door, so he could talk to her and find out the answers to his questions. After that, when she became contagious and he had to leave her, he would find out what job the doctor had planned for him.

Who would he want killed this time?

Chapter 2 Present Day (#ulink_3c64673e-06da-5991-bf70-6bd6c6e86c40)

England was just as she remembered it. Grey, oppressive skies, even in summer, people rushing from place to place, avoiding one another’s eyes, locked into their own personal spaces. The music they used to isolate themselves came from an iPod these days rather than a Walkman, and the litter on the streets carried different brand names, but apart from that, it was like stepping into a time warp. Even the teenagers wore the same clothes she’d worn twenty years ago. Punk and goth were fashionable again. Bleak fashions for a bleak city.

It was so good to be back.

Kate Maddox felt an urgent tug at her arm and looked down into a pair of wide blue eyes – eyes like her own, Vernon had always said. ‘His mother’s eyes and his father’s nose.’ She hoped that was all Jack had inherited from his dad. Other attributes mother and son shared were dark brown hair; Kate’s long and wavy, falling over her shoulders; and Jack’s cropped close, but in exactly the same shade of chestnut; freckles across the bridge of the nose which were only really visible in summer, and an infectious, easy laugh. Like Kate, Jack would probably be tall and slim when he grew up. She was secretly pleased that he would one day, hopefully, tower over the short-legged, bull-necked Vernon.

‘Mum, Mum, look – there’s that robot I was telling you about.’

Jack was pointing towards a shop window – Hamleys, she realised, the giant toy shop that she had once dragged her own parents around – and a white toy robot lumbering around in the window. She only had the vaguest recol­lection of Jack telling her about this robot, but it was clear that it had been occupying his thoughts recently. It was amazing how, in the midst of upheaval, he could still fixate on such things. Actually, it was reassuring. Although she hadn’t yet explained to the six-year-old exactly how different things were going to be from now on. She’d been putting it off.

‘Can we have a look? Please?’

‘Okay.’

She allowed herself to be led over to the window where Jack pressed his palm against the glass and watched the white and silver robot as it performed a number of tricks. ‘It’s so cool,’ he breathed.

‘Hmm.’

He gazed up at her. ‘I’d be really happy if I had one.’

She smiled at his disingenuous turn of phrase, then caught herself and frowned. ‘I think it’s probably too expensive.’

Jack squinted at the price tag. ‘It’s eighty pounds. How much is that in dollars?’

‘Too much.’

She sensed him deflate and felt a blow of guilt, then annoyance at her own guilt. £80 was too much for a toy, although she and Vernon had both bought Jack a lot of expensive gifts recently. Guilt gifts. Competitive gifts. Most of those toys were still in Boston, in Jack’s cluttered bedroom with the Red Sox bedspread and posters covering every inch of the walls.

The robot’s eyes flashed red and Jack squealed with laughter. ‘Cool. I can’t wait to tell Tyler about this.’

Tyler was Jack’s best friend. Hearing his name brought back that feeling of guilt with a vengeance. Was she a bad mother? What would Jack say and do when she told him? She looked at the robot and at Jack’s rapt expression as he watched it; and then she decided to infringe the first rule of parenthood: never back down once you’ve already said no.

‘I guess you have been a good boy recently.’

Thirty minutes later they were in McDonald’s in Leicester Square – another treat for Jack, who wasn’t normally allowed to go into such unhealthy and additive-laden places. Every other kid in the place was gazing enviously at Jack’s white robot.

Jack cradled it on his lap while he ate his veggie burger with one hand, Kate trying to be relaxed at the sight of the ketchup threatening to drip at any moment. The bloody robot was nearly as big as her son and now they were going to have to lug it round with them. What had she been thinking? She’d let her guilt get the better of her.

‘I’m going to call him Billy,’ Jack announced solemnly. ‘Billy, this is my mum.’

The robot bleeped on cue.

‘Pleased to meet you, Billy,’ Kate said, forking a piece of tomato.

‘Mum, where does the Queen live?’

‘Nearby, in Buckingham Palace.’

‘Billy and I would like to visit her.’

‘I’m sure she’d be fascinated to meet Billy, but I don’t think the Queen allows visitors.’

Jack thought about this. ‘Is it because I’m American?’

‘You’re half British.’

‘Which half ?’

‘The best half.’

‘Daddy said that most British people are stuck up and have dirty teeth, like that man over there.’

The man Jack was referring to, who did indeed have teeth that looked like they’d fall out in shock if a toothbrush ever went near them, looked angrily over, and Kate shrunk down in her plastic seat.

‘Jack, shush.’ Most British people were stuck up? That was the most hypocritical thing Vernon had ever come out with – he was the bloody snob in the family. He was the one who refused to fly economy because of the hoi polloi. He was the one who didn’t have a single acquaintance without an Ivy League education.

‘Are my teeth American?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Billy’s?’

‘I don’t think he’s got teeth. But if he did, they’d be made in China like the rest of him.’

‘Mum, what do robots eat?’

She grabbed one of his french fries and held it up. ‘Microchips?’