Louise Welsh - A Lovely Way to Burn

‘Any crap, and I’ll shoot you.’

Stevie sat up in bed and smoothed her hair with her fingertips. Perhaps she was adjusting to the way the mask distorted William’s voice, because this time she could make out his accent, a public-school drawl. His pronunciation should have been at odds with the gangster-speak, but working on the edges of the media had brought Stevie into contact with enough posh people for her to know that the upper classes were not necessarily strangers to an uppercut.

Stevie swung her feet on to the floor. ‘Let me go, and I promise to walk away. No one cares any more about how or why Simon died, or whether Fibrosyop acted unethically. I’m sure your father had his reasons for what he did.’ She let a tear roll down her cheek. ‘We need to look forwards, not back, if we’re to survive.’

William Buchanan gestured towards the door with the gun.

‘That’s exactly what we are doing.’

Stevie shifted to the edge of the bed, ready to get to her feet if it looked like William might hit her.

‘No, it’s not. I don’t know what your father’s told you, but he’s obsessed with covering up his involvement in Simon’s murder.’

‘You’re the only one who’s obsessed with Simon. Everyone else is concentrating on staying alive.’ William paused. ‘Except my dad, I suppose.’

Stevie leant forward. ‘And what is your father concentrating on?’

‘Finding a cure. That’s why he was so keen to get you to come here. I thought you would have worked that out for yourself by now.’

And in that moment Stevie realised her true worth to the chemist.

Buchanan’s lab was in a large room punctuated by rows of workbenches. Its windows were high and small, but they offered a glimpse of summer sky, Marian blue and dotted with white clouds so perfect they might have been painted on silk. Stevie thought of the metal railings guarding the building, the unscaleable height of them.

Buchanan had also donned a protective suit and mask. Panic fluttered in Stevie’s chest. She asked, ‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘Just a few tests.’ The mask obscured Buchanan’s face, but she thought that perhaps he was smiling. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Stevie took a step backwards but William reached out and gripped her by the elbow. Hope’s gun was in his other hand. She wondered if she should make a lunge for it, but the barrel was pointing at her forehead and she caught a glimpse of its tunnelling depths, the blackness waiting for her there.

The chemist glanced at the expression on her face and said, ‘William, the gun is persuasion enough.’ He turned his attention back to Stevie. ‘It’s been a stressful time.’ He might have been talking about a threatened redundancy that had failed to materialise. ‘I didn’t get the opportunity to ask how you’ve been, healthwise that is, since we last met.’

Stevie pulled herself free of William’s grip. He let her go, but stayed close enough for her to feel his presence, the heat of his body inside the suit. She said, ‘Can I have a glass of water, please?’ She wasn’t thirsty, but it seemed important to make her jailers do something for her. Buchanan turned on a tap at the sink built into the workstation next to him. He let the water run for a moment, then filled a small paper cone and handed it to her. Stevie took a sip. ‘I’ve been fine.’

Buchanan nodded. ‘Have you come into contact with many sufferers?’

The laboratory smelt drily of chemicals. Stevie had imagined that the chemist’s quarters would resemble the labs in cosmetic commercials, shiny and wipe-clean, but the room had been caught up in the chaos of the outside world. Its countertops were littered with the detritus of Buchanan’s work: flasks crusted with mysterious crystals, reams of paper, evil-looking Bunsen burners and abandoned Petri dishes, some of them clouded and staring, like sightless eyes.

‘You can’t be out there and not come into contact with people who have the sweats.’ She took a step to the left and looked at William, including him in their conversation. ‘Ask your son.’

‘I’m asking you. How close?’

‘Close.’

‘Close enough to touch?’

‘Yes.’

‘To share a meal?’

Stevie remembered the tea and biscuits Iqbal had given her.

‘Yes.’

‘To have sexual intercourse with?’

She drank the last of the water, crushed the paper cone and dropped it on the floor.

‘That’s none of your business.’

William said, ‘Answer the question.’ But Stevie heard the discomfort in his voice, and hugged it to herself, like a prison shank.

‘Once, with someone who subsequently died of the sweats.’

It felt like a betrayal to describe Iqbal’s death so casually.

‘How soon afterwards did the other person die?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She let her eyes run over a weird arrangement of glass pipes and beakers, like the skyline of some futuristic city. ‘I left, and when I came back, he was dead. Two days at the most.’

Buchanan nodded as if she had given the right answer. He slid open a drawer, took something out and started busying himself with it. His heavy gloves hid the object from view.

‘I’m grateful to you for seeking us out, Ms Flint. You saved us a lot of effort.’ He looked directly at her. ‘Come here, please.’

Stevie glanced at William, at the revolver in his hand, and wondered how good a grip his gloves allowed him. She walked towards Buchanan, aware of the gun following her, and saw the camp bed, low on the ground behind the workstation. She saw too what the chemist was holding in his hands: a syringe.

‘I’m not the only survivor.’ Her voice wavered. ‘There are lots of people out there.’

Buchanan said, ‘Perhaps, but you’re the only one who came to us. Don’t worry. I’ve no intention of harming you. I just need to find out what it is that makes you immune. Roll up your sleeve and lie down on the bed, please. It’s a little difficult to be dexterous, gloved up like this, so I’m going to ask you to stay very still.’

Stevie wrapped her arms around herself.

‘What are you planning to do to me?’

‘Nothing drastic. I’m going to take a blood sample.’ The pale face inside the helmet smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’m a little rusty at this so you’ll have to bear with me. When we were students, nurses used to joke, “Just a little prick with a needle,” whenever Simon or I attempted to give an injection. I’m not sure I’ve improved much since then.’

Stevie hugged her body tighter. Instinct warned her that once she was on the bed she would be lost. She said, ‘It was never about the children for you, was it? You wanted the glory of making a medical breakthrough. When you discovered you’d made a mistake and the treatment was no good, instead of coming clean you faked the results.’ She turned to face Buchanan’s son. ‘You must have lost people too, William. We all have. Everyone is grieving, except for your father. He thinks the sweats are an opportunity to turn himself into a god, but he’ll screw this up, just like he screwed up before.’

‘You talk too much.’ William pushed Stevie against the workbench and pinned her there with his body. Stevie stamped on his toes but he was wearing heavy work boots and her feet made no impact. William peeled her left arm free and shoved her sleeve up beyond her elbow. A cough rumbled in his chest. Stevie felt it shudder against her spine. She kept her eyes on his father.

‘You killed Simon to protect your work.’ William’s weight was forcing the air out of her, and her words came in gasps. ‘But your work was shit, it wasn’t worth protecting.’

The chemist swabbed the crease on the inside of her elbow, tapped it gently to raise a vein and tightened a tourniquet around her arm.