Louise Welsh - A Lovely Way to Burn

Stevie said, ‘But Simon didn’t realise that the treatment was no good until Summers alerted him. You and Ahumibe had already discovered it was useless and decided not to tell Simon because you knew he would call a halt to the operations.’

Buchanan put his head on one side. It was a coquettish gesture, sinister combined with the protective suit and headgear.

‘Simon should have worked it out. He would have, if he’d been doing his job properly.’

William looked up at his father. ‘You killed him. End of story. Who cares?’

‘Ms Flint cares,’ Buchanan said, softly enunciating the words, as if explaining an obvious fact to an imbecile. ‘Because she loved him, which is rather beautiful considering all the destruction going on around us. I loved Simon too.’

William said, ‘Fuck Uncle Simon.’ He got to his feet, stood behind Stevie and lifted the bag of blood from the bed. ‘Shouldn’t this be in a fridge or something?’

Buchanan whispered, ‘Careful, William.’

His son flopped the blood bag back on to the mattress. A soft red-black jewel that reminded Stevie of sea urchins she had sometimes seen attached to rocks at the bottom of cliffs.

William remained standing behind her. The back of Stevie’s skull, the bit she thought might make a good target, tingled, but she asked, ‘What did Simon do, after you pointed out the consequences of coming clean?’

Alexander Buchanan’s laugh was so abrupt that Stevie suddenly wondered if he had dipped into his chemical supplies.

‘He tried to buy himself out of Fibrosyop. God knows where Simon got the money from, but he presented me with what he referred to as “the first instalment”, in cash, as if actual notes would be more persuasive than the promise of a funds transfer.’

Stevie said, ‘He borrowed it from Hope Black. That’s why she was at his apartment the day William went there looking for me. She wanted her money back.’

William muttered, ‘I didn’t see the signs on her until she was on the ground.’ He stroked Stevie’s head. ‘I was wearing gloves, but I was in the same room. I breathed the same air.’ He looked at his father. ‘You were working on the vaccine.’

William’s touch made the hairs on the back of Stevie’s neck rise.

Buchanan said, ‘Simon took holiday leave. I thought he might bolt, so I asked William to keep an eye on him.’

Stevie slowly turned her body and looked at William. The tremble in his gun hand echoed the flutter in her stomach. She said, ‘You and your father were close, even before the sweats.’

‘We’ve had our differences, but blood is thicker than water. Uncle Simon was scared. You could see it in the way he walked. He kept looking over his shoulder. I didn’t bother to hide myself. I thought, let him see me. Let him be scared.’

‘I would have preferred a little more subtlety, but never mind.’ Buchanan glanced at the clock on the laboratory wall and then back at Stevie. ‘I think we’ll give it another minute before we move you. We don’t want you fainting on us.’ He leant against the worktop. If it wasn’t for his protective mask and overalls he might have looked like a man at a party, shooting the breeze over a few beers. ‘What really hurt was Simon’s lack of faith. We’d known each other since we were boys. I’d already explained that all I needed was a little time. I was so close to perfecting the formula. I dreamt about it every night.’

Stevie said, ‘You told me that Simon had come round to your way of thinking, but he hadn’t, had he?’

‘You’re wrong. After I refused to let him off the hook by buying himself out, Simon agreed to allow me three more months to work on the formula. He also agreed to undertake the operations we already had scheduled. If you really knew him, then you’d know that was the way it always went with Simon, a compromise, which was generally followed by another compromise, until finally he was convinced that whatever it was he’d initially disagreed with had been his idea all along.’

‘But you killed him?’

‘Yes.’ Buchanan’s ebullience left him. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I was forced to.’

William said, ‘This fucking suit is suffocating me.’

His free hand went to his protective helmet. Buchanan snapped, ‘Keep that on.’ But William pulled it free and Stevie saw his face close up for the first time. His hair and eyes were the same watery pale as his father’s, but his cheeks were flushed scarlet, his skin drenched in sweat.

Buchanan said, ‘Put your mask on.’

‘What’s the point?’ William held out a hand to his father, but Buchanan took a swift step backwards.

‘We need to get you into isolation.’

‘You won’t leave me again, will you, Dad?’

William’s gun hand shuddered. It was the moment Stevie had been waiting for. She grabbed the bag of blood from the bed, slammed it into William’s face and threw herself on to the floor. The plastic split on impact and her blood arced in a spray around the room, splattering all three of them. Stevie smelt herself, rich and iron, tasted her life-force sharp on her lips. The gun rattled on to the laboratory’s tiled floor. She wiped her eyes and scrambled to where it had landed.

Stevie expected Buchanan to race her, but there was no hand at her heels, no harsh breath or panicked shouts, just the sound of William groaning. She seized the gun, spun on to her back, and pointed the muzzle in front of her, ready to shoot whichever of the Buchanans came at her first.

Alexander Buchanan wiped the blood from his visor. His white overalls and mask were splattered with gore, as if he was a chainsaw killer fresh from a spree. He lifted a glass beaker in the air and said, ‘An extreme game of paper, scissor, stone. Acid versus a bullet.’

Stevie was still on the ground. She scooted backwards, through the slick of blood, until she felt one of the workstations at her back and propped herself against it, the gun pointed at Buchanan.

William had sunk on to the couch. He whispered, ‘Dad, I’m scared.’

Stevie said, ‘You should look to your boy. He’s dying.’

Buchanan kept his eyes on Stevie.

‘William, I want you to take the gun from Ms Flint, give it to me and then go to bed. I’ll come and see you soon, I promise.’

Buchanan’s son had taken the worst of the blood bag’s impact and his white-blond hair, flushed face and overalls were drenched scarlet. He put his head in his hands and coughed as if he was trying to expel his lungs. Stevie felt an unexpected stab of pity.

‘Don’t let your father send you on another suicide mission, William. He could have kept you safe from the sweats, but he sent you out to do his dirty work instead. You’re going to die soon. It’ll be sooner if you take a single step towards me.’

William wiped a hand across his face. He looked at his father.

‘What you were working on might cure me.’

‘It’s not ready yet.’

‘Then make it ready. I don’t want to die.’

‘I can’t, son, not while Ms Flint is pointing a gun at me.’ The acid shimmered in its flask, so clear Stevie thought that if she didn’t know what it was, she might drink it without a thought. Buchanan said, ‘Take the gun from her, and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘If your father was capable of making a cure, he would have done it by now,’ Stevie said. ‘I saw signs of the sweats on you hours ago, William. Your father must have seen them too. But he wanted to use you, the way he’s used you all along.’ She got to her feet, keeping the gun trained on Buchanan, ready to switch aim if his son made a move towards her. The only exit from the room lay behind the two men. She said, ‘Get out of my way.’