Catch Your Death. Mark Edwards
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have done a disappearing act. She decided against telling him how close she’d been to doing just that. She also wouldn’t tell him how relieved she felt, because getting dressed she’d wondered if he would actually be there. What if he’d had a change of heart? She could imagine him sitting at home, laughing to himself, thinking how crazy he was to get involved with this looney tunes chick with the dodgy memory.
Even though he looked tired, he also looked as if he’d made a bit of an effort before coming out. His hair had been washed and was fashionably spiked, though it had gone a little flat on one side, and he seemed to be wearing aftershave. Maybe a touch too much. ‘What is it?’ he said, looking alarmed. ‘Have I got something on my face?’
Kate realised she had been staring rather intently at Paul so she laughed and shook her head.
‘I’ve brought my laptop so we can . . .’ He stopped himself, realising he’d forgotten something. ‘Morning Jack,’ he said.
‘Hello. Um.’ He looked to his mum for help.
Paul laughed. ‘Don’t worry, mate, I couldn’t remember names when I was your age either.’
Jack looked puzzled. ‘My name’s Jack, not mate. You smell funny.’
‘Jack!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘Sorry about that. You don’t smell funny. You smell . . . nice.’
Paul’s face twisted with awkwardness as he struggled to find a response. He was saved by Jack saying, ‘Mummy, what are we having for breakfast? I’m hungry.’
‘How about going to Starbucks?’ Paul asked. He added, ‘They have wi-fi there.’
‘They might have wi-fi, but I’m not sure if you can get a very healthy breakfast there,’ Kate said. But now Jack wanted to go to Starbucks. She gave in. McDonald’s yesterday, now this. When this was over she was going to feed Jack nothing but organic fruit and vegetables for a month.
Paul said, ‘I called my parents last night. I just wanted to double check that they hadn’t received any letters from Stephen before he died, just in case he wrote to them too. They hadn’t, and then I felt bad for ringing and stirring things up, making them think about him.’
Kate touched his arm. ‘I imagine they think about him every day anyway.’
‘Yeah. I guess you’re right.’
‘They say you never get over the loss of a child.’ She had to raise her voice slightly to be heard over the din of milk being frothed in big stainless steel jugs.
Paul frowned. ‘I just wish that sometimes they’d realise that even though they lost one child, they still have another.’
Kate waited for him to continue, but at that moment they reached the head of the queue, and the barista took their order. She looked at his profile as he paid for them all, and felt that familiar tightness in her throat. Don’t cry, she fiercely told herself.
They found a table at the back of the coffee shop and sat down. Kate was remonstrating with Jack – ‘No, you can’t have a cake for breakfast, Jack’ – even though the pressure in her throat and behind her eyes had increased so much that she could barely speak. She had to get up again immediately.
‘I just need to go to the loo. Jack, be a good boy.’
In the toilet, Kate put her face in her hands and let the tears come. After a few moments she blew her nose and wiped her eyes, laughing at herself as she looked at the creature in the mirror with the mascara streaks. She quickly washed her face in the sink. She doubted Paul would notice the sudden absence of mascara, unless he was an unusually observant man. What if he knew she’d been crying and asked why? What would she tell him? She wasn’t even sure she knew.
She fixed a smile in place and came out of the bathroom – but when she looked in their direction, the table was empty, and her heart jumped into her throat.
‘Hey, Mummy!’
They had just moved to a different table, Jack and Paul with Billy the robot perched on the chair between them. She crossed the room on rubber legs. Paul had his laptop open. He said, ‘Jack wanted to sit by the window. Are you okay? You look pale.’
‘I’m fine.’ She quickly composed herself, glancing at the newspaper that lay between them, finding herself hooked by the headline. The lead story was about a ‘controversial’ scientist who’d been found murdered in his lab. Animal rights extremists were being blamed, although they denied involvement. There was a heartbreaking picture of the doctor with his family. The story sent a shiver through Kate’s bones, and she folded the paper and dropped it onto an empty chair. ‘So what are you doing?’ she asked Paul.
He swivelled the laptop so she could see the screen, then brought up Google and typed ‘cold research unit Salisbury’. He scanned through the list of results. ‘These are sites telling the history of the Unit. Maybe there’s something on there that could help us.’
‘Let’s have a look,’ Kate said, skim-reading the page. There was a black and white photo of part of the Unit, taken from a distance. The blocky, utilitarian buildings and the green spaces beyond. A chill made the hairs on her arms stand on end. She read The Unit burned down without having found a cure for the common cold. All those years of research with no success. Had it all been a waste of time? The possibility made her feel intensely sad, especially for Leonard and Stephen.
‘This just gives the official history of the place, and a very abridged version at that,’ she said.
He went back to the search engine page and clicked on a few other results. There was very little information available.
‘The internet isn’t going to be much help to us,’ he sighed. ‘Which is a shame. I get so used to finding everything I want on Google.’
Kate drummed her fingers on the table. Next to her, Jack was happily drawing a picture of Billy standing on an alien planet, firing a laser beam at a many-tentacled alien. She could sense Paul’s growing frustration and wished so badly that she could help him.
‘Who else would know what Stephen might have been talking about? Is there anyone else that you might have talked to about it? Friends? Family?’
‘Apart from my sister Miranda, Aunt Lil’s my only family, and she wouldn’t be able to help even if I’d told her everything. She’s got dementia. She barely recognises me now.’
She thought back to her frustrating visit to the nursing home two days before. It had been one of the most depressing experiences of her life. The lively, caring woman who’d looked after her and Miranda all those years after her parents died, was completely gone, replaced by a paper-skinned complaining creature with a body and mind that didn’t work properly any more.
‘Oh, that’s terrible, I’m so sorry. It happened to my gran. It’s so awful to lose someone like that, when they’re still alive. It’s like you can’t even grieve for them.’
Tears filled Kate’s eyes again. ‘Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. And she didn’t even know who Jack was – she kept calling him Ernest, who was her little brother.’
Paul was looking at her with such sympathy that she had to look away. ‘So, no, we wouldn’t get anywhere with Lil, and I know that I didn’t talk to Miranda about any of it. We aren’t that close, and anyway she was away at Uni in Edinburgh at the time.’
‘You’ve told me about when you first went to the Unit. Tell me what happened on your second visit, after the fire? What do you remember?’
She glanced at Jack. He was still engrossed in his drawing.
‘I remember the night of the fire itself.’ She told Paul about the rush from the building, passing out and waking up outside. And then seeing Stephen’s body being carried out. After that, she said, she must have passed out, although she had this strange, vague recollection of a doctor, a guy in a white coat – or that might have been mixed up with her next memory: waking up in hospital.
‘I