Catch Your Death. Mark Edwards

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      ‘Sure,’ he said, easily.

      She’d been worried that he might think she was planning to come on to him, farming her son out to a stranger, being a bad mother – but he didn’t seem at all fazed. ‘I’m starving,’ he added.

      ‘Me too,’ she said, although she wasn’t.

      He led the way into the hot, noisy restaurant, waves of chatter rising and falling against a backdrop of the clatter of plates at a service hatch. A waiter showed them to a table, chucked a pair of menus down on the table and zoomed away again.

      Seeing how taken aback Kate was, Paul said, ‘They’re famously rude in here. It’s part of the appeal.’

      They exchanged pleasantries about the warm weather and Chinese food for a few minutes, ordered drinks and studied their menus.

      The waiter reappeared. ‘Yes?’ he demanded, looking as though he wished he was anywhere else but here.

      Paul gave the waiter a few numbers from the menu, and Kate did the same.

      ‘You’re vegetarian?’ he asked. When she nodded, he asked, ‘Do you eat fish?’

      ‘No, I’m vegetarian.’ She immediately regretted her snappiness. ‘Sorry, it’s just that everyone always says that – it’s like an automatic response. Proper veggies don’t eat fish.’

      ‘I’ll remember that.’ He pretended to make a note on an invisible notepad. ‘Fish have feelings too.’

      He was charming. Just like Stephen – or rather, how Stephen would be if he’d had sixteen more years to practice. She had to keep reminding herself, though, that this wasn’t Stephen. She had to remember that she had only met this man this afternoon. Her fantasies were not coming true. On the way over, she kept asking herself why she was doing this, what her motives were. There were, in the end, two things.

      One, she had never been able to talk to anyone else about Stephen. Now, like his brother, she relished the chance to talk to somebody about him, somebody who knew him intimately. Perhaps that way, after all these years, she could achieve some kind of – and she hated the word but couldn’t think of a better one – closure.

      Two, she was glad of the distraction. She had only been able to think about one thing since arriving in London, and her brain needed a break from the worry. What better way to stop fretting about the future than to concentrate on the past?

      ‘So,’ Paul asked. ‘What brings you to London? Visiting relatives?’

      It was far too complicated to explain, even if she’d wanted to. ‘No. Well, not really. Jack and I are just about to move over here.’ She played with her chopsticks, unsure of how much to tell him. ‘I’m looking for a place at the moment. Actually, I’m kind of shocked by the price of property in London.’

      ‘Where do you live at the moment? Oh yes, Boston, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Nice.’ He waited for her to give more details but she wasn’t forthcoming. ‘And what do you do in Boston?’

      ‘I work at Harvard.’

      ‘Doing . . .?’

      Kate laid her chopsticks on the table. ‘I’m a professor in the department of immunology and infectious diseases. I specialise in the study and treatment of viruses.’

      She watched Paul closely to see his reaction. Telling people what she did usually had two effects. Weak men, the kind who were intimidated by clever women, would try to outsmart or belittle her. Other people would inch away, like people she talked to on the extremely rare occasions she went to parties, as if they might catch something from her.

      Paul didn’t appear to be at all intimidated or frightened. ‘Cool. So is that how you knew Stephen? You worked with him at the Cold Research Unit?’

      ‘No, I was a volunteer there. I’d only just graduated. And after that, I went to Harvard and, apart from the odd visit, never came back.’

      ‘Until now?’

      ‘Until now,’ she echoed, thinking how strange it was that you could summarise a life so quickly and painlessly, missing out all the important facts. Of how she went to Harvard, still in a state of shock, only weeks after Stephen’s death. The years she spent in the graduate research programme. Meeting and marrying Vernon Maddox – a man who could not have been more different to Stephen – and having Jack. The glorious day she became Professor Kate Maddox. Work, and Jack, had both continued to be fulfilling and enjoyable, but the rot had well and truly started to set in with Vernon by then. His fuse had grown shorter and shorter over the years, seemingly in inverse proportions to his nasal hair. What Kate had initially thought was passionate and forthright about him soon became perceived as merely hectoring and unpleasant.

      She didn’t tell Paul all this, though.

      ‘And what do you do?’ she asked.

      ‘You might not believe this, but I chase viruses too.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes – but a different kind to you. Computer viruses. Or I should say, the scum who create them and send them out across the internet.’

      ‘You’re a cop?’

      ‘No. Not really. I work for an internet security firm. It’s a very exciting business.’

      She smiled. ‘Sounds a bit geeky to me.’

      ‘Er, says the professor of – what was it? – immunology and infectious diseases?’

      ‘Touché.’

      Paul laughed. ‘Actually, a lot of people think it’s a geeky job, and I do spend a lot of time staring at computer screens. But so must you.’

      ‘You’re right. Too much time.’

      ‘Except now you’re moving to London. Are you moving to a university over here? Kissing the Ivy League goodbye?’

      He asked a lot of questions. Stephen had been curious like that too, interested in others.

      Their food arrived, the waiter plonking it down on the table, shoving their glasses out of the way then stomping off. Kate was too busy trying to decide how honest to be to feel aggrieved by the waiter’s rudeness. Should she tell Paul that she had no idea about what she was going to do professionally; furthermore, that she didn’t care right now?

      She said, ‘I’m considering my options at the moment.’

      ‘I see.’

      They emptied their beer bottles and Paul put his hand up to order more. Kate licked her lips. She hardly drank at all these days and the beer tasted good: sweet and mood-changing. Tongue-loosening.

      ‘Tell me about Stephen,’ she said. ‘What was he like as a kid?’

      Paul dipped a spring roll in sweet chilli sauce, and took a bite. ‘He was the leader, at first. He was born second СКАЧАТЬ