‘Old school buddy,’ Sean said. ‘Moved to the UK, became a doctor. Always was a clever bastard.’ He searched for a moment, then gave a yelp of joy and put the phone to his ear.
‘Leigh? Sean. Yeah, man, I’m fine. Can you fuckin’ believe it?’ He paused, nodding, and Jayne heard the distant whisper of a voice she did not know. ‘Well, listen to this,’ Sean continued. ‘Got something else you’re never gonna believe, and I need your advice on how to handle it.’
And he told his old school buddy about Jayne.
Leigh Keene hung up the phone and sat up in bed.
‘What is it?’ his wife asked. She’d started awake when the phone rang, and already sounded sleepy again. He had no idea how she could sleep with all that was happening in America.
‘Old school friend in the States,’ Leigh said. ‘I’ve got to go downstairs.’
‘’kay,’ she said. She sighed softly, already asleep. I hope you can stay so peaceful, Leigh thought, and his heart ached with worry for her and their baby son who was asleep in the next room. Leigh was a paediatric consultant at a big London hospital – loved kids, always had – and he could barely breathe because of his fear of what was happening.
Downstairs, he sat at his desk and flicked on the wall-mounted TV. He blinked in shock. ‘Jesus. South America.’ He tapped the desktop nervously, then dialled a number on his BlackBerry.
Four thousand miles away in Toronto, a woman dabbed at her mouth and excused herself from the table. She walked outside the restaurant as she answered her phone, pulling a cigarette from her pocket at the same time. It had been a weird night, marked with an almost manic need to indulge. It had reminded her of a movie she’d seen about what everyone did for their last night on Earth. It was fucking terrifying, but the atmosphere dragged her on.
She paused as she saw the name on the display. Pressed connect. ‘Leigh?’
‘Emma! Emma, thank Christ, I thought you weren’t going to pick up.’
‘I’m at a restaurant.’ It was raining. She stood under a canopy with other banished smokers and lit up.
‘Good,’ Leigh said. ‘Good. I thought . . . I don’t know what.’
‘I’m not munching on brains yet,’ she said, and a couple of her smoking companions glanced her way. Emma glared back; she’d never been shy.
‘I know this is out of the blue, and we haven’t spoken for a long time, but—’
‘It’s been four years,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Sometimes feels like yesterday. Listen, are you safe? Do you have a plan?’
‘I’m fine,’ Emma said. ‘Leigh, I’d love to think this is all because you’re concerned about me, but I can’t believe that.’
‘I’ve always cared,’ he said.
She wondered where he was now, where his new wife and child were, and she was jealous all over again. ‘Yeah,’ she said.
‘Emma . . . I have some information about someone important. And you’re the only person I could think of who might know what to do.’
Emma closed her eyes.
Emma called her cousin – Tim Love, a cop – and told him about the immune girl in burning Baltimore. Before he headed out with his unit to Bethleham, where he would have his infected brains blown out by a bullet from Lieutenant Susco’s pistol, Love called a friend of his in the Baltimore PD. His friend called four people and ordered that they prepare for a rescue mission to Baltimore Airport, and one of those people – a corrupt Sergeant called Waits who was buried up to his ass in the city’s main drugs-distribution ring – called his mistress in New York to say goodbye. And he told her where he was going, and why.
The mistress was married to Nathan King, a writer and boozer. A troubled man, King had many acquaintances but only a handful of true friends. And one of those friends was an eccentric gay scientist the size of a grizzly bear, called Marc Dubois.
King called Marc, and told him what his wife had heard.
11
‘I knew she was getting it in the ass from someone, but a fucking cop?’