All Fall Down Read Online Free PDF

Yes, it’s your field. But listen, they could’ve asked Isaac, couldn’t they, and it sounds like they haven’t. You’re not the only virologist working in that field. There are others, maybe not as good as you – but others who haven’t been through what you’ve already been through, and who don’t have families to think about. It’s not fair that they’re putting it all on your shoulders. They’ve already got a team on it out there.’
    They talked on, listing pros and cons, sometimes arguing, sometimes rationalising, swinging one way and then the other in the debate. Along the way, Paul lit the fire and Kate made toast and uncorked another bottle of Merlot. Finally Paul opened his laptop and googled ‘new virus in Cali fornia’, ‘death on Indian reservation’, ‘new strain
of Watoto’, and every other permutation he could think of, but nothing came up. Kate gazed into the fire, trying to allow herself to by hypnotised by the flames – anything
for a respite from the dilemma whose ramifications were multiplying like a virus in her brain.
    ‘I’d better get Jack,’ she said, eventually, checking the time on her mobile. ‘I told Shelley I’d pick him up at seven.’
    ‘Want me to go?’ asked Paul.
    ‘No, it’s OK, thanks. I could do with some air.’ The heat from the fire had burned a flush in her cheeks, and Kate suddenly yearned for the cold wind to cool them down. Slipping on her coat and wellies, she set off along the lane into the village.
    A weak evening sun briefly struggled through the clouds, gently highlighting hawthorn hedges and the swaying branches of trees overhead until the clouds once more overtook it. The thought of having to leave Jack with his dad for however long it took to develop the vaccine, knowing that could mean anything from six months to a year, was intolerable.
    No. I can’t do it, she thought. I won’t.
    But then she wavered, thinking of the thousands of lives that could be saved. Weighing up the opportunity to work in a state-of-the-art lab with resources second to none, money no object …
    The image of Jack’s face when she’d picked him up in the playground flashed into her mind. He was so happy here. A normal little boy again. Nothing, not fame nor fortune nor acclaim, could persuade her to jeopardise that for a second time.
    Not even thousands of innocent lives?
    Still deep in thought, she rounded the corner of the lane leading to Isaac and Shelley’s small but beautiful Georgian manor house, bought as a wreck five years ago and lovingly restored. When she saw what was outside, she stopped in her tracks.
    A police car was parked in the driveway. Suddenly, cutting through the evening silence of an English village came the ear-splitting sound of a scream, loud, high and panicked. A scream of primal pain – and it was coming from the house of her best friend.
    Kate started to run.

4
San Diego
    Angelica stood in the shadows of an alleyway that ran alongside the Metropolitan Hotel, one of San Diego’s finest, the kind of place where senators and rock stars stayed when they were in town. She reached down and patted a knee-high leather boot, just to double-check, touched her auburn wig to make sure it was still neatly in place, and carefully adjusted her designer backpack. She closed her eyes, briefly clasped the obsidian ankh that hung round her neck, and then she was ready.
    She waited until the doorman was occupied with another guest, hailing them a taxi, then drifted in through the revolving doors.
    It was cool inside the lobby, but busy, women in suits wheeling miniature cases behind them, businessmen barking into BlackBerrys. She stayed away from the front desk, keeping her eyes downcast whenever she passed someone. Angelica had practised this many times: the art of switching that inner light on and off. Revealing her beauty when she needed to dazzle a room or put somebody under a spell, then dimming it, rendering herself almost invisible. It was all