Deep Water , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Christine Poulson

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136 pages

English

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A fascinating suspense story . . . intricately plotted, I was gripped from the first page and heartily recommend this book as a not to be missed. MYSTERY PEOPLEA cure for obesity, worth billions. A death in a clinical trial.When patent lawyer Daniel Marchmont agrees to act for Calliope Biotech, he doesn't know what he's getting into. The first lawyer on the case is dead, and a vital lab book is missing. Daniel and his wife Rachel are hoping biotechnology will also provide a cure for their daughter Chloe, who suffers from a devastating genetic disorder. Then the unimaginable happens, and they face a moral dilemma that threatens everything.Meanwhile young researcher Katie Flanagan suspects something is very wrong in the lab. But knowledge is dangerous when someone is playing a perilous game...An intelligent, thought-provoking read... It gripped me from the start and didn't let go. -Sarah Rayne, author of What Lies BeneathDeep Water is an intriguing and original thriller, with the serious issue of medical ethics at its core. - Kate Rhodes, author of the Alice Quentin series.

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	21 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781782642152
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

“ Deep Water is an intriguing and original thriller, with the serious issue of medical ethics at its core. Christine Poulson describes her fenland setting with palpable authenticity in this pacy, thought-provoking tale.”
Kate Rhodes, author of the Alice Quentin series

“I found it difficult to put Deep Water down. An intelligent, thought-provoking read, with engaging and believable characters. It gripped me from the start, and didn’t let go.”
Sarah Rayne, author of What Lies Beneath
Previous Books by the Author
Dead Letters (Murder is Academic, US )
Stage Fright
Footfall
Invisible

Christine Poulson was born and brought up in North Yorkshire. She studied English Literature and Art History at the University of Leicester, later earning a PhD. She went on to work as a curator at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and at the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith before becoming a lecturer in Art History at Homerton College, Cambridge. As well as writing fiction she has written widely on nineteenth-century art and literature, and her most recent work of non-fiction was The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art, 1840–1920 . She lives in a watermill in Derbyshire with her family.

www.christinepoulson.co.uk
Blog: www.christinepoulson.co.uk/a-reading-life
Twitter: @chrissiepoulson

Text copyright © 2016 Christine Poulson
This edition copyright © 2016 Lion Hudson

The right of Christine Poulson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Published by Lion Fiction
an imprint of
Lion Hudson plc
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/fiction

ISBN 978 1 78264 214 5
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 215 2

First edition 2016

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image © Colleen Farrell / Arcangel

To Joanna Bellamy (1953–2013)
“Precious friend hid in death’s dateless night”
Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

“The past isn’t over. It isn’t even the past.”
William Faulkner

“La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un coeur d’homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.”

[The struggle itself towards the summit should be enough to satisfy the human heart. One can imagine Sisyphus happy.]
Albert Camus
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Ed was nervous and he hadn’t expected that. When he’d talked it over with Melissa, she’d been the one who was uneasy, and he’d argued in favour. But now, as he looked around the sterile little bedroom, small and white and clean like a room in a budget hotel, he would have given almost anything not to be here.
His hand went up to his hairline and traced the line of a scar. It was thirteen years since he had taken a header over the handlebars of his new bike. It had been his eighth birthday. It was the one and only time he’d been in hospital as a patient. You take good health for granted and he’d been lucky, no doubt about it. That was one reason for taking part in the clinical trial: giving something back.
As he unpacked his overnight bag, he reminded himself of what he had told Melissa. There was virtually no risk. This was the last stage in a lengthy process. The therapy had been tested on mice and then on monkeys. Medical students took part in trials all the time.
He discovered a bar of chocolate that Melissa must have slipped in his bag that morning. He smiled: after all, he’d only be away from her for two nights. And with the money he was earning, they’d be able to have a holiday for the first time in ages.
There was a knock on the door. That would be Tom, who had signed up first and persuaded Ed to come along: a chance to revise for their finals. Ed often found himself agreeing to do things with Tom and then half-regretting it. On the face of it, they were an oddly matched pair. They’d first met when they had found themselves in adjacent rooms in their hall of residence. Ed was short and dark and thoughtful, and his idea of a good time was a concert at the Festival Hall or a foreign arthouse movie. Tom was a roaring extravert, a big burly blond who spent his weekends hurling himself round the rugby pitch. Ed wanted to specialize in psychiatry after he’d qualified. Tom planned to be a cardiac surgeon.
“So you persuaded Melissa to let you off the leash,” Tom said, as they walked down the corridor to the ward.
“No, I’m wearing an electronic tag and she’s put me under curfew.”
The teasing had started after Ed and Melissa had announced that they were getting married after they qualified. There was something unkind about it, an implication that Ed had settled for Melissa too soon and could have done better. Ed had wanted to have it out with Tom, but Melissa had told him to chill out. She said, “Remember how Tom dropped everything to drive you home when your father was taken ill? And have you seen him with those kids in the paediatric ward? No, under all that bluster Tom’s got a heart as big as a bucket. He’s lonely. That’s his problem.”
“Lonely! He has a different girlfriend every term!”
“Exactly. We’re the lucky ones to have found each other so soon. Tom would love to have a woman who cared enough to boss him around. He’s jealous, that’s all.”
Ed had laughed. “Perhaps you’re the one who should be a psychiatrist.”
“No, no. GP training for me. Easier to fit round all those babies we’re going to have.”
Ed pretended to look doubtful. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Melissa pursed her lips. “Think you might not be up to it?”
“Might be as well to get in some practice now?”
“Oh, I think so.”
And she’d pulled him down onto the bed…
“Ed, Ed,” Tom hissed.
Ed came to himself with a start.
They were in the ward now. Tom nudged Ed in the ribs and raised his eyebrows in the direction of the doctor who was conducting the trial.
She was a young Chinese woman with long black hair so straight that it might have been ironed. Ed caught his eye and shook his head as if to say “naughty-naughty”. Tom grinned.
Ed stole a glance at the others: all male, all young. He recognized one of them as a fellow medical student whom he’d met at the chess club and nodded to him across the room. The others were probably students too.
Dr Chan’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I’ll be delivering the injections one at a time at half-hour intervals. That’s in case there’s an unfavourable reaction to the drug. It’s highly unlikely, but we have to follow protocol.” Dr Chan glanced at her clipboard and then at Ed. “I think we’ll take you first. Ed, isn’t it?’
He nodded and rolled up his sleeve. His mouth was dry and he was annoyed with himself for feeling a frisson of – what? Not anxiety exactly, more a shrinking back, a reluctance to go first. He reminded himself again that it was very, very rare for anything to go wrong. That was why it made headline news when something did.
When Dr Chan slid the needle into his arm, he had an idiotic impulse to grab his throat and roll his eyes, but of course he didn’t and in fact no one was watching. A couple of the guys were chatting about the prospects of their football teams. Another was playing on his iPad. One was leafing through a copy of New Scientist .
As for Tom, he had equipped himself with a James Patterson novel.
Ed settled back on his bed. Now that he’d actually had the injection, he felt fine. Why on earth had he been so worried?
“What about revision?” he asked Tom. They’d been planning to go over things together.
Tom grinned. “Plenty of time for that later.”
Ed shrugged. He propped himself up on the pillows and resolutely addressed himself to his revision notes. He was soon deep in endocrinology.
At one point Ed was aware of someone else being injected and later that it was Tom’s turn.
He couldn’t have said how much longer it was before he looked up, disturbed by something unexpected.
It was the sound of Tom’s book hitting the floor.
“Tom?” Ed said.
Tom turned his head. He stared at Ed with his eyes narrowed. It was as though he had seen something in the distance and wasn’t sure what it was.
A bleeper went off. Heads turned all over the ward. Dr Chan was standing by one of the other men, a syringe actually in her hand. She was about to inject a fourth subject. She dropped the syringe with a tinkle into a tray. She started over towards Tom.
“Tom!” Ed swung his legs off the bed. “What’s the matter?”
Later, when Ed tried to recall what had happened next, the memories were disjointed and he couldn’t even be sure what order they came in. He saw Dr Chan’s face as she bent over Tom, serious, absorbed. Tom was struggling, trying to pull off the electrodes, to brush away