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time, which meant that you couldn’t accidentally leave a passage through which a virus could escape. Everything that passed in or out of the virology lab had to be sterilized or quarantined in a special sealed box. Even people had to be scrubbed, on the way in as well as on the way out, and that was why Dad didn’t take us any further that day. It would take too long for everyone to shower and change, he said, and there wasn’t much to see in there anyway. The inner lab was a sealed chamber containing the machines and chemicals he needed to test blood and to isolate, identify and manipulate viruses. There was a second computer in there, and all manner of specialist equipment. There was another tiny kitchen and bathroom area as well, where he could smoke well away from the sensitive machinery, and a sealed room where the virus would actually be tested on the animals. There was an incinerator built into the outside wall for all the rubbish. It burned with a ferocious heat but it was well insulated, and its flues were lined with filters that prevented anything that might be dangerous from entering the outside air.
    ‘You won’t even see smoke when it’s operating,’ he told us. ‘Just a heat shimmer above the chimney.’
    It wasn’t until we went back out that we realized how truly bizarre the set-up was. Outside was Victorian England, red brick, the remnants of a forgotten kind of agriculture. Inside was cutting-edge genetic engineering.
    When we had finished unloading the car Alex and I left Dad to set up the office and went exploring. The yards had once been contained by a low stone wall. In some places it was still standing, but most of it had fallen. Beyond it, and surrounding the whole complex of buildings, was a combination of old woodland and younger scrub. The air in the woods was cool and fresh, the way it always seems to be under old trees, no matter what kind of day it is. Coincidentally, or ironically perhaps, there were squirrels in there. We saw two of them, grey ones, both hurtling through the branches away from us. It was a beautiful, peaceful place, but there was something about it that made me uneasy. I think Alex felt it as well, because he didn’t show his usual adventurous spirit. We were both reluctant to go out of sight of the buildings, and we turned back long before we found out how far the woodland went.
    I don’t know what it was that made us feel like that about the woods. We were country kids, born and bred, and had no fear of the natural world, even in its most quiet and ancient places. Thinking back, I wonder whether we had some kind of premonition of what was going to come. Maybe the horsemen were already there, watching us from the deep, cool shadows, seen only by the curious squirrels.

2
    A BOUT A FORTNIGHT LATER the squirrels were delivered to the lab. Dad had gone there early on a Saturday morning to take charge of them and I was still in bed when he phoned me. I had nothing in particular to do that day and I was luxuriating in the lie-in.
    ‘I need a hand,’ said Dad. ‘I can’t manage them on my own.’
    ‘Manage what?’ I said, trying my best not to sound grumpy.
    ‘The squirrels. They’re all babies. Tiny little things. They keep biting me.’
    I had to laugh at that and it lifted my mood. I promised to come to his rescue as soon as I’d had breakfast. I wasn’t sure what I could do to help him, other than get myself bitten instead of him, but I was dying to see the baby squirrels. I gobbled my breakfast while I was getting dressed and ran out to the shed. Alex’s bike was gone and I remembered that he was away for the night. Not only had our family adopted Javed, but Javed’s family had adopted Alex as well. He had been especially invited by Javed’s mum to stay for a day or two because her mother and sister were visiting from Shasakstan and there were going to be all kinds of parties going on.
    It took me exactly half an hour to get to the lab on my bike. I