Blue Genes (32 page)

‘Better that way,’ I said.

‘Better all round,’ she agreed. Her green eyes looked distantly over my shoulder. ‘I’m not going to join Flora, though. Ever since she told us what had happened, I’ve scarcely been able to tolerate being in the same room as her. I may have stopped loving or hating Sarah, but I never wanted her to die, not even in our most terrible fights. And I hate the thought that I was the instrument of her death.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I protested. ‘It was Flora who knifed her, not you. You didn’t even know she was going to see her. You certainly didn’t suggest it, that much was obvious from your reaction to Flora’s confession.’

‘Maybe not overtly. But she’d never have dreamed up the idea if my obsession hadn’t planted it. If I hadn’t told her the meaning of the photograph and the lock of hair, she’d never have gone near Sarah. I may not have held the knife, but I carry the guilt.’

I could tell there was no point in trying to get her to change her mind about that. We finished our drinks, talking about anything except Sarah and Flora. Then she excused herself, saying she had someone to meet. I sat by the first-floor window and watched her stepping out across Oxford Road, dodging cars and buses. I watched her long stride as far as the corner of Princess Street, where she turned left and disappeared.

The story was in the next night’s
Chronicle
. DOCTOR DIES IN HOTEL PLUNGE. She’d taken a room on the top floor of the Piccadilly Hotel. She’d even brought a club hammer in her overnight bag in case the window didn’t open far enough. At the inquest, they read out a note where she’d quoted that bit from Keats about ceasing on the midnight with no pain.

Some nights, I dream of Helen Maitland falling through the air, morphing into a bird and suddenly soaring just before she hits the ground. I hope someone somewhere is making babies with her eggs.

What is outlined in this novel is entirely within the realms of possible science. Somebody somewhere is almost certainly carrying out these procedures, probably for very large sums of money.

I’m grateful to Dr Gill Lockwood for most of my medical and scientific information, and to David Hartshorn of Cellmark Diagnostics for background on DNA testing. For other matters, I’m indebted to Lee D’Courcy, Diana Cooper, Yvonne Twiby, Jai Penna, Paula Tyler, Brigid Baillie and the press office of the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority.

Val McDermid
grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three years as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. Now a full-time writer, she lives in Cheshire.

Blue Genes
is the fifth of six novels featuring Kate Brannigan. The third,
Crack Down
, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 1994.

Val is also the author of three tense psychological thrillers featuring criminal profiler Tony Hill. The first of these,
The Mermaids Singing
, was awarded the 1995 Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, while the second,
The Wire in the Blood
, lends its name to the acclaimed ITV series featuring Robson Green as Tony Hill. She has also written three standalone thrillers,
Killing the Shadows
,
A Place of Execution
and
A Distant Echo
, and six novels featuring journalist-sleuth Lindsay Gordon.

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