Val Mcdermid - Blue Genes

‘I have things to say you should listen to,’ I said.

Her eyebrows quirked. ‘And they say etiquette’s dead. You’d better come in. Ms Branagh, wasn’t it?’

‘Brannigan,’ I corrected her as I followed her indoors. ‘Branagh’s the actor. I do it for real.’ Sometimes I hear myself and think if I was a punter I’d laugh at me.

‘Sorry, Ms Brannigan ,’ Helen Maitland said. ‘Have a seat,’ she added as we arrived in the kitchen. I ignored her. She leaned against the worktop, facing me, one hand absently stroking a tortoise-shell cat sprawled on the draining board. ‘Well, you have my undivided attention. I presume this is to do with Sarah?’

‘I know you were lovers,’ I said bluntly. ‘I know you wanted children and she refused to go along with you. But after you split up, the technology was perfected that allowed Sarah to build babies from the eggs of two women rather than using sperm. But the immortality of being the first to do it wasn’t enough for Sarah. She wanted her genes to carry on too. So she started mixing her own harvested eggs in with the patients’. And one of those patients was so grateful that she broke the injunction of secrecy and sent a photograph with a lock of hair to the doctor who’d helped her make her dream come true. To nice Dr Helen Maitland. How am I doing so far?’

Her face had remained impassive, but the hand stroking the cat had stopped, fur clenched between her fingers. She tried a smile that came out more like a snarl. ‘Badly. I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Somewhere there will be a record of the DNA tests you ran on that lock of hair and on Sarah’s DNA. You can’t lose something like that. The police would have no trouble finding it. A lot of legwork, perhaps, but they’ll get there in the end.’

Her eyes were cautious now, watching me like a hawk’s, hardly blinking. ‘I’m sorry, I must have missed a turning somewhere. How did we get to the police?’

‘Don’t, Dr Maitland. Neither of us is stupid, so stop acting like we both are. I can imagine how distressed you were when you discovered what Sarah was doing, especially after she had denied you the chance to be the first to try the treatment. Even more so since your own operation. You went round to see her, to confront her with the outrage she’d perpetrated against you. And she dismissed you, didn’t she? She didn’t take your emotions seriously, just like before when she’d dismissed your desires for motherhood.’

Helen Maitland shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I thought you said you were for real, Ms Brannigan. Sounds to me like you need treatment.’

‘I don’t think so. I think you’re the one with the problem, Dr Maitland. You might give the impression of being cool, smart and in control, and God knows, you’re good at it. But then you’d have to be, to kill your ex-lover and get away with it.’

She pushed off from the worktop and stood bristling at me, like one of her cats finding a strange tom on the front step. ‘You’ve gone too far. It’s time you were leaving,’ she said, her voice low and thick with anger.

‘I knew there was a temper lurking in there. It’s the same temper that flared when you confronted Sarah and she dismissed your pain. It’s the same temper that made you grab the nearest knife and thrust it under Sarah’s ribs right into her heart.’

‘Get out,’ she said, anger and incredulity fighting in her. ‘I don’t have to take this from you.’ She took a step towards me.

‘You can’t get away with it, Helen,’ I said, my hands coming up automatically, palms facing her. ‘Once the police start looking at you, they’ll find the evidence. It’s all there, once you accept that Sarah wasn’t killed by a burglar. As soon as they match your voice against that 999 call, you’re right there in the frame.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’ The voice wasn’t Helen Maitland’s. It came from behind my right shoulder. I whirled round, straight into fighting stance, poised on the balls of my feet.

It was Flora. And in her hand was a shiny long-barrelled revolver.

Her small pale hands looked too fragile to wield a big cannon like that, but the barrel wasn’t trembling. Whatever was driving Flora, it was powerful stuff. ‘Flora,’ Helen said calmly.

‘It’s all right, Helen,’ Flora said, not taking her eyes off me.

Not with me it wasn’t. I’d had enough of people waving guns at me. And frankly, I didn’t think Flora was in the same league as Peter Lovell’s gunmen. I glanced over at Helen Maitland and let my jaw go slack.

‘My God!’ I exclaimed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Flora’s hand jerk as her eyes swivelled towards Helen. On the instant, I launched myself, right leg jabbing up and out at shoulder height, my own voice roaring in my ears like Bruce Willis on heat. Everything suddenly seemed to be in slo-mo: my foot connecting with her shoulder, Flora toppling towards the floor, her gun arm flying out to one side, her finger tightening on the trigger as I landed on top of her, my body tensing against the expected blast of the gunshot.

A tongue of flame spurted from the gun barrel, then died as Flora released her pressure on the trigger.

I’d been scared shitless by a cigarette lighter.

I’d been scared, no two ways about it. But now I was really, really cross. When I’d walked through the door, I’d been feeling sympathetic. My instincts had all been to find a way out of this situation that didn’t mean Helen Maitland spending the rest of her useful life behind bars. Now I wasn’t so sure that was what I wanted.

‘That was really silly, Flo,’ Helen remarked in an offhand tone I’d never have been able to manage in the circumstances.

I disentangled myself from Flora’s hair and limbs and pushed myself back to my feet. ‘It was a lot more than silly,’ I said. ‘For fuck’s sake, I could have really hurt you, you pillock.’

Flora threw the gun across the room. It clattered into the kitchen unit next to Helen. Then she curled up into a ball and burst into tears.

Helen picked up the lighter and laid it on the kitchen table, then moved to Flora’s side. She crouched down and put her arms around her. It felt like Flora wept for a very long time, but it was less than five minutes by the kitchen clock. I didn’t mind. It gave my heart time to return to its normal speed and rhythm.

Eventually Helen steered Flora into a kitchen chair and sat down beside her. ‘Even a real gun wouldn’t stop the police running those voice comparisons,’ I said. ‘I’m not daft enough to embark on a confrontation like this without leaving a bit of insurance behind in case some idiot pulls some brainless stunt where I actually do get hurt.’

‘Then it’s all over,’ Flora said dully.

‘How can you say that?’ Helen demanded, pulling away. ‘How can you think that I…That’s crazy.’

‘It’s not crazy, actually.’ Flora’s voice was shaky. ‘You see, if the police did start to run comparisons on that 999 tape, they would find a match.’

‘Look, Flora, I don’t know where you’ve got this idea from. I didn’t kill Sarah,’ Helen protested. ‘I’m appalled you could think so.’

‘I don’t think so. No one knows the truth better than me.’

There was a silence as Helen and I digested the implications of Flora’s words. Then the enormity of my second screw-up in two days hit me. I’d been right about the obsessive power of love being responsible for Sarah Blackstone’s death. But I’d picked the wrong candidate for the killer. I’d been so convinced that Helen was the killer I hadn’t even paid attention to Flora.

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ Helen asked. There was an edge of horror in her voice.