Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,22

I'd be less visible to my target. The traffic was so slow down Cheetham Hill that I was able to stay in touch, as well as check out the furniture stores for bargains. But then, just as we hit the straight, he peeled off left down North Street. I was in the right-hand lane and I couldn't get across, but I figured he must be heading down Red Bank to cut through the back doubles down to Ancoats and on to South Manchester. If I didn't catch him before Red Bank swept under the railway viaduct, he'd be any¬where in a maze of backstreets and gone forever.

I swung the nose of the Rover over to the left, which pissed off the driver of the Porsche I'd just cut off. At least now the day wasn't a complete waste. I squeezed around the corner of Derby Street and hammered it for the junction that would sweep me down Red Bank. I cor¬nered on a prayer that nothing was coming up the hill and screamed down the steep incline.

There wras no silver Mazda in sight. I sat fuming at the junction for a moment, then slowly swung the car around and back up the hill. There was always the chance that they'd stopped off at one of the dozens of small-time wholesalers and middlemen whose tatty warehouses and storefronts occupy the streets of Strangeways. Maybe they were buying some jewelry or a fur coat with their ill-gotten gains. I gave it ten minutes, cruising every street and alley between Red Bank and Cheetham Hill Road. Then I accepted they were gone. I'd lost them.

I'd had enough for one day. Come to that, I'd had enough for the whole week. So I switched off my mobile, wearily slotted myself back into the thick of the traffic, and drove home. Plan A was to run a hot bath lavishly laced with essential oils, Cowboy Junkies on the stereo, the pile of computer magazines I'd been ignoring for the last month, and the biggest Stoly and grapefruit juice in the world on the side. Plan B involved Richard, if he was around.

I walked through my front door and down the hall, shedding layers like some sixties starlet, then started run¬ning the bath. I wrapped myself in my bathrobe, which had been hanging strategically over a radiator, and headed for the freezer. I'd just gripped the neck of the vodka bottle when the doorbell rang. I considered ignor¬ing it, but curiosity won. Story of my life. So I dumped the bottle and headed for the door.

They say it's not over till the fat lady sings. Alexis is far from fat, and from the look on her face, I guessed singing wasn't on the agenda. Seeing the stricken look on her face, I kissed Plan A good-bye and prepared for the worst.
Chapter 6
"Chris?" I asked, stepping back to let Alexis in.

She looked dumbly back at me, frowning, as if trying to call to mind why I should be concerned about her partner.

"Has something happened to Chris?" I tried. "The baby?"

Alexis shook her head. "Chris is all right," she said impatiently, as if I'd asked the kind of stupid question TV reporters pose to disaster victims. She pushed past me and walked like an automaton into the living room, where she subsided onto a sofa with the slack-limbed collapse of a marionette.

I left her staring blankly at the floor and turned off the bath taps. By the time I came back with two stiff drinks, she was smoking with the desperate concentration of an addict on the edge of cold turkey. "What's happened, Alexis?" I said softly, sitting down beside her.

"She's dead," she said. I wasn't entirely surprised that somebody she knew was. I couldn't imagine anything else that would destroy the composure of a hard-bitten crime reporter like this.

"Who is?"

Alexis pulled a scrunched-up copy of the Yorkshire Post out of her handbag. I knew it was one of the out-of-town papers that the Chronicle subscribed to. "I was going through the regionals, looking to see if anybody had any decent crime feature ideas," Alexis said bleakly as she spread the YP out on the table. DOCTOR DIES IN RAID, I read in the top right-hand section of the front page. Under the headline was a photograph of a dark-haired woman with strong features and a wide, smiling mouth. I read the first paragraph.

Consultant gynecologist Sarah Blackstone was fatally stabbed last night when she disturbed an intruder in