Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,50

looking at me over the rim of the cup she'd already made for herself. Closer, the youthful impression of her stride and her style were undercut by the tired lines around the eyes. There was not a trace of silver in her hair. Either her hairdresser was very good, or she was one of the lucky ones. "Dr. Blackstone's death carne as a shock to all her colleagues," she said.

"But you weren't really colleagues," I pointed out. "You worked in different departments. You're medical, she was surgical."

She shrugged. "Hilda's a friendly hospital. Besides, there aren't so many women consultants that you can eas¬ily miss each other."

The kettle clicked off, and she busied herself with teabag, mug, and water. When she slid the mug across the table to me our hands didn't touch, and I had the sense that that was deliberate. "She must have known you reasonably well to feel comfortable about pretending to be you. She was even writing prescriptions in your name," I tried.

"What can I say?" she replied with a shrug. "I had no idea she was doing it, and I have no idea why she was doing it. I certainly don't know why she picked on me."

"Were there other doctors she was more friendly with? Ones who might be able to shed some light on her actions?" I cut in. It was the threat of going elsewhere that had got me across the threshold, not the rain. Maybe repeating it would shake something loose from Helen Maitland's tree.

"I don't think she was particularly friendly with any of her colleagues," Dr. Maitland said quickly.

That was an interesting comment from someone who was acting as if she were on the same footing as all those other colleagues. "How can you be sure who she was and wasn't friendly with? Given that you work in different departments?"

She smiled wryly. "It's very simple. Sarah lived under my roof for a few months when she first came to Leeds. She expected to sell her flat in London pretty quickly, so she didn't want to get into a formal lease on rented prop¬erty. She was asking around if anyone had a spare room to rent. I remembered what that felt like, so I offered her a room here."

"And she was here long enough for you to know that she didn't have particular friends in the hospital?" I challenged.

"In the event, yes. She was here for almost a year. Her London flat proved harder to shift than she imagined. We seemed not to get on each other's nerves, so she stayed." "So you must have known who her friends were?" Dr. Maitland shrugged again. "She didn't seem to need many. When you've got a research element in your job and you have to work as hard as we do, you don't get a lot of time to build a social life. She went away a lot at week¬ends, various places. Bristol, Bedford, London. I didn't interrogate her about who she was visiting. I regarded it as none of my business."

Her words might have been cool, but her voice remained warm. "You haven't asked what she was doing with your identity," I pointed out.

That wry smile again. "I presumed you'd get around to that."

There was something irritatingly provocative about Helen Maitland. It undid all my good intentions and made my interview techniques disappear. "Did you know she was a lesbian when you offered her your spare room?" I demanded.

A small snort of laughter. "I presumed she was. It didn't occur to me she might have changed her sexuality between arriving in Leeds and moving in here."

Her deliberate misunderstanding of my syntax brought me to my senses with a thump. She was playing with me, and I didn't like it at all. "Did she have a lover when she was living here?" I asked bluntly. Games were over for today.

"She never brought anyone back here," Dr. Maitland replied, still unruffled. "And as far as I know, she did not spend nights in anyone else's bed, either in Leeds or else¬where. However, as I have said, I can't claim to have exhaustive knowledge of her acquaintance."

"Don't you mind that she was using your name to carry out medical procedures?" I demanded. "Doesn't it worry you that she might have put you at professional risk by what she was doing?"

"Why should it? If anyone ever claimed that I had car¬ried out inappropriate medical treatment on them, they would realize as soon as we came face to face