Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,71

come to bring the bad news. "I'm sorry," she now said, settling me down with the best cup of tea I'd had in weeks. "I didn't catch your connection to Dr. Maitland... Dr. Blackstone, I mean."

Time for the likeliest story since Mary told Joseph it was God's. "As you know," I started, "Sarah was a real pioneer in her field. I'm representing women who are concerned that her death doesn't mean the end of her work. What we're trying to do is to put together a sort of casebook that those who follow in her footsteps will be able to refer to. But we want it to be more than just her case notes. It's an important piece of lesbian history. The experience of the women who led the way mustn't be lost."

Jude was nodding sympathetically. She was going for it, all the way. Pity she had acted totally blank when I'd first mentioned the name Sarah Blackstone. "You're so right," she said earnestly. "So much of women's achievements and contributions just get buried because the books are written by men. It's vital that we reclaim our history. But..."

"I know, you're concerned about confidentiality," I cut in. "And let me tell you, I can fully appreciate why. Obvi¬ously, the last thing my clients want is for people's privacy to be compromised, especially in circumstances like these. It wouldn't serve anyone's interests for that to hap¬pen. But I can assure you that there will be nothing in the finished material to identify any of the mothers or the children."

We danced around the issue of confidentiality for a bit, then she capitulated. My granny Brannigan always remarked that I had an honest face. She said it made up for my devious soul. Within an hour, Jude had told me everything there was to tell about the consultations that she and her partner Sue had had with Dr. Blackstone. And it was all a complete waste of time. The first two minutes with the photograph album revealed a child that was the image of Sue, right down to an irrepressible cowlick above the right eye that wouldn't lie down and die. This time, Sarah Blackstone had missed.

By late afternoon, I knew the laws of probability had been on the doctor's side. But then, aren't they always? Ask anybody who's ever tried to sue a surgeon. At least two of the kids I'd seen bore more than a passing resem¬blance to the dead doctor. I was astonished the parents didn't seem to notice. I suppose people have always looked at their children and seen what they wanted to see. Otherwise there would be even more divorces than there are already.

At ten to five, I decided to hit one more and then call it a day. Jan Parrish and Mary Delaney lived less than a mile away from me in a red-brick semi on what had once been one of the city's smarter council housing estates. When the Tories had introduced a right-to-buy scheme so loaded with inducements that anyone in employment would have had to be crazy to say no, this estate had fallen like a line of dominoes. Now finding a resident who still paid rent to the council was harder than finding food in Richard's fridge.

Porches, car ports, and new front doors had sprouted rampantly with no regard to any of their neighbors, each excrescence an indicator of private ownership, like a dog pissing on its own gatepost. Jan and Mary were among the more restrained; their porch was a simple red-brick and glass affair that actually looked as if it were part of the house rather than bolted on as a sad afterthought. I rang the bell and waited.

The woman who answered the door had an unruly mop of flaming red hair. It matched perfectly the small girl wrestling for freedom on her hip. I went through the familiar routine. When I got the part where I revealed the doctor's real identity, Jan Parrish looked appalled. "Oh my God," she breathed. "Oh my God."

It was the first time I'd struck anything other than cracked plastic with that line. And that was even before I'd told her Sarah Blackstone was dead. "It doesn't get any better," I said, not sure quite how to capitalize on her state. "I'm afraid she's dead. Murdered, in fact."

I thought she was going to drop the baby. The child took advantage to abseil down her mother's body and stumble uncertainly toward me. I moved in front of