Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,83

are you buggering up this week?"

"Hello, Maggie," I said. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I was just passing?"

"Correct," she said sarcastically. "I'd also tell you that next time you're passing, just pass."

"I know you blame me for Moira's death..."

"Correct again. You going for three in a row?"

"If I hadn't brought her back, he'd just have hired somebody else. Probably somebody with even fewer scruples."

"It's hard to believe people with fewer scruples than you exist," Maggie said.

"Don't you ever listen to Yesterday in Parliament?"

In spite of herself, Maggie couldn't help cracking a smile. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't close the door," she said.

"Lesbians will suffer?" I tried, a half-grin quirking my mouth.

"I don't think so," she sighed. The door started to close.

"I'm not joking, Maggie," I said desperately. "My client's a lesbian who could be facing worse than a murder charge if I don't get to the bottom of the case."

The door stopped moving. I'd hooked her, but she wasn't letting me reel her in too easily. "Worse than a murder charge?" she asked, her face suspicious.

"I'm talking about losing her child. And not for any of the conventional reasons."

Maggie shook her head and swung the door open. "This had better be good," she warned me.

I followed her indoors and aimed for a rocking chair that hadn't been there the last time I'd visited. The shelves of books, records, and tapes looked the same. But she'd replaced the big Klimt with a blue-and-white print from Matisse's Jazz sequence. It made the room cooler and brighter. "I know I've got a cheek asking you for help, but I don't care how much I have to humiliate myself to do the business for my clients." I tried for the self-effacing look.

"Ain't too proud to beg, huh?" Maggie said sardonically.

"I'm hoping you won't make me. But I am going to have to ask you to promise me one thing."

"Which is?" she asked, sitting on the arm of the sofa, one foot on the seat, the other still on the floor.

"That you'll treat what I have to tell you with the same degree of confidence you'd offer to one of your own clients."

"If you want confidentiality, you can afford to pay a therapist for it. My clients don't have that option. But if that's the price for hearing this tale of yours, consider it paid. Nothing you tell me goes beyond these four walls, unless I think people are going to come to harm if I keep silence. Is that fair enough?"

"That'll do me. Did you know a doctor called Sarah Blackstone?"

The way her face closed down gave me the answer. "Tell me your tale. Then we'll see about questions," Mag¬gie said, her voice harsh.

Time to rearrange the truth into a well-known phrase or saying. "My client and her partner were patients of Dr. Blackstone. She was using them as human guinea pigs in an experiment to see if it's possible to make babies from two women. It is. And my client's partner is cur¬rently a couple of months pregnant." Maggie's attitude had melted like snow on a ceramic hob. She was staring at me with the amazement of a child who's just had Christmas explained to her. Then she remembered.

"But Sarah Blackstone's just been murdered," she breathed. "Oh my God."

"Exactly. Publicly, the police are saying she was killed by a burglar she disturbed. It's only a matter of time before the words "drug-crazed" start showing up in their press brief¬ings. My client is concerned that they have uncovered what Dr. Blackstone was really doing, but they're keeping quiet about it while they carry out their investigations."

"So why are you here?"

Good question. This time, I'd had plenty of time to think about the interview so I had my lies ready. "I'm try¬ing to get as much background on Sarah Blackstone as I possibly can. If there was more to her killing than meets the eye, I want to find out who was behind it. That way, I can hand the information to the police on a plate, which might stop any kind of investigation into what Sarah was really up to."

"Sounds plausible. But then, you always did," Maggie commented. She didn't appear to be overwhelmed with the desire to help me out.

"I don't have any contacts on the lesbian scene over this way except you," I said. "Believe me, if there had been any other way of getting into this, I'd have gone for it. Being here under