Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,1

Richard's house when his doorbell belted out an inappropriate blast of the guitar riff from Eric Clapton's "Layla." "Shit," I muttered. No matter how careful you are, there's always something you forget. I couldn't remember what the other choices were on Richard's "Twenty Great Rock Riffs" doorbell, but I was sure there must be something more fitting than Clapton's wailing guitar. Maybe something from The Smiths, I thought vaguely as I tried to compose my face into a suit¬able expression for a woman who's just lost her partner.

Just how was I supposed to look, I found a second to won¬der. What's the well-bereft woman wearing on her face this season? You can't even go for the mascara tracks down the cheeks in these days of lash tints.

I took a deep breath, hoped for the best, and opened the door. The crime correspondent of the Manchester Evening Chronicle stood on the step, her black hair even more like an explosion in a wig factory than usual. "Kate," my best friend Alexis said, stepping forward and pulling me into a hug. "I can't believe it," she added, a catch in her voice. She moved back to look at me, tears in her eyes. So much for the hard-bitten newshound. "Why didn't you call us? When I saw it in the paper... Kate, what the hell happened?"

I looked past her. All quiet in the street outside. I put my arm around her shoulders and firmly drew her inside, closing the door behind her. "Nothing. Richard's fine," I said, leading the way down the hall.

"Do what?" Alexis demanded, stopping and frowning at me. "If he's fine, how come I just read he's dead in tonight's paper? And if he's fine, how come you're doing the 'Baby's in Black' number when you know that's the one color that makes you look like the Bride of Frankenstein?"

"If you let me get a word in edgewise, I'll explain," I said, going through to the living room. "Take my word for it, Richard is absolutely okay."

Alexis stopped dead on the threshold, taking in the pristine tidiness of the room. "Oh no, he's not," she said, suspicion running through her heavy Liverpool accent like the stripe in the toothpaste. "He's not fine if he's left his living room looking like this. At the very least, he's having a nervous breakdown. What the hell's going on here, KB?"

"I can't believe you read the death notices," I said, throwing myself down on the nearest sofa.

"I don't normally," Alexis admitted, subsiding on the sofa opposite me. "I was at the police station waiting for a statement from the duty inspector about a little bit of aggravation involving an Uzi and a dead Rottweiler, and they were taking so long about it I'd read everything else in the paper except the ads for the dinner dances. And it's just as well I did. What's going on? If he's not dead, who's he upset enough to get heavy metal hassle like this?" She stabbed the paper she carried with a nicotine-stained index finger.

"It was me who put the announcement in," I said.

"That's one way of telling him it's over," Alexis inter¬rupted before I could continue. "I thought you two had got things sorted?"

"We have," I said through clenched teeth. Ironing out the problems in my relationship with Richard would have taken the entire staff of an industrial laundry a month. It had taken us rather longer.

"So what's going on?" Alexis demanded belligerently. "What's so important that you have to give everybody a heart attack thinking me laddo's popped his clogs?"

"Can't you resist the journalistic exaggeration for once?" I sighed. "You know and I know that nobody under sixty routinely reads the deaths column. I had to use a real name and address, and I figured with Richard out of town till the end of the week, nobody's going to be any the wiser if I used his," I explained. "And he won't be, unless you tell him."

"That depends on whether you tell me what this is all in aid of," Alexis said cunningly, her outrage at having wasted her sympathy a distant memory now she had the scent of a possible story in her nostrils. "I mean, I think he's going to notice something's going on," she added, sweeping an eloquent arm though the air. "I don't think he knows that carpet has a pattern."

"I took Polaroids before I started," I told her. "When I'm finished, I'll put it back the way it was