Sister

detail, will do the structural side well. And I’ll search myself for something of your creative ability. Who knows? Maybe it’s lying dormant somewhere, an unread code for artistic talent wrapped tightly in a coiled chromosome waiting for the right conditions to spring into life.

My phone signaled and I saw a text from William wanting to meet, urgently. I texted back the address of the flat. I felt sick with anticipation.

“You have to go?” asked Mum.

“In a little while, yes. I’m sorry.”

She stroked my hair. “You still haven’t had a haircut.”

“I know.”

She smiled at me, still stroking my hair. “You look so like her.”

22

When I arrived home, William was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. He looked up at me, his face was white, his usual open expression pinched hard with anxiety.

“I’ve found out who’s in charge of the cystic fibrosis trial at St. Anne’s. Can I come in? I don’t think we should be …”

His normally measured voice was rushed and uneven. I opened the door and he followed me inside.

There was a moment before he spoke. I heard Granny’s clock tick twice into the silence.

“It’s Hugo Nichols.”

Before I could ask any questions, William turned to me, his voice still quick, pacing now.

“I don’t understand. Why on earth has he been putting babies without cystic fibrosis in the trial? What the hell’s he been doing? I just don’t understand.”

“The CF trial at St. Anne’s has been hijacked,” I replied. “To test out another gene.”

“My God. How did you find that out?”

“Professor Rosen.”

“And he’s going to the police?”

“No.”

There was a moment before he spoke. “So it’ll be up to me then. To tell them about Hugo. I’d hoped it would be someone else.”

“It’s hardly telling tales, is it?”

“No. It’s not. I’m sorry.”

But I still couldn’t make sense of it. “Why would a psychiatrist run a genetic therapy trial?”

“He was a research fellow at Imperial. Before he became a hospital doctor. I told you that, didn’t I?”

I nodded.

“His research was in genetics,” continued William.

“You never said.”

“I never thought—my God—I just never thought it was relevant.”

“That was unfair of me. I’m sorry.”

I remembered William telling me that Dr. Nichols was rumored to have been brilliant and “destined for greatness,” but I’d thought the rumor must be wrong, believing instead my own opinion that he was scruffily hopeless. Remembering my view of Dr. Nichols, I realized that I’d dismissed him as a suspect not only because I’d thought him too hopeless to be violent, nor even because I’d thought he had no motive, but because of my entrenched belief that he was fundamentally decent.

William sat down, his face strained, his hands drumming the arms of the sofa. “I spoke to him about his research once, years ago now. He told me about a gene he’d discovered and that a company had bought it from him.”

“Do you know which company?”

“No. I’m not sure he even said. It was a long time ago. But I do remember some of what he said because he was so passionate, so different from how he usually is.” William was pacing again now, his movements jerky and angry. “He told me it had been his life’s ambition, actually no, he said it was his life’s purpose, to get his gene into humans. He said he wanted to leave his fingerprint on the future.”

“Fingerprint on the future?” I echoed, repelled, thinking of your future being cut from you.

William thought I didn’t understand. “It meant he wanted to get his gene into the germ cells so it would be passed to future generations. He said he wanted to ‘improve what it is to be human.’ But although the animal tests went well, he wasn’t allowed to test his gene on humans. He was told it was genetic enhancement and it’s illegal to use that in people.”

“What was ‘his’ gene?” I asked.

“He said it increases IQ.”

William said that he hadn’t believed him because it would have been such an extraordinary and astonishing achievement, and he was so young, and something else but I wasn’t really listening. Instead I remembered my visit to Chrom-Med.