Fin had yet tomake an appearance, playing a PlayStation game that sounded alarmingly destructiveto Morton. He wondered if it was a sensible idea to allow aneight-year-old, whose dad’s head had recently been blown apart, to playsomething so violent. What was wrong with Connect Four orKerplunk? It had been good enough for him as a child, a revelationwhich made him suddenly feel old.
‘They’resending round the educational psychologist to talk to him and try and get himback to school properly. Honestly, Morton, the sooner this whole businessis over the better,’ she said, rubbing her eyes.
‘I couldn’tagree more,’ Morton replied, which was a bit of an understatement, all thingsconsidered. The way that Soraya spoke was as if all of Fin’s problemswould be miraculously solved if a DNA connection could be established with theWindsor-Sackvilles. As far as Morton was concerned, that would be whenthe trouble started.
‘It doesn’thelp living out of a suitcase either, neither of us feels settled. Mysister’s been great, but we just want to be back home again.’
‘Well, let’sget this test done then,’ he said.
Soraya noddedand called for Fin. Four polite requests and a final threat to have hisPlayStation unplugged later and Fin finally, and very sullenly, appeared in thelounge. He seemed surprised to see Morton, and not in a good way.
‘Fin, youremember my nice friend, Morton, don’t you?’ Soraya said, over-exaggerating thewords, like an animated primary school teacher. Nice friend, Morton,that was one way of describing him. Much better than that-horrible-man-who-made-you-cry-last-time,Morton. This wasn’t going to be pleasant, he could tellalready. How was he even going to take the swab? There wasno sensible reason (beyond telling the truth, and he wasn’t about to open thatcan of worms) that Morton could pluck from his brain to justify shoving a stickinto Fin’s mouth and wiping the inside of his cheek eight times.
‘What game areyou playing?’ Morton asked. It was a lame question, but it was the onlyone he could think of.
‘War StormFour,’ Fin murmured, unable to look Morton in the eyes.
‘War StormFour?’ he said, attempting to mock incredulity. ‘What was wrong with theother three?’
Finlayshrugged. ‘They were rubbish.’ Morton wanted to give a hearty,supportive laugh, but what came out of his mouth was more of a mocking snigger. He really shouldn’t have kids.
‘Fin, Morton’sgot an extra special test to do for your diabetes.’
Fin lookeduncertain. ‘Will it hurt?’
‘No, not abit,’ Morton said. ‘Look.’ He pulled out a swab stick slightlylarger than a nail file and held it aloft. If he’d used his brain hewould have brought two along and demonstrated it on himself first. ‘All Ihave to do is rub this on your cheek.’
‘My cheek?’ hesaid, raising a finger to the side of his face.
Mortonnodded. ‘Inside.’ The boy clamped his mouth shut and lookedhorrified. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t go down your throat or anything,’ hequickly added, but the horror remained in Fin’s eyes.
‘It’s okay, itreally won’t hurt at all,’ Soraya said, hamming up her reassurance. ‘Okay?’
Fin nodded andMorton approached him, trying to hold the swab stick in such a way as to notmake it look like he was brandishing a weapon of torture. Fin opened hismouth and allowed Morton to take to the swab without a fuss.
‘There, alldone,’ Morton said, delighted with the small triumph of not making aneight-year-old boy cry again. ‘You can go back to War Storm Four if youwant.’
Seconds laterthe sounds of explosions and gunfire came from Fin’s bedroom.
‘Well done,’Soraya said with a smile, ‘you’re good with kids.’
He wondered ifshe was being sarcastic. Not making a child cry was hardly a cause forprocreation in his book.
‘I didn’t knowhe had diabetes,’ Morton ventured, unsure as to why the fact had struck him asbeing important. If Fin was anything like Morton was at the age of eight,then he would have a substantial back-catalogue of medical history. Bumps, breaks, stitches, allergies and all the contagious diseases availablehad blighted his first decade on the planet, much to the vexation of hisparents, whose own biological progeny had been beset by far fewer problems (andmost of those had been inadvertently passed on from Morton).
‘Yeah, he’s hadit since birth. Peter had it, too. It's okay, we control it,’ shesaid, not quite sounding as if she believed herself. ‘What should we doif the result is positive?’ she asked.
Now there was aquestion. Positive as in a match with the Windsor-Sackvilles, or positiveas in a good, optimistic outcome? ‘Cross that bridge when we come to it,’Morton parried. If we come to it.
‘But it’slooking like the most likely scenario, isn’t it?’
‘It’s certainlya possibility,’ Morton answered, unsure whether or not her question wasrhetorical.
Soraya ran herfingers through her hair and sighed heavily.
‘I’ll be intouch,’ Morton said, glancing down at his watch. ‘I’ve got somewhere Ineed to be.’ Morton stood and made his way to the door.
Sorayafollowed. ‘Another lead?’ she asked.
‘No, just helpwith existing ones,’ Morton answered cryptically.
He said goodbyeand sped off to the railway[Ma1] station.
It really had been a case of desperatetimes calling for desperate measures when Morton telephoned Dr Baumgartner atthe Forensic Science Service. His call to his former university lecturerwas redirected to a mobile as, rather fortuitously for Morton, he was in Londonfor a few days and was ‘absolutely delighted’ to meet him for a beer. Itwas always a beer, preferably a local variety, that he would opt for,irrespective of the time of day or the task in hand. He’d once paid for around of drinks for the whole class of forty students after trooping them downto a nearby pub to study vernacular architecture. Vernacular architectureover a vernacular beer. Morton supposed that it had done the trick; he’dcertainly never forgotten that lecture. The call hadn’t come entirely outof the blue; he’d been in touch with Dr Baumgartner several times since leavinguniversity, what with various reference requests and attending the odd publicseminar that he’d delivered.
