Blue Genes

very illegal.’

‘I’m having a bit of trouble with this,’ I stammered. ‘How do you mean, it’s possible? Are we talking cloning here, or what?’

‘Nothing so high tech. Look, all you need to make a baby are a womb, an egg and something to fertilize it with.’

‘Which traditionally has been sperm,’ I remarked drily.

‘Which traditionally has been sperm,’ Alexis agreed. ‘But all you actually need is a collision of chromosomes. You get one from each side of the exchange. Women have two X chromosomes and men have an X and a Y. With me so far?’

‘I might not have A level biology, but I do know the basics,’ I said.

‘Right. So you’ll know that if it’s the man’s Y chromosome that links up with the woman’s X chromosome, you get a little baby boy. And if it’s his X chromosome that does the business, you get a girl. So everybody knew that you could make babies out of two X chromosomes. Only they didn’t shout too much about it, did they? Because if they did more than mention it in passing, like, it wouldn’t take a lot of working out to understand that if all you need for baby girls is a pair of X chromosomes from two different sources, you wouldn’t need men.’

‘You’re telling me that after twenty-five years of feminist theory, scientists have only just noticed that?’ I couldn’t keep the irony out of my voice.

‘No, they’ve always known it. But certain kinds of experiments are against the law. That includes almost anything involving human embryos. Unless, of course, it’s aimed at letting men who produce crap sperm make babies. So although loads of people knew that theoretically it was possible to make babies from two women, nobody could officially do any research on it, so the technology that would make it possible science instead of fantasy just wasn’t happening.’ The journalist was in control now, and Alexis paused for effect. She couldn’t help herself.

‘So what happened to change that?’ I asked, responding to my cue.

‘There was a load of research done which showed that men didn’t react well to having their wives inseminated with donor sperm. Surprise, surprise, they didn’t feel connected to the kids and more often than not, families were breaking up because the men didn’t feel like they were proper families. Given that more men are having problems with their sperm production than ever before, the pressure was really on for doctors to find a way of helping inadequate sperm to make babies. A couple of years ago, they came up with a really thin needle that could be inserted right into the very nucleus of an egg so that they could deliver a single sperm right to the place where it would count.’

I nodded, light dawning. ‘And somebody somewhere figured that if they could do it with a sperm, they could do it with another egg.’

‘Give the girl a coconut,’ Alexis said, incapable of being solemn and scared for long.

‘And this doctor, whatever her real name is, has been doing this in Manchester?’ I asked. I know they say that what Manchester does today, London does tomorrow, but this seemed to be taking things a bit far.

‘Yeah.’

‘Totally illegally?’

‘Yeah.’

‘With lesbian couples?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who are therefore technically also breaking the law?’

‘I suppose so.’

We looked at each other across the table. I didn’t know about Alexis, but I couldn’t help banner headlines flashing across my mind. The thought of what the tabloids would do with a story like this was enough in itself to bring me out fighting for the women who had gone underground to make their dreams come true, let alone my feelings for Alexis and Chris. ‘And the baby Chris is carrying belongs to both of you?’ I asked.

‘That’s right. We both had to have a course of drugs to maximize our fertility, then Helen harvested our eggs and took them off to the lab to join them up and grow them on till she was sure they were OK. She did four altogether.’

If I looked as aghast as I felt, Alexis’s face didn’t reflect it. ‘Chris is having quads?’ I gasped.

‘Don’t be soft. ’Course she’s not. There’s a lousy success rate. You have to transplant at least three embryos to be in with a shout, and then it’s only a seventy per cent chance that one of them’s going to do the business. Helen transplanted three, and one of them survived. Believe me, in this game, that’s a result.’

‘So what happened to the other one?’ I asked. I had a horrible feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer.

‘It’s in the freezer at home. In a flask of liquid nitrogen.’

I’d been right. I felt slightly queasy at the thought and reminded myself never to go looking for a snack in Alexis’s kitchen. I cleared my throat. ‘How do you know it works? How do you know the babies are…OK?’

Alexis frowned. ‘There was no way of proving it objectively. We had to take Helen’s word for it. She introduced us to the first couple she had a success with. Their little girl’s about eighteen months now. She’s a really bright kid. And yes, I know they could have been bullshitting us, that it could have been a racket to rip us off, but I believed those two women. You had to be there, KB.’

I thought I could probably make it through the night without the experience. ‘I see now why you thought they’d take the baby off you,’ was all I said.

‘You’ve got to help us,’ Alexis said.

‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ I asked.

‘Helen Maitland’s files,’ Alexis said. ‘We’ve got to get rid of them before the police find them.’

‘Why would the police be looking for them in the first place?’ I asked. ‘Like I said, it’s a straightforward burglary gone wrong.’

‘OK, OK, I know you think I’m being paranoid. But this is our child’s future that’s at stake here. I’m entitled to go a bit over the top. But there’s two reasons why I’m worried. One, suppose it didn’t happen like the YP says? Suppose the person who killed Helen Maitland wasn’t a burglar. Suppose it was some woman whose treatment hadn’t worked and she’d gone off her box? Or suppose it was somebody who’d found out what was going on and was blackmailing Helen? Once the cops start digging, you know they won’t stop. They might not be well bright, but you know as well as I do that when it comes to murder the bizzies don’t ignore anything that looks like it might be a lead.’

I sighed. She was right. Coppers on murder inquiries are never satisfied till they’ve got somebody firmly in the frame. And if the obvious paths don’t come up with a viable suspect, they start unravelling every loose end they can find. ‘What’s the second reason?’ I asked.

‘She had consulting rooms in Manchester. Sooner or later, somebody is going to notice she’s not where she should be when she should be. And eventually, somebody’s going to be emptying her filing cabinet. And if I know anything about people, whoever goes through those files isn’t going to be dumping them straight in the bucket. It’s only human nature to have a good root through. And then me and Chris are chopped liver, along with all the other dykes Helen Maitland has given babies to.’ Alexis finished her cigarette and washed it down with a couple of gulps of her drink. ‘We need you to find those files.’

I crossed my legs at the ankles and hugged my knees. ‘You’re asking a lot here. Interfering with a murder inquiry. Probably burglary, not to mention data theft.’

‘I’m not asking for a favour here, KB. We’ll pay you.’

I snorted with ironic laughter. ‘Alexis, is this how you really think my professional life works? People walk in and ask me to break the law for money? I thought you knew me! When punters walk into my office and ask me to do things that are illegal, they don’t stay in the room long enough to notice the colour of the carpet. When I have to break the law, I go out of my way to make sure my clients are the last to know. If I do this for you, it won’t be because you’re offering to pay me for it, it’ll be because I decide it needs to be done.’

She had the grace to look abashed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she groaned. ‘My head’s cabbaged with all this. I know you’re not some mad maverick burglar for hire. It’s just that you’re the only person I know who’s got the skills to