CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (24 page)

A memory tried to surface in Lisa’s mind. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. All she knew was that something was terribly wrong. Otherwise why would an old hand like Don be attacked by bloodhounds trained to follow, not kill him? And the hounds. Why would a pack of bloodhounds, trained from birth to follow a man, suddenly turn on him? Hunting had been practised in the countryside for centuries, though draghunting had replaced foxhunting after the 2004 Act. Could bloodhounds change character?

‘Which pack is it?’ Lisa turned to Frank.

‘Pakenham Moor,’ Frank said, something of his usual resentment coming through. ‘Wilford Gudgeon; him be the one on the bay. Gaffer at Priddy, living in t’old manor house. Him run they kennels. Him be a wonderful Master.’

Wilford Gudgeon again.

‘That’s what Diana said. D’you know him well?’

‘See he socially, that yer meaning?’ Frank looked rueful. ‘Not my patch,’ he said as he drained the whisky Alec had brought for him in a single draught. ‘But us do come across he. Point-to-points, and such.’

‘Sir Wilford runs those hounds?’ Alec demanded.

‘Us do know him feeds they the right stuff. Him do buy they meat from us.’

‘
You
supply feed for the hounds?’ Was
that
what had been nagging at the back of her mind? Frank was supplying meat from herds grazed on his fields. Could that affect the hounds - make them more aggressive, out of control?

‘Us do that,’ Frank said as he turned irritably towards Lisa. ‘What be wrong with that, then?’ The eyes, brimful of feeling a moment before, looked at her coldly. ‘Dare say yer don’t hold with hunting none. Yer reckon Don’s accident be acause of that.’

‘Actually, Frank, that isn’t true. I know hunting helps keep the countryside in trim, makes sure the horses are up to scratch.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘And hunting ensures the hounds continue to be bred. None of that bothers me. It’s only right.’ She looked at the man in front of her. She hadn’t realised his hair had greyed so much. ‘It’s the followers that really worry me, I suppose. Not the riders; that’s just sport. It’s the people in cars and on foot. They seem to want to be in at the kill, to see a single animal hunted by a whole pack of hounds. I think that’s absolutely disgusting.’

Frank didn’t answer her. He’d closed his eyes, leaned back his head. ‘Don; us can’t rightly believe it. Don Chivers. Worked for me dad afore me; and me granfer afore that.’

‘Perhaps he’ll pull through. He’s very fit.’

‘Pull through?’ He turned on Lisa. ‘Survive a horse tromping on he, then torn by they hounds? Not a bloody chance in hell. Him be done for, right enough.’

They heard the ambulance siren its way across the moor roads. Frank looked up, a little unsteadily, and seemed to shiver at the sound. He caught Lisa watching him, braced his shoulders back and walked to the stone wall to look over it. Alec and Lisa joined him, and Lisa could see his trembling hands grasping the jutting top stones. He wasn’t merely overcome, he was frightened, Lisa realised. Not so much emotionally involved as afraid. Perhaps he realised he might easily have been in Don’s place.

‘Amazing how far you can see. The ambulance is still a good mile off.’ Alec watched the large vehicle negotiate the hump bridge over Lodsham Drain.

‘All those followers upalong be going to slow her up. Leastways them got enough sense to park on they verges.’

‘I’ll go and make some tea,’ Lisa said. ‘You’ll need something sweet to help you over the shock.’

‘Later,’ Frank said slowly, remounting and holding out shaking hands for the blankets, his eyes shifting away. ‘Got to ride back to cover he. Though us did fall out betimes, Don be one in a million. Us won’t never see the likes of he again.’

CHAPTER 20

‘I could come down any weekend you like,’ Sarah Wildmore said carefully. ‘Really, I’d love to help with the children.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Sarah. We’re fine.’

‘It would be so nice to see something of the little ones.’

‘I can’t do everything!’ Lisa suddenly snapped at her mother-in-law. ‘My exhibition is next week, and the boys have just got over colds and been at home, and I haven’t even got that awful Geraldine to help me now.’

‘You finally sacked her? I didn’t realise.’

‘There’s nothing for her to do! The boys are at playschool every morning, and Betsy picks them up for their walk after their nap.’

‘So the poor girl’s redundant.’ Sarah laughed, but Lisa could hear the nervousness.

‘As a matter of fact, she’s been taken on by the person who runs the school. She’s one of the trainees helping with the children.’

‘Really? Geraldine? Did you give her a reference? I thought you said she was completely useless?’

‘Inexperienced,’ Lisa said warily. ‘She has a lot to learn. Anne Marsden’s equipped to teach her.’

When Nanette Fitch-Templeton had rung and asked Lisa to give Geraldine a testimonial, she’d hardly been in a position to refuse. ‘She did so love being with your little ones, Lisa,’ Nanette had flattered her. ‘That’s why she’s so keen to get experience at Lodsham House.
Such
good training for her,’ Geraldine’s mother had insisted, trying to press Lisa into writing something the girl could use.

‘I suppose so. She is still rather immature,’ Lisa had answered evasively.

‘I know, my dear, I know. These teenagers...’ She trailed to a stop. Lisa could almost hear her try to work out the right approach. ‘But she did learn so much from you, and she’s absolutely desperate to try for the Norland training.’

The girl had never mentioned such a possibility to her. But Lisa had been in a quandary. Geraldine was, after all, Carruthers’ niece. Alec wouldn’t tolerate direct criticism of the girl. ‘I stressed how young she was to Anne,’ Lisa excused herself to her mother-in-law.

‘Of course,’ Sarah said softly.

‘We parted on perfectly amiable terms. She often pops in at weekends.’

‘I wondered about that.’

Did Sarah also suspect Alec was having an affair with the girl? Probably thought it a good idea, Lisa thought sourly. ‘I’m supposed to entertain some of the Flaxton bigwigs,’ she finished up, a little calmer. ‘Neither Betsy nor Geraldine can give me much help with that.’

‘Dinner parties, d’you mean?’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘If that’s what’s worrying you,’ Sarah said. ‘I could make myself useful. Why not ask me down next time you’re roped in and I’ll see to it. You play the little wife, I’ll be the dowager.’

Lisa was annoyed with herself for making such a silly mistake. If she didn’t fall in with that suggestion Sarah would have concrete complaints next time she talked to Alec.

‘Of course I know how much you have to do,’ her mother-in-law intoned. ‘But it’s the sort of thing I’m really good at.’

Lisa could picture the scene with Alec. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting some more help for her, Allie?’ she’d suggest to him demurely, insinuatingly. She always called him Allie; you’d think he was still a baby. ‘It can’t be right to keep my only grandchildren away from me like that.’

It wasn’t, Lisa thought irritably, as she parried her mother-in-law with promises of a visit later in the month, that she didn’t know she was going through a bad patch. Who wouldn’t, with four such young children under foot? Hardly grounds for ‘Seeking some sort of professional guidance’, as Alec had so pompously put it.

The suggestion had, however, struck a chord with Lisa. Was she actually neurotic? Was her imagination playing tricks on her? Even to entertain the idea of cloning, when there were plausible alternatives, did sometimes seem absurd even to her. Yet it had happened. She’d
found
James, not given birth to him. She didn’t believe she could be mistaken about a thing like that.

What annoyed Lisa most of all was that Gilmore had taken it on himself to intimate she needed more help in the house. What on earth did an ordinary GP think he knew about it? A medical education hardly equipped one to run a home. Meg, too, had said she looked ‘clumblefisted’, whatever that was supposed to mean. Trevor was the only one who didn’t get at her, who had something encouraging to say.

‘You really are a marvel, darling. These paintings are
exactly
what the market wants,’ he’d smiled at her last time he’d looked over a new batch.

What none of them could even guess at was the real strain she was under. And that had nothing whatever to do with coping with so many young children. Don Chiver’s death haunted her. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it hadn’t been an ordinary accident. It wasn’t just what had happened, it was the way it had affected Frank. He appeared shaken, even more furtive than before. His odd habit of looking over his shoulder, of dropping his voice as though afraid of being overheard every time she came across him, struck Lisa as significant. Had he played some part in Don’s death? Surely not. Why would he want Don out of the way? The man had been loyal to Frank and his family all his life; he would never have done anything to hurt them. It was Don himself who’d been responsible for helping Frank cover up by killing suspect livestock, ploughing up suspect crops. If he’d wanted to make it all public he’d have done it long ago. And Don had disposed of the first batch of Multiplier. Built a huge bonfire, Frank had told Alec, burned all of it together with an old elder hedge which he’d grubbed out.

Lisa remembered the warnings about disposing of elders. Is that why Don had had an accident?

‘Terrible waste,’ Frank had complained about burning the first batch of Multiplier. ‘Money be going up in smoke.’

No, Frank had nothing at all to gain from Don’s death. In fact, Frank’s reaction had elements of fear in it, as though Don’s death were some kind of warning. What really worried Lisa now was that Frank had suddenly shown more than the usual interest in the triplets. It reminded her of Don. She was pretty sure Don hadn’t told Frank about the dead clone. And, even if he had, why was Frank only reacting now? Were her children in some sort of jeopardy?

Lisa shook herself. The earrings were in place. It couldn’t happen again, she could relax. Each triplet had a tiny, delicate little band of precious metal slipped through an equally tiny hole in the left earlobe. Plain gold for Janus, twisted platinum for Jeffrey to distinguish it from the plain silver one for James. It was quite difficult to spot them unless one knew precisely what to look for. And Lisa was positive that the thin gold band kept Janus from cloning. But, in spite of the earrings, Lisa knew the old problem was there, waiting to pounce, demanding some sort of permanent resolution.

Lisa had no difficulty distinguishing Janus from his brothers, with or without the earring. And he seemed to know what she was thinking. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew perfectly well she was worried about him, and for him. A new problem had surfaced recently. Janus wasn’t only bulkier than his brothers, and unusually strong. He was also extremely bright - and far too assertive.

‘I’ll just put Jiminy and Jansy in the playpen,’ Betsy called to Lisa, when she was clearing up in the kitchen. ‘Jeffers needs changing.’

Before she could shout a warning Lisa heard the howls from the playroom, and when she arrived, just seconds after loading a cup into the dishwasher, then running down the corridor, Janus was standing up, gripping the playpen rail with one hand and bashing his gentler brother on the head with a wooden brick with the other.

‘No, Jansy!’ Lisa shouted at him.

She saw the child’s gleaming shining eyes turn to her for help, felt his frustration. She was restraining him from being himself. She really had no option but to do so.

‘That’s really naughty!’ she told him.

He grinned at her, confident of his strength, evidently content to wait for the right moment to show it.

‘Stop that now, Jansy.’ Lisa took the brick out of the child’s hand and lifted up her delicate docile little Jiminy to comfort him. He smiled at her through his tears. ‘You’re not to hit your brother.’

The toddler turned deliberately away. There was a hiccup as he heaved vomit all over the carpet the playpen was standing on.

‘Really, Jansy!’

‘I expect he just had too much tea,’ Betsy soothed. Janus turned towards her and lifted up his arms, waiting for her to pick him up. ‘He’s too small to know when he’s had too much,’ she tried to appease Lisa, hugging the child to herself. ‘See, he’s as good as gold now. We’ll just get a cloth and mop it up, shall we?’

Janus allowed Betsy to lift him out and take him to the kitchen to fetch a cloth. When they returned he was smiling at her, putting fat little hands into her hair and laughing. She set him down by Jeffrey and climbed into the playpen with the two children, bending to clean up the mess.

‘There!’ she said, turning to Lisa who was still holding James in her arms, stroking curly blond hair out of his eyes. ‘Jansy’s trying to help me. Isn’t that sweet?’

Janus was putting his hand in the mess, coiling up a pugnacious fist, plastering the vomit over Jeffrey’s face.

‘Oh, look at that,’ Betsy cooed, gently opening the small fist and cleaning it with the cloth. ‘He’s trying to feed his little brother.’ She smiled at Lisa. ‘They can’t know what they’re doing.’

Lisa kept her feelings of helplessness from Betsy by placing James on the floor and walking him towards the playpen. As they approached she saw Janus’s eyes glow - that curious gleam which told her he was different from her other children. He stretched his right arm out, caught at her hair and pulled.

‘Jansy! You’re hurting Mummy!’

‘Oh, dear,’ Betsy was saying, dropping the mopping-up cloth to help disentangle Lisa’s hair.

‘It’s all right, Betsy. I can handle it.’

Lisa grasped Janus’s fingers and pried them apart. The strength in them amazed her, then frightened her. He was eighteen months old, she told herself repeatedly. Only eighteen months.

‘Mau, mau,’ he suddenly announced. ‘Mau, mau.’

‘Isn’t that sweet.’ Betsy’s moon face split into melon halves. ‘He’s trying to say Mummy!’ Tender eyes turned to Lisa. ‘Is that the first time he’s said that instead of mumum?’

It wasn’t the way Lisa interpreted it. Janus already had a pretty large vocabulary. To her it sounded like ‘more, more’. The question was, more what?

‘Jansy, stop making that scrunching noise,’ Lisa scolded.

‘You’re becoming completely impossible to live with,’ Alec seethed. ‘All the child did was crunch an apple in his mouth!’

True so far as it went, Lisa thought to herself; but certainly not what was really going on.

Janus was sitting on the bench beside James, round blue eyes clamped on Lisa, determined jaws rhythmically chomping apple.

Crunch, crunch. The apple slices set out in front of the child disappeared at an alarming rate, and when he’d finished those he grabbed at James’s.

Lisa’s hand shot out to stop him.

‘Those are Jiminy’s, Jansy. If you want more you can always ask.’ She saw Alec’s head emerge sideways from behind the paper, watching her.

‘Mau, mau,’ Janus said promptly, hand outstretched.

‘More please.’

‘Mau
pees
!’

‘I’ll cut you some.’

The knife, a small sharp kitchen knife for paring vegetables, rapidly cut another Golden Delicious in half, took out its core and sliced swiftly through the soft flesh, cutting crescents. Lisa pushed three slices at Janus and saw him grasp them and devour them. This time he stuffed all three into his mouth at once.