CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (28 page)

‘About five years ago.’

‘I see.’ He made more notes. ‘There is just one small thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘I see Janus wears an earring.’ The paediatrician looked at her reflectively.

He thinks I’m a bit of a hippy, Lisa realised. A one-time layabout who’s married a successful man.

‘Is there any special reason for that?’

Lisa laughed, relieved. ‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘Each of the triplets wears a precious metal earring in his left ear. It’s just so that we can be sure of telling them apart. They really are identical, you see.’

‘You mean you can’t tell the difference?’ He sounded interested for the first time that morning.

‘
We
can tell the difference, of course. It’s to help the staff at the playschool.’

‘I see. They already go to playschool.’

‘They were longing to join their elder brother,’ Lisa said defensively. ‘Anyway, Janus wears a gold earring, Jeffrey wears platinum and James wears silver. I’m told precious metals don’t cause allergies.’

‘That may be true in general, Mrs Wildmore,’ the doctor said gravely. ‘But I do suggest you take Janus’s earring off. I think you may have noticed an allergy to that. If there’s no problem with the other two, you can always tell which one he is by the absence of an earring.’

Dr Morgenstein walked over to Lisa, patting Janus on the head, then put his finger on the child’s left earlobe. He undid the clasp, slipped out the earring, and handed it to Lisa.

‘I think you’ll find that will solve your problem,’ he smiled at her. ‘But if you’re worried again don’t hesitate to get in touch.’

Lisa slipped the earring on the small fingertip of her left hand for the second time that day, her heart missing several beats. She stood, unsteadily, to leave. The child on her arm smiled radiantly at her, and clapped his hands. She was tiring rapidly.

‘I didn’t leave his walking reins with you, did I?’ she asked the receptionist as she was leaving. ‘They’re yellow, to match Jansy’s T-shirt.’

‘I don’t think you brought any in here, Mrs Wildmore.’

Morgenstein, Lisa thought as she was driving back, was obviously going to ring Gilmore at the first opportunity and tell him that Lisa herself, not Janus, was medically unsound. Morgenstein’s modulated, soothing voice spelled menace to her.

She looked at the smiling dimply child strapped in his seat. He was gurgling happily, trying out the sounds of speech, the image of Jeffrey and James. This was her son Janus: her very own son. Love for him swept over her.

She must have hallucinated what she thought she’d seen in the Priddy Woods, must have allowed her tears and the flickering shadows to mislead her. As for the walking reins - she’d definitely lost those. But that could have a perfectly simple explanation. She’d simply left them where she’d taken Janus’s clothes off, where she’d allowed him to pee, and then forgotten them.

She smiled radiantly. The little boy with her was perfectly normal. The doctor had said there was nothing wrong with him, been quite certain about it.

Lisa sang out loud. She was completely sure she’d finally been freed from the cloner. She’d left him in the Priddy Woods, a product of her fertile imagination.

CHAPTER 24

‘Us be watching the local news last night.’

Lisa realised with a start that the back door had opened and Frank was standing in her utility room, a wine-coloured tracksuit emphasising the paunch which had recently become quite noticeable. Phyllis and Paul were with him. He was, apparently, jogging them to Lodsham House School.

‘Be trying to get fit,’ he explained, patting his cider belly. ‘Thought us’d call in on our way and say hello. Not seen much of yer lately.’ He looked flushed, his chest heaving as he recovered his breath; he was still clutching his twins by the hands.

Lisa sensed Frank’s small currant eyes exploring her. He’d obviously come for a specific reason. She felt nervous, intensely aware of his presence and of the way he watched her every move as she directed Seb on how to put his jumper on.

‘I can do it, Mummy! I always do it by myself at school.’

‘All right, Seb. But you were getting your fingers caught in the threads at the back. Bestie would be upset.’

Betsy Beste had hand knitted Sebastian a jumper with white rabbits on a green ground.

‘On the telly. Them did come across the decomposing body of a young’un in an old pit. Jest the remains of a bare body; no clothes nor nothing. Boy around about eighteen months, them do believe.’ Frank trotted out the information as though he’d rehearsed it.

Lisa’s hands turned to blobs of ice as she let go of Seb and turned towards Frank. So it
had
happened, after all. He was actually confirming that she hadn’t imagined the cloning of two months ago. But why had Frank come to tell
her
this? Did he know what was going on? Is that what this visit was about? Or was it just coincidence?

Lisa tried desperately to pull herself together. She was jumping to conclusions. No one could possibly
prove
anything. So there was a body. Someone had come across the body of a toddler, a boy. That’s all. Why should that be connected with her and her family? Unless there was a picture of the child in the local paper... Heart thudding, she turned away from Frank and bent towards Seb again as he was stretching his arm through a sleeve, catching a finger on a loop of yarn.

‘Make your hands into a fist, Seb.’ Her voice sounded strangely squeaky, and she saw Seb look curiously at her. Her freezing hands felt numb. Instead of pulling the child’s arm out of the sleeve she made matters worse, puckering the loosely knitted material. She could not stop herself from looking over her shoulder. Frank’s eyes, fixed on her back, were waiting for further reactions. That’s why he hadn’t phoned, she knew at once. He wanted to see how his news affected her. The narrowed questing eyes surged fury through her, pumped blood. What was he playing at? He might suspect what was going on - but he couldn’t possibly substantiate it. Nor would he want to. It would draw public attention to what had happened on his farm when he’d tested out the original strain of Multiplier. Lisa stood tall, squaring her shoulders back, and lifted her chin defiantly. He was bluffing, trying to flush her out. But why?

‘No one’s come forward, well,
someone
must be missing they little’un and baint said nothing.’

Seb pulled his sleeve on for himself. ‘Why didn’t he have any clothes on, Uncle Frank? It’s cold today.’

‘We’ll be late, Seb,’ Lisa said briskly. ‘Hurry up and get your anorak on.’ She saw Frank was still staring at her and faced him out. ‘Completely naked, did you say? Wouldn’t that suggest one of those ghastly - well, child abuse cases?’ She dropped her voice and motioned her head towards Seb, to indicate that he was listening. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Arr, could be.’ The eyes had sunk away.

She smiled at his retreat. He’d expected her to show fear, to give him the chance to bully her. She gathered three pairs of shoes into stiff hands, still anxious, feeling Frank’s truculence.

‘How be the triplets? None of we seen they for a while.’

‘Same as ever; hard work.’

‘All right then, be they? Getting on well?’

‘Come and see for yourself,’ Lisa said coolly. ‘They’re with Alec in the kitchen, waiting for me to get them ready.’

‘Apparently,’ Lisa said to Alec as Frank followed her, ‘Frank’s called to tell us about a rather odd snippet on the local news. They’ve found the body of a toddler in the Priddy Woods.’

‘I never said that!’ Frank said. ‘Whatever made you reckon that?’

Lisa stopped short, the blood draining from her brain. ‘Didn’t you just say...’

‘I never said nothing about Priddy Woods. I said as them had found the remains of a toddler in an old pit.’

Lisa swallowed hard. ‘
Lift
your leg, Jansy; don’t kick.’ She was squatting, her back to Frank, putting the triplets’ shoes on, grasping their feet and pushing hard. Frank had followed her right into the kitchen, still holding on to his twins.

‘Hello, Frank. We don’t often see you at this hour.’

‘Morning, Alec. Just purdled in to let yer know the news; makes we worry about the young’uns playing on their own.’ He walked closer to Lisa. ‘Weren’t Priddy. T’were farther downalong. Milton way. Could’ve been dragged from the Priddy side. More than likely, the police do reckon. State the body’s in they say him been mauled about a fair bit.’

‘Mauled about?’

‘One of they dogs folk make pets of. Could be a stray, could be an old lady walking her pet, not keeping proper control.’

‘Bloodhounds again?’ Alec asked, startled.

‘No, not hounds,’ Frank said. ‘More like a terrier, Warwickshire bull or suchlike.’ He saw Alec frown. ‘Could be a grockle, allowing animals to roam. Voreigners don’t seem ter know what them be dealing with. Dog’s instinct be to hunt.’

Lisa noted that Frank still liked to blame local problems on tourists, or recently arrived residents.

‘Good heavens,’ Alec said, startled. ‘Can they be as specific as that? A child killed by a terrier?’

‘Not a feature left in the face, and the body completely mangled, the police do say. But them said nothing about whether him were dead when the dog got hold of he.’

‘It was a he, then? They were able to identify a boy?’

‘Them can tell from they bones. There be nothing else for they to get ahold on. Too young for proper teeth. Nothing them could identify.’ He paused dramatically. Lisa could feel his eyes on her. ‘Apart for one thing; them did come across a pair of unusual walking reins nearby. Yellow ones.’

Lisa’s mind skimmed rapidly back over what had happened the day she’d driven Janus to see Morgenstein. She’d lost the yellow walking reins - but nowhere near Milton. She hadn’t even stopped there. She’d probably left them in the Priddy Woods, where she’d undressed the child. That proved that the body mentioned on the news could not have anything to do with her. But she still couldn’t stop her shoulders trembling a shudder.

‘It sounds horrific.’ Alec, unaware of possible implications, laughed as he looked over the top of his
Financial Times
. ‘Still, we can’t go by that bit of evidence. We lost a pair ourselves a little while ago. But we haven’t lost a child,’ he went on, chuckling. ‘Not at the last count, anyway.’ He put his paper down and smiled amiably. ‘That’s a very exciting item of news for such a quiet area. But
someone
must be missing a toddler, and presumably will come forward to say so.’

‘Not up till now.’

‘Perhaps a visitor to the area.’

‘Grockles? And didn’t get on to they police?’

‘It’s a strange old world,’ Alec said easily. ‘Do excuse me, Frank. I’ve got to rush.’

If Lisa hoped that would be the end of the matter she was wrong.

‘Them do seem to be getting more alike, not less,’ Frank remarked. ‘Us could swear Jansy were much fatter than the other two last time us saw he. And him do have much more of a look of Jeffers.’

‘You’re quite right.’ Lisa bent towards her triplets, lifting them off the bench. ‘He was. Not really fat, actually. Sort of bloated.’ She smiled engagingly at Frank. ‘He had an allergy, the specialist said.’

‘Oh, arr.’

She shepherded the triplets towards the pushchair. ‘You haven’t come across them for some time, Frank. Most people think they all look alike - peas in a pod, they always say.’

‘You be forgetting, Lisa. Us do know un since them be born.’ He knelt down by the children. ‘Jiminy be easy to spot. Delicate, like. But Jansy and Jeffers seems almost identical.’ He looked back at Lisa over his shoulder, his eyes fine slits. ‘Now us do remember as Jansy be quite different, somehow. Bit of a bruiser, if yer don’t mind us saying. These other two be sweet as pie. Even the one as is wearing the gold ring.’

The one? He was pointing at Jeffrey. What was he trying to say?

‘Just growing up, I expect. Dr Morgenstein says the result of the allergy could easily have been aggression.’

‘Yer’d reckon as him be an entirely different child,’ Frank said laconically.

Lisa laughed grimly to herself. She only wished that Frank was right and she did have a non-cloning child with her. The one she’d taken to the doctor from the Priddy Woods, she was quite clear, was Janus. And Seb called him Janus. That had confirmed it for her.

‘Dr Morgenstein wanted us to leave off Jansy’s earring.’ She smiled at Frank again. ‘But I think he’s got that wrong. I’m happier if they all wear earrings, or we don’t bother with any of them,’ she explained, careful to keep her voice even and unexcited. ‘We don’t want Jansy to think of himself as different from the others.’

It sounded hypocritical, even to herself. She knew, better than anyone else, that Janus wasn’t just different. He was very different indeed. The question was, what did Frank know? He couldn’t
know
, Lisa repeated anxiously to herself. He could suspect, because of what was happening on his farm, and he could be trying to find out more. But why was he concerning himself with her children all of a sudden?

‘So what I thought,’ she confided thoughtfully, ‘was that I’d swap them round. Platinum for Jansy, gold for Jeffers. Sorry if that confused you,’ she added genially. ‘It wasn’t meant for that.’

Was she imagining it, or was there anger in Frank’s attitude?

‘So yer decided ter play tricks?’ he said. ‘Can’t make a fool on me! Us knew right off that there be someutt different.’

‘Looks like that paediatrician was actually worth his money. He seems to have worked out the problem for poor old Jansy,’ Lisa said smoothly. ‘Fancy an allergy causing a change in personality.’ She straightened up and began to manhandle the pushchair towards the drive. ‘We’d better go or we’ll be late.’

Frank dusted his knees off and planted himself directly in front of the chair. ‘Best give yer a hand,’ he said, walking round and grasping the handle. ‘Want to watch out going down they drive. Bit of a drop there. The three of they be heavy now. Pushchair could run away with they.’

‘I keep the brake on,’ Lisa said, but let him take the pushchair. She took Seb’s hand in hers, then looked around for Phyllis and Paul as they were turning into the road. ‘You take Seb’s hand,’ she instructed the little boy and held Phyllis with her other hand. The child looked strained. She seemed to drag her bad foot more than Lisa remembered.

The rumble of a lorry coming up behind them made Lisa pull the three children on to the safety of the verge. She expected Frank to do the same with the pushchair.

‘Get to the side, Frank! The milk tanker’s coming up fast!’

He stopped, but it seemed to Lisa that he made no effort at all to move the pushchair out of the way. In fact he seemed to be turning it into the road. She dropped the children’s hands and leaped over, tugged the handle down away from Frank and dragged the chair back towards the verge. The tanker lumbered past with inches to spare.

‘No need to panic, they be good drivers,’ Frank said, standing stolid, looking her full in the face. He turned to the triplets again. ‘Them be identicals, right?’ he continued, stepping aside and looking at them searchingly. ‘Means them be equal genetically. Means yer may get the same trouble with Jeffers.’ He stopped in front of the school gates. ‘Leave yer here,’ he said. ‘Us be going on.’