Next Of Kin (Unnatural Selection #3) (2 page)

We didn’t
mention it again. It wasn’t simply that we’d agreed to drop it.
Nick’s return from leave coincided with an unseasonably early flu
outbreak and his station, as many others, was short-staffed for a
good month and a half. Though I avoided the flu, I had research
papers to write and student materials to prepare. Our free time
together became rare, and too precious to spend arguing about a
scientific finding.

But just
because we weren’t talking about it, didn’t mean the rest of the
country—or the world—had gone silent. Neither of us could fail to
see the headlines that continued to yell from the newspaper stands
and magazine covers, or miss the stories on the news sites about
another study apparently confirming the initial studies on vee
morphs. It looked as if ISH really did slow down the aging process
in some way, though since the effect was limited to vee morphs,
I—and other interested commentators—wondered if it was more to do
with the restricted diet than the actual virus.

The
public response was a mixture of envy and desire. It seemed like
every other day, the
Sun
was
‘outing’ a celebrity who had managed to finagle ISH treatment
without discernable medical cause, and promoting both hypocritical
anger at someone getting what was denied to others. They offered
not the slightest evidence, naturally, that the celebrity was ISH
positive, had no genuine medical need, or that anyone else had been
turfed off a mythical waiting list for the treatment—and stoking up
the idea that ISH was the magic cure for all that ailed you.
Hello
did a lavish spread on a late
middle-aged actress who had become a vee morph as a result of
treatment for leukaemia. I doubted the poor woman expected the
backlash she received, or being named in Parliament by a Tory MP as
an example of why he was going to move a private member’s bill to
withhold the state pension from vee morphs until the age of
eighty.

Watching
the discussion of that charming proposal on
Newsnight
provoked the first reaction from Nick that
I’d seen since we’d flown back from Sweden. As a Treasury spokesman
tried to justify such an outrageous piece of discrimination on the
grounds of fiscal responsibility, Nick gently took the remote from
my hand and turned the television off.

“Arseholes.” He got off the sofa and went up to the
bedroom.

I
followed him and sat on the bed, where he was lying, glaring at the
ceiling.

“Typical
Conservative crap,” I said.

“They’re just
pissed off that ISH couldn’t help their precious Maggie. I'm sick
of this, Anton. The jokes at work aren’t even slightly funny.”

“Is it
actual
harassment?”

He made
a face. “Not yet. The shit about being gay is probably getting
closer. Thorpe is a dickhead. Still a dickhead, I mean.”

I rubbed his
foot. “If it’s that bad, you could transfer?”

“Nah. I can
handle him, and he knows not to go too far. I can’t always have
bosses as good as Phil, but bugger, I miss working with him and
Andy some days.”

“You could
move to North London with Andy.”

“Doesn’t work
like that. I’m all right. Just that crap on the TV. Annoys the hell
out of me. It reminds me when people first became aware of AIDS.
Couldn’t get away from it and all the garbage being spewed about
gay men.”

I nodded. “I
remember. I’m sorry, love. It should die down as soon as the next
big thing comes along.”

“Mum’s
always going on about it when I ring home. Keeps telling me how
lucky I am. Like she’s forgotten
why
I’m positive in the first place.” I made a sympathetic
sound, but he waved the sympathy away. “I’m not angry at her. She
doesn’t know what to make of it.”

He looked at
me, and I answered the unasked question. “I’m still processing.
Mostly I worry about you.”

“Me?”

“If I die
before you. Leaving you alone. You’ll probably be fine. I’m being
ridiculous.”

He held out
his arms, and I slid into his embrace. He kissed my hair. “I’d be a
wreck. I was counting on your long-lived genes.”

“So maybe it
all evens out.”

“If the
research isn’t bollocks.”

“Who knows
what they’ll discover next week?” I rubbed his bristly cheek. “I’m
not jealous of you but I sometimes wish I was a vee so we could
grow old together.”

“We will. And
I’m glad you’re not a vee. You make it easier, but it’s not the
same as normality.”

It had
been a while since Nick had been so negative about his ISH status.
His relationship with the
immuno-stimulant haemovirus that
had saved his life but changed his physiognomy and diet forever had
been hate-hate when I met him, but he had learned to accept it—and
his altered self—very much better since then.
The ‘jokes’ at work must have been getting to him.
“You know, it’s our fifth anniversary in March.”

“Of what?”

“Me being
beaten up and saved by my ever so gorgeous copper.” I kissed him
and he grinned. “We should do something.”

“What, like
arrange for you to be beaten up again?”

“Don’t be a
prat. I was thinking of that play with Arthur Darvill in the lead.
It’s opening in March.”

“Sure. Sounds
great. My treat. It’ll be nice to use the overtime for something
positive.”

“Then I’ll buy
the champagne.”

“I’ll try and
get the next day off. Don’t like my chances though. Daffyd’s gone
off injured again, and this time I think he’ll be off until
April.”

“Oh hell.
You’re working ridiculous overtime as it is.”

He
patted my stomach.
“No
whining. I did warn you about being married to a cop.”

“Yes, you did.
Oh well. We’ll manage. Are you having a shower?”

“Yeah, better
had.” I moved so he could sit up, but before he stood, he hugged me
and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry about me, Anton. You’re the best
thing to ever happen to me, and I don’t plan to lose you.”

“Me either.
Bugger the Tories.”

“Not even with
Jeremy Paxman’s dick.” I laughed as he stood. “They’ll never bring
it in. Too many of the sods in the Lords are ISH positive.”

Which
turned out to be an accurate prediction. Despite constant rumblings
in the Murdoch press, there was no serious attempt to bring
legislation forward to discriminate against ISH positive
individuals. The attention given to those who had somehow,
possibly, gained access to the ‘fountain of youth’ continued in a
rather ugly way, but that was the limit of its disturbing
aspect.

Or so I
thought until we met Harry and Angus for a drink one unusually
pleasant March Sunday afternoon. As we sat soaking up the spring
sunshine on the banks of the Thames, Harry told us about stories
he’d heard of vees being recruited to give blood to private
clinics, and of certain members of the gay community popping off
overseas for ‘plastic surgery’ and coming back with very particular
dietary requirements.

“How certain
are you?” Nick asked.

Harry waggled
his hand in a ‘sort of’ gesture. “I know of two definite cases
where blokes suddenly came out as vees, and they’d also had recent
plastic surgery. I don’t know cause and effect. The blood thing is
rumour and friend of a friend kind of thing.”

“But if there
are doctors treating people with ISH illegally, they’d have to use
blood and not official NHS sources,” Nick said. “It’s barking
mad.”

“Presumably they have to infect any patient with something
pretty virulent first. But I thought blood wasn’t actually all that
good as an inoculant?”

Nick thumbed
at me as he shook his head. “Listen to my mad scientist husband.
Yeah, blood’s not what they use in hospitals, not any more. I think
these rumours are crap—or someone’s being conned.”

“Pretty
dangerous con,” Angus rumbled. At six foot five, and a voice that
emanated from his boots, Angus—who was a very sweet Home Office
statistician, no matter how many black belts he had—didn’t have to
speak often to make his presence felt.

“Why’s that,
love?” Harry asked.

“If they’re
infecting people with hepatitis or whatever, then they can’t cure
them.”

“Maybe that’s
just a ploy to get them into the NHS system,” I said.

Nick took a
slurp of his beer, still frowning. “Angus is right though. ISH
isn’t a guaranteed cure, and becoming a vee morph even less so. So
you could end up dead, or ISH positive without anything to show for
it.”

“Except
protection against cancer and life-threatening viruses,” Harry
said.

“True. I just
don’t believe it. After the prosecutions in 2009, I don’t think any
doctor here would risk it.”

“But it’s not
happening here, Harry said. What about Europe? Russia? Middle
East?”

Nick shrugged.
“It’s possible. But it sounds more like scrambled facts and
jealousy bacon to me.”

“Man’s a
poet,” Harry said, grinning at my spouse.

“That was one
of Phil Mbeke’s sayings.” Nick finished his beer, stood and set his
glass on the table. “Anyone for a walk? Come on, Harry, you’re
getting fat. Angus, I thought you were sorting him out.”

Angus leaned
back and folded his arms. “I am. But he eats faster than I can fuck
him.”

Harry
spat beer back into his drink. Angus grinned at us over his
head.

The
night at the theatre was our last ‘date’ for three months. Nick’s
excellent health meant he had to flog in day in and day out, while
his comrades went off with flu, colds, and other non-lethal
stress-related illnesses.
His station remained understaffed, while the work piled on
thanks to energetic criminal gangs, a killer targeting young women
catching late night transport, and the discovery of an
anti-immigrant terrorist cell operating out of one of the poshest
addresses in the borough, planning mayhem in some of the poorest
places in London.

By June I
jokingly offered to break his arm just to let him take some time
off. He held out his right hand. “Be quick then.”

“I’m kidding,
love.”

“I know, but I
wish you weren’t.”

“Maybe we
should break one of your boss’s arms.”

“Now there’s a
thought.”

“Roll over and
let me give you a massage.”

He grunted and
shimmied into position, groaning extravagantly as I dug into his
shoulder muscles.

“I won’t
need to break anything. Your shoulders are so tense, you’ll
dislocate them one of these days.”

“Probably.
Daffyd’s supposed to be back in a fortnight. Though they’ve been
saying that for over a month now.”

I kept
up the massage concentrating on his tight shoulders and lower back.
He looked thinner to my eyes than he should be, even though the ISH
was supposed to keep the individual at the optimum weight for their
height. There was no satisfactory way for an ISH-positive person to
put on weight. Anything but HRF—or alcohol—went through the system
unabsorbed, and his liver would pack it in before he could booze
his way back to proper weight. He could drink more HRF but the
virus ensured any excess calories were simply expelled. A dieter’s
dream, but the last thing an overworked cop needed.

“Can’t wait
until September,” I said.

“October. Bugger, I forgot...Thorpe turned down the leave
request. Said I’d have to take it two weeks later than we wanted.”
He rolled over to face me. “Sorry, it was only yesterday that he
told me.”

“But you’re
giving him masses of notice.”

“I know. He’s
being a dick about nearly everything. I think he wants me to
leave.”

“Then why
don’t you? You don’t have to put up with his bullshit.”

“No. I’ve
started looking. Finding time to apply is the problem. But after we
get back from Sweden, I’ll definitely put a rush on.”

“Why
wait?”

“Worst time.
Summer, people on leave, all that. I really am looking, Anton.”

I leaned down
and kissed him. “I believe you. He definitely approved the changed
dates?”

“Yeah, I
got that much out of him. I’ll email you with the details so you
can book the flight and let Laurens know.
But
...I managed to wangle this weekend
off.”

“You
didn’t.”

He smiled at
my shock. “Yup. So I want you to hire us a car so we can take off
somewhere nice and green and not London.”

“Wales?”

“If you like.
You want to visit Karl?”

“Maybe for
lunch. We don’t have to.”

He wrapped his
arm around me and pulled me close. “Anything you want. So long as
it’s with you.”

“I’ll make it
a good one. Er, does this mean Thorpe will take it out of your
hide?”

“Probably. But
you can always break my arm for real if he’s too much of a
tosser.”

“How does your
GP feel about diagnosing unspecified lower back pain?”

“I don’t know
but I’m prepared to find out if Daffyd doesn’t come back soon. Come
to bed?”

Fortunately, Nick’s accident-prone colleague, DS Daffyd
Jones, did return to duty as promised, but with the start of summer
and officers going on leave and the usual influx of visitors and
criminals to the borough, Nick was no less busy, and had no more
time than before to look for transfer opportunities. I wasn’t as
much support as I could have been, since summer is a very busy time
for the Open University. All we could do was steal a few days and
nights together when we could, and long for October and two weeks’
uninterrupted peace.