Perfect People (60 page)

The airport workers halted the wheelchairs. Each contained a small, elderly person. Both had a tiny holdall on their lap. John glanced at them. Two old men, he thought at first glance. Except then he noticed one was wearing an orange T-shirt, blue shorts and sneakers, and the other was wearing a white blouse, denim skirt and sparkly trainers. Male and female, he realized, with a sudden, sharp tug of nerves in his throat.

Their heads were disproportionately large to their tiny bodies, their craniums swollen like misshapen walnuts, the bones clearly delineated beneath the tight, uneven skin. Their eyes were all that John and Naomi could recognize. Blue protruding eyes, wide, round and staring. Both of them had half their crumbling teeth missing.

The female one was pointing at them. The two airport workers nodded and began to wheel them over to John and Naomi. Then they stopped right in front of them.

John and Naomi stared down, unsure for some moments quite what was going on. Naomi looked in horror at their pitiful faces. The faces of people in their late eighties, perhaps even older. The male had a few white wisps of hair either side of his skull. The female was completely bald.

The female looked up and gave a pitiful smile that almost broke Naomi’s heart. Then the male did the same.

‘Hello, Mummy. Hello, Daddy,’ Luke said. His voice was thin and young, like the voice of the child he still was.

Phoebe smiled, a little sheepishly. She looked at each of her parents in turn. ‘You said we could come home, any time, that we would always be welcome.’

Naomi knelt, weeping. She hugged Phoebe, then Luke. ‘Of course, my darlings. There’s nothing your daddy and I would love more. Of course it’s still true. Welcome home!’

John looked at the two men who were standing behind the wheelchairs. ‘Do they have any luggage?’

One shook his head. ‘No, no luggage. Just those little bags.’

‘We don’t need much,’ Phoebe said. ‘We won’t be staying for long.’

‘Why? Where are you going?’ Naomi asked, faltering, through her tears.

She glimpsed John’s tight, ashen face. And in the stark silence that followed, fighting back more tears, she understood.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I began researching for this novel, a decade ago, people told me that ‘designer babies’ were the stuff of science fiction. Not any more . . . A decade ago a leading genetics scientist really did tell me that parents in the near future would be able to choose the level of empathy their child could experience. Do they want a sweet, gentle child, who may be trampled on by others in life? Or a tough kid, who could end up being a sociopath? Such choices are almost impossible for us to make. But that future is almost upon us.

As ever I owe a thank you to very many people, but none more so than to those who have believed in and championed this book through its very long and at times despairing journey from inception to publication. My wonderful agent, Carole Blake, who has had faith from when it was just an idea bubbling in my head. My superstar editor, Wayne Brookes, who was passionate about it long before anyone else. All those who gave me utterly invaluable critical input and editorial help, especially Anna-Lisa Davies, Susan Ansell, Susan Opie, Martin and Jane Diplock, Nicky Mitchell and my brilliant assistant, Linda Buckley.

One person, who I met by one of life’s happiest chances years back when he was a Detective Inspector, Dave Gaylor – the career role-model for my Roy Grace character – has been an incredible help to me in so many ways with this book, and I owe massive thanks to him.

Very big thanks also to Steven D. Goodman, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Biomedical Sciences, University of Southern California for so rigorously checking every biological fact, and to David J. Anderson, Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, PhD, 1983, Rockefeller University, Genetic dissection of neural circuits controlling emotional behaviours, who gave me so much material. Also a huge thank you to Dr Penelope Leach, and her definitive work
Your Baby And Child,
Robert Beard, FRCS, Anthony Kenney, FRCS, FRCOG; Paul Tanner; Raymond Kurzweil, the Cognitive Sciences Department of Sussex University, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Dave Chidley of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, and Leif Karlsson, Master of MV Azamara Quest.

Very special thanks are due to Geoff Duffield, whose vision and passion for this book have been so instrumental in making it happen, and to the entire Macmillan team.

A huge debt as ever to Chris Webb of MacService, whose genius at fixing problems with my computer makes me wonder if he himself is a ‘designer baby’ instilled with technology genes!

I’m incredibly lucky to have Midas as my publicists, and no author could have a greater dream publicity team than Claire Riches, Sophie Ransom, Steven Williams and Tony Mulliken.

There were times when I thought that writing this novel was going to be too hard a task because I was tackling too complex a subject, and Helen has been tirelessly supportive, encouraging me through some of my darkest hours.

And the last words as always to the ever-cheerful Coco, lovely Phoebe and totally laid-back Oscar. They never let me put in too many hours without reminding me that there is a world out there beyond my laptop, and that we should go and take a walk in it . . .

COMING IN 2012 . . .

Read the opening chapers of the new

Roy Grace novel from the number

one bestseller PETER JAMES

Gaia Lafayette was unaware there was a man outside in a station-wagon who had come to kill her. And she was unaware of the email he had sent. She got hate-mail all the time, mostly from religious nutters upset by her use of iconic religious figures in some of her stage acts and her music videos. They were screened, and kept from bothering her, by her trusted Head of Security, Detroit-born Andrew Gulli, a tough ex-cop who’d spent most of his career on close-protection work for vulnerable political figures.

He knew when to be worried enough to tell his boss, and this piece of trash that had come in, from an anonymous Hotmail account, was not something he figured had any substance. His employer got a dozen like this every week.

It was 10 p.m. and Gaia was trying to focus on the script she was reading, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was focused even more on the fact that she had run out of cigarettes. The sweet, but oh-so-dim-witted Pratap – she hadn’t the heart to fire him because his wife had a brain tumour – who did all her shopping, had bought the wrong kind. She had had her limit of four cigarettes a day and didn’t actually
need
any more, but old habits die hard. She used to mainline the damned things, claiming she needed them for her famed gravelly voice. One before she got out of bed, one burning in the ashtray while she showered. Every action accompanied by a cigarette. Now she was kicking free, but she
had
to know they were in the house. Just in case she
needed
them.

And she needed more in life than cigarettes. Starting with her adoring public. The count was up to 3,752,321 Twitter followers – as of the last time she had checked, twenty minutes ago. Up 320 today! She had more than both the performers she viewed as her rivals, Madonna and Lady Gaga! 4,624,000 Facebook friends – up 417 today! 7,847,306 subscribers to her monthly e-newsletter. And then, of course, her seven homes, of which this imitation Tuscan palazzo, built five years ago to her exact specification on this three-acre lot, was the largest.

The walls were hung with Aztec art interspersed with larger-than-life framed posters of herself. The house, like all her others, was a catalogue of her different incarnations. Gaia had reinvented herself constantly throughout her twin careers both as a rock star and movie star, and continued to do so.

Above her head was a huge, framed photo of herself in a black negligee, titled
WORLD TOUR GAIA SAVING THE PLANET.
Another, with her wearing a green tank-top and leather trousers, was captioned,
GAIA REVELATIONS TOUR.
Above the fireplace, in greenish-grey monochrome was a close-up of her lips, nose and eyes –
GAIA UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.

Her agent and her manager phoned her daily, both men reassuring her just how much the world needed her. Just the way that her growing social-networking base – all outsourced by her management company – reassured her, too. And, at this moment, the one person in the world she cared about most – Sumo, her adopted son, needed her too. He padded barefoot across the marble floor, in his Armani Junior pyjamas, his brown hair all mussed up, his face scrunched in a frown, and tapped her on the arm as she lay propped against purple velvet cushions on the white sofa.

‘Mama, you didn’t come and read me a story.’

She stretched out a hand and mussed up his hair some more. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s late, way past your bedtime, and Mama’s really busy tonight, learning her lines. She has a really big part – see? Mama’s playing Maria Fitzherbert, the mistress of an English king! King George the Fourth.’

Maria Fitzherbert was the diva of her day, in Regency England. Just like Gaia was the diva of
her
day, and they had something profound in common. Maria Fitzherbert spent most of her life in Brighton, in England. And she, Gaia, had been born in Brighton! She felt a connection to this woman, across time. She was born to play this role! But it had been one helluva fight to get it.

Her agent said this was the new
The King’s Speech
. An Oscar role, no question. And she wanted an Oscar oh so badly. To date, reviews of her movies had ranged from lukewarm to depressingly savage. This role could change everything. She’d fought tooth and claw for this role. She’d fought dirty. And she’d succeeded.

Hell, you had to fight in life. Fortune favoured the brave. Some people were born with silver spoons so far up their rectums they stuck in their gullets, and some, like herself, were born on the wrong side of the tracks. It had been a long journey to here, through her early days of waiting tables, and three husbands, to the place she was at now and where she felt comfortable. Just herself, Sumo, Joe – the fitness instructor who gave her great sex when she needed it and kept out of her face when she didn’t – and her trusted entourage. Team Gaia.

She held up the script. ‘Mama has to learn all this before she flies to England.’

‘You promised.’

‘Didn’t Steffie read to you tonight?’ Steffie was the nanny.

He looked forlorn. ‘You read better. I like it when you read.’

She looked at her watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock. Way past your bedtime!’

‘I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep unless you read to me, Mama.’

She tossed the script onto the glass coffee table and stood up. ‘OK, one quick story. Yes?’

His face brightened. He nodded vigorously.

‘Marla!’ she shouted. ‘Marla!

Her assistant came into the room, cellphone pressed to her ear, arguing furiously with someone about what sounded like the seating arrangements on an airplane.

Marla was shouting.
Didn’t the fuckwit airline know who Gaia was? That she could fucking make or break them?
She was wearing glittery Versace jeans tucked into black alligator boots, a thin black roll-neck and a gold neck chain that carried the tiny flat gold globe engraved
Planet Gaia.
It was exactly the same way her boss was dressed tonight. Her hair mirrored her boss, also: blonde, shoulder length, layered in a sharp razor cut with a carefully spaced and waxed fringe.

Gaia Lafayette insisted that all her staff dressed the same way – following the instructions, emailed daily, of what she herself would be wearing and how her hair would be. They had, at all times, to be an inferior copy of herself.