‘Uh, Joe,’ she said, ‘I have a confession to make. A few weeks ago I was stopped by the police and, uh, questioned.’
Joe looked straight ahead. ‘You named me.’
‘I’m afraid I did,’ Geena admitted.
‘What did you say?’
‘The first thing that came into my head, of course. You can guess.’
‘Tamil Tigers?’
‘That’s the one,’ Geena said.
Joe’s light laughter pealed.
‘You have no imagination, Geena. Neither have I.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have confessed the same myself,’ said Joe. ‘Several times. It seems to satisfy them.’
They walked up the curving slope to the bridge over the railway and looked down for a while at the tracks.
‘Hmm,’ said Geena. ‘Well, I wanted to say I’m sorry, that’s all.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ said Joe. Another sideways glance. ‘Was there something else? I notice you seem to be doing some… technical work.’
‘Well, yes actually,’ said Geena. ‘I would like you to run a predictive sim on a gene. Unofficially, of course.’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Joe. ‘About six – would that suit you?’
It wouldn’t suit Geena at all, but she supposed she’d better agree.
‘Perfect!’ she said. ‘Brilliant! Thank you so much!’
They walked back to the works entrance. At the gate, Geena hesitated.
‘Tell the guys I’m taking the rest of the day off,’ she said. ‘Library work, you know?’
‘Very good,’ said Joe. ‘Study is vital!’ He said it so enthusiastically that she half-expected him to repeat it as a shout, with his fist clenched to the sky.
‘Thanks,’ she said, with a wan smile. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
‘Six sharp,’ said Joe.
‘I’ll be there,’ said Geena. ‘See you then.’
She turned around and walked quickly away, down the long canyon of Blyth Road to the high street.
‘You’ve left this a bit late,’ said Maya, when Geena had finished.
‘I know, I know!’ Geena cried, almost sobbing. ‘I’m so sorry, Maya.’
Maya, on the other side of her desk in a tiny office in the Advice Centre that smelled faintly and (to Geena) foully of illicit smokes, looked at her with sympathetic puzzlement.
‘But it’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s not too late. We’re not talking statute of limitations here. You turned down the trauma counselling, OK, not good, and you signed the chit, but we can wangle a way round that. Lemme think about this for a minute…’
She gazed off into the distance and drummed her fingers on the desk, as if typing – which, for all Geena knew, she was.
‘What?’ said Geena.
Maya gave her a look. ‘You want me to put in a complaint, yes?’
‘Oh no!’ said Geena. ‘No, no. I don’t want any fuss.’
Maya’s smooth brow creased. ‘So why are you telling me all this?’
‘You’re not upset?’
‘I’m upset for you, all right,’ said Maya. ‘Good grief, it sounds horrible.’
‘No, I meant upset with me.’
‘What for?’
‘Maya, I betrayed you. I’m so, so sorry.’
Maya’s expression changed. She jumped up, came around the desk and hugged Geena.
‘Oh, you silly girl,’ she said.
She stepped back and sat on the edge of the desk.
‘Look, Geena,’ she said. ‘These guys you rushed past in the waiting room, yeah? The ones skulking around the side of the building for a smoke, too? Half the fuckers have shopped me for something. Terrorist sympathies? Hah! They’ve fingered me for a lot worse than that. Drug dealing. Corruption. Running prostitution rings. Molesting their children. Plausible stuff, you know? Then they come crying to me. “Oooh, Miss Maya, I do terrible thing, how can you forgive me?”’
Maya’s derisive mimicry shocked Geena almost as much as what she was saying.
‘Half?’ she said, struggling to keep up.
Maya waved a languid hand, like a classic film actress trailing a digitally deleted cigarette.
‘I exaggerate, dahling. Call it ten per cent.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make fun of it. I’m not making fun of it. It’s just… oh, fuck.’
And then she was sliding down and forward, and it was Geena’s shoulder being cried on.
‘So what happens to you?’ Geena asked, after Maya had shaken herself away and blown her nose and sat back down.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Maya. She looked at the damp tissue clutched in her hand, threw it in a bin, rolled her wrist under her nose, and sniffed. ‘Of course the police don’t take all these accusations seriously. They aren’t even admissible as a basis for starting an investigation, unless something else corroborates them, let alone for pressing charges.’
‘So why…?’ Geena took a deep breath. ‘Forget that, I already know why they do it. They don’t care what you confess, they don’t care what you think, they want you to know they can make you confess. So… what happens when you put in complaints?’
Maya shrugged. ‘Most of my clients don’t want me to. Sad but true. And not much comes of it when they do. An apology and token compensation. Well, it’s token for the authorities; to some of these guys a few hundred quid can be life-changing, which is why I always urge them to do it. But most of them are too ashamed and too worried about making more trouble for themselves.’
‘But we shouldn’t be putting up with this!’ Geena said. ‘I mean, I had no idea. If it’s as common as all that, good God, it shouldn’t be just a matter of putting in complaints. There should be some kind of political campaign against it.’
‘There is,’ Maya pointed out. ‘Several, in fact. Amnesty, Liberty, there’s even groups inside both parties against torture. Nobody cares. It’s like the war. It’s one of those things everyone understands you can do nothing about. Come to think of it, it’s part of the war. Security. Like computer security, you know? It just runs in the background.’
Geena laughed at the analogy, then frowned.
‘I’m not so sure security’s part of the war,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to suspect the war is part of it. That’s how my supervisor sees it, anyway.’
‘Oh, yeah, Dr Estraguel. Heard him going on about it in lectures at Brunel. Imperialism and reaction and all that. Bloody Marxist rubbish.’
Geena hesitated. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ she said at last. ‘Uh, actually it’s got me thinking about how we can help Hope Morrison.’
‘We?’ Maya teased. ‘Well I’m not sure I have helped her much, but I’m glad you think there’s something we can—’
She was interrupted by a hesitant knock on the door.
‘Five minutes!’ she yelled. She turned back to Geena. ‘Well, better make it quick.’
‘I got the idea that there might be something in their genes that the fix would change but might actually be, you know, quite good to have. I mean, I know most mutations are deleterious, but there’s always a chance, and I’ve found one that looks sort of interesting and I was wondering if that might be a good reason she could give not to have the fix. Is there something like that in the law?’
Maya sucked in her lower lip and slowly rolled it out again. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Very naughty of you. But very interesting. I hadn’t thought of that. Because in the original legislation, it wasn’t supposed to be compulsory, so it wouldn’t be framed as an exemption, any more than all the conscience-clause stuff was. All of that was ostensibly put in as cover for doctors, so they couldn’t get sued later if the parent had refused the fix for such-and-such a reason. It would be put in as a good medical reason not to prescribe.’ She reached behind her and retrieved her glasses from the desk. ‘Let me just check.’