Science could prevent the tragedy of little children like Halley. Progress could one day eliminate diseases like his. Dettore was right when he said that preventing scientists from being able to do their research on embryos was a crime against humanity.
‘Don’t ever forget why we’ve done this, Naomi,’ he said, his voice raised in anger that was spawned from utter, helpless frustration.
Naomi stood up and walked over to him and put her arms around his waist. ‘You’ll love our baby, won’t you? Whatever happens, you’ll love her?’
He turned and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Of course.’
‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you and I need you.’
She looked so scared, so vulnerable. His heart felt wrenched. ‘I need you, too.’
‘Let’s go out tonight – some place cheerful.’
‘What do you feel like? Mexican? Chinese? Sushi?’
‘Nothing spicy. How about that place Off-Vine?’
He smiled. ‘That was the first place I ever took you to eat in
LA.’
‘I like it there. Let’s see if they have a table.’
‘I’ll phone.’
‘Do you remember something you said to me there? Sitting out in the courtyard? You said that love was more than just a bond between two people. It was like a wagon-train circle you formed around you that protected you against all the world threw at you. Do you remember?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘That’s what it is going to have to be like from now.’
24
Shortly before midnight, Naomi was violently sick. John knelt beside her in the bathroom, holding her forehead, the way his mother used to hold his when he was a child.
She had thrown up everything inside her, and now it was just bile coming out. And she was shedding tears.
‘It’s OK,’ he said gently, struggling hard against the smell not to retch, too. ‘It’s OK, darling.’
He wiped her mouth with a wetted towel, dabbed her eyes, then helped her back to bed. ‘Feel better?’ he asked anxiously.
She nodded, eyes open wide, bloodshot, expressionless. ‘How much longer’s this bloody sickness going to go on for? I thought it was meant to be morning sickness?’
‘Maybe it was something you ate?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
John turned off the light and lay still, feeling the damp heat coming off her body, his stomach still queasy from the smell of vomit.
‘What do you really think it was?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘Think what was?’
‘What made the helicopter crash. Do you think it was a bomb?’
There was a long silence. John listened to her breathing; it was steadily becoming less jerky, more rhythmic. Then, just as he thought she was deeply asleep, she spoke again.
‘He had enemies.’
‘A lot of scientists have enemies.’
‘Do you have enemies, John?’
‘I’m not well enough known. I’m sure if I was, there’d be a bunch of fanatics violently opposed to my views. Anyone who dares to stick their head above the parapet and be counted is going to have enemies. But there’s a big step between disliking what someone does and blowing them to pieces.’
After some moments she said, ‘What do you suppose is going to happen to his lab – ship?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There must be someone there dealing with admin. They’re going to have to cancel new patients – there must be someone you can get hold of who can look at our records and find out what’s happened, surely?’
‘I’ll try again in the morning. I’m going to try to speak to Dr Leu – he seemed pretty on the ball.’
He closed his eyes but his brain was racing. Dettore would have kept detailed records of exactly what he had done to every foetus. It would all be there in his files. Dr Leu would have the answers; of course he would.
‘Maybe it’s God’s way.’ She spoke so gently, like a child.
‘ God’s way – what do you mean?’
‘Perhaps He’s angry about – you know – about what we did – about what people are trying to do. And this is His way of balancing things up.’
‘By making you sick and by killing Dr Dettore?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean-’
There was a long silence.
John climbed out of the bed. He needed more water, tablets, sleep. He desperately needed more sleep.
‘Maybe God decided we should have a girl, not a boy,’ Naomi said.
‘What’s this talk about God, suddenly? I thought you weren’t too impressed with God?’
‘Because – I’m wondering – maybe Dr Dettore didn’t make a mistake. Maybe God intervened?’
John was aware that pregnancy messed around with a woman’s hormones and they in turn could mess around with the brain. Maybe it was that. ‘Darling.’ He sat down on the bed. ‘Dettore screwed up. I don’t think this is God intervening. This is a scientist doing something wrong.’
‘And we don’t know how wrong?’
‘We don’t know for sure it’s wrong at all. I still think Rosengarten is an arrogant man and he could have made a mistake that he won’t admit to. We’ll get a second opinion. I don’t think we should worry too much at this stage.’
‘Why don’t we have its – her – entire genome read?’
‘Apart from the cost, it’s not just getting it read, it’s the analysis that’s complex. There are over twelve hundred genes responsible for the prostate; seven hundred for breasts; five hundred for ovaries. It’s a massive task.’
‘If Dr Dettore was able to do it, surely – I mean, how could he have done it so far ahead? And kept it quiet?’
‘Happens in science all the time. You get someone way ahead – sometimes so way ahead people don’t appreciate the discovery. He is – was – awesomely smart. He had unlimited money to throw at it.’ And, he thought, but did not tell her, not wanting to worry her more, Dettore very definitely had some kind of a hidden agenda. He wasn’t covering his costs of running the floating clinic – and that was without his own fees. Let alone the huge time commitment.
Altruism? For the good of mankind? Or He drifted into troubled sleep.
It seemed only moments later that the phone was ringing.
25
John woke with a start, feeling groggy and confused. What the hell time was it?
6.47, the clock told him.
Naomi stirred. ‘Wasser-?’
Who the hell was ringing at this hour? Sweden, probably. Even after eight years here, his mother never could figure out the time difference. Several times when they had first come out to LA she had called at two and then at three in the morning. Three more rings and the answering machine kicked in.
He closed his eyes and was back asleep in moments.
At five past seven the phone rang again.
‘Jesus, mother, we need to sleep!’ he yelled.
‘It might be important,’ Naomi slurred.
‘I don’t care.’
The answering machine picked it up. Was it his mother? Some problem? It could wait, it would have to wait, whatever it was. He had a nine o’clock faculty meeting at the college and desperately needed a bit more sleep. He’d set the alarm for seven fifteen. He closed his eyes.
Moments later, it rang again. He lay there with his eyes shut against the bright daylight in the room. Felt the bed move. Naomi getting up. The ringing stopped.
‘I’ll see who it is,’ she said.
‘Leave it, darling, just leave it!’
She went out of the room. Moments later she came back in. ‘KTTV,’ she said. ‘Three messages from some woman called Bobby.’
‘Bobby? I don’t know anyone called Bobby. What do they want?’
‘She didn’t say – wants you to call. Says it’s urgent.’
KTTV was a Fox affiliate, one of the Los Angeles television stations. He had done an interview with them a few months back for a show they were doing on evolution. ‘What the hell time of day is this for them to call?’ he said, wide awake now, despite his brain feeling leaden from tiredness and the pills.