Sister полностью

He stared through the windshield as if driving the car rather than hiding in it. “I need to get proof first that it’s a rogue trial that’s to blame. Once I have that proof, I can save my cystic fibrosis trial. Otherwise my trial will be stopped in all hospitals until they’ve found out what’s going on and that could be months away, or years away. It may never be resumed.”

“But the cystic fibrosis trial shouldn’t be affected at all. Surely—”

He interrupted. “When the press get hold of this, with their level of subtlety and intelligence, it won’t be a maverick trial that’s to blame for babies dying—and God knows what else—it will be my cystic fibrosis trial.”

“I don’t believe that’s true.”

“Really? Most people are so poorly informed and poorly educated that they don’t see a difference between genetic enhancement and genetic therapy.”

“But that’s absurd—”

Again he interrupted. “Mobs of imbeciles have hounded pediatricians, even attacked them, because they think pediatrician is the same thing as pedophile, so yes, they will target the cystic fibrosis trial as wicked too because they won’t understand there’s a difference.”

“So why did you investigate in the first place?” I asked. “If you’re going to do nothing with the findings?”

“I investigated because I’d told you I’d answer your questions.” He looked at me, anger sparking in his face, furious with me for putting him in this position. “I thought there’d be nothing to find.”

“So I’ll have to go to the police without your support?” I asked.

He looked physically intensely uncomfortable, trying to smooth out the sharp creases of his pressed gray trouser legs, which wouldn’t lie flat.

“The order of the virus vector could well be a mistake; computer glitches occur. Administrative errors happen worryingly frequently.”

“And that’s what you’ll tell the police?”

“It’s the most credible explanation. So yes, that’s what I’ll tell them.”

“And I won’t be believed.”

Silence hung between us like glass.

I broke it. “What’s this really about, curing babies or your own reputation?”

He unlocked the car doors, then turned to me. “If your brother were an unborn baby now, what would you have me do?”

I did hesitate, but only for a moment. “I’d want you to go to the police and tell them the truth and then work like hell at saving your trial.”

He walked away from the car, not bothering to wait for me, not bothering to lock it again.

The woman with the spiky hair recognized him and yelled at him, “Leave playing God to God!”

“If God had done his job properly in the first place, we wouldn’t need to,” he snapped at her. She spat at him.

The demonstrator with the gray ponytail shouted, “Say no to designer babies!”

Professor Rosen pushed his way through them and went back into the building.

I didn’t think he was wicked, just weak and selfish. He simply couldn’t bear to give up his newfound status. But he had a mental alibi for his lack of action, exonerating circumstances that he could plead to himself—the cystic fibrosis cure is very important. You and I both know that.

I reached the tube station and only then realized that Professor Rosen had given me a crucial piece of information. When I’d asked him if he knew who was giving the injections for the CF trial at St. Anne’s, he’d said that he didn’t know, that he didn’t have access to that information. But he had talked about that person’s choosing fetuses “who genuinely had CF and at the same time test the illicit gene.” In other words, the person giving the injection was the same person who was running the CF trial at St. Anne’s. It had to be, if that person was responsible for choosing who was on it. And finding out who was in charge of the CF trial at St. Anne’s was light-years easier than finding the identity of someone giving a single injection.

It’s lovely out here, the sky a pure Wedgwood blue. As office workers straggle back to work, I remember at St. Mary’s how we had lessons outside when it was hot, the children and the teacher all pretending to be interested in a book while soaking up summer, and for a moment I forget how cold I am.

“Do you think Professor Rosen meant to tell you?” Mr. Wright asks.

“Yes. He’s far too clever and too pedantic to be careless. I think that he salved his conscience by hiding this tidbit of information, and it was up to me to have the intelligence to find it. Or maybe his better self won out at this one point of our conversation. But whatever it was, I now just had to find out who was administering the trial at St. Anne’s.”

My legs are almost completely numb now. I’m not sure that when I try to stand up, I’m going to be able to.