Next Of Kin (Unnatural Selection #3) (11 page)

Karl came in
after a few minutes and took the other end of the sofa.

“Still
planning to go back to Bristol tomorrow?” I asked.

“I really have
to. I wish I could convince you to come with me.”

“Not a chance.
I need to be here when Harry makes contact with Klein’s
partner.”

“All right.
But I want to talk to you about a project Raksha and I have been
tossing back and forth, tracing the energy cycle in different
environments.”

I shook my
head. “Sounds interesting but—”

“But Nick blah
blah. Yes, I know. Do you think he wants you putting your life on
hold?”

“I think he
wants me to find him and bring him home.”

Karl sighed.
“Can I at least send you a proposal? I really do want your
opinion.”

“Okay. But
Nick’s my top priority.”

“I know.”

“I know what
you’re trying to do. Thank you.”

He shrugged.
“This is unknown territory for me. I wish I knew there was a happy
ending to look forward to.”

“I won’t
collapse if the ending’s tragic.”

“I don’t think
you can make that kind of prediction. That’s okay. That’s what big
brothers are for—to worry about you.”

“You tell
Michael that?”

“I’ve been
telling him since he was two that he had to look out for his little
sisters. So far, he’s doing a good job.”

“Nick doesn’t
have an older brother. He only has me.”

“I’m sure
he’ll be proud of you.”

If he’s still alive
, was what Karl didn’t say. What he didn’t need to say.
Visions of Nick lying dead haunted my dreams, and even filled my
waking thoughts if I dared let them drift. I’d sat by Nick’s
bedside in hospitals too often now not to be able to imagine the
life draining out of him.

But dwelling
on Nick being dead didn’t help either of us. I chose to think of
him as alive, but needing rescue. At some point, one reality would
be revealed. Until then, he was Schrödinger’s cat, and I didn’t
know how to open the box. Once I succeeded, then I’d have to handle
what I found.

Jack Klein’s
partner, Michel Baillaud, was a French composer who had made his
home with his late lover in LA and London. After Jack’s death,
Michel had come to London with the intention of selling their
apartment here. Harry’s call had come just days before Michel was
due to fly back to the States to wind up affairs there. Harry
arranged for us to meet him at his hotel off Piccadilly.

Michel
opened the door to us, and I immediately regretted imposing on his
grief. His handsome but haggard face, the dull eyes, spoke of weeks
of sorrow and lousy sleep. “
Monsieur
Pilkington,
Monsieur
Marber,
welcome.
Monsieur
Marber,
I am a fan.”

“Merci bien
,
Monsieur
Baillaud. Please call me Anton, and forgive us for
intruding.”

“It’s fine.
The days are empty now. It’s good to have a distraction. Please,
have a seat. Shall I order coffee?”

We declined,
and sat on the sofa. He took the armchair. “I know you want to ask
me about Jack.” He pronounced it with a soft ‘sh’ sound, making the
name sound sweetly affectionate. “But I don’t understand how this
helps your spouse, Anton.”

“It may not
help. But it depends on exactly what treatment Jack had in Rio de
Janeiro.”

Michel pursed
his lips. “It isn’t legal here, you realise. And not there,
strictly.”

“We’re not the
police, Michel,” Harry said. “Was he there to be infected with ISH?
To become a vee?”

“Un vampire
?” He
gave a short, humourless laugh. “Jack joked about it. He would
pretend to bite
comme çi
.” He
mimed someone biting his neck. “He was afraid of getting old. You
see, he was older than me, and he worked in a business where being
old is like being dead. He thought it would be better than surgery.
He had a friend—another actor—who had been to Brazil. He said it
was the easiest thing in the world. A month’s holiday, the
treatment was fast and painless, and
voilà
, suddenly you are thin and healthy and looking fabulous.”
He stared out of the window. “He already looked fabulous. I tried
to discourage him. I didn’t like the idea of being infected with
something so powerful. But he wouldn’t listen. He was so afraid of
not being able to work any more.”

“What happened
in Rio?” I asked.

“Everything
went smoothly at first. He received some drugs to make his immune
system...fail? Is that how you say it?”

“To suppress
his immunity?”

“Yes, that.
Then they gave him something else—another disease, but I don’t know
what. They said it was to trick his body so the virus would take.
Again, all was well. Finally they gave him the virus. A week, they
said, and then he would be well and able to go home.” He rubbed his
eyes. “But two days later, his organs began to die. He was in
intensive care for three days, and finally everything stopped.”

“I’m so
sorry,” I said.

He
coughed, then blew his nose. “
Eh bien.
I have to move on with my life, as he always said. Does
this help your husband?”

I explained
our theory. He listened, frowning. “But why bring the blood from
Britain?”

“We don’t
know. We don’t know it’s happening. But we wanted to know for sure
that a Brazilian clinic was using ISH.”

“But there are
at least five. Jack’s friend told us. We looked at that many who
offered this treatment. The government turns a blind eye. It
doesn’t really care so long as the clinics pay their taxes, I
think.”

Harry asked
Michel for details of the clinic where Jack died, and what he
remembered of the others they’d enquired about. I pondered the
significance of what Michel had said. I’d assumed it was one rogue
clinic. But his words made sense. The Brazilian plastic surgery
industry was very lucrative. If one was cashing in on the vee
mania, so would the others.

“How long has
he been missing?” Michel asked when Harry had his information.

“Several
weeks. Too long.”

“You find it
hard.”

“Yes. I think
you know.”

“Oui, vraiment.”
He stood, and the interview was clearly over. “I hope you
have good fortune, Anton. Better than me, anyway.”

I
offered my hand and he shook it. “I wish you
bonne fortune
too.”

“Those clinics
should be stopped. It’s not right, that treatment. It’s
dangerous.”

“It is the way
they’re doing it. We’ll do what we can.”

“Thank you,”
Harry said. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I appreciate
that. Thank you.”

~~~~~

“Want to go to
Starbucks?” Harry asked. “We need to talk about what we do
next.”

“Actually, I
could do with some air.”

He glanced at
me sideways. “Michel’s situation hitting a little close to the
bone?”

“A
little.”

“Not
surprised. We can go for a walk instead.”

So we bought
takeaway coffees, and walked through Green Park, the feeble late
autumn sunshine through the leafless plane trees adding little but
the illusion of warmth.

“Our problem
is that there’s no connection between any Brazilian clinic and what
happened in Bélo Horizonte,” Harry said. “Sure, they’re using ISH
illegally. But so what? They have vees in Brazil.”

“I think the
Brazilian side of things might be a red herring. I’m sure Nick’s
still in England, the UK at least.”

“So what was
all that about?” He spotted a bench and flung himself onto it,
giving me a sour look. “Wasting my time?”

“For
God’s sake, Harry—as if I would do that. First of all, it confirms
the suspicion there’s a fairly solid market for ISH blood, and if
Beth’s right, especially for that of the earliest patients. Second,
if I’m right, and Nick’s here—who handled the blood? You or I can’t
just post blood here, there and everywhere. There had to be someone
with a plausible reason to receive a litre of blood in Beagá.
That’s likely to be a clinic, or possibly a major
hospital.”

“But we have
no way of finding—”

I held up my
hand. “I know. But we need to join up the dots. We need to find
someone, or a bunch of someones, with connections to Brazil and
here, and with access to the personal information from that
longitudinal study. Again, it’s not going to be Joe Bloggs. I think
we’re looking for a doctor or a clinic, and possibly one in the
same line of work as the one where Jack Klein died. A plastic
surgery facility, or something like that.”

He whistled.
“Wide net.”

“I know. So we
start at the narrowest end. Who can access the longitudinal study
data?”

“Beth could be
a good person to find out.”

“Yes. We need
to find this ‘Gregorio Goncalves’ too. False passports and
identities aren’t cheap, and neither are airfares to Brazil.
Someone with money is behind him, and behind Nick’s disappearance.
What do you know about clinics alleged to be offering ISH
here?”

“Not much.
That’s very hush hush.”

I raised an
eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be much of a problem
for a clever investigative reporter like you.”

He grinned.
“You’re right. I haven’t looked into it before, but I can now.”

“Concentrate
on those centred in the southeast for now. We can widen it later.
We’re looking for a Brazilian connection—a doctor, owner, investor,
someone like that.”

“What if it’s
someone who just has friends in Brazil?”

“Whoever it is
wanted their help in something illegal, and not just a minor crime.
The connection will be stronger than just going to the same medical
school. I’m thinking family, marriage, something like that.”

“Makes sense.
There must be dozens of clinics in or near London who handle
plastic surgery.”

“Hundreds,
probably. If you do your ferreting around, I’ll start looking at
websites, see if there’s anything obvious. If you come up with some
clinic names, we can focus on that. And if Beth’s willing to help,
that might narrow things down too.”

“The police
should be doing this.”

“Not sure they
could do it faster than we can. All we need is something to toss at
Andy. The sooner, the better.”

He finished
his coffee and chucked the cup at the nearby rubbish bin. It landed
neatly inside. “Wish everything I did went that well. You
done?”

I disposed of
my cup, and we walked back towards Hyde Park Corner to catch the
Tube. “I bet there are more Jack Kleins out there we haven’t heard
about,” Harry said. “It’s criminal.”

“It’s so
bloody stupid too. Dying of vanity.”

“Dying of age
discrimination, you mean.”

“Yes,
true.”

“This could
all be a dead end. Nick’s disappearance might have nothing to do
with ISH treatment.”

“I know, but I
don’t know what else to do.”

“You have to
try. He’s worth it.”

Harry was
happily engaged to Angus, and his relationship with Nick had been
over long before I’d ever met either of them. But Harry still
carried a depth of affection for Nick that I found oddly sweet and
rather comforting. If anything happened to me, Harry would be
there—with Angus—to help Nick through. And Harry would fight just
as hard to find out what happened to Nick as I would.

I pulled him
into a hug, which made him laugh with surprise. “Steady on, Anton.
It’s not Gay Pride week.”

“Bugger off.”
I let him go. “Nick’s lucky in his friends.”

“And his
lovers.”

“Yes, he is.”
We were at the Tube station now. “I’ve got to go this way.”

“Yeah, and I’m
the other way. I’ll let you know what I find as soon as I do.”

“Thanks.”

Beth called
while I was on the bus from South Kensington. “My friend tells me
that in the last three months, apart from Nick, they’ve lost two
people from the study. One was a suspicious, unexplained death, and
the other an apparent suicide, though the body was never
found.”

“Really? How
much more do you know?”

“That’s it,
sorry. I’ve already sent the information and approximate dates to
Andy, but I thought you’d want to know. That suicide rang alarms
bells for me.”

“And me. Well
done. Beth, I need another favour. Does your friend know who would
have access to the personal data on that study? Names, addresses
and so on?”

“Already asked
her, and she said only the members of the team, unless they receive
a special request from someone wanting to do research on the same
group. It’s all incredibly tightly controlled. The police will need
warrants before she can even tell them the names of the people who
dropped out.”

“I thought so.
But the GPs would know.”

“Pardon?”

“The GPs
taking the blood samples from their patients.”

“Apparently
they have a study nurse researcher who does that. The collections
are done in some of the GP practices, but some are done in the
patient’s home.”

“What about
the names of the research staff?”

“That should
be on the study webpage. I’ll email you the URL. But I don’t think
any of the researchers would have anything to do with something
like what you suspect.”

“Probably not,
but maybe someone used them unwittingly for access. It’s a long
shot. You’ve done very well, Beth. Thank you so much.”

The temptation
to jump off the bus and grab a taxi so I could get home and start
looking up websites was almost too much to withstand. The traffic
was heavy enough that it would have saved me no time at ridiculous
cost, so I had to content myself with doing preliminary searches
for plastic surgery clinics on my phone. There were fewer than
hundreds, but more than dozens. I had a long night ahead of me,
because I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I’d made a solid start on
this. Beth’s information convinced me we were on the right track.
It took all my willpower to stop myself calling Andy and asking him
what he knew. I had to trust people to do what they’d promised. So
far, no one had let me down.