Blue Genes by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online

computer problem.
    I tapped on the door but didn’t wait for an answer before I opened it and walked in on the sort of scene that would have been more appropriate in the new Dancehouse a few doors down Oxford Road. Bill Mortensen, a bearded blond giant of a man, was standing behind his desk, leaning over a dark woman whose body was curved back under his in an arc that would have had my spine screaming for mercy. One of Bill’s bunch-of-bananas hands supported the small of her back, the other her shoulders. Unlike the ballet, however, their lips were welded together. I cleared my throat.
    Bill jumped, his mouth leaving the woman’s with a nauseating smack as he straightened and half turned, releasing his grip on the woman. Just as well her arms were wrapped round his neck or she’d have been on the fast track to quadriplegia. ‘Kate,’ Bill gasped. His face did a double act, the mouth smiling, the eyes panicking.
    ‘Welcome back, Bill. I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning,’ I said calmly, closing the door behind me and making for my usual perch on the table that runs along one wall.
    Bill stuttered something about wanting to see me while the woman disentangled herself from him. She was a good six inches taller than my five feet and three inches. Strike one. Her hair was as dark as Bill’s was blond, cut in the sort of spiky urchin cut I’d recently abandoned when even I’d noticed it was getting a bit passé. On her, it looked terrific. Strike two. Her skin was burnished bronze, an impossible dream for those of us with the skin that matches auburn hair. Strike three. I didn’t have the faintest idea who Bill’s latest companion was, but I hated her already. She grinned and moved towards me, hand stuck out in front of her with all the enthusiasm of an extrovert teenager who hasn’t been put down yet. ‘Kate, it’s great to meet you,’ she announced in an Australian accent that made Crocodile Dundee sound like a BBC newsreader. ‘Bill’s told me so much about you, I feel like I know you already.’ I tentatively put out a hand which she gripped fervently and pumped up and down. ‘I just know we’re going to be mates,’ she added, clapping her other hand on my shoulder.
    I looked past her at Bill, my eyebrows raised. He moved towards us and the woman released my hand to slip hers into his. ‘Kate,’ he finally said. ‘This is Sheila.’ His eyes warned me not to laugh.
    ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess,’ I said. ‘You met in Australia.’
    Sheila roared with laughter. I could feel her excessive response thrusting me into the role of repressed English-woman. ‘God, Kate, he was right about your sense of humour,’ she said. I forced my lips into what I seemed to remember was a smile. ‘Hey, Bill, you better tell her the news.’
    Bill stood chewing his beard for a moment, then said, ‘Sheila and I are getting married.’
    To say I was gobsmacked would be like saying Tom Hanks can act a bit. It’s not that Bill doesn’t like women. He does. Lots of them. He also likes variety. As a serial monogamist, he makes Casanova and Don Juan look like absolute beginners. But he’d always been choosy about who he hung out with. While he preferred his girlfriends good-looking, brains and ambition had always been just as high on his agenda. So while Sheila might appear more of a bimbo than anyone I’d ever seen Bill with, I wasn’t about to make a snap judgement on the basis of what I’d seen so far. ‘Congratulations,’ I managed without tripping over too many of the syllables.
    ‘Thanks; Kate,’ Sheila said warmly. ‘It’s big of you to be generous about losing your partner.’
    I looked at Bill. He looked like he’d swallowed an ice cube. ‘I thought that in these situations one said something like, “Not so much losing a partner as gaining a secretary,”’ I said ominously. ‘I have this feeling that there’s something you haven’t got round to telling me yet, William.’
    ‘Sheila,