Perfect People

79

Shelia Michaelides hurried to her Victorian terraced house in the centre of Brighton, her tiny umbrella useless against the gale, and she was drenched by the time she reached the sanctuary of her hallway. Changing into a dry pair of jeans and a sweater, she made herself a coffee, took a Marks amp; Spencer tuna pasta salad out of the fridge, then carried a tray up to her little study, sat down at her desk and booted up her computer.

Her mind was churning as she dug her fork in to the pasta, and her stomach felt knotted with anxiety. Haven’t eaten all day, must eat something! She chewed slowly, each mouthful a struggle, forcing herself to swallow, her throat tight and dry. Rain scratched the window, and through the darkness she could just make out the silhouette of her neighbour’s house across from her back yard.

She stood up suddenly, leaned forward and unwound the cord from the hook, letting the blinds drop.

She was shaking. Shaking from a fear she couldn’t define. Always she had been in control. Now for the first time she felt out of her depth. There was some syndrome that Luke and Phoebe Klaesson had which she had never encountered, and it spooked her, increasingly.

She began typing.

Luke and Phoebe Klaesson observations. Day Three. These are not human beings as I know it. They are manipulative, brooding, in a way that suggests the normal restraints of human existence are absent. Clear signs of sociopathic behaviour, but something beyond that…

She stopped and thought for some moments. She needed to talk to other psychologists about this, but who?

The cheese plant filling the small space between her desk and the wall looked in a sad state, badly in need of watering. She went downstairs, filled the can, came back and poured the contents into the arid soil, thinking, thinking.

Thinking.

She typed again.

Autism? How to explain this speech between themselves?

How?

Then, reluctantly, she forked another mouthful of pasta into her mouth and chewed, thinking. Thinking… there must be other case histories out there somewhere, in papers, in books, surely?

She was a member of a child psychologists’ newsgroup on the internet, that circulated a weekly summary of case histories, new treatments, new drugs and general information. It was a good group, with psychologists in over thirty countries participating, and in the past she had always received informed responses to any questions she had asked.

She typed out an email, summarizing her observations of Luke and Phoebe, asking if anyone else had ever experienced anything similar with a patient.

To her surprise, the following day she received emails from ten psychologists. Five of them in the United States, one in the United Arab Emirates, one in Brazil, one in Italy, one in Germany and one in Switzerland.

Four of the psychiatrists informed her, separately, that the twins they had seen with similar characteristics had been conceived in the offshore clinic of the murdered American geneticist, Dr Leo Dettore.

She googled the name Dr Leo Dettore.

Among the first batch of hits that came up, one was indexed:

Newspaper. USA Today. July 2007. Dr J. Klaesson.