Misspent Youth

5. AN INSPECTOR CALLS

SUE BAKER STOOD beside the bedroom’s tall veranda window, watching the Europol technical security team wandering across the lawn. A gloomy February sky was drizzling solidly. In their navy-blue rain jackets, the police team seemed almost immune to the conditions. They carried on positioning slender high-technology poles around the edge of the garden, heedless of the mud and water. Another team was doing the same thing in the sloping paddock beyond; wearing waders, two of them were walking along the flooded stream that made up one side of the field. She knew there was a third group out there somewhere, sweeping through the woods on the far slope.

They’d arrived earlier that morning in a small fleet of clean new-model BMW 25 series, which were now parked on the gravel drive at the front of the manor. That alone informed the locals that this was a Europol contingent. Rutland’s police had only about ten cars to cover the entire county, and most of them were over five years old.

“So what exactly are they doing out there?” she asked.

“Establishing a sensor perimeter,” Lieutenant Krober said politely. It was the third time he’d explained the team’s function today. Sue knew he must think her an idiot, but she’d never understood technical matters. A wonderful irony for the assured, courteous German officer to ponder: that the wife of Jeff Baker couldn’t change her own lightbulbs without puzzling over the instructions. She was eternally grateful that today’s computers were all voice active, you could just tell them what to do and they got on with it. Back in 2009, when she started at secondary school, all the operating programs still used keyboards and mouse pads; she’d never really got the hang of them. Not that it had mattered; she’d left school behind at fourteen when the modeling agency signed her up. You didn’t need to be a qualified nerd to look hot on the runway.

“We do have a security system,” she said. “A very good one.” From the outside, the manor certainly looked as if it might have been built in the eighteenth century, but the oldest thing in the house was probably Jeff. It had been designed after the turn of the millennium, and incorporated every modern domestic device, as well as being energy sufficient with its solar-panel roofing and underground heat pumps.

“Yes ma’am,” Krober said. “But we are concerned about more than just ordinary burglars. Your husband’s treatment will be likely to attract interest from a number of groups, not least the Separatists. Our system will allow us to spot any potential intruders before they get near the house. We can respond more effectively that way.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re very effective.” She supposed it was inevitable Jeff would gain the attention of the Separatists, whom everyone knew were linked to the English Independence Council paramilitaries. Nationalist movements were picking up huge support right across Europe as the federal government’s heavy-handed restrictions and unwelcome taxes continued to erode the independence of the old nations in the name of unification and the social progress it was supposed to bring. And Jeff was the product of a massive Brussels commitment to the biogenetic industries—a symbol of federal success, that government did know best. A threat against him would be equally symbolic, especially one that succeeded. One of the EIC’s loudest boasts was how they were far more ruthless than the IRA had ever been. The idea made her shiver.

“Three of our officers will remain on duty at the house at all times,” Krober said. “Our team has taken out rooms at the White Horse in the village. With that as our permanent base station, the majority of us are just two minutes away in an emergency. And a female officer will accompany you when you leave home.”

“No.” Sue turned from the veranda door to face Krober. He was a handsome man, with dark brown hair cut in a severe, almost military style. His age was probably late twenties, she thought, certainly no more than thirty. In any other circumstances she would have welcomed his presence at the manor; flirting with him would have been most enjoyable. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, not that it would have bothered her. “I don’t want that.”

Despite his perfect English, Krober looked as if he hadn’t understood. “The officers have already been given their assignments. They are merely a precaution against any possible incident.”

“I don’t want them.” The idea of being followed around twenty-four hours a day was awful. She would forfeit her privacy, her secrets: Her life would never be her own again. It wasn’t as though Jeff didn’t know of her lovers—after all, that had been part of the arrangement—but she did at least keep her affairs quiet and discreet, so that she and Jeff could continue to present the illusion of a stable family life for Tim and the local villagers.

“But they’re here,” Krober persisted like a stubborn child.

Sue wanted to call Jeff and complain. This was never part of their arrangement. But then his treatment hadn’t exactly been part of the arrangement, either. This suffocating police protection was simply the inevitable consequence. If she’d wanted to complain, she should have done it right at the start. This was too far down the line to back out.

“They don’t have to start today, surely. Jeff’s not due back for ten days yet.”

“That’s close enough for the Separatists to be making preparations,” Lucy Duke said. “We have to preempt any attempt against Dr. Baker. Lieutenant Krober’s team know what they’re doing.”

Sue hadn’t seen her come in. She suspected Krober had called for help as soon as she started being difficult. He was wearing his PCglasses, though the lenses were clear. “And I can assure you the personal protection teams are thoroughly professional,” Lucy said smoothly. “They neither restrict nor judge their client’s actions.”

“Thank you for that,” Sue said coldly to the young woman. There was an old joke she remembered—probably classed as politically incorrect or racist or Separatist propaganda these days—about how heaven would be staffed by Europeans with specific jobs. The British would be the police, the Germans engineers, the French the cooks, and so on; then you swapped them all around for hell, with the British as cooks, Germans as police…Today, Sue thought, you’d have to redefine the British job. Lucy Duke was a Eurohealth Council facilitator on secondment from the Downing Street policy presentation unit. She was dressed in a smart blue and gray Italian business suit, her hair in a neat swept bob, she spoke in a classless accent, and she had a file of media contacts as long as a pre10 novel. The British today produced the best spin doctors in the world.

“They’re very unobtrusive,” Lucy continued. “And we wouldn’t appoint them if we didn’t think they were absolutely necessary. There is only a very small threat of violence, admittedly, but do you really want to take the risk?”

“How long are they going to be with us?”

“Difficult to say.”

Sue took a look around the bedroom. Like all the manor’s rooms, it was large and luxurious. She’d supervised the interior designer herself, remodeling the place twice since she and Jeff got married. Now it was perfect, representing just how good her life had become. She would hate to leave it, not that Jeff would ever make her, but Tim was past his eighteenth birthday now and he would be leaving for university before the end of the year. She corrected herself: Jeff before the treatment wouldn’t make her leave. Her whole damn world was changing, and doing it far too fast.

“Fine then,” Sue said airily. It was a capitulation, though she couldn’t really bring herself to care. Europol and the Duke cow probably knew all about her sex life anyway. “Wait a minute. If you’re giving me a bodyguard, what are you doing about Tim?”

“Naturally we’ll provide him with an equal level of coverage. We’ve already discussed arrangements with Oakham School. They’ve been most accommodating. He’s not the only pupil there that needs a watchful eye.”

Sue laughed in her face. “Have you spoken to him about all this?”

“We were assuming you would explain this to him. Your example should help.”

“You are joking!” Sue kept on laughing. The thought of Tim meekly allowing a Europol officer to trot along behind him was hilarious. “You don’t have children, do you?”

“Not yet,” Lucy said.

“Well, just remember, babies are God’s way of persuading parents to have teenagers.”

Krober gave a small smile. “Do you believe he will be unwilling to cooperate?”

“Could be.”

“Will you tell him that this development is unavoidable, try to make him understand a bodyguard is necessary?”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Lucy Duke asked.

“I’m not saying a damn thing to him. We’re not exactly on the best of terms as it is. You want to guard him, you tell him.”

“But he’s your son.”

“Not through choice.” Sue walked out of the bedroom, leaving the astonished spin doctor staring at her back.

The Europol team spent the rest of the day tramping through the manor and its grounds, bringing mud inside as they came. Sue did her best to ignore them by helping Mrs. Mayberry, the housekeeper, in the kitchen; then she took lunch by herself in the conservatory. In the afternoon she had another argument with Lieutenant Krober about placing cameras inside the house. After a heated twenty minutes during which Lucy had to intervene again to cool tempers, they agreed that cameras could cover all the entrances from the outside, and they’d all wait until Jeff Baker came back before any would be put inside, pending his approval. Sue conceded that they could wire the manor’s existing security network into their own secure datasphere port. A command post was set up in the smallest of the five reception rooms downstairs.

Tim arrived back just after five o’clock. Fortunately most of the installation was complete by then. He brought a group of his friends with him, which stalled the inevitable confrontation between him and Lucy Duke. Mrs. Mayberry busied herself cooking pizzas for the teenagers as they descended on the swimming pool.

Ever since Jeff had gone for his treatment, fifteen months ago, Sue had slowly relaxed her objections to Tim inviting his dreadful friends round at all hours. The manor was a huge place for just two people to be living by themselves, especially two with a history of conflict like she and Tim. For all the qualities she possessed that had convinced Jeff to make his marriage contract proposal, the natural mother’s ability to bring up a child was definitely nonexistent. Curiously enough, Jeff’s absence had brought about a mild truce between them. There were none of the tantrums and screaming sessions that had so occupied the pair of them during the first half of Tim’s teenage years. They hadn’t exactly become great pals, but they were certainly civil to each other now.

Actually, it was rather nice to have the big house filled with young people, she thought; all their brash laughter and high spirits helped to banish the solemnity that had crept in over the last few months. Not that—as she had made exceptionally clear—she would ever consent to any kind of party like the poor Langleys had been lumbered with. She’d actually grinned as Tim and Zai left the house last Saturday evening, remembering her own teenage years. If only Tim had known how she used to behave….

From the living room’s huge bay windows she could see right into the swimming pool. The building was like an elaborate orangery sprouting from the southern end of the manor, with tall panes of nultherm glass supported by arching white timber frames. The teenagers were running around the edge of the pool, diving and jumping with excited whoops and yells. The inflatable floating furniture was taking a terrible battering. Plumes of spray shot upward to splash the roof. The spiral slide was in constant use.

She’d been rather surprised that Zai hadn’t been in the group when they’d barged through the front doors. Tim’s expression when he finally staggered home in the early hours of Sunday morning had provided her with a great deal of amusement: a cat that had not only got the cream, but managed to gobble down the goldfish as well. Now Zai was nowhere to be seen, and Annabelle Goddard had been invited by herself. She’d been a casual member of Tim’s group for several years, though it was only in the last twenty months that she’d become increasingly striking. Tim was keeping a civil distance from her this afternoon. Sue had almost laughed at how careful he was being, desperate not to show any favoritism, never singling her out to talk to, making sure she was just one of the lads. He must be crazy for her. It looked mutual, too.

Sue peered through the bay windows, trying to see how the pair of them were conducting themselves in the pool. It was the first time she’d noticed how amazingly pretty Annabelle actually was these days, possessing the kind of body that every boy would drool over. But then Sue had caught herself several times over the last few months looking hard at the girls in Tim’s group of friends, giving their figures and complexions a professional assessment as she ran comparisons with herself. She wasn’t forty yet, and had certainly managed to keep her own looks and figure, despite nine repellent months of pregnancy and then giving birth. Modern genoprotein-based cosmetic treatments were an absolute boon in that respect.

It wasn’t just the straight medical pharmaceutical companies that had benefited from the genome decoding projects of the nineties and noughties. There had been a long period of corporate mergers and buyouts early in the millennium, as pharmaceutical, biochemical, and cosmetic companies fused into the new economy giants that they were today. Successful and worthy genetic treatments to counter and cure appalling diseases by the use of powerful vectoring technology to deliver improved genes directly to individual cells had swiftly been adapted to insert genes that made more subtle cellular improvements.

Skin was the first area to come under scrutiny, of course. Vitality, firmness, and the eradication of wrinkles had been the goals of the cosmetics trade since human prehistory, as it attempted to infuse that elusive healthy glow so nonchalantly possessed by adolescents. Now for the first time it was possible at least to slow down normal epidermal decay with a huge array of new-genes-for-old elixirs that could target particular cells and layers. The market for such products was astonishing, almost as much as their cost.

Jeff had always been condescending when she used the dermal genoprotein treatments, and he constantly grumbled about the price of them. He claimed she was far too young to be using the stuff. But not even genoproteins could actually turn back the clock. So the sooner she used them, the easier it would be for the treatments to maintain her. Today her skin had the glossy vigor of a twenty-five-year-old’s precisely because she began using the genoprotein when she was twenty-three. Two years’ apparent physical aging in fifteen chronological years. Oh yes, it was worth the money, no matter how much he grouched and cursed.

Skin and its texture, though, provided merely the first of the new products to emerge from the biogenetic laboratories. Men might have claimed not to care quite so much about their wrinkles and liver spots, but when it came to receding hairlines male vanity knew no bounds—nor cost barrier. Follicle genoprotein sales levels were second only to those of skin treatments.

Sue used only the very best of both, along with similar treatments for nails and teeth, and most definitely anticellulites targeting her hips and thighs. To be on the safe side she also used bone and muscle treatments, and a very specific group of genoproteins to prevent her breast tissue from becoming flaccid (the second most popular purchase for women after skin genoprotein). She’d never used the treatment to stimulate breast growth—there was a suspected link to cancer blooms, although most women ignored that. One of the reasons she’d never quite made it to supermodel status was her generous bust size.

All of her treatments were supervised and administered by a private hospital in Stamford devoted to bodyform courses. As they were combined with a wholesome diet which she stuck to with iron discipline, and a fitness regimen which impressed even the gym staff, her appearance was locked permanently in her midtwenties. Despite every miserable day, emotional and financial letdowns, arguments with Tim and with Jeff, bad holidays, depressing news reports, her mother’s frail condition, and faithless lovers, she could always look at herself in the mirror and be utterly satisfied with what she saw. Not only was she a match for any of the girls currently cavorting around the swimming pool in their skimpy costumes, but thanks to her modeling experience she had a much better dress sense than the lot of them put together. Men appreciated that.

Tim’s friends left around seven, catching the Rutland Circuit bus back to Oakham. He simply grinned and nodded to Annabelle as she and Sophie waved good-bye.

“So what happened to Zai?” Sue asked after the door closed behind them.

“Oh, er, she couldn’t make it.”

She tried not to smile. Even after eighteen years of upbringing by her and Jeff, he made a bad liar. “Okay, Tim.”

He gave her a curious look, then shrugged. “Got some course work to finish. I’ll be upstairs.”

Lucy Duke cleared her throat. Both Tim and Sue turned to look at her as she stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hi there, Tim. I’m afraid I need to talk to you about security arrangements,” Lucy said. Her carefully casual attitude made her sound incredibly patronizing.

“What about them?”

Even Sue was impressed by how quickly he slid from reasonable human being to petulant teenage grouch.

“Well, as you know, we’ve been installing several new systems around the house in anticipation of your father’s return. And there are some further requirements we need to implement.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. You see, it’s not just his safety we need to consider. The whole family is included.”

“You mean me?”

“Absolutely. I’m afraid the Separatists aren’t particularly pleasant, nor choosy about the people they target.”

Tim slouched and sneered at the same time. “I know. I put myself on their newstxt subscription list.”

“I see.” Lucy Duke’s mouth tightened slightly. “Tim, this is a little more involved than a few student revolutionary slogans.”

“You got something against students?”

“Not at all. But the people that Lieutenant Krober and his team are concerned about can be a serious problem.”

“Only to foreigners who steal our taxes and oppress us.”

“Tim, we’re assigning you a bodyguard.”

“Don’t want one.”

“I appreciate that this is difficult.” She smiled bravely. “And it won’t be very, um, cool, for this to happen at school, will it. I’m sorry about that, but we wouldn’t do it unless we thought it was essential. Your mother’s having one as well.”

“So?”

Lucy Duke’s humor was fading. “Tim, these people are evil and violent. You need protection from them. The Europol officers won’t interfere with your life.”

“You mean they’ll help me score my synth8?”

Sue almost laughed out loud at the appalled expression on the spin doctor’s face. “Do you know how much your father’s treatment has cost the federal government?” Lucy Duke asked curtly.

“I’m not sure. How about: the price of the prime minister getting elected president of Europe?”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with this,” the now furious young woman said.

“Then why are you here?”

“Look. All right. I know you don’t want me or any of us here, but we are here and we’re staying. And that’s because of your father’s treatment. Please don’t pretend you didn’t want him to be treated. Just think of us as the price you have to pay for getting him back.”

“Fine. Move in here with us then, I don’t care. I’m not having a bodyguard.” He slithered around her and took the stairs two at a time.

“You are,” Lucy said firmly. “They will be with you when you leave the house tomorrow morning.”

Tim might have grunted a reply; it was difficult to tell. He stalked off along the landing. His door slammed shut.

“Told you so,” Sue murmured dryly.

“Oh my God,” Lucy exclaimed. “I wasn’t briefed on this situation. Is he like that all the time?”

“Not at all. Sometimes he can be a real pain in the ass.”