Oxford Blood (14 page)

'If AB demands not only one B parent, but also B in combination with an A, you can see that the chances of an AB child diminish rapidly,' she went on. 'Three per cent of the British population according to Mourant's work on blood frequencies. Among the Mongoloid races, and thus among Chinese immigrants, B is much more frequent. As a matter of fact my own blood grouping is B.' Jemima wondered whether this, for an expert on blood groupings, was a matter for congratulations, and whether she should proffer them.

Professor Ho continued: 'I repeat, among white British people, B is comparatively rare. The reason I asked you whether the name Moses had any significance other than purely Biblical was because you also get a much higher incidence of the B blood group among Jewish people; it varies, but it can be as much as twenty-five per cent.'

'As far as I know, Moses so-called is not Jewish. Not Chinese either,' Jemima added with a polite smile. Saffron with Jewish blood? In so far as it was possible to define the physical characteristics of Jewish blood, it could not be ruled out. With that black hair and faintly olive complexion, Jemima had felt all along that there was something of the Mediterranean about his appearance - as opposed to the copybook Englishness of his cousins Jack and Fanny for example. The conventional idea of a Jewish appearance in English terms was often no more than that - something of the Mediterranean or the Middle East, something which had come home to Jemima when visiting Israel and being frequently unable to tell Jew from Arab among the indigenous population.

'Higher too among Greeks - fourteen per cent as opposed to eight per cent in the UK. The increasing presence of Greek Cypriots in this country after the Turkish invasion means that the Health Service needs more B group blood donors than before. There's a particular disease called thalassaemia - Colley's anaemia - to which they're subject.'

Greek? Greek Cypriot? Yes, Saffron could well have Greek blood, Greek Cypriot (or for that matter Turkish) if one was simply into some ethnic guessing game based on his appearance. All of this was however to do with who he was or might be rather than who he was not.

'At any rate what you're saying is clear,' replied Jemima. 'If Moses' parents are both group O, as his mother has stated, then they cannot be his
biological
parents. So I suppose it's back to me to try and establish that one way or another.'

'It's really quite simple - or a case like that is simple provided you're quite sure about the parents. Since 1969 blood tests have been allowed in court cases of disputed paternity - to exclude a given father of course, from paternity. As Moses' father would be excluded in court from being the biological parent, given the circumstances: not to prove parenthood, only to exclude.'

'How strange that these agglutinogens in our blood should be more strictly hereditary than anything else. After all, physical characteristics or talents like music are not necessarily passed on to children. You can have a red-haired parent without having a red-haired child, but you can't have a B group parent, without having something of B in the child, be it AB or I suppose OB. How strange that blood should be so important.'

But Jemima saw from Professor Ho's expression that she did not think it particularly strange that blood should be so important.

'It's back to me,' she said hastily, 'and I've got to establish the truth of the parents' blood groups. Any suggestions how I should go about it?'

Professor Ho relaxed. 'The mother is likely to be right about her own group, especially if she lost a number of children before this one. Three, you said. She might even be O Rhesus Negative to her husband's Rhesus Positive: the antibodies which clash produce a built-up and would account for the series of deaths. The first child should have been all right, did you tell me there was one live birth?'

Jemima shook her head. 'Not as far as I know. No, wait, one born live who died about three weeks later. And it was the first child.' She remembered the details of Nurse Elsie's story and from the peerage.

'That first child could have died for quite different reasons not associated with blood. After that the problem of Rhesus Negative and Rhesus Positive would build and build.'

'And the father?'

'Is he old enough to have been in the forces in the war? People had to carry their blood group with them on a disc'

Lord St Ives had been in the army: an MC came to mind after his name, and memories of the gallant war record which had made this otherwise somewhat austere figure acceptable to th
e Tory party in years gone by: I
vo got all his men back from St Nazaire, one of the few who did—' the words floated back to her from some television documentary compiled when he became Foreign Secretary. But she could hardly ring up the War Office to establish his blood grouping on the strength of this. The most inventive (and invented) programme for Megalith would hardly cover such an eventuality. No, wait. . .

One possible answer came to her.

'Professor Ho, could you just repeat to me what you told me about the Greek Cypriot community and that disease, the need for more B group blood in the UK as a result? I see a possible programme here. At least, one I could look into. That could be useful.'

'Useful to your Moses? Or useful to society?' asked Professor Ho.

'Both,' said Jemima firmly.

Not so much later Jemima, back in her flat, was pouring a placatory coup of champagne for a slightly sulky Cherry.

'Yes I know, I know darling, whatever will I think of next!'

'Are we
really
going to make this six-part series called "The National Blood"?' enquired Cherry, in which case I'm applying for a transfer.' But she drank all the same.

'Why not?' asked Jemima with spirit, repeating to Cherry as to Professor Ho: 'At least it's useful.'

'You promised me a good time among the Golden Kids,' Cherry grumbled, 'and now you're talking about a lot of blood. Which reminds me that Cy is back, and according to Miss Lewis, after yours. Blood that is. Wants to know why shooting hasn't started on the aforesaid
Golden Kids.
That's because he's sold the programme in the States
and
another couple similar about the Golden Kids of France and Germany - I guess that has to be West Germany, but as Miss Lewis said, you never know with Cy, he could pre-sell a programme about the Golden Kids of East Germany when he's in the mood.'

'Does he know about Tiggie Jones' engagement to Saffron? Now there's a piece of news for you. 'Jemima waited smugly to see the effect of her little surprise on Cherry. 'You could even call it a Megalith romance since Tiggie was allegedly the researcher on the
Golden Kids
programme. As to shooting, even Cy Fredericks can hardly expect us to shoot our hero in hospital having been beaten up with a boat hook. Not very golden.'

'Saffron and Miss Tiggie! Engaged!' Cherry sounded even more startled than Jemima had expected. She really looked quite astonished, her eyes round as saucers. 'Now that really does take my breath away.'

'You mean - because of Cy?'

'That and other things.'

Cherry looked at Jemima, began to say something more, stopped herself and then said with perhaps rather more vigour than the occasion warranted: 'I never liked that girl.' She went on: 'Now tell me the questions you want me to ask about individual blood groups for this so-called programme.' Cherry sounded quite kind.

A couple of evenings later Jemima found she also surprised Cass Brinsley with the news of Saffron's engagement. But then Cass was in the middle of a case and in that slightly captious mood she had come to associate with such situations. No doubt she herself was similarly abstracted - not to say irritable - when in the midst of shooting. All the same Jemima had to confess that his captiousness came as a slight disappointment when she herself had been looking forward quite eagerly, no really very eagerly, to seeing him following her return from Oxford.

'I always knew that girl would come to a bad end. Her lashes were far too long for perfect honesty,' said Cass crossly.

'Is
it a bad end to marry a very rich young man?' Jemima thought of Proffy and Eugenia Jones' rather similar objections to her daughter's match.

'It depends what you want.'

'And what do you want, Cass?' It was quite a light-hearted remark but since it was already late, and they were sitting on the deep sofa in Jemima's flat, listening to
Don Giovanni
(Losey film version) Jemima half expected some romantic rejoinder. It was almost the end of the opera: with one ear cocked, Jemima heard the Commendatore dragging Don Giovanni down to hell, as the pious sextet rejoiced over his damnation. She rather thought her Don Giovanni might drag her down to bed . . . Instead of which Cass answered quite seriously:

'What do I want, darling? Oh God, I wish I knew. Look it's late. Don G. has gone to hell and this case is getting to me. I'll call you tomorrow. OK?'

He gave her a quick firm kiss on the mouth, touched her lightly on the breast and got up.

A few minutes later Cass was gone. A few minutes after that Midnight came complacently through the cat flap and flumped himself down on Jemima's lap, purring loudly and stretching his black paws to her face. Midnight did not care to share Jemima's favours with other admirers.

Jemima once again felt oddly disconcerted, that Emma-at-Box-Hill feeling which had overcome her in the High Street at Oxford. Whatever the nature of their relationship - so carefully undefined - she had been looking forward to going to bed with Cass that night.

The presence of Midnight, large, furry and sensual nibbling at her cheek with his delicate tongue, only emphasized the absence of Cass.

Better to think about blood. Saffron's blood. Jemima found Mourant, the book presented to her by Professor Ho, the title:
Blood Relations
and the sub-title
Blood Groups and Anthropology.
Perhaps Mourant would send her to sleep. She began, rather firmly, to read the preliminary remarks about visible characteristics such as the shape of eye or colour of skin fixed solely or partly by heredity and came to the passage:

'In contrast to these visible characteristics, research during the present century shows that there is a class of invisible ones, fixed by heredity in a known way at the moment of conception, immutable during the life of the individual, and observable by relatively simple scientific tests. These are the blood groups

Curiously enough, someone else was at that very moment also thinking dark thoughts about Saffron's blood. In a way these thoughts might have benefited from the absolute clarity brought by Mourant; as it was, they consisted of a great swilling wash of anger brought about by the knowledge that Saffron was not what he seemed, seething like a tide in the basin of an uneasy brain without any possibility of escape. Relief would only come through the spilling of that same blood, the interloper's blood.

Bim Marcus had already paid the penalty for a mistake. The boat-hook incident had been a sudden impulse and as such had not really deserved to succeed. Planning was the essence of success. As Jemima restlessly put aside Mourant, and took up a P.D. James she had already read twice (its title ironically enough was
Innocent Blood),
the other person thinking about Saffron that night decided on what might turn out in the end to be the best plan of all.

12

Love and Hate

Jemima Shore woke up about five o'clock. Neither Mourant nor P.D. James had ensured heavy slumbers. At first she was surprised to find herself alone and murmured rather sleepily: 'Cass.' Midnight too was absent: some dawn prowl had claimed him.

An hour later, sleep being impossible, Jemima feeling remarkably discontented decided on a dawn prowl herself. The thought of Richmond Park in the early morning, green, quiet and empty, was suddenly extremely tempting. She pulled on a white track suit and filled a thermos full of coffee. She thought of a private breakfast picnic among the bracken; perhaps there would be deer; she could not remember which season it was which brought the deer to join the solitary picnickers.

Jemima driving fast - too fast - in her Mercedes, had forgotten the early morning string of horses and riders which usually filed into the park at that hour. She came to a rapid halt. Then at the traffic lights she found herself drawn up beside one especially magnificent glossy horse, a chestnut, which took its rider way above the height of the low sports car.

Jemima looked up. The rider was male, and like the horse, quite young and very glossy with thick hair not unlike the colour of his horse's coat.

She smiled.

'I like your horse.'

'I like your car.'

'Swap?'

'Horses are worth more than cars, even Mercedes. What will you give me to make up the balance?'