Bad Blood

Dr Halder looked tired, as if his physical body were following the example of his mind. I wondered if he were a patient as well as a doctor. More and more of the people I met seemed to have the same passenger in their bloodstream, and I could never shake the impossible notion that I was in some way a carrier, spreading the virus to whomever sat opposite me.

"The good news, Mariella, is that it isn't bad news."

I continued to study him. He had lost his hair: I tried to remember how much he'd had when I first came to this clinic, but I couldn't bring the memory to mind. Dark patches had formed beneath his eyes, making them look as if they were sinking into his skull. There was no sparkle in them. His face seemed to have shrunk, as if his angular nose had grown overnight and was now too big for its skin. His lips were too thin to smile. I thought that he must have looked striking in his youth.

"Your T-cell count remains stable, and there's been no deterioration in your condition. You're quite sure you have no other symptoms?"

"Absolutely sure," I said. I was surprised to hear my own voice: it sounded stronger than Dr Halder's, far more assured and positive. No, it's not because he's ill, I thought, it's the number of patients. He has to deal with hundreds of deaths. I have only my own.

He passed me the printout. He always let me keep them, but to me they were all just numbers, the countdown to my own mortality. "Frankly, you're doing far better than I'd hoped. We'll keep up the combination therapies." He sighed. "If this had been ordinary HIV, we'd have got it licked by now."

Finally I realized what was grinding him down so much. He'd thought he'd won. The cure or vaccine for HIV had never been found, but there had made enough progress to keep the patient healthy indefinitely: AIDS was becoming unknown, at least in the developed world. And just as the battle had been won, the enemy brought reinforcements.

At the top of the paper, beneath my name, was the phrase, "HIV2. Positive."

"Otherwise, all I can prescribe is some rest," he said.

"Me too," I said. He gave his thin smile again, and I wondered if he'd understood me.

Just as I was leaving the clinic, someone spat on me--a young man, a carefully-dressed thug. I was lucky that he ran as soon as the saliva landed on my face. I ran as well, to the nearest cafe where I scrubbed myself clean, far cleaner than was necessary, until my skin was red. I knew I was being daft--it was my saliva that was dangerous, not his. One of the many advantages that HIV2 has over its older brother is that it can get into the bloodstream through the mouth. He couldn't harm me: I could have killed him with a kiss.

I bought myself a coffee and sat watching the other customers. The waitress had looked at me with some sympathy, but some of her clients had mouthguards. On the bar was a dish containing individual dental dams. It was as if the whole world were being redesigned around me.

On the wall was a poster for the 2012 Olympics. I wished I would live to see them.

I was in a black mood when the man sat opposite me. I was startled: there were plenty of empty tables still. He seemed to be in his thirties, well tanned, and with a small beard that he seemed to be having trouble keeping control of. His hair was dark and healthy. "Miss Freeth?" he said.

I was torn being wanting to stay polite, but not wanting to give anything away, so I said nothing. He nodded and showed me an identity card.

"I'm with the police," he said. "My name is DI Hislop. I hope you don't mind me asking you a few questions."

"Why weren't you around when I left the clinic?" I said bitterly.

"I was, but I couldn't catch him," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened."

"Oh, it wasn't important," I said. I was used to it.

"Spitting is a criminal offence," said Hislop.

I sighed. "People keep treating me as if I did this deliberately," I said. "As if I contracted it on purpose, then snogged myself stupid until I'd infected as many people as possible. But it's not like that. We just didn't know."

"I understand. Miss Freeth--can I call you Mariella?"

"No," I said. "Do you have family, Mr. Hislop?"

"Two sons," he said. "A wife."

"My parents are still alive, and I have a sister. I don't know where my sister lives now, and my parents won't open the door to me."

He nodded again. "I need to ask you a few questions about Dr Halder."

I looked up sharply. "Dr Halder is a good man," I said. "If you saw half of the work he does..."

Hislop looked at the table. "Yes, he inspires loyalty. We know that. I'm sorry, Miss Freeth, but he may not be what he seems."

"I don't care if he's got a murky past or a dodgy certificate. He's the only person who's ever helped me."

"We'd like you to take a blood test."

"What?"

I was so surprised I dropped my coffee, spilling half a mug over the table, which I ignored. "I had a blood test a year ago. I've had numerous tests since then. They all give me the same result. Why should this be any different?"

He looked straight at me. "Because we think the others are fakes," he said.

My parents hadn't shut me out through hatred or disgust: they were scared of me.

Hislop didn't seem scared. He tried to make an appointment for two days later, but I insisted on going for the test directly. He shrugged, and gave me a lift to a police clinic.

Everyone there wore a mouthguard, from the cleaning staff upwards. Only the two of us were without, and I was embarrassed, as if I'd turned up to church naked. Hislop knew what I was thinking. "Professionals," he said simply. "They have to follow their own standards. Don't take it personally."

The nurse was polite and fearless. "You'll be used to this," he said, as he dabbed my arm with analgesic, then carefully withdrew a small quantity of blood.

"You can take the lot for all I care," I said. "It's no use to me."

"We'll have the results in less than an hour."

I found myself alone in a small waiting room. It was better equipped than most: some of the magazines were current issues. I was glad of the company of DI Hislop: he excused himself almost immediately and left me alone.

I'd sat in a similar room at Dr Halder's clinic while he sentenced me to death. Now I was on appeal. I hated Hislop then, truly hated him, for giving me hope. I had killed all hope as surely as Dr Halder had killed me with his blood test, and I was not ready for its resurrection.

I would have to hate Dr Halder, I realized, truly hate him from every last cell, if I were to live.

It was forty-eight minutes later when Hislop returned with the nurse. They took me back to the private consulting room. The nurse held a folded sheet of paper, which I stared at.

I'd seen papers such as these before. My name was at the top, and the sentence "HIV2". The paper was covered in the same numbers that I didn't understand.

"Negative", it said. I stared dumbly, trying to understand what had happened, and what it meant.

"This must be very hard to take in," said Hislop.

I'd been found Not Guilty: my sentence had been commuted. "I'll see the Olympics," I said. I wasn't ready to face up to the possibility that I might see my sister.

The nurse spoke up. He was still wearing his mouthguard, as if to emphasize that it hadn't been personal. "Of course, we'll need to take another test in three months' time to be certain," he said. "But it looks as if you're in the clear."

I'd tried everything to get here: crystal healing, acupuncture, prayer, aromatherapy, vitamins, foot massage, not to mention the conventional drugs Dr Halder had prescribed. Nothing had worked. "I don't get it," I said. "What cured me?"

The nurse looked uncomfortably at Hislop, who looked at the table before looking up at me. "Nothing cured you," he said. "You were never HIV2 positive. Dr Halder faked his results."

I stared. I was aware that my mouth was open, but I couldn't close it. "But why would he do that?"

"We're still continuing our investigations," he said. "You're not the only person who's been treated like this." He looked at me, as if he were wondering whether to trust me. "We think he's going to offer you a cure."

"A cure for a disease I don't have?"

"Which will prove it works. Dr Halder is a fraud. He's going to be looking for money one way or another, and we think that's how he's going to do it."

"I'm going to kill him," I said seriously, confessing in advance.

"I know how you feel," said Hislop.

"No you don't. I mean it. I'm going to kill him. I don't know how I'm going to do it: perhaps I'll find some infected blood and--"

"Mariella," said Hislop firmly. "We need your help. If you'll help us, we can take him down and stop him doing this to anyone else."

"What do you want me to do?" I said.

"Keep your next appointment. Smile at him, do what he says, pretend you still believe you're infected. Keep on as a patient."

"And then what?"

"And then, when he offers you his supposed cure, take it. We'll sort any payments. It's the evidence we need."

I nodded. I'd been given my life back, and I was going to use it to destroy Dr Halder.

"The Olympics had better be good," I told the bartender.

He looked embarrassed. "They usually put a bit of effort in," he said. I could see what he was embarrassed about: he'd put his mouthguard on as soon as I entered the bar, and he knew I'd seen him do it.

"No, I mean that's what I want you to tell Elspeth. She'll know what it means."

He treated me as if I were asking him to smuggle heroin across a particularly tricky border. "I can't promise when I'll see her," he said. "And I certainly can't tell you where she is. I don't know myself."

I ignored the lie. "I don't need to know that," I said. "Just pass the message on. I'll be grateful."

It was, I realized as soon as I left the pub, a stupid message. What was the point of talking in code when I could have just told her the truth? But the truth had to be a secret, of course. If Dr Halder realized I knew about him, I didn't know what he'd do. He could easily infect me for real.

I realized something else. It had not been difficult passing this message on. I could have tried to arrange a reconciliation with my sister long ago. It wasn't her: I'd been the one who had hidden away, too ashamed to embarrass her by reminding her of our family tie.

Dr Halder looked as if he'd aged further since our last appointment. I now suspected that his tiredness was caused by another factor--perhaps guilt. Perhaps inside him there remained a part of him that wanted to scream out, "it's not true! You're negative!"

But when I saw him, I didn't want to believe what DI Hislop had told me. Dr Halder had been treating me for over a year, and in that time I had had no complaint with him. In fact, he had won my respect more than any other human being. He couldn't have been in this for the money--there wasn't much, and he worked much harder than he was paid for. He seemed far more involved in his patients than professional courtesy would demand.

He looked astonished when I walked in. "My, you're looking well, Mariella!" he exclaimed.

"I've had a new lease of life," I said cautiously. It was true, as if Halder was the portrait of me that I kept hidden in the attic.

"What's brought this on?"

"I met someone new," I said.

He took another blood test, and I wondered if there would be any blood left. I underwent the usual physical tests, and he showed me the usual printout. It was exactly the opposite of the one that Hislop had shown me.

"I have to say, I'm pleased with your progress," he said. "I don't need to tell you, this won't get better. But you're doing extremely well at holding off the course of the disease. I don't know who this person is that you've met, but I think he's done more for you than I ever could."

He had to be genuine. But then he said something that settled it completely, that made me certain he was a liar, made me know I was going to live, and wish I were going to die.

"Mariella, I have an experimental treatment you might be interested in..."

After the appointment I rang DI Hislop and met him in the same bar where I had left the message for Elspeth. I don't know why: I think I just felt as if I wanted this connection to my family, however tenuous.

I was still young. I had years of life ahead of me, but every one of them seemed wretched, years that I would have to spend in the company of liars, cheats, criminals and users. People like me, we were just tools to be wielded in their quest for money and power. To them, we didn't matter. I tried to be happy, I really did. I knew how lucky I was to have so many years returned to me, and I felt ungrateful for rejecting them. But I couldn't find these emotions. They were smothered by the year I'd spent approaching death, and feeling as if I'd passed it.

Hislop looked embarrassed as he handed me a drink. I hadn't finished my last one, but he clearly wasn't sure how to act with me.

"I don't know how you must be feeling," he said.

"I feel as if I want to infect myself with HIV2 and bring everything back to normal," I said.

"You shouldn't feel that way," he said. "Look, I'm a police officer, not a counselor. But I can put you in touch with someone." He took out his own card, with his name, rank and contact number, as if I were the enemy officer who had captured and interrogated him. On the back he wrote another name and number, and pushed it over to me.

"I've volunteered for the treatment," I said.

Hislop nodded. He already knew this, I'd told him when I'd called him. "This is excellent news. We're very pleased with you, Mariella. You just need the courage to see it through."

"I'll see it through," I said. I felt like a ghost, returned from the grave to extract vengeance upon my murderer.

"What form will it take?"

"In the first instance, tablets. I'm to take one at the clinic, then he'll give me a week's supply. Three a day."

"We'll need those tablets for analysis, and regular blood tests and other physical examinations. The tablets will just be placebos, but we've got to prove it. Worse still, they might be more than placebos."

"Why?" I said, finishing my first drink to put him more at ease.

"He'll want you to pay, and keep paying. The last thing he needs is for you to run out of money and go away. The 'cure' will probably have an addictive quality."

I began to feel a little scared, but then remembered the fate that I'd faced up to already. "Should I take the first one?"

"Definitely," he said. "You can't make him suspicious, and you won't come to any harm from just one dose. But don't do anything else until we've analyzed the tablets. Did he tell you anything else?"

I nodded. "He told me not to tell anyone."

Hislop smiled grimly. "If you need anything, just get in touch."

"Thanks," I said, and watched him leave. I sat on my own for a few minutes, and then the barman brought me a piece of paper with a date and time on it, in Elspeth's handwriting.

The next appointment with Dr Halder was very different to the others. It was more form filling than anything else.

He was very convincing. I had to sign a contract consenting to the treatment, acknowledging it was experimental, and taking full responsibility for any side effects. I asked him what the side effects might be. "You'll discover them before I do," he replied.

I was given a final physical examination, and pronounced fit enough to undergo the treatment. I asked about its cost.

"It's still at the experimental stage," he said sadly. "So far, it's been paid for partly by the clinic and partly by venture capital. I'm one of those venture capitalists. I put my money where my mouth is, Mariella--if it can't help you, it will finish me." He suddenly seemed to understand what I'd been asking. "Oh, there's no cost to you of course--I only wish we could have paid you for being a subject."

And then it was out in the open in front of us--a capsule, yellow and red plastic enclosing something unknown. "I'm sorry to be saying it again, but you have to understand this--there's no guarantee that this will improve your condition. And it will only hold off the disease, so you'll be taking it for life if it works. I'm excited about it, but--" He spread his hands and exhaled.

"I understand," I said. "Do I take it now?"

He nodded. "Three a day, starting now." I remembered that Hislop had said that the first dose wouldn't hurt me. I hoped he was right. I swallowed the first capsule.

"I'll keep you under observation for half an hour," he said, "but really, you're going to be on your own. For God's sake, get in touch immediately you notice anything wrong."

It was the longest half an hour of my life: and even after it I couldn't leave immediately, because there was a gang of youths loitering outside. Dr Halder called a taxi and told the driver to take me straight home, but as soon as we were out of the way I stopped him, got out, and rang DI Hislop.

He arrived in an unmarked car. I wordlessly handed over the rest of the capsules. He nodded.

"I wish I could thank you enough," he said. "This is all we'll need to take him down."

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Sorry?"

"What do I do now? With the rest of my life?"

"I wish I could tell you. Travel. Fall in love. See the Olympics. Get rich, lose it all. Mariella, I think you're an exceptional young woman. Frankly, you deserve to have your life back." He looked down at the capsules. "Do you know what I wish?" he said.

"Tell me."

"I wish that when we get these to the lab, it turns out that we're wrong. I wish that this is really a cure."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I wish that as well."

"I'll let you know as soon as we find out anything," he said. And then we parted. He went to his laboratory, and I went to my sister.

Elspeth shook my hand when we met. She was embarrassed to do so, and so was I: a masculine embrace, for people who didn't want to get too close. But this was closer than we'd been for months.

When we were young, people thought we were twins. They wouldn't make that mistake now. Her hair had darkened, and she wore it long, unlike myself. It didn't suit her. She had rings in her ears and nose: I had none. She had a small patch of red beneath her chin, a birthmark that I didn't share.

She had brains.

"Mariella, I can't begin to know what you're going through, but I know one thing: people don't just get cured of HIV2."

"But that's just what I'm saying," I said. We sat in the same bar, with same barman and the same poster for the Olympics. "I never had it. It was a lie. The police are investigating it."

She hadn't touched her drink. "People cling onto any belief that they think will get them out of it. I've seen it before. In you."

I'd known that this wasn't going to be an easy meeting, but I'd not realized how angry she was going to make me. "Will you just listen," I said, my voice raised. "I've been conned. I never had the virus. I've got the rest of my life to live, and I was hoping you might want to be part of it again."

She breathed in deeply, then touched my hand. I withdrew it. "I'll be part of your life," she said. "But I want you to see a counselor."

"I've got a counselor," I said. "He's going to help me live again."

"What has he had to say?"

"I haven't got in touch yet." I pulled the card from my purse and held it in front of her. I was aware that my hand was shaking, and that I wasn't handling this very well.

"Right. I'll ring him. What's his name?"

I said nothing--I didn't actually know, but I wasn't going to tell her that. I snatched the card away, but she was already dialing on her mobile. She held it to her ear. Then she held it out to me. A healthy female voice was explaining that the number did not exist.

"Let me dial," I said angrily. I keyed the number in properly this time. The same woman explained that the number was unobtainable.

"Hislop wrote it down wrong," I snapped. "I'll call him and get the real number." I didn't have to key in Hislop's number: it was already in my mobile.

The number was unobtainable. I compared it with the number on his card, but I'd dialed right.

"I think I'd like to see this DI Hislop," said Elspeth thoughtfully.

"It must have been someone from another station," said the receptionist. "We don't have anyone of that name working here."

"It doesn't have to be Hislop," I said. "Anyone working on Dr Halder's case will do."

We sat and waited for a while, but I realized that they weren't really trying to find anyone involved with the case. They were just deciding what to do with me.

"I'll show you the laboratory," I said.

"Right," said Elspeth, and led me back to the car.

You could tell that they'd been there yesterday. But they hadn't even left the pile of magazines behind. The building was empty, of both people and furniture. It was spotlessly clean.

I walked through the waiting room to the consulting room, where I'd had the blood test. It was the only other room I'd been in. In this room, my life had been returned to me.

I sank to the floor, my back against the wall, trying to think. Then I put my head in my hands. I didn't cry yet, not until Elspeth sat next to me and put her arm around me.

And we know what happened then. After Viratech synthesized the treatment for HIV2, they produced documents showing that they had been working on it for years, and were able to seize the patents from Dr Halder in return for not suing him for intellectual theft.

I should have bought shares in them then. I didn't, and so remain one of the have-nots. Viratech saves lives, at a cost. They own several African nations, and the best I can say is that they're not running them any worse than the previous incumbents.

I met Dr Halder again before he died. This time he really had been defeated.

"I just wish I knew who gave them the capsules," he said. "Whoever it was...they sold the whole human race. I hope they got a good price. They could have been cured through the trial, that's the daft thing. Instead they gave it away. Do you know what I wish, Mariella? I wish that they die of HIV2. I've never wished that on anyone, but this one person deserves it."

So I granted him his dying wish. I didn't take the cure, even though I could probably afford it--it's easy enough to make yourself so poor in the West that you qualify for free treatment. But I decided to pay Dr Halder's price.

I met DI Hislop one more time, though.

The same bar. We went there partly through nostalgia, partly because it was one of the few places that would let me in. Elspeth took me there once a week. I never expected her to be so supportive--she always wanted me to live, but she wouldn't try to argue me out of my decision. For that, she won my respect.

I sat opposite her, with a soft drink--I couldn't handle alcohol any more. My stick rested against the table, and there were few other customers. If it had been busy, I wouldn't have been allowed in.

But at the other side of the room sat DI Hislop. He seemed decades older than at our last meeting. I could hear him wheezing from where I was sat. He was holding a glass of something I couldn't identify, shivering and staring down at the table.

"I'll talk to him if you want," said Elspeth.

"No. I'll do it."

With difficulty I stood up and shuffled over, supporting myself with the backs of chairs rather than using my stick. He looked up as I arrived, and I realized I had no idea what to say to him.

"I hope you're proud of what you did," I said.

"We had to get the treatment out there. Halder never had the resources." Speaking seemed to cause him pain.

"You did it for money. What did they pay you?" A thought occurred to me. "Why haven't they given you the treatment? You've got HIV2, haven't you?"

He nodded, then looked down at a briefcase by the side of the table. "They did give me it. It's in there. Six months' worth, and the papers you'll need to keep it for the rest of your life. Take it, Mariella. You were the victim in this, and you didn't deserve it."

I looked at the briefcase. Here we were again: Hislop was offering me my life back.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because this is a trade. If I take the briefcase, I have to forgive you. I won't do it."

I turned my back on him and made my way back to Elspeth, who had been keeping a close eye on us. I sat opposite her, and we were silent.

After five minutes, I heard Hislop climb to his feet. With difficulty he lifted the briefcase, then left the bar. I watched through the window. He could hardly walk. He moved slowly across the pavement, aiming for a taxi, but suddenly stopped and vomited. A young mother looked at him in disgust and directed her child out of the way. The taxi drove off without him. And quite suddenly, I felt pity for him.

"Look at him," I said. "Nobody deserves that."

"Nobody?" asked Elspeth, looking at me.

I could see my reflection in the window. I had lost my hair and some of my teeth. My face was covered in acne. My hand itched, but I didn't dare scratch it in case I opened the skin and it didn't heal.

I sighed. "Take me to him, Elspeth," I said.

She supported me as I struggled out of the bar. Hislop had sat himself down, holding on to the briefcase.

He looked up at me as I approached, and I nodded. He tried to smile, but it turned into a painful grimace.

Wordlessly I took the briefcase, and Elspeth guided me back into the bar. After a few more minutes Hislop stood up, found another taxi, and I watched the driver take him away to his death, as I in my different way would go to mine.

Neil James Hudson is the author of a dozen short stories, including "The Point of Oswald Masters" which was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. He has written several novels, and is currently working on sending one of them to a publisher. More information on neilhudson.livejournal.com.