But through all that she had been our little girl, and despite her dazzling intellect, we had endeavored to bring her up as normally as possible. And while I watched her fluff over her lines with the nervousness of a normal person rather than the detached and mechanical tone of her contemporaries, we knew at least that we had succeeded in attempting to make her as human as she was brilliant, and with that, we trusted, given her an ability to see beyond the pure science and the application of knowledge and to be able to make a distinction between what science could do and what it should do.

“Makes you proud, doesn’t it?” whispered Landen. We listened to the rest of her speech, but it had become increasingly technical, and by the end we could understand only one word in seventeen. But we were delighted to be on the list of people she thanked at the end, in particular for showing her “the value of normality.”

“That was really good,” said Landen as she came off the stage to thunderous applause. She hugged us both, then was whisked off to do a press conference, leaving us standing quite alone. We wouldn’t be telling her to go to school anymore. As far as we were concerned, our job was done.

“Well,” I said to Landen, “how are things with you?”

He looked at the tattoo on my hand and said that he was fine, that Friday wouldn’t be back until late, given our last trip in to see the Manchild, and that we were parentally redundant. “I suppose that’s what we should be striving for,” I said.

“Thanks for telling Tuesday I was bringing Jenny.”

“What was I supposed to say?” replied Landen. “Tuesday wanted her to be here. Which reminds me, did you get into Image Ink this morning?”

“I forgot again.”

“Me, too. Twice. Hang on,” I added. “What’s Gavin Watkins doing here?”

I had seen him through the crowds, sitting quite alone at a small trade stand. We walked over.

“Hello, Gavin,” I said, using a conciliatory tone of voice. “Oh,” he said, glancing up dismissively, “it’s you. The tart’s mother.”

It wasn’t a good start.

“Okay,” I said, “we need to talk. You don’t want to be killed, and we don’t want to have to visit Friday in prison for the next three decades. Do you want some tea?”

He gave a resigned shrug.

“All right.”

33. Thursday: Gavin Watkins

33.

Thursday: Gavin Watkins