Rare Traits
By David George Clarke
Copyright © 2013 David George Clarke
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any of the characters or places to real persons living or dead or to real places
is purely coincidental
Cover design by Derek Murphy of CreativIndie
To Gail, with love
Table of Contents
Chapter One: May 2009
Chapter Two: 1467-1492
Chapter Three: June 2009
Chapter Four: 1492
Chapter Five: June 2009
Chapter Six: 1492-1517
Chapter Seven: June 2009
Chapter Eight: 1517-1548
Chapter Nine: June 2009
Chapter Ten: 1548
Chapter Eleven: June 2009
Chapter Twelve: 1677
Chapter Thirteen: June 2009
Chapter Fourteen: 1677-1701
Chapter Fifteen: July 2009
Chapter Sixteen: 1780-1794
Chapter Seventeen: July 2009
Chapter Eighteen: 1877
Chapter Nineteen: July 2009
Chapter Twenty: 1880-1900
Chapter Twenty-One: July 2009
Chapter Twenty-Two: 1905
Chapter Twenty-Three: July 2009
Chapter Twenty-Four: July 2009
Chapter Twenty-Five: 1905-1950s
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Epilogue: September-October 2009
Afterword
Acknowledgements
PART I
Chapter 1 : May 2009
John Andrews sprinted through the pelting rain to his ageing Volvo, pulled open the driver’s door and threw himself in. He was drenched but he didn’t care – he’d sold five large paintings in one afternoon and he couldn’t wait to get home to tell Lola. He put the pasta and wine he’d just bought onto the front passenger seat, dug the car key from his pocket and started the engine.
As he reversed out of the parking spot, he was still thinking about his day’s profit when he suddenly remembered his seat belt. He stopped to fasten it. He was about to pull away when there was a loud crunch from behind and the car lurched forward, a packet of pasta and one of the bottles of wine jumping from the seat. He instinctively hit the brakes and watched helplessly as the second bottle flew into the air, only to land on the first and shatter.
“Jesus!” he yelled, his buoyant mood instantly evaporating. He got out of the car and saw that the back end of a Range Rover was attached to his car’s rear bumper. Looking up from the damage, he saw a heavily built man in a crumpled business suit stumbling awkwardly from the Range Rover, his bloated face twisted with rage.
“What’s yer game, Jack?” spat the man, his strong Liverpudlian accent cutting through the rain as he wobbled unsteadily towards John. “Can’t yer bloody wait yer turn? Yer must’ve seen me reversing out. Look at that dent; that’s gonna cost yer.”
“What the hell are you talking about!” snapped John, tensing with anger, “I was stationary. You reversed into me.”
“Yeah, and me dad’s the Pope,” spat the man, poking a meaty index finger into John’s chest. “That’s me brand new car you’ve crunched and you’re gonna have to pay for the damage.”
John wrinkled his nose in distaste as the man’s boozy breath wafted over his face. He knocked the man’s jabbing finger out of the way.
“You shouldn’t be driving at all; you’ve obviously had way too much to drink.”
“Yer what, yer pillock?” slurred the man, swinging his right fist. John saw it coming and moved his head to one side, raising his own arms and fists in a defensive stance. The man grunted, hunched his shoulders and threw two more punches. John sidestepped the first but he was out of practice and the second glanced his ear, a large signet ring cutting into the skin. He half-turned and gave the now off-balance man a shove that sent him stumbling forward to fall headlong into a puddle. John looked down in shock at the sodden and dishevelled man. He realised he had acted instinctively, recalling automatically the skills taught to him so many years ago. It had been more than a hundred years since he’d had to use those skills. Images of a rock-strewn landscape on the South China coast and his search for Lei-li flashed across his mind.
Red-faced and snarling angrily, the man staggered to his feet and turned round, his chin bleeding. He took a step towards John but stopped in his tracks as a police car turned into the car park, the lights on its roof flashing. It stopped near the two men and a police officer got out. Taking his time, he cast a long-suffering glance at the rain as he pulled on his cap.
“What’s going on, gentlemen?”
“It’s like this, Jack,” shouted the Range Rover driver, wiping the blood from his chin with his sleeve. “This stroppy prat reverses into me, smashes me brand new car, and then the git says it was my fault and starts swinging at me.”
The police officer glanced at John, who had blood dribbling from his ear, and then at the other man, whose gashed chin was bleeding freely onto his shirt. “Certainly looks like you two were having a good go at each other.”
His sense of fair play severely threatened, John gave in to his rising anger. He walked threateningly towards the police officer, waving a finger at him. “That’s complete rubbish. This drunk is way out of order.”
“See, Jack, stroppy bastard, like I said,” slurred the Range Rover driver.
The police officer fixed his eyes on John, the steely threat behind them stopping him in his tracks.
“Right,” he said, “let’s get this straight. I’m giving each of you a breath test and I’m arresting you for fighting in a public place.”
John took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak, but the police officer’s eyes bored into his again. “And if you don’t stop, sir, I might well throw in a charge of attempting to assault a police officer.”
A frustrated John paced the floor in an interview room at Ambleside police station. His processing had so far taken two hours. Finally, the door opened and the police officer came in carrying a plastic box.
John frowned at him. “What now?”
“Since you’ve been arrested for a recordable offence, sir, I am going to take a buccal swab sample.”
“A what-able offence?”
“A recordable offence. It’s one for which, in theory, you could go to prison.”
He paused to let John absorb this piece of information while he took a stoppered plastic tube from the box.
“But my breath test was negative,” objected John.
“Nothing to do with it, sir, you’re still under arrest. Now, it’s totally painless. I just need to take this swab and wipe it round the inside of your cheek.” He pulled the stopper from the plastic tube and held up the swab. “The sample will be tested and the results put on the National DNA Database.”
John felt a twinge of panic. He was sure that there must be something different about his DNA; what else could explain his age? The last thing he wanted was for it to be tested and scrutinised. “Look, officer, surely you’re not serious about these charges.”
“Just open your mouth, sir; this won’t take a moment.”
Thirty minutes later, John was st
ill pacing the room when the police officer returned, a nonchalant smile on his face.
“Looks like it’s your lucky evening, sir,” he said. “There are two people outside, a man and a woman, who say they saw what happened in the car park, and it appears your story holds up. They say they saw you both reversing out at the same time, although it seems you were actually stationary when the collision occurred and therefore, technically, the other driver drove into you.”
“There’s no technically about it!” snapped John. “He did drive into me.”
“The important point as far as you’re concerned, sir,” sighed the police officer, “is that they both agree they saw the driver of the Range Rover get out and pick a fight with you. Since you just acted defensively and didn’t actually hit him, we won’t be pressing any charges against you.”
“And what about him?”
“Well, he’ll certainly be charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, and I’ve no doubt he’ll be found guilty and lose his licence for a year, but as for any other charges, that’s really going to be up to you.”
“Why me?”
“Do you want to press charges of assault against him, sir? It’s a lot of paperwork ...” The police officer had clearly lost interest in the whole matter.
“I’d like to press his face right into the ground,” muttered John. Then, as he saw the police officer raise his eyebrows, he added hastily, “No, I won’t be pressing any charges, I just want to get home. But what about that sample? Surely it will be thrown away now?”
“‘Fraid not, sir. You see, it was taken while you were under arrest. As I explained before, your DNA will go on the database.”
“Ridiculous!” snarled John as he marched out of the room.
Back at the Green Man car park, John surveyed the damage. It wasn’t as bad as he’d originally thought: his sturdy Volvo had definitely come off lighter.
He started the car, put it into first gear and gingerly pulled away. To his surprise, his car freed itself easily from the Range Rover. Of more immediate concern to him now as he drove off was the fact that his DNA was going to be on record. How much of a problem might that prove? He didn’t know.
“Although I think it’s a total infringement of your rights, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, darling. You weren’t a serial killer before I knew you, were you? At least not in recent times?”
John’s wife, Lola, was standing with him in the large kitchen of their cottage on the banks of Thirlmere. She had checked his ear, declared it was only a scratch, and was now dishing up penne al ragù for their delayed dinner – their young daughters, Sophie and Phoebe, had long since had theirs and gone to bed. Meanwhile, John was opening the bottle of Merlot that had survived.
“Here’s to penne al Merlot,” he said. “There’s a nice cold pile of it in the car.”
“Yuk,” grimaced Lola.
They had been talking about DNA profiles, their knowledge, like most people’s, limited to the bite-sized chunks of science served up in TV documentaries and CSI.
“I wonder if mine will be different,” mused John.
“Of course it will, sweetheart,” smiled Lola. “We all have unique DNA, unless we have a twin, so yours being different shouldn’t mean much. Apparently they can’t tell anything about you from the results they get. So your serial killing will remain a secret.”
John smiled, amused as ever by her flippancy.
“I wonder how long it lasts,” he said reflectively. “I mean, does it go off if it’s been lying around for ages?”
“I think they’ve been able to get it from the remains of mammoths stuck in ice,” replied Lola, “but that’s probably because it’s frozen. And I did read something about looking at old master paintings and comparing one with another by measuring the DNA that is assumed to be from fingerprints of the artist. The trouble is that Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA isn’t on the database. Nor your friend Piero della Francesca’s for that matter.”
No it isn’t, thought John, but I’d bet he would have been impressed with the technology.
He stared into his wine as the weight of his five hundred and eighty-two years suddenly pressed heavily on him.