The Third Twin - Ken Follett [117]
The Aventine Clinic was founded in 1972 by Genetico Inc., as a pioneering center for research and development of human in vitro fertilization—the creation of what the newspapers call “test-tube babies.”
Steve said: “You think Dennis and I are test-tube babies?”
“Yes.”
He had a strange, nauseated feeling in the pit of his stomach. “That’s weird. But what does it explain?”
“Identical twins could be conceived in the laboratory and then implanted in the wombs of different women.”
Steve’s sick feeling got worse. “But did the sperm and egg come from Mom and Dad—or from the Pinkers?”
“I don’t know.”
“So the Pinkers could be my real parents. God.”
“There’s another possibility.”
Steve could see from the worried look on Jeannie’s face that she was afraid this would shock him too. His mind leaped ahead and he guessed what she was going to say. “Maybe the sperm and egg didn’t come from my parents or the Pinkers. I could be the child of total strangers.”
She did not reply, but her solemn look told him he was right.
He felt disoriented. It was like a dream in which he suddenly found himself falling through the air. “It’s hard to take in,” he said. The kettle switched itself off. For something to do with his hands, Steve poured boiling water into the teapot. “I’ve never much resembled either Mom or Dad. Do I look like one of the Pinkers?”
“No.”
“Then it’s most probably strangers.”
“Steve, none of this takes away the fact that your mom and dad loved you and raised you and would still give their lives for you.”
With a shaky hand he poured tea into two cups. He gave one to Jeannie and sat beside her on the couch. “How does all this explain the third twin?”
“If there were twins in the test tube, there could have been triplets. It’s the same process: one of the embryos split again. It happens in nature, so I guess it can happen in the laboratory.”
Steve still felt as if he were spinning through the air, but now he began to get another sensation: relief. It was a bizarre story that Jeannie told, but at least it provided a rational explanation of why he had been accused of two brutal crimes.
“Do Mom and Dad know any of this?”
“I don’t believe they do. Your mother and Charlotte Pinker told me they went into the clinic for hormone treatment. In vitro fertilization was not practiced in those days. Genetico must have been years ahead of everyone else with the technique. And I think they tried it without telling their patients what they were doing.”
“No wonder Genetico is scared,” Steve said. “Now I understand why Berrington is so desperate to discredit you.”
“Yeah. What they did was really unethical. It makes invasion of privacy look petty.”
“It wasn’t just unethical. It could ruin Genetico, financially.”
She looked excited. “That would explain a lot. But how could it ruin them?”
“It’s a tort—a civil wrong. We covered this last year in law school.” In the back of his mind he was thinking, Why the hell am I talking to her about torts—I want to tell her how much I love her. “If Genetico offered a woman hormone treatment, then deliberately impregnated her with someone else’s fetus without telling her, that’s a breach of implied contract by fraud.”
“But it happened so long ago. Isn’t there a statute of limitations?”
“Yes, but it runs from the time of discovery of the fraud.”
“I still don’t see how it would ruin the company.”
“This is an ideal case for punitive damages. That means the money is not just to compensate the victim, say for the cost of bringing up someone else’s child. It’s also to punish the people who did it, and make sure they and others are scared to commit the same wrong again.”
“How much?”
“Genetico knowingly abused a woman’s body for their own secret purposes—I’m sure any lawyer worth his salt would ask for a hundred million dollars.”
“According to that piece in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, the entire company is only worth a hundred and eighty million.”
“So they would be ruined.