Blood Moon by Jackie French Page B

the best, and around here best is Rusty. Fine with me. Best mates with best and that means the cubs are the best of the best. Cubs are our future. But sex? If I can’t smell it, I don’t feel it. Simple. It’s a wolf thing,’ he said again.
    I hoped my Truenorm ready-to-have-sex-any-time-of-the-month scent wasn’t confusing him now. ‘But you’re more human than wolf.’
    ‘Because I talk? Feelings matter, not talk. Feel wolf, talk human,’ said Dusty, panting up at me with his wet red tongue.
    ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Back to the murders. You could have slipped off while everyone was asleep or when Emerald was up with the cubs and Eleanor in her study. Surely any of you could have if it came to that.’
    ‘Could have,’ said Uncle Dusty. ‘We didn’t. Couldn’t hide it from the clan if we did. Could smell a murder out.’ Again he gave that strange animal-shouldered shrug. ‘But how to prove that to a Truenorm? Don’t know.’
    Aunt Emerald was making scones. The kitchen smelt of hot flour and dog hair and Emerald’s hands were floury too, the flour sticking to her fur like chunky talcum powder. Outside the cubs laughed and tumbled with Uncle Dusty.
    ‘It’s the best sound in the world, isn’t it?’ said Emerald, her ears pricked in their direction.
    ‘What is?’
    ‘Children’s laughter.’ She rolled the scone dough neatly on the floured bench. ‘I hear that lots of people in the City don’t have children at all.’ She spoke as if the City were a foreign country.
    ‘Well, the world has enough people, don’t you think? It was unbearably crowded before the Decline. Besides, you can’t have children and do, well, lots of other things.’
    ‘Really? Wouldn’t know. Not the point anyway. You don’t have children to populate the world.’
    ‘What do you have them for?’
    ‘To keep you sane,’ said Emerald
    ‘What…?’
    ‘Maybe sane isn’t the right word.’ The dough was swiftly cut into rounds with a floured glass. ‘Keep you…balanced, is a better word. Stop you seeing the world in relation to yourself. You see the world differently when you have children.’
    ‘But…’ I had been going to say, but none of the children are yours. But then I realised that to Emerald—and Dusty and Rex and Lexie—the cubs were as much theirs as Eleanor’s and Rusty’s.
    ‘I’ve met some selfish people who have children.’
    ‘I don’t mean it’s a miracle cure. It’s just…something people should do. Have kids in their lives.’ She slid the tray into the oven. ‘Tea?’
    ‘Please.’ I knelt down at the table.
    ‘You really like that stuff? Water does me. The scones won’t be long.’ Emerald knelt opposite me. ‘Now I do like scones. Thought I wouldn’t when Eleanor found the recipe. Cubs like them too. All right, what do you need to know?’
    ‘I wish I knew,’ I said. Somehow it was easier to be honest with Emerald. With Eleanor there was always the faint feeling we were competing. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me who the murderer is?’
    ‘Or murderers. That’s Rex’s theory. You’ve spoken to him, haven’t you? No, I don’t know who the killer is.’ Iwaited for her to assure me it wasn’t one of them, but she didn’t.
    ‘Dusty said he could have done it.’
    Emerald smiled. ‘Dear Dusty. There’s no way he could have managed to do those murders.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Arthritis. That’s why he hasn’t gone with Rusty and the older kids in the floater. He can’t do any really heavy work any more, he can’t run far or fast either. Can’t even hunt nowadays. A rabbit can outrun Dusty.’
    ‘Why can’t he be regenerated?’ I wasn’t used to untreated debilitating conditions. Surely arthritis belonged to the past.
    ‘Wolf genes, remember? Need a City pass for that sort of treatment.’
    ‘Some sort of medicine then?”
    ‘We don’t always respond to drugs as Truenorms do. All the family gets arthritis as we get older. Rex has it, Lexie’s crippled by