'Andrew is safe, tell him to come home, it's over. All of it is over! '

Linda stood, face pale with shock and disbelief.

She walked over to Grant, hugging the Agent spilling tears against her shoulder, chest heaving as she sobbed, uncontrollable emotions coursing through her body.

Minutes passed, neither woman was in a hurry to let the other go.

Sharing the moment, relief and hope for the first time in so many years, amid so much shared loss.

Grant thought of her husband. Had Lucas died chasing down a child who was actually innocent?

Poor Robert McDonald, pushing himself to the very limits, literally working himself to death, just to save a child that didn't need saving!

She also felt a pang of sympathy for the architect of all this misery, not for Renée, but for the man he once was, his wife and child.

Too much loss to bear, a broken mind, searching for some kind of surreal sense, in the cruelty of his former life.

'Renée's dead. All his wicked tricks exposed, his work deleted, the database back to normal. '

She saw Linda tense.

'Don't worry, Andy's results were fine, he's perfectly normal, they're all perfectly normal kids! '

She went on to explain the evil con that Renée had operated for decades.

'Think about it, he had the perfect marks. Moms and dads, worried about the upcoming 180s, those prone to fret, seeking reassurance before the actual results.

Those people, we, were already half expecting the worst, convincing ourselves that it was a possibly, torturing ourselves with worry for our babies.

We'd set ourselves up for this long before we even heard of Renée! '

'But the results, I saw him run the tests with my own eyes? '

'Those initial tests, the pre-180 tests, were fake, pure and simple. Renée had, according to our Techs, pre-programmed his computers to spit out a percentile that was DDV, no matter what the sample was! He had no idea what the actual scores were. Whether they were in the eighties, nineties, even that impossibly dangerous 100%, Renée simply didn't care!

He gave each victim a high result, then scammed them, us, by inserting a safe number, for which we paid him…oh boy, did we pay him! '

'So he did hack into the database? Was capable of changing results? '

'Yes, but where he fell down was by not using the original scores, he simply didn't know them!

Once our Techs had discovered the anomalies, it was just…I say just…poor Alan's been working round the clock to solve this...a matter of comparing original results with those scoring high.

The database was perfect, the System is running perfectly.

All Innocents, Andy, and my son Luke….'

She smiled to herself, the first time she'd been able to call him Luke.

'All surviving victims can get on with their lives, the parents too! '

'But won't the Agency come after us, for trying to defraud, dodge the law?'

'I've consulted my bosses on this, had a very awkward conversation indeed, told them that, on the night we first met, I was actually on my way to Renée's.

I was going to arrest him, Linda, conspiracy to commit blackmail, data hacking, fraud, the whole nine yards!

I knew Lucas and I would face charges, maybe even the shredders, but I couldn't live with myself knowing that monster was still out there destroying lives.

Thank goodness that Alan discovered the truth whilst I was still halfway there!

Anyway, seeing as all those kids were not, in fact, dangerous, given we were trying to protect an Innocent, the Agency has decided that there are no Cases to pursue, no Crime has actually been committed.

Now, if one of those children had been an EB?'

She apologised, embarrassed for using work slang, awful jargon.

'Sorry, if they'd been dangerous, the DDV score being truly high, then, yes, the Agency would have to prosecute…but Linda, none of them were!

And with the death of the true criminal behind all this, with him gone, that is that. It's all over!'

'Did you catch whoever did this? '

Emma smiled gently.

'In a world where murder is genetically impossible, and, given Renée's fascination with the surreal, the Agency is chalking this up to a weirdly surreal, very macabre, suicide.

Must've been, because, if not, someone out there, someone with a normal 180, would actually be capable of committing Homicide…and we all know, no matter what the provocation, that is impossible! '

On her way out of the flat, Grant placed the small golden thistle she'd found at the scene of Renée's death, on Linda's bureau, next to the picture of her husband and son.

Freewayriding

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