The Chemical Detective

by Fiona Erskine

  Frank’s voice was ice-cold. ‘When were you going to tell me about the delay?’

  ‘It’s not my fault.’ Ivan sounded as if he gargled gravel. ‘The Roseboro control system didn’t arrive. The supplier messed up the order and it went to someone else. We had to specify a new one, start from scratch.’

  ‘Unacceptable.’

  ‘We’re working round the clock.’ Ivan spoke in a slow voice, ill-suited to conveying a real sense of urgency. He’d been savagely effective before, precisely why he’d been selected to lead the project. This time he’d been promoted beyond his competence: the Peter Principle. He droned on. ‘We have a limited number of workstations . . .’

  ‘Get more,’ Frank said. Was he the only person who could see the big picture? He grew so weary of engineers who lost themselves in the detail, couldn’t see the wood for the veins of the leaves on the trees.

  ‘Then we’d need more people to program them,’ Ivan said.

  Did he need to be spoon-fed? ‘So, hire them,’ Frank said.

  Ivan let out a long sigh. ‘They are specialists, hard to find, and anyway, we can only make changes one at a time.’

  The question shot out like a bullet. ‘Why?’

  ‘Safety tests.’

  ‘I don’t care about fucking safety tests. Just make some fucking product.’ Frank snapped his fingers. ‘Doesn’t matter how you do it. Do whatever it takes.’

  ‘But Zagrovyl company policy—’

  Frank ground his teeth. The company was infested with gold-plated, time-wasting standards written by idiots, head office pen-pushers who needed a detailed risk assessment to paint white lines in a car park. His jaw locked, and the words slipped through clenched teeth. ‘You heard me. Start now. Test later.’

  ‘It’s too late to make any product this quarter,’ Ivan said.

  Fury rose from the pit of Frank’s stomach and flared outwards. The Russians had lied. Ivan had looked him in the eye a year ago, shaken his hand on a promise to start up on time. Ivan had failed. Frank pressed a fist against the vein that throbbed in his neck, clenching until the knuckles turned white.

  Ivan the terrible. Ivan the useless. Ivan would have to go, and his whole team as well. What was the proverb Pauk had used? Beda nikogda ne prihodyit odna. Trouble never comes alone.

  While Frank sacked the Smolensk project team, Raquel collected the evidence for retrospective justification.

  Now they were heading back to England, going back to ask some questions, to instil some discipline, to kick some ass, to ensure that no Zagrovyl project was ever late again. Fear, that’s what really motivated people.

  Frank freshened his drink and spooned a little caviar onto a blini, already loaded with cream cheese and smoked salmon. He popped it in his mouth, licked his fingers and opened the report.

  His pulse quickened as he scanned the full list of missing deliveries to the Smolensk factory, more than he had realised, millions of pounds’ worth of equipment and materials ordered but never delivered: a control system, a glass reactor and columns, stainless steel tanks. Several disputes were ongoing with suppliers who claimed the material had been dispatched. It never arrived, and yet the books balanced. Physical things were missing but the accounts showed nothing amiss. There was more to this than met the eye.

  As he flicked back through the pages of high-value transactions, two company names caught his eye. Both beginning with S.

  Snow Science – the name rang a bell. An exceptionally difficult customer, the complaints, returns and credit notes were much higher than their consumption, ten times, in fact. What did an alpine research centre want with so much stuff? And why so many fuck-ups?

  And SLYV – why was a Russian transport company paying Zagrovyl and not the other way around? Since when did a haulier pay for the privilege of moving material across Eastern Europe? He flicked back and forth. He could find no record of any reject material from Teesside ever being received in Smolensk.

  Frank looked up at the white ceiling and pictured the list from the Teesside warehouse. Yes, Snow Science was on that list too. Deliveries from England, rejected in Slovenia, shipped to Russia but never received. Where had it gone? Where had everything else gone?

  Should he show this new information to The Spider to speed up the investigation? Frank rose and paced to the window. A ground marshal waved coloured sticks to guide a plane onto the stand. No, let Pauk work for his outrageous fee; let him reach his own conclusions, find out what else lay beneath this thin carapace of respectable accounting. Raquel had uncovered something murky, something rotten.

  The little prickle of excitement swelled and fizzed. Information is power. There was nothing he relished more than catching someone with their fingers in the till, and then destroying them. The hunt was on. Frank would do some investigating himself.

  No tannoy announcements in the executive lounge: a pretty hostess sought him out and whispered that his flight was ready for boarding. Passengers here were treated as people, not cattle. As Frank rose, he noticed Raquel still obstinately sitting beside the reception desk. He could have used his platinum loyalty card to sign her in as a guest, but as he was travelling business class and she was only economy, he didn’t see why he should. If everyone came in here, then it would hardly be executive any more.

  He’d choose more carefully next time. He expected more of his female travelling companions than mere competence. When he got back he would definitely organise some bonding activities, some team building to break down barriers. Maybe a bit of mud and grime was what she needed to loosen up. Pain and fear might encourage a friendlier response in future.

  Frank smiled to himself.

  Thursday 10 March, Jesenice, Slovenia

  Bright sunshine lit the valley as the bus from Kranjskabel emerged from the shadow of the mountains and turned south towards Ljubljana. Jaq tugged at a window, desperate for fresh air. The noise of water, gurgling down the steep slopes, cascading towards Lake Bled, heralded the start of the big melt. Spring was poised, fluttering in the wings, ready to chase winter away.

  So that was that. The end of her association with Snow Science. One season in the Alps. Her brief career in avalanche control at an end. Her professional reputation in tatters. Again.

  What next? She’d agreed to talk to Detective Wilem Y’Ispe in Ljubljana once the forensic results came back. The date wasn’t fixed, but she refused to hang around waiting. The mountains loomed above the town, closing in on her, turning the once-beautiful valley into a suffocating trap. Movement. Action. Get out of Kranjskabel. Out of Slovenia. Go somewhere to think. To act.

  She could fly to Lisbon, visit her mother in the convent nursing home. Try to convince herself that it was madness rather than hatred shining from those unblinking eyes. Then escape to the beach. Praia fora de época balnear. Deserted. Plunge into the ocean and bodysurf the Atlantic breakers. Sit by the water with sand between her toes.

  Was Gregor right, for once? What had he called her? A cold, unfeeling bitch. Had she brought this on herself? Disobeying direct instructions from her boss. Ignoring advice from Camilla. Ignoring the warning from Stefan. Poking into things that didn’t concern her. Concentrating all her energy to fight the consequences for her professional reputation while her extended family were going through turmoil.

  In response to a sudden quiver of shame, she typed a message to Cecile.

  Thinking of you. Can I help?

  She could hop to France from Ljubljana, visit her stepdaughter. There might be practical things requiring attention, stuff she could do. At least it would give her a focus while she was suspended. But how to avoid Gregor? She shuddered at the thought of having to spend time with him and his other ex-wife.

  Jaq leant her forehead against the glass. The imprint of the mountains, the jagged outline of the Julian Alps, were transformed into a spectrograph. She cast her mind back to the day she tested the samples. The first tests – before she met Camilla – were inconclusive; she had planned to run additional s
cans, but Laurent destroyed the samples.

  From what she remembered of the printout from the analytical lab, the spectrographic fingerprint, the first white crystalline solid had a more complex structure than ammonium nitrate. If not NH3NO3, then what was it?

  Urea? CO(NH2)2. The simplest answer. Another nitrogen fertiliser made by Zagrovyl. Somehow urea had been packed in ammonium nitrate bags. Incompetent. But hardly criminal.

  Urea nitrate? (NH2)2COHNO3. An explosive, just like ammonium nitrate, a substance easily manufactured by low-tech terrorists the world over. Take urea, a commonly available fertiliser, add acid and stir. But Zagrovyl didn’t manufacture urea nitrate, not as far as she knew.

  Spectroscopy was a powerful tool in the right hands. Bombard a substance with energy and see how it wobbles. Like identifying someone from the shadow they cast as they dance. But you have to find the right music to turn them on, and the right illumination.

  Analytical chemistry had never been her forte. Too fiddly. Damn her curiosity! She should have left the testing to Rita.

  Her phone pinged. A reply from Cecile.

  Nothing you can do. It would only upset Mum. Lily is out of danger. She has many challenges ahead but beautiful and loved. Dad still coming to terms with it all and being a total dick. Ignore him. Thanks.

  So, the baby had a name at last. Lily. And Jaq wasn’t needed. The relief made her sink back into the seat, away from the window. Cecile had confirmed her gut reaction: she would not be welcome in France right now.

  She ran through the inquiry again in her mind, groaning aloud as she remembered the disappointment in Sheila’s eyes. Even her friend thought her capable of gross negligence, guilty as charged.

  Was Sheila right? Was it Jaq’s fault that someone had blown up part of the explosives store? Had she given them both motive and means?

  Someone had taken her keys. But how? They were always with her at work, never out of her sight. When she was doing fieldwork, they accompanied her in a zipped compartment of her bag. She kept the ten work keys on the same key ring as her two personal ones. She couldn’t get into her bedsit without them.

  Someone had copied her keys. But when? While she was asleep? She slept alone, or with Karel. He was cooking dinner when the break-in took place. And making love to her when the explosion happened. There was no way he could be involved. Apart from when she was with Karel, was there any time she had let them out of her sight?

  Jaq slapped her forehead and groaned aloud. Last week. Tuesday morning. The meeting with Camilla at Café Charlie. Camilla taking her bag. Hanging it up for her, covering it with her ski jacket. A man with a briefcase brushing past. She closed her eyes, trying to picture the man. Think. No memory of his face; she hadn’t got a good look at him. Had he snatched her bag from under the jacket while she talked to Camilla? Thrown it back under the hook before she left? Pressed the side of each key into some sort of special putty? Too old school. Scanned them with a 3D scanner? Could you fit a 3D scanner in a briefcase? Was Briefcase Man working with Camilla? An accomplice? Was the meeting with Camilla engineered in order to copy her keys?

  What was it Camilla had said? Keep away. Stay safe. Don’t get involved. It could be dangerous. Camilla knew something. More than she was telling. Merda.

  Jaq rummaged in her bag until she found Camilla’s business card. She dialled. No answer. No option to leave a message. She was about to cut the call when she noticed. Something was different. What? The ringtone: not the long European beeep-beeep, but a vibrating English dring-dring. So, Camilla was no longer in Slovenia. She was back in England. Where? The address on the card. Teesside. The last place Jaq wanted to visit. Far too close to home.

  The Snow Science inquiry had been laughably biased. Jaq didn’t fit into their stereotypes. A grandmother leaving a nightclub with a sexy young man. They would punish her for that. Well, she wasn’t going to let them. Jaq’s mouth hardened. She had fought this sort of accusation before; she’d fight it again. Not with emotion. With facts. And win. Again.

  Destination: Teesside.

  Mission: find Camilla.

  PART II: PAVANE ENGLAND

  Friday 11 March, Teesside, England

  The blue bridge straddling the River Tees loomed through the mist. Brown water oozed past a crumbling grey wharf underneath the dilapidated warehouse. Boris reversed the artic into the loading bay, swerving sharply as Mario emerged from the shadows. The swarthy Venezuelan yanked open the passenger door. Boris suppressed a cough as blue cigar smoke invaded his lungs.

  ‘The Spider sent me.’ Mario hopped into the cab with a face like thunder.

  Boris shifted into neutral and tugged at the handbrake. The air brakes hissed.

  ‘The Snow Science route is closed, patrón.’ Unflinching, Boris met Mario’s fierce gaze, impassive, glittering eyes almost lost under thick black eyebrows.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ Mario growled.

  Boris swallowed hard. ‘Yuri took the wrong material. He left a precious consignment behind at Snow Science.’

  ‘Yuri is a fucking imbecile.’

  Boris made eye contact. ‘Yuri was a fucking imbecile.’

  Mario grinned, a thick-lipped leer that revealed teeth of impossible whiteness. ‘You cleaned up?’

  ‘Yes, patrón.’

  Silver, the kurva from Snow Science, had lied to him. Thanks to the Hungarian customs inspection, he’d looked closely at the returned pallet. Sample slits in every fucking bag. Back at the Snow Science warehouse, he’d knocked Stefan around a bit to get what he needed. The samples were nowhere to be found, but he found something else, something more interesting. Hidden inside the vending machine.

  Boris sat up straight, military-style. ‘I retrieved the consignment. Dealt with the witness. Destroyed the evidence.’ He reached into the top pocket of his tartan shirt. ‘But I found this.’ He handed Mario a memory stick, a nub of hard plastic the size of his fingernail ending in a silver USB connector.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ Mario held it up to the cab light. The black plastic glinted with a faint lilac sheen.

  Boris extracted a sheaf of papers from the glovebox, computer printouts, tables with rows and rows of data, and handed it over.

  240211 1845 54.597255, -1.201133, 800X, 0C,

  250211 0608 51.126460, 1.327162, 152X, 648C,

  250211 1145 50.966220, 1.862010, 152X, 648C,

  250211 1904 48.585741, 7.758399, 152X, 648C,

  2502112325 47.799400, 13.043900, 152X, 648C,

  260211 0606 46.502800, 13.794400, 152X, 648C,

  010311 0823 46.533200, 15.601100, 72X, 648C,

  030311 1641 47.45952, 18.99284, 72X, 648C,

  040311 0207 51.532153, 29.575247 Error, Error,

  Error, Error, Error, Error, Error, Error,

  Signal lost

  Boris flinched as Mario whacked the pile of paper with the side of his hand. ‘Explain.’

  ‘I downloaded the information from the memory stick. Printed it out. It’s data from a Tyche tracker.’

  ‘How the hell do you know that?’

  Boris detected a new note of respect hidden beneath the bluster. ‘I used to work for Tyche, patrón.’

  ‘Tie Chee? Who the fuck is he?’

  ‘It’s a company.’ Boris spelt it out. ‘T-Y-C-H-E. The bastards fired the boss, but not before he copied their ideas.’

  ‘You worked with The Spider at this company . . . Tyche?’

  ‘He hired me.’ Both times.

  Mario shrugged and leafed through the printouts. ‘Where did you find these?’

  ‘The memory stick was hidden in the Snow Science warehouse.’ Boris locked his arms behind his head and stretched. Fortunately, the key was beside it; even so, it had still taken him a while to hack into the data. ‘Someone has been watching us.’

  Mario’s olive complexion paled. ‘Who?’

  Boris shrugged. He had his suspicions, but he wasn’t playing his hand yet.

  ‘How long?’

  Bo
ris extracted the bottom page from the bundle and pointed to the left-hand column: year, month and day.

  ‘Merda.’ Mario twiddled his moustache. ‘From the beginning. How close did they get?’

  Boris grabbed the top page. He entered the GPS coordinates from the third column into his phone and showed the screen to Mario. ‘Signal lost at the border with Belarus.’

  ‘Bueno.’ Mario smacked his thick lips together. ‘And you cleaned up at Snow Science? You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Boris smirked. Amazing what a blob of Semtex could do in the right hands. ‘But there is something else, patrón.’

  Boris handed him the key he found with the papers. Silver, the shape of a bottle opener with a red spot.

  Mario stroked the shaft with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘Hidden with the papers, but it doesn’t open anything at Snow Science. I checked.’

  A squall of rain rattled the roof of the cab. Mario turned on the cab light and carefully inspected the key. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘A secure locker.’ Boris puffed up his chest. Mario and The Spider were going to have to take him seriously after this. ‘With the Tyche tracker hidden inside.’ He pointed to the printout. ‘Somewhere in the zone of alienation.’

  Mario lit his cigar and stared out into the rain. He handed the key back. ‘I need to think.’

  Boris turned away to hide his smirk. Mario didn’t know how to think. He was going to call the boss.

  ‘You want me to clean up here as well?’

  They relocated every few months, always one step ahead of the authorities. Fast and flexible. The hardest bit of the operation was getting the raw materials, but The Spider had friends with access. A little here, a little there, put the losses down to yield efficiency. Find a worker with a grudge. Bypassed for promotion. Moved sideways in the name of efficiency. Make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Exactly how Boris had started.