The Reckless Engineer

by Jac Wright

  She was therefore surprised by the intensity of her own feelings when a year later the newly hired Michelle started going after Jack. The stupid cow was clearly after Jack’s money and was on some kind of jealous and spiteful power trip against her.

  Sally soon got over Jack after getting herself drunk and having a good long cry, but what she could not stand were the insults and the professional disrespect at work. Jack, who had no interests other than work had called her a geek, (mocked her psychological analysis of Big Brother) in front of that tart and the other engineers. She watched the nightmare unravel around her as Michelle, who had no education other than C grade O levels and no electronics training, started assuming the role of her personal boss, ignoring her testing requirements and cutting her off from important engineering meetings.

  By the time Michelle started work with Marine, Jack had been spending two or three nights or an occasional day he took off as sick leave with her. She had been enjoying trying to introduce the nerd to sailing and skiing, her most recent discoveries. However, ever since that Friday Michelle first stole his attention, Jack had stopped all that cold turkey.

  Sally asked Jeremy, by then Jack’s best friend, to smooth things over so that at least they could be good friends and work together in a fair way. Jeremy had tried his best to smooth things over, she was sure, but upon receiving pouting and sulking from Michelle, Jack went right back to avoiding her again.

  Finally Sally turned to Alan, asking him to help her stop her growing isolation from her team.

  Alan became very angry at Michelle’s behaviour.

  ‘I knew there were some difficulties from Michelle’s interference in Engineering. A couple of my other engineers have mentioned it to me, but I have been so tied up with our integration with AirWater Imaging that I had no idea she was getting so difficult,’ he explained.

  ‘Sally, AirWater Imaging wants me to appoint our best engineer to head up the product integration work, integrating Marine products with AirWater’s product portfolio. They want the integration engineer to work for six months from the AirWater engineering headquarters in San Hose, near San Francisco, the place that used to be called “The Silicon Valley” in the good old days. I need you for this post.’

  Alan walked around and perched himself on the right edge of the table. ‘I know you like to travel. I am happy for you to take the remaining four weeks of holidays and up to two extra weeks of unpaid leave at the end of that assignment to travel in the Americas. I shall have whatever going on here sorted out by the time you get back. How does that sound?’

  ‘Oh my God! I would love that.’

  Sally squealed in delight, sprang up from her seat, and hugged Alan before she realized what she was doing and blushed.

  ‘Thank you, Alan. You are a lifesaver,’ she said in a more restrained manner.

  ‘Well, you are doing me a great favour too, sweetheart.’ He laughed. ‘You and Jack are my top engineers and he has too many ties and involvements here for this project.’

  ‘So when do I leave?’

  ‘You’ll be flying Friday a week from now. Get ready for the trip love.’

  The time working at AirWater Imaging Engineering offices in California was arguably the best time of Sally’s life. She had time to travel over North America. She loved the familiar feel of expansive land in the US and made plans that this was where she wanted to settle. She would continue her work on this project with AirWater at Marine and eventually get a permanent transfer to the Cal headquarters, thus enabling her to get the Green Card to settle in the US.

  Back in Portsmouth, Sally returned to work at the Marine offices to a fresh onslaught of jealousy from Michelle. Michelle had convinced Jack that Sally was going over his head to Alan in order to take over Jack’s position as the head of the Radar team, and to drive Michelle out. Clearly Michelle had become professionally jealous of Sally’s growing prestige from her work with AirWater and personally jealous that Sally had also become Alan’s “go-to” engineer in the office.

  Sally was aware of fresh chaos breaking out in Jack’s private life by his family somehow getting on-going reports about his affair with Michelle, and she was also aware of Jack’s powerful father-in-law’s meetings with Alan about it. If Jack had been avoiding Sally before, he was now being actively aggressive to her. At least once a day he would shout at her and Michelle would screech at her. Michelle, who by now took the role of the engineering group secretary, was blocking Sally from most meetings, delaying equipment to her, and blocking even stationary supplies. Sally realized she was being severely bullied.

  Michelle had by now started seeking out and coming on to Alan. Sally was pained and very afraid. She sensed that Alan had a soft spot for herself and realized she had fallen for Alan too. She had known all along at the back of her mind that Jack had been a mistake, but she had fallen for Alan for all the right reasons. He was a strong and steady man, not a weakling like Jack. She tried to tell herself he would not be manipulated by superficial things. Still her heart was filled with dread for she had remembered believing similar things about Jack at one time. She had backed off and watched Michelle work her witchcraft on Jack at the time, the same things that she was now trying on with Alan. This time she was going to fight back!

  At their weekly integration meeting with Alan, Sally broached the subject of how difficult Michelle and Jack had become. She watched carefully for signs of where Alan’s loyalties lay. Alan shook his head, his face filled with exasperation.

  ‘I can’t afford to have this headache right now at this crucial time with AirWater. I’ve even had a couple of visits from Mr. Douglas McAllen, Jack’s father-in-law, about this situation and I have told him also that my hands are tied. I cannot lose Jack, my top engineer, right now. I have given both Jack and Michelle written warnings to behave professionally, Sally. If they breach the warnings I can look at this again. Please try to get over your personal feelings for Jack and work with him, Sally.’

  He came around and perched on her side of the desk again. ‘I’m off to AirWater Engineering to continue our work for a few months, and my flight for California is booked for next week. Try to forget about your feelings for Jack and focus on our work on this side while I’m away. I have to get the engineering division’s reorganization plans approved by AirWater and then I can deal with this mess when I get back.’

  Sally nodded, half-smiling at Alan’s belief that she was still pining and fighting over Jack. She hated the asshole and it was Alan that she loved. You’re my hero. But she smiled and said nothing.

  After Alan’s departure, the daily shouting, the screaming, and the bullying intensified. Michelle cornered Sally in the ladies’ room one day and snarled at her to stay away from Alan, that Alan wanted to get both Jack and Sally out of the way and that it was her, Michelle, whom Alan wanted. Did she not know that Alan got rid of Sally by sending her off to the US? She suggested Alan had started going out with Michelle covertly while she was “out of their way”.

  Was that what Alan was hinting, associating Jack with herself so that Michelle would be free for him?

  It suddenly hit her that it was Michelle and not her that both Jack and Alan wanted. For a week she looked around for another job that would allow her to realize her dreams of settling in the UK and eventually in the US, but found no other post in the still tough economy. To satisfy the conditions of her Australian work visa to the UK, the hiring company would have to justify that her skills could not be filled by hiring a UK citizen or a permanent resident, and with so many engineers in the market this was difficult to do.

  She couldn’t stand this. After another encounter with Michelle, Sally drove home during lunch, taking the rest of the day off. Dejected, depressed, and filled with dread from long sustained bullying, Sally cleared out a section at the back of her garage and commenced the meticulous process of creating and refining the poison. She ordered some of the chemical compounds and the lab equipment over the Internet and drove out and bought th
e rest in person. She also bought rolls of cellophane, and half a dozen laboratory kits she had used for working in dust and contamination free silicon laboratories. Back in her garage she layered the floor and the walls of the cleared space with cellophane and placed the big black bin, also layered with cellophane, in a corner of the space. It took Sally a day and a half to get this preparation done.

  The next day she woke up and went back to work and filed a sick note for her absence of the day and a half, telling herself that she was just getting the stress out of her system. It took a further two and a half weeks for the material she had ordered to arrive. As and when they arrived she simply put everything in the space at the back of her garage and left it there.

  A few weeks later Michelle got Jack, still technically her boss, to reassign her integration project with AirWater to Aaron. Michelle cornered her in the bathroom again and taunted her that Alan had emailed them instructions to do so. That work with Alan and AirWater was her ticket to love and the life she wanted.

  Sally was crying and sobbing on the drive home. She went straight in the garage and started the chemical processes. After each stage she wrapped the residual material and the kit used in cellophane and stored it all in the black bin, before proceeding to the next stage of the chemical process. It took two further weeks to complete the composition and the refinement of the potassium ferrocyanide and in turn the purified cyanide.

  Sally bought a small drinks refrigerator for the garage. In it she stored the three boxes of Cavalier chocolates she had carefully injected with the cyanide. She took three small vials and carefully put some of the poison in each and sealed them. Then she sealed them in a freezer bag each and them stored under the driver’s seat of her Golf.

  Sally did all this in a state of distress and rage, imagining herself to again be in her silicon laboratory working complex electronics. She then cleaned up, drank a beer, and fell asleep for twelve hours.

  When she woke up she told herself again that this was crazy. She had just been working out her stress and despair. She took another day off to go sailing. The next day she went back to office and put in a sick note for the days she had missed. She tried her best to keep her head down, focus on her work, and forget about it. In the evenings she put in applications to other vacancies.

  As soon as she arrived at work on Friday the 8th of October she was called into a meeting room on the ground floor and made to wait a good half hour before Jack walked in with Michelle. Jack handed her a notice in an envelope that AirWater Marine was terminating her appointment with immediate effect due to misconduct.

  Sally froze with fear. Had they found out what she had been doing in her garage? That was impossible. She had done nothing outside her garage and the garage has been secured with a massive padlock.

  ‘What misconduct? Jack, might I speak to you alone?’

  ‘No, Michelle is here to take notes for HR. It’s about the letters that you have been writing to my family.’

  ‘What letters? Please, Jack, I need this job for my visa. Can we talk to Alan?’

  ‘Alan has approved this dismissal,’ Michelle interjected. ‘He sent that notice by email from AirWater this morning asking us to serve it on you.’

  ‘I have to take your security pass now.’ Jack picked up her key card. ‘Security is outside the door to escort you to your car. Your belongings have been packed and are waiting for you at the reception.’

  Jack turned around and left the room.

  She left with the security guard, feeling like a zombie. Michelle had turned Alan against her too. She had put four years into that job and now she had been refused even a reference. Jack and Michelle had ruined her life, her whole career. Engineering was everything to her. It was what she lived for.

  Security waited for Sally to drive out of the Marine car park. She headed straight toward Jack’s house. She parked her car on a side street and out of sight close to the McAllen-Connor mansion and waited for Jack to come home. About 12:30 she put on a pair of leather gloves and took out one of the small vials from under her seat.

  Jack drove home about one in the afternoon. Sally followed his car and waited for him to drive in through the gates. She then followed him into the grounds before he could close the gates again, pulling up behind his car, the driver’s side of her car close to Caitlin’s bushes. She opened her door and threw the vial concealed in her glove into the side bushes.

  Now she would get out and plead for her job without Michelle there to manipulate Jack, she thought. If he were reasonable she would just take her job back and forget about this. If nothing worked she would wait quietly for things to calm down during which time she would clean out her garage and carefully dispose of the material she had in it. She would clean out and sell her car. Before Alan got back she would post a box of chocolates through Michelle’s letterbox in the dead of the night. With Michelle and Jack gone her career and visa would be safe. Alan would be hers again.

  Things at the McAllen mansion went a little worse than Sally had expected. Jack reacted angrily and violently to seeing her invade his home, and the dogs came at her from every direction. She kicked Jack in rage and panic, but froze when the big German shepherd charged at her.

  Sally remembered the police at the scene driving the dogs off her. They gently pulled her onto the stretcher from the ambulance and attached her hands and ankles to the metal poles of the stretcher with leather straps.

  Then she went out like a light.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Week Leading Up To

  When Sally regained consciousness she found herself in the hospital room where she would later be waiting for her Section 2 Appeal hearing. Her right ankle was strapped to the metal railing of the bed. Her left shoulder and upper arm were bandaged and pangs of pain were biting her shoulder with every breath.

  ‘How are you doing, my dear?’ The nurse seated outside her room saw her sit up on her bed and came in. Sally had had a nervous breakdown at her bosses’ house the day before, the nurse explained. Her shoulder had been wounded by her boss’ dogs biting her. She had been taken to the Accident and Emergency ward first where her wounds had been treated, and she had then been brought here because people at her work were concerned about her attacking her boss and her state of mind. The nurse treated her kindly and, after wiping her face with a warm wet towel, gave her water and a tuna sandwich.

  Soon thereafter the doctor came in.

  ‘How are you feeling, my dear?’ He examined her injured arm.

  ‘I feel like shit. I just want to die.’ She told him the truth.

  The doctor explained that she was in the hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act because she might harm herself or others.

  ‘Have you got any family here?’

  Sally just shook her head.

  ‘That’s okay. We have treated your wounds and you are on a course of antibiotics and strong painkillers. Just say here and rest. We will look after you, sweetheart.’

  She signed the papers put before her and said that she had no one she wanted to inform, that she just wanted to be left alone.

  The doctor nodded kindly. ‘The nurse will be outside your door if you need anything. I’m Dr. Harding. Ask for me if you start feeling bad.’

  The next time Sally woke up she called the nurse in and asked again where she was. The nurse patiently explained the same events to her again.

  ‘My car,’ she remembered.

  ‘The police have towed your car and left it in the A2 car park. If you look out from the window in the lounge you can see it. Everything is safe. Just get well, sweetie.’

  When it was dark Sally felt in her pockets and found her penknife, her mobile phone with its battery dead, and on the key ring attached to the penknife the extra keys to her car and her house. The police had brought her straight to the A & E in a hurry and had omitted to search her. She hid everything by ripping the underside of her mattress slightly and stuffing them in.

  When the doctor visited h
er that night she said she was feeling much better. He then asked the nurse to remove the strap around her ankle. She was finally able to walk out to the lounge into which the doors of three rooms in the unit opened. Sally could see she was on the third floor of a new built wing attached to an old Victorian building. From the window of the lounge she could see her car in the parking lot.

  She wanted to get out of here, to go home to her bed. Jack had put her here, she thought with anger. She tried to walk out but was stopped at the elevator. It was a secure prison that she was in. The elevator was locked and the entrance, guarded. There was a 24-hour watch on the residents in the unit by “nurses” in the lounge, each doing an eight-hour shift. They were really security guards, she knew, disguised as nurses.

  The next day she stood by the window of her room the whole day thinking about what had happened and longing to be back in her own bed. She was being held prisoner in a psychiatric ward and Michelle and Jack had put her here. Soon her visa would expire and would not be renewed without Marine’s backing. She would not be able to get a job, even back home, without a reference from Marine. She wanted to go home so badly, home to her own bed.

  She would pull off an Escape from Alcatraz, she decided.

  The window in her room was double glazed and one that opened up and out. Two metal rods that folded in half when closed held the metal frame of the pane from opening more than 4 or 5 inches out. She slipped her engineering penknife out and fitted one of the screwdrivers into the head and unscrewed the screw attaching the right rod to the window frame. Now she could push the right side out by putting her weight on it. She screwed it back on, but she had bent the left rod while pushing the windowpane out to see how far it would give. She could not close the window properly now.

  Sally called the nurse in and asked for an extra duvet, a bed sheet, and a pillow for when she might wet her bed. She asked for another set from the next nurse; and so on until she had a dozen extra sets in her cupboard.