‘Well when I tried to make conversation with on Friday he practically bit my head off!’ said Nick, huffing a bit.
‘He was probably just tired at the end of the week, I don’t know why you seem so down about it. Try to chill out a bit.’
Nick didn’t reply to that comment, he couldn’t share his suspicions with Polly or the usual argument would just start again. She would talk about his conspiracy theories and storm out of the room. He would wait until he had evidence and then she wouldn’t be able to argue with him.
‘Dinner should be about twenty minutes,’ said Nick, ‘do you want to go and get changed?’
‘Great, I’m starving, glad it’s not going to be long,’ she said, popping into their bedroom leaving Nick alone in the kitchen thinking about the day ahead.
**
Detective Sergeant Andy Walters had contacted the area drug squad to share the information Wayne Roberts had imparted. They were extremely interested as an informant in another area had overheard something similar concerning a major player in the drugs trade wanting to expand into Persford. Things were apparently getting a bit hot for him in the region he had served for many years and he had moved to pastures new. They’d tried surveillance on him but so far he’d been too clever for them. He had a large network and someone must have informed him that he was being observed by the police so he had lain low for a while. Covert surveillance was extremely costly for the police and could not be continued indefinitely so presumably after being patient he had now moved up a gear and was in business again.
Persford was a big place, even if he moved to the area he would no doubt rent somewhere using false documents and he would have doubtless changed his car by now, so they needed to be smart in order to track him down. Unless they got more information from someone like Wayne or other dealers it was going to be very hard to track him down. Detective Inspector Mills in the drug squad thought that perhaps they would have better success tracking down the laboratory where the drugs were being made. Andy Walters told him this was a great idea, well he had to try to say that but he also tried to tactfully point out that Persford was a university town with a science park and therefore a huge number of laboratories. They also had no idea whether Wayne’s information was correct, he might have got confused and in fact, it was just a makeshift lab in someone’s garage or kitchen. It might help when they had the information back from the analysts about what was in the packages that Wayne was dealing. He claimed to have forgotten what the drug was, rather conveniently. They were hoping to have the results back tomorrow. Then they should have an idea what they were looking for, exactly where it was being made was an entirely different matter.
**
Zac phoned Cole and he answered after a couple of rings.
‘I’m taking Nick to The Wheelbarrow tomorrow. We’ll be there at 8 p.m. I don’t want to be stuck with him too long, so at 9.30 p.m. I’m going to suggest we call it a day and we will leave. I’ve been checking out the streets around there and I’ll say I know a shortcut back to the town. I’ll take him down the passage at the side of Allenby Road, it cuts through to Kitchener Street. That’s where you should get your boys stationed. Make sure they know which one Nick is! He’s about five feet ten inches, remember I’m over six feet. I hope your boys can make out which is the smaller one of the two and he’s the one who’s to be put out of action,’ Zac felt quite out of breath after that speech, he’d been keen to get through all the details without forgetting anything.
‘I don’t think that’s too complicated to follow,’ said Cole sarcastically, ‘I will take care of it. Now after that’s sorted out we need to arrange a time to transfer the goods. Will Thursday be OK for you?’
‘Well providing I just get a little slap tomorrow night and don’t end up in hospital we can do the transfer. Shall I drive and meet you somewhere?’
‘No need, I’m coming to Persford, as I’m expanding my empire I’ve got people to see, things to do. I’ll be in touch with a suitable meeting place. Bye for now.’
So Cole rang off and Zac felt a bit more relaxed. After tomorrow evening Nick would be out of his hair.
Chapter 27
Brett Chandler woke on Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. Today he needed to spend some time preparing a presentation package for BQ-896 assuming that it met all the objectives. They wouldn’t go public until they were completely sure all the boxes had been ticked. He also needed to meet with the Chief Financial Officer to talk figures. They needed to be prepared and decide a figure they would accept if it was deemed sufficiently attractive to one of the bigger companies. Frank was a cautious chap and he was also concerned that their coffers were being emptied more quickly than he had anticipated following the expansion. He wanted to sound out the possibility of another rights issue on the stock market. It had to be a balance between deciding how much they wanted to raise and not asking too much otherwise the city would be spooked that the company was on its uppers. They also needed to ensure that if there were a placing all the shares would be taken up by investors. Getting left with millions of shares which had to be bought by the underwriters would be equally damaging to the reputation of BioQex.
Now that Brett was CSO there were so many issues he needed to get involved with that he’d never considered before. It was a steep learning curve for him and it was stretching his capabilities. Still, he felt he was doing a reasonable job, even Bob was moderately happy. He assumed he was happy, it was difficult to tell with Bob but he’d not been hanging around Brett’s office first thing in the morning moaning on about things.
He stretched and dragged himself out of bed, padded over to his en-suite bathroom and stepped into the shower. Whilst he was showering he thought how he’d become Mr Respectable. No longer gambling every evening, he was back in the black with his finances. He was even starting to think about pensions and savings. God, he must be getting old he thought. However, it was good to feel he was financially solvent these days. Running up large gambling debts was not much fun and he would not go back to those days. The only respectable form of gambling was investing in shares. Somehow buying and selling shares, even day trading was seen as respectable. He quite fancied it himself from time to time. The other good thing about this job was that on top of his salary he had been allocated actual shares in BioQex and share options which he could exercise from time to time depending on the price the shares were trading on the Stock Market. It was all very complicated and the tax treatment was even more complicated, but he needn’t worry about that at the moment, he’d only been with the company a short while. It would be good to think that if the shares went up steadily his total pay package would be even more than his payslip would suggest.
Life is good he thought to himself. He just wished he could find someone to share it with though. He did enjoy female company and it had been a while since he’d had a serious relationship and it was the gambling which scuppered that one. But now he was a reformed character he should be able to find someone. The trouble was at the moment he didn’t have any time to go and find that Miss Right. He’d had high hopes with Billie, although that was a bit silly in hindsight, they would have had to be very secretive. She was a stunning girl and he’d just got a bit carried along with starting his new job and the status. Fortunately he’d not made a complete fool of himself, thank goodness he’d offered to wait for her lift to arrive. He wondered what his face looked like when he’d seen Billie and Sam kissing. He tried to forget the whole episode, he probably wasn’t the first bloke to have made a pass at Billie, not that he had actually progressed that far. So after a quick coffee, he finished dressing, grabbed his briefcase and car keys and headed off to push back the frontiers of science.
**
Nick had passed another disturbed night, at 3 a.m. he went and lay down on the sofa so as not to upset Polly any more. After watching the news for a while with the TV on mute using the subtitles on he must have fallen asleep. When Polly came through to the lounge in the morning she found hi
m fast asleep with the TV still on in the background.
‘Nick, Nick it’s time to get up now,’ said Polly quietly. He seemed deeply asleep and she didn’t want to give him a shock by waking him suddenly. She would have liked to let him lay in but she knew he’d be annoyed with her, he liked to make an early start otherwise the traffic was bad. She was lucky to be able to walk to her job at the university. It usually took her about twenty minutes.
She was starting to worry about Nick again, he seemed to be getting very stressed. She couldn’t understand why this drink with Zac was causing him to be anxious. One minute he wanted to get to know people and now Zac had made the first move he didn’t seem happy about it. They would discuss it this evening and hopefully, by then, he would have a better idea about Zac.
**
Zac had slept reasonably well despite being worried about this evening. Perhaps it was sorting things out with Cole that had relieved some of his worries. He would feel even happier once he’d handed over the goods tomorrow evening, and had a nice fat wad of cash in his hand. He would have to pay it into the bank in instalments though, he didn’t want to raise suspicion by paying in nearly a thousand pounds all in one go. Perhaps he could give his brother some of the cash and get a cheque in return and that would help process some of it. He didn’t like to think of it as laundering the money even if that was what it was ultimately, it sounded too sordid. He did feel guilty from time to time but their penury was driving this behaviour. After all, life had dealt them some bad cards, losing their parents when they were so young was devastating. Anyway, this was a temporary activity, a means to an end and it would not continue forever.
Chapter 28
Andy Walters took a call from the forensic laboratory to inform him that the analysis of Wayne’s packages was complete and they believed them to contain phencyclidine, PCP, known on the street as angel dust, black whack and many other names. The material was of reasonable quality, but not the highest they’d seen. Andy thanked them very much and hung up. Well, that helps he thought, at least we know what we are looking for. There was no knowing whether this had been synthesised in this area or had come from a supply elsewhere and had filtered into the area by the drug dealers. They needed to come up with a plan as to how they might track down the laboratory. They could hardly go storming into every lab at the university and every company demanding to check what was happening. Besides, that would only alert the perpetrator. News travels fast in Persford he thought, if they went into one lab asking those sorts of questions then the jungle drums would start beating. If they were to solve this they needed to start thinking like an illicit chemist operating a drug empire. The problem was for Andy, thinking like a chemist was one thing he could not do, he thought like a copper.
**
Over in BioQex, the technical guys had arrived to sort out the analytical machines. Nick went in to chat to them and discovered that they needed to reload some software, change some circuits then recalibrate with some standards so it would be at least lunchtime before they were ready to let the staff use them. They then said they would hang around for a couple of hours to check there were no more problems once they were up and running. “Christ,” thought Nick, would he ever get this data? What’s more, he had to leave at a reasonable time as he needed to get home to get changed and allow time to get the bus. He’d looked up the times and they weren’t so frequent after 6 p.m. There was no direct bus from outside his flat, so he would have to walk for about ten minutes then get a bus which took about twenty minutes so to be on the safe side he’d need to leave his flat about 7 p.m. He also needed to have something to eat, he couldn’t go out drinking on an empty stomach. The traffic around 5.30 p.m. could be a nightmare, so he mustn’t be any later leaving work than then.
He was at his desk when Billie wandered over and spoke to him, ‘hi Nick, how’s things?’
‘Well OK, I suppose, we should be completely back to normal after lunch after Monday’s electric storm. What a nightmare it’s been,’ he said.
‘Yes, well we seem to be going in the right direction now,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Nick, sorry to spring this on you but we need to go through your plans, also Kirsty’s as I’ve got a meeting with Brett at 4 p.m. He’s just sprung it on me, sorry about the short notice. So can we get together at two, say?’
‘Oh, yes, that’s fine,’ replied Nick, inwardly groaning, that was the last thing he wanted, he needed to spend some time choosing an opportune time to run his data and he needed to be on hand so that if there was a queue of samples he would have to wait until his data printed, he didn’t want anyone else bringing it back off the printer as they sometimes did. They would be looking at it as they brought it into him and wondering whether it looked so different from all the other things they were making. However, he could hardly refuse to have a meeting with Billie, it would reflect very badly.
Zac seemed to be in quite a relaxed mood this morning, hopefully, it would continue into the evening. Well thought Nick to himself, you won’t be in such a good mood when I’ve finished my investigations. Mark the security guard had steered clear of the issue recently when they’d spoken or texted, he was probably worried about encouraging Nick to do anything reckless. Well I’ll have something to tell you soon, thought Nick.
**
At Bank Street police station Superintendent Peter Leighton was holding a meeting with Detective Inspector Rob Selhurst and Detective Sergeant Andy Walters regarding the recent information obtained from Wayne Roberts. Superintendent Leighton had been in telephone contact with the area drug squad and it seemed that PCP or angel dust was now becoming more prominent on the streets in surrounding counties. It was only a matter of time before it spread to Persford and became a serious nuisance. He’d been checking the recent statistics on drug-related arrests and convictions for Persford. Over the last few years, there had been a steady increase of about five percent each year apart from two years ago when there was a slight decrease. Although the figures were well below the worst boroughs in London the trend was worrying. All superintendents were actioned with reducing drug-related crime, failure to do so would reflect badly and this message had been recently reiterated by the Assistant Chief Constable for the area. Superintendent Leighton had his sights set on becoming Chief Superintendent or even an Assistant Chief Constable himself and he knew that the drug scene in Persford would be under scrutiny. Finding the local illicit drug laboratory was imperative. Drugs were an odious cancer in society and he was determined to do all he could to prevent the ruination of as many lives as possible. They needed to be active in preventing this scourge from infiltrating Persford and the meeting had been called to decide on a strategy.
‘Andy, how credible do you feel this information is from our old friend Wayne Roberts?’ asked the Superintendent.
‘I think it is credible sir,’ answered the sergeant thoughtfully. ‘After all, Wayne isn’t the brightest of guys and I don’t think he would make up something like this. His world concerns cannabis factories in people’s basements and garages, he’d not educated so I don’t think he concerns himself with what is going on at the science park for example. I doubt he could name any of the companies who have businesses there.’
‘Yes but I think he may be trying to mess us about. We’ve never had any illicit labs before in the town, as far as we know the drugs have been brought in from elsewhere. If discovered, that person would be waving goodbye to their career, they would never get a job in the industry again.’ Superintendent Leighton paused and rubbed his hand over his face, his gaze straying over to his office window.
‘Well that’s true sir, but at this stage, we just need to plan. Is there any way we could just contact the heads of the companies and ask if they can keep an eye out for any suspicious behaviour? But we need to emphasise not to give any hint to the perpetrator, we don’t want to tip them off.’
‘Well that’s the main problem isn’t it, someone always leaks something like this. I’m not sure.’
‘A question for you all,’ said Superintendent Leighton.
‘How easy is PCP to synthesise?’
There was no response.
‘Have you looked into this, is the synthesis easily available on the web?’
‘It probably is detailed but to an uneducated eye, it wouldn’t be apparent how difficult it would be,’ added Detective Sergeant Walters.
‘There’s another thing I want you to think about. Assuming you weren’t just handed the instructions of how to make it, perhaps the drug dealers do hand it out, I’ve no idea, but this is just a scenario I’m thinking about. You certainly wouldn’t want to look something like this up on your home computer or your work computer. The search history could be used in evidence if you were arrested.’ His two subordinates nodded, understanding what he was driving at. ‘Similarly, on a smartphone, it would need to be a Pay as You Go phone which also had internet access. Or a public computer. Do we have internet cafes anymore, they seem to have gone out of fashion.’
‘Well that’s because everyone has broadband at home nowadays or uses their data allowance from their providers,’ added Andy Walters.
‘Hmm, well it’s something we need to think about, we need to be one step ahead of this. I want the person responsible for this illicit drugs lab and I want him locked up.’
So the meeting ended with not many actions decided, they needed to go away and think about this and get back to the Superintendent with some effective plans.
**
Nick and Billie’s meeting finished at about quarter to four giving Billie time to get a coffee and visit the loo before her meeting with Brett. She seemed happy with Nick and Kirsty’s progress but she was obviously anxious about her meeting with Brett. Nick was so pleased she had that meeting scheduled as it meant he could get back to the lab to run his data. He collected his samples and headed off to the data room, the technicians had left for a break but their testing equipment was still there, so perhaps they were anticipating a further problem. Christ, I hope not muttered Nick to himself.
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