Lethal Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  **

  Mark and Nick arrived at the science park at about 7.15 p.m., there was hardly any traffic at that time on a Sunday evening. Mark parked near the BioQex building and left Nick in the car whilst he went to sign in and collect the keys for BioQex. He hoped he could have some time in the office alone whilst he went to the cupboard and swiped the keys. It would be difficult to explain why he needed them at that time of night when there hadn’t yet been any reports of a break-in or suspicious activity. The only suspicious activity is from me he thought wistfully.

  Nick nearly jumped out of his skin when his mobile rang fifteen minutes later. It was Mark telling him he was walking back over, it would take him about ten minutes. Then they would enter the building, collect the papers, Mark would drop Nick near the main entrance to the science park and he would have to phone for a taxi. It was nearly time now, Nick’s palms were sweating, his armpits were wet with sweat and his pulse racing. He hoped the stress wasn’t too much for him after his ordeal last week, he was starting to feel light headed. He tried to breathe deeply and closed his eyes to focus on positive thoughts. He was unaware that Mark had approached the car and cried out as he felt the door opening.

  ‘Shit, you gave me a shock!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Stop moaning and let’s get on with this,’ snapped Mark.

  They made their way over to the main entrance and Mark unlocked the two locks on the door. They both stepped into the lobby and Mark went over to the alarm panel and entered the code.

  ‘Lead the way,’ he said.

  Nick headed for the lift as he was still finding it awkward with his bruises.

  ‘Oi, this way, stairs,’ he said brusquely, ‘there’s no way I’m going to risk getting stuck in a lift with you tonight, that would just be too much.’

  So they climbed the stairs slowly, Nick leading the way and arrived at the open plan office area. It was eerily strange being here at night, completely silent, not even the noise of the computers. They walked silently across the carpeted area towards Nick’s desk. There were several piles of papers so Nick used the torch on his mobile phone to search through them.

  ‘Got them!’ he shouted.

  ‘Shush, for God’s sake,’ whispered Mark, ‘right, you got all you need now?’

  ‘Yes, but it means as they are on my desk Zac might have collected them and put them there so he might be on to me now.’

  ‘Well we can’t debate that right now, there’s no way of knowing, it could have been Kirsty or someone who collected them.’

  ‘True,’ said Nick, pausing as though he was working something out.

  ‘Right, let’s be on our way now,’ urged Mark.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Nick.

  ‘What now, for fuck’s sake, you’ve got what you wanted, now move.’

  ‘If Zac’s on to me he might try to find the samples I hid, but I was clever not to use the same code numbers on the samples in case he came looking for them but I know which they are. I think I should remove them from the lab and take them home with me, then I can give them in as evidence.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, you’ll be taking drugs into your flat, is that wise?’

  ‘But they won’t be there for long, I’ll be contacting the police later tomorrow, with the full package of my evidence.’

  ‘Well hurry up then, and make sure you put them in a plastic bag or something, not in your pocket, I don’t want them falling out in my car and contaminating it!’

  Nick hurried into the lab. ‘Ouch, my ribs,’ he shouted as he pushed the door open.

  ‘And don’t put the light on!’ shouted Mark, ‘it might be spotted from outside.’

  ‘Oh, good thinking, I’ll use my mobile.’

  Nick headed into the lab, he put on some disposable gloves and went over to his large collection of samples. He found the vials and went round to the drawer to find a plastic bag. He was so flustered he was all fingers and thumbs, he couldn’t get the bag open wearing his gloves, so he removed one but it fell to the floor.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered and automatically bent down to pick it up forgetting that his ribs were still very sore and he had to be careful how he moved.

  ‘Ow!’ he cried and clutched at the bench for support, his hand knocking into his phone which in turn knocked over a vial which rolled to the edge of the bench. He lurched to catch it, which elicited more cries of pain but missed it and the vial fell to the floor and broke. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck’ he cried, ‘Mark, you’ve got to come and help me!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Mark rushing in and cursing when he saw what had happened. He helped Nick up and brought over a stool to perch on.

  ‘Careful!’ shouted Nick, ‘the powder’s spilt on the floor, did you tread on it?’

  ‘Well I don’t know, I can’t see properly, I hope not! What do we do now?’

  ‘It’s OK, we only need a trace of material, we need to scrape it up off the floor. Go to that drawer over there and get two pieces of filter paper out, and use those to scrape up the powder, then the top drawer there contains the vials, you can scrape it into the vial and we can be on our way.’

  Mark obeyed the instructions whilst swearing away and cursing Nick all sorts of names.

  Finally, Nick told him to get some solvent on a couple of tissues and wipe up the remaining powder, they pushed those into a vial as well, and took the whole lot out of the lab.

  They were both soaked with sweat by this stage with all the tension of the episode. Nick collected his papers, stuffed the plastic bag containing the vials in his pocket and they headed downstairs to the reception. Mark told Nick to head out to the car park whilst he reset the alarm and locked up. It was so good to be out in the fresh air, the cooling breeze helping to dry some of the sweat on Nick’s face.

  ‘Shit!’ said Nick as he ran his hand over his face, he’d left his baseball hat on his desk. ‘You need to go back in Mark, I’ve left my hat on my desk, sorry,’ said Nick.

  ‘No way, forget it, I’m not going back in there. So what? It’s a hat, it could belong to anybody. People won’t think anything unusual if they do see it, they will assume you left it there before you had your assault.’

  ‘True,’ said Nick, ‘let’s go,’ and they got back in Mark’s car. He dropped Nick near the entrance to the science park where he could wait for the taxi he’d just ordered. I hope there’s a bench or something thought Nick, my legs are like jelly with all this Mission Impossible stuff. He felt absolutely dreadful but the thought of checking the data when he got back and having all the evidence was spurring him along.

  Chapter 43

  That Sunday night Brett went to bed happy and dreamt of Annabelle. He was now so glad he’d decided to move to BioQex, thanks to Piers he’d now met someone with whom he really felt he could share the future. The encounter had banished all worries and stresses of the week ahead. He must remember that the company’s future was by no means secure and its success largely in his hands. On his return from the barbecue that evening he’d decided to look through the papers he’d taken with him to London. At first, he started to panic as he couldn’t find one. It was the one with the notes concerning the draft press release. However, he found it in one of the several plastic wallets in his briefcase. He was sure it had been in the yellow coloured wallet, not the pink one, but he’d been looking at them on the train and the journey had gone more quickly than he thought so when the train arrived in London he had a bit of a scramble to put everything back in his bag, perhaps that was when the pages got shuffled.

  **

  Over at Nick’s flat, things were not as tranquil. Polly had enjoyed the film and returned to find Nick showered and ready for bed. He looked anything but ready to go to sleep, he was extremely agitated, he didn’t seem to be able to keep still. He was a high colour as well, although Nick simply passed it off as the result of the hot shower. Polly admonished him for taking a shower whilst she was out as he was still rather unsteady on his feet and could have slipped
. Nick got annoyed with her for fussing, took a load of painkillers and stomped off to bed. He put the TV on in the bedroom and when she went in about thirty minutes later he’d drifted off to sleep.

  However, the sleep was short lived and at about 2 a.m. she was woken by him shouting out and thrashing about. He seemed to be having a violent argument with someone, trying to fight them off. She tried to restrain him but he pushed her aside. He actually picked up the bedside light and tried to hit her with it. She was about to call for an ambulance when he suddenly vomited onto the carpet beside the bed, then fell back into bed exhausted and seemed to settle. It was a nightmare for Polly and she was close to tears, but she went to fetch a bowl and some cloths and set about clearing up the mess. Hopefully, that was it and it was now out of his system whatever it was. Too many painkillers perhaps she thought, or had he perhaps had some alcohol to go with them at Mark’s despite promising he wouldn’t.

  After about an hour the same thing happened again minus the vomiting, he became extremely agitated and shouting, it was if he was hallucinating, he seemed awake and could see things she couldn’t. At this point, she rang the out of hours number for their surgery and explained the situation and the fact that he’d been recently discharged from hospital following a violent assault. They were very understanding and said that an on-call GP would be around within the hour. She had already given up the idea of sleep and made herself a mug of tea.

  The GP arrived within about thirty minutes to Polly’s great relief. Nick was slightly calmer now but as soon as he saw the GP he started rambling again and the paranoia started. He was shouting about Zac and how he wanted to kill him, everything was so jumbled. She explained how Zac had been with him at the time of the assault, and the GP said he was obviously reliving it. As Polly was on her own with him he thought it best to give Nick some tranquillisers which should ensure he was sedated for the rest of the night and she was advised if no better tomorrow she should contact her GP and he might advise that he was readmitted to hospital.

  After about twenty minutes Nick was sleeping soundly, snoring away, completely transformed from the monster who’d been raving in their bedroom. Polly got a spare duvet and wrapped herself up on the sofa in the lounge. She felt so wretched. What was happening to them? Had Nick suffered some sort of brain damage or had his mental stated deteriorated. She’d been worried about him the last few weeks, his conspiracy theories rearing their ugly head again. Perhaps this assault and all its viciousness had tipped him over the edge and he was suffering some sort of breakdown. She might have to call her parents tomorrow, if this was the road they were now travelling down she would need some support, she could not face the future alone.

  Chapter 44

  Zac arrived at work early before 8 a.m. He said good morning to Mark the security guard who grunted some sort of curt greeting in return. He gave Zac an extremely unfriendly glare as he passed by. Must have been a rough night for him thought Zac. He had to admit he wouldn’t fancy working nights on security. Although he’d been at work quite late recently there was a difference between that and working through the dead of night. He sprinted up the stairs two at a time to the office area and strode along to his desk. He was one of the first to arrive. He took a photocopy of a recent research paper and wandered over to Nick’s desk and lingered perusing the assembled paperwork.

  There weren’t many people around so he could linger rather longer by Nick’s desk. The data he’d put on Nick’s desk last week had gone. He looked under the desk, there was nothing on the floor. The cleaners weren’t allowed to wipe or dust the desks so it couldn’t have been them who had moved the papers. Then Zac’s eyes fixed on the baseball hat, that definitely had not been there on Friday. It looked very like the one Nick was wearing on the night of the assault. Well, that was double proof then, Nick had somehow managed to get into work at the weekend and retrieve his data. So Nick was now definitely on to him. It might be time to escalate his plan.

  **

  At 9 a.m. Nick was still soundly asleep. Polly had been into the bedroom to speak to him but he was still dead to the world, the tranquillisers still working their magic. Polly was quietly relieved. As long as Nick was asleep she was getting a break. It was only delaying the inevitable but she just needed some respite. She’d phoned her parents who’d been shocked at the latest developments. They were both still working so it was difficult for them to come straight over but her mother said that if things still seemed no better when Nick awoke she would try to arrange some time off work and drive over to Polly that evening. She hated to burden her parents but she was in such a fragile state with the assault last week and now these psychotic episodes had occurred. Her mother told her to keep texting to update them. She was glad she’d phoned them, just hearing her mother’s voice had given her a bit of comfort. She made herself a coffee and after a quick shower crept into the bedroom to collect her clean clothes, hoping that she didn’t wake Nick.

  **

  Detective Sergeant Andy Walters was at work at the usual time eagerly awaiting a call from the IT expert responsible for the library services. He made a start on tackling his backlog of paperwork from last week but it was difficult to concentrate. He knew that it might be late in the day or not even today when he got some information. Constantly checking the time was making the morning progress more slowly. He looked at the incident log for the weekend. There had been another couple of drugs arrests in the town centre. This time outside a different nightclub, but it was the same drug, angel dust. The samples had been sent for analysis to see whether they could establish they were from the same batch seized the other night. It was now more than likely that a new dealer had started a business in Persford and it now seemed that Wayne Roberts had been right, a drug factory had been set up right here.

  **

  Brett positively bounced into work on Monday morning. He’d not felt so happy and contented for a long time. He stopped by Piers office just to say thanks again for the barbecue at the weekend and how much he’d enjoyed it.

  ‘Well, glad you enjoyed it,’ said Piers, ‘couldn’t help noticing you spent quite a lot of time with our neighbour Annabelle,’ and he beamed at Brett.

  Brett actually felt himself blushing slightly.

  ‘Oh, yes, well we just had a little chat, she’s a lovely lady,’ he added appearing rather flustered. He rubbed his hand over his hair, which was a sign he was feeling rather embarrassed.

  ‘She is indeed a lovely person, her bastard of a husband treated her very badly but she’s over that now, I hope. It knocked her confidence for a while but I’m glad she agreed to come along. Do you think you might see her again?’

  ‘Well, actually she’d invited me to a social event with colleagues from her firm of solicitors, in a couple of weeks,’ replied Brett.

  ‘Well, that’s great. Now, are we getting that press release prepared on compound 896 then?’

  ‘Yes, it’s coming along, obviously, we need to know the results of a couple of studies first but Bob seems to have it all under control.’

  ‘Excellent, fingers crossed and all that. I’m sure if we can release some good news on another compound it will make the share price fly and that’s good news for all of us!’

  ‘Of course, fingers crossed, as you say.’

  ‘OK, thanks for dropping by and give my regards to Annabelle when you next speak to her.’

  ‘Certainly will,’ replied Brett, taking his cue to leave and heading back to his own office.

  **

  At around 11 a.m., Polly heard some movement in the bedroom and went in to speak to Nick. She’d phoned work and explained that she couldn’t come in at least for the morning as Nick had been ill in the night, and seemed to have relapsed somewhat from his recovery. They were understanding and said that she must take all day off if she felt she needed to be with him.

  ‘Oh, morning Nick, would you like some tea?’

  ‘Yes, tea, that would be great, I feel so awful and groggy,’ replied
Nick, flopping back onto the pillows and holding his head.

  ‘You weren’t very well in the night, do you remember anything?’

  ‘Bits of it but it’s very blurry and confusing. I remember feeling as if I was looking down on things, not really here. It was terrifying, like an out of body experience. I’ve never had anything like that before.’

  ‘No and I’ve never seen you like that before,’ added Polly sitting down on the bed holding Nick’s hand. ‘It was so frightening, I had to phone the doctor. He had to give you those sleeping tablets, you were so distressed.’

  ‘Well I just feel tired now, I’m back in the real world, I just feel sedated,’ and he yawned.

  ‘I’ll get you some tea, then. Anything to eat?’

  ‘No not at the moment, I feel a bit sick actually. I can smell sick in here as well.’

  ‘That’s from the carpet, you were sick all over it. I’ve done my best and will have another go at it but we may have to get it professionally cleaned. But it doesn’t matter, you couldn’t help being ill,’ and she patted his hand and went off to make the tea.

  Nick lay back in bed thinking about Sunday evening and the visit to BioQex with Mark which Polly knew nothing about. Was it possible that he’d inhaled or absorbed some of that PCP? That would explain the incident at night, he certainly felt very unusual. Perhaps that combined with the painkillers he’d washed down had affected his system really badly. Once he was feeling a bit more awake he was going to contact the police. He needed to get his head in order otherwise he wasn’t going to be able to explain it coherently. If he was spaced out they’d most likely think he was the drug user.