The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. - the Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist

by Darren Humphries

  “It’s unlikely he’s gone to Outer Mongolia,” I told her, hoping to lighten her mood. “There really isn’t much there to grab the attention of anyone.”

  And I should know because I’d been there once on a Yeti hunt. We hadn’t managed to catch the beast up in the high snow fields because of its superb natural camouflage, switching from rocky grey to pure white as it moved across the landscape, but we had managed to scare it back up into the higher mountains, away from the human habitations that it had been terrorising. As for the rest of the place, there had been nothing to see, or do, unless you were a lover of mountain vistas or interested in yak farming. I’d quickly found that there is only so long that you can look at a mountain before it just looks like every other mountain and the only thing that you need to know about a yak is just how bad it smells and how much dung it produces that then needs shovelling.

  “Are you making fun of me?” Miranda queried, not quite sure.

  “Absolutely not,” I backtracked quickly. She clearly wasn’t in the market for having her mood lightened.

  “You’ve been to Outer Mongolia? Really?”

  “Just the once,” I assured her sincerely. “Once really was more than enough. Now, let’s get down to the plan.”

  “You have a plan? Already?” she asked and this time I wondered if it was her making fun of me.

  “Not so much a plan as a starting point,” I clarified. “A few starting points, actually.”

  I was at the start of an investigation and the start is always the easiest part since there are always so many possibilities to deal with, so many things to look at, so many things to discount and so many people to interview. It’s only later when all those starts turn out to be false ones and the leads have all played out that it begins to get a bit more difficult.

  “All right, tell me,” she leaned in to listen intently and I had to fight the impulse to do the same.

  “First we’ll put a trace on his mobile phone and see if we can track him down with that.”

  She shook her head, “That won’t work. Arnie doesn’t own a mobile. I don’t think he’s ever owned one now that I come to think about it. He says that if he wanted to microwave his brain he’d just stick his head in the oven.”

  Which was the first obvious action dealt with. “We’ll put a trace on the activity on his credit and debit cards and see if that brings up anything useful and in the meantime I’ll take a look at your brother’s home, where he was living. I’ll go up this afternoon, take a look around and see what I can come up with. I’ll also make enquiries at the Water Board about him quitting his job and see if that leads anywhere. A word with his colleagues and friends might throw something up as well.”

  “Sounds good,” she said with enthusiasm, jumping up. “When do we start?”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” I stopped her. “I’m the investigator. That means I do the investigating. You’re the client and that means that you stay at home and wait on my call and requests for more expenses.”

  “I need to pay you expenses?” she was suddenly worried.

  “No, that was a joke,” I had hoped that it would have been an obvious enough one that I didn’t have to explain it. I thought of the credit card that was stashed away in my wallet. The credit card with the very high limit. “The Agency’s got it covered.”

  “All right,” she said, relieved, “but I am coming with you. I know my brother. I know how he thinks and acts, well about normal things anyway. I might see something that’s out of place, that’s not normal for him and I’ll certainly know if people are saying things about him that aren’t true.”

  She placed her hands on her hips and her face took on an expression that made it very clear that this was something that she was not going to be moved on. Chances are that if I refused she would march right back to Agency Central and demand that somebody else be assigned to her. There was also the small fact that she made a good point. I didn’t know her brother from Adam, although walking around with only a fig leaf on would have made for an obvious point of reference. She certainly knew more about Arnold than I did and might just pick up on subtle things that passed me right by. Besides which there was no reason (beyond the always important fact that the Magic Circle were interestingly disinterested) to suggest that this case had the potential to cause anything more dangerous and painful than repetitive strain injury from typing up the case notes at the end.

  “I will let you come,” I allowed, but qualified, “but you will do as I say when I say it and if I get even an inkling that there is any sort of problem then you will leave immediately and go home to wait for my call. Is that clear because it is a deal breaker if not? And I’m talking about the Agency here, not just me.”

  “Of course,” she agreed meekly, though I didn’t buy that act for a second. I’d seen the determination in her face and when the time came to send her home (if that time came, I tried to kid myself) then she would probably be a terror to get rid of. “Whatever you say.”

  “All right then. Let me make a few phone calls and we’re off.”

  The London and Thames Water Board Headquarters, Slough

  Slough was pretty much no longer its own town, but had been absorbed into one of London’s outer boroughs. It tried hard to hang on to its original identity, but considering that the identity in question consisted of being home to the largest warehouse and industrial district in the country, possessing the ugliest town centre in the country and sharing ground with the relocated Heathrow, the largest, and now ugliest, airport in the country, it was hard to say why it bothered. The urban sprawl now sprawled so far that there was almost no greenery whatsoever to be found between Slough’s boundary and that of the capital. There was only the slow-moving M25 London relief road to suggest any demarcation at all. Prices in the area were now equivalent to London and businesses were increasingly moving further down the M4 corridor to Reading and Swindon to find financially more attractive situations. In terms of everything else just about everywhere was more attractive than Slough.

  The London and Thames Water Board headquarters were immense, taking up a full fifth of the town’s business zone on the surface and spreading much, much further underground with its huge subterranean cisterns. A sizeable proportion of the water that came out of the taps in the capital came from the natural holding tanks under the organisation’s headquarters, holding tanks that had been extended for miles over the years. The rest was provided for from the swathes of north Oxfordshire that had been submerged underwater by the Millennium Dam project. The Slough headquarters building was an ugly, squat white building that was very much in keeping with the architectural standards of the industrial estate as a whole. Efforts had been made of soften it by the addition of large painted waves in several appealing shades of aqua, but they had since faded and peeled and now made the place look even more tatty than it had before they had been applied. The car park, however, was a thing of beauty. It was set around a couple of acres of green land that contained several small lake features and tiny streams that flowed between them over carefully constructed waterfalls and through reed beds. Wooden bridges were provided where the gravelled pathways crossed the streams and there were hundreds of bushes and small trees, all immaculately kept by the permanent gardening staff and home to scores of birds. To find a vacant parking space, we had to drive past flowerbeds that were bursting with colour and fountains that were bounded with rainbows.

  “It’s beautiful,” Miranda said as I slid the car neatly into a visitor slot and we both climbed out. I quickly hooked up the vehicle’s batteries to the charging point and we wandered through the grounds towards the main entrance. It would have been like walking through the open countryside was it not for the large chimneys visible all around, belching their ozone-friendly emissions up into the scrubbed clean atmosphere. The Magic Circle had made it clear that they weren’t going to fix the hole in the Ozone Layer again any time soon.

  “It’s expensive,” I countered.


  So was the interior of the building, which was in complete contrast to the outside. Brightly illuminated by a mixture of sunlight and carefully concealed lighting it was clean and shiny and gave off the impression of efficiency and control that wasn’t reflected in the annual reports of water lost through leaks and wastage that were published in the press every year when the latest price hike was announced. Along one side, the whole wall was made up of sheets of glass behind which all manner of fish swam in the largest aquarium I had every seen. Admittedly I wasn’t in the habit of going to aquaria very often, if at all. The presence of a scuba diver feeding a shark by hand proved that there was no magnifying effect built into the glass and that the specimens really were as large as they appeared to be.

  A preparatory phone call meant that we were expected at the reception desk and an underling appeared promptly to escort us through a warren of brightly lit corridors that were stark and efficient and each one exactly the same as the others with the possible exceptions of the names on the discreet plaques screwed onto the doors that we passed.

  “Did you think to leave a trail of breadcrumbs?” I whispered to Miranda, who laughed softly.

  We descended a couple of staircases and finally came to a door that was labelled as the ‘Water Quality Testing Suite’, which was a fancy way of saying ‘chemistry lab’. As soon as the door was opened a small man in a white lab coat greeted us. The coat was at least two sizes too large for his slender frame and therefore was rolled up at the sleeves and billowed around him as he moved. He peered at us through thick glasses, rubbing his hand on the coat before thrusting it out to shake ours with gusto. With his wayward black hair and wide eyes, he was the archetypal geeky scientist type. Everyone else visible in the room beyond appeared completely normal and were going about their tasks, most of which appeared to involve pouring the contents of one test tube into the contents of another test tube and watching what colour it turned, in quiet, efficient manner.

  “Hello, hello and hello,” the scientist greeted us effusively, almost vibrating with energy.

  “Agent Ward, Miss Harcourt, this is Doctor Helliman,” our guide made the introductions before adding a low, “good luck,” and disappearing back the way we had come.

  Immediately the guide had gone, the doctor smoothed down his hair, took off the spectacles and put them in the pocket of his coat, which he then changed for something the right size.

  “Sorry about that,” he apologised as he swapped the coat. “The folks upstairs have the idea that we’re all mad scientists down here and I like to keep the impression alive since it discourages unannounced visits.”

  I found myself liking him already.

  “Now you’re here to talk about Arnie, is that right?” he asked, leading us across the laboratory to an office that lay on the far side of the room. “I hope that he’s not in any trouble.”

  “Well we have no idea what he’s in,” I told him. I’ve always found that honesty is the best policy. It is better to say nothing than to lie since lies usually come back to bite you in the ass. Quite often they come back to bite you in the shape of an attack otter’s sharp teeth trying to bite you in the ass. “He appears to have gone missing.”

  “Gone missing?” Helliman took a seat in front of a wide window that was currently hidden behind closed blinds and indicated that we should take the other seats in the room. “Oh dear. I do hope that nothing bad has happened to him.”

  “We have no indication that anything at all has happened to him,” I stressed more for Miranda’s benefit than for the doctor’s. “We just haven’t been able to find him for a while and his sister here is rather keen to talk to him.”

  “Yes, of course, I can imagine,” he said, turning his attention to Miranda. The fact that it hadn’t been fixed on her the whole time marked him out as an unusual man. Or perhaps not a man at all, but I was usually pretty quick to spot non-human impostors and I wasn’t picking up on any of the usual tell-tale signs with him. “And you think that I might be of help in finding him?”

  “Routine enquiries often turn up the most useful information,” I informed him, which was true in itself, but I neglected to point out that I wasn’t usually involved in enquiries that were routine or that this one definitely didn’t fall into that category. “Is this where he worked? In this lab I mean?”

  “For the most part, yes,” Helliman confirmed. “There were occasional trips into the field if samples needed to be taken on site, but mainly here yes.”

  “And he did what exactly?”

  “What we all do,” Helliman replied with a gesture that encompassed the whole laboratory and the other people working there. “Checking the quality of our water, both pre and post-treatment and ensuring that it meets the current purity regulations and our own in-house standards, which are somewhat more stringent than those imposed on us I should point out.”

  “Did Arnold give any reasons why he was leaving? Problems, personality clashes perhaps, money?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No, nothing. He just handed in his notice. The pay’s not great, but that shouldn’t have come as any surprise to him and he got on well enough with everyone. There certainly weren’t any problems with anyone that I knew about and it’s hard to keep such things secret in such close proximity. I got the impression that he had expected the job to be a bit more thrilling than it actually is and had just decided that it was time to try something else. I mean here it’s the same water from the same places being put through the same tests with very little variation in results. It’s not particularly exciting work, I’m afraid, but it is necessary.”

  All of which tallied with what Miranda had said about her brother outside the pub. Brilliant but restless.

  “And how did he seem when he quit? Agitated? Out of sorts at all?” I asked. I could pretty much see where this interview was heading already, but just because you think that you know what the answers are going to be doesn’t mean that you don’t ask the obvious questions. I hadn’t been lying in what I said about routine enquiries.

  “Not noticeably so,” Helliman replied, thinking back and coming up with nothing. “He seemed apologetic, nothing more. He said that he had something else to do and that was that. He worked his notice period and then left.”

  “He said he had something else to do? Did he say what it was?” My interest perked up a little at that. It suggested a purpose, rather than just his normal drifting behaviour.

  “No. We all just assumed that it was another job, but he never said anything about it. Not to me at least. I thought at the time that it must be local, though, because he didn’t give us a change of address in case of any problems with his final wages.”

  “What about his friends amongst his colleagues? Was there anyone that he was particularly close to who might know?”

  “Arnie was a young man who kept to himself. He was perfectly pleasant with everyone and quite funny when the mood took him, but once the working day was over none of us saw him until the next day. Most of the people here are married and after hours socialising is something that doesn’t really happen,” Helliman explained. He was sporting a gold band on his wedding finger himself.

  “Is there any chance that he might have found something in one of the tests?” I wondered out loud. There was nothing for us here, I was sure, but I had to give Miranda her money’s worth (although it was technically Grayson’s money’s worth). “Something that he shouldn’t?”

  “Well I fail to see what I’m sure,” Helliman denied, though without any offence. “Besides which, all samples are given to two independent scrutineers and then the results compared. Anything that he found should have been found by somebody else at the same time. Arnie was technically proficient at his job, but so is everyone else here. No, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that I can help. What we do here is just too dull to be worth making anyone disappear.”

  I had to agree with him on that point. I might have asked for a tour of the facility and an in depth explanation of
the processes involved, but I was having a hard enough time keeping my eyes open as it was just talking to the man. Chances are that interviews with all of the staff would have had the same soporific effect. They could always be carried out at a later date if I felt that they were called for.

  “All right. Thank you very much for your time,” I stood up, deciding that enough was enough. It was disappointing, though not surprising, that the first enquiry had proven to be such a damp squib.

  Miranda also offered her thanks and her hand, which he shook almost perfunctorily.

  “There is one more thing Doctor,” I said, pausing at the door. It was a technique that was sometimes useful; making the suspect think that they were safe, that they’d gotten away with it, that the interview was over and then hit them with one last question, usually the killer one, and see if they crumble under the weight of their own guilt. “Something that you’re not sharing with us.”

  He was quite offended by the suggestion, which was the correct response, “I don’t think that there is. I have told you everything I know.”

  “What I would like to know,” I said, gratuitously pausing for theatrical effect, “is what you have got hidden behind those blinds.”

  He frowned, puzzled and confused. “But that’s got nothing to do with … there’s nothing … I mean I can’t … I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Perhaps you’re not Doctor, but I’m a curious man, impossibly so, and if I don’t get an answer then I will come back with a warrant, a dozen regular police officers and a couple of crime scene photographers to make sure that whatever it is gets good exposure,” I assured him firmly. I was bluffing. Without good cause the local police would tell me to go to buggery and any judge would laugh me out of his court room, but Helliman wasn’t to know that.