‘Great, I’m really looking forward to starting some chemistry again.’
**
Lee Percival was once more summoned to Brensford Manor to hand over the information which had been gleaned by Erin and passed to Lee by her boyfriend Scott. Lee had given the document a quick glance but it all looked a bit technical to him. Still, he could only assume that events might be speeding up a little from now on and he’d texted Scott to say that he should remain alert for imminent instructions.
Lee was waiting for Cole on the seats outside his office in the building adjacent to the main house and today he was pleasantly surprised when a secretary asked him if he would like a tea or coffee. He was anxiously sipping his tea when the office door opened and Cole loomed large in front of him and with a nod of his head indicated he should enter.
Lee stood in front of the seated Cole and brought out his sheet of paper. Cole took it from him and pointed at the chair, indicating that Lee could sit. Cole put on a pair of tortoiseshell framed reading glasses, switched on his desk light and began to read the document. The atmosphere in the office was tense from Lee’s point of view, he was almost too nervous to drink his tea but didn’t want to offend his host by leaving a half-full cup, so he continued to drink using both hands as he could feel a slight tremor beginning to manifest itself.
Lee had finished his tea and held on to the cup as he was too afraid to put it on Cole’s desk for fear of damaging the highly polished surface. Suddenly Cole looked up and spoke to him causing him to start ever so slightly.
‘You’ve done well, my boy.’
‘Oh, thank you, Co....’ he started to say, then corrected himself, ‘Mr Radford.’
‘Now, I hope you’ve managed to recruit a little helper, so to speak?’
‘Certainly have, he’s reliable, I can vouch for him?’
‘Any previous?’
‘Not since some juvenile offences, well, nothing official, recently.’
‘Right, well, we put Step One into action, this coming Monday. But I will need to contact you regarding the exact details of Step One. So I trust you purchased another phone?
Lee handed over a slip of paper showing his alternative phone number.
‘Step Two will depend on the success of Step One. You will be informed.’
‘You remember we discussed this before? I hope I don’t have to repeat myself, I’m a busy man.’
‘Got it, no problem, leave it with me,’ said Lee confidently. Cole continued to stare at him.
‘Was there anything else?’ said Cole glowering at his minion.
‘Oh, no, sorry, I’ll be on my way,’ said Lee rising hurriedly to his feet and tripping slightly over the leg of the chair in his eagerness to leave.
‘Just remember, no mess-ups,’ said Cole, not looking up from his desk. ‘This could be the most important thing you’ve done in a long time.’
‘You can rely on me,’ replied Lee as he opened the door to escape the tense atmosphere. He leaned on the back of the door and exhaled. The secretary held out her hand for the empty cup. A slight smile was playing on her lips. This wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed this sort of behaviour when someone left Cole’s office. Cole demanded much from his employees. There were no second chances.
**
Nick had left his papers at his workstation and was now in the laboratory being introduced to Hannah and Seth. He’d brought with him his optically corrected safety glasses he’d used at BioQex and had been assured it was fine to use them as they complied with the safety standard required. At weekends he usually wore contact lenses but he never really felt safe wearing them in a laboratory environment. In the unfortunate event that he would get something in his eye, it was much more difficult to irrigate it with water with a contact lens in place.
‘Right, well, we can go and get you some lab coats from the stockroom on Monday but for the time being, you can wear a spare one of mine,’ said Dan.
‘Oh, thanks,’ said Nick, putting on the clean lab coat.
‘I would have ordered you one but didn’t know what size you were,’ said Dan. I didn’t realise that you are exactly my height and build!’
‘Yes, twins separated at birth joked Nick!’
In terms of size and stature, this was true, but their facial characteristics were quite different. Nick had much more delicate features and fair eyebrows and lashes whereas Dan had a much more rugged look, with a square jaw and wider mouth.
‘Looks like we have the same barber as well,’ added Dan.
Both had closely cropped hair which was a recent change of style for Nick. Due to his recent accidents, they’d had to shave part of his head to stitch his scalp and for some reason, the scar tissue had affected the way his hair grew. He found that he was left with a much slower growing patch which made it look like he was suffering from alopecia when the rest of his hair grew. Thus, he’d decided to disguise this bald patch and crop his whole head of hair. Polly had been initially opposed to this idea but she had gradually got used to his new image and now paid it no attention.
Nick laughed, ‘Well it wasn’t by choice but I was assaulted a while ago and since then my hair’s not grown back properly,’ and he pointed at the scar on his head.
‘Ouch, looks nasty,’ sympathised Dan, ‘didn’t have you down as the fighting sort!’
‘You should see the other guy,’ said Nick.
The banter over, they started to look around the laboratory and Nick surveyed his work area. He noticed a collection of samples in flasks, labelled reasonably clearly with batch numbers.
‘Are these for communal use?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes, a few of these were left behind by Thierry, now back in Paris, lucky sod.’
‘This one looks quite nice,’ pointed out Nick. Crystalline white powder. Looks like at least five grams by my estimation.
‘Oh, yes, that’s a batch of our front-runner compound. But after that’s gone we don’t have any further supplies, hence the urgency of bringing some more through.’
‘I see,’ nodded Nick.
‘And here are the chemicals which Hannah has ordered, we’ve got a lot more which should be arriving very soon. Just let everyone know what you use so we can re-order if necessary.’
‘Sure, all looks good.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Can you show me the spectroscopy room where you run your data?’
‘Yes, of course, it’s down this way,’ and they headed off to look at the machines.
Nick was quite impressed with the setup. Dan seemed to have everything under control. It should be a nice working environment and he was pleased he’d made the decision to accept Matt’s offer.
Chapter 18
Brett and Annabelle were enjoying a lie in on Saturday morning. They had both been exhausted after a busy week and had no definite plans for the weekend ahead. With no alarms set, they had slept until 10 a.m. and had then made love before Brett went downstairs to make some coffee and defrost some croissants. Annabelle was dozing when he returned with the breakfast tray.
‘Here we are Mrs Chandler,’ he said.
‘Well thank you, kind sir,’ she replied, ‘but I’m not Mrs Chandler yet, am I?’
‘Well not technically, but very soon. Which reminds me, we still have a few things to sort out for the wedding. We’ve still not finalised the guest list and there are the invitations to choose, and the wording...’
‘Stop, too much to think about so early in the morning,’ said Annabelle, ‘you’ll give me a headache.’
‘Sorry, but I just thought that with no firm plans this weekend we could cross some things off our list.’
Brett and Annabelle had planned to get married over a year ago and had tentatively fixed a date. However, just prior to booking the venue, Annabelle’s mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After a mastectomy, all appeared to be progressing well and then the cancer had reappeared in her lung. She had spent the last year having further operations and
chemotherapy. It had been an extremely stressful time and so wedding plans had been put on hold. The curse of illness hadn’t been confined to Annabelle’s family either. Brett’s mother’s partner, Rex, whom Brett loathed, had suffered a stroke which had given him some temporary paralysis in his right arm. He was now responding to physiotherapy and much to Brett’s annoyance was predicted to make a full recovery. Brett detested Rex, there was simply no other word to describe it. He was sick to death of Rex boasting about his string of shops and his accumulated millions. Rex could never resist telling everyone how he’d left school at fifteen and worked bloody hard, as he put it. He’d built up his business the hard way, no privileged background for him he would tell people, regardless of whether they were interested. His skills had come from the University of Life. This expression made Brett’s skin creep. At one family gathering, a rather inebriated guest had let it slip how Rex had bribed certain council members to approve planning permission to allow him to expand his retail empire. Rex was a fraud and thought that money could buy him whatever he wanted. It had certainly bought him Brett’s mother.
‘Well, we really need to reduce the guest list by about thirty people, otherwise, we will have to think again about the venue,’ added Annabelle tucking into her croissant.
‘I can suggest someone,’ said Brett, grinning.
‘Nice, try, but you’ve cracked that joke before.’
‘I just don’t want it to be too much for Rex, he’s so delicate,’ he said, mimicking his mother’s concern for her beau. This earned him a slap on his arm from Annabelle.
‘Mind you, on second thoughts, perhaps I’ll get him blind drunk and then he’ll fall down some stairs and break his neck.’ said Brett. ‘It would be money well spent if that was the outcome.’
Annabelle decided not to respond. Rex wasn’t so bad in her opinion, she’d certainly met worse people. She drank her coffee in silence and contemplated the weekend ahead.
**
At about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning Nick went for a five-mile run, then on returning to the house showered and had a late breakfast with Polly. She’d got up late and done a few household jobs before she made a start on catching up with some of her paperwork. She hoped to get the first draft of her report written that weekend. Nick was planning to go to the university library in the afternoon and then they were going to go out for a pizza and a film in the evening.
‘Good run?’ asked Polly as she boiled the kettle to make some coffee for their breakfast. She put the frying pan on the heat so she could make some scrambled eggs for them both. The bread was ready to be toasted and the table in the kitchen was set.
‘Yes, thanks. Hey, what’s all this? I was just expecting some cereal and coffee.’
‘Oh, well, I thought it would make a nice start to the day and a sort of celebration of you starting this new contract on Monday. It’s been so nice to see you so upbeat about it. You’re back to your old self, I can see it.’
‘Less of the old, thank you! said Nick, embracing Polly around the waist and kissing her neck.
‘You smell nice,’ she said, ‘all clean and fresh.’
Nick continued to kiss Polly but she wriggled from his grasp, saying that the oil was ready for the eggs. Nick poured the water into the cafetière and allowed the coffee to brew for a couple of minutes. It felt really good to have some mental stimulation at last. He’d jotted down some suggestions for the project and hopefully, by the end of the afternoon, he would have a better idea whether they would be worth pursuing.
**
Scott had taken a call from Lee and knew that there was no turning back from this point. He also had some work to do this weekend. Not the execution of the actual deed itself but he needed to prepare in earnest and draw up a short-list of possible targets. Erin had been pestering him to take him out at the weekend but he’d made excuses that he was busy. This had failed to satisfy her and she had persisted. Scott had not had the foresight to think of a reason beforehand thus he became all flustered and his excuses appeared lame. A row had ensued and she had flounced out of the flat to meet up with her girlfriends. Doubtless, they would find comfort in some retail therapy. This sequence of events had played out before. A row, Erin leaving to meet up with her girlfriends with whom she no doubt spent the day criticising him, too many drinks, a taxi home and then a fashion parade of her latest hideous garments which had been bought on credit. Why oh why didn’t he ditch her and find someone better? Because at the moment he was struggling to manage and would be unable to afford somewhere to live on his own. He earned some money labouring for small time builders and took whatever other small jobs materialised. He supplemented his income as a lookout or getaway driver for the occasional robbery and additionally fencing stolen goods. Erin knew he wasn’t whiter than white and it didn’t bother her unduly as she came from exactly this sort of background. Perhaps if he could make a success of his partnership with Lee it would act as a springboard to bigger and better things. The next couple of weeks were crucial and he needed to concentrate on making it work.
Chapter 19
Nick had passed a productive afternoon in the university library in Persford and was surprised when there was an announcement that it would be closing in fifteen minutes. He looked at his watch and saw that it was quarter past five. The time had simply flown by but he was really pleased with his research. He felt he had some worthwhile suggestions to make regarding the synthetic route and would present them to Pat and Dan on Monday morning. He hoped he would be able to try out the chemistry himself. His memory had been correct about doing something similar at BioQex and he had been able to find some relevant references to more examples along those lines in the published journals this afternoon. He quickly gathered up some volumes and headed over to the photocopier to get copies of some of the experimental details. Tomorrow he would write things down in more detail in preparation for Monday.
He gathered up his papers, phone and laptop and left the library. He’d parked nearby and would be home in about fifteen minutes so there would be time for a lager before he and Polly headed out for their meal and film. She’d texted him a couple of times to say that likewise she was making good progress on her report but was getting ready for a break and looking forward to their evening.
Nick walked quickly across the forecourt in front of the library and headed towards the centre of Persford. He was back in the world of chemistry, thinking about reactions and going over his plans in his mind, checking that he’d not made any false assumptions and he’d not missed anything in the reactions which might interfere. He became aware of some footsteps behind him and a voice calling, ‘Nick, Nick!’
He slowed his pace and turned around to come face to face with Mark Jameson, who had been a security guard at the InnoFind Science Park, where BioQex had been based.
‘Oh, hi, Mark! Good to see you!’
‘I’ve been calling for ages, thought you’d become a bit hard of hearing,’ said Mark, looking a bit out of breath after pursuing Nick.
‘Oh, sorry, I’ve been in the library all afternoon and I was thinking through what I’ve been researching.’
‘The library here?’ said Mark looking puzzled. ‘But I thought you had finished your M.Sc.?’
‘Yes, I did, but...’ and he paused, ‘well, it’s been a busy few days and events have raced ahead so I’ve not had time to tell you what’s been happening.’
Mark indicated silently that he should continue and they stepped to the side of the pavement as they were causing an obstruction.
‘I’ve taken a six-month contract in the chemistry department here to help out with a promising cancer project. They are trying to set up a spin-off company and have some funding secured. In fact, you know two other guys involved in this as consultants. Matt Pearson and Brett Chandler, technically I’m employed by them, not by the university.’
‘Wow, it’s a small world, just like old times then?’ Mark paused, worried he’d said the wrong thing and put his foot in
it somewhat tactlessly. He of all people knew that there had been some very difficult incidents at BioQex and Nick had borne the brunt of these. He still had the scars as mementos. ‘Sorry,’ he said falteringly, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. You need to move on from what happened.’
‘Don’t be silly, that’s all in the past. I would have told you but as I said, it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. We need to meet up sometime and have a proper chat. Perhaps when I’ve got settled in here in a few weeks?’
‘Great! We will do, definitely. Anyway, I’ve got some news as well.’
Nick smiled, ‘Not Tanya? Another baby?’
‘Jeez, you’re joking! Two kids are quite enough thanks. No, I’ve got a few shifts here in security.’
‘Oh, well, great, I didn’t know you were looking for extra work?’
‘Nor did I, but my hours got a bit cut as a few companies in addition to BioQex closed down or moved out of the science park. So, it left me a bit short, so to speak.’
‘Oh, well, it’s good you’ve found some more hours.’
‘Yes, well the thing is there have been a few more incidents of drug-dealing around the university and some people have been threatened. Attempted muggings that sort of thing, so they are increasing patrols at night. They want to nip it in the bud.’
‘Yes, well of course. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll be careful if I stay late or anything. You can be my personal minder,’ Nick joked.
‘Well, hopefully, you won’t need me. Just keep that to yourself about the muggings and drugs, they don’t want it to become common knowledge, particularly about the drugs,’ he added.
Nick tapped the side of his nose. ‘Well, sorry to rush off but Polly and I are going out tonight and I don’t want to be late.’
‘No problem, I’ll text you. Love to Polly. Hope she’s OK?’
‘She’s fine, catch up with you, soon. Bye.’
Mark headed back towards the university to begin his evening shift. He was pleased for Nick who looked so well and cheerful today. A complete contrast to the last few times they’d met up when it was clear Nick felt adrift and undecided as to where his career should go next. He really deserved some time in his life when things went his way and he could just focus on what he did best, namely science. It was when Nick decided to take on other roles that the problems started. Hopefully this time there wouldn’t be any distractions.
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