He went back to his desk and drank some water and took some deep breaths. His mission had been accomplished. All he had to do now was to try to pass the next twelve hours as quickly as possible but it was going to be extremely difficult.
Chapter 27
Nick arrived at the lab just after 8 a.m. and was keen to make a start on his first reaction at the university. Polly was enjoying being able to get a lift to work with Nick. It meant she could make a much earlier start and usually had about an hour of peace and quiet before her phone started to ring or she had appointments to attend.
‘Morning Dan,’ said Nick, sitting down at his desk and switching on his laptop.
‘Hi, Nick, everything OK?’
‘Yes, sure, I’m going to set up my first reaction today, I’m quite excited about it!’
‘Well, fingers crossed,’ said Dan, making the appropriate gesture.
Just at that moment, Dan started swearing, ‘Shit and double shit! What in fuck’s name has gone on here?’ and he banged his fist on the desk. He stood up and started pacing around, slapped the back of his chair and stormed off.
Nick’s enthusiastic mood was starting to dissipate and he wondered what was in store for the rest of the day. Once again, Dan looked dreadful. His face was blotchy and he had a couple of angry looking spots on his chin. He seemed so tense all the time, it wasn’t normal to be behaving like this. Nick decided he would keep a low profile and hopefully when the others arrived Dan’s presence would be diluted. He spotted him returning along the corridor so decided to retreat to the safety of the lab and make a start.
From the lab, Nick could see Dan had returned with some water and was taking what looked like several paracetamols. Perhaps it was just a headache after a bad night’s sleep. Nick found the necessary apparatus and chemicals he needed and began to weigh out the components for the reaction. The laboratory was surprisingly well-equipped for a university. There was an ample supply of glassware, consumables such as disposable syringes and the equipment for either heating or cooling reactions seemed to be in good condition. Nick had added a couple of his starting materials and needed to let the reaction cool to a very low temperature before he proceeded so he started to plan his other tasks for that day. He also realised he needed a sample of the material he was aiming to make. That would serve as a marker to monitor the reaction and was always useful when dealing with a completely new project.
He went over to the bench where all the project samples were stored. He remembered roughly where it had been last week when he had been introduced to the lab. He scanned along the rows of flasks and vials and spotted it. Nick stood for a moment and looked at the flask there was one thing a little odd, there was much less material in it than the day before. He estimated that there was perhaps only about a gram left. That meant that the project only had a very limited supply of UP-627-TK.
Just then, Seth and Hannah arrived in unison.
‘Hi, Seth, Hannah,’ said Nick.
‘Oh, I see you’ve made a start,’ said Hannah, cheerfully.
‘Did you find everything you need?’
‘Oh, yes, thanks, well, I mean yes I did for that reaction and I’ve taken a sample of UP-627-TK, from the batch which Thierry made.’
‘Yes, fine, no problem,’ said Seth.
‘I notice supplies are getting a bit low,’ said Nick. ‘I weighed the flask and there’s about a gram and a half in there.’
‘Really? I’m sure we had a lot more,’ said Seth and he wandered over to look at the flask. ‘No, you’re right, there doesn’t seem to be much,’ and Seth looked puzzled. ‘Well that’s strange I’m sure there was a lot more yesterday afternoon,’ and he paused. ‘I guess some has been requested for another study. He looked around to check that Dan hadn’t come into the lab. ‘You know, this is what really annoys me. We are supposed to let everyone know when supplies are getting low and if I’d removed a batch and not let everyone know I’d get a telling off.’
Nick, murmured some conciliatory words and noticed Dan entering the lab.
‘Alright guys,’ said Dan casually.
‘We were just looking at the flask of UP-627-TK which Thierry made, the contents seem to have reduced in amount considerably,’ said Seth.
‘I had to send some off-site,’ said Dan.
‘Really? When?’ asked Seth.
‘Late last evening, if you must know,’ said Dan starting to sound hostile.
‘Oh, where’s it gone?’
‘Seth, would you mind not subjecting me to an inquisition. It’s none of your business where it’s gone. There are lots of studies going on at the moment and I got a message to say some more was needed. I don’t have to tell you about every little thing I do. You aren’t running the project, although it looks like you might have ideas above your station.’
Dan was really fired up now and things were escalating out of control. Nick felt really embarrassed and Dan was going completely over the top. Seth was seething and rightly so, thought Nick. He’d just been spoken to in a disgraceful way.
‘Piss off, Dan,’ said Seth, ‘make your own fucking compounds,’ and he stormed out, ripping off his lab coat and gloves and throwing them on the floor just inside the door.
‘Dan, that was cruel,’ said Hannah, ‘what’s the matter with you today?’
‘I’ve got a lot of work on and I don’t like being interrogated,’ replied Dan. ‘Seth can be too much at times.’
‘It sounded to me like you were too much, not the other way round,’ replied Hannah. ‘I’m going to find Seth, take him for coffee and I think you should apologise when we come back.’
‘Hmph,’ said Dan petulantly.
Nick had remained silent up until this point but he felt he had to speak to Dan as it had been his request which had sparked this unfortunate exchange.
‘Dan, I think Seth was just making sure that everyone knew that the amount was getting a bit low,’ said Nick.
‘Oh, don’t you start! I was going to let everyone know this morning, send round a message. Seth is a bit anal when it comes to checking every last detail about how much we’ve got. He’d make a good storeman instead of a chemist, then he could keep inventories all day long.’ He paused.
Nick could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘Dan, I think you are taking this all wrong,’ said Nick.
‘Jeez, I’m being attacked from all directions now. You come in here and after a few days, you start acting like you own the place. I’m beginning to think you might not be all you seem? Eh? What do you say to that?’
Nick felt his blood pressure rising and his face flushed angrily. What on earth was the matter with Dan this morning? He was being a complete pig to everyone.
‘I’m not going to respond to those remarks,’ replied Nick levelly. ‘I think things are getting out of hand. I’m not sure whether you aren’t feeling well this morning but we need to calm down.’ He went over to check his reaction. ‘Now, this has cooled down enough so I’m going to carry on with this as I don’t want to mess it up, OK?’
‘Fine by me, Mr Wonder Chemist,’ and he stormed out of the lab almost knocking Pat over as he came in through the door.
Pat turned to watch Dan stomping off through the office area and entered the lab.
‘What’s going on? I could hear raised voices out there, that’s why I’ve come in here.’
‘Well, I’m not sure really. I don’t think Dan is feeling too good. I saw him taking some paracetamols earlier,’ and Nick shrugged. ‘But he’s just had a go at Seth, accusing him of questioning him in detail.’
‘What about?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s my fault really, but I needed a small sample of the front-runner compound some of the batch which Thierry made and I noticed there wasn’t as much as last week... well, perhaps I shouldn’t have said, but Dan just sort of went ballistic.’
‘We’ve got over five grams,’ said Pat, ‘haven’t we?’
‘It seems not, a batch has gone off-site, app
arently.’
‘No, that was last week, Dan sent his own material off for a rat study. I’ve not heard anything about another one.’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Nick.
‘Well, I’ve been concentrating on these publications and patent write-ups, it’s all been a bit hectic. I told Phil to liaise with Dan about the biological studies as I’ve so much on my plate with dealing with Matt Pearson and so on.’
‘Yes, well it’s all been a bit frenetic recently,’ said Nick. ‘Though I do think Dan resents me in some way, he called me, Mr Wonder Chemist, which was rather unkind.’
Pat sighed. ‘Dan’s a good bloke really but he does have a temper. I’ll speak to him later, we can’t have incidents like this. He didn’t always see eye to eye with Thierry either. Perhaps he’s just having a bad morning. Leave it with me.’
‘Will do. Right, I’d better try to concentrate and not mess this reaction up!’ joked Nick.
Pat left after a few minutes and Nick was left alone in the peace and quiet until Seth and Hannah returned. Everyone had bad days but Dan’s behaviour seemed to be much more than having a short-temper. He’d been on edge each day since Nick had started. He seemed to fly off the handle at the slightest thing. Today’s outburst was something else though. In all the time Nick had worked in the laboratory environment things had never reached that level of hostility. It was as if he wasn’t in control of his behaviour and after chatting it through with Polly last night and memories of his chat with Mark Jameson, the security guard, he had an inkling what it might be. He felt sure that Dan was a drug-user. After all, coke use could often lead to nosebleeds. He would talk to Polly again this evening and then he might have to mention Dan’s behaviour to someone senior in the department. Someone so erratic in a laboratory environment could be a danger to others as well as themselves. They also had access to restricted substances and that was also bad news. One thing was certain though, Nick would report this and not carry out his own private investigation like he might have been tempted to in the past. Previous incidents had landed him in hot water and he’d learnt his lesson. It wasn’t worth taking any risks.
Chapter 28
Jessica heard muffled voices outside then the door opened and someone slid a tray in through the gap. ‘Bucket!’ someone shouted and she went to get the stinking bucket and collect her replacement.
‘Please tell me what’s happening? Why am I here? How much longer,’ she cried.
‘Do as you are told, and read the instructions on the tray,’ said a voice but it was whispered and muffled as though someone was speaking through a scarf.
Her meal was again a packet of sandwiches and some water. This time it was egg and tomato. She looked at the sheet of paper. It was a printed sheet and told her to use the pen provided to write a letter to her boyfriend telling him that she was OK, being well looked after and not to do anything silly. He just had to be patient. If he did anything silly she would be killed. She trembled as she read the words. Things seemed to be getting more and more bizarre. Why on earth was she being held captive and what did they want with Dan? She could only think that he owed money to someone. They’d had that awkward conversation about the money he’d drawn out of the bank the other day. She hadn’t believed his story about lending it to Pat but at the time had decided to let matters lie and see what happened. She loved Dan dearly but she knew that he had a bit of a temper and could lash out, fortunately only verbally, otherwise, she wouldn’t have stayed with him for so long.
This was the reason she wanted to believe but deep down for the last couple of months, another worry had been festering which she’d not had the courage to broach. She knew that one of the reasons people often needed access to ready cash was to buy drugs. The story about paying for another tyre was a lame one. Her courage had wavered and because it was late at night she’d not been able to face challenging him about it. If only she had done so perhaps she wouldn’t be in this mess now. An argument with Dan, however ugly, would have been better than this ordeal. She was pretty certain that if he were using drugs it wasn’t at a serious level. He wasn’t injecting heroin or anything else for that matter as she would have seen the track marks on his arms. Now that she worked in London she occasionally went out socially with her colleagues and she was sure that some of them were snorting cocaine. They all had well-paid jobs and the odd line wouldn’t be too arduous for them to finance. It was a give away when they made excuses to leave the group and head off to the toilets. One girl, Hermione had been careless and had returned with some white powder clearly visible around her nose. She’d spotted a colleague gesturing to her surreptitiously and Hermione had quickly wiped her nostrils with her finger.
When this ordeal came to an end and she sincerely hoped it would, very soon, she would insist that Dan had some help to kick his habit. It wasn’t too late. She picked up the ballpoint pen and paper and began her letter following the instructions. As she began to write she looked at the pen. Could she possibly keep this? Would it be reckless? It wasn’t much of a weapon but it was better than nothing. Perhaps if she caused some sort of diversion at the next meal or bucket delivery it wouldn’t be missed. She finished writing and slipped the pen up her sleeve. She went over to the sleeping back and lay down to mull over her fate.
**
Fortunately, in Nick’s lab, emotions had calmed and work had resumed. Seth returned and told informed everyone that Dan had apologised and they had shaken hands. Hannah looked like she’d been crying as her face looked a bit puffy but they were all knuckling down to their work and had put the radio on at low volume for some company in the background. Nick had messaged Polly to see whether they could lunch together as he was desperate to chat through the angry exchanges and didn’t want to wait until this evening. They had arranged to meet in the coffee bar at around 1 p.m. when it ought to be less busy. It was too soon to tell whether Nick’s reaction was going to be successful but he would be able to run some samples for analysis before he left that afternoon. At least it hadn’t turned a horrible dark colour so that looked encouraging at least.
Dan’s practical efforts that day had been minimal and it looked as though he was sorting out some data for Pat to include in the publications or patent write-ups. Hopefully, by tomorrow a new day would signal a better atmosphere and they could all move on. Dan had finally summoned the courage to phone up Jessica’s workplace to say she was sick. He apologised on her behalf that she’d not phoned yesterday but she had been suffering so badly from the norovirus that she’d forgotten to phone them. He didn’t want Jessica to be disciplined by her work on top of the ordeal she was having to endure. The person he’d spoken to hadn’t sounded entirely convinced but Dan told them that Jessica would be in touch soon.
Nick had received an email from Brett to say that he would be popping by later that afternoon and perhaps they could meet up for a coffee and a chat. Nick had suggested 3 p.m. would be a good time and Brett had confirmed he would meet him in the coffee bar. Nick hoped that his colleagues wouldn’t think he spent all his time in there but he was sure everyone was just hoping the day would pass as quickly as possible as there was still a slight tension hanging around in the air.
**
Brett was coming on to the campus today to run through his plan for his meetings in London which had been arranged for Thursday. Although he wasn’t going to make formal presentations he still wanted to make sure he got all the salient points over in order to secure the necessary funding. He’d decided to book a hotel in London for Thursday night as he didn’t want to be anxious about getting the last train back. It wouldn’t look good if he was constantly looking at his watch. If things went well then they might decide to go for a meal, he would just play it by ear as the saying went. He thought back to his previous trip to London to his alumni dinner and suddenly felt rather sick. What a dreadful chain of events that had unleashed. He would seriously like to get his hands on Giles Wentworth and give him a good beating. He’d not been able to find
out from his solicitor, Emma, whether the Crown Prosecution Service was pursuing a case against Giles or whether he’d managed to strike a deal. He kept hoping that he would see some reports of a fraud trial involving the odious Giles. Still, it had all turned out well despite the pain along the way so he should look forwards rather than backwards. The BioQex era was over but new doors had opened and life was looking pretty good now. It was great that there had been so much interest in placing an investment in PersCure.
He couldn’t wait to get out of the house this afternoon after his day supervising the new fences. Fortunately, the men were just finishing off this morning and after a phone call to their offices a foreman had arrived and given the men a stern rebuke for making such a mess of the driveway and the garden. Brett had been secretly eavesdropping the exchange from the front room and it had provided some amusement. The manager had even knocked two hundred pounds off the bill as compensation. He looked out to see the last of their equipment being loaded on to their truck. He would grab a quick sandwich then head off to meet up firstly with Matt and then Nick. It would be good to see Nick again, he was very confident that he would work wonders on the project, he was sure they wouldn’t regret it.
Chapter 29
Brett was waiting for Nick when he arrived down at the coffee bar a few minutes after 3 p.m. He immediately stood and shook Nick’s hand warmly, actually putting his other hand on top and beaming at him.
‘Nick, hi, so good to see you!’
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