Lethal Reaction Read online

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, well I had better chase up the company to see where my order has got to,’ said Nick, retreating round his side of the lab.

  ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ replied Zac, also having a quick look along his own shelf of bottles.

  There was a palpable tension in the air after that confrontation, and after about fifteen minutes Nick decided it was time for lunch. He would leave Zac to fume away in front of his fume hood, quite appropriate for him thought Nick. After washing his hands Nick left the lab and sat down at his desk for a few minutes, he checked his emails just in case there was anything important. He looked over to the lab and saw Zac removing a couple of bottles from his shelf and stowing them in the cupboard under his fume hood. That was a bit odd, thought Nick, why would he need to hide a couple of general chemicals. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure nobody borrowed them without letting him know and then he wouldn’t have enough for his own use. He felt rather aggrieved at Zac for speaking to him like he did, it was a complete overreaction he thought, that phone call he’d taken had certainly rubbed him up the wrong way. He had a temper that was apparent, he wasn’t sure how he was going to diffuse it this afternoon, it was going to be a long session after lunch with all this tension in the air. Perhaps they should put some music on the laboratory computer this afternoon, that would give them an excuse not to talk. They would need to have it reasonably low volume otherwise it would stop people concentrating in the office area. Thank goodness it was now the weekend. He hoped Zac had something nice planned to raise his spirits. Nick got on with most people but he couldn’t really see himself going out for a drink with Zac one evening, he was so touchy and he played his cards so close to his chest it was difficult to build up any sort of picture of what he did outside work. He had never once mentioned any hobbies or interests. He lived alone as far as he could tell, no girlfriend, never mentioned his family. He was definitely a closed book, it was if he had something to hide.

  **

  Zac was relieved that the week was drawing to a close but it wouldn’t be an early finish for him. He was getting a bit worried about his work as one of his reactions hadn’t gone as well as he had expected, he would know later on this afternoon after everyone had left whether he had enough for the next stage, if not he would have to repeat that step in the synthesis. That would put even more pressure on next week.

  Zac was very secretive about his private life. His parents had both been killed in an accident on the motorway when he was in his second year at university and his brother was in his final A-level year at school. It had naturally been a dreadful shock for both of them. Zac somehow managed to complete his university course gaining an upper second class degree, his brother Ez, he hated his full name Ezekiel, who was three years younger found it more difficult to cope. His parents were having a religious phase when they named their two sons. Ez had been close to a mental breakdown after the accident and it caused him to flunk his A levels and he lost all interest in further education. It had been a really difficult time, money was tight and although his parents owned a house it was mortgaged and so had to be sold. No way could Zac and his brother keep up the payments. The money they got from selling the house went to pay off the mortgage and the few thousand pounds left was soon swallowed up in university fees, rent for a flat which they shared and general expenses. They didn’t have any other relatives who could help them financially. Their grandparents had only small pensions and were struggling to manage, there was no way they could help them with a loan. Zac was furious when he found out that his brother was wasting money betting on the horses, and the fixed odds betting terminals down at the bookies. Ez got a firm warning that if he didn’t stop he would be on his own and he would be thrown out of their shared flat. Fortunately, this message had hit home and his brother secured a job with Tesco, it wasn’t highly paid but it was a steady job and seemed to keep him on the straight and narrow.

  All this was about eight years ago when Zac was at his previous company. Despite having a reasonably well-paid job there was a time when he found their finances very squeezed. Having to pay off his brother’s gambling debts and some unexpected expenses on their car meant that they were in danger of not being able to afford next month’s rent. There was no way that Zac could get another evening job to boost their income and they had no capital to invest in shares or something to gain extra income. So desperation drove him to start up his little sideline. An acquaintance he met in a bar one night had encouraged him to try an illicit drug. One conversation led to another and soon Zac realised that there was an opening for his talents. It was something he had indulged in intermittently, he had to do it in phases for two reasons. One it was too exhausting, physically and mentally and staying late at work permanently was not an option. Also, that would be difficult to justify, he had to create the impression that his normal work wasn’t going so well and he needed to spend a bit of extra time catching up.

  He’d been very careful at his previous company but he had an inkling that one of his colleagues had started to suspect him. So he had stopped immediately and covered his tracks. Deciding it was better to quit whilst he was ahead he had started to look for another position and quite fortuitously BioQex had decided to expand. Zac told Ez that he felt his career was stalling and there would be better opportunities elsewhere. Career progression wasn’t something uppermost in Ez’s mind and he’d questioned his brother’s motivation, arguing that it was too much of an upheaval. However, Zac was in the driving seat and as Ez was largely dependent on him he didn’t have much choice in the matter. Fortunately, there were branches of Tesco everywhere and he was able to transfer quite easily. Zac’s client and master wasn’t too pleased that he would have a longer drive to collect the goods but he knew not to protest too much, it would be much easier to keep Zac happy than to recruit another person.

  Zac had hoped that the excitement of the expansion at BioQex, the continuing encouragement from their prototype and a new CSO would be enough to keep people occupied with their own work. But no, he was cursed with another nosy employee who saw himself as some sort of Philip Marlowe private eye or Hercule Poirot. How unlucky had he been to land up in the same lab as nosy Nick? Zac needed to keep all his wits about him, if not it could be very serious indeed.

  As 3 p.m. approached Nick started to get ready to leave for the weekend. He’d done his hours this week, considerably more in fact and so he intended to take advantage of the flexible working. He was fed up with Zac and his moods and needed to get out of the building. It had been a rather stressful week finding out about their new CSO. He was planning to go and spend some time at the gym, then go and get the evening meal and wine and arrive home before Polly. Then he would make sure he made a fuss of her and would take care not to mention any contentious subjects about work. He wanted to discuss Zac’s strange behaviour with her but she would doubtless accuse him of reading too much into things, after all, people did have bad days and there were often things going on in their private life that they didn’t want to discuss with colleagues. Polly would doubtless suggest that as he’d not been at BioQex for long he was probably having trouble settling in and adjusting.

  He said goodbye to Kirsty and Caroline. Fortunately, Billie was away from her desk, he felt that she regarded him rather disdainfully if he left early on a Friday. He didn’t feel like wishing Zac a good weekend after the way he’d been with him earlier. Perhaps he would be in a better mood after the weekend.

  He stopped off at Amanda’s desk on the way out. She was their secretarial support and had replaced Sally whom he’d really liked. After Matt’s departure, Sally had decided it was time for a change. She’d struggled a bit at BioQex, the role was probably a bit beyond her capabilities as she had to be Personal Assistant to both Piers and their previous CSO Matt as well as supporting the whole scientific staff. She’d lost her confidence after a few incidents and despite Nick counselling her to stay and telling her things would get better she had resigned. Her repl
acement Amanda was a bit older than Sally had been, Nick assumed she was in her thirties like him, although he had the sense not to ask her outright. She was very efficient and very attractive thought Nick, but he was almost a married man he shouldn’t be thinking along those lines. But he did enjoy their little chats. He liked to maintain good friendships with people in different departments and as Amanda was often privy to the wider picture of what was happening within the company she was a good contact to have.

  ‘Hi Amanda, how’s it going?’ asked Nick breezily.

  ‘Oh, fine thanks, Nick, everything seems to be under control. I had a bit of hassle this morning when Piers asked me to forward him some files and I had trouble finding them using my predecessor’s filing system, she was a bit disorganised. Anyway, all sorted now,’ and she flashed him a brilliant smile which for a moment made Nick feel rather unsteady on his feet.

  ‘Doing anything nice over the weekend Amanda?’ enquired Nick.

  ‘Well, yes actually, my boyfriend is taking me away for a night to a posh hotel, he’s got one of these special deals, dinner, bed and breakfast. It’s at Altworth Hall, have you heard of it, about twenty miles from here.’

  ‘Oh, very nice, yes I’ve heard of it, bit out of my price range at the moment though,’ joked Nick.

  ‘Oh don’t say that! I’m sure you chemists get a good salary. What about you?’

  ‘Well I’m going to take my girlfriend out for the day tomorrow, we might visit a National Trust place, then have a nice dinner at the flat, watch a film. We just want to spend some time together and relax.’

  ‘Great, sounds lovely, the forecast is good for the weekend,’ and Amanda smiled again.

  ‘So are you looking forward to Brett Chandler starting properly next week then?’ asked Nick, now being able to steer the conversation round to some fact-finding.

  ‘Well I’m not sure looking forward to it is quite the expression I’d use. It will mean extra work for me, but he seems OK. Quite the Mr Smooth. He’s got a very flash sports car, I saw him parking it out the front earlier.’

  ‘Hmmmph,’ said Nick, sounding very unimpressed.

  ‘Don’t be jealous, you’ve got to give him a chance, Piers was singing his praises again today, he’s expecting great things from him.’

  ‘Well let’s hope he does a good job for all our sakes,’ added Nick.

  ‘Right, I’m going to the gym now, I need to burn off some energy. Have a good time and see you on Monday!’ and he waved goodbye and walked quickly out of the building.

  Chapter 11

  Zac was pleased that his other colleagues left in the next hour or so, although they weren’t as much of a worry as nosy Nick. So he could start a bit of his real work safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t notice. He then had about a two to three-hour session of uninterrupted time for work. He had his lone worker alarm so wasn’t breaking any rules. His reaction was troubling him though. The synthesis of phencyclidine commonly known as PCP didn’t look that difficult on paper but you could never be sure whether information that was published was completely accurate. However, by the end of tonight, he would know how well it had gone and whether he had enough to carry on to the next stage.

  Billie headed out of the building, unlocked her five-year old Fiesta and headed out of the car park in the direction of her flat. She was desperately looking forward to Sam’s arrival tomorrow lunchtime then they would have a whole twenty-four hours together. But first, she needed to get through a lonely evening. She would have to do some food shopping so they could have nice meals over the weekend, and tidy the flat. That wouldn’t take that long though she thought, so she decided to go for a swim for an hour, to get some exercise, she’d been sitting at her desk most of the day and she needed to stretch her limbs.

  **

  Zac was having a disastrous evening, he’d just finished isolating the product from his reaction and had obtained less than half the material that he had expected. What’s more, the data showed it to be rather impure, so if he purified it there would be even less, not enough to carry on with.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he shouted rather loudly, and sighed, ‘God, what a pain.’

  At that point, he heard the lab door open a few inches and Mark the security guard poked his head around the door.

  ‘Hi Zac, just wanted to remind you it’s quarter to eight, so you’ll be needing to leave soon, I need to lock up at 8 p.m.’

  ‘Oh, hi Mark, no problem, I’ll just have a quick check around and then I’ll be off. Thanks for the reminder.’

  ‘Hey, Zac, don’t look so down, it might never happen,’ joked Mark.

  ‘Well it has happened, I’ve just realised my reaction has given a pile of crap.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not your fault,’ said Mark, trying to cheer up Zac who looked like he was carrying the troubles of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘You’re probably right, I’ll just have to have a think about it, time for a beer I think, or several,’ he added trying to sound a bit more relaxed.

  ‘How are you settling in here at BioQex?’ asked Mark. ‘They seem like a good set of guys here, have you been out with them socially yet?’

  ‘Well we’ve not had a get together yet, all of us, people have their own lives as well.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to think I’m interfering and say if you’re not interested but I like to go out and have some beers from time to time, so if you’re not busy one evening I could show you some of the local watering holes.’

  Zac hesitated momentarily as the suggestion had surprised him, but replied graciously, ‘that sounds good Mark, perhaps in a couple of weeks. See how your shifts go and let me know when you are free, I could do with getting out a bit more.’

  ‘Great, will do, now get yourself off home now, see you Monday,’and Mark returned to the front desk ready to lock up after Zac.

  Zac gathered his things and headed off home. Mark seemed a decent bloke, it would be good to have a chat with him, find out a bit more of what he thought about the employees here. He probably had a lot of useful information, he seemed a chatty type and obviously met people in different departments. He wouldn’t know so much about science so he wouldn’t feel he was under observation like with that Nick. Zac unlocked his car, he started the engine and pulled out of the space, after a few metres the car coughed and spluttered and stopped.

  ‘Fuck, I don’t believe this,’ shouted Zac, how much worse could today get? It was as if all the planets had aligned to make his life difficult. He put his head down on the steering wheel, he felt like crying. At least he wasn’t blocking anyone in the car park at this time of night. He tried again, at least the engine was turning over, the battery wasn’t flat, yet. At the fourth attempt, the engine fired, carefully Zac engaged first gear and set off. He drove carefully as he was desperate not to stall the engine if he broke down in the middle of Persford it would be a nightmare, the roads were still reasonably busy with the Friday evening traffic. It was clear that this car would need some urgent medical treatment, or it might even be beyond salvation. He would need some extra funds in the very near future and that would mean he had to solve the problems with his extracurricular chemistry.

  Chapter 12

  The weather on Saturday was fine and sunny but Zac’s mood was anything but. He’d been on his own until about 10.30 p.m. the previous evening until his brother returned from his late shift. Despite a few beers that evening, he had spent a restless night worrying about his rather unsuccessful reaction and the state of his finances. Now he also had his car to worry about. He had another read through his papers containing the experimental details for the synthesis of PCP and couldn’t spot where he’d gone wrong. Perhaps the method was no good and the authors had made up the yields of the reactions. Maybe an alternative method was needed. Normally with a reaction which wasn’t going so well he would just search the chemical literature but he couldn’t risk that at work, nor did he want to risk it on his tablet at home. If he was invest
igated at any time they could check which sites he’d visited. Nothing was secret when surfing the web these days. The only way he could search incognito was to use a public computer in the library, using a false library account. There was an excellently appointed library in the centre of Persford and as soon as he moved to the area he went in to ask what he needed to get a library ticket with them, and hence access to the computer terminals. Fortunately, it wasn’t too stringent. They just needed a couple of items of identification, letters or bills showing your name and address. You needed to be a resident of Persford that was all they were worried about. They didn’t ask for a passport, or driving licence or credit card details as a lot of people who were using public computers were often on low incomes and didn’t possess any of those types of documents.

  For a couple of weeks, it had been troubling him as to how he could produce any such documents in another person’s name. He’d been on the lookout at the flats for any post being left around but each flat had its own locked mailbox. He had casually tried those of his neighbours to see whether any had been carelessly left unlocked but he was out of luck. Also, it needed to be the identification for someone male, so that reduced his opportunities.

  Then a couple of weeks ago a scenario presented itself. Nick Thomas, his colleague had been talking about his private life and how a bank or building society needed to see some documents or other and it gave Zac an idea. Nick couldn’t resist telling everyone in the lab what he was up to, all his private business and he let it slip that he was having to take photocopies of documents in case he had to send off the originals to various establishments. That particular day he spent his coffee break shuffling and photocopying loads of papers, he seemed to be getting a bit stressed losing track of what he had copied. The papers were lying in a disorganised jumble on Nick’s desk, so Zac decided to seize his chance.