by Carl Andrew
Leon looked at her and thought for a minute. “It’s a stupid idea right?” Sarah said, almost dismissing the concept before letting him respond.
“Not a silly idea at all,” he said.
“In fact, you might have just retained your reputation for having something insightful and brilliant to say following that look.”
“Really, you think it could work?” She was surprised, excited, scared.
“Why not, I couldn’t think of a better solution.”
“What we can do is start you pulling articles together from here and then I’ll get you to join me at an interview in the next few weeks so you can see how it works in the field.”
“We’ll trial it and see how it works.”
Leon was already two steps ahead. He already knew he wanted to bring her to the interview with Dr Jennifer Hopwood. That was the most high profile interview he had coming up and an ideal way for her to learn.
He was also conscious that she had a poor view of Dr Hopwood and felt this could be an opportunity to bring her around to his way of thinking.
He had to play it smart though.
“In fact,” he said, “I have an interview in early January with someone who works with the Government. How about it? No research, no preparation, just come along and observe.”
“Sounds great, Leon, thank you for believing in me,” Sarah said climbing out of her seat and straddling him in one movement.
She kissed him and he reciprocated.
“I have to believe in you Sarah,” he said as the kiss broke.
“Oh really, why’s that?” She enquired.
“Because you feed me and if I didn’t you’d poison me!” He joked.
“Yeah,” she said giggling before climbing off his lap, “You’d better watch out mister.”
He reached for his laptop and opened up his emails. Scanning down he clicked one open.
“In fact, why don’t we start now? Here’s one about a neighbourhood watch scheme doing great things in Norwich.” He handed the laptop to her and she read the email.
“Wow, an interesting story,” she said. “I’ll get onto it straight away, boss!”
“You’ve got that right,” Leon said feeling a little aroused by her use of the term boss.
She pushed him away and started writing, eager to get into her ‘training’ as soon as possible. She was invigorated by getting her thought out in the open and actually having something to strive for.
Sarah Jenkins was now a blogger. Well, almost.
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10 Downing Street, London
The call with Jennifer had taken Russell and Vanessa aback a little. The meeting they were originally having before the call was completely put to one side. The rest of the time was spent deciding on what to tell David.
En masse, they arrived at his office door. Janet ushered them in.
“He’s expecting you,” she said
Russell knocked and they both strode in.
“Hi Russell, Vanessa, what can I do for you?” David said, straight to the point.
“We’ve just spoken with Dr Hopwood, David,” Russell began.
“The positive news is that the research is showing up some consistent and exciting results. So much so that Jennifer would like to move it on to stage 2. It’s expediting the process,” he continued.
“That’s good to hear, why do I get the impression that it’s about to be followed by something challenging?” David replied.
“Because you know us entirely too well, we always knew this whole process would present challenges along the way but the important thing to keep in mind is the end game,” Russell said.
“Go on, what’s stage 2?” David was intrigued.
“Ok, so from next week, Dr Hopwood and her team will be conducting monitoring of the test cases in controlled laboratory conditions. However, this can only take place in the Huntingdon Facility.” Russell continued, waiting in anticipation of David’s response.
“And you have a plan for how we’re going to manage that have you?” David asked.
“Absolutely, there are secure rooms at the Institute that can be used to house the prisoners. They would need to be there for a week, maximum, and we would need to borrow a team of prison officers to accompany them,” Russell announced.
David took what Russell had just told him, considered it for a few seconds and provided a response.
“We’re too far down the line with this to stop now. Call Governor Voskov and tell him this comes from the top. If you have any issues, let me know.”
“Great, thank you David.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing the results and I expect them to be positive. Understood,” David said with just enough menace to show his intent.
“Absolutely,” Vanessa and Russell said almost in unison.
Russell followed Vanessa out of the room and continued to stride behind her until they reached her office.
They had already agreed to do the call to Governor Voskov from there, best to get it out of the way as soon as possible.
Vanessa sat behind her desk with Russell opposite. He picked up the phone and dialled the number.
The conversation was pretty much one sided. Governor Voskov was happy to play ball. He had aspirations of a higher office and knew how to get there.
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A few days later, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Jennifer was delighted to hear that the project was moving forward as desired. Things were heading to a very exciting stage.
She had announced it to her team and they had spent the previous couple of days getting everything prepared.
It had been a hectic last 48 hours and the test cases were due to arrive in a matter of moments.
The team assembled in the main room to greet their new guests. First impressions were important to establish a culture and also assign order.
The noise of a prison truck pulling in to the forecourt outside the Institute invigorated the waiting crowd.
For the lab team this would be the first time they would meet the test cases in person. It represented a complete change of focus for the research project.
As the test cases filed in one by one, accompanied by the prison officer detail, they were split into pairs and led away by their specific lab team.
They were shown to their accommodation for the next week but the truth was, none of the prisoners cared about what their new ‘cell’ would look like, they were just delighted to be out of the confines of the prison.
For them, even though they were still officially serving their jail sentences, this move to the Institute represented a certain level of freedom.
The next few days the test cases were ‘treated’ to a rigorous episode of controlled monitoring.
This entailed the use of a series of scientific instruments to control behavioural changes. These included electric shock collars, medical pacification techniques as well as psychiatric profiling.
All the while they were placed in specific scenarios to test their brainwave patterns, breathing, blood pressure, heart rate and body language.
This was to see if their responses changed against the baseline that had been established in stage 1 of the research.
Throughout the week, Jennifer had become increasingly worried that stage 2 wasn’t delivering the results she was hoping for.
It was always going to be a challenge to try and change the thought process and, in turn, the behaviour of an individual but she was hoping to uncover something she could at least work with.
It had to be something that could be replicated in a socially acceptable way in order to engage the general public.
She was hoping to be able to uncover a way to educate the public or a non-custodial method of managing behaviour that the police could use to stamp out the violence.
Unfortunately, as the results came in from each test case over the course of t
he week, it was obvious that they weren’t going to get what they wanted.
She sat in her office with her head in her hands. She was perplexed. It was the first time she been under a time constraint for a research project.
Also, there was just so much hanging on the success of the project that she felt under real pressure.
To add a further challenge, she was due to attend an interview with Leon Bryant next week and had to talk up the research project in some way.
She reached for the phone and dialled Russell’s number to report the disappointment.
The conversation did not go well and ended with Russell losing his cool for the first time since she’d know him. She’d agreed to continue the research project and managed to persuade him to give her a further month.
It meant four weeks of painstakingly going through all of the collected results to find some shining light, some clue as to how they could put something out there into the wider society to tackle anti-social behaviour.
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10 Downing Street, London
This was one meeting that Russell was not looking forward to. He knocked and entered David’s office, utilising the usual protocol for such a proceeding.
The meeting hadn’t been helped by the fact that the Government had been criticised heavily in the national media following a spate of unprovoked attacks by thugs against innocent members of society.
“Tell me you’ve got something for me Russell. Tell me we have a solution to this godforsaken violence?”
“David, as you know stage 2 was completed this week. There were some very encouraging results but unfortunately nothing conclusive,” Russell replied.
“What the hell does that mean?” demanded David.
“It means that we still don’t have something we can announce to the public. We don’t have an education programme or a means for curbing the anti-social behaviour.”
“Russell, have you seen the newspapers recently. I’m getting hung out to dry. I’m being attacked from every side. We said, no, no, you said that we’d be able to announce a new long term policy,” David was steaming.
“Where’s my new policy? Where is it Russell?”
“We don’t have one yet David, I’ve spoken with Dr Hopwood, we’re going to extend the research project. We’ll announce it next week. Needless to say I’ll take full responsibility,” Russell said trying to pacify David.
“Absolutely right you’ll take full responsibility,” David replied.
“You sat here,” he pointed to the two easy chairs in his office. “You and Vanessa sat here telling me this was the option to take, telling me that scientific research would lead to a long term solution.”
“Well,” David continued, “I want my solution. Understand.”
Russell nodded. David gesticulated for him to leave the office. Russell did so, meekly. It was the most difficult encounter he’d had with David. He was shaken but determined.
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Early January - Finsbury Park, London
Christmas had been and gone in an instant as it so often seems to do.
Sarah was settling in to her new journalism role well. She had become a prolific writer in such a short amount of time and Leon was very impressed with her writing style.
In fairness, she kept to a similar style to Leon’s and felt comfortable doing so.
Today, however, presented a different challenge. She was accompanying Leon to his interview. She was so excited she hadn’t even bothered asking exactly who he was interviewing.
Leon had been intentionally cagey as he was worried that, even though Sarah had given up the activism stuff, she may still harbour negative thoughts against Dr Jennifer Hopwood.
He wanted to take the opportunity to see how she felt but also to put her into a situation where she was taken by surprise to see how she would react.
It was all part of his training programme for her. In his line of work, you often go into these interviews as if you’re stepping into a void.
You can prepare as much as you like but you have no guarantees about how someone is going to react to a line of questioning.
So, Leon found himself hoping to be able to get to the interview without Sarah asking for more details about the interview subject.
It was a pretty safe bet as Sarah was completely oblivious to that and lost in the excitement of the opportunity in front of her.
They left the apartment and walked to the tube station. It was a 30 minute journey from there to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.
With the interview being at 10am, they fortunately managed to avoid rush hour although there were one or two stragglers dressed for a day in the office running a little behind and looking frustrated to boot.
Leon introduced Sarah to the heady delights of the Parliamentary security check. Ten minutes, precisely, Leon thought to himself with a smile. It was uncanny.
With excitement etched on her face, Sarah was trying to take it all in. She’d never been inside the Houses of Parliament before and, to most people on their first experience of it, she was met by a sense of power and authority.
The high ceilings, ornate design and British properness of the building impressed her.
Their greeter led them to the office area in the House of Commons and onwards to the Department of Social Behaviour. The interview was taking place in the office of the Minister, Russell Brooks.
This was a first for Leon too. He’d been to the Houses of Parliament on numerous occasions before but never inside the Ministerial Offices.
They were shown to a waiting area and were offered tea, coffee or water. With two waters requested, the greeter left her visitors and went about fulfilling the order.
This was the point at which the butterflies usually surfaced for Leon but he felt bizarrely calm. He was actually more focused on how Sarah was feeling. Perhaps that was helping his nerves.
A few minutes later they received the two drinks and were told it would just be a few minutes more before Miss Lim collected them for the interview.
Leon passed the time by reading his notes while Sarah took in the surroundings in the waiting area.
Right on time, Vanessa popped her head around the corner.
“Sorry for the delay Leon… oh…” she was taken aback a little by seeing Leon had a guest with him.
“Hi Vanessa, oh sorry, I called through to your office a little while ago to let them know I was bringing a guest. This is Sarah, Sarah Jenkins. Sarah, this is Vanessa Lim, chief advisor to the Prime Minister,” Leon responded introducing them both.
“Sarah Jenkins. Hi, how are you?” Vanessa asked adding: “I certainly know of you but it’s lovely to meet you in person.”
“You too Vanessa, Leon mentioned that you’ve been very helpful to him,” Sarah said.
Vanessa smiled sheepishly. This presented an awkward situation.
“Will you be joining us for the interview Sarah?” Vanessa asked.
Leon jumped in with a response before Sarah could muster one: “If that’s ok Vanessa. Sarah has started helping me with the blog and I’d like her to sit in and observe an interview as part of her training.”
“Sure, should be err… interesting,” was all Vanessa could say in response.
“Ok great. Thanks Vanessa,” Sarah said.
“Right, follow me. We’re just in an office down from here,” Vanessa requested as she led them along the hallway.
Leon and Sarah shadowed Vanessa until they came to a doorway.
“After you,” Vanessa offered.
Leon accepted and made his way into the room with Sarah in close pursuit.
Russell Brooks greeted them and Sarah noticed a women standing by the window looking out with her back to the room.
“Hi Leon and…” Russell was uncertain how to greet someone he’d never met before and had no idea of their name.
“Sarah, Sarah Jenkins. I’m a colleague of Leon’
s. Here to observe, pleasure meeting you Minister Brooks.”
On hearing the sound of the girl’s voice, Jennifer turned around and with a startled look in her eyes exclaimed:
“Oh my god…”
Sarah looked at the woman and, before Leon could offer an introduction, she yelled:
“What the fuck is she doing here?”
“Sarah, please. I thought you’d be ok with this, seeing as you’ve finished all the activism stuff. This is Dr Jennifer Hopwood. I’m here… we’re here to interview her.”
Meanwhile Vanessa was observing the whole scene before her. She was interested to see how this would play out.
Russell was open mouthed, absolutely stunned.
“Abby, what… what are you doing here?” Jennifer asked.
“Abby, no, this is Sarah Jenkins. Who’s Abby?” Leon was completely confused.
He looked at the person he knew as Sarah.
“What’s going on Sarah?” he demanded.
“Why didn’t you mention we were meeting her? Leon, you know how I feel,” Abby countered.
“Listen, would someone tell me what the hell is going on here,” came a big booming voice from the left hand side of the office, Russell was taking control.
“Minister Brooks, this is Abby, Abby Hopwood. She’s my daughter,” Jennifer responded.
It was Leon’s turn to be left gobsmacked. “What, daughter? Sarah, Abby, whatever your name is, why didn’t you tell me? We’re living together. Why couldn’t you trust me with this?”
Abby stared at Leon and started crying. He went over to console her but just as his hands touched her body she ran out of the room. Leon pursued her. He called out to Vanessa, Russell and Jennifer to apologise…
He followed Abby out of the building and finally caught up to her near the street.
She turned and embraced him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” she said.
“Abby, your name is Abby right?” Leon said as if still not sure.
