Radical Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  Chapter 16

  Christian Dalton was at work making an early start on some administration before the day got into full swing but he was having trouble concentrating. They had a clinical trial in progress and it was due to begin its second day. This was a small Phase I trial involving eight healthy volunteers who were receiving escalating doses of a new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. So far everything had proceeded without incident and after another overnight stay, the volunteers would be discharged from the unit.

  He would be leaving work slightly earlier than normal but he wouldn’t be heading straight home. He was going to have an early evening drink with GoodtimeGal from the chatroom. It was difficult to get time away from his family and as they hadn’t been in the area very long he’d not yet developed much of a social life so should anyone spot him he could say he was interviewing a prospective employee. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d had the courage to accept GoodtimeGal’s offer but in the safety of the chatroom his confidence had grown and he’d become emboldened to ask her for a date. Once he’d made the offer, pride had taken over and he’d not wanted to retract it.

  Perhaps for an hour this evening, he would be able to enjoy someone’s company who was actually interested in him. His wife only ever indulged in conversation about the children and their accomplishments. If he ever showed any sort of concern about his work he was accused of being overly negative.

  Late in the afternoon the previous day he’d been contacted by Head Office to tell him that his unit of ClinTry might be transferred to an individual buyer and would no longer sit under the ClinTry brand although the name might be retained in some part. He’d been told to expect a visit from a Mr Ron Radford in the next few days to discuss the business with him and to show him the unit. The Head Office had made it clear that once the transfer had been completed the employees in Persford would be at the mercy of the new owner although they had agreed with him that no layoffs would happen for a month.

  When he’d told Geraldine that he was worried about the job security she had dismissed his concerns, merely telling him that he could surely make a good impression and show that he was indispensable before she rushed out to start the usual round of after-school activities. He wondered why he continued to waste his breath by communicating with her.

  Just at that moment, an email arrived from Ron Radford asking whether it would be convenient to drop by after lunch. He would be accompanied by his accountant Mr Sidney Failsworth. Although it was short notice he asked whether he could peruse the latest set of accounts and staff lists.

  Christian sat back in his chair and sighed. Well, it looked as though things were starting to get underway. Ron Radford was definitely keen, perhaps that was a good sign. He quickly googled his name which brought up several articles featured on the Persford Online news site. Ron was definitely a figure of note in the local area whose private life had been riven with tragedy of late. He replied to the email that he was very welcome and should report to the reception any time after 2 p.m.

  **

  Ron eased himself out of bed and crept along the landing to use the family bathroom. He’d taken his clothes with him and he got dressed in there to avoid disturbing Maureen who was sleeping peacefully. It felt strange creeping around furtively in someone else’s house. It had been such a wonderful evening and night with Maureen. He’d not dared to dream that she would ask him to stay and he would not have made the suggestion himself for fear of frightening her away.

  He checked that he had everything and then padded down the stairs after peeping in on Maureen one last time. In the kitchen, he noticed a notepad and pen and he scribbled a note to her saying that he would phone her later but he had a full day ahead and needed to get back to his office. He drew a couple of hearts on the message and left it by the kettle.

  Once outside the house, he phoned for a taxi and asked it to pick him up in about ten minutes by a row of shops which were on the way back to Brensford Manor. He saw that he’d received an email from Dr Christian Dalton inviting him to ClinTry this afternoon. Ron felt that a new chapter was opening not only in his private life but also in business. He was definitely back in the land of the living and a world of opportunity awaited.

  **

  Joe Blackstone was making reasonable progress with his chemistry but he’d not made quite the impression he would have liked. It was now a couple of months into his post-doctoral research and though he felt that he’d managed to get the hang of things his output was rather mediocre and the improvements in yield were still a bit disappointing. His work was a mixture of route development and the synthesis of new compounds for biological test.

  As was often the case, he was tired and had already had a couple of strong coffees that morning to try to stave off his feeling of sleepiness. He wasn’t a morning person at the best of times and he was having trouble sleeping properly. His housemates were noisy often coming back late and banging about in the kitchen. His room was stuffy and airless and he thought he might need to get a fan to cool him down at night. If his work went to plan he might be able to leave a bit earlier but there was still a long day stretching ahead before then.

  Adam Newman came back into the lab carrying some printouts and looked pleased with himself. He took off his lab coat and left the lab to sit at his desk so that he could examine them in more detail. Pat Dunford wandered over and stopped by his desk.

  ‘How’s it going, Adam?’

  ‘Not bad, do you want to take a look at this?’

  Pat pulled up a chair and they looked over the data together. Joe looked over at the pair and could see them pointing at various parts on the printouts and smiling. Pat high-fived Adam and there seemed to be considerable hilarity. They got up and wandered back into the lab.

  ‘Joe? Got a minute?’ said Pat.

  ‘Sure, just a minute,’ and Joe fixed his separating funnel in the clamp then checked that the reaction he had in progress was at the correct temperature.

  ‘Adam’s just had a breakthrough with step four,’ said Pat.

  ‘Really? That’s been a complete pig of a step for ages. Nick was talking about it the other day.’

  ‘Yes, well it seems we might finally be on our way to solving it. Adam has tweaked the conditions, it’s very subtle he’s found a slightly different concentration of acid makes all the difference.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Joe, feeling slightly put out that Adam who had only been with them a fortnight was already proving to be a formidable chemist.

  Joe turned back around and swore, ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Problem?’ asked Pat.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Joe sheepishly. He’d just noticed the tap on the separating funnel was leaking and he had lost some material on the base of his fume cupboard. He quickly put a beaker under the leaking tap to collect any further drips. He moved to stand in front of his work area so that Pat couldn’t see what had happened.

  ‘Well, it’s still a way off being optimised,’ said Adam modestly. ‘We don’t want to tempt fate,’ and he tapped the wooden door, superstitiously.

  ‘Nonsense, I’m sure it’s just the breakthrough we needed. Now I think about it, I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before but well, it’s been all go and with Dan, your predecessor leaving suddenly it sort of threw us into a bit of disorganisation. Also, Nick got assaulted and ended up not being able to do any lab work.’ Pat tailed off as he seemed to drift off thinking of past events.

  Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘Shit, I didn’t know all that had been going on.’

  ‘Oh, it was crazy. Also, Derek worsened suddenly,’ he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve heard he’s probably only got a few weeks left. Poor bugger, it’s such a shame.’ Pat shook his head and swallowed hard, he seemed deeply moved as he talked about their former professor.

  ‘It’s a good thing that Hannah and Seth have been holding things together, isn’t that right guys?’

  Hannah and Seth laughed. ‘Yes, he has us ch
ained to the bench working like Trojans,’ said Seth.

  ‘Anyway, Joe, how’s your work going?’ asked Pat. ‘We must have a meeting this week.’

  ‘Oh, not too bad,’ said Joe rather vaguely.

  ‘Did you start the scale-up of the new front-runner?’

  ‘No, not yet, I’ve not had time.’

  ‘Oh, well, when do you think you will be able to start?’

  ‘This week, definitely,’ said Joe, starting to feel uncomfortable at this level of scrutiny.

  ‘Do you think it would help if Adam gave you a hand? Split the batches?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Joe, ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Well, don’t be afraid to give Adam a shout, he’s definitely got green fingers,’ said Pat.

  The mutual appreciation society, as Joe thought of it, ended. What a cheek he thought to himself. Adam had got lucky early on but there was no need to make out he was in line for a Nobel prize. He felt sure that part of it was to do with the fact that they were both alumni of Imperial College in London. It was like an old boy’s club. For the moment he was prepared to make an effort with Adam but each day he felt himself becoming more resentful. It was also obvious that Adam was from quite a wealthy family. He’d seen him getting into his car one evening and it was a one-year old Audi. Joe was managing on what he was paid for his post-doctoral position but he didn’t have much spare cash each month. His rented accommodation was much more expensive than in Leeds and his insurance and road tax for his car ate into his salary.

  He was shaken from his musings as he noticed that the temperature of his reaction was creeping up rather too quickly so he added more dry ice to the cooling bath. He needed to focus. He could not afford to make any silly mistakes.

  Chapter 17

  Polly had been at her desk for about half an hour when her phone rang.

  ‘Polly Thomas, good morning,’ she answered.

  ‘Hello, this is Rebecca Levinson, from oncology. I sent you an email the other day.’

  Polly scrolled down her inbox and retrieved the saved message.

  ‘Yes hi, I’ve got it here. So sorry you received that awful leaflet.’

  ‘Yes, well, it was a shock. I’ve had another one this morning. It’s a bit less offensive but it’s some promotional material for Britannia First and it details their march in the town centre. Also, I noticed one of their larger posters on the student notice board in the reception of the medical school. I didn’t do anything about that as I suppose the students have to make up their own minds. It does shock me though that this sort of propaganda is becoming rife.’

  ‘Well, of course, it’s shocking. Once again I’m so sorry you have been targetted personally. Do you know for certain that you are the only member of staff in your department who’s received one?’

  ‘I’ve had a quick check around. A couple of my Asian colleagues also received them. It doesn’t seem to be blanket leafleting, some of us have been chosen specially.’

  ‘So that suggests it’s the far-right rather than anti-Israel or anti-Zionists at work then?’

  ‘Yes, this time it does. Have you heard back from Rachel Goodman, she’s the president of the Interfaith Society?’

  ‘No, I’ve not heard from her.’

  ‘I asked her to find out within the society how many people had been targetted.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll make a note of it and thank you for bringing it to my attention. Please will you encourage your other colleagues to report their mailings? We have sent numerous messages but we need to make sure all incidents are reported for statistical purposes.’

  ‘Of, course, I’ll send out another departmental email.’

  ‘OK, well, bye Rebecca, thanks again.’

  Polly ended the call and sighed. This didn’t look to be a transient event which was going to blow over quickly. It was getting worse by the day and it was hard to see how they could easily bring it under control.

  **

  Adam could feel some tension in the air when he went back into the laboratory. Joe seemed to be avoiding his gaze.

  ‘Do you mind if I switch the radio on?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Go ahead, it doesn’t bother me,’ replied Joe.

  Adam was grateful of the background noise. It was better than trying to hold a stilted conversation.

  Just at that moment, Pat came back into the lab and turned down the volume on the radio.

  ‘Guys, have you got a minute?’

  The team stopped what they were doing and turned around to listen to Pat.

  ‘It’s nothing serious, don’t look so worried. It’s just that I thought we ought to have a lab evening out, a pizza, drinks, something like that, well, anything really, bowling? Whatever you fancy. What about Friday?’

  There was a general noise of approval, then Adam spoke.

  ‘Sorry, I’m away this weekend, I can’t get out of it. Thursday would be OK, or next week?’

  ‘How about Thursday? We could just have a few beers as it’s a bit short notice. What do you think?’

  ‘No problem if you get the first round?’ joked Joe.

  The others laughed.

  ‘OK, you decide the venue and let me know,’ said Pat, heading out of the lab.

  Somehow that brief interruption seemed to have diffused the tension in the atmosphere.

  ‘So, where do you fancy, guys?’ said Seth.

  ‘No good asking me,’ said Adam, ‘I’m still getting to know the area.’

  ‘Seth, what about the Clocktower?’ asked Hannah, ‘I’ve been there before, it’s reasonable, not too pricey and quite smart.’

  ‘Fine, by me. Joe?’

  ‘I’ll go by your suggestion, like Adam, I’m a newbie around here.’

  ‘Right, let’s go there, say 7.30 ish?’

  There was general agreement and people started to get on with their work. Hannah went off to collect some data and Seth went out of the lab to let Pat know that they’d reached a decision.

  ‘So, off anywhere nice this weekend, Adam?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Back to London, a family thing.’

  ‘Oh, party, wedding?’ continued Joe.

  ‘My sister’s fortieth birthday.’

  Joe seemed surprised and was mentally calculating the age difference.

  ‘Yes, my sister is quite a bit older than me, I’ve a brother who’s thirty-six this year and then there’s me. I think I must have been a mistake!’ he joked.

  ‘So is it a big do then?’

  ‘Quite big. About fifty people I should think.’

  ‘Well, I hope you have a good time,’

  ‘I’ll try. Hope there will be lots of wine. That should help me cope with any annoying relatives!’ joked Adam. ‘Anyway, how about yourself?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Do you have much on this weekend?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve not a lot of spare cash. Persford is more expensive than Leeds. Even though I share it’s still a bit expensive.’

  ‘How’s your love life at the moment then?’

  ‘Non-existent. My girlfriend dumped me recently. I’ve yet to find the woman of my dreams.’

  ‘Sorry mate. Hope you didn’t think I was being nosey?’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’m just feeling a bit sorry for myself,’ he paused. ‘So, where are your family then?’

  ‘North London, Finchley, do you know it?’

  ‘No, never been there. Is it nice?’

  ‘Well, it’s very built up obviously. The picture of suburbia.’

  ‘So, are you from a long line of eminent scientists then?’

  ‘Ha, not exactly,’ laughed Adam. ‘My Dad was hoping I’d take over the family business but I wanted to break free. They are a bit, well, a bit controlling, let’s say.’

  ‘So what is the family business?’

  ‘My Dad started a recruitment agency and head-hunting business. He finds talent for lots of the finance companies in London. He was a banker himself many years ago bu
t lost his job in the crash in 1987 so he decided to have a change. He had quite a few jobs before starting his own business.’

  ‘I see, explains the car then,’ said Joe, his mood hardening somewhat.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got nice wheels, I guessed you were from a wealthy family.’

  ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s nothing to do with me. I’m pleased for you. It’s nice of them to help you out, with the car I mean.’

  ‘I worked in my holidays and saved up a lot of the money. They didn’t just give me the car.’

  ‘I didn’t say they gave it you,’ said Joe. He sighed. ‘I know I sound a bit jealous, it’s just that my car is on its last legs and I’m a bit down at the moment, my Dad’s been made redundant. It’s going to be hard for him.’

  ‘That’s tough mate. My Dad got a shock in the eighties but he managed to bounce back. I hope something turns up for him. What does he do?’

  ‘Engineer. He’s got skills, it’s just well, all businesses are cutting back these days.’

  Adam didn’t really know what else to say. He felt a bit like he was treading on eggshells. He decided to change tack slightly.

  ‘What do you think of the guys in the storeroom?’ he asked.

  ‘The storeroom? You mean the main one?’

  ‘Yes, I was in there the other day and a guy came in, Eddie I think the others called him and he seemed a complete git.’