Terminal Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  ‘Right, must go now, some things to finish off but I’ll be back about quarter to six.’

  ‘Bye, love,’ said Matt smiling. It was so nice that they had more of a normal family life together.

  Tomorrow he would do some more studying, there was no need to do any more today. He checked how the stock market was faring today. The Footsie 100 share index was up strongly as was the Dow Jones Index in the States. How was BioQex doing? Slightly down, he checked the recent trades and noticed that there had been a large sale, someone was obviously taking some profits. Perhaps he should do the same at some point, not that they needed the money as he’d had a generous severance package. Somehow it was always more difficult to decide to sell shares than buy. There was always a feeling that you might be better hanging on for an even bigger profit. He would monitor the price movement of BioQex with interest from now on. After all, he was doing an MBA. Perhaps the company would provide some examples for his dissertation. Still, it was early days to be thinking about that, he’d only just started the course. Half an hour and then he would go and collect Toby and hear all about what he’d done at nursery.

  **

  Brett left work that Monday evening rather earlier than he would normally have done. The encounter with Mel had annoyed and unsettled him. The board decisions were taken by only four members, Bob as Head of Biology didn’t have a vote. He never thought he would say it but he really wished Bob was on the senior team, surely he would be a steadying influence and not be swayed by all Mel’s bluster. It was important not to have too much change happening suddenly. In Brett’s opinion, they needed to find a replacement for Zac Milburn and along with one other staff member in chemistry and possibly another experienced biologist. Frank had rubber-stamped the hiring for these three positions before he’d left. However, Mel seemed to be talking about a huge increase in staff. Brett had seen it before on a bigger scale where companies had a sudden burst of hiring and it was usually a disaster.

  He decided to head off to the gym in town for a bit of distraction, then he would head home and hope that tonight he would have some post waiting for him. It was strange, just recently his post seemed to have dried up. No doubt some dodgy postman who was pilfering, he would give it one more week and then contact Royal Mail.

  ‘Bye, Amanda,’ he said, locking his office door.

  ‘Oh, Brett, just before you go, Melanie has asked me to schedule a meeting with you tomorrow. She wants to talk staff numbers with you.’

  ‘What?’ snapped Brett, then he softened his tone as he realised he was being very short tempered with Amanda and she was only the messenger.

  ‘Sorry, Amanda, you took me by surprise. I’ve got a very busy day tomorrow, it will have to be later in the week.’

  ‘Oh, well I didn’t realise,’ replied Amanda, ‘there’s not much in your diary for the next couple of days, unless you’ve added some things just now and it’s not syncing properly.’

  ‘I need to have some clear blocks of time to plan things,’ said Brett, hoping he was sounding convincing, ‘Wednesday might be possible, I’ll think about it and get back to you. See you tomorrow,’ he said, marching swiftly away from Amanda’s desk and out to his car. It was the end of the first day with Mel on board and already it was a day too many as far as Brett was concerned.

  Chapter 7

  Ez Milburn heard a knock on his bedroom door. He went to open it and saw one of his flatmates Ollie standing there.

  ‘Hi, Ez, just wondered if you fancied going to the cinema this evening?’ Ez was the name he preferred to be known by. His given name of Ezekiel being bestowed upon him by his parents who had been rather religious at the time of his birth.

  ‘Oh, well, no thanks, I’m feeling a bit tired and I’ve got an early shift tomorrow, perhaps another time?’

  ‘No problem, just thought I’d ask, a group of us is going, see you tomorrow evening.’

  Ez closed his door and sat back down on his bed. He hoped Ollie hadn’t smelt the vodka on his breath. He’d already drunk a few glasses this evening, if he went to the cinema he would surely fall asleep. It was good of Ollie to ask though, he should make more of an effort to be sociable. He’d been quite lucky to find such a good group of guys in this shared house. Despite having pleasant flatmates he was struggling. Ez wasn’t in a good place. He was scared for his future, not just his financial future but the future of his mental health. He shouldn’t be drinking so much but he needed something to numb the pain, the pain of his tragic loss which had happened so suddenly knocking the stuffing out of him, destabilising his fragile mental state. The demons which had consumed him in the past were threatening to reappear and he was losing the battle against them.

  It was now about three months since his brother’s death. The inquest had ruled that his death resulted from unlawful killing but so far the perpetrators had not been found. The police told him that the case would remain open but that he should be realistic. His brother Zac had been the victim of professional killers who were part of an organised drug ring and it was unlikely that they would ever be found. His family liaison officer Jill had been amazing in the support she’d given but he was still finding his loss hard to bear. His brother had supported him financially and emotionally, since the sudden death of their parents in a car accident. Ez felt so alone. He’d no girlfriend and his grandparents were elderly and had their fair share of difficulties and he didn’t want to burden them any further.

  The police had advised him to engage a solicitor to manage Zac’s affairs. Being only twenty-eight at the time of his death he’d not made a will so intestacy rules meant that Ez would be the sole inheritor of his brother’s money and possessions. His possessions were few, a seven-year-old car which was worth a few thousand, a few hundred pounds on deposit, a tablet computer, and clothes. There were some pension contributions which were to be refunded and so an application had to be made for probate. Had Zac’s death been the result of an accident or natural causes then an insurance policy to cover Death in Service would have paid out but as he had been engaged in illegal activities at the time of his death the company were refusing to pay out. This meant that a sum of approximately three times his salary would not be due to Ez. Although his solicitor expected the estate to be settled by the end of the year Ez had an immediate problem with his finances and so had given notice to move from the two bedroom flat he had shared with his brother. Thus he now rented a room in a shared house.

  The demons which were menacing Ez were not only trying to push him down into a deep pit of depression they were trying to unlock feelings of anger and revenge. Although he knew that his brother was in the wrong abusing his position as a chemist at BioQex to synthesise street drugs he had only done it out of necessity and to provide for the both of them. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t have been the last, surely it was a one-off occurrence, Zac wasn’t a bad guy, not really. The police hadn’t told him exactly why they’d been alerted to the illicit lab at BioQex but something must have given them the reason to investigate. From what he’d heard they’d arrested someone else instead of Zac in the first instance. It was that incident which had made the town of Persford aware that the police had been at the company and hence Zac’s killers had become nervous. He punched the mattress in frustration. He had lost his beloved brother, BioQex was still in operation and going from strength to strength if the media were to be believed. It was all so unfair. He lay down on his bed. Feeling wretched the tears started to pour from his eyes, his chest heaved with painful sobs.

  **

  That evening Giles was meeting with his friend Jake in a wine bar some distance away from the financial area of the city. He wanted to make sure they weren’t spotted in any of the usual watering holes. They normally conducted business by text but when they had more detailed things to discuss it was better to meet in person so that afterwards the texts could be rather nondescript, their meaning known only to the two of them.

  Jake was the first to arrive and was alread
y most of the way through a glass of Rioja when Giles arrived. He’d spent a few minutes wandering around looking for his friend as he was tucked away in a dark corner. They didn’t want to advertise their meeting in case they were spotted by any colleagues. Giles smiled when he saw his friend had bought a bottle of his favourite wine and that a glass was ready and waiting for him on the table. He sat down and poured himself a generous glass, knocked back a third of it in one go and took a few deep breaths.

  ‘Jake, thanks for the wine, just what I needed.’

  ‘No problem, well hopefully we’ll be able to buy many more bottles of vintage wine soon,’ replied Jake. ‘How are things shaping up then?’

  ‘I’ve set the ball rolling albeit on a relatively small scale. I’ve sold around a hundred thousand shares, it will be Wednesday before the transaction is settled. Once that happens we can transfer the money to the new account. I’ll let you know and then you can start the money on its journey around the world.’

  ‘OK, will do. Text me something like job done and I’ll know the money is available.’

  ‘Great, but make sure it spends a few days in the offshore account before it starts on its journey. Make sure you don’t transfer all of it, we need some to linger in Brett’s account. Damage limitation and all that.’

  ‘Message received and understood boss,’ said Jake, miming an American style salute towards Giles.

  ‘Hopefully, by tomorrow I’ll have Brett’s account set up, the final piece in the chain, then everything’s looking very good as far as I can see. Remember this is just a trial run, once we are familiar with the mechanism we can process more money.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Jake, draining the remainder of his wine and immediately refilling it. Giles was slightly behind Jake with the wine consumption but catching up fast.

  ‘Now we need to remain focused. BioQex is about to start a Phase 1 trial in a couple of weeks. Assuming all goes well, we might be about to see a big spike in the share price. So we need to remain invested and also take advantage of any dips in the price. Also, now that we are dealing with sizeable numbers we need to hedge against any unexpected events.’

  ‘Sure, good idea, do you want me to handle that?’

  ‘Yes please, I was just going to ask you but you beat me to it. Your bank has a much more established hedge department. Let’s take out some options which cover us in case the share price drops unexpectedly. You know what pharma shares are like. The slightest sniff of a problem and there can be a sudden drop in the price.’

  Jake nodded his agreement, ‘Leave it with me, consider it sorted.’

  ‘Right, well I’ll be off now,’ said Giles, ‘I’ve still got things to do this evening. Just to be on the safe side, you wait a few minutes before leaving, you never know who’s around in these places.’

  Chapter 8

  After a tiring session at the gym, Brett pulled up in the car park of his flat. He retrieved his briefcase and gym bag from the boot, locked his car and headed into the building. He took the stairs up to his uber modern flat wondering what he’d got in the freezer by way of a meal. As he opened the door he automatically looked down to see whether he’d had any post. Apart from a few advertising leaflets, there was nothing. It had been three weeks now and no post, it was very strange. He was really hoping for a credit card statement, it had been due a week ago now. He checked his watch, 7.30 p.m., once he’d sorted out something to eat he would phone the company and request a balance and a duplicate statement.

  He set his washing machine going with his gym kit and other dirty clothes and found a pasta meal in the freezer, that would have to suffice. He couldn’t be bothered going out to get any shopping tonight. He checked his phone for any messages from Annabelle. There were a few texts, mainly kisses and some love you, messages. He would phone her later, 9 p.m. was usually a good time for them to chat.

  His meal needed to defrost in the microwave for at least five minutes before he could cook it so he looked up the number of customer services for his credit card and phoned. The call connected then he got the usual spiel followed by the message that all customer service operators were busy, however, he was third in the queue so decided to hang on.

  ‘Hello, you’re through to Zadie, how may I help you,’ said the voice, making Brett jump as he’d started to drift off listening to the alternate round of message followed by music, followed by message and so on.

  ‘Oh, hello, this is Dr Brett Chandler here. I would like to request a balance on my account and a duplicate statement as mine seems to have gone missing in the post,’ said Brett in a businesslike manner.

  ‘Certainly sir, I just need to take some details from you, and some security questions, then I’ll be able to help you.’

  Zadie proceeded to go through a list of standard questions to ascertain Brett’s identity.

  ‘That’s great sir, the outstanding balance on your account is £2,315. 17,’ said the customer services operator. Brett was stunned, he’d been expecting a figure around the six hundred pounds mark, he’d had no large expenditure over the last few weeks. His main purchases had been for food and petrol, the occasional meal out, and leisure activities like his gym membership. All his utility bills for his flat were paid by direct debit from his current account. There was no way it could add up to over two thousand pounds.

  ‘I’m sorry, there must be some mistake. I pay off my balance each month by direct debit and so I estimate my account to be around the six to seven hundred pounds mark.’

  ‘Well, looking down your transactions there have been a couple of large purchases, one for £499 and one for £1279.’

  ‘But I haven’t bought any items like those, someone must have used my card fraudulently,’ Brett was aware his voice had increased in volume and he was becoming quite agitated.

  ‘Have you checked whether your card has been stolen sir?’

  ‘Well I don’t think so, wait a minute I’ll get my wallet,’ and Brett rushed into the hallway where he’d left his jacket on a chair. Fumbling with his phone and jacket he retrieved his wallet and saw that all his cards were there. ‘My card is here, someone must have got the details from the web or something, I don’t understand,’ said Brett.

  ‘I’m going to put an immediate block on this card and suspend your account,’ said Zadie. ‘We will issue a replacement card but it can take up to ten days for it to arrive.’

  ‘I think there’s a problem with the post at my flat,’ said Brett, ‘that’s why I’m phoning because I’ve not had my credit card statement.’

  ‘Well, at worst you will only be liable for the first fifty pounds of each transaction that you say you weren’t responsible for.’

  ‘God, what? That’s a hundred quid for both of them and I didn’t even buy the things,’ shouted Brett.

  ‘Well you probably won’t be charged but I have to let you know that it’s a possibility,’ said Zadie calmly, having had experience with exasperated customers.

  ‘Can you send my replacement card to my work address please?’ asked Brett.

  ‘Sorry, our policy is that it is sent to your home. It will be sent recorded delivery so you will have to sign for it or collect it at the sorting office. Then you will have to activate it by phoning or online and answer your security questions.’

  ‘Oh, well I suppose that’s OK,’ replied Brett resignedly.

  ‘I’d like to encourage you to set up an online account so you can view your transactions regularly in case your statement goes astray again,’ advised Zadie.

  ‘Yes, er, thanks, I’ll try to do that, it’s just I’m so busy at the moment,’ replied Brett.

  ‘Of course sir, but I’m sure you will find it helpful.’

  ‘Thank you, I’ll do that. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Good evening sir,’ and Zadie ended the call.

  Well, there wasn’t much chance of a good evening now thought Brett. He was just pleased that he’d decided to wait no longer and phone today, otherwise someone would
be having even more fun with his card. He needed a whisky after all that whilst he waited for his ready meal to cook. Fortunately, he’d had other cards he could use to pay. Tomorrow he’d have to phone the gym and tell them his card had been cancelled, what a pain. He’d like to get his hands on the bastard who’d scammed him. Fuming he sat down with his whisky and texted Annabelle with the news.

  **

  Nick and Polly were at home together clearing up after their meal and working through their usual routine of activities to make sure they were ready for the following day. Both were tired and rather subdued so they completed their tasks with a CD playing in the background. At about 9.30 p.m. they sat down in the lounge together, Polly put her feet up on the sofa and lay back against Nick.

  ‘How’s your head now,’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, not too bad, those painkillers did the trick. I just got a bit annoyed with Kirsty this afternoon, it’s stress that sets off my headaches.’

  ‘Well try not to get too worked up, you are still recovering from your assault. The company understands and wants you to take it easy.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Nick, ‘I didn’t work late, it’s just the place is a bit trying at the moment. It’s not just Kirsty it’s the organisation, well I mean the storeroom doesn’t seem very well stocked at the moment and it makes it hard when you can’t get what you need.’

  ‘I thought Kevin used to be very efficient, you always said that, even if he was a bit annoying.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Nick, ‘that’s a bit of an understatement. He’s impossible, not just annoying, you can’t get rid of him once he starts. Mind you it was strange, today he seemed completely shocked to see me in the storeroom this afternoon. Lost for words even. It’s like he was really preoccupied.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s got personal problems,’ suggested Polly.

  ‘Yes, he has, he can’t stop talking and is a complete pain. Ow, that hurt,’ he pretended as Polly slapped his thigh hard.