Terminal Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  Chapter 13

  Ez finished his shift shortly after 4 p.m. and went home to his single room in his shared house. He had no idea what he would eat that night. Probably beans on toast again. He didn’t feel like food, what he did feel like was a drink and lots of it. He had an appointment arranged with his counsellor at 5 p.m. but he’d phoned to cancel it, telling the doctor’s surgery he’d suddenly come down with a vomiting bug. The whole evening stretched ahead, it was the worst time of day for him. At least in the morning, he had to get up and go to work and the thought of having company somehow helped him. Alone in his flat, he felt as though his life was utterly pointless. So far in his life, he felt he’d achieved nothing and when he thought about the future he saw little chance of that changing. He had nothing and no-one to live for.

  Following his brother’s death, his police family liaison officer Jill had encouraged him to seek help and so his GP had prescribed him antidepressants along with some counselling, primarily aimed at helping him to come to terms with his grief. Taking antidepressants again had made him feel like a failure. He’d been told not to feel guilty about it and to accept it as a short-term measure to help him through a difficult time which had befallen him through no fault of his own. However they didn’t mix well with his alcohol so he’d yo-yoed with taking his tablets, some days taking them, some days missing them. Consequently, the varying doses had confused his mental state even further making him irrational and prone to outbursts of temper and melancholy. As he drank his bottle of cheap spirits he heard his flatmates start to arrive home. First was Ollie, then about an hour later, he heard Stevie and later Carly. He couldn’t face speaking to them tonight, he was simultaneously angry and tearful, it wouldn’t do for them to see him in this state. The last thing he needed was for them to ask him to leave.

  He lay on his bed and closed his eyes. Try as he did, he couldn’t get the thoughts of BioQex out of his mind. They were responsible for his brother’s death, they’d been too lax in their procedures, it should never have been allowed to continue. They had let Zac’s death occur, they just didn’t care. He hated that company. He opened his eyes and sat up. He just had to get out of his flat. He listened at his bedroom door and it sounded as if his housemates were now out of the kitchen. He could hear someone in the bathroom having a shower and the TV on in the lounge. He donned a hoodie, grabbed his keys and crept out of the flat. Unchaining his bicycle from down the side of the flats he set off towards his first port of call before embarking on his main mission that evening.

  **

  Brett and Annabelle were enjoying some pasta and sauce with smoked salmon over at Annabelle’s house on the outskirts of Persford. Although they were both busy with their jobs they tried to see each other for at least one evening during the week as well as either spending all or part of the weekend together. Their relationship seemed to be blossoming. They’d taken it steadily at first as Piers had told Brett that she might feel vulnerable after a painful divorce but she’d indicated that she was ready for a relationship. Their properties couldn’t have been more different. Brett’s flat was uber modern, sleek lines and trendy modern furniture, a typical bachelor flat. Annabelle’s, on the other hand, had a cottagey atmosphere, although the house was far bigger than a cottage. It had a comfortable lived-in feel with furniture which had character due to its age. Some items had been in her family for years belonging to her grandparents who were no longer alive. She’d obviously kept these pieces when she split from her husband and he’d taken a few favourite items. The kitchen looked like it belonged in a farmhouse, acid washed units and a deep stone butler sink, utensils hanging from a rack on the ceiling.

  They usually ate in the kitchen at a rough wood table, enjoying the view through the French doors out to the garden. At 8 p.m. the light was fading and sometimes they could see the bats circling out over the lawn catching the unsuspecting insects. Set back from the road it was a tranquil location and at times the silence seemed deafening.

  Brett poured the rest of the bottle of Chianti into their glasses before collecting their plates and putting them in the dishwasher.

  ‘You seem rather subdued tonight Brett,’ said Annabelle, ‘are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, it’s been a tough week and it’s only Wednesday,’ replied Brett sighing.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Well, yes, I don’t want to moan but I am a bit worried about things. Do you want anything else to eat, fruit, cheese?’

  ‘No thanks, let’s take our glasses through to the lounge.’

  They put the rest of the things in the dishwasher and headed off to relax.

  ‘Not surprisingly I’m a bit worried about this visit from the FCA next week,’ explained Brett. ‘I know I’m not guilty but it’s a horrible feeling that someone has been leaking information to manipulate the share price. I guess it’s one of the hazards of working for a small company. When I worked at StourMed it wasn’t such a problem as the price wasn’t so sensitive to information reaching the media.’

  ‘Well if you’ve not done anything wrong you’ve nothing to worry about. From what you said it’s most likely to be Frank Stevens, he’s the one who should be having disturbed sleep, but he won’t know yet that the FCA is suspicious as he’s not with you anymore.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I just can’t imagine him doing it, he seemed so law-abiding.’

  ‘But how well did you know him?’

  ‘Well not really, I don’t know, it’s just unsettling. Then today I had to speak to overconfident Mel and her great ideas. I just think she’s trying to bankrupt us, I can’t understand what Piers sees in her. He’s completely smitten, seems to think her way’s the only way. Anyway, I’ve decided when it goes to the board I’m going to vote against it.’

  Annabelle paused before speaking, realising that this was a sensitive issue and Brett felt so strongly about it. She began cautiously, ‘Really, are you sure? Piers won’t be happy. I know what he’s like, well socially and he doesn’t like people who disagree with him. If he has your loyalty he will back you to the hilt but if he thinks you are questioning him or going against him he could make your life very difficult. My ex-husband knew some guys who worked with him at that big pharma company whatever it was called, he was a real bastard to people he didn’t like.’

  ‘Well I’m not going to be pushed around, it’s time he retired anyway,’ said Brett grumpily, draining the rest of his red wine.

  ‘He’s only about fifty-eight,’ laughed Annabelle, ‘not exactly ancient!’

  ‘Still time he retired,’ joked Brett. He sat for a few moments then seemed to relax. ‘Speaking of retiring, I think I might want to retire and I mean right now and I’m not talking about drawing my pension.’

  ‘Oh, so what type of retirement are you talking about Dr Chandler?’ said Annabelle smiling.

  ‘This type,’ replied Brett, and he leaned over and kissed Annabelle firmly on the mouth. She responded, her body melting towards him as her hand felt inside the buttons of his shirt. Brett’s hand moved from her neck down over her right arm to her breast where it stayed holding it firmly. Annabelle removed her hand from his chest and it travelled lower to his trousers which she unzipped, reaching inside them feeling him respond. They looked at each other and stood up from the sofa together. Not bothering to switch off the lights, Brett followed Annabelle out of the lounge and upstairs to her bedroom. Worries about work could wait until tomorrow.

  **

  Ez cycled slowly over to the science park having visited one of the DIY stores at the retail park. He was travelling slowly, hampered by the alcohol in his system, swaying slightly and steering a haphazard path along the now fairly quiet roads. However being out in the cooler evening air was helping to increase his alertness. He’d looked up the location of BioQex on his phone before leaving. He accessed the science park site via one of the smaller roads which led from the bypass. Those roads stayed open all night and avoided passing by the secur
ity hut which was to the side of the main route through the science park. It was now after 9 p.m. and once he was on the complex, the roads were deserted. A few cars remained in some of the car parks presumably owned by people who had left their cars at work for some reason and perhaps belonging to cleaning staff at some of the larger companies. Ez followed the signs and located BioQex, a nondescript building two floors and a ground floor by the looks of things. The building was in darkness, a few lights illuminating the empty car park. He dismounted and noticed a pathway running around the building towards the rear where he found some metal doors on what looked like some utility or service buildings, providing some nice flat surfaces. He removed his spray can and started on his mission. He hoped he wasn’t getting any paint on his clothes, it was difficult to see in the dark but he was wearing old things so he wasn’t too bothered. The spray can seemed to be getting empty and he shook it to see whether he could get a few more spurts from it. Finally it gave up so he placed it back in his pocket. Using the torch on his mobile phone he surveyed his work, not very neat but legible. For good measure he looked around where he was standing and saw some large stones, building rubble which had been left behind. He picked up a couple of fist-sized ones and hurled them as hard as he could towards the windows. A couple hit the brickwork but satisfyingly he heard glass breaking. He pulled out his catapult that he’d bought from an angler’s supply shop. Normally used for spreading bait this was just the correct size for firing stones with added velocity at the windows. Energised by sound of glass cracking he used his torch and found some more sharp-edged stones. He’d found an outlet for his anger. Using all his strength to lob the rubble was liberating, he growled with anger, he was laughing and crying at the same time. Exhausted he slumped down, sobbing. Suddenly his bravado deserted him. He felt desperately ashamed. How had he allowed himself to be reduced to this? Dragging himself up from the dirt he rushed over to his bike and pedalled away, pulling down his hoodie over his face, praying that he’d not been careless and had been captured on any CCTV cameras.

  Chapter 14

  Giles was excited about the day ahead. The shares he’d sold on Monday would now have completed their three day settlement period and the money would be available for withdrawal and laundering. He didn’t like the word laundering, it sounded so sordid. The money would start its travels around the globe. Once he’d checked that the funds were indeed ready for withdrawal he would send his code word to Jake who would take over custody of the funds. Jake had created a complex network of accounts, some of them offshore to hopefully muddy the waters. The only account which wasn’t hidden was the one in Brett’s name which would contain a residual amount of money. It didn’t matter if that was eventually discovered, after all, he wouldn’t actually get his hands on it as he would be in jail.

  The previous evening there had been a few more items of post addressed to Brett, waiting for him at home and he had brought them into work for shredding. There had also been a letter from the Royal Mail redirection service asking him if he wanted to extend the redirection for a further month. Giles no longer had need for this. So from next week Brett would start to receive his mail again and would assume that his postman had changed routes and would treat it as a slight blip in proceedings. Interestingly, Giles had received a letter saying that a new credit card was being issued and would be sent in about a week to his home address by recorded delivery. So Brett had finally woken up and realised that someone had been using his card. No matter thought Giles, he’d had a nice new iPad and a new bedroom TV, a couple of treats. However, that was merely small change compared with the amounts they planned to gain from manipulating BioQex’s share price.

  He checked the trading account and saw the funds were available. A few clicks ensured that they were now being processed and withdrawn. A few hours should ensure that they had reached their initial destination account. He texted Jake, “All set” and leaned back in his chair. It was barely after 9 a.m. and just short of one hundred thousand pounds was in circulation swelling the coffers of the team of Giles and Jake. Of course, it wasn’t clear profit, they’d had to invest just over half of the money but a forty percent profit was quite respectable. This was a trial run, there were rich pickings ahead. So far they’d only dealt in actual shares to test their system. The real money was to be made in traded options. That meant that they could also make money from a falling share price so together with a share price buoyed by good news they had a win-win situation. Particularly if they could engineer the falls in the price at the right time. Handled properly the profits from options could easily be ten times that gained from shares. Ten times a hundred thousand was an easy enough calculation for anyone to do. A wide smile spread across his face. Life was looking very good indeed.

  **

  Brett arrived at work to find a larger than usual security presence at BioQex. Mark Jameson was manning the main desk as it was before 8 a.m. He raised his hand at Brett’s arrival, then said something quickly into his phone, ‘Dr Chandler, can I have a quick word with you please?’

  Brett waited for Mark to hurriedly finished his call on his mobile whilst spotting a glazier’s van arriving in the car park.

  ‘Sorry about that Dr Chandler, bit busy this morning due to what happened overnight.’

  ‘Oh, why there wasn’t a break in was there?’

  ‘No, but the company’s had some vandalism I’m afraid. We did spot something on the CCTV but by the time we got over here it was too late, he’d scarpered, on a bike.’

  ‘What happened exactly?’ asked Brett looking concerned.

  ‘Well, there are cracked windows, mainly out the back. Being double glazed they didn’t break completely, otherwise, things could have been damaged in the labs. Also, bicycle boy was busy with his spray can. There’s lots of graffiti around the back, on the fencing and on the metal doors of the services units. The usual swearing and obscenities you get but his favourite word was murderer. Some instances are not so clear as he’s clearly not an expert, and it was dark so he’s overlapped the letters quite a bit but it’s definitely murderer, combined with the usual fucking, of course.’

  ‘Great, that’s all we need. We’ve been lucky so far, nothing like this has happened to us.’

  ‘No, well perhaps it’s an isolated case. Anyway, we’ll be mounting extra patrols for the next couple of weeks.’

  ‘Good, well thanks,’ and Brett started to move away. Then he stopped and turned back to Mark. ‘Any recent trouble with animal rights on the science park?’

  ‘Animal rights? Well not for about five years, I think it was. Someone got confused about one of the other companies and thought it was doing animal experiments when it was electronics, but not since then.’

  ‘Well I’m assuming it’s them, murderers sounds like they think we are murdering animals here, what do you think?’

  ‘Seems like the most likely explanation. We’ve taken pictures and submitted a report to the police of course. They’ll submit an incident number for insurance and so on, it’s all we can do for the time being.’

  ‘Right, well I’ll go and have a look round the building, survey the damage. What a pain,’ and he continued on his way for the second time. Christ that was all they needed, more bad publicity. All their animal work was contracted out and wasn’t even used in primary testing. Let’s just hope it’s not the start of a concerted campaign against the company thought Brett. His good mood from his evening with Annabelle had soon disappeared as he was plunged back into reality.

  **

  Polly arrived at work at around 8.30 a.m. Phyllis wasn’t yet at her desk, a couple of other colleagues were already hard at work. Alan, a man in his fifties looked up from his computer and exchanged a few words with her about the weather. Luke in contrast merely grunted a good morning, keeping his eyes firmly locked on his monitor. This morning Polly had her sandwiches in an insulated picnic bag containing a small freezer pack. It would remain locked in her bottom drawer, no way was she going to ch
ance a repeat performance of her lunch being tampered with. She had two problem employees to contend with, Luke and Phyllis both seemed extremely hostile. The latter already having shown her colours by her comments about animal testing at BioQex. She’d decided to tell Nick about the salt in her sandwiches last night and not surprisingly he became very angry. He wanted her to report the incident to the Head of Finance immediately but Polly was reluctant to do so, having only been in her post for such a short time. She wanted to rise above it and show them she wasn’t going to be intimidated. It would be her word against theirs and they would just deny it. Reluctantly Nick agreed to accept her method of dealing with it. It was only when she asked him about his day did he become distracted enough with his own problems that he stopped ranting about her horrible colleagues.

  In the past, Polly might have been tempted to accuse Nick of getting obsessed with conspiracy theories but the episode with Zac had taught her that his instincts had been sound and if he felt strongly about something he was probably correct in his suspicions. Polly had woken this morning feeling rather depressed that they were both working with colleagues they couldn’t trust, it just wasn’t nice, it left an unpleasant taste in her mouth.

  Today she planned to look at some of the contracts for support services at the university. They covered so many aspects, security, cleaning, garden services, catering, it was a sign of the times that only the lecturers and the staff in some of the administrative departments, finance being one, were actually classed as being employed directly by the university. The rest of the workers were on contracts with companies which tendered to supply their services. Most of the contracts ran for one year, sometimes two and then for two months before renewal there was a tendering process where they advertised on the university web site on the procurement page. This allowed suppliers to register, view the contracts available for tender, register an interest and also to upload bids. Once the cut-off date was reached the submitted bids were compared and analysed to evaluate which offered the best value.