Terminal Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  ‘How’s Bob doing, guess he’s being stoic as usual?’

  ‘Well you know Bob, won’t take any time off, even more miserable. Sorry, that was insensitive,’ he said looking rather sheepish, ‘Piers is really worried about him.’

  They sat quietly, there wasn’t really much else to say about Bob and his bereavement, even the most emotionless person would have felt moved by his circumstances. Brett had never been very successful in his relationships but since meeting Annabelle he could appreciate just how devastating it must be to lose a soulmate.

  ‘Look, chin up, how about a whisky to finish our evening?’

  ‘OK, sounds good, a small one, whatever you chose is OK with me.’

  ‘Coming up,’ said Matt and went off to collect their drinks.

  Brett sat staring into space feeling thoroughly depressed. He was sure that the FCA now had evidence of malpractice. He had two anxious days to get through before he found out just how disastrous and damaging this was going to be. Fortunately, he could go into his interview with a clear conscience and that was the thought which he needed to keep in mind. It was someone else, not him who had decided to do the dirty on BioQex, he would answer their questions but nothing could be levelled at him individually.

  Chapter 20

  Ez woke around 10 a.m. on Sunday morning feeling hungover as he usually did on days when he wasn’t working. Each time he regretted it but it was a way of achieving oblivion, providing a few hours solace from the pain he was feeling. He knew that his brother wouldn’t have wanted him to behave like this, Zac had helped him through difficult times, he owed it to his brother’s memory to try to muddle through somehow. Perhaps when his brother’s financial affairs were settled he could use the money to make a fresh start, maybe train to be something other than a supermarket shelf stacker. He wasn’t academic but there were loads of vocational courses available nowadays. He shuffled along to the shared kitchen, pleased to find it was empty of his flatmates. He quickly drank two glasses of water then found a bowl and filled it with some cereal. He sniffed his plastic bottle of milk and found it to be passable despite being a day past its use by date. He switched on the radio for company and thought about the day ahead.

  Ez hadn’t been invited to many social occasions recently so he was starting to feel a bit anxious. However, he was going to try to use it to his advantage. Without the prospect of finding out more about the chemist who had suspected his brother, he would probably have phoned Gary and cried off. He thought that he should take something along to the barbecue, a bottle of wine or something, perhaps some chocolates for Gary’s wife. He wished his housemate Cyndi was around as she would know what sort of things to buy. After showering he would go out to the small convenience supermarket near to his flat and see whether they had anything suitable. He needed a few supplies anyway, some milk definitely and a few things for his lunches this week. If he’d had any sense he could have picked them up at Tesco before he left the other night but he was tired and just wanted to get home. Once his depression started to take hold of him he felt he couldn’t make decisions about what to buy and found it all bewildering. He would wander up and down the aisles aimlessly and then quickly grab a few items and come back with a few things he didn’t really need. It was odd how his mind worked, how could it be that being depressed about his brother’s death made even the smallest tasks seem so insurmountable?

  He dressed in some scruffy old jeans and a faded T-shirt, he would change about noon into something a bit smarter, not that he had anything much smarter. Just then he heard someone coming back into the flat, it was Cyndi presumably back from her Sunday morning ten-kilometre run. She headed straight to the kitchen and was keenly drinking an energy drink leaning against the worktop when Ez wandered in.

  ‘Hi Cyndi, did you make a good time on your run this morning?’

  ‘Not bad, although it’s getting very warm out there, not my best ever time, I should have gone earlier.’

  ‘Yes, you look a bit hotter than usual,’ added Ez, then felt rather embarrassed that it wasn’t the most tactful thing to say. He decided to change the subject. ‘Cyndi, I just wanted a bit of advice from you,’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ she joked, ‘sorry, how can I help?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to a barbecue this afternoon, a sort of house-warming. Well, late lunchtime really, and I don’t know what I should take. Wine, chocolates, what would you do?’

  ‘Well, wine is always a good idea, white wine I think would be best as it’s a lunchtime thing, I’d go for Pinot Grigio personally, it’s not too heavy.’

  ‘Oh, great, I’ll do that. What about chocolates as well?’

  ‘It’s a bit hot for chocolate, might be melted before you get there. Flowers or a plant might be better, a plant maybe if they’ve just moved in.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ replied Ez but sounding rather worried at the latest suggestion.

  ‘What’s the matter, you sound a bit anxious,’ asked Cyndi

  ‘It’s just that I’ve no idea about plants or gardening, couldn’t tell you a plant from a weed,’ and he sighed, ‘I’m hopeless aren’t I?’

  ‘Look, if you can wait ten minutes or so I’ll have a shower and come with you. I need some things, we can go in my car to up to the retail park, there’s more choice there. How does that sound?’

  ‘It sounds great, that’s really helpful of you,’ and finally Ez looked more cheerful. He looked at his watch. There should be plenty of time, he was going to cycle up to Gary’s house and he planned to go earlier than he needed to. He hoped to encounter his garrulous neighbour Kevin. Exactly how he was going to get him to spill the beans on BioQex he had no idea, he had only a few hours to think of a plan.

  **

  Ez wasn’t the only person to wake up feeling hung over on Sunday morning. Giles Wentworth felt like death after the amount he’d managed to put away the previous night. Despite being a seasoned drinker he had seriously overstepped his limit. It had been a release from the tensions of the week and a celebration that the money released from the sale of the first tranche of BioQex shares had finally reached its destination in an offshore account having being routed around a few previous ports of call. He’d received a call on his unofficial mobile late on Friday evening from his partner Jake. There was also an encouraging development on the traded options front. Jake had managed to ‘recruit’ an old school friend of his who worked in that field and understood options trading much better than they both did. His fees wouldn’t be cheap though, he was demanding a thirty percent cut of the profits. Giles was initially apprehensive that this was too much, after all, any profits were being split down the middle between him and Jake and now their gains were being further diluted. However once Jake had explained how options trading, when operated efficiently, could increase profits by ten fold or even greater as compared with the gains from shares he’d acquiesced and agreed that they should take on an additional musketeer, Theo Henchard. Jake and Theo had been to the same prep school and had apparently started various money-making schemes at the tender age of ten. This he had learned during their exuberant session at Giles’ flat that Saturday evening when the three of them gathered to discuss the next phase of operation Wentworth. Jake had heard on the city grapevine that BioQex might be the subject of a takeover bid in the next few months. Rumours like this circulated all the time and were usually scurrilous attempts to inflate the share price. However, this time the rumour did seem to have legs.

  ‘All for one and one for all!’ shouted Giles to his partners in crime as they clinked their glasses of Laurent Perrier champagne. After this bottle, they would progress to some nice bottles of Barolo to accompany their take away which should arrive in a few minutes. Jake, who was the most rational and level-headed of the three wanted to ensure they were all familiar with the upcoming plan of action before they all got too pissed to take it in.

  ‘Listen I don’t want to be a killjoy but we need to make sure we all understand what we are
going to do next week,’ he said looking at his two friends. They each saluted him back playfully.

  ‘Now the price of BioQex has risen again along with the wider market and has made up any slight drop since we sold the last tranche,’ his friends nodded in agreement.

  ‘So we go for a repeat run but this time we divert fifty percent of the proceeds to Theo for options. If this rumour about a takeover is true we need to get in place before others. I’ve been busy setting up a few accounts which Theo can access but which will hide the true identity of the trader. Theo anything to add?’

  ‘Oh, right, well yes, just make sure I have all the access details for those accounts, Jake, on paper, no electronic trail, then I can get to work.’

  ‘What about potential losses? Options are very risky,’ added Giles.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll cover any trades, by that I’ll take out opposing options in case we aren’t correct, and in case there’s any bad news which drops the price. How likely is it that the company will have any sort of crisis anytime soon?’

  The two others shrugged.

  ‘Well it’s always a risky business, biotech, so we can’t be sure, but they seem to be doing OK at the moment. You never know though, that business a few months ago would have hit their shares had we not been buying in heavily,’ advised Giles.

  ‘Providing we all do our job, stay calm and vigilant we could be on the cusp of something really fucking huge here,’ added Jake and he drained the last of the champagne into their three glasses.

  ‘Now it’s Saturday night, we’ve had a good week and it’s time to put an end to shop talk. It’s time for some proper men’s drink now that we’ve had that girlie champagne,’ laughed Giles. ‘I feel like getting well and truly fucking wasted tonight!’

  So the evening had continued as Giles had intended although Jake and Theo had bailed out well before Giles as they’d wanted to get home to their own beds. Although in his own flat Giles didn’t actually make it to his own bed but finished the evening sprawled on the sofa in front of some X-rated pay to view movie which he’d seen little of. He hauled himself into an upright position and his stomach heaved. He quickly reached for an empty take away carton on the coffee table and brought up a small disgusting remnant of red wine, bile and Indian biryani. He groaned and held his head. Somehow he needed to get to the kitchen for some water and painkillers. He actually crawled on all fours until he could reach the archway to the kitchen, then pulled himself up using the chrome stools at the breakfast bar, then carefully made it over to the sink where there were some glasses in the drainer. He downed one glass and stood holding onto the sink. The room started to swim and he closed his eyes. Suddenly he felt his stomach flip and he felt the glass of water returning up his gullet. He bent over the sink and retched, the remainder of his stomach contents pooled in the sink and he continued to retch until he was spent. Sweating and dizzy he sank down to the floor and dozed off to sleep.

  **

  Bob was at home trying to get to grips with his domestic chores. All through his marriage Joan had taken care of everything to do with the household and had undertaken much of the work in the garden, although Bob had done any heavy work and the mowing. When she fell ill Bob had needed to take on more of the chores although they did have a cleaner coming in once a week as it had become too much for him to do everything alongside a demanding job. Last week Bob had told the cleaner he no longer wanted her to come, he could manage himself. He only had himself to bother about now and he wasn’t worried about a bit of dust here and there or some bits of fluff on the carpets. His children had encouraged him not to act in haste but once he’d made his mind up that was it. Besides, he couldn’t stand the woman and she insisted the only time she could schedule his house into her busy week was early in the morning so he was often trying to get out to work when she arrived. Bob had no time for small talk or any interest in her children who seemed to be a set of wastrels as far as he could tell.

  Bob took his coffee out to the garden and sat down on the bench surveying his garden. He planned to mow it later that morning. This afternoon he needed to sort out some papers for his solicitor who was handling Joan’s affairs. The will was very straightforward so it was a formality really, small bequests to his son and daughter and the rest would transfer to him. They’d been frugal all their lives and from now on he would probably be spending even less, he couldn’t imagine going on holiday on his own. He planned to stay on at work as long as he could. Joan had been hoping that he would retire at sixty so that they could spend more time together. All he had left now was his work and his garden but he really kept the garden in good shape for Joan, she loved seeing the seasons change through the plants. Once the bulbs had finished, the flowering shrubs and spring plants burst into colour, summer brought dahlias, geraniums, roses and bedding plants and after that, some late flowering bulbs provided a splash of colour. Did it really matter anymore he asked himself? He really wasn’t sure.

  He thought ahead of the working week. He’d noticed Brett leaving very early on Friday with a face like thunder which was odd as the rest of the senior team seemed to be in good spirits having some sort of ‘love-in’ in the corridor. Hopefully one of them would deign to tell him the financial plan for his department. He’d heard a rumour that the company was going on some sort of spending spree. A typical woman, he thought, as his mind drifted to their new whirlwind of a Chief Financial Officer. However his main task next week, well tomorrow really, was to check over his calculations for the first in man clinical trial on compound BQ-561. He needed to get the calculations to the contract organisation by Thursday at the latest, he was aiming for Wednesday. They needed to make up the solutions as the trial was going to be carried out on Friday. It was a one day trial and if successful it would be repeated using higher doses and repeated dosing over three days. That was scheduled for a couple of weeks after the initial dosing. He’d done the calculations despite interruptions from Piers having another yet another attempt to get him to accept counselling. No matter, he was going to get his trusted colleague Pete to check his calculations. At a previous company, Pete had been responsible for liaising with clinical contract houses and was the ideal person to go through things with a fine tooth comb. Bob wasn’t anticipating any mistakes but it was always good to have a second opinion.

  Anyway, it was time to get to grips with the lawn now, Bob ambled off to his shed. He heard the phone in the house ringing but ignored it. No doubt his children checking whether he was OK. Well, he would be if he didn’t have to listen to them asking him how he felt all the time. He wheeled out his mower and made a start, the noise blocking out the sound of the phone which had just started to ring for the second time.

  Chapter 21

  Ez placed his chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio in his rucksack, wrapping it carefully in a couple of carrier bags, and hung his other bag containing a nice begonia plant on his handlebars and set off for Gary’s house. Cyndi had been so helpful in choosing the presents for him, the plant could either be kept indoors or planted in the garden. He’d spent about ten pounds which seemed a reasonable amount, he didn’t want to appear a cheapskate. He’d looked at the route on his mobile before setting off and it gave a cycling time of about fifteen minutes. Gary had suggested that if he left it until after 2 p.m. plenty of people would have arrived and he wouldn’t feel so obvious. However, he’d set out just after 1 p.m. as he was hoping to encounter Gary’s neighbour Kevin. If he wasn’t in evidence he would circle round on his bike and find somewhere to wait before the clock ticked round to 2 p.m. He hoped that Gary would be too busy with his guests to spot him talking to his neighbour.

  Ez turned into Churchill Avenue where Gary lived and stopped to look at the house numbers. He was alongside number forty-four so fourteen must be right down the other end. It seemed a very pleasant road, quiet and all the houses looked in good order. They were all very similar and had a certain look of council houses, perhaps that’s what they were, ex-council. Nothing wron
g in that though, Gary had done well for himself to become a homeowner and he didn’t get much more than Ez did at the supermarket. It was an encouraging sign that with a bit of careful saving you could do reasonably well, even in an expensive town like Persford. He had mentioned that his wife worked as some sort of clerical assistant so they had two wages to support them. Perhaps they’d inherited some money from relatives as well.

  He suddenly stopped cycling as he caught sight of Gary in the distance going out to his car. He didn’t want to be spotted too early, so he pulled up to a halt and dismounted. Shielded by a white van he took out his phone and pretended to check for messages. He looked up to see that Gary had now gone back either into his house or around the back to the garden. He decided to walk past on the other side of the road to check which house was number twelve where the bloke from BioQex lived. As he approached he could see that number twelve wasn’t actually the adjoining semi to Gary but the house after it. Rather than cycling past Gary’s house in case he came out again, he mounted his bike and cycled back out of Churchill Avenue planning to approach from the opposite end.

  As Ez started to cycle around the block he began to doubt the plausibility of his plan. He began to question whether there was actually any point in it at all. His mind started to become all muddled again, he couldn’t actually remember whether he’d taken his antidepressant that morning. He felt like he was standing still whilst the images in his mind circled becoming blurred and confused. How on earth was he going to engineer an encounter with the neighbour at number twelve? He was also starting to get a bit jittery about the barbecue, he wasn’t used to this sort of social event. Suddenly a huge flood of negative thoughts started to overwhelm him and he started to feel the beginnings of a panic attack. As he turned back into Churchill Avenue from the other end he knew he had to get off his bike and sit down. He spotted a shady bench under a tree and quickly staggered over leaving his bike lying on its side. He could feel himself losing consciousness so he put his head between his knees and started to take some deep breaths. He failed to notice anyone approach and started when he heard someone speak to him.