by C B Barrie
They would eventually report on what they could find, carry out the usual procedures, and then file the paperwork. The report would not of course mention the grief and misery following in the wake of a fatal RTA. Nor could it convey the despair that accompanied the identification and disclosure of victim’s names; nor detail the aftermath, and impact, on family lives.
Nichols turned away and made for the police car he’d arrived in.
One of his constables was about to do the same, and as they both converged on the car the officer started to talk.
‘Bloody bad this one sergeant, I’ve seen a few but this takes the biscuit.’
Nichols nodded in agreement. ‘True, and the less I see the better.’
‘By the way, wasn’t DCI Neilson up this way this morning?’
‘Yes, he was, isn’t he back at the station?’
The officer gave his head a shake. ‘Not that I’ve seen of him, I left after you –this accident came up just as I was returning to the station and about to go off duty. I don’t remember seeing Neilson around anywhere in the station at that time I’m afraid.’
Nichols shrugged. ‘He’s probably gone home, back to Camborne for a break. We’ll see him next week I imagine.’
‘Yeah, no doubt but I had a good look at the back end of the wreck over there and, I may be wrong, but one of the vehicles, or what’s left of it, has a distinct resemblance to the tractor that Neilson drives. I just hope to hell it isn’t him scrambled in with the rest of the wreckage.’
Nichols turned and looked back at the fire crews still damping down the steaming hot remains of the crash.
‘You reckon? Stay there and I’ll have another quick look myself.’
The officer mouthed an ‘Okay’ and Nichols made his way back to the wreck. Ignoring the cascading jets of water from the fire crew, he got as close to the rear of the vehicle that had been coming from the Morvah side as he dared. He studied it with as much analysis and with as much scrutiny as the gaunt, fire charred outlines of the body shell would allow. The more he inspected the smouldering, scorched metal outline, the more he began to sense a cold hand on his heart; the constable had been right. It was the same model that Neilson drove, and unless he found Neilson sometime later to contradict his opinion, Neilson was dead.
The pathology report arrived a week later as did the crash investigation report.
Both arrived in the hands of a tall, young looking and dark haired individual who announced himself as Detective Inspector Lynham.
He made himself at home in the St Ives police station as if he had lived there his whole career. However, his approach to the loss of Meredith and Neilson was unorthodox and unexpected.
‘Sergeant Nichols, I understand from DCI Neilson’s very limited feedback to Camborne that he was in no way optimistic in his attempt to find the whereabouts of DC Meredith, and that Meredith’s disappearance had left no shadow of a trace or any clue as to what happened. Now, with the very sad loss of DCI Neilson we have no way of determining how he would have wound the case up - if at all. Tell me sergeant; did Neilson confide in you, did he mention anything about his preliminary conclusions?
‘No sir, only that he was intent on taking the matter to the bitter end by having one more go at unearthing something tangible at the Morvah Netlab research centre. That’s where he was returning from when the collision happened. I suspect that had DCI Neilson learnt anything he would have called me here at St Ives. But we heard nothing and that makes me think he had met a dead end. Neither the foundry worker Holden, DC Meredith or DCI Neilson will ever have their disappearances well explained. We only know about DCI Neilson for sure, but his close association with the other two leaves a big question mark over the whole event.’
Lynham let the answer penetrate his thinking. For a few moments he remained silent. Then, folding his notebook and sliding the small pen into the book’s spinal enclosure, he gave Nichols a smile.
‘Okay, that’s it. We’ve been told not to waste any more time on this investigation, it’s cost two valuable lives and too many man-hours. Case closed Nichols, you can file it under ‘far too little to go on’. That said, I trust all goes well for you and your small team, chances are you’ll be transferred to Camborne soon, so all this about Meredith and Neilson will fade into forgetfulness and become nothing more than an unfortunate, if not ill-fated, incident.’ Take care, sergeant, look forward to seeing you again.’
With that Lynham walked off, leaving only the sound of an exhaust note to indicate his absence. For a short time Nichols was perplexed and aghast at the suddenness of Lynham’s departure, but as the cloud that had hung over him since Meredith’s loss began to fade, he began to relax and could do no more than break into relieved laughter.
For Ellis the Friday had passed in quiet solitude with only him in the lab and Michael Caplin elsewhere.
The day had gone by with him battling with his ability to contort English expression while composing the second research report. He struggled with vagueness, ambiguity and tautology, to the point where the reader would be convinced of one thing but unclear as to why it was so. He had to be very careful, all research papers to be published in the academic journals were vetted by two referees and he was aware that they could as easily reject a paper out of hand for weaknesses in the composition as for scientific inconsistencies, and would insist on major revisions or clarifications.
As he moved the description of the research development along, one aspect was vague in his notes and he decided it was easier to re-examine the experimental apparatus and ensure he was accurate in his clarification.
He lifted the vacuum chamber dome and began to inspect the second chamber heating coils again, this time counting the number of coiled filaments around the Tungsten/Osmium high temperature ceramic mould.
As he stood examining the apparatus his eye fell on the tensile testing machine, now with its Perspex safety shield down and the clamping jaws set back. But there was something strange about the jaws, and something had been wrapped around them for an unknown reason.
He lifted the safety shield and locked it up. He switched on the system and heard the drive motors step back to release the jaws. Now he could draw them forward in order to lock a test specimen between the two pairs. But he could not, there was something wrong, the pulley jaws were split, only held together by two lengths of Bowden wire. He unwrapped the wire and was shocked to find two cut sections on each jaw, both jaws having been cleaved in two by some strange process.
He carefully examined each surface, and each one exhibited an optically flat, highly reflective mirror like surface. There was nothing in his limited experimental experience, or in his six years of university study, that could account for what he was seeing. The fact was that tensile testing machines did not come with the pulley jaws split in two – it simply didn’t happen; nor was there anything so strong that it could cut…
He let out a gasp of comprehension and turned back to the vacuum chamber – and looked for the filament that Michael and he had made a few days ago. What if Michael had gone beyond it - had made a long enough length of super fine wire to put into the tensile testing machine, and had found that the pulley jaws could not hold it? That the wire was so strong that it had passed through the jaws leaving a mirrored surface. He called up the last set of force extension curves in the machines memory and as they were displayed on the screen he gave a short whistle. ‘My God’, he thought, ‘over thirty tons of stress before it succumbed and with no prior extension. It stayed absolutely as it was lengthwise until the force was too much and it snapped. He couldn’t believe it, and when Michael Caplin had talked about Nobel Prize stuff, he’d listened of course but been somewhat sceptical. Now, having seen what was in front of him, he was a convert to the faith. Caplin had been absolutely right.
But, why had he failed to speak about it, why was he concealing such an important result? It could not be left to rankle without letting the facts surface. Michael Caplin had to be confronte
d with all Ellis had discovered, and it wasn’t going to be a comfortable exchange.
It would be necessary to be very diplomatic and, as his father once reminded him, ‘diplomacy was to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way’.
18
On the Tuesday morning after the bank holiday Ellis was in the laboratory early.
He faced the coming morning with trepidation, knowing he had to challenge Michael Caplin on what he had found on the preceding Friday.
He knew he couldn’t take a belligerent attitude, he knew that one wrong word and it would shatter the working relationship he had with Caplin and that was too high price to pay for what might be a perfectly innocent reason Caplin had concealed his experimental results. In any case, the second research report he was writing was so composed as to hint at the discovery of the super filament, and he was justified in asking Caplin about what could be disclosed about it.
As he struggled with the second paper’s composition he heard the lab door open and close.
‘Nathaniel, morning, how are things?’
He left the chair in front of the keyboard and walked out of the office waiting for Caplin to hang his topcoat and jacket and exchange them for his lab coat. He seemed animated, as though he was free of any worries or concerns.
‘Okay, where are we? Any joy on the paper Nathaniel – making progress?’ Caplin came forward; clear eyed, well groomed and his face beaming in expectation.
‘Oh yeah Mike, I’ve had another go at the second report over the holiday and I’m doing well, but I’m struggling and unsure with what needs to be included – if the third paper is to be the one that reveals all the major results, and looks like they are the logical consequence of what’s in the earlier papers, I’m finding it hard not to give the game away too soon.’
Caplin took on a serious expression.
‘I sympathise, I always knew it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as we hoped, what is particularly contentious, can’t you condense it to simple terms?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s knowing what would constitute a definite point in the experimental work where we could justify manufacturing the moulded and shaped Stellite filaments etc without actually knowing what its properties are. After all, that’s what we did using the amalgam, but we can’t just say that. We can’t claim serendipity and say we launched into the final phase just like that, it’s scientifically and logically inconsistent.’
Caplin stared at the ground, obviously turning everything around in his mind.
‘If you must know Nathaniel, I have the same problem writing the patent specification which, I hasten to tell you, I attacked over the holiday. Like your paper, it has to read as a logical process, and our approach wasn’t entirely logical was it?’
He gave a slight shake of his head. ‘No, and we had the scientific misfortune of getting it right virtually first time – we had no immediate need of measurements. But that said, you did do some tensile tests didn’t you, I found the effect your tests had on the tensile testing machine.’
Caplin suddenly stared at Ellis.
‘What?’
‘I saw the jaws and clamps on the tensile tester, it’s completely inoperative, something has cleaved the jaws in two.’
Caplin held a hard stare at Ellis.
‘Yes, I carried out one test on a short filament I made – the result was unbelievable.’
‘Michael, why didn’t you tell me you succeeded in making a complete short filament, and why conceal the tensile test result?’
A complete short filament?
Caplin wondered what Ellis would say if he knew the ‘short filament’ was actually thirty metres long? And concealing the tensile test results? Well, that was for later.
‘Because you were absent at the time; and I was fascinated by the fact that it could be done. I wanted to establish that the outcome was truly what we were aiming for. Okay, I intended to hold back until you were in the last stages of the third paper – then all would have been revealed. Make no mistake; you would have been as delighted as I was the moment you learned of what had been done.’
Ellis stayed silent and gave a contemplative look.
‘I see, so the upshot of all that appears in papers one and two will be revealed in paper three – the rods, wire and shaped pieces and relevant physical properties.’
‘That’s abut it Nathaniel, we leave the best to last.’
Ellis smiled. ‘So the Nobel Prize is dependent on a piece of wire is it?
‘Not quite,’ Caplin replied, ‘we have a lot more to say, but if anybody thinks we have falsified our results just let them say so. We know we can prove all of it. Now, I’ve got a patent to complete – I’m going to work on my laptop in my office and leave you in peace. I’ll see you later.’
Ellis nodded and turned back to the lab office, there wasn’t much more he could say. Caplin gave a dutiful wave of his hand and exited the lab.
As he left Caplin began to think he had nearly stumbled and fallen as Ellis had confronted him about the wire and the tensile results. He was beginning to think that as an ally, Ellis was becoming a very good enemy.
In his office Caplin opened the laptop and brought up the first page of the patent specification.
Getting it done was an absolute priority even though he knew he was well behind in composing the quarterly research report needed by the research director Nick Gordon. And yet starting the research report could be deferred because it would have to contain some of what he and Ellis were writing now. He knew full well that nothing in his life had the same precedence as the two current concerns.
As he sat looking at the opening titles and acknowledgments of the patent he quickly scanned the assignment, which conveyed ownership and title of the intellectual property to Metal Industries and Mining Company. That was as intended, but then as he looked at the named inventors he began to think differently. If their published research had the impact he expected it to have, then the more he pondered on the potential outcome, the less he was inclined to share the glory with Ellis. After all, his was the insight that had designed the apparatus able to drive off the mercury in the first chamber, and his was the insight that designed the ultra-high temperature sintering and alloying chamber.
Not only that, his was the insight that had resulted in the syringe feed for continuous production, and, more than all of this, his was the insight that had made it possible to make extended lengths of wire. Indeed, it was easy to dismiss Ellis’ contribution; only in using a mercury amalgam had he contributed anything substantial. In short, on a simple numerical evaluation of who had done what, Ellis was a long way down on the list.
He stared at the title page of the patent for a long time and once more weighed up his objectives and ambitions and what might deter the pathway to each of them. There was no doubt he was pathologically intent on reaching his goal – nothing must risk its attainment or conclusion. He bent and exercised his fingers, finally extending his arms so that his hands reached for the keyboard. Carefully using the finger pad he placed the cursor where he wanted it; he then highlighted Ellis’ name and touched the delete button. Then he watched with satisfaction as the entire name disappeared.
Ellis was having a hard time; knowing what not to include in the second paper was as hard as knowing what had to be said without it appearing that the sequence of events was less than consistent with a good scientific approach.
At times he was having to fabricate the supposed thinking prior to another stage in the actual experimental progression. In short, it was driving him to distraction. And yet there was no alternative if the paper was going to be approved by the referees, they would want a plausible chain of events, all with a course of action that was irrefutable given the last stage of experimental development.
It was no good, he was stuck, and as usual he needed a break or a distraction – it was time for another coffee.
With coffee in hand he turned away from the vending machine and started to make hi
s way back to the lab. Michael Caplin’s office was nearby so he thought it might be useful to pick his brains about the particularly difficult section of the paper he was currently trying to compose.
He passed a few shut office doors before he arrived at Caplins only to find the office door open and all the lights on – but for all that, the office was deserted. He entered with a degree of nervousness vividly recalling the last time he’d ventured into Caplin’s office and the very unpleasant consequences. He was deeply reluctant to go through the same experience again and was about to leave when his eye caught the screen of the laptop now perched at a slewed angle on the desktop.
It was showing the work Caplin was doing, and he very quickly realised that it was the opening page of the patent he was writing. Curious to see what typified the descriptive style for a patent he moved closer, settled his coffee cup on the desktop, and began to study the page. He had no more than a few seconds to read the contents before a thunderous voice caused him to break away and turn.
‘Nathaniel, what are you doing?’
He pivoted on one heel and came round to face the familiar figure of Caplin.
‘Sorry Michael, came in to ask your advice, you were elsewhere, I’ve only been here for less than a minute. Your privacy hasn’t been invaded.’
‘Like hell it has; I told you the rules some time back, I don’t take liberties with your office for all the reasons you should not do it to mine. You had no right to come in here even if I was absent for a call of nature.’
He was beginning to get very annoyed with Caplin’s attitude, which coupled to his weariness with all the writing that had to be done, and his general concerns about Gregson and his gang at Consolidated Mines, it left him in a rare but nevertheless confrontational mood.
‘Look Michael, I’ve had it. I’m pretty pissed off to be honest. What with having to compose three highly pretentious and ambiguous research reports, a third of which will, effectively, be fictitious, I’m still having to contend with a resentful Consolidated Mines and, for God’s sake, your wrathful indignation. Now, to add insult to injury I notice you’ve omitted my name on the patent – what’s that about?’
