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Zac returned from the lecture and observed Nick alternately sipping his coffee and coughing. It didn’t look very convincing. He’d noticed him slipping out of the lecture after about ten minutes and from that moment on he’d found it difficult to concentrate on what the speaker was saying. He kept hoping he would hear the door open again signalling Nick’s return, but he didn’t and Zac’s mind naturally began to wonder what he was up to. It was only a small room and it would have looked really bad for someone else to get up and leave, so Zac spent an excruciating forty-five minutes willing the lecture to finish. At the end, there were usually questions for the lecturer and as one of the more experienced chemists he often tried to ask something, but today as he’d hardly been listening he had no questions and besides he didn’t want the embarrassment of asking something which might well have been covered. Fortunately, Billie had been listening so was able to raise some interesting points which saved them all from looking either stupid or uninterested.
Zac quickly went back to the lab and scanned the collection of flasks and dishes in his fume-hood and could see nothing that had obviously been moved. He had a particular spatial awareness, his mind formed a mental map of his possessions and surroundings. His brother had often surreptitiously been in his room looking to borrow something and had later replaced it carefully or so he thought. However, his diligence hadn’t been thorough enough to fool Zac and Ez had then been amazed that his brother had spotted his clandestine actions. Nick was no idiot though so he would have been careful not to leave anything obviously or slightly out of place.
However, Zac was one step ahead of Nick. He looked in his cupboard and retrieved the plastic container containing the amber glass jar with its prized material. He looked carefully at the black lid and the neck of the jar. It was barely visible but Zac knew what he was looking for. The black line he had drawn on the lid and down on to the jar was no longer aligned. The bottle had been opened and there could be only one person who had done that.
**
On Monday evening Polly noticed that Nick seemed unusually animated, he was normally quite tired and subdued after the start of the working week. On several occasions when she returned from her Zumba class he had been getting ready for bed, claiming he was tired. But this evening he was working away on his laptop, the TV wasn’t on and the remnants of his meal were still on the side in the kitchen.
‘Hi Nick, busy working away on something are you?’asked Polly, flopping down on to the sofa.
‘Oh, nothing, just needed to look up a few things,’ said Nick, quickly closing down the web pages he’d had open.
‘Well I think it’s time you left that, and what’s all this mess in the kitchen?’ asked Polly waving the TV remote in the direction of the kitchen which was through an alcove off the lounge.
‘Don’t expect me to clear up all that debris,’ she said firmly.
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice what time it was, I’ll go and clear up now,’ and he rushed off to start washing up and making the place look a bit more tidy.
‘Well I’m off to dry my hair and then I’ll be going to bed, are you turning in soon?’ she shouted.
‘Er, no, not yet, I’ve not finished what I’m doing yet,’ replied Nick.
‘Well don’t work too hard, it’s only the beginning of the week,’ shouted Polly, ‘and don’t disturb me when you come to bed, I’m shattered.’
‘OK, good night,’ shouted Nick.
He quickly finished clearing up and left the plates and pans to dry on the rack and resumed his research on his laptop. He was searching for the commonest street drugs and if possible their chemical structures and syntheses. He’d not got any data so far, that was his job for tomorrow morning but if he had an idea what he was looking at it would make identification a whole lot easier. Some of the drugs he crossed off the list immediately as it would be too difficult to get hold of the starting chemicals unless someone had supplied him with those and he’d brought them on to the BioQex site. That was a possibility, of course, he didn’t know at this point how big an enterprise Zac was involved with. However, he thought back to the chemical he’d found on Zac’s bench and the fact that it didn’t seem to fit the project plans so it seemed likely he was using things which could be ordered without restrictions. He scanned through the papers he’d found on the web, and one particular drug involved starting with the chemical he’d found the other day. It was looking increasingly likely that this had been ordered for Zac’s illicit drugs lab and he now had a very good idea of what he was making. Nick’s research pointed to angel dust, one of many street names for phencyclidine. The effects varied depending on the dose and method of administration and ranged from euphoria and detachment after a few milligrams, to amnesia and more seriously psychosis and paranoia when using doses above ten milligrams. The list of effects was horrendous, users could become violent, suffer breathing problems, high or low blood pressure depending on how much was taken. Nick began to feel quite ill just reading about it. He felt convinced he’d worked out Zac’s illicit manufacturing racket, however, this supposition was all well and good but he needed proof.
‘Then my good friend, you can wave goodbye to your career at BioQex, you will be looking at a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure’, Nick said quietly to himself.
