The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 David Carter (autobiographies to read txt) 📖

‘Are you busy?’ she asked, making small talk.

‘Always busy, ma’am, always,’ and that was that. He didn’t speak again until he was saying goodbye, after dropping her at a modern grey and glass structure somewhere in the centre of the complex.

She glanced up at the entrance. Terminal 19, it said, in big silver letters, grabbed her bag and wheeled it inside.

PROFESSOR MARY CRAIGIESON showed Desiree her accommodation, modern, comfortable, but small, showed her where she would work, within Terminal 19, explained something of the work she would do, an area where most newcomers began, advised her that her four-day induction and basic training programme would begin at eight thirty the next morning. Then introduced her to another young woman named Sarah Sleepman, who would show her the facilities and explain the daily routine. Desiree Holloway was in, an accepted member of the Eden Leys Research team.

She was excited at the prospect of starting work, contributing, of using her skills and expertise, of pushing her research programmes further than she had ever been permitted before.

All the training, all that hard work, all the imaginative and creative ideas flowing through her head, all engendered through her total love of science, was coming to fruition. She couldn’t wait to begin.

NOT FOR NOTHING WAS Eden Leys known within the scientific community as the Porton Down of the north. Desiree had been expecting a large site. What was it Mrs Bloemfontein had said? It is huge, you will want for nothing, supermarket, cinema, bowling facilities, swimming pool, I doubt you will feel the need to leave.

She hadn’t been wrong. The complex was far bigger than Desiree had ever imagined, mind boggling, like a mid-sized town, beavering away on countless research projects in dozens of modern buildings, all set behind the ring of impenetrable conifers and juniper trees that were set inside the ring of firs.

The other four countries involved possessed their own terminals within the site, more than one for the United States. They always had to be bigger, but all results and breakthroughs were shared, fed into the giant central computer system housed within Terminal 10.

Desiree was surprised to bump into Professor Jim McClaine, and he was surprised to see her. He explained he had never realised how qualified she was, how brilliant she was, now that he knew her pioneering work was gaining universal praise. Jim said he wished he could turn the clock back, have that time together in Australia again, where he admitted he had kept things from her.

He’d underrated the young woman, and he wasn’t the first to do that. He couldn’t believe that someone so young, from such an ordinary background, could be so talented, and he apologised, almost embarrassingly so. Afterwards they became friends, sharing an occasional coffee, joining the same bowling teams, for teamwork and extra curricula activities were encouraged at Eden Leys.

EXPERIMENTING ON LIVE animals had always been part of Desiree’s brief. She had known that all along, since the early days at Liverpool University. It didn’t bother her at all. She understood the best way to advance science, to find cures, to engineer scientific breakthroughs, to make genuine progress, advances that only a few years before would have been unthinkable, was experimentation on live and living tissue.

Started on mice, worked up through rats, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, to chimpanzees, that was the accepted ladder of progression. Most of the animals were bred on site; the breeding programme carried out in the single story green roofed Terminal 8. It saved a great deal of hassle. What people didn’t know about, they couldn’t crow about.

Working with mustard gas had long been one of Desiree’s aims. She had written a dissertation on the Effects of Mustard Gas on Living Tissue, and  was becoming an authority on the subject.

Introducing mustard gas to a chimp’s arm took courage.

Desiree steeled herself. Once it was done the first time, it became easier. She was desperate to get onto the PLACAD programme and would do anything to achieve it.

Working on fresh human body parts was interesting too. They would arrive daily by dispatch rider from hospitals within a hundred-mile radius of Eden Leys. Most times they were young and healthy parts, maybe from patients who had died through accident, or other diseases, that had not contaminated the portions that arrived vacuum packed and ready to go. There was little difference between working on a human liver to that of a pig, lamb, or chimp, and freshness was everything.

Desiree wallowed in her work. She made rapid progress, enjoyed three pay increases in her first two years, and attended further crammer colleges in California and Bavaria. She had made new friends, had passed her driving test first time, had treated herself to the latest updated version of the Supa Cayton Cerisa, silver with a dashing maroon flash; that she drove home. Those visits became fewer and less often. There was little to leave the site for. All her requirements were catered for, and she rarely left.

She joined, and enjoyed the frantic social life, though never took a lover, despite the many overtures that came her way, including during one drunken night in the Red Caves Social Club, from Professor McClaine himself.

She was no longer interested in the squelchy business, or so she told herself, and afterwards an idea spread round the quarters that she was a lesbian, a rumour that returned to her like a boomerang, and one she laughed off in a millisecond.

Desiree was content.

It was what she was born to do.

But she had a problem, and one she couldn’t share with anyone.

There were voices in her head.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Samantha left the grandstand and made her way toward the exit. No hurry. No rush. No alarms. No intention of attracting attention. She skipped down the stairs and headed out across the forecourt toward the gates. Behind her, the crowd were still murmuring, wondering how they