Page 80 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
She left his office with a sense of deep disquiet. It was hard to interpret his enquiry as anything but a warning. But why, she wondered, was he so reluctant to engage with her findings about Zalathion? Did he fear for his position if he asked difficult questions? She’d come across his type before, ticket collectors at train stations who told her, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth,’ if she asked to be let off a supplementary fare, while others would give her a wink and pass on with a ‘We’ll say no more about it.’ Staunton was a faceless sort of man. He knew his science – she had no doubt about that – but he gave away nothing of himself. She didn’t know if he was married or where he lived. Only that he grew rhubarb – he’d once brought in a bag of it, saying that it had ‘gone mad this year’. She’d taken some home but found it as sour as he was.
After brooding on the matter for a further few days, she came to a decision. She’d write up a formal report of her covert investigations after hours rather than in ICP’s time. Surely Staunton couldn’t object. This did mean having to explain to James why she’d be too busy to see him for a few days.
‘I must do it,’ she said when he raised his fears thatshe’d endanger her job. ‘It’s my duty. I can’t keep this to myself, James.’
James said he understood, but he didn’t look happy.
The following evening, after most of her colleagues had left for the day, Nancy fetched a fresh exercise book from the stationery cupboard and sat down to handwrite a report. She glanced round to see who was left. Just Philip, talking to their technician about a piece of faulty equipment. ‘Still here, Nancy?’ he asked as he passed her with a new rubber tube in his hand.
‘Some results aren’t making sense,’ she said quickly, but moved her hand instinctively to cover her work. After he left, she was aware of the technician tidying up in the background before he too departed.
‘Switch the lights off when you go, will you?’ he bid her, dragging her from thought.
‘Of course,’ she muttered absently. ‘Bye.’ After he’d gone, she began to write in earnest.
A few nights later, she had finished. She read her work through, made a few corrections, then at lunchtime the following day took the exercise book to the typist in town that she’d used for her doctoral thesis. No one would be able to accuse her of taking up a Brandingfield secretary’s time. The typist, a Miss Bateman, was booked up, but quoted a price and said she’d produce two copies of the report as soon as possible – in two weeks, she thought. Yes, she still had the Brauns’ telephone number from last time.
Nancy walked back slowly to Brandingfield, aware for the first time for weeks of the warmth of the sun on her face andthe colour and scent of roses in the gardens she passed. Her research was done and she was certain that she’d proven her hypothesis. This organophosphate was extremely dangerous to the populations whose crops it might save and ICP’s chief scientist should be informed. How to do that was the hardest part and she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Going over Dr Staunton’s head would lead to bad feeling, perhaps even dismissal. Should she send the report upwards anonymously? But there were problems inherent in doing that. It might not be taken seriously. All her worries came flooding back.
James was of little help.
‘I’ll read the thing if you like, but you’re damned if you do anything with it,’ he remarked. ‘Honestly, Nancy, I admire your spirit, but you’ll just be bringing trouble down on yourself.’
‘I suppose you’d be happy if I lost my job,’ she said bitterly, dismayed by his lack of support. ‘You think I’d then come to the States with you.’ She slumped in her chair and examined her nails, which she’d bitten right down.
‘That would be the only good thing to come out of it,’ he joked feebly, but she didn’t smile.
At Frank and Eleanor’s, she hung about miserably. Frank, Eleanor and Dorothy were preparing to go off on a month’s holiday to the Continent and piles of freshly ironed clothes, butterfly nets and specimen cases lay around ready to go into suitcases and boxes. She and James had elected to go away together in August to the Cairngorms, where a Scottish cousin of James kept a shooting lodge. They didn’t intend to shoot anything, but they’d have the place to themselves in a beautiful wilderness.
The typist was as good as her word, except that she rang the wrong telephone number. On Friday, a fortnight later, Nancy was elsewhere in the building all day at a first aid training session, but feeling wretched from her period, she returned briefly to the lab at lunchtime in search of aspirin. Here, she found a message on her worktop. It was initialled by one of the secretaries. ‘Miss Bateman telephoned. Your report is typed and ready for collection.’She was annoyed, having asked the typist to ring her at home, but perhaps she had called the number and found no one in.
She glanced about, but the lab was deserted. All at the pub, she imagined.How silly you are, she thought crossly.Why would any of them be interested?She dropped the screw of paper into a bin, took two aspirin with water and set off in search of a restorative cup of tea.
As she passed the closed door of Dr Staunton’s office, she heard voices from within. She paused for a moment. Funny, one sounded like James. She couldn’t resist moving nearer to listen, but couldn’t hear what was said. James’ voice sounded close suddenly and the door handle turned, so she stepped back. ‘I’ll do that,’ she heard him say, and something about the serious tone alarmed her. The next-door office stood open and empty so she dodged into its shadowy gloom. From her hiding place, she witnessed his purposeful figure striding by, but stilled again as Dr Staunton followed. When silence fell, she went on her way, puzzled and disturbed. Why had James gone to see Staunton? She knew the two men were barely acquainted. She glanced at her watch. Bother, she didn’t have time to go in search of James now.
She stepped into the corridor and just at that moment the door of her lab opened and someone came out. It was James. He didn’t see her, but strode off in the opposite direction. She called his name and started to hurry after him, but he couldn’t have heard, for he vanished through a fire door. Her belly twisted with pain and she grimaced.
As she poured herself tea in the common room, she wondered what she would have said to him. She could hardly admit to eavesdropping, could she? She’d have to think of some way of asking him about the incident the following day – he was due, she remembered, to meet an old schoolfriend this evening.
The afternoon’s training was interesting to Nancy as it dealt with chemical burns and other accidents in the laboratory. It finished at half-past four and she hurried back to her lab, thinking she’d settle her locusts for the weekend, then see if Dorothy was free to walk home with her in the sunshine.
The door of her lab stood ajar and she heard laughter and conversation from within as she entered. They were all there, her colleagues, looking up at her, then falling silent one by one.
‘Hello, Nanny,’ Jim said finally.
She ignored him, instead smiling round at the group. ‘Your first aid officer is fully trained,’ she said with studied lightness, going over to her work station. ‘Burns, cuts, anaphalactic shock. I can deal with them all.’
She then saw why they were quiet. Her work station was not as she’d left it. The wire filing tray no longer rested on theshelf, its contents neatly stacked, but askew on the worktop, the papers in it awry. Books that the tray had previously propped up lay tumbled on the shelf like fallen dominoes.
‘Who’s done this?’ she asked, spinning round, her voice cracking with anger, but her colleagues shrugged and mumbled their ignorance or contemplated the floor.
As she righted the books, fighting a tender lump in her throat, a thought sprang into her mind and she began to search, increasingly frantic. The notebook containing her rough workings – where was it? There was no sign. She rummaged in the filing tray, checked the drawers under the worktop and the floor. It had gone. What else had?
As far as she could see, all her equipment was intact. The specimen cases containing neat ranks of glass microscope slides stood in their usual place, the box of paraffin blocks she used to administer chemicals and the smoked drum that recorded results looked untouched. The thief had been careful not to disturb her routine work, that was something.
She leaned on the worktop, her palms pressed onto its surface, and thought hard.Who could have done this? Who knew about her clandestine research?In the lab, Dr Staunton, that was all, and she was fairly certain that she’d allayed his suspicions. The only others she’d told were Frank, Eleanor and Dorothy, and James.
She straightened and glanced round. Her colleagues had returned to their places and were doing their best to appear absorbed in their individual research.They know something,she thought,but are fearful, which suggests…She didn’t know what it suggested.
