It could have been worse, but right now, Derek was struggling to think of how.
His "Trojan horse" turned out to be a flat bed truck filled with organic fertiliser of the kind that the RCMP stables produce rather a lot of. Apparently, the gardener liked his roses.
After a moment's hesitation, Derek managed to haul himself up into the truck bed without actually touching much of the organic mess, climbing into a pile of tarpaulin sheets and then pulling them over him. Tarpaulin stinks however, and he spent most of the short ride in through the gates wondering which smelled worse: horse shit or sweating canvas. The journey through the gates was probably only a couple of minutes long, but it felt like forever.
Eventually the gardener abandoned his truck at the side of the large building, slipping from its cab and heading off towards a shed hidden in the trees, probably to get a wheelbarrow and shovel. It gave Derek chance to escape, wondering as he did so if the guy had no sense of smell.
He chose the side of the truck furthest from the main entrance and slipped quietly over the side, his Converse trainers making the tiniest of crunches as he landed on the gravel of the drive. Then, before anyone could spot him, he sprinted to the opposite side of the house from the gardener, wanting somewhere to think about his best approach.
Casey was staring miserably at the food before her. There was no way she was going to be able to eat anything, yet the stubborn young lady beside her was determined something should pass her lips.
"Come on Case. Bread and real butter? That French bread looks lovely. And what about the seafood platter? Smoked salmon and prawns. Oo! They have mini quiches!"
Casey took a wedge of the bread and some butter just to stop Marti from listing every single item on the long buffet table.
"Now you need to eat it." Her sister said, triumphantly tilting her head.
"I'm going to eat it." Casey insisted. "But you do know it's hard to swallow when someone is watching you like a hawk."
Marti raised an eyebrow. "That's not what I find." She quipped back with a smirk.
After a second's pause during which Casey's dulled eyes widened, she choked out, "Marti…that's just…seriously. I thought you wanted me to eat not vomit."
"Your prudish tendencies are showing, Casey McDonald." Marti sing-songed.
"They are not."
"They so are! I make a comment that may or may not be a little…"
"A lot…" Casey interjected.
"Seriously? So what…you behaving like a prim and proper virgin now?"
"Marti, when it comes to sex, there are some things you discuss with your sister…step-sister and there are some subjects you avoid."
"You talked to me about losing my virginity before." Marti pointed out.
"Because I felt as a doctor it was in your interests for me to provide a suitable adult role model. Now it is a lost cause I don't need to know the "ins and outs"." Casey's mouth twitched slightly at her unintentional pun.
"You got pissed and lost yours to a guy whose name you don't even know! What kind of role model is that?" Marti asked with glee. Casey began to regret sharing so much with Marti.
"That was "role model" as in the "do as I say not as I do" mould." She noted.
"Pth!" was Marti's considered opinion. "I just made a comment with a double entendre about oral sex. There was no need for you to start rolling out your sexually repressed nature."
"I just think that sex, once you are having it, is something that should remain private. That does not make me sexually repressed!"
"Could have fooled me!" Marti said with a snigger.
Casey smiled sweetly. "Marti, honey. I am not sexually repressed. Just because I don't like cheap jokes about sex does not mean I don't like sex." She paused and muttered quietly. "I could tell you tales about my sex life that would curl your hair."
"I've always wanted curly hair." Marti grinned at her.
"So you have a choice. Stick your finger in a power socket or listen to how un-repressed my sexuality is," Casey said matter-of-fact.
"….which of course would mean hearing – in detail – about how unrepressed your brother's sex life is. Fancy hearing about My Sex Life With Derek?" Casey raised an eyebrow, and then when Marti didn't answer, "You know he does this thing…" she started with mock enthusiasm.
Marti pulled a vomit face. She knew her brother was in love with the girl standing next to her, and Casey was one of her closest friend but even the thought of what Derek and Casey got up to behind close doors was just…
She shivered!
"That won't be necessary." She said firmly.
Casey grinned and relaxed. "And that is exactly my point. It's one thing to know your sibling is sexually active, it's another to hear details about it. Let's keep the sharing to matters of a medical nature shall we? And that includes the stuff about swallowing."
Marti nodded. "Agreed." She confirmed…and then (because she was after all a Venturi) with a very Derek-like twinkle,
"So I take it you don't? Swallow, I mean."
There was a pause whilst Casey tried to come up with a retort, but she was saved from replying by the sudden arrival of a frantic Jazz.
Getting into the main building was easier than Derek had thought. For an organisation that was probably on the radar of animal rights extremists their approach to security was decidedly lacking. The main gate had been heavily guarded. Likewise the entrance at the front had some sort of fancy screening system and two heavy-set guards. But, the older main building clearly suffered from air conditioning problems because on the side at the second floor level the door onto the fire escape was propped open with a fire extinguisher.
The metal gate in the caged base of the fire escape was also alarmed, but Derek was not adverse to a bit of climbing – even if he had promised Casey he wouldn't following the scaffolding and rock-climbing incidents. This was different.
He hauled himself up over the cage and again higher to the point where the cage ended and access to the stairs was open. Then he dropped from the roof of the cage to the wrought iron step with a small clang and sprinted up the remaining steps the short distance to the door.
Derek hung back from the opening and listened for the sounds of the people inside. After a few moments of an almost silence filled only with the hum of electronic equipment, he stuck his head around the door frame.
The room was quite large, rectangular and filled from floor to ceiling with computers.
It was otherwise empty so he took the opportunity to slip inside.
"Hi Jazz!" Marti said cheerfully as Derek's partner appeared. "Vol-au-vent?"
"What's wrong?" Casey asked immediately her Derek-sense immediately detecting the worry in his best friend's face.
"Quentin's left." Jazz said.
Marti frowned. "He probably hates funerals. Most people do."
Casey wasn't buying it though. "Why does the fact that he's left make you look like you're about to have a coronary?"
Jazz hesitated. But Casey knew.
"Derek's doing something stupid isn't he?" She asked with a rising panic.
"I…" Jazz started.
"What is it, Jazz? What's the stupid idiot doing?" She demanded.
"He thought that while Quentin was here at the funeral, he should go and check out the labs." He admitted reluctantly.
"He did what?" Casey screeched, putting down her plate and causing several of the other mourners to turn her way. Smiling apologetically, she manoeuvred Jazz off to one side.
"Is he still there?" Marti, following, asked with concern.
Jazz nodded and lowered his voice. "I tried phoning him but he must be in a blind spot because his phone keeps going to voicemail."
"How far to the labs?" Casey demanded suddenly but still quietly.
"From here? About forty five minutes." Derek and Jazz had looked it up on the internet when they were trying to work out if Derek would have time to search the labs.
"When did Quentin leave?"
"About twenty minutes ago."
Casey's eyes widened in horror and she started for the door. Jazz and Marti followed after her.
"Where are you going?" Jazz asked.
She glanced over her shoulder. "To the labs. He's got a head start on us but if we hurry…"
"I was just about to go." Jazz confirmed. "But you need to stay here."
"No. I don't." Casey didn't break her stride. Jazz followed behind her, hissing at her in a low tone.
"Casey. This guy is involved in murder."
"So was Papillion." She hissed back.
"But Quentin is involved with Sal."
Casey rounded on him. "Look Jazz, I appreciate the concern but the longer you argue with me the longer it will take us to get to Derek. I've been through the basic RCMP training and I'm a pretty good shot. You need back up and I'm it. My entire future is depending on this so I'm going whether you like it or not."
Jazz gave up, knowing that she was right.
They reached the rental car in the outside lot shortly afterwards and Casey held her hand out for the keys.
"I'm driving." Jazz objected.
"No. You're not. You need to call Spike. I'll drive."
"Casey you drive like a granny." He groaned.
"You've been talking to Derek. He's not seen me drive in earnest before. Believe me, I'm in earnest now."
Marti huffed from behind them. "Can you two shut the fuck up and let's get going?"
Casey turned to her sister. "You're not coming."
"Yes I am."
"No you're not. You're going back to my apartment to wait for news. It's the only fixed line we have. Derek might phone there."
"But I…" Marti protested.
"Marti. I need someone to be on the outside keeping track, okay? I'll call you when I can."
Jazz nodded. "She's right, Marti. Get a cab back to the apartment. We'll call."
Marti groaned and stamped her feet.
"That's just freaking typical! Treat me like a six-year old why don't you?"
But they were already getting into the car.
It was hot in the computer lab. Derek could understand why the door was left open.
What he didn't understand why there wasn't some sort of fancy air conditioning system in there though. Weren't computers supposed to be kept cool?
Instead, the largely elderly computers looked as though they were haphazardly laid out, on rough and ready desks groaning under the weight of ancient technology.
Derek frowned. Wasn't this supposed to be a multi-million dollar set-up? Wasn't it supposed to generate large amounts of cash from its research into muscle-wasting diseases? Didn't it receive millions in grants from the Government?
Deciding that he had probably stumbled across an ancient payroll system or something, he left the room by the one remaining door in the opposite wall. It led out to a deserted corridor whose walls had been clad with large sheets of plasterboard to make them appear more streamlined. It gave the space a rather temporary feel, which considering the age of the building was ironic.
Derek moved down the corridor quickly, trying door handles. Most of the rooms on this floor were unlocked so he got to see inside them. They were deserted, so there were no awkward moments where he was forced to hide from staff. Like the corridors and the first lab, these were also decorated to hide their age. Aside from one further computer lab, they all appeared to be storage rooms for computer tape. The tape, cryptically labelled, was the old-fashioned DAT cassette sort: rectangular and smaller than a cigarette packet. It made searching much more straight forward because Derek had no way of viewing the contents. The servers with the appropriate tape slots were located in the first room he had entered – and every single one of them had a monitor which when activated showed the server was password-protected. Consequently, when he found a room with tape, he didn't waste his time searching the tape racks, instead he concentrated on the small number of filing cabinets. Some of these were locked but he got around that.
None of them held any information he could use. It was all back-up schedules and system upgrades.
Eventually, he had covered the entire floor so he paused by the elevators to think.
This floor was clearly some sort of server set-up. The technology was old, running the old NT Server software by the looks of things. Derek liked technology. He didn't have an extensive knowledge of computers but he knew more than most non-professionals. What he knew about NT Server came from his old geek days of hanging around the computer labs in junior high. He just didn't know enough to hack into one of the machines.
It did mean, however, that he knew something about what the computers were doing. They were clearly just file servers providing somewhere for people to store their word documents. They weren't modelling complex chemical structures.
In other words, they had little to do with the production of steroids or their companion drugs.
"Jesus woman! Slow down!" Jazz screeched, clinging onto the "Holy Shit!" handle for dear life. "No boss," He said into his phone. "That wasn't aimed at you. Casey's driving like a freaking loon!"
"You're the one that let him go off on this jaunt." Casey commented. "If you'd both involved me in this discussion I wouldn't be racing to the labs right now."
"No. I know." Jazz said into the phone again. "You might want to warn Traffic about her. She's fucking lethal."
Casey snorted. "Oh grow up!"
Jazz watched as she hit 100mph on the highway.
"Casey. If we get pulled by the locals, you're on your own honey."
"Pft!"
"Casey. They'll "stinger" your tyres and when you're forced to stop, they'll arrest you and then where will Derek be?"
Casey eased off the gas, but only slightly.
"I can't believe you let him do this." She said bitterly.
"Neither can I. He was persuasive. I can't believe the fucker left me to deal with "Angry Casey"."
Casey snorted. "You mean he was Derek. That's never an excuse. It's all in the handling."
Jazz rolled his eyes. "I don't have the powers of persuasion that you do." He smirked.
"Yeah like he'd listen to me."
"Casey, he'd roll over and beg for you. But yeah…you're right. He probably wouldn't listen to you."
Casey drove on with slightly less haste and Jazz finished his call to Spike.
"He's going to have a team on standby, but we can't go in until we have probable cause." Jazz said as he got off the phone. "He told me to make sure we stay outside the compound."
"What?" Casey glanced at him in disbelief.
"Relax! I have no intention of doing that."
"So how are we going to get in there?" Casey asked.
"You know, that's a really good question."
He had taken a white lab coat from a hook in the final room on the computer floor which appeared to be a cloakroom, and now slipping it on as he entered the elevator Derek looked at the floor directory on the wall. He could see he had come into the building on the middle level of a three-floor building. The question was did he go up or down next?
Derek decided to go down. It was likely to be more populated but the rooms were bigger and held more promise of evidence.
Fifteen wasted minutes later, and a couple of near-misses with white-coated scientists he entered the companion elevator and selected the top floor.
Things were not adding up Derek told himself as he rode in the small box. He had come to the site expecting to see expensive, well-run laboratories with lots of white-coated staff but so far all he had seen were old dilapidated rooms full of ancient equipment, staff wandering around in jeans and the types of lab coat which you wore in high school chemistry. There was no sign of the many millions he was sure had been funnelled towards the steroid research.
Confused, he reminded himself that the whereabouts of the money was not the reason why he was there; he was here to find out about Steven's death and his own half-life. He had to press on and dig deeper.
The elevator was like the rest of the building – inadequate and ancient. It was small and noisy, making him wince at the noise and the renewed possibility of being discovered. It was with some trepidation that he emerged minutes later onto the top floor.
This floor was similar in décor to the previous level. There was nothing extravagant about it. Once again the walls were lined with plasterboard, showing nothing of the original shape and tone of the building. There were more rooms up here: smaller office-like and labelled with people's names. They also had people in them which meant Derek couldn't enter them.
Every step in this building had Derek thinking he was on a wild-goose chase. Every inch of this place was plain, boring and, although clearly "non-profit-making", well above board. He sighed and scratched at his head.
And then he saw the name plate on the door.
"Professor Quentin Smythe, Director of Research."
"So tell me about this place that we're going to." Jazz said to Casey as the rental ate up the miles at an eye-watering pace.
"I don't know that much about it." Casey admitted. "Only the stuff that Steven told me in passing – and as he and his uncle don't…didn't get on that wasn't much. I guess, knowing what we do now, that most of his knowledge came from his time here as a research assistant."
"So it's like a big research lab though, right?"
Casey shook her head. "It's not what most people would class as "big". Not compared to GlaxoSmithLine or Pfizers or somewhere. It's just a large Victorian mansion which Smythe inherited and decided to turn into a research facility."
"He inherited it?"
"Yeah. Some great-great-uncle was a Victorian eccentric and insisted on building a great monstrosity to rival one of the larger English-Victorian follies. It's apparently an ugly great building - all imported red stone and gothic finials. Anyway, apparently the guy was really really shady and this was the centre of his operations."
"No change there then." Jazz added wryly. Casey smiled.
"We don't actually know that Quentin was involved in Steven's death – or Derek's for that matter." She pointed out, although her foot didn't ease off the gas.
"I know but the chances of it being otherwise are slim. Don't you think?"
Casey hummed in answer.
"Anyway, calling the building "research labs" is more a reflection of what work is produced in the lab's name than the elaborate nature of the labs. Most people with half a brain would have purpose-built facilities. I don't know how Quentin manages to operate from the dated facilities that Steven described."
"You've never seen the building though? Maybe Steven was exaggerating."
"Maybe." Casey agreed.
"You know it would have been good if Derek had known this before he went." Jazz mused.
Casey sighed. "That's just Derek. He's never been one for sharing information with me voluntarily."
"And do you tell him everything?" Jazz asked pointedly.
"No." Casey said in a very quiet voice. "No. I don't."
Derek tried the door handle to the office, but it was locked. He cursed and slipping his wallet from his back pocket knelt down to rectify that. Seconds later a small click announced that he had been successful with his lock-picking and rising once again to his feet, he twisted the door handle and entered the room.
It was a large room, as would be expected of the Director, and as Steven had noted on his ill-fated visit the previous week, the room was neat and tidy with no room for disorder. In fact, thought Derek, it looked as though it hadn't been used at all.
Unlike Steven, however, Derek was perfectly prepared to rifle through Quentin's filing cabinets.
There were plenty of them: large grey metal containers lining one wall. Derek counted six. Along with the large desk in the centre of the room and a tall bookshelf against the second long wall, the filing cabinets were the only furniture.
Despite their number, there was no external labelling on the metal drawers: no "A-C" or more involved alternative. There was just the row of grey soldier-like towers. For all Derek knew they were empty.
He was going to check.
Because they were standard cabinets, picking the locks was relatively straight forward. For most, he managed it quickly and efficiently, pulling open the drawers noisily in his haste to view the contents.
Inside, as expected were rows of muted green foolscap suspension files, each containing tan cardboard files. Each file contained three simple sheets of paper. Derek pulled the first one he came across from its home and opened it.
There were times that Derek regretted his inattention in science classes, but he figured, looking at the papers in front of him that even Casey would struggle with the information contained in the files.
Each file had a coded alphanumeric – an index number perhaps? - Which consisted of three letters, a five digit number and six digits which looked like a representation of MMYYYY. The code was printed large across the file and then repeated at the top of each internal sheet. The internal sheets appeared to be summaries of some sort, containing a chemical structure diagram, a verbal description of that structure, notes on a chemical process and then on the last of the three pages a complete summary of some type of substance.
Derek frowned, closed the file and placed it back in the drawer. He pulled the next one.
It was identical.
And by identical, Derek meant that the only thing differing in the file was one of the digits in the five digit sequence. Even the chemical structure was the same and the process was…
Derek stopped.
No. It wasn't the same. There was one tiny component which differed on the structure and the process described was very slightly different: a change in ratio between two chemical compounds.
He closed the file and pulled the next one.
This time he spotted the difference quickly. Another minute change in ratio.
He pulled another file at random. Again, a ratio change.
Derek replaced the file and closed the drawer. He pulled open the next drawer and pulled a file.
This time the three letters were different and the structure pictured varied significantly. The next file had the same three letters, and only a minute change from the second structure.
It was the same pattern in the next two drawers too.
Derek understood now. In each drawer was information about a single type of steroid, each file contained the information about the variants of that steroid. The six cabinets must be filled with a brief summary of every single compound Smythe had worked on over his career. Looking at the numbers of files, and thinking about the precise nature of the experiments and the tiny changes in details for each one…it boggled Derek's mind.
He glanced again at the file in his hand and wondered why the index number seemed familiar. He had seen it somewhere before.
Derek glanced at his watch, conscious of the time. He replaced the file and closed its drawer. He would just check that the rest of the filing cabinets contained the same sorts of files and then he would turn his attention to the desk.
But in the last drawer of the last cabinet – the one nearest the window – Derek was again forced to pause in shock. Right at the very back of the cabinet drawer the files looked different. They didn't contain any papers within them at all. They were just tan cardboard wallets labelled with the same format of alphabet and numbers.
Confused once more, Derek let his fingers run over the rack of foolscap, scanning the index numbers until one index number drew his attention: VEN/N6A3C4/092011. It didn't follow the format of the other files but that wasn't what drew his attention. It was the date.
The month of Derek's "death".
Derek gasped. He looked again at the code:
"VEN" was the first three letters of his own surname, N6A was the beginning of one of the zip codes for London and September 2011 was the date that he had "died". This file referred to his death!
Which was not helpful because it was empty.
Derek turned the cardboard file over but there was nothing. He turned his attention back to the drawer and pulled out another one of the empty files. He didn't recognise the code to this one so he returned it but then an idea passed across his mind and he skimmed the index numbers, looking for something.
And there is was.
SAN/K7L1S5/082011 The death of Tina Sanchez in Kingston.
Derek's first case as an RCMP officer, even though it predated his own death. The girl whose strangulation was achieved using the same scarf as had been used for Holly's death.
If Derek had harboured any doubts that Quentin was involved, they just got blown out of the water.
"How far away are we?" Casey asked. Jazz was the one watching the GPS.
"I think about twenty minutes." He replied.
"Which means…"
"Yeah. Smythe has probably arrived."