1. The Case
Samantha Mullone straightened her skirt over her nylon knees as she waited patiently outside the office. In her line of work, she could usually get away with dressing casually in jeans and a t-shirt and she tugged at her smart navy blue skirt anxiously, as her feet complained about being squeezed into a pair of matching suede heels. The last time she'd worn these shoes was at a wedding and they felt a lot tighter than she'd remembered.
She felt a little out-of-place here in this smart office building in a research park on the edge of Fentonbridge. She saw most of her clients at the small office that she rented near the centre of town, where she listened to their tales of missing persons and unfaithful spouses. She was keen to make a good impression as the case details she'd heard so far had sounded intriguing.
She checked her mobile but there were no urgent calls or emails to attend to, so she switched it off, using the shiny black screen as a makeshift mirror, stroking her slender eyebrows then tucking a stray curl of chestnut hair behind her ear before a tall, haughty-looking secretary showed her in.
The man behind the large desk stood and extended a hand: "Hi, I'm Dr Bob Hibbert, head of Research, welcome to Kleinwert Pharmaceutical, Miss Mullone." He was a tall, broad man, clean-shaven and dressed smartly in a dark grey suit with a red- and green-striped tie.
"Thanks, call me Sam. Nice office you've got here," she replied politely as she settled into a chrome and black leather chair. Sunlight flooded in from the large window behind his desk, filling an office that was modern and airy with tasteful paintings adorning the cream-coloured walls.
"Thanks, you know I have to admit I was kind of expecting a male investigator," he confessed, twisting his thick gold wedding band.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," she said, forcing a smile. "So, uh, what can I do for you, Dr Hibbert?"
"Call me Bob. Well it's quite a sensitive matter, I need your word that what we discuss here stays within these four walls."
"I'm used to dealing with confidential matters so that's not a problem."
"Right, right, of course but this is more important than investigating someone who's having an affair," he replied, somewhat patronisingly, "so we'll need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement."
"That's fine, no problem" she said, staring evenly into his steely grey eyes, eager to get to the heart of the matter.
He paused and leant back in his chair: "Miss Mullone, I'm not sure how much you know about Kleinwert. We're a small R and D company that carries out experimental research and develops new drugs. For some time we've been researching drugs to help treat male and female sexual dysfunction. Many men struggle with premature ejaculation and maintaining an erection. And many women have problems with arousal for a variety of reasons, maybe post-natal depression or they may have had a bad experience or it may be related to their monthly cycle so there's a lot of demand for drugs to treat these disorders. Anyway, a couple of years ago a freelance researcher came across a previously undiscovered tribe in the Brazilian rainforest. Every year this tribe has a kind of coming of age ceremony where all the boys of a certain age become men and the girls become women, if you know what I mean. Essentially, it's a kind of ceremonial orgy with lots of chanting and dancing. Anyway, the researcher noticed that throughout the evening the participants chewed a special kind of leaf from a tree that only grows in that area. It turns out it's a mild aphrodisiac. So one leaf doesn't have much effect but if you chew leaf after leaf all evening there's a cumulative effect. In particular, they noted that it gave the boys the, um, stamina to perform all night despite it being their first time, if you know what I mean."
He took a breath and ran a hand through his thin, greying hair.
"Well anyway, to cut a long story short we've spent the last two years trying to isolate the active compound in these leaves and we've finally reached a stage where we can begin proper phase one testing."
"So you think you have an effective drug then?" Sam asked.
"Oh yes. Well we've done a lot of in-vitro testing in rabbits, rats and the like so far but the results are looking very promising, there's definitely an effect on mammals."
"How does it work?"
"Well I'm a chemist not a biologist, but we believe that it temporarily dilates blood vessels and increases heart function, leading to higher blood pressure and a temporary increase in performance."
"I see. But it hasn't been tested on humans yet?"
"Ah well that's where you come in. I have reason to believe that someone's been smuggling the drug out of the lab. That's a big problem for us because we make our money by developing these drugs and selling the formulae onto the big pharmaceutical companies for mass production. If one of our competitors or potential customers gets hold of a sample, we could lose thousands of pounds, maybe hundreds of thousands."
"What makes you think it's being smuggled out?"
"Some of the younger members of staff have begun to hear rumours about a new drug that's being dealt in some of the local clubs. Apparently, it turns men into animals, they're calling it 'Bunny'. The effects sound very similar to our drug."
"Bunny?"
"Yeah, as in the Energiser Bunny. You know, that one that outlasts all the others in the adverts?"
"I see." Sam said. "I would have thought the thieves would have gone for something more imaginative like sexstacy."
"Yeah, well maybe the manufacturers will steal your idea, if it ever gets that far," he chuckled. "I shouldn't joke; this drug's never been properly tested on humans before so we've got no idea of the long term effects, particularly on people with heart or blood pressure problems."
"So have you got any suspicions?" she asked.
"Not really it's quite a small team, but they've all been warned that their jobs are at risk if they're caught and we've employed a security firm to do random searches when they leave. My secretary will give you a complete list of everyone who has access, but it's only a handful of employees. I reckon you'll find the culprit in the first five or six names."
"Uh huh," Sam said, looking up. She'd taken out her notebook and started scribbling some notes.
"To be honest we don't have experience of dealing with this kind of drug. We normally develop niche drugs to help with Alzheimer's or heart disease; we've never developed anything this universal before."
"OK," Sam said, still hastily writing, "you say the drug's being sold in local clubs. Any particular nightclub?"
"Uh," he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Yeah, I think maybe a nightclub called Suzie's, have you heard of it?"
Sam smiled. Fentonbridge was a provincial town around a hundred miles north of London; although it was quite small it was big enough to have a number of pubs and restaurants and three nightclubs. Suzie's was the smallest of them, the kind of place you ended up if you weren't smart enough to get in anywhere else.
"Oh yes, I've heard of it," she said, unable to suppress a smile. "I'll need that list of all of the employees that have access to this drug along with their addresses and any other details you have before I leave, if that's OK."
