Michael Ridpath - Final Venture

'Can you help me with some cartons?' she muttered, scarcely looking at me.

'OK.' I followed her outside, where a man and a small truck waited. A dozen or so collapsible cardboard cartons lay in their collapsed state on the sidewalk. I took half of them and Lisa took the other half. The man promised to return in an hour.

'I take it you're not moving back in, then?' I said, tentatively.

'No I am not, Simon. I'm going back to California. Roger has offered me a job.' Roger was Roger Mettler, her old professor. He had been trying to entice her back to Stanford for years.

'California! But that's thousands of miles away!'

'A geographic genius,' she muttered.

I felt a rush of panic. At least when Lisa was with Kelly, I knew she was only a couple of miles away. But California! She'd be really gone. Once the time was right, it would take days, not minutes, to see her, to get her back.

'What about Boston Peptides?' I asked.

'Oh, don't pretend you don't know,' she spat.

'What do you mean? What's happened?'

'I've been fired, that's what's happened,' she said as she wrestled with the first of the cartons.

'No! I don't believe it! Why would Henry do that? It makes no sense.'

'Henry didn't do it, although I would have expected him to stand up for me. No, it was Enema.'

'But they need you, don't they? I mean you're responsible for BP 56. Boston Peptides isn't worth much without you.'

'Well that's not what Enema thinks. He thinks the company can do perfectly well without me. He says I don't fit into the BioOne way of doing things. And frankly, I think he's right. Damn this thing!'

She was folding the flaps of the box together in the wrong order.

'Here, let me,' I said.

'Leave me alone!' she snapped.

I left her alone. 'What happened?'

'I asked too many questions.'

'About neuroxil-5?'

'Yep.'

'What's wrong with it?'

She threw the half-constructed box to the floor. 'Simon, the drug stinks, BioOne stinks, and Revere stinks. If you're too stupid to see that, that's not my problem. Now let me pack my stuff and get out of here.'

'Lisa,' I said, taking her arm.

She pushed my hand away.

'Lisa, sit down. Let's talk for a moment. We should at least do that. Then I'll leave you alone and you can pack up.'

Lisa hesitated, and then sat in the chair. Her face bore the stony expression of misery it had worn since just after Frank died, the corners of her mouth pulled downwards, her eyes dull. A tear ran unchecked down one cheek. She sniffed.

I took hold of her hand and crouched beside her. This could be my last chance to keep her, but I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice, to sound controlled, sensible. 'Listen, Lisa. I know things have been tough for you. Very tough. But I love you. I want to help you. You must let me.'

Lisa didn't answer. She sat still and straight, the tears now streaming down her face. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

'We work well together, Lisa. We understand each other. Your life must have been hell over the last few weeks. You need me. Let me help you.'

'I need the old you,' Lisa said, her voice trembling. 'I need the old you so bad.'

'But you've got me.'

Lisa shook her head. 'I don't know who I've got, Simon. I don't know whether you killed Dad. I don't know whether you used me to sell out my company and get me fired. I don't know whether you've been unfaithful to me. I don't know whether you've lied to me. I don't know you. I don't know you at all. And it scares me.'

'Of course you know me, Lisa. I haven't changed. Ever since we met, you've known me all the way through. We are so good for each other. I love you, and you love me.'

Lisa shook her head. 'I don't know whether I love you or I hate you. I don't know anything these days. I just want to go back to California and leave all this behind.'

'Don't. Please stay.'

Lisa took a deep breath, fighting to regain control. 'If I stay here, I'll go crazy. I need to try to rebuild my own life, Simon. Now let me go. I'll come back and do all this tomorrow morning. Please make sure you're not here.'

She stood up, and headed for the door, leaving the mess of cardboard all over the floor.

Then she walked out.

The Red Hat was full. Someone was leaving as I arrived, and so I acquired a beer and a stool and started to drink.

Lisa was going. Really going. Not just across town but to California, two and a half thousand miles away.

She had said that I had changed, that she didn't know me any more. But she was wrong. I was sure that it wasn't me that had changed, but her. It worried me, but it also made me angry. She was holding me responsible for so much, when all I had done was try to help her. I hadn't killed her father. I hadn't cost her her job; in fact I had risked my own to warn her about the take-over. She had lost her own job by being difficult. And I certainly hadn't slept with Diane.

I drained my glass and tapped it for a refill. The barman was running a tab. He knew I was here for the long haul.

All this was so unlike her. The pressure was too much for her, and she wouldn't let me near her to help. It was so frustrating. I felt myself being torn, between anger and concern, a desire to let her go and sort out her own problems, and a stronger desire to keep her.

She had threatened to leave once before. Then everything had been so different. We had known each other for about six months, in a relationship that we both thought was fun but casual. Then, out of the blue, Roger Mettler had asked her to return to Stanford. At the time, Boston Peptides was going nowhere, and so she decided to fly out there and talk to him. She came back full of enthusiasm. We had dinner together. We were both bright on the surface, but underneath, I felt a deep gloom creeping up on me. I realized, almost to my surprise, that I didn't want her to go. But I couldn't tell her that. Her life was her own, we had made no commitment to each other, it wasn't up to me to disrupt her career.

So she accepted the job, handed in her notice at Boston Peptides, organized somewhere to stay in Stanford. She seemed full of enthusiasm for the new life ahead of her. I played along, but felt terrible. Then as we lay in bed together one Sunday morning, the time to her departure now measured in days not weeks, I finally spoke to her about how I felt. I told her I knew she must go, but I really didn't want her to. I will always remember the look on her face, as it turned from confusion to a broad smile. We spent most of that Sunday in bed.

She stayed.

And now, eighteen months later, she was gone.

I had to get her back.

I decided to leave the apartment empty for Lisa the next morning, and drove straight to Wellesley, calling Daniel at the office to let him know something had come up at Net Cop. Craig was pleased to see me.

'Hey, Simon! So they let you out?'

'I've got a good lawyer and their evidence didn't stack up,' I said. 'But I'm not off the hook yet.'

'That's too bad. Hey, did you know we signed the deal with the Bloomfield Weiss guys yesterday?'

I shook my head. Craig's attention span for anything outside Net Cop was about ten seconds. I wasn't surprised. That was, after all, why I had backed him.

'That's good, Craig. When are you getting the money?'

'Next Monday, according to Jeff Lieberman.'

'Great.'

'Yeah. We're starting on the prototype right away. I've been talking to Luxtel and-'

'Craig?' I interrupted.

'Yeah?'

'Do you mind if I ask you about something else for a moment?'

Craig looked a little annoyed to be stopped in full flow, but he nodded his head. 'OK.'

'Were you in the marshes at Woodbridge the Saturday Frank Cook was murdered?'