Ken McClure - Hypocrite's Isle

As if on cue, the lab door opened and Tom Baxter came in, looking deathly pale. He was holding a white envelope which he placed on Mary’s desk, before looking at Gavin through dark, empty eyes. Gavin read in them all he needed to know.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he said hoarsely, now understanding why Tom was so upset over what had happened. ‘You must have heard on the news last night that someone had been injured in a fire at the university but no name was mentioned. You thought it was me until Frank told you this morning.’

The blank stare did not change.

‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’

A look of utter disdain appeared on Tom’s face. ‘Have you any idea how much I loathe you?’

The look on Gavin’s face said not.

‘I have to work my butt off just to keep my head above water in this place, while everything comes so natural to you, Mr bloody know-it-all. If I forget something you’ll know it. Any time I screw up, you’ll be there to point it out. You do bugger all for weeks on end and then you make one suggestion and suddenly you’re Frank’s ace researcher. I get my one lucky break: Grumman Schalk are prepared to give me a job, a good job, much better than anything I was going to be getting on the poxy postdoc circuit for second-rate researchers like me — yes, you see, I do know my limitations. After that, I’d probably end up teaching biology in some bloody comprehensive to a bunch of teenage fuckwits who didn’t want to know.’

Gavin was mesmerised by the change that had come over Tom Baxter. The body of the gangly, dishevelled student seemed to have been taken over by a spirit of malevolence and bitterness. Even his voice seemed different. The nervous pauses and unnecessary clearing of the throat were no longer in evidence.

‘Then you have your big idea and fuck things up. Grumman are going to pull the plug on everything, including the job offers, because you won’t stop fucking around with Valdevan — but what does that matter to the great Gavin Donnelly? He knows best. He always knows fucking best.’

Gavin tensed himself as Tom started to come towards him. He sensed that Tom’s anger had reached the critical level where action had to take over to provide some sort of release. He tried anticipating what he might do and noticed, with a frisson of horror, the scalpel lying on the island bench. It had a blade so sharp that it could open up his face before he realised anything had happened, and it was just about to be within Tom’s reach.

Gavin’s heart missed a beat when Tom paused next to it but, to his enormous relief, Tom didn’t appear to see it. He didn’t seem to see anything, and Gavin realised that he was lost in the nightmare of what he’d done.

‘Mary... poor Mary,’ Tom murmured. ‘She just had to do you a good turn and... Christ, what have I done?’ He put his hands to his face and his shoulders started to heave.

Gavin kept perfectly still, feeling that Tom was so unstable that anything could happen. He clearly couldn’t come to terms with being the cause of Mary’s disfigurement, so it was still possible that he might turn his anger and guilt on him in an effort to block out the pain. Any move he made, even a wrong word — and right now, they’d all be wrong — might trigger a sudden explosion of violence.

Tom brought his hands down slowly from his face and looked at Gavin, who felt himself tense again. He expected to see eyes filled with hatred, but that wasn’t what was there. He saw nothing but emptiness: deep, dark, despairing emptiness. He sensed the danger had passed.

‘And now I have to make it right...’ murmured Tom as he turned away and made for the door. Gavin let out his breath and felt his shoulders relax. He considered going after him but dismissed the idea, recognising that he was the last person on earth that Tom would want near him. He assumed that his assertion about ‘making it right’ meant confession, giving himself up to the police, but he decided to call security anyway. ‘Try to stop him leaving the building, will you? He’s not well.’

‘Do we call the police or an ambulance?’

‘The police.’

Gavin slumped down into a chair, feeling the adrenalin drain from him. He started to take comfort from the silence in the lab, but only until somewhere out in the corridor a woman started screaming. It went on and on.

Gavin rushed out, as did others from the neighbouring labs, exchanging questioning looks as they followed the source of the sound. It was coming from behind the doors leading to the stairs. There they found a slight, blonde girl — one of the junior technicians from the Drummond lab — screaming hysterically as she pointed down into the stairwell. ‘He just... went over...’ she stammered as two of her colleagues wrapped their arms round her.

Gavin looked over the banister to see the body of Tom Baxter spread-eagled on the stone floor far below. Even at this height he could see that his skull had shattered. This was what Tom had meant by ‘making it right’.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ asked Jack Martin, appearing at the railings by Gavin’s shoulder.

‘Tom Baxter,’ said Gavin.

Martin looked at him quizzically.

‘He put the ether in the beaker. It was meant for me.’

‘Baxter? Jesus Christ, what was he thinking about?’

‘He thought my work was going to stop him getting his dream job with Grumman Schalk. He seemed to think the company was going to withdraw the postdoc job offers as well as the grant.’ Gavin looked directly at Martin, making it a question.

‘There has been some talk along those lines,’ conceded Martin.

‘First they threaten the university with withdrawal of funds if work on Valdevan doesn’t stop, then they tell the postgrad students that their jobs are going down the tubes as well. Nice people.’

‘Where’s Frank?’ asked Martin, clearly not wanting to be drawn.

‘He went to meet Mary’s parents at the hospital.’

‘Shit. Now he has this to come back to.’

Both men looked down again at Tom Baxter’s body, which had now been covered by a white plastic sheet. The police had arrived.

Gavin couldn’t bear to be in the lab any longer. He knew that the police would want to speak to him, but at that precise moment, he didn’t want to speak to them, or anyone else for that matter. His world had collapsed and he needed to be away from the epicentre of the disaster. He collected his rucksack and left the building by the back stairs, where he paused for a moment, undecided as to which direction to take until he remembered the package in his rucksack. He would have to go back to the flat and put the drugs in the fridge before he did anything else.

As he crossed the road, he saw a number 27 bus coming up Lauriston Place and sprinted to the stop in Forrest Road where he got on board, fumbling in successive jacket pockets for his travel pass, to the annoyance of the driver, who sucked his teeth and tapped his fingers on the wheel.

Back at the flat, Gavin removed the ice from the polystyrene box, resealed it carefully with tape and put it in the fridge. He was out again within five minutes and, after a short walk, standing in the Abbotsford in Rose Street, where he had two packets of crisps and a pint of lager for lunch. It was still early: the bar was quiet. Another half hour and it would be buzzing with the atmosphere Gavin liked so much, but not today.

‘Day off?’ asked the barman, wiping the bar top.

‘You could say,’ replied Gavin, putting an end to conversation. Normally, he welcomed talk with strangers, often finding it, as most people did, easier than with people he knew, but today he needed to be somewhere where he could think clearly and without distraction. A pub wasn’t going to fit the bill. He drained his glass and left, still not sure about where he was going.