A face popped around the door and Jamie sighed.
It was Paul.
‘Hey, mate, are you OK? Tilda wanted me to come and check on you,’ his partner said.
‘I’m good, mate. I was just going to take a drive.’
‘A drive? We’re celebrating downstairs. Tilda has her eye on you.’
‘Oh, stop it, mate, she’s not my type.’
‘Not your type? Jesus, are you a eunuch? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Paul was drunk and it was one of the reasons he wasn’t let loose on real customers.
‘Come on, mate, she’s vacuous, and mind-numbingly spoilt. And already taken. The days of you and me sharing are long gone.’
‘Since when did that stop you?’ Paul asked.
Hampton-Dent had sent the big guns to the conference. Tilda Dent and Hank Hampton were both in attendance, and it demonstrated the importance ofYouthBlastfor the firm: to make it marketable and mainstream.
‘How did you get a card to my room?’ Jamie asked, suddenly wary.
A cloud of irritation fell over Paul’s face and Jamie moved awkwardly, fiddling with his car keys.
‘Going somewhere?’
‘Like I said, I’m going to get some air.’
‘In your car?’
‘What’s this all about?’ Jamie asked. ‘Since when do you get to tell me what to do? And you still haven’t told me why you have a key to my room.’
Paul ignored him and simply stared. Jamie saw he was sweating, and his face was swollen and high coloured. His eyes were like saucers.
‘What have you taken?’
Paul held up a FairGro water bottle.
‘You drankYouthBlast? You idiot. It’ll devastate your kidneys if you drink too much.’
‘You preaching to me now, too?’
Jamie knew that in some cases, Neurohydroxy-14 could turn test animals into vicious predators. He also knew that their human trials had been shut down. It was just another reason to be nervous. He didn’t recognise his friend standing in front of him. They were using him.
For some reason he found himself nostalgic about the good old days. The day a Texan called Hank Hampton walked intotheir lives and offered them more money than they’d ever dreamt of.
That’s how it had started.
A light knocking on the door distracted Jamie and he peered behind Paul, but he couldn’t see who was tapping. He laughed nervously. Perhaps it was Paul messing about. Jamie couldn’t see his right hand, which was still behind the door. Maybe he was toying with him because he was high or drunk, and soon he’d be deliriously inebriated and incapable of adding any value at all.
It was embarrassing.
But the door opened a little wider and Jamie knew that it wasn’t just Paul who’d come to see him.
Chapter 6
Kelly met Ted at the Penrith and Lakes hospital, where the body of their unknown woman waited on a cold steel slab. Kelly had spent a restless night tossing and turning, but it wasn’t unusual when a big case crossed her desk.
She assumed all people dreamt about their jobs; it was just hers involved murder and brutality.
