Wallace’s grey eyebrows disappeared beneath his white hair. “Enzo guy, huh? Not had one of those for a while.” He sucked his teeth. “Do me a favour, don’t put things in the milk. My bowels can’t take another biocatalytic event.”
Pember frowned. “The milk? Why?—”
“Our last enzo guy spiked the milk with a home-made brew of God-knows-what. Didn’t tell us we were the test subjects for his little research project.”
Pember gasped. “That’s extremely unethical.”
Grimacing, Wallace nodded. “And illegal. Needless to say, he didn’t stay long. Anyway, I’ll give you a quick tour of the lab, then we’ll meet the team.”
Pember nodded, pulling on the white jacket and face mask as he followed Wallace through another door behind the PPE lockers.
It was a tiny lab, much smaller than what he was used to at the university. However, the familiar sight of white workbenches, extraction equipment, elongated monitors, amplification machines and thermocyclers set his mind at ease.
I can do this. This is my world.
There were two people hunched over the same microscope, both of whom Wallace tapped on the shoulder then indicated towards the door. They looked up, briefly glancing at Pember before spinning on their swivel stools and heading out of the lab.
Wallace gave him a cheerful, albeit brief, rundown of the equipment and storage facilities before they reached another door at the opposite end of the lab. Pulling off their masks, they stepped into what could only be described as a time machine. Gone were the clean lines and modern technology, now they were back in the dated, carpet-tiled, woodchip-wallpapered confines of the police station.
Wallace grinned when he noticed Pember’s look of confusion. “We had the lab upgraded after the sex trafficking scandal. The Home Office attached us to the Major Incident Unit so we could get a better grip on organised crime. The government realised just how terrible the forensic hubs were in the countryside forces. It’s small, but it’s worlds away from what we had before.”
Pember nodded, tugging off his jacket and hooking it over a peg. “Looks good. A lot of the equipment is similar to what we had at uni.”
Wallace smiled, clapping. “So you’ll know how to use it, then? Because Christ knows I’m a sodding dinosaur when it comes to the new tech. Give me a Petri dish and a microscope any day.”
Pember chuckled at that.
“But you know that we do fifty percent lab, and fifty percent fieldwork, right?” Wallace continued. “You’ll spend a large partof your time going to crime scenes and post-mortems.” Wallace indicated towards a storage rack containing multiple high-spec cameras.
“Y-yeah, the lady in recruitment told me,” Pember replied.
Wallace let out a relieved sigh. “Good. Between the three of us we’ll get you inducted into the lab, then everything else is learnt on the job. You’ll be heavily supervised, of course, but I don’t micromanage my staff by any means. Speaking of, shall we meet the team?”
Pember nodded nervously. They entered a little kitchen area and Pember’s nose inadvertently wrinkled at the musty smell of microwave meals and stale coffee. The classic eau de parfum of any break room.
Flicking on the kettle, Wallace turned to him. “So, you a local lad, or…?”
Pember ran his tongue over his teeth. “Yeah. Originally from High Enfield, now living on my own in West Newton.”
Thoughts of his mother flashed through his mind again, and he glanced up at the ceiling to distract himself from the gnawing guilt. Before they had time to continue the conversation, movement from the corner of the room made Pember nearly jump out of his skin.
Two bodies, who may or may not have been police officers, suddenly sat up from beneath a foil blanket. The kind that was meant to be in first aid kits. They were slumped over on a beanbag, their stab vests hanging open and their faces pale.
“Oi!” Wallace snapped, slapping one of them across the shoulder. “I told you, this is a professional space. Not somewhere to have a nap after an all-night bender.”
“Wha?” one of them slurred, his dark hair sticking up on one side. The other peeled open his eyes, looking around the room in a daze.
They could not have been more different. In appearance, at least. One had the darkest skin Pember had ever seen, and the other looked like he’d been dipped in corn flour beneath a tangle of chestnut hair.
It was only then that Pember noticed the guns on their hips anda lotof other equipment he didn’t recognise. He’d never even seen a gun before, let alone been in close proximity to one. Both their heads jerked up when they noticed him, nostrils flaring as they dragged their eyes all over his body. More alphas. Moresoddingalphas. He’d never felt so stared at in all his life.
“Johnny, Tay, out! Now!” Wallace shouted, jabbing his thumb towards the door. The alphas stood, one withdrawing an energy drink from his pocket, the other stretching towards the ceiling in an obvious effort to make his muscles pop. Pember flushed and looked away.
“Why don’t you introduce us?” Tay, the ginger one said, holding out a hand to Pember.
Wallace slapped it away and yanked open the door. “Out!”
Both alphas grumbled as they were forced across the threshold, but not before Johnny winked at him over his shoulder.
