The Price of Innocence Read Online Free PDF Page A

acknowledgement from the pasty white behemoth.
    Oliver ignored her, typing the narcotic levels of victims’ bodily fluids into a report.
    She held out her scratched and torn fingers with her version of the Trojan horse. ‘I found this at the building site yesterday.’
    ‘You mean the exploded building? The one that’s now lying on the ground, the one that pulverized all our archives? That building?’ Oliver spoke without turning from his desk.
    ‘Yes, the Bingham. I noticed this weird smell—’
    ‘A building that old is probably composed of little else but weird smells.’
    ‘—almost like a cleaner, or disinfectant or something. Then I stumbled – literally – on to this little stone and it seems to smell the same way. I wondered if you could tell me what it is,’ she finished, abject humility being the only way to Oliver’s center.
    He sighed with great forbearance and put down his pen. His chair squeaked as it swiveled. ‘Terrific. If you’re not bringing me something that stains, it’s something that stinks.’ He leaned forward and examined her hand, gave it a tentative sniff, then suddenly jumped back nearly on to his desk, crushing the keyboard under his massive buttocks and scattering his swivel chair. ‘
Shit
!’
    Then she saw something in Oliver she would never have expected to see.
    Fear.
    Her hand, still holding out the crystal, began to tremble.
    ‘Don’t move,’ Oliver ordered as soon as he caught his breath. ‘And don’t sweat.’ He rummaged through a drawer before coming up with a small metal tray, which he cleaned with an alcohol wipe. All the while she stood frozen in place like Lot’s wife. Don’t
sweat
?
    ‘Now listen to me very carefully, Theresa. I am going to set this tray on my counter, like this. I want you to pick up that crystal with the fingers of your free hand and set it on this tray. Do not drop it even a fraction of an inch. Do not shove it into the metal. Don’t squeeze it hard. Just place it there as gently as you possibly can.’
    ‘Or?’
    ‘You don’t want to know about
or
right now.’
    She then violated the sweating ban. She used the fingers of her left hand to pluck the small stone from the palm of her right, and took two cautious steps to the workbench. Then she placed the stone on the tray, as carefully as instructed.
    Oliver heaved a sigh of relief as she stepped away. She sighed as well, without even knowing why, and demanded, ‘What
is
that?’
    The toxicologist ignored her, picked up the phone and dialed a number. He told whoever answered: ‘I need your bomb squad.’
    ‘Oliver! What is that?’
    He covered the phone with his fingers. ‘That, my dear, is either nitrogen or ammonium triiodide. It probably blew up your building.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Explodes when it decomposes, as when it’s shaken, crushed or comes into contact with water. Where exactly did you find it, and what on earth possessed you to touch it? Did you sleep through your chemistry classes?’
    ‘But I’ve been carrying it around in my coat pocket since yesterday!’
    ‘I’m still on hold, do you believe it?’ he complained with a tinge of hysteria in his voice. ‘I’m glad this is merely a deadly explosive and not a real emergency. You’ve been walking around with this in your
pocket
?’
    He made her feel as if she’d been strolling down dark alleys, trailing hundred-dollar bills. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then be glad you continually disappoint the male sex by not wearing tighter clothing, or you would probably have blown off one or both of your legs. Hello, I have to report an explosive. Who am I speaking to? Sir, do you have at least a working knowledge of chemical compounds?’
    ‘Oliver—’
    She had to wait until he finished explaining the situation to the bomb experts at the police department. To her horror they agreed completely with his assessment, so that then she had to wait further, until the building had been evacuated and all her co-workers were standing