The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 9.4

I waited for hours. My plan, what little I had, was to stay in hiding until the first sign of inactivity, at which point I would leap into action. Trouble was, wherever this box was located turned out to be a bustling place, and I ended up wishing I'd stowed a packet of crisps somewhere about my person.

So I listened, attempting to glean whatever I could from the conversations that filtered through the cardboard. I heard long lists of medical equipment being ticked off as it was unloaded, with plenty of names too long and full of Latin for me to make sense of. The haulers bitched and moaned and laughed and joked. I got a vague sense of an upstairs-downstairs dynamic – the men and women unloading the trucks didn't sound on the best of terms with the people they were unloading them for.

The other people who worked in this building sounded like science types. That fit with the equipment lists. Was this where they made their drugs?

I dozed a little. A cardboard box can be surprisingly comfortable when you're used to hunkering down in a car seat every night. Eventually all noise died down, and I awoke to tune in on people bidding each other good night, and welcoming the new shift in.

New shift? Ah, shit. Now was my chance to move, or I wouldn't get another.

It's not easy to gracefully exit a box, but I like to think I managed it. One swift motion up, casually swing the leg over, round the corner of a stack and now I'm just a regular person-who-was-never-in-a-box.

The night shift was definitely lighter on the ground, and it was much easier to stay out of sight until I found the door at the back of the storeroom.

I rattled the handle and groaned. Locked. Time to get creative.

Slipping behind another set of shelves, I picked up several discarded sheets of paper from the debris of packaging and smoothed them into a respectable sheaf I could carry, and pinched a ball point pen off one of the shelves.

Dodging between aisles when their backs were turned, I crept round to the unloading bay again. Here a youngish man and middle-aged woman were crushing empty boxes for recycling.

I cleared my throat noisily. They both jumped, certainly not expecting any company at this hour. 'Who the hell are–'

I interrupted immediately. 'Let's get this done quickly. I'm on a tight schedule and already running late. Your friends next door took forever to complete the audit.'

Their faces went white. 'Audit?'

I flourished the pen over the blank pages in my hand. 'I appreciate your assistance.'

There are certain Words of Power that the universe acknowledges as indomitable, and 'audit' is surely one of the most powerful. It strikes fear into the hearts of administrative lackeys everywhere. You don't always need a string of incomprehensible Latin to bend a person to your will.

The pair jumped to attention as I began listing off names of equipment I'd heard earlier. 'Where's your PPE store? How many surgical masks? I want to see all the petri dishes and volumetric flasks. Did a spectrometer arrive today? What's this mark on the box? Any damages? Who keeps track of inventory? No, this won't do.' I tutted loudly at a disorganised shelf of half-piled stock. 'I'll need to speak to someone inside, please.'

'We're just in the middle of unpacking that, actually.' They hurried after me anxiously. 'We'd've had it tidy if we'd known. No one said you were coming, see?'

I stopped short at the door I'd tried earlier, and switched my severe expression for a generous one. 'No one told you about the audit? You had no notice at all?'