You Lost Us In The Test novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Bermondsey

"You knew," I said.

Benedict Chichester took his glasses down off his head and put them on, as if that would help him see the question.

"Knew what?"

"On the plane. Who I was."

"I knew you were sick and wrong about tea."

"You were in Pittsburgh. At head office."

"For two days of meetings about fridge temperatures. I didn't meet the lab." He pushed a folder across the desk. "Your photo's in there. Taken in better lighting."

I opened it.

My own Hartwell ID photo looked up at me. I was smiling. I'd had a fiancé then.

"You didn't say anything."

"You'd just been sick in a bag. It didn't seem the moment."

"For seven hours?"

He considered that.

"You were enjoying yourself," he said. "So was I. Bad manners to spoil it."

He stood up.

He was taller than he'd seemed folded into an aisle seat.

"Right," he said. "Tour."

The lab took up three floors of the old factory.

The ovens were long gone, but the iron beams still said the old company's name in raised letters.

He walked fast and talked less.

"Chemistry." A long white room with a row of machines humming like fridges. "Allergens." A smaller room with yellow tape on the floor. "Micro."

Two women in matching purple glasses looked up from the same bench at the same time.

"The twins," Benedict said.

"We know who she is," said the one on the left.

"We watched the video," said the one on the right.

"Twice."

"Your mum's a piece of work."

"Sorry," said the one on the left. "Too soon?"

"No," I said. "It's actually a relief."

They both nodded.

By ten o'clock, someone had put a mug on my new desk with "WORLD'S OKAYEST SCIENTIST" printed on it.

By eleven, the night tech had left a sticky note on my monitor in green pen.

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