chapter 26

There came a knock at Becky's door. Becky was sitting on the bed, upon hearing the knock she smiled to herself contently as she thought that Laura had returned. "Come in", Becky said cheerily, and the door opened. "Hello Becky", came a familiar voice. Becky looked round to see Iain and Tom coming through the door. She beamed at them both. "Hello guy's, I haven't seen you to in a while". Tom glanced at Iain with a quizzical look, he had just seen Becky an hour ago. "Hello Becky, how are you feeling?". Iain sat on the bed next to Becky. Becky had been asked this question so much recently she just stared at Iain wanting to say something but not knowing if she should, everyone was getting so angry with her when she answered this question. She looked at Tom as if for a prompt. "It's ok Becky, don't worry, nobody is angry or upset with you, how are you feeling?". Tom squatted down opposite Iain on the other side of Becky. Becky looked from one to the other confused. "I.... I.... I don't know what you mean, I feel like I always have feel, why is everyone keep asking me this?", Becky was mixing her words slightly as she was getting muddled trying to understand. "It's ok Becky, don't worry. Becky, can you remember what made you ill?", Iain asked calmly. "I.... I....I remember Laura, we ... we..", All Becky could remember was Laura, there was nothing else. "I.... I.... can't remember". Becky looked at them bewildered, as if she almost realised that she should have memories, but they were no longer there. Iain and Tom could tell by Becky's response how confused and incoherent she was and they were instantly concerned. They had seen something like this only once before. Iain looked at Tom and Tom gritted his teeth and clenched, but they maintained a calm composure. "Becky, would you like to come with us? We are going to the lab to run some tests, you might find it fun". Tom had moved a bit closer to Becky now and was smiling at her warmly. Becky looked at Tom and smiled instantly, "Yeah", she beamed, "That sounds great". Tom held his hand outstretched and Becky took it. They all left Becky's room.

"Fucking find Laura ..... No wait ..... fuck that, we need to search her belongings, she's got something to do with this I can fucking smell it". Iain was having a heated discussion with Tom outside of one of the lab examination rooms they had put Becky in. Through the window in the door, Becky could be seen sitting on an examination table smiling to herself and absent-mindedly playing with the thin curtain. "Shouldn't we find her and confront her first Iain, I mean going into her room without...", Iain cut him off, "Fucking no chance, we can't risk alerting her that we have suspicions, not just yet, she may bury any evidence, I'll call her to my office for some bullshit questions, they were intimate weren't they, Laura and Becky? I'm sure I can get something out of her, she's off the programme either way. You search her room". "What about poor Becky?", both men looked into the room at Becky through the window. "I simply don't know Tom, after the past hour with her, what can we do? We don't know anything at the moment. All I know is that the degenerative cognitive effects are pretty far advanced, we don't even know if this is Paul's...", "You and me both know it is Iain, Look at how Becky is acting and I couldn't believe it when we got her on the scales, 220! Come on, she's gained an enormous amount of weight, what else could it be. The question is how? More to the point how can we stop it?", "The weight is no issue but the Cognitive effects..... I honestly don't think we can, I think it's progressed too far, all we can do is to try to mitigate the any further degeneration, but it seems so much more advanced than last time this happened, we need an indication of dose otherwise we risk further damage, blood work is going to take too long". "Right, call Laura in, I'll go and see what I can find". Tom and Iain looked at each other and nodded.

The two men had a quick reassuring chat with Becky and told her that they had something to take care of and they wouldn't be long, then they left her be and went their separate ways. Tom waited in the lab for a phone call from Iain when the coast was clear. After a long 10 minute wait, the phone rang and he answered. "She's on the way to my office, give it a few minutes and then head to her room, I think I can keep her talking for a while, I want to see what I can get out of her anyway, be discrete Tom", "Understood, I won't need long". Tom put the phone down and looked back toward Becky in the lab room. She had laid down curled up on the bed, peacefully asleep. He left and carefully headed in the direction of Laura's room. After waiting for a few minutes at the end of the corridor to check the coast was clear, Tom made a move. Getting to the door, he pulled out the master key card and opened the lock, he stepped inside. Laura's room was tidy and clean. Not really knowing where to start, Tom headed over to the wardrobe and carefully looked through it finding nothing of note. He move on to the draws and dresser with the same result. He checked the bathroom and found nothing and then the two waste bins. Nothing. A few more minutes of further searching he came to the conclusion that there was nothing suspicious in the room. He sat on the bed frustrated and looked around. Realising what he was sitting on, he dropped to his knees, crouched down and looked under the bed. There was a single rucksack pushed up towards the headboard. Tom reached under and grabbed it. He stood up with the bag and emptied its contents onto the bed. Out fell two emptied cake decorating bags. Tom froze and picked up an empty bag and stared at it in disbelief. "Fuck ....... FUCK .....", Tom snatched the other empty cake bag from the bed and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.