Love At The Headington Hill

CHAPTER 12 - Troubles bleed through.

Valerie was not sure what Audrey had meant when she said there was a problem, but it certainly wasn't this.

Right now, Audrey is ranting about how a person called 'FO' was accused of plagiarism by an Australian private organisation, two years back. And he had a great taste for theoretical physics.

But that was not even the worst part.

The reason he was accused of plagiarism, was because he had issued a patent, claiming a research paper in Quantum mechanics. But he, according to Audrey, was clearly not aware that whatever work he had claimed were already published under another name.

James Bryant.

Now, Audrey had claimed to have seen a picture of this Mr. Bryant, a while ago, who looked suspiciously like someone she had seen in the physics department.

But now, she seemed unable to either remember this person, or find the picture from her junk files in all her devices.

Christ. This was a disaster.

She yawned, watching Audrey scroll through a series of unnecessary notes in her laptop. She glanced at Sebastian, he had been surprisingly quite during the past hour.

Audrey might have been watching too much Sherlock Holmes these days.

Sebastian turned to her.

"What?"

"Hm, nothing" She replied unmindfully.

He followed her gaze down her neck, as if taking in her features. Then turned away.

Her phone went off, Valerie's hand shot to her pocket, her heart was glad for the distraction. She looked at the called ID. Gemma.

She swiped to accept the call.

"Hello"

"Hey sis, look, can you check out the article I sent you this morning? I know you're really busy, but please. I think it says something about an Oxford professor." Came Gemma's voice.

"Alright. Don't forget to drink water! Bye." Valerie replied quickly.

"Sure, bye." Her voice seemed tight. Before Valerie could ask something else, Gemma hung up.

She sighed and ripped the phone off her ear.

She opened watsapp just to find a few texts from her friends from the university and a link by Gemma. She clicked it open, only to find a very familiar title: "FO - A PLAGIARIST OR A VICTIM

She kept scrolling through the article, reading out some lines, talking about 'James Bryant'.

Just when she was about to drop the article, a small picture at the top left corner caught her eye.

She gasped.

It was Prof. Brown, it had to be, even though the picture was quite blurry. The name written under it read - Mr. James Bryant. Age assumed to be 27. The owner of a recent research paper on 'Quantum mechanics'.

Beside her, Sebastian was looking over her phone too. His expression was same as ever.

"S-Sebastian, this is Prof. Brown." She muttered not drifting her gaze from her phone, "Hey Audrey, I think I found what you're looking for".

She heard Audrey get up from the chair, her footsteps seemed way too loud.

"What do you mea- Oh, right! This was the picture I was looking for! Where did you get it?" Audrey asked.

Valerie closed her eyes. No, this can't be happening, if this James Bryant really was Prof. Brown, then there was a high chance she might end up like FO. Maybe FO was actually the one who was the actual owner indeed.