Crisis (12 page)

‘But surely you must know what animal tests he
set up?’ said Bannerman.

‘
I’m afraid not.’

Bannerman tapped the heel of his right hand
against his forehead in suppressed frustration. ‘All
right,’ he said. ‘Where is the animal lab, and will
there be someone there today?’

Morag told him where the lab was and added, ‘One of the technicians will be in around noon.’

‘Good,’ said Bannerman. ‘Now can you tell me
where the brains of the dead men are?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Morag. ‘The bodies are
in the mortuary.’

‘But their brains aren’t,’ said Bannerman.

‘Lawrence must have removed them.’

‘Where would he keep them?’

There’s a fridge-freezer in Lawrence’s lab. He
sometimes stores specimens in that until they are no longer current.’

‘Can I get into it?’

‘It will be locked, and so will the lab.’

Bannerman’s silence prompted Morag Napier into
saying, ‘I’d better come in. I know where the keys
are. Give me twenty minutes.’

Bannerman went back to his own lab to wait.
He tried to read the paper he had bought on the
way in but found he couldn’t concentrate. He had
flicked through all the pages without really having
read anything.

Morag Napier arrived wearing a navy-blue track
suit with a university logo on it. Her trainer shoes
were pristine white and she had tied her hair back in a bun. Bannerman noticed that she smelt of
shampoo. She was carrying a bunch of keys in her
hand. ‘Lawrence’s lab is open,’ she said.

Bannerman thanked her for coming in and followed her into Lawrence Gill’s lab.

Morag unlocked the large fridge-freezer and stood
back for a moment to allow the frosty mist to clear.
Bannerman saw that the fridge was well packed with
a variety of plastic bags and boxes all containing bits and pieces of the human body. He made a superficial inspection for tell-tale grey material but there was no
obvious sign of brains being stored there.

‘
There’s an index,’ said Morag. She slid out a hard
backed notebook from the space between the freezer
and the wall and turned the pages until she reached
the list of current contents. That’s funny,’ she said.
They don’t seem to be here.’

Bannerman rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll have to talk to Gill,’
he said. ‘Does anyone know where he is?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Morag.

‘What conclusions did you and Gill come to about
the deaths?’ asked Bannerman.

‘
That the men had died from a degenerative brain
disease and Lawrence thought that there might be
some connection with
Scrapie.’

‘The pathological evidence points to the men
having died of
Scrapie’
said Bannerman.

‘Or Creutzfeld Jakob Disease,’ said Morag.

‘But the incubation time was too short for that,’
said Bannerman.

‘Yes.’

‘So they must have died of something that looks
like Creutzfeld Jakob,’ said Bannerman. That’s what
made Gill think of
Scrapie.
It’s possible that the agent
which killed the men is a mutant form of the sheep
disease. That’s why the animal tests are of vital
importance. If it transpires that
Scrapie
can cross
the species barrier into man, for whatever reason,
then we may have a major crisis on our hands.’

‘You mean if it can do it once, it can do it again?’

‘Yes. We have to find out how and why it did that,’
said Bannerman. The animal tests will tell us.’

‘But surely the danger is over,’ said Morag. The
agent would be wiped out when the infected sheep
were slaughtered?’ said Morag.

‘I hope you are right, and that all this was just a
chance in a million, but we have to know for sure. We
have to know why this happened in the first place.
We know very little about the spread of
Scrapie
in
the sheep population. It may be that the new virus,
if that’s what it turns out to be, has already been
spread all over the country through bird and animal
food chains.’

‘What a thought,’ murmured Morag.

‘Unless Gill set up animal tests, the only source of
infected material is the brains of the three men who
died, and they are missing. We’ve got to find them
so that the people at the Neurobiology Unit can run
tests on them. That’s why I must talk to Gill.’

Bannerman saw from the clock on the wall that it
was coming up to twelve o’clock. ‘How do I get to
the animal lab?’ he asked.

Morag said, ‘I’ll take you there.’

Bannerman followed her through a maze of base
ment corridors until he knew that they were getting
near the animal lab from the unmistakable smell of mice. She knocked on a glass-fronted door that was reinforced by wire.

‘Who is it?’ came a voice from inside.

‘Morag Napier.’

The door was unlocked, and Morag and Bannerman
walked through into the animal house. The room was
a whitewashed, basement room, lit by fluorescent
strip lighting. One entire wall was decked with metal
shelves upon which stood row after row of mouse
boxes, each equipped with an automatic water feeder bottle. Another section of the lab housed rats, guinea
pigs and rabbits. There was a preparation table in
the middle of the floor and a row of sinks stood
beyond. There were two small rooms leading off
the main room. Bannerman could see an animal
post-mortem board in one of them with a tray of
instruments lying beside it.

The girl who answered the door continued with
her feeding schedule, dropping a handful of mouse
‘nuts’ into each box and checking to see if the
inhabitants were still alive.

‘We need some information,’ said Morag.

‘Uh huh,’ replied the girl.

‘We need to know if Dr Gill asked for any mice tests
to be set up when he returned from the north.’

‘It will be in the book,’ said the girl. The red one
in the office.’

Morag and Bannerman took this as an invitation
to look for themselves. They started scanning back
through the pages of the animal records.

‘Here we are,’ said Morag, underlining an entry
with her finger. Bannerman looked over her shoul
der.

The entry read, ‘Six mice, Dr Lawrence Gill, three samples, two mice per sample. Ref. W 17-22. Cross
Ref. MRC 3’.

‘MRC 3,’ repeated Bannerman. These must be
the ones.’

‘How do we find W 17-22?’ Morag asked the
technician.

The girl stopped feeding her charges and moved
along the row to tap one of the boxes with her palm.
‘From here to the left,’ she said.

Morag took down the box the girl had touched and
looked inside. ‘Alive and well,’ she said, handing the box to Bannerman and bringing down the next one.
‘Same.’

All six mice were alive and apparently healthy.

‘Well, it’s a relief to know the tests were set up,’ said Bannerman. At least Gill had done something
right. He put on protective gloves and picked up one
of the mice from its box to let it run over the back of
his hand. It seemed perfectly healthy in every way.
The mouse tried to get a grip of his gloved thumb
with its teeth and Bannerman massaged the black spot in its otherwise white fur until it let go. He
dropped the animal gently back into its box and
closed the lid. ‘I suppose it’s a bit soon for any brain disease to have developed, even if it is a new strain. We’ll have to keep an eye on these chaps. They may
hold the answer to this whole business.’

Morag nodded and said, ‘I’ll see to it.’

‘But I still have to talk to Gill,’ said Bannerman.
‘Does his wife live in Edinburgh?’

Morag Napier looked at him in surprise. ‘Yes but
surely you’re not going to …’

‘
I need to see her,’ said Bannerman. ‘If she knows
that her husband has run off with someone, she
probably knows who with and possibly where to.’

‘But she’ll be upset!’ protested Morag. ‘How can you be so heartless?’

‘If three young men have died of
Scrapie
we have a
great deal more to worry about than the sensibilities
of Lawrence Gill and his wife,’ said Bannerman.

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Morag reluctantly. ‘I’ll get
you the address.’

Bannerman invited Morag Napier to have lunch with
him, but she declined, saying that she had ‘things
to do’. It wasn’t too big a disappointment; the offer had been made out of politeness. He suspected that
Morag did not hold a single opinion that hadn’t been
vetted by her subconscious for ‘suitability’. Instead,
he had lunch at a pub in the High Street and watched
the world go by for an hour or so before phoning
Lawrence Gill’s wife.

‘Vera Gill.’

‘Mrs Gill, my name’s Bannerman. I’m a patholo
gist working for the MRC.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Bannerman?’ said a
polite voice.

‘I’d like to talk to you about your husband.’

‘What about him?’ The voice had gone cold.

‘I’m sorry. I know it seems insensitive in the
circumstances, but please, it’s very important.’

‘
I can’t think what that could possibly be,’ said
Vera Gill.

‘I’d rather not talk over the telephone. Could
we meet?’

Vera Gill hesitated, and Bannerman repeated how
important it was.

‘Very well. Come round this afternoon.’

Bannerman scribbled down the address and they
agreed on a meeting at three-thirty.

Vera Gill lived with her children, two girls, in a
pleasant semi-detached house in the Colinton area
of the city. The girls, who were wrapped up warmly against a cold east wind, were playing in the garden
when Bannerman arrived. As he opened the gate
and started to walk up the path the youngest girl
asked, ‘Have you brought my daddy home?’

Bannerman was struggling for a reply when the
older child said, ‘She doesn’t fully understand yet.’

Bannerman smiled apologetically. The older child
could not have been more than ten.

Vera Gill appeared at the door and invited
Bannerman inside. As she ushered him past her
she said to the older child, ‘Keep Wendy amused will you, darling. Mummy has to talk to this man
for a little while.’

‘She is quite a young lady,’ said Bannerman as the
door was closed.

‘She’s very mature for her age,’ agreed Vera Gill.
‘I don’t know what I would have done without her
support over the last week or so. Now, what did you
want to know?’

‘Mrs Gill, it’s very important that I find your
husband. 1 need some vital information from him.’

Vera Gill’s face clouded over. She said, ‘I have
heard nothing from my husband since he left here
on the 16th of January. Not a word.’