Crisis (30 page)

I will,’ said Bannerman. He waved as the train
slid away from the platform and waited until it was out of sight. Feeling strangely vulnerable, he turned
and walked to his car. The last time he had felt like this was, he recalled, when he had been fourteen
years old and a holiday romance in the Lake District
had come to an end.

As he walked up the hill out of the station he felt full of impotent anger; it was directed at himself.
Why hadn’t he said what he felt to Shona instead
of coming out with guarded little phrases that were
designed not to leave him exposed. Fear of rejection?
Reluctance to make a fool of himself? He had wanted
to tell Shona that for whatever reason - and he didn’t
understand it himself- he felt hopelessly attracted to
her and wanted to see her again. But he couldn’t do
that could he? That would be totally out of keeping
with his job, his circumstances and his age.

Bannerman got into the car and drove away without looking behind him. A red saloon announced its
presence with a long blast on its horn. ‘Shit!’ said
Bannerman, thumping down on both feet on brake and clutch and getting an agonizing reminder from
his left knee that it would rather he didn’t do that too
often. He raised his hand in apology to the driver of
the red car and shrugged off the tirade of abuse he
saw being mouthed.

As he neared the medical school, the traffic came
to a halt in a long queue. The road up ahead for some
reason had been reduced to a single carriageway and
police were controlling the traffic flow. After a wait
of three or four minutes the line started to move and
Bannerman could see that several fire engines and
police cars were parked outside the medical school
quadrangle. Hoses snaked across the ground and
firemen in yellow waterproof trousers were reeling
them in. He signalled his intention to turn into
the car-park but a policeman waved him past. He
had to park nearly a quarter of a mile away and
walk back.

Bannerman showed his ID to the policeman at
the entrance who requested it. ‘What happened?’
he asked.

‘Nasty fire, sir,’ replied the officer. ‘Bloody luna
tics.’ The policeman moved away to stop a car
that looked as if it might be turning into the
quadrangle.

Bannerman made his way through the clutter and
found Stoddart talking to two men in plain clothes.
They were taking notes and Bannerman could not
make up his mind whether they were police or press.
He saw Morag Napier nearby and went over to ask
her about the drama.

The Animal Rights People had a go at us last
night,’ said Morag.

‘Good God, is there much damage?’

The animal lab was completely gutted and the
whole bottom floor is awash with water.’

The animal lab?’ repeated Bannerman. ‘You mean
the animals were …’

‘Wiped out,’ said Morag.

‘Gill’s mice?’ asked Bannerman.

‘Incinerated.’

Bannerman was devastated. ‘I thought these
damned people cared about animals!’ he exclaimed.

‘Care?’ exclaimed Stoddart, who had come across to join them. They’re just a bunch of terrorists. They
don’t care about anything!’

‘Apparently they gained access to the building
through the animal house because the door had
been left unlocked,’ said Morag. They couldn’t
get any further however, because the connecting
door to the main building had been locked, so they
tried to burn the place down by setting fire to the
animal lab.’

The last of the firemen left the building and the
quadrangle began to clear, leaving Bannerman feel
ing utterly dejected. His last chance of proving the
relationship between
Scrapie
and the men’s deaths in
Achnagelloch had gone. He walked slowly round to
the entrance to the animal lab and saw the blackened
wall outside. There was broken glass underfoot
and several slogans proclaiming the innocence of animals, and the evils of science had been daubed
along the wall adjoining.

Although everything inside was dripping wet and there was at least two inches of water on the floor, the air smelled strongly of burning flesh. It grew
stronger as Bannerman picked his way among the
blackened cages with unrecognizable messes inside.
The inner portion of the lab had been roped off
because the ceiling above it had collapsed and there
was a danger of further falls. Bannerman could see
up into the room above where books and papers had
fallen through the hole into puddles on the floor. Shafts of sunlight came in through the windows
highlighting dust particles from the debris. There
was an eerie silence about the place; it was how he
imagined a battlefield might be when the fighting
had stopped and the living had gone home. The
land had been left to the dead.

ELEVEN

The clean-up operation was beginning in the building
as Bannerman went upstairs to his room. It had been untouched by the fire; only the smell of burning told
the tale. He called Milne at the MRC and told him
what had happened.

‘Damned people,’ said Milne. ‘As if we didn’t have
enough to contend with, we get a bunch of lunatics
running around with fire bombs.’

‘Unless the missing human brain material turns up
the mice were our last chance of getting to grips with
the infective agent,’ said Bannerman.

‘What do you think the chances are of recovering
that material?’ asked Milne.

‘Practically nil,’ replied Bannerman. ‘I suspect it
was all destroyed in order to stop any investiga
tion of it.’

Milne sighed and said, ‘Then I suppose we will
just have to resign ourselves to the fact that we
will never know for sure what caused the deaths in
Achnagelloch.’

Bannerman could not help but feel that an awful
lot of people might be quite happy with that state
of affairs; the government, the nuclear lobby and
maybe even Milne himself. It was never easy to tell
people what they didn’t want to hear, especially if
they happened to control your purse strings. The
Medical Research Council were autonomous but they
were funded from central government.

‘Will you return to London today?’ asked Milne.

Tomorrow,’ replied Bannerman.

Bannerman thought it right that he should lend a
hand with the clean-up in the rooms affected by the fire. Many of the labs contained dangerous chemi
cals as well as stocks of bacteria and viruses which
demanded skilled handling. Portering and domestic
staff would work on the corridors and common-
rooms. He put on protective clothing, borrowed
from the post-mortem rooms, and asked Morag Napier where he could be most useful.

Morag looked at him as if she hadn’t heard and he
repeated his question.

‘Sorry, I was thinking about something,’ she said.
The tissue culture suite is in a bit of a mess. Perhaps
you’d care to salvage what you can?’

Bannerman said that he would do what he could.

A junior technician interrupted to ask Morag some
thing and she almost snapped the girl’s head off,
then looked embarrassed when she realized that
Bannerman had witnessed her behaviour. She made some excuse for leaving and walked quickly away.

‘Doctor Napier is upset,’ said Bannerman to the
technician. ‘Perhaps you could give me a hand in the
tissue culture suite?’

With the mess cleared up from the tissue culture
room floor and having thoroughly disinfected it, Bannerman and the technician set about salvaging
what glassware they could and packed it into bins
for washing and re-sterilizing. When they had filled
the last of the bins Bannerman suggested, ‘Why don’t
you go have a cup of tea?’ The girl readily agreed.

Bannerman closed the door behind him and started
walking along the corridor. Half way along he paused
when he thought he heard the sound of a woman
crying. There was no mistake. He looked into the
room the sound was coming from, half expecting it to be Morag Napier because of her earlier nervous
state, and found someone else. It was Lorna Cullen,
the animal technician he had met yesterday.

Bannerman felt awkward. It wasn’t a situation he felt comfortable dealing with but there was no one
else around he could call on. He approached the
woman and sat down beside her. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ he said gently.

The woman looked up at him and said bitterly, Tell
me about it. I’ve just been fired.’

‘Why?’

The professor blames me for all this.’

‘What?’

‘He says I left the door to the animal lab unlocked
and that’s how the terrorists got in.’

‘Oh,’ said Bannerman, remembering that the door
had been unlocked yesterday.

‘But I didn’t!’ protested the technician. That’s
what’s so unfair!’

‘But can you be sure?’ asked Bannerman gently.

‘Yes damn it! I can! You gave me such a fright
yesterday when you walked in on me that it was
fresh in my mind. I made very sure I locked the door
when I left. I even remember trying the door after I
had locked it to make certain.’

‘
I see,’ said Bannerman. ‘So how did they get in?’

The woman looked at him again, her face showing
that she knew she would not be believed when she
said, They must have used a key.’

Bannerman’s face betrayed the fact that he found
this unlikely and the woman conceded it herself. ‘But
that’s the only explanation,’ she said, wringing her
hands helplessly. They must have. I locked the door.
I know I did.’

‘Do you live far from here?’ asked Bannerman.

‘Leith.’

That’s down by the sea isn’t it?’

The woman nodded.

‘Do you have a car?’

The woman shook her head.

‘Get your coat. I’ll take you home.’

Still holding her handkerchief to her face, Lorna Cullen went off to fetch her coat while Bannerman
sought out Morag Napier and told her what he was
going to do.

‘Why?’

‘Stoddart fired her.’

Bannerman walked off leaving Morag Napier star
ing after him, wide-eyed but silent.

By seven in the evening Bannerman had packed up
all his belongings and was ready to return to London
the next morning. He had taken the car back to the
rental company, cleared his desk in the medical
school and had thanked Stoddart for his hospitality.
He couldn’t find Morag Napier to say goodbye to
her but had asked Stoddart to do it for him and to
thank her for her help. He had tried to put in a good
word for Lorna Cullen but Stoddart was unwilling
to move on the subject. The damned woman was always leaving the place open,’ he maintained.

Bannerman stood quietly at the window looking
out over the lights of the city and noting for once
that the wind had dropped. The dark silhouettes of
the trees in Princes Street Gardens were motionless.
The stars had come out in a clear sky and there was
a suggestion of moonlight behind the castle rock. He
wished that he could have felt better about his trip,
but the truth was that he felt thoroughly dejected. His investigation had been thwarted at every turn,
leaving him feeling empty and frustrated. There was
only one thing he wanted to do now, and that was
get drunk.