Crisis (31 page)

He was about to leave when the telephone rang.
Fearing that it might be George Stoddart asking him
to dinner, Bannerman prepared his excuse for not going and picked up the receiver. It was Shona
MacLean.

‘Hello, Ian. I’m back home on the island.’

‘Oh God it’s so good to hear your voice,’ he
blurted out.

‘
I’m glad you said that,’ said Shona, ‘because I don’t have a good reason for calling. I just wanted
to hear
your
voice.’

‘
That’s good enough,’ said Bannerman quickly,
knowing that if he slowed down his response he
would start considering his replies and editing them.
If he answered quickly there was a chance that the
truth might get out. “There was so much I wanted to say this morning and didn’t. I’ve got to see you
again.’

‘But how?’

‘
I don’t know how,’ said Bannerman. ‘Just tell me
that you want to see me?’

‘Yes,’ said Shona. ‘I want that.’

‘
Then we’ll work something out,’ said Bannerman.

‘
I’m so glad I phoned,’ said Shona.

‘You’re glad?’ laughed Bannerman.

‘Did you get your experiments finished today?’
asked Shona.

Bannerman told her about the fire.

‘
That’s awful!’ exclaimed Shona. ‘You won’t be
able to prove that
Scrapie
was to blame.’

‘No,’ agreed Bannerman. ‘It’s all been one big
waste of time.’

‘Maybe you should get drunk,’ said Shona.

That’s exactly what I intend doing,’ said
Bannerman. ‘You caught me just as I was about
to leave.’

‘
Then I won’t hold you back any more,’ said
Shona. ‘Call me tomorrow?’

‘You bet.’

After a couple of drinks Bannerman’s euphoria over
Shona’s call and his relief at his honesty in telling
her how he felt, began to subside. He had no doubts
about his feelings for Shona but he began to see
some of the problems he was creating. How could
he hope to carry on a relationship with Shona when
he worked in London and she lived on a remote island? One of them would have to move and he
could imagine Shona’s thoughts about a move to London. Bannerman’s head started to protest under
the relentless assault of his own questions. He dealt
with them, temporarily, with a third drink and then
decided to find something to eat.

There was a Greek restaurant not too far from the
last pub he had been in, so he opted for that. He
ordered a traditional dish and asked for a carafe
of the house red. When it came, the wine wasn’t
good, but it didn’t matter so long as it continued to
dull the cutting edge of reality. He sipped it slowly
while waiting for his food and amused himself by
looking at the obligatory travel posters of Greece on
the walls.

They’d make it seem a lot more like Greece if
they’d heat the bloody place properly, he thought as
the door opened and another blast of cold air swept
in. He looked round at the new arrivals and was surprised to see Morag Napier standing there. She
was with a man who Bannerman deduced must be
her fiancé. He got a brief glimpse of a handsome man
in his twenties before Morag walked over to his table
and said, ‘Dr Bannerman, what a surprise. I didn’t
think I’d get a chance to say goodbye. Professor
Stoddart said that you’d left already.’

‘
I’m going back to London in the morning,’ said
Bannerman, hoping he wasn’t slurring his words.
‘Perhaps you and your young man would care to
join me?’

That’s very kind but we just popped in on our
way past to book a table for tomorrow,’ said Morag.
‘We’re on our way out.’

‘Well thank you for all your help, Dr Napier,’ said
Bannerman, making to get to his feet.

‘Please don’t get up Doctor,’ insisted Morag. ‘And
bon voyage.

‘
Thank you,’ said Bannerman, watching her walk
back over to her fiancé and take him by the arm to
turn him round and usher him out of the door. A
waiter was left looking bemused as the door closed
behind the couple.

It was obvious to Bannerman that the story about
them having come in to book a table had been a
lie. Morag Napier had not wanted to stay in the
restaurant when she had found out that he was
there. Was he really that drunk? he wondered.

Bannerman finished his meal and left. Despite the
fact that he had drunk a fair bit over the course of the
evening he felt stone cold sober, yet had no desire to
drink any more. That was the trouble with alcohol,
he mused, it only exaggerated the mood you’re in,
and he was feeling low.

The temperature had fallen because of the clear
ness of the sky and there was a suggestion of frost in the air. He decided to walk for a bit before returning
to the apartment. This would be his last chance to
look at the city by night, unless he came back here
at some time in the future. He walked to the head of
the Mound, once literally a mound of earth that had
been piled up to connect the old town of Edinburgh,
high up on the back of the castle rock, to the Georgian
new town lying below. Traffic formed strings of light
on the steep hill.

Bannerman rested his hands on the railings near
the top and looked at the lights spread out below. It
was a beautiful city, he thought; when the weather allowed you to love it, when the wind dropped and
allowed you to hear its heart beat. He could smell
‘
the earth in the gardens, feel the silence, sense the
sharpness of the frost. A boy and girl were walking
slowly up the hill with their arms wound round each
other, totally absorbed in each other’s company.
They wore heavy coats and university scarves. A
nice city to fall in love in, thought Bannerman. He
pulled up his collar and silently wished them well.
He walked slowly back to his apartment.

The phone was ringing inside but by the time he
had unlocked the door and switched on the light
it had stopped. Something else to wonder about, he thought, but it would have to take its place in
the queue. At the moment it was well down the list of questions that kept niggling away at him. The
question of why Morag Napier had been so anxious
to get out of the restaurant earlier was near the top,
but at the very top was the fact that the animal rights
people had succeeded in murdering all the animals
in their attack on the department.

There was a contradiction in that which worried Bannerman because it could not be argued that the
animal deaths had been accidental. The terrorists
had entered the building through the animal house
itself so they had had every opportunity to release the animals before setting fire to the place … but
they hadn’t.

It was just conceivable that there had been an
element of social responsibility in this. The terrorists
just might have been bright enough to acknowledge
that releasing experimental animals into the wild was
an act fraught with danger. The animals might be car
rying all kinds of diseases which they would spread
into the community. On the other hand and despite
frequent warnings, the animal liberation people had
not taken much notice of this in the past.

The electric kettle came to the boil and Bannerman
went into the kitchen to make coffee. He spooned
coffee grounds into the cafetiere while he faced the
fact that paranoia might be playing a part in his
thoughts. It seemed such a cruel quirk of fate for
a fire to destroy all Gill’s experimental animals and
with them, the Achnagelloch disease. Almost too cruel to be true.

Despite acknowledging this feeling, Bannerman was left with one simple but unanswered question: could such dedicated animal lovers, as the rights
people claimed to be, have calmly set fire to a room
full of animals and burned them alive? And if he
thought that question was difficult, it was nothing
to the can of worms he would open if the answer
should turn out to be, ‘No’.

‘Shit!’ he said out loud, as he put his head back
on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, searching
for inspiration. In his heart of hearts he knew that he wasn’t angry with himself because he couldn’t think of answers. He was angry because he could.
It was facing up to them that was difficult! His mind
baulked at the evil it was being invited to consider.
But one subversive corner kept urging him on to do
just that.

It said, Maybe the attack on the department had
not been carried out by the animal liberation people
at all? Maybe it had not even been an attack on
the department! Maybe it had been a deliberate
attack on the animal lab in order to destroy Gill’s
experimental animals and, with them, evidence of
the new disease! According to his thinking, Gill had
been murdered not only to stop him talking but to
stop the authorities getting their hands on infected brain material. Perhaps the same motive had been behind the fire?

The water Bannerman was wading into was get
ting perilously deep and cold but there was no going
back. Once again he asked himself who had the
most to lose by having the true nature of the brain
disease in Achnagelloch revealed? His experience at
the nuclear power station had left him with little love
for the place, but he simply could not bring himself
to believe that the management and workers could be involved in a conspiracy involving arson and
murder. But if they weren’t, who was? Maybe he
had been too localized in his thinking? True, the
nuclear industry would take a bit of a bashing if it
turned out that leaks from one of their stations had
been responsible for the deaths in Achnagelloch.
But wouldn’t even larger bodies like the agricultural
industry and perhaps the government itself, have
even more to lose if it were revealed that animal
brain diseases could spread to man! The thought
did little to put him at his ease.

Bannerman arrived back in London on the following
evening after spending the morning doing some
last minute shopping in Edinburgh. He did not call
anyone when he got back, not even Stella. The flat
seemed strange and unwelcoming and his efforts at
making it cosier through warmth and lighting only
succeeded in making it seem claustrophobic. He tried
going to bed early but that proved to be a mistake.
He tossed and turned, switched the light on and off,
picked up and laid down a book so many times he
lost count.

He finally got up and rummaged through the
bathroom cabinet for some chemical assistance. He
didn’t have any sleeping tablets but he did find a
bottle of antihistamines. On their own they would
have a very moderate sedative effect, but when taken
in conjunction with a large gin a couple of tablets
would let him sleep right through. He watched a
little television while he drank the gin and then when he felt the windmills of his mind begin to slow, he turned off the set and went to bed.

Olive Meldrum broke into a broad smile when she saw Bannerman come through the door, collar up, briefcase in hand.

‘
I hope you didn’t forget my haggis,’ she said.

Bannerman put down a plastic bag on her desk and announced, ‘One haggis, and may God have
mercy on your digestion.’