Crisis (33 page)

‘Youngish,’ smiled Bannerman, thinking he
detected a barb on the question. ‘Her name
is Shona MacLean; she’s an artist. She makes
me feel like I’ve never felt before. Alive, confi
dent …’

‘Young?’ added Stella with an amused smile.

Bannerman shrugged his shoulders in disappoint
ment at the question and Stella reached across the
table to take both his hands. That was a joke silly,’
she whispered. ‘Really, I’m delighted for you. When
do I get to meet her?’
‘Soon, I hope,’ said Bannerman. ‘Very soon.’

Bannerman returned to his office and tried to stop thinking about Achnagelloch and its problems by
concentrating on his work. Thinking it was about
time that he make himself known to the locum the
MRC had provided for the lab in his absence, he
asked Olive about his whereabouts and was told that Dr Sherbourne was down in the PM room.
That’s where I’ll be,’ said Bannerman.

From what Charlie Simmons had said on a pre
vious occasion, Bannerman expected Sherbourne to
be young. He looked like a schoolboy. He seemed
totally out of place at work in the mortuary, looking
like a first-rate advertisement for the land of the
living. He was tall, good-looking, animated and
exuded
joie de vivre.
He instantly made Bannerman
feel a hundred years old.
‘Hello,’ said Sherbourne. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Dr Bannerman.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Sherbourne, becoming flustered. ‘Please excuse me. I heard you were
back but I thought I would carry on until you said
not to.’

‘Please do,’ said Bannerman. ‘I just came to intro
duce myself and say thank you for your efforts in my
absence.’

‘A pleasure,’ said Sherbourne, looking as if he
meant it. ‘It’s been most interesting. I’ve enjoyed
every moment of it and it’s all been valuable
experience.’

‘You intend to make pathology your career then?’

‘I certainly do,’ smiled Sherbourne who was about
to make the first incision in the cadaver he had on
the table. ‘I find it absolutely fascinating, but then
you must feel that way too.’

Bannerman nodded without comment. He watched
Sherbourne complete the cut and then change to rib
shears to gain access to the internal organs. ‘Actually I want to be a forensic pathologist,’ said Sherbourne. ‘
That’s my goal.’

His goal? thought Bannerman. He wants a life spent among mutilated corpses, headless torsos,
semen stained clothing and last night’s vomit? That’s
his goal? ‘I see,’ he said.

Sherbourne was about to drain the blood from
the neck of the corpse when Bannerman stopped
him. ‘Not that way,’ he said. ‘If you want to be
a forensic pathologist you have to remember that
signs of injury can be very hard to detect even after strangulation. You have to be very careful how you
drain the blood. Watch.’ Bannerman took the knife
from Sherbourne and made the incision for him.

‘Thank you!’ said Sherbourne enthusiastically.
That’s exactly the kind of tip I need.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Bannerman. ‘I’ll leave
you to it.’

Bannerman returned to his office upstairs won
dering about the younger generation and why he
himself had become a pathologist. He wasn’t sure
that he could remember clearly.

TWELVE

Stobmor

February 4th.

‘You’ll be late again if you don’t get a move on!’
cried Kirstie Bell.

‘So you’ve said!’ retorted her husband. ‘At least a
hundred bloody times, woman.’

‘Don’t you swear at me Andrew Bell, I’m not
one of these fish factory tarts. Just you mind your
tongue around here.’ Kirstie Bell moved away from
the table but continued her diatribe while wash
ing dishes. ‘When I think of the men I could
have married, I should have listened to my poor
father. He always said you’d amount to noth
ing. He wanted me to marry Jock Croan, he did,
and you know what? He was right. I saw Jock
the other day and do you know what he was
driving?’

Andrew Bell continued to eat his breakfast without
heeding the question.

‘A Volvo, that’s what,’ announced Kirstie in tri
umph. ‘A brand new Volvo.’

‘And what have we got? Answer me that,’
demanded Kirstie.

Bell continued to eat, deliberately making a slurping sound with his spoon.

‘A 1979 Vauxhall Viva, that’s what, with more rust
than paint!’

‘You know what Kirstie?’ said Andrew looking up
from his plate.
‘What?’

‘I bet Jock Groan’s wife has got an
en suite
bath
room as well as double glazing … and cavity wall
insulation. Oh and patio doors, mustn’t forget patio doors must we? What would life be without patio doors? The neighbours can’t see what you’ve got if
you don’t have patio doors.’

‘Don’t you sneer at me Andrew Bell,’ raged Kirstie.
‘You’re just jealous. You just can’t bear to see other
people getting on in life, that’s your trouble! I don’t
know why I bother. I work my fingers to the bone
to make the place look nice and what thanks do I
get? None, that’s what.’
Andrew slurped his milk again.
‘You are disgusting!’ snarled Kirstie.
Andrew slurped all the louder.
Kirstie was suffused with anger. She took it out
on the pot she was cleaning.

Andrew looked at her out of the corner of his eye
and suddenly felt a mist of regret wash over him.
Who was the snarling virago with the angry red
face? She was so old. Whatever happened to the
girl with the smiling face? The girl whose sexuality
had captivated him thirty years ago, the girl whose
pouting breasts and proud buttocks had fired his
fantasies and kept him awake at night until she had
finally brought them to fruition in his mother’s back
bedroom, one Saturday night, after a dance in the town hall. May had been born nine months to the day, six months after the wedding.
Could this shapeless mass in the faded towelling
robe be the same Kirstie? he wondered. Even her
voice was different. This creature made a harsh, low pitched noise from a throat ravaged by ciga
rette smoke. She continually whined and sounded
resentful. The real Kirstie had a sweet, soft voice, one
that could tease and excite, one that could promise
so much by saying so little. And her eyes! That was
another thing. Kirstie had lovely clear eyes. This
woman had nasty little pebbles set in crows’ feet
and underhung with folds of scrawny skin. This
woman wasn’t Kirstie! This woman was some kind
of usurper who had taken Kirstie’s place!

She was a witch. That’s what she must be! An evil
witch who had taken Kirstie’s place and who was
going to drive him mad unless he did something
about it. She was the cause of all the headaches
he’d been having! It was becoming clear now! They
weren’t headaches at all! She had been putting
spells on him, making his head hurt, driving him
to distraction with her sorcery!

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ asked
Kirstie. An air of uncertainty had crept into her voice.
Ts it your head again? Are you ill or something?’ she
demanded, trying to regain the upper hand.

‘Ill? Me? No I’m not ill…’ said Andrew quietly,
‘I’ve just realized …’ He got up slowly from
the table.

‘Realized what?’ snapped Kirstie. ‘You’re not
making any sense, and if you don’t get a move
on …’

‘You’re not Kirstie.’

‘What are you blabbering about. If I wasn’t Kirstie
I wouldn’t be married to you and living in this
pigsty would I? Stop looking at me like that. Did you
hear what I said? I said stop it!’

Bell, who still had his porridge spoon in his hand
suddenly jabbed it hard into Kirstie’s face and she
fell to the floor, her hand pressed to her cheek over
a cut that had opened up under her left eye. Her
eyes were wide with shock. ‘You
…
hit me,’ she
stammered lamely. ‘Have you gone raving mad?’

‘You’re not Kirstie,’ breathed Andrew as he looked
down at the figure on the floor with expressionless
eyes. He picked up the milk bottle from the table and raised it above his head.

Kirstie covered her eyes and started to scream but
it was cut short by the base of the bottle smashing
down into her mouth. The force of the blow was
enough to break most of her front teeth and impale
her lips on the jagged stumps that were left. Andrew
brought the bottle down hard again and it broke on
Kirstie’s skull.

Still holding the broken neck of the bottle. Bell swept the jagged edge of the glass back and forward
across his wife’s face until she was completely
unrecognizable. ‘You are not Kirstie,’ he repeated in an urgent whisper. ‘You are not … Kirstie.’

Finally exhausted by his efforts. Bell stood up and looked down at the featureless body on the floor that had been his wife. ‘A witch!’ he whispered. ‘A witch!
… must burn the witch!’

With a sense of purpose that never wavered, Bell
set about building a funeral pyre for his wife. He removed the reservoir from a paraffin heater in the
hall and poured the contents over her body. He
soaked cushions taken from the settee in similar fashion and propped them up around her. A table
cloth and towels were added and then Bell broke up
two dining chairs to provide wood for the bonfire.
When he was satisfied with the size of the pyramid,
he collected his jacket from the peg in the hall and
put it on. ‘Late for work,’ he murmured. His last act before throwing a lighted match on to the bonfire
was to turn on the gas in the kitchen.

The suddenness of the conflagration took Bell by
surprise. One moment the little yellow flame was arcing through the air like a comet through space,
the next the whole room seemed to erupt in yellow
flame accompanied by thick, black, sooty smoke. He
put up his arm to protect his face and backed out of the door, closing it behind him. ‘Burn witch, burn!’
he muttered as he set off down the stairs. He was
going to be late. MacKinnon was going to go on at
him again. Why didn’t they understand about the headaches? Why didn’t they?

‘So you finally consented to turn up!’ exclaimed a
thick set man with sparse red hair as he saw Bell
come through the front door of Stobmor Engineer
ing. ‘This is a garage not a holiday camp! This is the
third time this week you’ve been late and George
Duthie has just phoned to say that the new starter
motor you put in his Escort yesterday won’t start it
this morning. He’s screaming blue murder. What the hell’s the matter with you?’

Bell brushed past the angry man as if he wasn’t there. This only served to increase MacKinnon’s
anger. The harangue continued. ‘I said you’d be
out to the farm to fix it properly today. I also
told Hamish Lochan that the welding job on his
van would be done by noon so you’d better get a
move on!’

Still without acknowledging the other man’s pres
ence, Bell continued about his business as if on
automatic pilot. He walked to the back of the
garage
and released the chains that held a trolley,
containing two gas cylinders, upright against the
wall. MacKinnon watched him manoeuvre the trol
ley round and start wheeling it across the garage. He
knew that something was wrong, but didn’t know
what. His anger began to be replaced by curiosity.
‘Look if you have some kind of problem, tell me.
Maybe we can sort something out …’