Crisis (9 page)

Olive Meldrum handed Bannerman an envelope
on Thursday evening. It contained, she said, his
first-class ticket on the night sleeper to Scotland.
Bannerman thanked her, saying that he would see
her soon.

‘Good luck,’ said Olive. ‘Bring me back a haggis or whatever they call it.’

‘I promise,’ smiled Bannerman. He checked his
watch and saw that he should be leaving. He wanted
to get back to the flat and finish his packing before
Stella arrived. They had arranged to have dinner
together at a restaurant they both liked and then she
would run him to the station in time for the train. He
added a few last-minute notes to the file that he had
prepared for Nigel Leeman who would take over in
his absence. They had already had a meeting that
morning but several things had occurred to him during the course of the afternoon that he thought
Leeman should know about. He closed the file with a paper-clip, wrote Leeman’s name on it and left it
on Olive’s desk. With a last look round, he switched
off the light and closed the door.

‘Why don’t you have another brandy,’ said Stella.
‘You’re not driving.’

‘You’ve talked me into it,’ smiled Bannerman,
summoning the waiter.

This has all happened so fast I’m not sure
what to say,’ said Stella. ‘Are you absolutely sure
you’re doing the right thing in taking this MRC
thing on?’

‘No,’ admitted Bannerman, ‘but it’s important to
find out the truth.’

‘Send me a postcard?’

‘Of course,’ smiled Bannerman.

‘And if you have time to pursue this crazy notion of heading off into the Scottish mountains in winter
these may help.’ Stella reached into her bag. ‘I know
you don’t need lectures about the right equipment
and all that, but I got you a little present.’ She
brought out a small package which she handed to
Bannerman.

Bannerman opened it and pulled out a pair of
gloves. ‘Goretex gloves!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll be the
best dressed climber on the mountain.’

‘In January, you’ll be the
only
climber on the
mountain,’ retorted Stella.

Thank you, that was a kind thought,’ said
Bannerman.

‘I think we’d better go if we’ve to get you on that
train,’ said Stella.

They arrived at the station with ten minutes to
spare. Bannerman insisted that they say their good
byes there and then, knowing that neither of them
liked hanging around draughty platforms in order
to wave at a moving train. He watched Stella’s back
until she turned round at the exit, then he waved and walked through the barrier to board the train.

Bannerman woke at six. The train was crossing a
particularly intricate piece of track, and the change
from regular sound patterns to a series of irregular clacks and jolts had disturbed him. He opened the blind and looked out at a misty, grey morning with
dampness clinging to the trees and fences bordering the track. Maybe a holiday in the sun wouldn’t have
been such a bad idea after all, he thought, but then
he stamped on the heresy and got back into his
bunk. He propped himself up so that he could catch
occasional glimpses of the countryside. If the train
was on time they must be soon approaching Berwick
and the Scottish border.

As he got out on to the platform at Waverley Station
in Edinburgh, Bannerman considered his options. The medical school were expecting him any time
after nine so he still had some time to kill. He was
hungry, but not hungry enough to eat in the station
buffet. He walked up the hill, out of the station and
up to Princes Street, where he admired the sight of Edinburgh Castle looming out of the morning mist
before opting for breakfast at a large hotel. His third
cup of coffee took him up to a time when he could
hail a taxi and ask to be taken to the university.

‘Nice to meet you,’ said the white-haired man who
stood up and introduced himself as George Stoddart,
when Bannerman was shown into his office.

Stoddart was a small man in his sixties with
silver hair and a neatly clipped moustache. He was
wearing a dark suit with a Bengal striped shirt and a
university tie. The shirt seemed a bit too tight around
his middle, thought Bannerman, as he took the out
stretched hand and said, ‘How do you do Professor.’
He wondered if the slight coldness he detected in
the man’s manner was real or imagined. If it was
real it was not entirely unexpected, after all, he was
an outsider being foisted on the department by the
MRC. There had been no opposition from Munro
because his people were scientists not medics, but
Stoddart’s department was different. It
was
medical
and it was not inconceivable that he might be seen
as an interfering interloper from the south.

‘We’ve arranged an apartment for you in the
old town,’ said Stoddart. ‘Would you like to be
taken there right away or would you rather settle
in here first?’

‘Here I think,’ said Bannerman.

‘Very well,’ said Stoddart. ‘I’ll have someone show
you to your lab and then we can talk.’ He picked up
the phone and requested that ‘Dr Napier’ come up.

Bannerman was introduced to a woman in her mid-thirties. She was pleasant looking but her
appearance was tempered by what he regarded as
middle-class notions of respectability. Her clothes,
hairstyle, shoes, all deserved the adjective, ‘sen
sible’, and when she spoke she did so with just
the genteel accent he expected her to have. The
soul of discretion and reliability, he thought; there’s
a woman like her in every university department. He
noticed that she was wearing an engagement ring. That didn’t quite fit with his appraisal of her as a ‘bride of the university’.

‘Morag Napier,’ said the woman, holding out her hand with a smile.

‘Ian Bannerman.’

Bannerman followed Morag Napier along a corri
dor and down some stairs to where she opened a
half-glazed door and ushered him inside. ‘I think you’ll find everything you need here,’ she said. ‘If
not, I’m only next door. You only have to ask.’

Thanks,’ said Bannerman, looking about him with
a heavy heart. The building was old. It was part of the original medical school at the university and
consequently high ceilings and tiling were much in evidence. The cold, grey light coming in from
a north facing window did nothing to lighten the
atmosphere.

A modern microscope stood on a turn-of-the-
century lab bench, and a calendar from a laboratory supply company decorated the wall above it. There
was a blackboard on one of the other walls with a
duster and a cardboard box containing an assortment
of coloured, mainly broken, chalk sticks.

There were some dusty pathological specimen jars
arranged along a wooden shelf with labels that
were peeling and practically indecipherable with
age. Bannerman looked closely and saw that one
patient’s liver had achieved immortality, courtesy
of formaldehyde fixative. Diamonds ain’t the only
things that are forever my son, he thought.

‘I hope everything’s all right,’ said Morag.

‘Everything’s fine,’ replied Bannerman, with his
back to her.

‘
I’ll leave you for a bit, then, when you’re ready, I’ll
take you back to Professor Stoddart,’ said Morag.

‘No need,’ said Bannerman, turning to face her. ‘I can remember the way.’

‘If you’re sure?’

Tm sure.’

There was an old oak desk beside the blackboard.
Bannerman sat down at it and opened the drawers to
see if they had been emptied. In the main they had, although half an eraser, two pencils and a broken
plastic ruler lingered on. He opened his briefcase and
transferred some of his own things to them. He saw
this as an act of self-psychology - a conscious effort
to persuade himself that this was where he was going to be working for the time being. He was considering
how oppressive the room was, when a slight knock
came at the door. It was Morag Napier.

‘I forgot to give you these,’ she said. In her hand
she held a series of brown cardboard files. These are
the notes Lawrence and I made on the brain disease
patients.’

‘Lawrence?’ asked Bannerman.

‘Sorry. Dr Gill, the man I work with.’

‘
I hear he’s not around at the moment,’ said
Bannerman, taking the files and resting them on
his knee.

‘No, we’re very worried about him.’

‘No word at all?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Have the police been informed?’

Morag Napier looked uneasy at the question. ‘No,’
she replied, looking down at her feet. The feeling
is that Lawrence’s disappearance was for domestic
reasons.’

‘You mean he’s run off with someone?’ said
Bannerman.

‘Something like that,’ agreed Morag, coldly.

‘Can I ask what makes you think that?’ asked
Bannerman.

‘His wife,’ said Morag.

‘Oh,’ said Bannerman, ‘well, I hope he kept good
notes,’ he said, tapping the files.

‘I think you’ll find everything you need to know
there,’ said Morag.

‘Did you work with him on the MRC survey?’

‘Yes, I did.’

Then you know all about the three men who
died?’

‘I went up to Achnagelloch with Lawrence when
the report came in. I carried out the preliminary
lab work.’

‘Are the bodies here in Edinburgh, or still up
north?’

They are in the mortuary downstairs,’ said Morag.
‘Do you want to examine them?’

‘Yes,’ said Bannerman.

Today?’

‘Tomorrow.’

Bannerman found his way back to the office of
George Stoddart, where Stoddart gave him some
general information about the brain disease survey
in the area that Lawrence Gill had been responsible
for. He added the file to the others that Morag Napier
had given him.

Stoddart opened up a map and spread it over
his desk. He traced a pencil line round an area in
the north-west of the country and said, ‘This is
the area Lawrence was concerned with. The main
communities are at Achnagelloch and Stobmor.’

Bannerman saw that the line Stoddart had drawn
marked out an area to the west of the Invermaddoch
power station. He asked, ‘What about east of here?’
pointing to it with his finger.

‘There are no people living to the east of the station
within fifty miles,’ replied Stoddart. ‘It’s barren
moorland, not even good enough for sheep.’

‘
I see,’ said Bannerman.

‘Do you have access to the public health records
for the area?’ asked Bannerman.

‘If you mean, do I know if the region has a higher
than normal incidence of child leukaemia and the
like, then yes I do. The figures are higher than for
non-nuclear areas, but not high enough to cause
alarm or be in any way conclusive in a statistical
sense.’

‘How about the figures for carcinoma?’ asked Bannerman.