Crisis

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 outstretched 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, ‘sensible’, 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 corridor 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.

‘Again, the figures for tumours are statistically higher than the norm but the population for the region is so low that it’s very difficult to reach firm conclusions. Here they are.’ Stoddart handed Bannerman a clear plastic file.

‘Was it ever different?’ murmured Bannerman.

‘Pardon?’

Trying to make sense out of statistics,’ answered Bannerman. ‘It’s often a case of the singer not the song, don’t you think?’