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 getting 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.’
‘You remembered!’ exclaimed Olive.
Bannerman smiled.
‘It’s nice to have you back,’ said Olive.
‘Nice to be back,’ said Bannerman, but it wasn’t how he felt. He said hello to everyone in the lab then made for the sanctuary of his office where he could let the mask slip. Olive brought in coffee then left him to read through a small mountain of mail. He managed to sort it first without opening anything. All obvious advertising literature went straight into the bucket
Bannerman ploughed through the university mail with a heavy heart and growing impatience. How could so many people spend so much time on so little? he wondered, as he had so often in the past. He reminded himself that if anyone could, academics could. They seemed to be blessed with an innate capacity to say absolutely nothing, at enormous length. ‘Three pages!’ he muttered angrily, ‘three bloody pages on car-parking at the hospital.’ And what was the bottom line? There wasn’t one as far as he could discern, but that was par for the course. Actual conclusions were a grey area in academia; academics were happier with a range of possibilities. And decisions? Perish that fascist thought.
Bannerman screwed the missive into a ball and chucked it across the room just as Olive came in. He had to smile sheepishly in apology.
‘Already?’ she said. ‘Your holiday hasn’t done you much good.’
‘It was no holiday,’ said Bannerman, with a hint of bitterness. ‘Would you get me the MRC please Olive.’
‘Milne.’
‘It’s Ian Bannerman. I’m back at St Luke’s.’
‘Glad you made it back safely Doctor. What can I do for you?’
‘I requested that the shore at Inverladdie Farm be monitored for signs of radioactivity?’
‘Ah yes,’ replied Milne, with what Bannerman thought was a hint of embarrassment. ‘We did ask the Health and Safety Executive to do this …’
‘And did they?’ asked Bannerman.
‘They did, and they found nothing.’
‘Nothing,’ repeated Bannerman, feeling that there was more to come.
‘But … they did report that the area had been cleaned.’
‘Cleaned?’
‘Sprayed with detergent, recently.’
‘Damnation,’ said Bannerman. ‘There was no trace of detergent when I was there. They must have treated the area after I left.’
‘Unfortunately, there is no law against it,’ said Milne cautiously, as if fearing Bannerman’s response.
‘So they get away with it!’
‘I’m afraid so. There is no evidence that the shore was ever contaminated. I think we have to be philosophical about it Doctor.’
‘Quite,’ said Bannerman, and put down the phone. It rang again almost immediately. Bannerman snatched it and snapped, ‘Yes?’
‘Well hello to you too,’ said Stella.
‘Sorry Stella,’ said Bannerman, ‘I’m a bit …’
‘I can tell you’re a bit…,’ said Stella. ‘I phoned to see if we could have lunch. I’m not in theatre this afternoon.’
‘I see,’ said Bannerman. He hesitated for a moment trying to assemble his thoughts into some kind of order, but failed. His mind was a maelstrom.
‘Of course, if you’re too busy
‘No, no, I’m just a bit upset that’s all. Lunch will be fine. I’ll see you in the car-park at one?’
‘Look forward to it,’ said Stella and the line went dead.
Bannerman replaced the receiver slowly and tried to put thoughts of Achnagelloch out of his mind. He wondered what Stella would have to say about Shona when he told her. Would she be happy for him? Or would she see it as an opportunity for sophisticated sarcasm? He lit a cigarette and massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers. He opened his desk drawer to see if that was where the cleaner had hidden the ash tray and his eyes alighted on three microscope slides propped up in the slide rack in the corner. They were the slides sent to the MRC by Lawrence Gill and forwarded by the MRC, to him, for his opinion. The slides that had started the whole furore. He hadn’t returned them to the MRC. He decided to have another look and took them over to his microscope.
He focused on the first slide with a low power objective then swung the high power oil immersion lens into play. If anything it was even clearer than he had remembered it. A perfect illustration of the havoc wreaked on the human brain by Creutzfeld Jakob Disease. He read the little label on the end of the slide and saw that it had written on it in pencil, G. Buchan.
This information had been irrelevant the first time but now it meant something — as did the initials, MN on
