‘I hoped you’d say that,’ said Bannerman.
Shona’s predicted storm swept across Scotland an hour later and was in full song when Bannerman’s aircraft crossed the Perthshire hills; the captain apologized for ‘turbulence’ during the approach to Aberdeen airport. Bannerman lost contact with his stomach more than once during the descent, the worst moment being when the aircraft seemed to crab sideways on the final approach before steadying at the last moment to thump down on the tarmac. There were sighs of relief all round in the cabin and Bannerman even noticed a little smile pass between two of the stewardesses as they unbuckled their belts and stood up to prepare for disembarkation.
A ‘mix-up’ in the paperwork meant that his hire car was not waiting for him and he had to wait thirty minutes while uniformed girls made telephone calls and a car was eventually brought out from the city. He passed the time drinking lukewarm coffee at a plastic table in the airport cafe, watching the rain pass horizontally across his field of view outside the window. If it was like this in the west, the ferries would certainly not be running.
The car arrived and Bannerman set off on the road north. The rain changed to sleet just north of Huntly, in distillery country, and became snow as he skirted Inverness, heading for the north-west. The snow was lying on the minor roads and it took him over ninety minutes to negotiate the last twenty miles of the journey. It was six in the evening when he reached Stobmor. He dumped his things in his hotel bedroom and made straight for the cottage hospital.
Bannerman knew from the sound of sobbing as soon as he entered the hospital that he was too late. Through a half-glazed door, leading off the entrance hall, he could see Angus MacLeod comforting a woman he thought must be Colin Turnbull’s wife. She had her back to him and MacLeod held up his hand to signify that he should stay outside for the moment. Bannerman nodded and moved along the hallway to the next room where he found a nurse making tea. He introduced himself.
‘I’m Sister Drummond. Dr MacLeod expected you earlier,’ said the nurse, putting the lid back on the tea pot.
The weather,’ said Bannerman.
‘It is bad,’ conceded the nurse.
‘I take it Colin Turnbull’s dead?’ said Bannerman.
‘Fifteen minutes ago.’
Bannerman could see, although the nurse was trying to give out signs of normality, that she was clearly upset. There was a definite quiver in her cheeks. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked gently.
The woman nodded but put a hand up to her face as if checking that there were no tears on her face. She swallowed as if preparing to speak. Bannerman waited.
‘I have never …’ she began, ‘I have never seen anyone die that way …’ The words seemed to act as a relief valve. She let out her breath and tears started to flow freely down her face. ‘It was horrible … quite, quite horrible; he seemed possessed …’
The door opened and Angus MacLeod joined them. ‘How’s that tea coming along?’ he asked.
‘It’s ready,’ said the nurse.
‘Perhaps you would sit with Mrs Turnbull for a bit Sister?’
‘Of course Doctor.’
The nurse left the room and MacLeod said, ‘Just too late I’m afraid.’
Bannerman nodded. He said, ‘I hear it wasn’t a very pretty end.’
‘He was totally deranged. The sedation wasn’t enough to keep him under. It wasn’t easy to listen to. I only wish that Julie could have been spared that.’
‘Where’s the body?’ asked Bannerman.
‘Downstairs in the cellar, we’re using it as a makeshift mortuary. Do you want to see him?’
‘Yes,’ said Bannerman.
‘I’ll just check that Julie’s all right,’ said MacLeod. He was gone for only a moment before returning and saying, ‘It’s this way.’
MacLeod led the way through a heavy wooden door that led to a flight of stone steps. Bannerman noticed an immediate change of temperature as they left the centrally heated hospital to descend into the unheated stone cellar.
MacLeod clicked on the cellar light, a single bulkhead lamp surrounded by a wire cage, drenched in cobwebs. It seemed to fill the room with shadows rather than light. Turnbull’s body lay in the middle of the room on a slatted wooden bench; it was covered with a sheet which had been tucked in around the contours so that it was quite obvious what lay under it. The scene made Bannerman think of discoveries in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, but Turnbull was no ancient pharaoh; he was currently the only clue to a terrible disease.
Bannerman walked over to the body, untucked the sheet from the head and pulled it back. He recoiled at the sight. Turnbull’s eyes were open and his teeth were bared as if poised to leap up at him and grab his throat. But it was simply a death mask, the death mask of a man who had died in the throes of agony.
‘I’m sorry, there wasn’t time to do much about that,’ murmured MacLeod. ‘I had his wife to take care of. She was very upset.’
Bannerman tried to close Turnbull’s eyes but found the skin stretched too tightly across his eyelids. ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘Some kind of early rigor, maybe connected with the disease.’ He found the same problem with the cheek muscles; they had contracted to tighten the skin at the sides of Turnbull’s mouth. ‘Will you ask Mrs Turnbull for PM permission?’ he asked MacLeod.
MacLeod was obviously reluctant. ‘She has just been through the most horrific experience,’ he said. ‘Could it wait until morning?’
Bannerman looked at the corpse, now re-covered with the sheet, and said, Td rather you did it now, if you think it at all possible.’
MacLeod shrugged and said, ‘I’ll see what sort of state she’s in when we go upstairs.’
‘What on earth …’ exclaimed MacLeod as he opened the door at the head of the cellar stairs and heard voices in the hallway. When Bannerman came out into the light he saw that there were three men talking to Sister Drummond inside the front door. He recognized one of them as the Dutchman, van Gelder; the other two were strangers, workmen by their appearance. The nurse stopped talking to the men and came over to MacLeod. She said, ‘Doctor, Mr Turnbull’s employer and two of his friends have come to see how he is.’ ‘You’ve told them?’ asked MacLeod quietly. ‘Yes Doctor. They’d like to see Mrs Turnbull.’ ‘Ask them to wait in the side room would you?’ said MacLeod.
As the nurse turned away MacLeod said to Bannerman, ‘I’ll see if Julie will sign the permission form.’ He left Bannerman standing in the hallway. Van Gelder saw him and smiled a greeting. He came over to shake hands saying, ‘Good to see you again Doctor, I thought you had left the area.’
‘I had,’ agreed Bannerman.
‘But no need to ask why you are back, eh? Another tragedy. What a terrible business. Turnbull was one of my most reliable workers. When are you chaps going to get to the bottom of it?’
‘Soon I hope,’ said Bannerman.
The other two men were looking across at them talking. The nurse was holding open the side room door, waiting to usher all three of them inside. Bannerman was aware that the look on the men’s faces was distinctly hostile. He wondered why; he didn’t know them.
‘Are these men Colin’s workmates?’ he asked van Gelder quietly.
‘I met them outside,’ said van Gelder. They’re old friends I understand,’ replied the Dutchman. ‘They’re employed at the power station. One of them told me he was in Turnbull’s class at school.’
‘I see,’ said Bannerman. He remembered how Turnbull had once warned him about the ill feeling he was generating among the nuclear power workers. This was how he had known. Some of his friends worked at the station.
‘Is everything all right Doctor?’ asked van Gelder.
‘Yes,’ replied Bannerman distantly.
Everyone in the hall was suddenly startled by the sound of a female voice raised in anger. It was Julie Turnbull. Embarrassed glances were exchanged as the sound of her voice grew louder and louder until she was screaming, ‘No! No! On no account! Just leave my Colin alone!’
Julie Turnbull came bursting out of the room where she had been with MacLeod. She saw the two power workers and threw herself into the arms of one of them. ‘They want to cut Colin’s head off!’ she sobbed. They want
