As he neared the Barneses’ street, Dunbar checked that he had the keys ready in his pocket. It was the third time he’d done it; they were still there. He frowned as he remembered the security light outside the house; it would come on when he walked up the path. Despite the lateness of the hour, this might alert the neighbours. People would not come out to ask questions at this time of night; they would phone the police.
That was the last thing he needed. He tried to remember the angle the light was set at. It had come on almost as soon as he opened the garden gate, so the detector beam must be set high. He should be able to slip under it if he made his approach from the side of the house along the wall.
He parked the car well away from the bungalow and outside a house whose high conifer hedge meant that the residents wouldn’t be able to see it. He didn’t want it reported as a suspiciously parked vehicle. He walked briskly and purposefully along the street, a man with a briefcase, not the kind of figure to arouse suspicion. There would be no lingering outside the Barneses’ house, no furtive looks to right and left and no hesitation.
With only one backward glance to check that no one was coming, he scissored his legs over the corner of the Barneses’ fence and dropped to a crouch in the shrubbery. He remained motionless for almost a minute, just looking and listening. No lights had come on in any of the nearby houses. There was no sound of voices.
Mr Proudfoot’s house was in darkness. Hopefully everyone was asleep. Dunbar moved silently up to the corner of the building and pressed himself to the wall. He stared at the intruder detector above the door as he edged closer. Some of these things had heat sensors as well, he reminded himself, but it was now or never. With the keys ready in his hand he moved directly under it and opened the door as quickly as he could. He was inside and the light still hadn’t come on.
He closed the curtains of the living room. They were reassuringly heavy and he made sure there were no cracks before switching on his torch. As a further precaution he kept his body between the torch beam and the window area as he opened his briefcase and took out the radiation monitor. He set it to its most sensitive setting and held the probe in front of him as he moved round the room.
Click… click… click click… Nothing to worry about, just background levels. He moved towards the cupboard by the fireplace where Cyril kept his camera gear. Click, click, clickety, clickety, clickety. The frequency of the clicks started to rise and the signal was markedly stronger. The blood was pounding in his ears as he homed in on the source. It was a white plastic telephone junction box fixed to the wall.
He moved away from the box and put the probe down on the floor, where it sat giving occasional clicks as it returned to background levels. He brought out the protective glove from his briefcase, along with a screwdriver to remove the cover of the box. With the heavy glove on his right hand making dexterity a lot more difficult, he undid the two starpoint screws retaining the cover and removed it. There was nothing inside.
He frowned and brought the monitor up to the front of the box again. Once more the clicks increased in frequency and the needle swung round on the meter. There was only one explanation; the box did not contain a source of radioactivity at the moment… but it had done recently.
The monitor Dunbar was using was a simple one. There was no way he could tell anything about the radiation source from it save for its current level and range. Holding the probe in front of him, he backed away until he was about eight feet from the junction box and the slowing clicks indicated he was out of range. He had to think what to do now. He hadn’t counted on this situation arising at all. He shone the torch around the junction box area and then followed the thin telephone cable leading to it. The cable ran straight through without interruption. There was no need for a junction box at all; it was a fake; it was unnecessary.
The sole purpose of the box had been to house the radiation source. Someone had deliberately installed it there in order to expose Sheila Barnes and her husband to the effects of radiation damage. Or had Sheila alone been the real target? Because surely this was Medic Ecosse’s doing. They just had to be the number-one suspect. Radiation sources weren’t exactly freely available over the counter but they were common enough in hospitals, where a wide range of isotopes was used for tracing and treatment purposes.
He looked again at the empty box. The source — and therefore the evidence — had been removed, presumably when it had done its job and Sheila and her husband had been taken into hospital. Was that it? Were they now going to get away with it? Was there nothing he could do to prevent that? He reminded himself that the monitor was still registering so there must still be traces of the substance in the box. Maybe that would be enough to identify the isotope and trace its origins.
As he wondered how he could take some sort of sample from the inside of the box he remembered Sheila’s make-up tray in the bedroom. Among the things she kept there was a series of little brushes. One of those would be ideal. He went and selected one, then turned his attention to finding a suitable container. His first thought was a plastic 35mm film container from Cyril’s camera cupboard but plastic would not contain the radiation too well. He would need better shielding. His next thought was to try some kitchen foil. He brought some through from the kitchen.
Very carefully, to avoid dust rising into the air and him inhaling it, he brushed out what little debris there was inside the junction box and collected it on a square of foil. He folded it over into a little packet and checked the outside with the monitor. The reading was still high. The foil was too thin to block the radiation even when folded into several thicknesses; he needed better shielding.
He was facing the depressing thought that he might have to wait until Sci-Med sent up a suitable container before it would be safe to transport the sample, when he remembered that the bungalow was quite old. Although it was unlikely still to have any original lead piping in it after all the health scares of a few years ago, it might have remnants of these days. It was worth looking. He took the torch through into the kitchen and examined the piping under the sinks. It was modern. Copper, steel and plastic. The same applied to the bathroom.
There was one last possibility: the cistern in the loft. Did the Barneses have a loft ladder? They did. Dunbar found the short pole with the hook on the end and used it to open the hatch cover and swing down the ladder. He climbed up the metal treads, torch in hand, and swung the beam around the dark recesses of the roof space. He saw a grey plastic cistern and modern piping, mostly wrapped in plastic lagging.
It was plain that the plumbing in the house had been entirely re-done in the not too distant past. He was about to close the hatch when he saw, below the red plastic tank used to back up the central-heating water supply, something lying between the rafters. He picked it up. It had once been part of an overflow pipe from the old cistern. It was about eight inches long and, more importantly, it was made of lead.
He closed up the loft and brought the pipe down into the living room. He slipped the little foil packet inside it and, using the handle of the screwdriver, flattened the ends of the pipe to seal the packet inside. He ran the probe over the outside and was pleased to hear that the radiation was now in check. He could hear only background clicks. He screwed the plastic cover back on the junction box and stood up. He had a sick, hollow feeling in his stomach as if he had been going up too fast in a lift. It was one thing being afraid of what you were up against, but when you didn’t know what that was it made you doubly fearful. He looked back at the junction box and wondered who had installed it. It must have been so easy. Someone posing as a telephone engineer perhaps? Supposedly checking a fault in the line? He could see how it could have been done without arousing any suspicion.
He put his things back into his briefcase along with the lead-shielded sample of debris and shone the torch around the floor area to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He composed himself for a few moments before preparing to run the gauntlet of the security light once more.
This time he wasn’t so lucky. He had only taken one sideways step with his back pressed against the wall when the light clicked on, illuminating him and the garden. He felt as if he had just come on stage at the London Palladium. Instinctively he sprinted to the corner of the house and threw himself flat in the shrubbery. As he did so a light came on in the Proudfoots’ upstairs bedroom and a face appeared at the window; a hand started clearing a patch in the condensation on the glass in order to see out.
Dunbar wasn’t at all sure about his cover so he was reluctant to move a muscle lest movement attract attention. He couldn’t even afford to turn his head to look up at the bedroom window. His peripheral vision suggested that there was someone still there.
At that moment a cat chose to saunter across the garden path, sniffing the night air and haughtily ignoring the human being at the window above him. The cat sensed Dunbar’s presence and stopped in its tracks to stare at him. Dunbar closed his eyes and prayed. This could go either way. Either the neighbour would think that the cat had triggered the light and go back to bed or he would notice that the cat had found something and get suspicious himself.
After what seemed like an eternity, the bedroom light went off and all was quiet again. The cat moved off to more interesting things and Dunbar lay stock still for a further three minutes until the security light had reset itself.
