Dunbar half carried Douglas to the front door, then turned out the lights before pressing the door-release button. The door slid back letting them breathe in fresh night air.
‘Where did you leave the rucksack?’ Dunbar asked.
Douglas seemed sleepy. He hesitated before saying, ‘Behind the pipe.’
They made painfully slow progress along the back of the building till they reached the waste pipe. Dunbar retrieved the rucksack and started to put it on, but Douglas stopped him.
‘Inside…’ he said. ‘Paint… Spray paint…’
Dunbar’s first thought was delirium, but then he understood. Despite his pain and shock, Douglas was still thinking about their mission.
‘In case… things went wrong. Someone… to blame.’
Dunbar searched the sack and found a can of spray paint.
‘Will you be okay for a minute?’ he asked.
‘Go…’
Dunbar went up to the wall of the building and started spray-writing. ‘No to Vivisection… Free the Animals… Scientist Bastards… Stop the Experiments… Evil Bastards’. The can was empty. He ran back to where Douglas lay and put the empty can in the sack before slinging it on his back and helping Douglas to his feet. ‘We’ve got to get you to a hospital,’ he said.
It seemed to take forever to cover the three hundred yards or so to where they’d left the Land-Rover, but there was still no commotion behind them. The security guards must still be unconscious. Dunbar took the keys from Douglas’s pocket and eased him to the ground while he unlocked the vehicle. He manoeuvred Douglas into the front seat and strapped him in securely. Douglas’s head rested on his chest but he was still conscious.
‘Are you okay there?’
‘I’m okay,’ grunted Douglas.
Dunbar started the vehicle. He considered briefly the idea of driving across country to avoid the possibility of meeting the police on their way out to Vane Farm, but decided that Douglas could not take the rough ride. He’d have to risk the road.
He glanced to the right as they passed the farm entrance. The gate-house was empty. He turned to Douglas and asked if the Omnopon was still working.
‘Still floating,’ said Douglas but he was clearly in shock.
When they reached the station yard, Dunbar parked the Land-Rover next to his own car and transferred Douglas. While they were outside he took the opportunity to relax the tourniquet on Douglas’s arm for a few moments. He didn’t want any problems arising from cut-off circulation.
‘We’ll have to leave your car here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to leave mine in case they trace it and connect me with Vane Farm. They’ll be less suspicious of a Land-Rover.’
‘I’ll have one of the lads pick it up,’ said Douglas.
‘The sooner we get you to hospital the better,’ said Dunbar.
‘No hospital,’ croaked Douglas.
‘You need proper treatment,’ insisted Dunbar. ‘That’s a bad wound.’
‘No hospital,’ repeated Douglas. ‘They’ll ask all sorts of questions and I want to work again. I need it. There’s nothing else for me, man.’
‘If you don’t get proper treatment you might never work again anyway. You could lose your arm.’
‘That serious?’
‘That serious,’ confirmed Dunbar.
‘You a doctor, then?’ asked Douglas, expecting a negative reply.
‘I am.’
Douglas shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘Then what the… You fix it, then,’ he said.
‘With what? A car jack and some tyre levers? You need a hospital.’
Douglas let out a sigh. ‘Get me back to the Crane,’ he said.
‘The Crane closed hours ago.’
‘I live in the flat above it. I can call up help from there. He’s done it before.’
‘You mean some struck-off old lush who stitches wanted heads for beer money?’
‘Something like that. I’m not going to hospital.’
‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ said Dunbar. ‘We’ll go to your place but I call up my people. I’ll tell them it’s vital that you be treated in secret.’
‘Do you think they’ll play?’
‘They’ll play, but it might not be a substitute for a hospital.’
‘No hospital.’
They had just entered the built-up area when two police cars shot past in the other direction. Dunbar felt relieved, not just because they had passed them by but because it meant that at least one of the security men had come round.
They reached Salamander Street without incident and Dunbar parked outside the pub, which he had trouble finding in the dark without the tell-tale spillage of light from its windows. Its inconspicuous frontage merged perfectly into the long, dark stretch of unoccupied tenements. Douglas himself couldn’t help much. The painkillers were starting to wear off and increasing pain was occupying all his attention. He sat with his head back, his eyes tight shut.
‘I really think-’ began Dunbar.
‘No!’ snarled Douglas.
Dunbar shrugged. ‘How do we get in?’ he asked.
‘Door… to the left. Keys… side pocket of the sack.’
Dunbar found the keys and got out to unlock the heavy door to the left of the pub. He returned to the car, helped Douglas out and supported him across the pavement and into a long, dark entrance hall. Sounds of scuttling feet reached them from the blackness.
‘Which flat?’ Dunbar asked.
‘First… and first door. It’s the only one occupied.’
Dunbar helped him up spiral stone steps, feeling his way in the dark. The narrowness made it difficult, as did the fact that the steps were badly worn in the centre. It was a relief to reach the landing. Still supporting Douglas, he felt his way along the wall to the first door, found the lock and unlocked it with the second key he tried. He clicked on the hall light and helped Douglas, who was now only semi-conscious, into a room where he half collapsed on to a couch.
‘Where’s your phone?’ Dunbar asked but didn’t wait for a reply; he saw it on a small table to the left of a gas fire. First he closed the curtains and lit the fire. Douglas was shivering badly, partly from cold but mainly through shock.
Dunbar called Sci-Med and told the night duty officer that he needed urgent medical help for an injured man. ‘Severe upper arm trauma inflicted by a laboratory primate,’ he reported. ‘Biting involved. No known disease implicated in the animal, although it can’t be ruled out. Blood loss severe.’
It occurred to Dunbar that Douglas, as an ex-Marine, would know his own blood group. He asked him and repeated the answer down the phone: ‘A — positive.’ He gave details of their whereabouts and asked how long help would be.
‘Can’t say. We’ll do our best.’
After ringing off, Dunbar undid the tourniquet and dressing and took a look at the wound. ‘I’m going to clean your arm up a bit,’ he said. ‘Do you have any whisky in the flat?’
‘You’re not going to pour that over it are you?’ demanded Douglas.
‘No, I’m not,’ agreed Dunbar. ‘This isn’t a John Wayne film. You’re going to drink it because this is going to hurt like hell.’ He re-applied the tourniquet, poured out the liquor and foraged in the bathroom cabinet for anything useful. Back in the main room, he handed the half-full tumbler to Douglas and removed the tourniquet again, substituting finger pressure while he examined the wound and dabbed at the torn flesh with cotton wool and antiseptic.
Douglas took a gulp of the whisky and gasped, ‘What do you think?
‘Hard to say.’
