Ken McClure - Crisis

‘Can I get into it?’

‘It will be locked, and so will the lab.’

Bannerman’s silence prompted Morag Napier into saying, ‘I’d better come in. I know where the keys are. Give me twenty minutes.’

Bannerman went back to his own lab to wait. He tried to read the paper he had bought on the way in but found he couldn’t concentrate. He had flicked through all the pages without really having read anything.

Morag Napier arrived wearing a navy-blue track suit with a university logo on it. Her trainer shoes were pristine white and she had tied her hair back in a bun. Bannerman noticed that she smelt of shampoo. She was carrying a bunch of keys in her hand. ‘Lawrence’s lab is open,’ she said.

Bannerman thanked her for coming in and followed her into Lawrence Gill’s lab.

Morag unlocked the large fridge-freezer and stood back for a moment to allow the frosty mist to clear. Bannerman saw that the fridge was well packed with a variety of plastic bags and boxes all containing bits and pieces of the human body. He made a superficial inspection for tell-tale grey material but there was no obvious sign of brains being stored there.

‘There’s an index,’ said Morag. She slid out a hard backed notebook from the space between the freezer and the wall and turned the pages until she reached the list of current contents. That’s funny,’ she said. They don’t seem to be here.’

Bannerman rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll have to talk to Gill,’ he said. ‘Does anyone know where he is?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Morag.

‘What conclusions did you and Gill come to about the deaths?’ asked Bannerman.

‘That the men had died from a degenerative brain disease and Lawrence thought that there might be some connection with Scrapie.’

‘The pathological evidence points to the men having died of Scrapie’ said Bannerman.

‘Or Creutzfeld Jakob Disease,’ said Morag.

‘But the incubation time was too short for that,’ said Bannerman.

‘Yes.’

‘So they must have died of something that looks like Creutzfeld Jakob,’ said Bannerman. That’s what made Gill think of Scrapie. It’s possible that the agent which killed the men is a mutant form of the sheep disease. That’s why the animal tests are of vital importance. If it transpires that Scrapie can cross the species barrier into man, for whatever reason, then we may have a major crisis on our hands.’

‘You mean if it can do it once, it can do it again?’

‘Yes. We have to find out how and why it did that,’ said Bannerman. The animal tests will tell us.’

‘But surely the danger is over,’ said Morag. The agent would be wiped out when the infected sheep were slaughtered?’ said Morag.

‘I hope you are right, and that all this was just a chance in a million, but we have to know for sure. We have to know why this happened in the first place. We know very little about the spread of Scrapie in the sheep population. It may be that the new virus, if that’s what it turns out to be, has already been spread all over the country through bird and animal food chains.’

‘What a thought,’ murmured Morag.

‘Unless Gill set up animal tests, the only source of infected material is the brains of the three men who died, and they are missing. We’ve got to find them so that the people at the Neurobiology Unit can run tests on them. That’s why I must talk to Gill.’

Bannerman saw from the clock on the wall that it was coming up to twelve o’clock. ‘How do I get to the animal lab?’ he asked.

Morag said, ‘I’ll take you there.’

Bannerman followed her through a maze of basement corridors until he knew that they were getting near the animal lab from the unmistakable smell of mice. She knocked on a glass-fronted door that was reinforced by wire.

‘Who is it?’ came a voice from inside.

‘Morag Napier.’

The door was unlocked, and Morag and Bannerman walked through into the animal house. The room was a whitewashed, basement room, lit by fluorescent strip lighting. One entire wall was decked with metal shelves upon which stood row after row of mouse boxes, each equipped with an automatic water feeder bottle. Another section of the lab housed rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. There was a preparation table in the middle of the floor and a row of sinks stood beyond. There were two small rooms leading off the main room. Bannerman could see an animal post-mortem board in one of them with a tray of instruments lying beside it.

The girl who answered the door continued with her feeding schedule, dropping a handful of mouse ‘nuts’ into each box and checking to see if the inhabitants were still alive.

‘We need some information,’ said Morag.

‘Uh huh,’ replied the girl.

‘We need to know if Dr Gill asked for any mice tests to be set up when he returned from the north.’

‘It will be in the book,’ said the girl. The red one in the office.’

Morag and Bannerman took this as an invitation to look for themselves. They started scanning back through the pages of the animal records.

‘Here we are,’ said Morag, underlining an entry with her finger. Bannerman looked over her shoulder.

The entry read, ‘Six mice, Dr Lawrence Gill, three samples, two mice per sample. Ref. W 17–22. Cross Ref. MRC 3’.

‘MRC 3,’ repeated Bannerman. These must be the ones.’

‘How do we find W 17–22?’ Morag asked the technician.

The girl stopped feeding her charges and moved along the row to tap one of the boxes with her palm. ‘From here to the left,’ she said.

Morag took down the box the girl had touched and looked inside. ‘Alive and well,’ she said, handing the box to Bannerman and bringing down the next one. ‘Same.’

All six mice were alive and apparently healthy.

‘Well, it’s a relief to know the tests were set up,’ said Bannerman. At least Gill had done something right. He put on protective gloves and picked up one of the mice from its box to let it run over the back of his hand. It seemed perfectly healthy in every way. The mouse tried to get a grip of his gloved thumb with its teeth and Bannerman massaged the black spot in its otherwise white fur until it let go. He dropped the animal gently back into its box and closed the lid. ‘I suppose it’s a bit soon for any brain disease to have developed, even if it is a new strain. We’ll have to keep an eye on these chaps. They may hold the answer to this whole business.’

Morag nodded and said, ‘I’ll see to it.’

‘But I still have to talk to Gill,’ said Bannerman. ‘Does his wife live in Edinburgh?’

Morag Napier looked at him in surprise. ‘Yes but surely you’re not going to …’

‘I need to see her,’ said Bannerman. ‘If she knows that her husband has run off with someone, she probably knows who with and possibly where to.’

‘But she’ll be upset!’ protested Morag. ‘How can you be so heartless?’

‘If three young men have died of Scrapie we have a great deal more to worry about than the sensibilities of Lawrence Gill and his wife,’ said Bannerman.

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Morag reluctantly. ‘I’ll get you the address.’

Bannerman invited Morag Napier to have lunch with him, but she declined, saying that she had ‘things to do’. It wasn’t too big a disappointment; the offer had been made out of politeness. He suspected that Morag did not hold a single opinion that hadn’t been vetted by her subconscious for ‘suitability’. Instead, he had lunch at a pub in the High Street and watched the world go by for an hour or so before phoning Lawrence Gill’s wife.

‘Vera Gill.’

‘Mrs Gill, my name’s Bannerman. I’m a pathologist working for the MRC.’