Ken McClure - Crisis

‘What can I do for you, Mr Bannerman?’ said a polite voice.

‘I’d like to talk to you about your husband.’

‘What about him?’ The voice had gone cold.

‘I’m sorry. I know it seems insensitive in the circumstances, but please, it’s very important.’

‘I can’t think what that could possibly be,’ said Vera Gill.

‘I’d rather not talk over the telephone. Could we meet?’

Vera Gill hesitated, and Bannerman repeated how important it was.

‘Very well. Come round this afternoon.’

Bannerman scribbled down the address and they agreed on a meeting at three-thirty.

Vera Gill lived with her children, two girls, in a pleasant semi-detached house in the Colinton area of the city. The girls, who were wrapped up warmly against a cold east wind, were playing in the garden when Bannerman arrived. As he opened the gate and started to walk up the path the youngest girl asked, ‘Have you brought my daddy home?’

Bannerman was struggling for a reply when the older child said, ‘She doesn’t fully understand yet.’

Bannerman smiled apologetically. The older child could not have been more than ten.

Vera Gill appeared at the door and invited Bannerman inside. As she ushered him past her she said to the older child, ‘Keep Wendy amused will you, darling. Mummy has to talk to this man for a little while.’

‘She is quite a young lady,’ said Bannerman as the door was closed.

‘She’s very mature for her age,’ agreed Vera Gill. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without her support over the last week or so. Now, what did you want to know?’

‘Mrs Gill, it’s very important that I find your husband. 1 need some vital information from him.’

Vera Gill’s face clouded over. She said, ‘I have heard nothing from my husband since he left here on the 16th of January. Not a word.’

‘So you don’t know where he is?’

‘No.’

Bannerman maintained a silence for a few moments, hoping that it might oblige Vera Gill to reconsider a little. She didn’t, so he pressed her a little further. ‘Mrs Gill, if your husband has just gone missing surely you would have reported the matter to the police?’

‘All right,’ snapped Vera Gill. ‘He’s gone off with another woman. Is that what you wanted? But I don’t know where they are.’

‘Do you know this other woman?’ asked Bannerman, aware of the pain in Vera Gill’s eyes but also knowing that she was his only hope of finding Gill.

‘No,’ replied Vera Gill, but Bannerman could see that she was lying. It wasn’t difficult. She wasn’t used to doing it. She diverted her eyes and looked guilty, just like a child.

‘Mrs Gill … I know how much this must have hurt you …’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ snapped Vera Gill with a venom that surprised Bannerman. ‘You couldn’t possibly know anything of the sort!’

It was Bannerman’s turn to divert his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘Of course I don’t.’

Vera Gill took a number of deep breaths in the ensuing silence, which was only broached by a ticking clock on the mantelshelf and the muted sound of the children playing in the garden. ‘Her name is Shona MacLean,’ she said quietly.

Bannerman wrote it down.

‘Some years ago she and Lawrence had an affair, when we lived in the north. He said it was all over but there were occasional letters that arrived with a give-away postmark.’

‘Did your husband tell you he was going off with this woman?’ asked Bannerman.

‘No, but that was Lawerence,’ said Vera Gill, with a snort.

Bannerman felt confused. He asked. ‘What exactly did he say before he left?’

‘Almost nothing. I could see he was in a blue funk over the whole thing but, as I say, that was Lawrence. He hated making unpleasant decisions. He got more and more agitated and angst-ridden and then suddenly he announced that he had to go away for a bit, and that was the last I saw of him.’

‘Where does this Shona MacLean live?’ asked Banner man.

The village of Ralsay on the Island of North Uist.’

On the way back to his apartment Bannerman stopped at a large newsagents and bought some road maps of north-west Scotland and the Western Isles. Without access to the brain tissue of the dead men there was very little in the way of pathological investigation to be done at the medical school. The brains of the infected laboratory mice would provide more diseased material for him to work on, but even if his worst fears surrounding incubation times were realized, that would not be for another couple of weeks. He was beginning to think in terms of a visit to the north to see the Achnagelloch area for himself. If this could be combined with a trip to North Uist to find Lawrence Gill, then so much the better.

Bannerman’s original plan had been to eat out at one of the restaurants in the Royal Mile that evening, but the visit to Vera Gill had left him with little heart for playing the tourist. Instead he decided to make do with what was in the apartment. There were a couple of packet meals. One of them had a nice picture on the front. If he felt better later he might go out for a drink. Instead, he phoned Stella just after eight.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

‘Not well,’ confessed Bannerman. The pathologist who raised the alarm has disappeared and so have the brains of the victims.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Stella.

‘I know it sounds crazy, but their brains were completely removed at autopsy and nobody knows where they are except the missing pathologist, and he’s run off somewhere.’

‘Sounds like a Whitehall farce,’ said Stella.

‘If it wasn’t so serious,’ added Bannerman.

‘What’s the head of department doing about it?’ asked Stella.

‘Collating the figures,’ said Bannerman dryly.

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing. He’s about as much use as a keep left sign in a one way street.’

‘Distinguished, eh?’

‘Distinguished,’ agreed Bannerman, sharing an old joke between the pair of them that ageing incompetents in the world of academia were never called so; they were invariably termed ‘distinguished’.

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Stella.

‘I’ve read Gill’s lab notes and looked at the microscope slides, as you know; it looks serious, but I have to talk to Gill. I’m thinking of trying to find him myself.’

‘Surely that’s a job for the police,’ protested Stella. ‘Besides, where would you start?’

‘I’ve been pointed in the right direction,’ said Bannerman. ‘Gill ran off for domestic reasons.’

‘And with immaculate timing,’ added Stella.

‘Quite so,’ agreed Bannerman. ‘I think I might find it hard to be civil to him when I find him.’

‘Where’s the “right direction”?’

‘His wife thinks he’s on the Island of North Uist.’

This could turn out to be a holiday after all,’ said Stella.

‘I have to go north to see the location of the sheep farm and talk to the local GP and vet. I also want to take a look at the power station, find out where it fits into the scheme of things. My plan at the moment is to take in the island on the way up.’

‘A proper little Doctor Johnson,’ said Stella.

‘I’m beginning to wish I’d never got into this,’ said Bannerman.

There was no point in delaying his departure for the north, thought Bannerman, but on the other hand, trying to reach the Western Isles on a Sunday was probably not such a good idea. He probably wouldn’t be stoned to death as a heathen intruder, but transport might be a problem. He toyed with the notion of travelling to Inverness by train on Sunday night and getting a connection to the Kyle of Lochalsh on Monday morning, but then he had a better idea. If he were to rent a car he could start his journey on Sunday morning and stop off somewhere on the way to do a bit of hill walking. He could do with some fresh air to rid himself of the claustrophobic feel of the medical school and its brooding walls. He could stay overnight at a small hotel and then head for North Uist on Monday morning.