by Ken McClure
‘Come when you can,’ said Shona.
After almost three weeks with no word from the MRC, Bannerman began to think that his worst fears might not after all be realized. One more week and the government would get the statement it wanted from the Council and that would be the end of the matter. The government would be happy, the farmers would be happy. Everyone would be happy … except Ian Bannerman. For him the fact would remain that seven people had died and a terrifying new disease had been created, even if it had disappeared for the moment. The outbreak would be conveniently forgotten by those in charge, those he saw as ostriches, happy ostriches with their heads safely back in the sand.
Newsnight had just finished on television and Bannerman was about to go to bed when the telephone rang. It was Angus MacLeod in Achnagelloch. Bannerman knew immediately why he must be calling and lost all trace of drowsiness.
‘There’s been another case?’ he asked without preamble.
‘Yes,’ replied MacLeod.
Bannerman closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘Tell me.’
‘I was called out earlier this evening to see a young labourer. His wife called me because she thought he was behaving oddly. I recognized in him the same symptoms displayed by Gordon Buchan.’
‘But he’s alive?’
‘Yes,’ agreed MacLeod. ‘But for how much longer I don’t know. I’ve sedated him and had him moved to the cottage hospital at Stobmor. What do you think about a transfer?’
‘Where were you thinking of?’ asked Bannerman.
‘In view of what we both suspect, I thought we might try getting him admitted to the Department of Surgical Neurology at the Western General in Edinburgh but in another way I’m loath to do it.’
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Bannerman.
‘I think if we’re honest we have to recognize that there’s no chance of saving his life. We’d be moving him to get as much neurological information about the course of the disease as we can. DSN at the Western General has all the right equipment. But whether or not this would be fair on his wife is another matter.’
‘I see,’ said Bannerman, appreciating the moral dilemma. ‘My own view is that the only conclusive data we’ll get about the disease will come from post-mortem material. Reams of EEC print-out isn’t going to tell us much.’
‘In that case I think I should keep him here.’
‘Agreed,’ said Bannerman. ‘I’m going to come up there. I’d like to see the man for myself.’
‘Very good.’
‘You said he was a labourer. A farm labourer?’
‘No, he works at the stone quarry.’
‘Any connection with the patients who have already died?’
‘No family connection this time I’m afraid, but I did have one thought …’
‘Yes?’
‘The quarry lies to the west of Inverladdie Farm. It’s not inconceivable that infected sheep could have wandered over there.’
‘That’s a thought,’ agreed Bannerman, ‘but he would still have had to come into close contact with the infected animals to pick up the virus through cuts or grazes.’
‘Quarry workers invariably have plenty of these,’ said Munro.
‘I suppose so,’ said Bannerman, still not convinced. ‘I’d better have a note of some patient details.’ He straightened up the pad by the telephone and flicked off the cap of his pen with his thumb.
MacLeod dictated, ‘Male, twenty-eight years old, no medical history to speak of. Apart from headaches over the past week there was no real sign of illness until yesterday when his wife noticed lapses in concentration. She said he appeared at times to go into a trance. Today his behaviour became irrational and alarmed her so much that she called me in.’
‘In what way irrational?’
‘She found him eating the food in the dog’s bowl, then he tried to go to work without any boots on. When she tried to talk to him, she says he looked at her as if he didn’t know her, sometimes as if he hated her. They’ve always been such a loving couple; she’s taking it very badly.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Bannerman.
‘In view of what happened with Andrew Bell, I didn’t think I could risk leaving Turnbull at home, even with sedation. That’s why I had him moved to the cottage hospital.’
‘Did you say “Turnbull”?’ asked Bannerman.
‘Colin Turnbull,’ said MacLeod.
‘Hell and damnation,’ said Bannerman.
‘You know him?’
‘He was a regular in the bar of the hotel when I was up there, I liked him.’
‘A bright chap,’ said MacLeod. ‘He was doing a degree part-time.’
‘I remember,’ said Bannerman.
‘His wife, Julie, is the primary school teacher in Stobmor.’
Bannerman recalled the paintings in the windows of the school. He asked, ‘Who knows about Turnbull’s condition?’
‘You can’t keep secrets in a place this size,’ replied MacLeod. ‘Stories of another meningitis case will be all over town by now.’
‘Damn,’ said Bannerman.
‘You can’t keep this sort of thing under wraps for ever,’ said MacLeod.
‘That isn’t what was worrying me,’ said Bannerman.
‘Then what?’
‘I think it would be an excellent idea if some kind of guard were placed on Colin Turnbull.’
‘He’s heavily sedated. I don’t think he’s a danger to anyone,’ said MacLeod.
‘It’s the danger to him I was thinking about,’ said Bannerman.
‘I don’t understand,’ said MacLeod.
‘Not everyone wants us to get to the bottom of this outbreak Doctor.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to spend the night at the hospital,’ said MacLeod, ‘and Julie Turnbull will be there as well, so he won’t be alone.’
‘I didn’t realize you intended staying with him Doctor,’ said Bannerman.
‘I brought Colin Turnbull into the world twenty-eight years ago,’ said MacLeod. ‘I was a guest at his wedding to Julie and I was around when their child was stillborn three years ago. It seems that fate has decreed that Colin Turnbull will die soon, so I will be there to make him as comfortable as possible and to do what I can for Julie.’
‘Of course,’ said Bannerman, feeling alienated. Things weren’t done that way at St Luke’s. Somewhere along the line the personal touch had been superseded by bleeping monitors and chart recorders. If anyone else had said what MacLeod just had he would have found it corny, but because he knew and liked MacLeod he felt slightly ashamed.
‘When can we expect you?’ asked MacLeod.
‘I intend getting the first British Airways shuttle to Aberdeen in the morning. I’ll pick up a hire car at the airport and with a bit of luck I should make it by mid-afternoon.’
‘Shall I book you into a hotel?’ asked MacLeod.
That would be kind.’
‘Achnagelloch or Stobmor?’
‘Stobmor. The hospital’s there. Doctor … I hate to have to ask this but
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have the facilities for me to carry out a post-mortem?’
‘There’s a small operating theatre. You could use that.’
THIRTEEN
Bannerman watched the hours pass slowly by on the clock by his bedside. At two-thirty he knew that he was not going to be able to sleep, so he got up. He decided to go in to the hospital, changing his original plan about phoning staff later in the day. Going in personally would give him the chance to leave notes for those his absence would affect most, Olive, Charlie Simmons and Nigel Leeman. The hospital authorities would not be too enchanted with his sudden disappearance but going through official channels would take too much time, and he didn’t have it; he suspected Colin Turnbull had even less.
He left word on Olive’s desk that if the MRC were to phone she was to tell them he was already on his way to Scotland and would be in
touch later in the day. His last act in the lab was to assemble a few post-mortem instruments. He didn’t think he would have to take a full set with him, but concentrated on the type of instruments that the cottage hospital would not have. He left out the knives and scalpels that pathology and surgery had in common.
He knew that the ironware would present a problem at the airport when he went through the metal detector but he was carrying plenty of identification and was quite happy for the knives to travel in the hold of the aircraft. With a last look round, he turned out the fluorescent lights and locked the door. He was on his way.
Bannerman breakfasted lightly at Heathrow, more to break the monotony of waiting than through any feeling of hunger. Afterwards he telephoned Shona to say that he was travelling north. He apologized for phoning so early but she insisted that she was up and dressed and had already been for a walk on the beach.
“Then the weather’s fine up there?’ said Bannerman.
‘At the moment,’ said Shona, ‘but there’s a storm coming in from the west. It may stop the ferry sailing but if it doesn’t I’ll come across to the mainland and meet you in Stobmor.’
‘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?’
‘So
on 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 his brain!’ ‘Jesus,’ said one of the men with open disgust. ‘No one is going to touch Colin,’ said the other man, holding Julie close to him.
Bannerman and MacLeod exchanged uneasy looks. MacLeod shrugged his apologies.
‘Mrs Turnbull,’ began Bannerman. ‘Believe me, no one is going to cut…’
The man holding her interrupted him with a stream of abuse. ‘Fucking doctors! What fucking use have you been, huh? Why don’t you just piss off and leave us all alone!’
Bannerman backed off, sensing that the situation was beyond saving for the moment. Van Gelder stepped forward diplomatically and intervened. ‘My dear Mrs Turnbull,’ he said, ‘perhaps you would allow me to drive you home? My car is just outside. Or perhaps there is somewhere else you would rather go? A relative or friend?’