Crisis

ELEVEN

The clean-up operation was beginning in the building as Bannerman went upstairs to his room. It had been untouched by the fire; only the smell of burning told the tale. He called Milne at the MRC and told him what had happened.

‘Damned people,’ said Milne. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to contend with, we get a bunch of lunatics running around with fire bombs.’

‘Unless the missing human brain material turns up the mice were our last chance of getting to grips with the infective agent,’ said Bannerman.

‘What do you think the chances are of recovering that material?’ asked Milne.

‘Practically nil,’ replied Bannerman. ‘I suspect it was all destroyed in order to stop any investigation of it.’

Milne sighed and said, ‘Then I suppose we will just have to resign ourselves to the fact that we will never know for sure what caused the deaths in Achnagelloch.’

Bannerman could not help but feel that an awful lot of people might be quite happy with that state of affairs; the government, the nuclear lobby and maybe even Milne himself. It was never easy to tell people what they didn’t want to hear, especially if they happened to control your purse strings. The Medical Research Council were autonomous but they were funded from central government.

‘Will you return to London today?’ asked Milne.

Tomorrow,’ replied Bannerman.

Bannerman thought it right that he should lend a hand with the clean-up in the rooms affected by the fire. Many of the labs contained dangerous chemicals as well as stocks of bacteria and viruses which demanded skilled handling. Portering and domestic staff would work on the corridors and common-rooms. He put on protective clothing, borrowed from the post-mortem rooms, and asked Morag Napier where he could be most useful.

Morag looked at him as if she hadn’t heard and he repeated his question.

‘Sorry, I was thinking about something,’ she said. The tissue culture suite is in a bit of a mess. Perhaps you’d care to salvage what you can?’

Bannerman said that he would do what he could.

A junior technician interrupted to ask Morag something and she almost snapped the girl’s head off, then looked embarrassed when she realized that Bannerman had witnessed her behaviour. She made some excuse for leaving and walked quickly away.

‘Doctor Napier is upset,’ said Bannerman to the technician. ‘Perhaps you could give me a hand in the tissue culture suite?’

With the mess cleared up from the tissue culture room floor and having thoroughly disinfected it, Bannerman and the technician set about salvaging what glassware they could and packed it into bins for washing and re-sterilizing. When they had filled the last of the bins Bannerman suggested, ‘Why don’t you go have a cup of tea?’ The girl readily agreed.

Bannerman closed the door behind him and started walking along the corridor. Half way along he paused when he thought he heard the sound of a woman crying. There was no mistake. He looked into the room the sound was coming from, half expecting it to be Morag Napier because of her earlier nervous state, and found someone else. It was Lorna Cullen, the animal technician he had met yesterday.

Bannerman felt awkward. It wasn’t a situation he felt comfortable dealing with but there was no one else around he could call on. He approached the woman and sat down beside her. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ he said gently.

The woman looked up at him and said bitterly, Tell me about it. I’ve just been fired.’

‘Why?’

The professor blames me for all this.’

‘What?’

‘He says I left the door to the animal lab unlocked and that’s how the terrorists got in.’

‘Oh,’ said Bannerman, remembering that the door had been unlocked yesterday.

‘But I didn’t!’ protested the technician. That’s what’s so unfair!’

‘But can you be sure?’ asked Bannerman gently.

‘Yes damn it! I can! You gave me such a fright yesterday when you walked in on me that it was fresh in my mind. I made very sure I locked the door when I left. I even remember trying the door after I had locked it to make certain.’

‘I see,’ said Bannerman. ‘So how did they get in?’

The woman looked at him again, her face showing that she knew she would not be believed when she said, They must have used a key.’

Bannerman’s face betrayed the fact that he found this unlikely and the woman conceded it herself. ‘But that’s the only explanation,’ she said, wringing her hands helplessly. They must have. I locked the door. I know I did.’

‘Do you live far from here?’ asked Bannerman.

‘Leith.’

That’s down by the sea isn’t it?’

The woman nodded.

‘Do you have a car?’

The woman shook her head.

‘Get your coat. I’ll take you home.’

Still holding her handkerchief to her face, Lorna Cullen went off to fetch her coat while Bannerman sought out Morag Napier and told her what he was going to do.

‘Why?’

‘Stoddart fired her.’

Bannerman walked off leaving Morag Napier staring after him, wide-eyed but silent.

By seven in the evening Bannerman had packed up all his belongings and was ready to return to London the next morning. He had taken the car back to the rental company, cleared his desk in the medical school and had thanked Stoddart for his hospitality. He couldn’t find Morag Napier to say goodbye to her but had asked Stoddart to do it for him and to thank her for her help. He had tried to put in a good word for Lorna Cullen but Stoddart was unwilling to move on the subject. The damned woman was always leaving the place open,’ he maintained.

Bannerman stood quietly at the window looking out over the lights of the city and noting for once that the wind had dropped. The dark silhouettes of the trees in Princes Street Gardens were motionless. The stars had come out in a clear sky and there was a suggestion of moonlight behind the castle rock. He wished that he could have felt better about his trip, but the truth was that he felt thoroughly dejected. His investigation had been thwarted at every turn, leaving him feeling empty and frustrated. There was only one thing he wanted to do now, and that was get drunk.

He was about to leave when the telephone rang. Fearing that it might be George Stoddart asking him to dinner, Bannerman prepared his excuse for not going and picked up the receiver. It was Shona MacLean.

‘Hello, Ian. I’m back home on the island.’

‘Oh God it’s so good to hear your voice,’ he blurted out.

‘I’m glad you said that,’ said Shona, ‘because I don’t have a good reason for calling. I just wanted to hear your voice.’

‘That’s good enough,’ said Bannerman quickly, knowing that if he slowed down his response he would start considering his replies and editing them. If he answered quickly there was a chance that the truth might get out. “There was so much I wanted to say this morning and didn’t. I’ve got to see you again.’

‘But how?’

‘I don’t know how,’ said Bannerman. ‘Just tell me that you want to see me?’

‘Yes,’ said Shona. ‘I want that.’

‘Then we’ll work something out,’ said Bannerman.

‘I’m so glad I phoned,’ said Shona.

‘You’re glad?’ laughed Bannerman.

‘Did you get your experiments finished today?’ asked Shona.

Bannerman told her about the fire.

‘That’s awful!’ exclaimed Shona. ‘You won’t be able to prove that Scrapie was to blame.’

‘No,’ agreed Bannerman. ‘It’s all been one big waste of time.’

‘Maybe you should get drunk,’ said Shona.

That’s exactly what I intend doing,’ said Bannerman. ‘You caught me just as I was about to leave.’

‘Then I won’t hold you back any more,’ said Shona. ‘Call me tomorrow?’

‘You bet.’

After a couple of drinks Bannerman’s euphoria over Shona’s call and his relief at his honesty in telling her how he felt, began to subside. He had no doubts about his feelings for Shona but he began to see some of the problems he was creating. How could he hope to carry on a relationship with Shona when he worked in London and she lived on a remote island? One of them would have to move and he could imagine Shona’s thoughts about a move to London. Bannerman’s head started to protest under the relentless assault of his own questions. He dealt with them, temporarily, with a third drink and then decided to find something to eat.

There was a Greek restaurant not too far from the last pub he had been in, so he opted for that. He ordered a traditional dish and asked for a carafe of the house red. When it came, the wine wasn’t good, but it didn’t matter so long as it continued to dull the cutting edge of reality. He sipped it slowly while waiting for his food and amused himself by looking at the obligatory travel posters of Greece on the walls.

They’d make it seem a lot more like Greece if they’d heat the bloody place properly, he thought as the door opened and another blast of cold air swept in. He looked round at the new arrivals and was surprised to see Morag Napier standing there. She was with a man who Bannerman deduced must be her fiance. He got a brief glimpse of a handsome man in his twenties before Morag walked over to his table and said, ‘Dr Bannerman, what a surprise. I didn’t think I’d get a chance to say goodbye. Professor Stoddart said that you’d left already.’

‘I’m going back to London in the morning,’ said Bannerman, hoping he wasn’t slurring his words. ‘Perhaps you and your young man would care to join me?’

That’s very kind but we just popped in on our way past to book a table for tomorrow,’ said Morag. ‘We’re on our way out.’

‘Well thank you for all your help, Dr Napier,’ said Bannerman, making to get to his feet.

‘Please don’t get up Doctor,’ insisted Morag. ‘And bon voyage.

‘Thank you,’ said Bannerman, watching her walk back over to her fiance and take him by the arm to turn him round and usher him out of the door. A waiter was left looking bemused as the door closed behind the couple.

It was obvious to Bannerman that the story about them having come in to book a table had been a lie. Morag Napier had not wanted to stay in the restaurant when she had found out that he was there. Was he really that drunk? he wondered.

Bannerman finished his meal and left. Despite the fact that he had drunk a fair bit over the course of the evening he felt stone cold sober, yet had no desire to drink any more. That was the trouble with alcohol, he mused, it only exaggerated the mood you’re in, and he was feeling low.

The temperature had fallen because of the clearness of the sky and there was a suggestion of frost in the air. He decided to walk for a bit before returning to the apartment. This would be his last chance to look at the city by night, unless he came back here at some time in the future. He walked to the head of the Mound, once literally a mound of earth that had been piled up to connect the old town of Edinburgh, high up on the back of the castle rock, to the Georgian new town lying below. Traffic formed strings of light on the steep hill.

Bannerman rested his hands on the railings near the top and looked at the lights spread out below. It was a beautiful city, he thought; when the weather allowed you to love it, when the wind dropped and allowed you to hear its heart beat. He could smell ‘the earth in the gardens, feel the silence, sense the sharpness of the frost. A boy and girl were walking slowly up the hill with their arms wound round each other, totally absorbed in each other’s company. They wore heavy coats and university scarves. A nice city to fall in love in, thought Bannerman. He pulled up his collar and silently wished them well. He walked slowly back to his apartment.

The phone was ringing inside but by the time he had unlocked the door and switched on the light it had stopped. Something else to wonder about, he thought, but it would have to take its place in the queue. At the moment it was well down the list of questions that kept niggling away at him. The question of why Morag Napier had been so anxious to get out of the restaurant earlier was near the top, but at the very top was the fact that the animal rights people had succeeded in murdering all the animals in their attack on the department.

There was a contradiction in that which worried Bannerman because it could not be argued that the animal deaths had been accidental. The terrorists had entered the building through the animal house itself so they had had every opportunity to release the animals before setting fire to the place … but they hadn’t.

It was just conceivable that there had been an element of social responsibility in this. The terrorists just might have been bright enough to acknowledge that releasing experimental animals into the wild was an act fraught with danger. The animals might be carrying all kinds of diseases which they would spread into the community. On the other hand and despite frequent warnings, the animal liberation people had not taken much notice of this in the past.

The electric kettle came to the boil and Bannerman went into the kitchen to make coffee. He spooned coffee grounds into the cafetiere while he faced the fact that paranoia might be playing a part in his thoughts. It seemed such a cruel quirk of fate for a fire to destroy all Gill’s experimental animals and with them, the Achnagelloch disease. Almost too cruel to be true.

Despite acknowledging this feeling, Bannerman was left with one simple but unanswered question: could such dedicated animal lovers, as the rights people claimed to be, have calmly set fire to a room full of animals and burned them alive? And if he thought that question was difficult, it was nothing to the can of worms he would open if the answer should turn out to be, ‘No’.

‘Shit!’ he said out loud, as he put his head back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, searching for inspiration. In his heart of hearts he knew that he wasn’t angry with himself because he couldn’t think of answers. He was angry because he could. It was facing up to them that was difficult! His mind baulked at the evil it was being invited to consider. But one subversive corner kept urging him on to do just that.

It said, Maybe the attack on the department had not been carried out by the animal liberation people at all? Maybe it had not even been an attack on the department! Maybe it had been a deliberate attack on the animal lab in order to destroy Gill’s experimental animals and, with them, evidence of the new disease! According to his thinking, Gill had been murdered not only to stop him talking but to stop the authorities getting their hands on infected brain material. Perhaps the same motive had been behind the fire?

The water Bannerman was wading into was getting perilously deep and cold but there was no going back. Once again he asked himself who had the most to lose by having the true nature of the brain disease in Achnagelloch revealed? His experience at the nuclear power station had left him with little love for the place, but he simply could not bring himself to believe that the management and workers could be involved in a conspiracy involving arson and murder. But if they weren’t, who was? Maybe he had been too localized in his thinking? True, the nuclear industry would take a bit of a bashing if it turned out that leaks from one of their stations had been responsible for the deaths in Achnagelloch. But wouldn’t even larger bodies like the agricultural industry and perhaps the government itself, have even more to lose if it were revealed that animal brain diseases could spread to man! The thought did little to put him at his ease.

Bannerman arrived back in London on the following evening after spending the morning doing some last minute shopping in Edinburgh. He did not call anyone when he got back, not even Stella. The flat seemed strange and unwelcoming and his efforts at making it cosier through warmth and lighting only succeeded in making it seem claustrophobic. He tried going to bed early but that proved to be a mistake. He tossed and turned, switched the light on and off, picked up and laid down a book so many times he lost count.

He finally got up and rummaged through the bathroom cabinet for some chemical assistance. He didn’t have any sleeping tablets but he did find a bottle of antihistamines. On their own they would have a very moderate sedative effect, but when taken in conjunction with a large gin a couple of tablets would let him sleep right through. He watched a little television while he drank the gin and then when he felt the windmills of his mind begin to slow, he turned off the set and went to bed.

Olive Meldrum broke into a broad smile when she saw Bannerman come through the door, collar up, briefcase in hand.

‘I hope you didn’t forget my haggis,’ she said.

Bannerman put down a plastic bag on her desk and announced, ‘One haggis, and may God have mercy on your digestion.’

‘You remembered!’ exclaimed Olive.

Bannerman smiled.

‘It’s nice to have you back,’ said Olive.

‘Nice to be back,’ said Bannerman, but it wasn’t how he felt. He said hello to everyone in the lab then made for the sanctuary of his office where he could let the mask slip. Olive brought in coffee then left him to read through a small mountain of mail. He managed to sort it first without opening anything. All obvious advertising literature went straight into the bucket virgo intacta. That left university and medical school material, which he felt obliged to read, and some letters which gave no outward clue as to their source. None proved to be interesting.

Bannerman ploughed through the university mail with a heavy heart and growing impatience. How could so many people spend so much time on so little? he wondered, as he had so often in the past. He reminded himself that if anyone could, academics could. They seemed to be blessed with an innate capacity to say absolutely nothing, at enormous length. ‘Three pages!’ he muttered angrily, ‘three bloody pages on car-parking at the hospital.’ And what was the bottom line? There wasn’t one as far as he could discern, but that was par for the course. Actual conclusions were a grey area in academia; academics were happier with a range of possibilities. And decisions? Perish that fascist thought.

Bannerman screwed the missive into a ball and chucked it across the room just as Olive came in. He had to smile sheepishly in apology.

‘Already?’ she said. ‘Your holiday hasn’t done you much good.’

‘It was no holiday,’ said Bannerman, with a hint of bitterness. ‘Would you get me the MRC please Olive.’

‘Milne.’

‘It’s Ian Bannerman. I’m back at St Luke’s.’

‘Glad you made it back safely Doctor. What can I do for you?’

‘I requested that the shore at Inverladdie Farm be monitored for signs of radioactivity?’

‘Ah yes,’ replied Milne, with what Bannerman thought was a hint of embarrassment. ‘We did ask the Health and Safety Executive to do this …’

‘And did they?’ asked Bannerman.

‘They did, and they found nothing.’

‘Nothing,’ repeated Bannerman, feeling that there was more to come.

‘But … they did report that the area had been cleaned.’

‘Cleaned?’

‘Sprayed with detergent, recently.’

‘Damnation,’ said Bannerman. ‘There was no trace of detergent when I was there. They must have treated the area after I left.’

‘Unfortunately, there is no law against it,’ said Milne cautiously, as if fearing Bannerman’s response.

‘So they get away with it!’

‘I’m afraid so. There is no evidence that the shore was ever contaminated. I think we have to be philosophical about it Doctor.’

‘Quite,’ said Bannerman, and put down the phone. It rang again almost immediately. Bannerman snatched it and snapped, ‘Yes?’

‘Well hello to you too,’ said Stella.

‘Sorry Stella,’ said Bannerman, ‘I’m a bit …’

‘I can tell you’re a bit…,’ said Stella. ‘I phoned to see if we could have lunch. I’m not in theatre this afternoon.’

‘I see,’ said Bannerman. He hesitated for a moment trying to assemble his thoughts into some kind of order, but failed. His mind was a maelstrom.

‘Of course, if you’re too busy

‘No, no, I’m just a bit upset that’s all. Lunch will be fine. I’ll see you in the car-park at one?’

‘Look forward to it,’ said Stella and the line went dead.

Bannerman replaced the receiver slowly and tried to put thoughts of Achnagelloch out of his mind. He wondered what Stella would have to say about Shona when he told her. Would she be happy for him? Or would she see it as an opportunity for sophisticated sarcasm? He lit a cigarette and massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers. He opened his desk drawer to see if that was where the cleaner had hidden the ash tray and his eyes alighted on three microscope slides propped up in the slide rack in the corner. They were the slides sent to the MRC by Lawrence Gill and forwarded by the MRC, to him, for his opinion. The slides that had started the whole furore. He hadn’t returned them to the MRC. He decided to have another look and took them over to his microscope.

He focused on the first slide with a low power objective then swung the high power oil immersion lens into play. If anything it was even clearer than he had remembered it. A perfect illustration of the havoc wreaked on the human brain by Creutzfeld Jakob Disease. He read the little label on the end of the slide and saw that it had written on it in pencil, G. Buchan.

This information had been irrelevant the first time but now it meant something — as did the initials, MN on each of the slides. Morag Napier had prepared them. This section had been made from Gordon Buchan’s brain. Buchan had been the married sheep worker. He remembered seeing the cottage on Inverladdie where he and his wife May had lived. He wondered if May Buchan had come back from holiday yet and whether or not she was living with her parents in Stobmor as Sproat suggested she would. He scanned the brain section, looking at the cells which had once made the decisions in Gordon Buchan’s life.

A knock came to the door and Bannerman said, ‘Come in,’ without turning round.

‘Nice to see you back,’ said Charlie Simmons’ voice.

‘Hello Charlie, how are things?’ asked Bannerman, still without turning round.

‘No real problems. We had a bit of trouble with the freezing microtome but it’s been sorted out.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘It was cutting tissue sections too thick. It’s getting old. Maybe you could think about requesting a new one, or putting in a grant request to somebody?’

‘I’ll try Charlie,’ said Bannerman. He knew that hospital equipment funds had been used up for the current financial year and any request would just go into the queue for next year beginning in April. A grant request was a possibility however. Milne at the MRC had dangled that particular carrot before him, for whatever reason.

‘Are you taking back control of the lab immediately?’ asked Charlie.

Bannerman shook his head and said, ‘No, I’ll wait until Monday. I’ll ease myself back in gently.’

‘Karen’s leaving,’ said Charlie.

‘Why?’

‘She’s been offered a job in one of the private hospitals.’

‘More money?’

‘More money,’ agreed Charlie.

‘The hospital board will probably freeze the post,’ said Bannerman.

‘I was afraid of that,’ said Charlie, ‘but we’ll manage. We always do.’

‘I’ll press for a replacement as hard as I can,’ said Bannerman.

Charlie Simmons nodded and asked, ‘Anything interesting?’ He nodded in the direction of the microscope.

Bannerman got up and said, Take a look. Tell me what you see.’

Simmons adjusted the width of the eye-pieces and started to examine the slide. A few moments passed in silence then he said, ‘Extensive spongioform vacuolation … senile decay … and fibrils which I think might be SA fibrils … I’d go for Creutzfeld Jakob.’

‘Me too. This is the reason I went north. The slide was made from the brain of a thirty-year-old who died after a three week illness.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘That’s what I said when they first told me,’ said Bannerman. ‘In fact I still can’t get over it. That’s why I’m looking again.’

‘I’m glad it’s not April the first,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d never have believed you. I would have said someone had switched the slides.’

Bannerman put down his knife and fork; everything tasted like cardboard and the restaurant was unpleasantly crowded.

‘Not hungry?’ asked Stella who seemed not to notice.

It told Bannerman that there was nothing wrong with the food or the restaurant. It was the way he was feeling. ‘Not really,’ he replied.

‘You shouldn’t let it get to you like this,’ said Stella. ‘You did your best to get evidence. The main thing is that this mutant virus or whatever it was is now dead and gone.’

‘Like Lawrence Gill and the three men in Achnagelloch,’ said Bannerman.

‘From what you’ve told me, Gill could conceivably have slipped to his death. You don’t know for sure that he was murdered. As for the three sheep workers, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could happen to any of us.’

‘But the missing brain samples, the fire at the medical school — doesn’t that tell you something?’ asked Bannerman.

‘I agree that some skulduggery appears to have been going on but the fire could have been coincidence. Couldn’t it?’

‘I don’t believe it,’ replied Bannerman.

‘Maybe you don’t want to believe it,’ said Stella.

‘It’s not that simple,’ said Bannerman. ‘I didn’t imagine being assaulted. I didn’t imagine being shot at. The fairies didn’t slash the tyres on my car,’ protested Bannerman.

‘You said yourself that there was local feeling against you because of job fears,’ said Stella.

The local yobs wouldn’t have mounted a clean-up operation on the beach,’ said Bannerman. That would have required a management decision. You know the funny thing? I had almost written off any involvement of the power station until Milne told me about the clean-up this morning.’

‘You can’t read too much into that either,’ said Stella. ‘If the management at the power station thought you were going to make trouble they would be bound to clean up their act. That’s human nature. It’s like dusting before your mother-in-law arrives.’

‘So you don’t believe me,’ said Bannerman.

‘I believe, that you believe it,’ said Stella. ‘I’m just trying to get you to relax. It’s over. You did your best and from what you’ve told me there doesn’t seem to be a new disease to worry about, so why not let it drop?’

Bannerman nodded. He had no intention of letting it drop but he had no wish to continue talking about it.

‘So what else is new?’ asked Stella.

Bannerman smiled and said, ‘I met someone while I was away, a girl.’

‘Good for you,’ said Stella. ‘Is she special?’

‘I think so,’ replied Bannerman.

Then I’m happy for you,’ said Stella. Tell me about her. Is she young?’

‘Youngish,’ smiled Bannerman, thinking he detected a barb on the question. ‘Her name is Shona MacLean; she’s an artist. She makes me feel like I’ve never felt before. Alive, confident …’

‘Young?’ added Stella with an amused smile.

Bannerman shrugged his shoulders in disappointment at the question and Stella reached across the table to take both his hands. That was a joke silly,’ she whispered. ‘Really, I’m delighted for you. When do I get to meet her?’ ‘Soon, I hope,’ said Bannerman. ‘Very soon.’

Bannerman returned to his office and tried to stop thinking about Achnagelloch and its problems by concentrating on his work. Thinking it was about time that he make himself known to the locum the MRC had provided for the lab in his absence, he asked Olive about his whereabouts and was told that Dr Sherbourne was down in the PM room. That’s where I’ll be,’ said Bannerman.

From what Charlie Simmons had said on a previous occasion, Bannerman expected Sherbourne to be young. He looked like a schoolboy. He seemed totally out of place at work in the mortuary, looking like a first-rate advertisement for the land of the living. He was tall, good-looking, animated and exuded joie de vivre. He instantly made Bannerman feel a hundred years old. ‘Hello,’ said Sherbourne. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Dr Bannerman.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Sherbourne, becoming flustered. ‘Please excuse me. I heard you were back but I thought I would carry on until you said not to.’

‘Please do,’ said Bannerman. ‘I just came to introduce myself and say thank you for your efforts in my absence.’

‘A pleasure,’ said Sherbourne, looking as if he meant it. ‘It’s been most interesting. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it and it’s all been valuable experience.’

‘You intend to make pathology your career then?’

‘I certainly do,’ smiled Sherbourne who was about to make the first incision in the cadaver he had on the table. ‘I find it absolutely fascinating, but then you must feel that way too.’

Bannerman nodded without comment. He watched Sherbourne complete the cut and then change to rib shears to gain access to the internal organs. ‘Actually I want to be a forensic pathologist,’ said Sherbourne. ‘That’s my goal.’

His goal? thought Bannerman. He wants a life spent among mutilated corpses, headless torsos, semen stained clothing and last night’s vomit? That’s his goal? ‘I see,’ he said.

Sherbourne was about to drain the blood from the neck of the corpse when Bannerman stopped him. ‘Not that way,’ he said. ‘If you want to be a forensic pathologist you have to remember that signs of injury can be very hard to detect even after strangulation. You have to be very careful how you drain the blood. Watch.’ Bannerman took the knife from Sherbourne and made the incision for him.

‘Thank you!’ said Sherbourne enthusiastically. That’s exactly the kind of tip I need.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Bannerman. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

Bannerman returned to his office upstairs wondering about the younger generation and why he himself had become a pathologist. He wasn’t sure that he could remember clearly.