Dust to dust

EIGHTEEN

It was dark when Steven drew up at the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel. He was glad his working day had come to an end, pleased at his progress but tired after the long drive up from London and the interview of two key players in the drama — although interview was probably the wrong word to use in John Motram’s case. All he was looking forward to now was a long, hot shower, a couple of gin and tonics and a decent meal.

It was dark, but he could see how close the hotel was to the ruins of the abbey, and the fact that he could hear running water when he paused to look up at the night sky told him how close he was to the River Tweed. An idyllic setting, he thought.

In the exchange of small talk at the desk, Steven asked if the hotel was full.

‘It was last week, after what happened to Dr Motram, but now it’s back to normal — about a third full,’ came the reply. ‘It’ll start to pick up again around Easter.’

‘You knew Dr Motram?’ Steven asked, surprised at hearing the name mentioned.

‘He and his colleagues used to come in for coffee and sometimes lunch when they were on site. As you can see, we’re right next door. A nice man, much nicer than the press who turned up in their droves afterwards.’

Steven smiled.

‘Oh, God. You’re not a journalist are you?’

He laughed. ‘No. I’m sort of looking into what happened.’

‘Whew.’

‘Any chance of a room overlooking the abbey?’

‘No problem. I’ll give you the one all the journalists were after last week. It was like having a plague of locusts on the premises,’ said the girl. ‘But like all plagues, it moved on to pastures new.’

‘How about scientists?’ asked Steven, wondering about Porton Down’s reported interest. ‘Any of them around?’

‘If they were, they didn’t say.’

Steven took his time signing the register, running his eye down the list of names to see if any were familiar. None was. When he’d finished, the girl handed him his key. ‘The abbey should look good tonight,’ she said. ‘The skies are clear and there’s a full moon.’

Steven spent some time in the lounge after dinner, drinking coffee and brandy and reading tourist pamphlets about the abbey and the surrounding area. This, when allied with the fact that the moonlit abbey did indeed look wonderful from his window, decided him on going outside and taking a walk around for himself. He took a small plan of the ruins — courtesy of one of the pamphlets — with him.

He had discovered in his reading that the abbey was the resting place of both Sir Walter Scott and Field Marshal Douglas Haig, two very different characters. The famous novelist had romanticised the Scottish Highlands and its clan culture beyond all recognition, while the soldier had sent men to their death in their thousands in the hell that was the First World War — the war to end all wars that didn’t. Steven reflected on the disparity as he stood before Scott’s tomb, only a stone’s throw from Haig’s grave.

A frost was beginning to settle on the grass, accentuating the moonlight which was already wonderfully bright in an atmosphere free from air and light pollution. He moved on to the east end of the abbey, where he knew the chapter house to be, wanting to experience the atmosphere of a place which had seen so much history. Frost was sparkling on the east cloister stairs as he descended carefully and made his way round to the chapter house, where he stood at the head of a flight of stone steps leading down into darkness. There was a strong smell of wet plaster coming from below, and something else… Almost at the same time as he realised it was — after-shave lotion, he heard the metallic click of an automatic weapon being primed and flung himself backwards to roll over on the frosty grass and out of sight of whoever was down there.

He was scrambling to his feet, preparing to sprint to the cloister stairs but fearing he wouldn’t make it, when he heard the sound of male laughter. A voice said, ‘You’re fast, Dunbar, I’ll grant you that, and it’s just as well for me you don’t carry.’

Steven recognised the voice but couldn’t put a name to it. Whoever it was knew his name and also knew he didn’t carry a weapon — something he didn’t do on principle unless he knew his life to be in danger. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he snapped.

A tall man climbed the stone steps and out into the moonlight. Steven took in the high forehead and slightly protruding chin. ‘Ricksen, MI5,’ he exclaimed, recognising an intelligence officer he’d come across before. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re playing at?’

‘Couldn’t resist, old boy. I’ve just arrived. When I saw your name in the register and the girl on the desk told me you’d just stepped out for some air… well, like I say, I couldn’t resist putting you to the test.’

Steven felt angry but relieved at the same time. He occupied himself with brushing frost and grass from his clothes until he’d calmed down sufficiently to ask, ‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’

‘Babysitting,’ replied Ricksen. ‘Porton Down have a couple of their boffins coming in the morning. I’m here to look after them, make sure they get their samples or whatever it is that they want from down there.’ Ricksen inclined his head back towards the chapter house stairs. ‘What’s Sci-Med’s interest?’

‘We wanted to know what happened to John Motram.’

‘Scientists have nervous breakdowns all the time,’ said Ricksen. ‘What makes this one different is the fact that he had his in a seven-hundred-year-old Black Death tomb and the papers heard about it.’

‘I take it you haven’t heard yet,’ said Steven. ‘It wasn’t a breakdown. The lab boys have shown that Motram was poisoned with fungal spores.’

‘Well, that saves us all a lot of trouble,’ said Ricksen. ‘Also buggers up a good tabloid story, I’m delighted to say. Buy you a drink?’

‘After that performance, I think you owe me one.’

Steven took a last look out the window at the abbey ruins before drawing the curtains and getting into bed. He felt ill at ease about something but couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Maybe it was just the stupid joke that Ricksen had played on him, but somehow he felt it was more than that. He’d always had a slightly uneasy relationship with MI5. Ostensibly he and they were on the same side but there was an important difference: Sci-Med operated independently of government while MI5 were instructed by them. There had been occasions in the past where John Macmillan’s people had ruthlessly exposed what government and MI5 would have preferred be covered up. That made them a bit of a loose cannon in the eyes of the establishment, although successive governments had been quick to realise that any attempt to neutralise Sci-Med would be seized upon by Her Majesty’s opposition and used as a heaven-sent opportunity to make political capital.

As he lay in the darkness, Steven thought about the coming day. He would take a look at the burial chamber and then what? He’d originally planned to visit both Alan Blackstone and Les Smith but, in view of what the labs had found, there really didn’t seem to be much point. They could only tell him what Tony Fielding already had, and Kenneth Glass had more or less assured him that, apart from the fungal spores, there was nothing sinister lurking down there in the tomb.

He thought a bit more about the mycotoxin that appeared to have been the cause of Motram’s condition — a large dose, Glass had said, which made it all the more puzzling that the lab staff had failed to detect any more of the spores in the air samples they’d taken. Even if Glass had been right about Motram’s being unlucky and the spores being confined to the dusty remains of the cadaver he’d examined, he would have expected there to have been some evidence of them inside the chamber.