‘I was just following the rules, sir,’ he said to Bannerman.
So were the guards at Auschwitz, thought Bannerman.
‘Any particular order sir?’ asked the attendant.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied Bannerman, taking off his shoes and putting on Wellingtons. He gowned-up while the attendant brought the first body through the narrow, tiled corridor leading from the vault and slid it on to the table. The light above the table stuttered into being and produced a background hum as Bannerman, fastening the last of the ties on his gown, walked up to the table and peeled back the shroud.
Even if no one had told him beforehand, he could have guessed that the dead man had had an outdoor occupation and that it involved physical effort. Despite the pallor of death there were still signs of a ruddy complexion, and the muscular development of his legs was marked. A jagged, dark line round his skull indicated where the skull cap had been removed when Gill had carried out the previous post-mortem.
‘I’ll need some specimen containers,’ Bannerman said to the attendant, who was keeping his distance.
‘What type?’
‘Glass, one ounce, Universal.’
The attendant brought four containers to the head of the table while Bannerman removed the top of the skull. He picked up a scalpel and forceps from the instrument tray that had been opened for him and looked inside the skull cavity. He felt stupid. There was nothing there!
Feeling as if he had been given a bad line to say in an amateur production, Bannerman said to the attendant, ‘Where is the corpse’s brain?’
‘If it’s not in his head, I don’t know, sir,’ replied the attendant, with an apparently straight face.
‘I take it you were not in attendance when Dr Gill carried out the first autopsy?’
‘No sir. I’m just weekends.’
‘Are copies of the reports kept down here?’
‘No, sir.’
Bannerman hadn’t really imagined that they would be. It was a forlorn hope. He was beginning to feel as though he was running in soft sand. ‘Put him back. I’ll check the other two.’
The story was the same with the other two cadavers. The brains had been removed and, by the look of them, the cranial cavities had been cleaned out afterwards.
Bannerman washed and went upstairs to see if he could find someone to give him Morag Napier’s telephone number. If he couldn’t, then it would mean another call to Stoddart. In the event he saw a light on in one of the labs and knocked on the door. He was invited to enter by a foreign sounding voice. He learned that Dr Klaus Lehman was on an exchange visit from the Max Plank Institute in Germany to work on a research project on allergies. Bannerman said he hoped that he would be able to talk to him about his project at some later date, but in the meantime, did he know if there was a staff telephone list? Lehman said that there was and that he had a copy.
The phone rang eight times before Morag Napier answered. ‘You caught me in the bath,’ she complained.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s important. I couldn’t find any details about the animal tests that you and Dr Gill must have set up on the brains of the three men from Achnagelloch. You must have left the notes out of the file.’
There was a pause before Morag Napier said, ‘I gave you everything there was in Lawrence’s desk. I wasn’t involved with the animal tests.’
‘But surely you must know what animal tests he set up?’ said Bannerman.
‘I’m afraid not.’
Bannerman tapped the heel of his right hand against his forehead in suppressed frustration. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where is the animal lab, and will there be someone there today?’
Morag told him where the lab was and added, ‘One of the technicians will be in around noon.’
‘Good,’ said Bannerman. ‘Now can you tell me where the brains of the dead men are?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Morag. ‘The bodies are in the mortuary.’
‘But their brains aren’t,’ said Bannerman.
‘Lawrence must have removed them.’
‘Where would he keep them?’
There’s a fridge-freezer in Lawrence’s lab. He sometimes stores specimens in that until they are no longer current.’
‘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.