Bannerman felt embarrassed that he had not thought of trying the door first. It confirmed his suspicion that he had no talent for cloak and dagger activities. What was required was a cool calculating mind. He was a bundle of nerves and his pulse rate was topping a hundred and twenty. He tiptoed into the room where MacLeod said that he would leave the equipment he would need for the brain biopsy on Turnbull. There was enough light coming in from the street lamps for him to find it without trouble. Surgical gloves, 50 ml capacity disposable syringes, wide-gauge needles, alcohol impregnated swabs and a range of specimen containers. Everything he needed to extract a sample of the dead man’s brain.
Bannerman’s pulse was still thumping as he collected the equipment together on a stainless steel tray and prepared to take it down into the cellar. As he lifted it he heard a sudden thumping sound from somewhere in the building. He nearly dropped the tray. Had MacLeod come back after all? The noise happened again and Bannerman was prompted to call out, ‘Dr MacLeod? Is that you?’
There was no reply.
Bannerman felt unease grow inside him until it tightened his stomach muscles. For God’s sake get a grip! he told himself. There are sounds in all buildings at night. Central heating noises, fridges switching on and off. You can hardly be afraid of the dead, you’re a pathologist for God’s sake! Get down into that cellar, get the needle biopsy over and done with and you can be on your way to Edinburgh in the morning.
Bannerman opened the door to the cellar and moved forward cautiously. He couldn’t risk putting on a light until the door was safely closed behind him for fear that it would be seen from the street. Once more, he noticed the sudden change in temperature as he descended the stone steps. Another sound! A small shuffling sound. Surely it couldn’t be rats at the body? He listened for the tell-tale scurry of paws. Silence. stood on the second last step and looked around the cellar. Nothing moved in the floor area lit by the single lamp but there were several dark corners. The sheet covered corpse lay undisturbed on its bench in the middle of the room. There was however, one loose fold of sheet on the right side of the head. Bannerman could have sworn that he had tucked the sheet round the head securely. He stared at it, his mind racked with unease.
He laid the instrument tray down by the side of the body and took off his coat. He rolled up his sleeves and put on a pair of surgical gloves, stretching his fingers and snapping the material back on his wrists to make sure the fit was perfect. He donned a second pair. There was no point in taking any risks with a disease as deadly as this. He fitted one of the wide-gauge needles aseptically on to a syringe and put the sterile plastic needle guard back on while he unwrapped the head of the corpse.
As he touched the sheet Bannerman experienced a moment of sheer terror; the corpse suddenly sat up straight. He could do nothing but stare wide eyed and open mouthed at the unfolding nightmare before him. The corpse’s head, still covered with the sheet, turned slowly towards him and suddenly hit him full in the face with a vicious head-butt. Pain exploded inside Bannerman’s head and consciousness was lost in a galaxy of stars.
FOURTEEN
Bannerman came to with a blinding headache and the taste of grit in his mouth. He sat up slowly, spat the dirt out and gingerly touched his face to discover that his nose had been broken. He let out a grunt of pain as the bone moved under the skin. There was a good deal of congealed blood on his face but, as far as he could determine, there was no further serious damage. His ribs felt fine and his teeth were intact so it seemed that the assault had been confined to the single head-butt that had laid him out. He looked about him and saw that he was now alone in the room. The ‘corpse’ had gone.
Painfully, he got to his feet and deduced from the stiffness in his limbs that he must have been lying in the same position for some considerable time. He had to pause half-way up the stairs and knelt for a moment when he felt consciousness start to slip away from him again. He tried putting his head between his knees to improve blood circulation but a protest from his aching head overruled the move. He compromised by resting for a moment before continuing upstairs to telephone Angus MacLeod.
‘Who did you say did it?’ said MacLeod, thinking that he hadn’t heard right.
‘The corpse, well, of course, it wasn’t the corpse, it was someone pretending to be the corpse. Oh Christ, just get over here will you,’ he snapped. He immediately regretted it but, for the moment, the pain in his head was dictating his behaviour. He found a bathroom and examined the damage to his face in the mirror. The blood made it look much worse than it actually was and he recoiled from the sight that met him. He looked as if he had just been a spectacularly unsuccessful contender for the heavyweight championship of the world. ‘Lucky punch Harry,’ he murmured in true British heavyweight style. ‘Lucky punch.’
MacLeod arrived and called out his name.
‘In here,’ croaked Bannerman.
MacLeod came into the bathroom and immediately took over. ‘Let me do that,’ he insisted. ‘Come through here. It’ll be more comfortable.’ He led Bannerman to one of the treatment rooms where he set about cleaning up his face and resetting his broken nose. ‘You’re going to have two lovely black eyes in the morning,’ he said. ‘You can get dark glasses at MacPhail’s in the High Street.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bannerman sourly. ‘I found the front door unlocked when I arrived. Did you forget to lock it?’
‘On the contrary, I distinctly remember locking it,’ said Macleod.
Bannerman nodded. ‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘Whoever broke in tonight was inside when I arrived. It never even occurred to me to think that someone had picked the lock. ‘I assumed you had left it open.’
‘Should I call the police?’ asked MacLeod.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Bannerman, thinking the local constabulary would make of it all.
‘But Turnbull’s body. It’s gone.’
‘And I don’t think we’ll see it again,’ said Bannerman. ‘Whoever removed it obviously suspected that I’d try to get to the body for path specimens, permission or no permission, and they were right. They even saw me arrive to carry out what amounts to an illegal procedure. It could be argued that I am a bigger criminal than they are. They will maintain that they were only seeing that the grieving widow’s wishes were respected.’
‘Difficult,’ said MacLeod. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Sleep,’ replied Bannerman, touching the bridge of his nose as if it were a butterfly’s wing. ‘I need some sleep.’
Bannerman woke early. The wind had disturbed him by attempting to rattle his bedroom window out of its frame as the latest gale swept in from the Atlantic to funnel through the streets of Stobmor. ‘Bloody country,’ he murmured as he lay listening to the sound which alternated between a moan and a howl according to wind velocity. After a few minutes he decided it would be better to get up. There was an electric kettle in the room in deference to the fashion for ‘tea making facilities’ in hotel bedrooms. He got up and switched it on. He checked the range of sachets beside the kettle while it boiled. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate. They all had one thing in common; they had obviously been lying in the room for a very long time. The packs were all brittle. Bannerman guessed that they had seen summer come and go in Stobmor. He tore open a sachet of instant coffee and braced himself for the taste. He was wise to do so. The ‘coffee’ tasted like salt water laced with floor sweepings and cigarette ash.
A couple of sips proved enough. He poured the contents of the cup down the wash-hand basin and caught sight of himself in the mirror. He drew his finger lightly round the dark purple circles under both eyes. ‘Good Lord,’ he murmured. ‘If London Zoo are looking for a new panda, you’re in with a chance.’