Free Crisis by Ken McClure Page B

inoculation. I understand the men’s bodies are in the medical school here in Edinburgh. I’ll take the samples myself.’
    ‘We’d be delighted to help in any way,’ said Munro. The sooner we got this sorted out the better.’
    Thanks. I’ll get them to you as quickly as I can.’
    Bannerman put down the phone and cursed under his breath. What the hell was Gill playing at? He must have seen the awful implications in the men’s deaths, and yet he had failed to send samples to Munro’s Unit, and he had picked this very moment to bugger off with some dolly-bird. ‘Clown!’ he murmured. He called Stoddart to be told by his secretary that he had left for the day. He looked at his watch and muttered, ‘Short day George.’ He remembered that he would be seeing him later for dinner. He could ask about it then.
    The Stoddarts lived in a spacious Georgian Flat in Edinburgh’s new town, the elegant area to the north of the castle and Princes Street, favoured by the pro fessional classes. The room was freezing. Bannerman had to exercise great restraint in not rubbing his arms to keep the circulation going. A ‘small problem’ with the hearing, as George Stoddart called it, had been compensated for by placing a single-bar electric fire at the head of the dining-room. In a room which was thirty feet long and something like fourteen feet high, this did not make a lot of difference.
    The room was also oppressively quiet. Bannerman was the only guest, since Morag Napier and her fiancé£ had had to call off at the last moment. Every clink of the cutlery seemed to resound in the long silences that punctuated the meal between infrequent, staccato bursts of polite con versation.
    Bannerman gathered, when introduced to Stoddart’s wife, that she did not have a medical background. He therefore thought it improper to pursue the subject of brain pathology while eating the haggis which the Stoddarts had thought appro priate to welcome him to Scotland. He had managed to glean, however, that she was a leading light of the university wives’ ‘Friends of Rumania’ circle, and did his best to make conversation about that.
    Stoddart seemed totally uninterested in anything his wife had to say and would interrupt, at will, with completely unrelated observations. ‘Of course I’m a pituitary man myself,’ he suddenly announced in the middle of a discussion about orphanage conditions. ‘Really?’ said Bannerman, embarrassed on behalf of Stoddart’s wife, who looked down at the table cloth and appeared to be holding her tongue in check.
    ‘1 suppose you’re familiar with my work?’ asked Stoddart.
    ‘Of course,’ lied Bannerman, thinking it must have been twenty years since Stoddart had last published anything.
    Stoddart saw this as his cue to launch into an after-dinner lecture on his life’s work.
    Bannerman sought solace in the brandy while nodding at appropriate intervals and sneaking sur reptitious glances at his watch. When, eventually, Mrs Stoddart asked to be excused so that she could begin clearing the table, Bannerman took the opportunity to interrupt Stoddart and find out what he wanted to know.
    ‘Professor, I must ask you, what animal tests were set up on the brains of the three men from Achnagelloch?’
    Stoddart adopted a serious expression. He thought for a moment, and then said, ‘1 think you would have to ask Lawrence Gill that.’
    ‘But I can’t can I?’ said Bannerman.
    ‘I suppose not,’ agreed Stoddart. Then I suppose Dr Napier would be your best bet.’
    ‘You haven’t been taking an interest in this inves tigation yourself then?’ asked Bannerman.
    ‘I’m the collator for the MRC survey figures, of course,’ said Stoddart, with comfortable self-importance.
    ‘I see,’ said Bannerman, who was seething inside. Jesus Christ, he thought. He’s confronted with something like this and he’s collating the figures. If ever there was a candidate for early retirement, he was currently listening to