by Ken McClure
The service was conducted by a Church of Scotland minister who had clearly known Sheila personally. His voice was deep and resonant and reached all corners of the church without difficulty. The result was an informative and affectionate biography of the woman and her work, so different, thought Dunbar, from the hastily cobbled together bits and pieces gleaned from relatives at the last moment that was usually the case in modern times. He learned that Sheila had spent long periods overseas in the early days of her nursing career, working in Third World countries. Her long, happy marriage to Cyril was held up as an example of the power of love. Her son, Peter, was mentioned but Dunbar got the distinct impression that the minister was back-pedalling on that issue. Like the matron at The Beeches, he was obviously aware of the family rift.
Dunbar could see in the front pew a man whom he took to be Peter Barnes. He stood slightly apart from the other main mourners, who might be Sheila’s brothers and sisters, judging by their age. It gave the impression that the rift went deeper than immediate family. Peter Barnes was tall and dark and, when he turned to look at the congregation, wore a slight smile as if amused at some private joke. Dunbar noted that his tie was not black but purple, as was the handkerchief in his top pocket. Although the colour was muted, it seemed strangely disrespectful.
Dunbar, who had kept well out of the way of close family and friends at the graveside, was almost the last to join the slow procession back along the gravel path leading to the churchyard gates. What appeared to be a general shunning of Peter Barnes meant that he too was on his own. Dunbar joined him and offered his condolences.
‘Thank you,’ replied Peter.
‘You didn’t manage to see your mother at The Beeches before she died, then?’
‘Unfortunately not,’ replied Peter. ‘My work takes me away a lot. It was a bit difficult to get up to Helensburgh.’
‘I see,’ replied Dunbar. He hesitated before saying, ‘I know it’s not really any of my business, but if it’s any comfort your mother mistook me for you on my last visit. I let her think I was you. She was very pleased. She died believing you two had made it up.’
Peter smiled and said, ‘Thank you for telling me that, Mr…?’
‘Dunbar. Steven Dunbar.’
‘That gives me a great deal of comfort. Can I ask what your business was with my mother?’
‘I had to ask her a few things about her time at the Medic Ecosse Hospital, just to complete some paperwork I was doing.’
‘Ah, paperwork,’ said Peter Barnes in a way that suggested a sneer to Dunbar. He could understand why people didn’t take to the man. What is it you do, Mr Barnes?’ he asked.
‘I work on the design of warships.’
‘That sounds interesting. All aspects or one in particular?’
‘Radiation containment.’
Dunbar swallowed hard. He felt the, hairs on the back of his neck start to prickle. ‘Really?’ he said then cleared his throat against the tightness that had crept in. ‘Might I ask what company you work for?’
‘Baxters, on Tyneside.’
As soon as he got back to his hotel, Dunbar called Macmillan in London and told him what he now knew.
‘I agree, it goes beyond the realms of coincidence,’ said Macmillan. ‘This Barnes character could have plotted the deaths of his own parents so he could inherit. He must have thought he was going to get away with it, too. It was damn nearly foolproof. Would you like me to arrange for all the information to be handed over to the Glasgow police?’
‘I’d be grateful,’ replied Dunbar. ‘I’ve no heart for it. The case has nothing to do with what I’m interested in any more.’
‘Don’t get too down about it,’ said Macmillan. ‘You’ve just solved a double murder, and an unusual one at that.’
‘But not the double murder I’m interested in,’ said Dunbar.
***
‘You’re telling me that Sheila wasn’t murdered to keep her quiet after all?’ said Lisa.
‘Afraid not,’ he said. ‘In retrospect, I suppose it was wrong from the outset. If you want to kill someone to keep them quiet, you don’t choose a slow death. That’s more the style of someone who wants to make the death seem natural, the perfect crime committed by someone who can afford to wait a little.’
‘Like her own son,’ said Lisa with disgust.
‘Take a look at life again soon,’ said Dunbar.
‘So now you have nothing at all to go on against Medic Ecosse,’ said Lisa.
Dunbar shrugged and said, ‘Nothing except the word of two nurses and one of them’s now dead.’
‘The remaining one knows what she’s talking about,’ said Lisa firmly.
FOURTEEN
Dunbar decided to look at some of Ross’s published research before going out to Vane Farm; it might help him understand what he found there. Sci-Med had supplied him with reprints of Ross’s most recent papers, but he’d put them to one side until now. There were four, three on animal work and a fourth on something called ‘Immuno-preparation’, which he left in the file while he concentrated on what he thought the more relevant stuff.
He suspected he might find it hard going but Ross had a good writing style and presented his data in straightforward fashion. What really helped was the fact that one of the papers was a review article about current work in the field. Like all scientific reviews, it was aimed at scientists but not confined to those working in the same field. Technical detail was therefore kept to a minimum.
Ross’s papers made it clear that he believed the use of animal organs — pigs’ in particular — for human transplant was the way ahead. It would eliminate the awful uncertainty of patients having to wait for a human organ to become available, with the attendant moral dilemma of wishing misfortune on someone else. It would also obviate the continual struggle to convince an unwilling public that carrying donor cards was a good idea when their gut instinct told them otherwise. It was seen as tempting fate; courting disaster.
Whenever the medical profession made any headway in that direction, it seemed, a story would break about the recovery of some coma patient who had been declared brain-dead by the experts. This awakened fears akin to the age-old dread of being buried alive. Only now people imagined their organs being removed while they were still conscious but unable to communicate.
A further advantage of using animal organs, according to Ross, was that the donor animal could be kept alive until the very moment the organ was needed. It would therefore be well oxygenated and ‘fresh’. There would be no more rushing to and fro across the globe with tissue decaying in transit with each passing hour. There would be no more hoping against hope that unforeseen delays would not render vital organs useless. An added bonus was that the social and moral problems associated with hospitals ‘delaying’ the death of putative donors by keeping them on life-support machines, solely to keep their organs in good condition, would become a thing of the past.
The main focus of the research was the immunological problem associated with the introduction of foreign tissue. Like tissues from any other source, animal organs had to be made compatible with the patient’s own immune system, otherwise they would quickly be rejected as alien material, causing the transplant to fail and the patient to die. Ross’s experimental work had shown that it was possible to breed pigs with the immune system of a human patient in addition to their own. This scenario would ensure that the pig’s organs would be perfectly acceptable to the patient whose immune system the pig had been given. This was all experimental, of course, qualitative work performed to establish the validity of theory. The idea of preparing a pig donor for each and every human being in case they should need a transplant at some time in their life was beyond practicality. The morality of it was another issue.
Dunbar wondered if it could possibly have been attempted for selected individuals at Medic Ecosse, but concluded not. The timescale would have been all wrong for cases like Amy Teasdale or Kenneth Lineham. These patients had come to Medic Ecos
se already very ill and needing transplants quickly.
The more he read, the more depressed he felt. Unless Ross had made some great secret leap forward in technology there would have been no point in attempting to transplant pig organs into human patients. Rejection would have been almost guaranteed. Had Ross made such a breakthrough? He hoped to find out at Vane Farm.
Douglas was already in the Crane when Dunbar arrived at five to eight. They shook hands and sat down on the same seats as last time.
‘How’d you get on?’ Dunbar asked.
‘It looks possible. The staff are all gone by ten o’clock. That just leaves two security men in the gate-house. They’re supposed to patrol the grounds every half-hour but they were a bit lax after midnight. They probably rely on the electric fence doing its job.’
‘Electric fence?’ exclaimed Dunbar.
‘Nothing too desperate,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s more of an alarm than a line of defence. Low voltage. We can bridge it easily.’
‘How about the building itself?’
‘That’s our biggest problem. We can’t use a window — there aren’t any — and the door has an electronic lock.’
‘But you said it was possible.’
‘I think it’s possible,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s going to depend on this.’ He took from his pocket a small piece of plastic the size of a credit card. It was unmarked save for a strip of magnetic tape across it.
‘A key?’
‘We’ll call it that if it works.’
‘Did you make it?’
‘Let’s say an acquaintance did. I persuaded him to take time off from giving the Bank of Scotland a hard time to manufacture it for me.’
‘Won’t there be a code number attached to the lock as well?’ asked Dunbar.
Douglas nodded. ‘The code is entered on tone buttons. I recorded the tones when one of the guards went into the building. I know the number.’
‘And if the key doesn’t work?’
‘Then it’s up to you. We could take out the guards and use their passkey.’
‘No violence,’ said Dunbar.
‘Please yourself.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight, if you’re up for it.’
Dunbar nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘When and where?’
Douglas looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Have you done anything like this before?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have,’ replied Dunbar. He didn’t volunteer anything else and Douglas didn’t ask. He simply nodded and gave directions on how to get to the yard of a disused suburban railway station on the north side of the city. He could leave his car there and they would go on to Vane Farm in Douglas’s Land-Rover.
‘Just in case we have to rough it across country later,’ said Douglas. ‘Do you need clothing?’
‘I’ve got dark stuff,’ replied Dunbar. ‘I could use a balaclava, though.’
‘No problem. Gloves?’
‘I’ve got gloves.’
‘One o’clock, then.’
Dunbar returned to his hotel room and turned on the television while he looked out the clothing he was going to wear later and laid it on the bed. He needed some noise as a distraction from thinking about the repercussions if something should go wrong. Scottish Television was showing an episode of Taggart. A body was being pulled from the Clyde to the accompaniment of glum faces and bad jokes. This was not the sort of distraction he needed; he switched off the television and turned the radio on instead, tuning it to Classic FM. Mozart’s Horn Concerto would do.
At half-past midnight Dunbar checked his pockets for the last time, then left his room and walked quietly along to the lift. Adrenalin was starting to flow. He handed his key to the night clerk, who acknowledged it with a nod before returning to his paperback. Dunbar was pleased at his lack of interest.
The directions Douglas had given him were excellent; concise and to the point. He had no difficulty in finding the station yard; it was seven minutes to one when he turned into it. The traffic at that time of night had been negligible. He drove slowly round the yard, his lights illuminating the undergrowth that was encroaching on the pot-holed tarmac. He backed into a secluded corner where he could watch the entrance, and turned out his lights.
The moon slid out from behind a thin cloud curtain to light up the ribbon of road leading uphill from the car park and out into the country. It was nearly full tonight. The last time he’d watched the moon like this had been in the Iraqi desert. He and the others had been waiting for it to disappear before moving off. He was trying to recall the names of his companions that night when he heard the sound of a car approaching. At first he thought the vehicle was going to pass by, but at the last moment it slowed and turned into the car park. Dunbar was momentarily blinded by its headlights as it swung round, then turned slightly to the side. He switched on his own lights and saw that it was a darkgreen Land-Rover. He got out, locked his car and hurried over to join Douglas.
‘Found it all right, then?’ asked Douglas.
‘No problem.’
They drove in silence until Douglas said, ‘That’s it coming up on our left. We’ll drive past. There’s a farm turn-off about three hundred yards ahead. We’ll leave the Land-Rover there.’
Dunbar saw the headlights pick out the sign ‘Vane Farm Animal Welfare Institute’ as they passed. He smiled wryly.
‘That is the place?’ asked Douglas, sounding a little worried.
‘Oh yes, that’s the place. I was just taken with the name, that’s all.’
‘They’re all doing it these days,’ said Douglas, catching on. ‘I suppose it would be asking for trouble to call it Vivisection House or the Institute for Cutting up Wee Furry Things for No Good Reason.’
‘Quite so.’
‘What do they work on there?’
‘Pigs.’
‘Not quite as appealing as bunny rabbits in the emotional stakes, but I guess it doesn’t matter too much to the nutters.’
‘Has there been much trouble with animal activists up here?’ asked Dunbar.
‘A fair bit. They burned down a lab over in Edinburgh a few months ago and a couple of researchers got parcel bombs sent to them. They’re going to kill somebody soon.’
Douglas turned the Land-Rover off the road and parked it a little way down the farm track. He turned out the lights and said, ‘Time to go to work.’ He reached behind him and lifted over a small rucksack and two black balaclavas. He handed one to Dunbar and both men put them on.
‘We’ll go back by the field, hugging the hedgerow until we reach the farm perimeter, then head north along the wire to the northeast corner and go through the wire there. Okay?’
‘Understood.’
Douglas handed Dunbar a pair of wire-cutters and said, ‘I’ll bridge the circuit. You cut the wire.’
They locked the vehicle and slipped quickly off the track down a slight embankment and into the field, where they courted the shadow of the roadside hedge as they made their way back to Vane Farm. Douglas, who led the way, held up his hand and both men dropped to their knees. Dunbar could see the farm gate-house. Through the large, well-lit windows he could see two men. They appeared to be reading.
Douglas gestured to his right and Dunbar followed him as they made their way to the furthest corner of the fence. When they reached the corner-post Douglas removed his rucksack and took out a pair of cables, each with a large crocodile clip on either end. He connected them both in the form of big loops to the fence and Dunbar cut the wire at two places inside the loops so that the electrical circuit was not broken. They separated the severed wires and crawled through the gap, Douglas first, followed by Dunbar after he had re-packed the wire-cutters and passed Douglas’s rucksack through to him.
Douglas signed that they crawl on their bellies from here on. Dunbar felt this was being a bit over-cautious but he was happy to have a companion who was inclined this way rather than the other. He complied without comment. They crawled side by side up to the main build
ing, using their elbows to propel them over the rough ground.
From their position just short of the main door they could see the gate-house. One of the guards was sitting reading a newspaper, facing in their direction. If he looked up while they were unlocking the door, he would see them. Douglas looked at his watch and whispered, ‘Let’s wait a bit. See if he moves.’
Minutes passed and the guard showed no sign of becoming bored with his paper. Douglas and Dunbar exchanged grimaces but steeled themselves to continue the wait. Another ten minutes had gone by before the guard made a play of folding up his paper and picking up a kettle. He got up from his chair and disappeared from view.
‘Let’s do it!’ said Douglas, getting to his feet and running up to the door to insert his card. He punched in the number code while Dunbar looked anxiously towards the gate-house, fearing the imminent return of the guard. The lock stayed shut.
‘C’mon, c’mon!’ muttered Douglas as he re-inserted the card and tried again. Still nothing happened.
‘We’re running out of time!’ hissed Dunbar through his teeth.
Douglas tried once more with the same result just as Dunbar said, ‘He’s back!’
Both men dived headlong to the ground and looked towards the gate-house to see if they had been spotted. The guard opened his paper and sat down.
‘What do we do now?’ whispered Dunbar.
Douglas looked towards the gate-house and said, ‘We could take them?’
Dunbar shook his head. ‘Let’s take a look round the building. There might be another way in.’
‘No windows, no other doors,’ said Douglas. ‘I reccied it, remember?’
‘Humour me,’ said Dunbar. He led the way round to the back of the building, where they were out of sight of the gate-house. They crawled along the back wall, which was featureless apart from a large, square pipe about halfway along.
‘What do you suppose that is?’ Dunbar asked.
‘Some kind of waste pipe?’
