Deception (15 page)

Steven decided that he would ask Sci-Med to run a thorough check on Pentangle while he would pay a visit to McGraw and Littlejohn on the off chance that they might actually know the identity of the party who had commissioned the crop analysis. As he walked back along the towpath he again saw the security guard who had looked at him suspiciously earlier. He had stopped patrolling the southern edge of the field and was keeping an eye on his return.

As Steven came to a point directly opposite him he saw the man suddenly start hopping around in agitation and begin swearing loudly. ‘Fucking things!’ he exploded, letting fly with his boot at a rat that had run out from the crop and over his foot. He missed by a mile and the animal scampered up the bank and across the towpath into the canal.

‘
Bloody things are everywhere,’ said the guard, regaining his composure and now obviously feeling slightly embarrassed at his impromptu dance routine when it had been his intention to come across as intimidating.

‘
The living’s easy for them round here,’ said Steven. ‘Plenty to eat and a nice canal with no traffic on it.’

‘
Roll on harvest time and I can get my arse out of here,’ said the man. ‘I’ve heard jokes about watching grass grow. I never dreamed I’d be doing it for a living.’

Steven walked on and started thinking about the rat he’d just seen. He wondered why it had chosen to run over the guard’s foot. It was a strange thing for the beast to do when it had had plenty of alternatives. It could have exited from the rape field at just about any point along the edge and yet it had chosen to come out at the exact spot where the guard had been standing. Curious, but maybe not without precedent, he thought. The boy, Ian Ferguson, had been bitten by a rat for no apparent reason, according to what he and his chums had told the authorities at the time. It had been assumed that they must have cornered the animal in some way but maybe that hadn’t been the case after all? This line of thought started him thinking about the man in the Castle pub telling the others what the local vet had said about a puppy being attacked by rats. Again it had been assumed that the dog had come across a rat hole in the bank and got his just deserts for intimidating the creatures but again, this was an assumption. Maybe he would have a word with the vet about this. There was a lot of talk about a general increase in the size of the rat population, had anyone mooted a marked change in their behaviour? he wondered.

Steven drove over to the Blackbridge Arms and parked his car in the street outside after finding the car park full to overflowing. It was now almost two o’clock in the afternoon but he hoped he might still be able to get something to eat.

‘
Lunch is finished,’ said a skinny girl with rounded shoulders and lank hair, who happened to be crossing the hallway carrying a tray when he entered.

‘
Maybe a sandwich?’

‘
Lunch is finished, sir,’ she repeated with a smile so artificial it looked like rictus on the face of a corpse.

‘
Hey, ho,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Maybe I’ll just have a beer and a packet of crisps at the bar.’

‘
Please yourself.’

Steven had just looked into the door of the bar when a hand touched him on the shoulder and he turned to find Eve Ferguson standing there. ‘Sorry about Mona,’ she said. ‘We’ve been run off our feet today. The place is going like a fair because of all the ministry people but the owner refuses to take on any more staff, mainly because he’s a greedy git.’

‘
No problem,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll just have a beer.’

‘
Have a seat in the back lounge,’ said Eve conspiratorially. ‘I’ll bring you some sandwiches. Ham and cheese okay?’

‘
Just the job.’

Steven followed her directions to the ‘back lounge’ and found himself in a low-ceilinged room, furnished with a range of unmatched sofas and armchairs. It smelled of dust and Axminster carpets. There were several other men there, sitting round in a circle. They seemed to be having after-lunch coffee. Steven took a seat in an old winged armchair by the window that seemed to have been left as an orphan when the neighbouring group of men had formed their circle. He sat with his back to them.

As he waited for his sandwiches, he found their conversation interesting. Their suits and briefcases said that they were ministry people; their accents said that they were Scots. After a few minutes Steven learned that they were employees of the Scottish Executive.

‘
For once the lawyers were quite clear,’ said one. ‘To proceed with a destruction order without confirmation of disparity from the licence sequence is just asking for trouble.’

‘
But the licence sequence still hasn’t surfaced and frankly it doesn’t look like it’s going to. Let’s face it, MAFF’s licensing section haven’t
misplaced
it: they’ve
lost
the damned thing and that’s an end to it. We could be letting an illegal crop trial proceed with all the dangers that might pose, simply because we don’t have a missing piece of paper. If that gets out we’ll be pilloried by the press.’

‘
On the other hand,’ said another man, ‘if we do junk it, the company might well sue us and win.’

‘
We could always pass the buck to the Department of Health?’ came the suggestion.

‘
McKay won’t hear of it. It would be too damaging to the Scottish Parliament. Our people would be portrayed as lame-duck MPs with no real power of their own. I’m pretty sure he’s been instructed to make sure this is seen as a Scottish decision, made without any interference from Westminster.’

‘
But if this crop really isn’t the one they were licensed for it might really pose a risk to health . . . ’

‘
Forget it. McKay’s made up his mind. He won’t countenance any kind of hand-over. I think the minister has put his job on the line over it.’

Eve Ferguson came in and disturbed Steven’s eavesdropping. She was carrying a tray with a heaped plate of sandwiches and a beer on it, which she laid down on the table beside Steven’s chair.

‘
I didn’t think you’d be working today,’ whispered Steven.

‘
I thought I would be as well working here as sitting moping at home,’ said Eve. ‘Mum and Dad have each other. The funeral’s tomorrow.’

‘
How are they?’

Eve shrugged in reply.

Steven ate his sandwiches and continued to pick up snippets of information as he ate, still with his back to the talkative group and pretending to be looking out of the window. By the time the men filed out of the lounge to return to the various rooms that had been commandeered for use as committee rooms, he had a pretty good idea of the impasse. The Scottish Rural Affairs people, under their Blackbridge project leader, McKay, had marked out the problem as being very much within their jurisdiction. They had more or less said that he was under instructions from his minister to make this perfectly clear to the outside world; in fact, this appeared to be their prime objective as witnessed by an apparent reluctance to make any firm decision that went with the responsibility. They were clearly afraid of the risk of exposing themselves to litigation and probable ridicule if they lost. The Ministry of Agriculture people saw the problem as being within their province because they had actually authorised the Agrigene trial before the inception of the Scottish parliament, which was only months old. They seemed to regard Scottish Rural Affairs as being some new hick thorn in their side, not that it sounded as if they were any keener on making decisions than the Scottish lot were. The Department of Health, on the other hand, was anxious to take charge and make a decision but weren’t being allowed to because it could not clearly be established that the crop on Peat Ridge Farm was actually a health risk. Without that precondition and concession from Rural Affairs, they could not override them. Steven remembered Eve’s allusion to Gilbert and Sullivan at their first meeting and saw that she’d hit the nail on the head. This lot could go round in circles for ever.

Steven decide to drive into Edinburgh and see if there was anything to be gleaned from having a word with Rafferty’s solicitors about the ministry sponsored report on the Agrigene crop. Before he left, he took a look into several rooms before he found Eve Ferguson in the kitchen. ‘Just thought I’d say thank-you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘
You’re very welcome,’ said Eve. ‘How’s our environment doing these days?’

‘
I’m still looking into it.’

‘
You don’t seem to have much to do with the others,’ said Eve.

‘
We’re a solitary lot, we environmental people.’ smiled Steven.

Eve looked at him questioningly before saying in a child’s voice, ‘Who was that masked stranger, mummy?’

‘
That sort of thing.’

‘
Well, you’d best be off or Tonto will be getting tired waiting.’

‘
He’s an Indian. He can sit for days without moving a muscle.’

‘
A bit like my Tommy,’ said one of the women who were washing dishes at the sink. It made the others laugh. ‘I never realised he was an Indian. I just thought he was a lazy bastard.’

Eve accompanied Steven back out into the hall where she collected her coat from behind a door marked, Staff Only. ‘You’re off too?’ he asked.

‘
Lunchtime’s over,’ Eve replied. ‘But I’ll be back for dinners.’

‘
You couldn’t show me where the local vet lives, could you?’

‘
Of course, it’s not far. ‘Has Silver gone lame?’

Steven smiled. ‘No, I just need to ask him something.’

Eve showed him where James Binnie lived and then said good bye.

‘
I hope tomorrow’s not too awful for you,’ he said.

‘
Thanks,’ Eve replied, looking back over her shoulder.

Steven knocked on the door and waited. It was opened by Binnie’s wife. He asked if he could have a word with the vet.

‘
I’m afraid James is out at the moment. He went over to Kirkliston to look at a lame horse. Is it an emergency?’

Steven replied that it wasn’t. He just wanted to have a chat with the vet about something when he had a spare moment.’

‘
Can you be more specific?’ asked the woman.

‘
Everyone has been talking about an increase in the rat population. I wanted to hear a professional view of the situation.’

‘
And you are?’

Steven told her.

‘
Rats, eh? Well, I should think James would be delighted to talk to you about rats, Doctor Dunbar. Perhaps you might even persuade him to remove the one he put in the fridge the other night while you’re at it!’

Steven asked about this and was told about the attack on the Labrador puppy. It was the case he’d heard mentioned in the pub.

‘
Why the rat in the fridge?’ he asked.

‘
James said that he wanted the vet school in Edinburgh to take a look at the creature but he just hasn’t got round to taking it over yet, a familiar enough scenario,’ the woman smiled.

‘
Do you know why he wanted it examined?’

‘
He didn’t say. I think what worried him was the fact that he had another case of rat bite to deal with last week and then of course, there was the tragedy of young Ian Ferguson. I think James has started to wonder just what exactly is going on.’

Steven nodded and asked when he might call back.

‘
It will probably be after four by the time he gets back from Kirkliston,’ said Ann Binnie, ‘and then he’ll have to go over to Crawhill to see to Tom Rafferty’s dog.’

‘
Better him than me,’ said Steven.

‘
You know the dog?’

‘
I was at Crawhill this morning,’ said Steven. ‘I heard it. Made the Hound of the Baskervilles sound like a sissy.’

‘
Khan’s a bit of a handful, I’m afraid.’

‘
Looking for a bit of a mouthful, by the sound of it.’

Anyway, that’s going to keep James occupied for a bit. I think perhaps tomorrow morning might be best. He’ll be going to the Ferguson boy’s funeral at ten. Maybe some time when that’s over?’

‘
Fine,’ said Steven.

‘
I’ll tell him to expect you.

Steven walked back to his car and started out for Edinburgh and the offices of legal firm, McGraw and Littlejohn. Finding the building was easy enough but finding a place to park near it, in the Georgian heart of Edinburgh, was another matter. He did eventually find one but it was nearly half a mile on the north side of where he wanted to be. He fed the ticket machine with enough money for an hour and started to walk back uphill to Abercromby Place.

A solid black door furnished with brass knobs and nameplate gave access to an inner glass door, which gave way in turn to a wall with a sliding glass panel in it. Steven pressed the bell below it and a young girl slid back the panel. He showed his ID and said that he’d like to speak with the partner dealing with Thomas Rafferty of Crawhill Farm.

‘
Just a minute,’ said the girl, appearing puzzled.

It was the reply Steven expected. ‘The first person to ask you, ‘how can I help you,’ in any organisation was always guaranteed to be unable to do so. He heard the girl ask someone named Mrs Logan for help. Mrs Logan, a middle aged woman with wrinkled, parchment-yellow skin, appeared at the window and Steven made his request again. Once more he showed his ID.