‘I think you may well have put your finger on it,’ said Binnie. ‘The Ferguson boy getting bitten, a puppy being attacked and little incidents like you witnessed up at the field and of course, what happened at the cemetery this morning. It’s been adding up. It’s not just that there are many more of the damned things; there has been a change in their behaviour as well. I’m convinced of it.’
‘Any idea why?’
Binnie shrugged. ‘I suppose it could be that the increase in numbers has made them a bit more aggressive. Maybe they are behaving like crowded city dwellers. This could be the first recorded incidence of rat-rage!’
Steven sipped his drink and considered for a moment. ‘Your wife said you were going to ask a vet pathologist at the university to take a look at one of them?’
‘She’s been at you to help get it out of the fridge, right? I might have known it,’ smiled Binnie.
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, it won’t do any harm to have one dissected and get an idea of the local population’s general health and state of nourishment’
‘What about toxicology?’ asked Steven. He said it calmly but he knew that he was upping the stakes considerably.
‘I hadn’t really thought about that,’ said Binnie, looking at him as if trying to read his mind. ‘What exactly were you thinking of?’
‘Nothing in particular,’ lied Steven for a nightmare thought had just come into his head and he was now trying to manipulate Binnie into doing something that otherwise he might have to do himself. ‘I was just thinking of it as a… precaution.’
Binnie however, was an intelligent man. His eyes widened as the same thought came to him. ‘My God,’ he said in a whisper. ‘You’re thinking about the GM crop aren’t you?’
‘Just a thought,’ said Steven.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Binnie. ‘But I suppose it’s a possibility! I bet they never had this sort of thing in mind at their endless seminars about the unknown effects of GM crops on biodiversity.’
‘Quite,’ said Steven. ‘I suspect they were thinking more about hedgerows and wild flowers and butterflies and the like. I take it they have been treating the crop up on Peat Ridge with glyphosphate herbicides?’
Binnie nodded. ‘And glufosinate.’
‘Powerful stuff,’ said Steven.
‘It is,’ agreed Binnie. ‘Farmers haven’t been able to use them freely before so no one knows much about possible side effects. I understand a couple of monitors came along from MAFF to see that they did not contaminate the perimeter ground outside acceptable margins.’
‘But the rats have been running in and out of the field itself,’ protested Steven. ‘The margins were irrelevant in their case.’
‘I can see that,’ said Binnie. ‘My God, if you’re right and the change in animal behaviour is due to the switch to powerful weedkillers, this could spell disaster for herbicide resistant GM crops! There must be millions tied up in them.’
‘I suggest we say and do nothing until you get the report back from the vet school?’ said Steven. ’If the merest suspicion of this were to get out it could wipe millions off the shares of GM companies.
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Binnie. ‘Apart from that, we’d have a bloody riot on our hands right here. The locals would take things into their own hands as they’ve been threatening to do for weeks.’
‘When will you take the rat over to the Vet school?’
‘Right now would seem like a good time,’ said Binnie, getting up from his chair.
Steven looked at the glass in his hand.
‘I’ve just had the one,’ said Binnie.
Out in the hall, Binnie put on his jacket and called out to his wife to say where he was going. Ann Binnie came downstairs and said, ‘I’m impressed, Dr Dunbar. It’s only taken you ten minutes to get him to do what I’ve been trying for days. You must let me into your secret.’
Steven walked back to his car and waved to Binnie as he passed him in his Volvo, heading off for Edinburgh. Steven drove off up the road between Crawhill and Peat Ridge, intending to do the same but slowed when he saw Eve Ferguson walking up the road ahead of him; her red hair was unmistakable. As he drew nearer he could tell from her demeanour that she was upset. Her hands were sunk deep into her coat pockets and she was hanging her head. Steven drew to a halt beside her and looked across. She walked on as if unaware that he was even there. He parked the car and got out to walk beside her. ‘Penny for them,’ he said.
She glanced sideways and said, ‘I didn’t realise it was you. I don’t really want to speak to anyone right now.’
‘Not even a stranger?’
‘Well, maybe a stranger,’ she conceded after a short pause.
They turned off the road to join the canal towpath. ‘I heard what happened,’ Steven said. ‘James Binnie told me.’
Eve shook her head. ‘It was awful,’ she said. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how bloody awful it was. Mum and Dad should have been able to look back on today as the day their son was put to rest with respect and dignity. Instead they’ll have nightmares about it for the rest of their lives. I hope McNish rots in… Oh God, no I don’t. What an awful thing to say. Oh my God…’
Eve stopped walking and broke down in tears. Steven wrapped his arm round her and drew her to him. ‘It’s all right,’ he soothed. ‘You didn’t mean it.’
‘Why am I having this conversation?’ asked Eve through her tears. ‘I don’t even believe in anything. Yes I do. Oh God, I don’t know what I believe any more.’
There were more tears until eventually Eve calmed down and got back her composure. Steven shushed her as she started to apologise. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘Remember, I’m a stranger. Just say what you feel. Let it all come out.’
They walked on for a bit and then Eve said slowly and deliberately, ‘When I heard that they’d taken McNish from the canal, I was so pleased.’ She paused, obviously having difficulty getting the words out. ‘Until today, I’ve never understood these people you see outside courts on the news,’ she continued. ‘You know, the ones leaping up and down and spraying champagne all over the place when the criminal who murdered their husband, wife, son, or whoever, goes down for life, but now I do. That’s exactly how I felt when I heard about McNish. I actually felt delighted. I didn’t know I could feel like that about anyone’s death.’
‘And now you’re hating yourself for feeling that way?’
‘In a word, yes.’
‘Don’t. Nothing you said or did or felt under the conditions you found yourself in today has any relevance to the real, rational Eve Ferguson. The phrase, “while the balance of his or her mind was temporarily disturbed” doesn’t only apply to people who’ve committed crimes, you know. It’s something that can happen to all of us under extreme pressure. The real you is the one talking now.’
Eve dried her eyes and blew her nose. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You seem to know rather a lot about these things. You’re not some kind of doctor, are you?’
‘Not a practising one.’
‘But you are a doctor?’
‘I work for the Sci-Med Inspectorate,’ said Steven. ‘I’m an investigator but I’d rather you kept that to yourself.’
‘So why tell me?’
‘Because you trusted me with your thoughts.’