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“Of course not.” Red blotches sprouted on his neck. “I approached it like we agreed. I told her that the preliminary tests showed he had some sort of brain disease, probably an encephalitis.” He tossed his notebook onto the desk. “If you’re not going to trust me, I might as well —”
    Zol caught sight of his huge, threatening hands and tucked them under his thighs again. He stared into the dark screen of his computer.
    Hamish walked to the window.
    Several moments passed. Neither man spoke.
    In the dingy side yard of the Chinese restaurant across the street, plastic bags and cardboard boxes fluttered beside the overflowing garbage bins. A battered wheelbarrow lay on its side, its tire missing.
    Zol broke the silence. “I’m sorry, Hamish.” He rubbed his temple with his fingertips. “It’s just that the implications of these cases have me spooked.”
    Hamish turned from the window and forced a smile. “I know. We might be out of our depth.”
    “You did dig up a lot of details in one short visit,” said Zol.
    “Do you want to hear the rest?”
    “Shoot.”
    Hamish lifted his notebook from the desk and flipped it open. “Okay,” he said, “Brenda buys their meat only at Kelly’s SuperMart, never at butcher shops. Beef, lamb, pork, and chicken. No exotic meat or game. And Hugh loved a certain kind of smelly cheese. But I mentioned that already. He always bought it himself.”
    Zol shrugged at the cheese; the British authorities swore that variant CJD couldn’t be transmitted in dairy products. On what seemed like a whim, a chef’s curiosity perhaps, he asked, “What sort of cheese?”
    “Brenda said it smelled disgusting. She and her daughter never touched it.”
    “What was it called? Limburger?”
    Hamish checked his notes. “Head cheese.”
    Zol clapped his hands and laughed from deep within his belly, his tension evaporating. “Oh, Hamish. You’re a riot.”
    Hamish’s cheeks flushed. Furrows creased his brow. “What?”
    “Head cheese isn’t
cheese
.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Zol tapped his own cheek. “It comes from the head.”
    “What?”
    “Pig’s head. It’s pickled pork. A sort of sausage made from tongues and cheeks and snouts.” He stuck out his tongue and touched his nose with his forefinger.
    Hamish shivered and looked away. “Yuck! No wonder Brenda wouldn’t touch it.” He straightened his tie, then patted the pockets of his shirt and suit coat. “Can’t find my pen. Can I borrow yours for a sec?”
    Zol handed him his fountain pen.
    Hamish drew a line through
head cheese
and printed
pork sausage
above it. “This pen writes pretty nicely,” he said, clearly anxious to change the subject. He wasn’t used to being caught out on the job. “I’ve seen this before. Weren’t you using it last night? It must be an antique.”
    “Eighteen ninety-five. The first leak-proof model that could be carried in a pocket. It’s a Parker. Belonged to William Osler.”
    Hamish fondled the black ebonite shaft, ran his fingers along the sterling silver clip. “William Osler?
The
William Osler? The internist who founded Johns Hopkins medical school?”
    “And wrote the first medical textbook. Of course, you know he grew up right here. From my back yard, I can look over the Escarpment and imagine I see the street where his father’s church used to be. It sounds silly, but when I’m holding Osler’s pen I feel inspired to go that extra mile,” Zol said, surprising himself with this stirring of emotion. “But back to bangers and blended meals. Hugh McEwen was into ground meat in a big way. For more than a decade.”
    “It sounds like we’re on the right track, eh? With Hugh and his English bangers? Patel and Joanna Vanderven were immigrants; if they’ve got connections to England we might get this solved before your boss gets back from his retreat.”
    Zol threw him a puzzled frown. “How did you —”
    Hamish laughed. “Know about the retreat?” He was enjoying