MORE than 40 close friends and family gathered at Black Lodge, a remote stone-walled cottage near Hawick in the Scottish borders, to mourn the sudden and untimely death of Christopher Norris, known as Pascal to his friends. Some had paused at the entrance to reflect that Norris’s feng shui mirror above the front door — said to ward off evil spirits — had failed.

In the organic garden and among the compost bins and vegetable plots, they said their final farewell as the 50-year-old’s ashes were scattered beneath the boughs of an apple tree. But one issue still had not been laid to rest. Almost a month since Norris had died nobody knew what had killed him.

“The rumour initially was that he had died of meningitis,” said Dave Allen, a close friend. “But when that was discounted by the authorities, we didn’t know what to think. It was very disquieting, a real mystery.”

Doctors at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary were equally baffled. In the days after Norris’ death, on July 8, they were unable to determine the cause. A blood sample was sent to London and then to scientists at the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down.

On August 10, a month after Norris’s mysterious death, they made an alarming discovery. Anthrax was present in the woodcarver’s blood.

Norris had just become the first Briton in more than 30 years to die from the deadly bacteria.

The Scottish executive reacted swiftly. An investigation team comprising health and government officials was convened. They knew anthrax, while rare in Britain, usually affected animals. Since it could not be spread between humans, Norris’s rural home was the most likely source of infection. It was designated an “infected place” under 1991 anthrax regulations. The windows were boarded up and wire fencing erected around the property. Bright yellow signs warned “ biohazard”.

Desperate to avoid another casualty, the authorities have focused efforts on tracking down anyone who visited Norris’s home in the weeks before and after his death. So far almost 60 people have been traced and treated with antibiotics. Plans to decontaminate Black Lodge are in hand.

But as the precautions are painstakingly put in place, local residents are demanding swift answers to other, more pressing questions. For example, how exactly did this unassuming man from the Scottish borders, who made a modest living making musical instruments, contract one of the world’s deadliest bacteria? Was there a connection with the animal skins Norris used to make a drum? Did the anthrax come from a dead badger whose skin he had worked on shortly before his death? If so, how many more infected animals might be on the loose in the Scottish countryside? Or could there be another explanation?

ANTHRAX is one of those words that can strike fear into the sturdiest of hearts. The day before the details of Norris’s death were released, Hawick bustled with tourists. The day after, in the words of one shopkeeper, it was “virtually deserted”. Such a reaction is perhaps unsurprising.

The bacteria’s potent threat to life was demonstrated by British scientists during the second world war, when tens of thousands of anthrax spores were unleashed on a flock of sheep on Gruinard in the Highlands, in a germ warfare experiment. The sheep died within three days. The area became so contaminated it was deemed out of bounds for almost 50 years.

While anthrax spores occur naturally in soil and are more likely to infect grazing animals such as cows, sheep, horses and goats — often without fatal consequences — it can be deadly to humans. It has been estimated that just 100kg of anthrax sprayed on a large city could kill more than 3m people.

Humans can be infected through skin contact, ingestion or inhalation, the latter proving fatal in as little as a week. Internal bleeding, blood poisoning or even meningitis are preceded by symptoms such as mild fever, fatigue and coughing.

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