Chain Reaction

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  Gatt leaned forward in his chair and gazed very intently at him. The atmosphere in the room was stressed to maximum rated tension. ‘Are you absolutely sure that the meter didn’t go up to 20 megawatts before Springle came into the control-room?’

  Before Seff had time to answer that, the telephone shattered the thrumming silence.

  V. THE REACTION

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE equipment room of the Whitehall telephone exchange is, to all intents and purposes, identical with that of any other. It would never have entered into this narrative at all if it were not for the fact that among the thousand and one clicking selectors that stood in racks all the way down the big room, one was responding to the dial impulses that a certain Mr Chiesman sent along the line as he briskly and deftly formed the requisite numbers with his fingers. Click-click-click-click went the dial, and the selectors followed suit. And when the final digit had been transmitted, a light came on at each position of the Atomic Development Commission’s telephone exchange.

  Sally did not plug in her cord with any great haste. She had been repairing her make-up and talking non-committally to the girl on the next stool. She let the light wink at her for a while; and none of the others happened to deal with the corresponding one of their positions. At last Sally snapped her handbag shut, picked up a cord and plugged it into the appropriate socket. ‘Atomicdevelopmenicommission,’ she said, much in the manner in which she had said it countless thousands of times before.

  She heard a voice say: ‘Give me the top man.’ It was a tense, compelling voice; not the usual blusterer who wanted to speak to the Director when in fact the Information Desk would have done just as well.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s in conference,’ she said, carrying out her instructions. ‘Would you care to speak to his secretary?’

  ‘Who is your chief?’

  ‘The Director of the Department is Sir Robert Hargreaves.’

  ‘Well, look. I know I shall be put on to him when I have finally waded through all the red tape. So why not prevent the waste of valuable time and take a chance? My name is Chiesman, and I promise you I’ll see you don’t get into trouble. Okay?’

  ‘Well …’ She decided to take the plunge. ‘All right; I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Good girl!’

  Sally glanced at her neighbour as she plugged the other end of the cord into an outside line and got the dialling tone. ‘It was nice knowing you,’ she said, dialling with the special rubber end of her pencil. ‘I’m putting this call on to the Old Man’s direct line.’

  The other girl grimaced. ‘Who is it?’ she asked, ‘Eisenhower?’

  *

  Hargreaves let the phone ring twice into the tense silence before he picked up the receiver. ‘Hargreaves,’ he snapped.

  ‘My name is Chiesman,’ said the instrument, ‘am I speaking to the head of the Atomic Development Commission?’

  The Director said, with great politeness, ‘I wonder if I can call you back? You see, I’m in conference at the moment.’

  ‘I know. Look, I’ll come straight to the point. I make a patent brand of coffee — you may have heard of it: it’s called Coffee-snack. It’s rather well-known.’

  ‘Just a second, Mr Chiesman!’ Hargreaves called Kate Garnet on the intercom. ‘Miss Garnet, I have a call on the direct line. Switch on the amplifier at once. I want the call to be fed into the speaker in my room. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Robert.’ A short pause. ‘It’s on now.’

  Hargreaves spoke into the phone again. ‘Are you there?’

  Chiesman’s voice came clearly over the speaker in the room, so that everyone could hear it. ‘Yes. I’m sorry to disturb you but —’

  ‘Please go ahead, Chiesman. I am anxious to hear what you have to say.’

  ‘Do you know our product?’

  ‘Yes, it’s coffee in powder form, isn’t it?’

  ‘More or less. Actually it’s a complete drink, containing powdered milk as well. And sugar.’

  Behind his voice a clock could be heard chiming the half-hour. Ridiculously, Gresham found himself checking his watch by it.

  Chiesman continued: ‘As you know, with any food product one has to take stringent precautions against impurities. We are extremely — one might say fanatically — careful about this, and a large proportion of our stuff is tested, and therefore wasted. Well, to cut a long story short, the last batch contains what we believe to be strontium, and possibly something else as well.’

  It was some time before the Director could find his voice, and Chiesman said: ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. This strontium — was it radioactive?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But we’ve tipped some on to an X-ray plate and after a while we’ll develop the plate. Is that the right thing to do?’

  ‘Yes, first class. Only it might take too long. Where’s your factory? I’ll send a man up there with some equipment right away.’

  ‘We’re in Deptford — you could make it in half an hour.’

  ‘Hang on again!’ Hargreaves turned to Gresham. ‘Frank; get on the other line and get a police car with a motor-cycle escort. Manson, get any gear you may need and have it taken down to the main entrance at the double. I’ll get the address and I want you to go yourself.’ Then, into the phone: ‘What address?’

  ‘It’s simply called Coffeesnack Works, Pullings Road, Deptford. You take the Vauxhall Bridge Road —’

  ‘Don’t worry; the police will know how to get there. Is there anything else? If not, I want to get on to this right away.’

  ‘No, nothing else.’ Chiesman paused for a moment. Then he said: ‘I suppose this thing isn’t getting out of hand, is it? I mean, first the beans, now the coffee?’

  ‘I can tell you that if you answer a question for me. Where do you get your sugar? Tate and Lyle’s?’

  ‘No. Gould’s.’

  ‘Then I’d rather not answer your question.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Has any of the contaminated coffee gone on to the market?’

  ‘No. None of our products go out without being fully tested. Well, I’ll leave you to it; and meet your man as soon as he gets here.’

  The Director hung up and listened, for a moment, to Gresham, who was talking to the police. ‘… I’d be obliged. Yes, outriders would be useful. We’ve got to get there quickly. Because, you see we aren’t sure —’

  ‘Why now?’ said the Director heavily. ‘Why not eighteen months ago? It must be the same source. It’s got to be!’

  ‘The point is,’ said Gatt, ‘what’s going to be next?’

  *

  Mr Morningways was not a highly respected member of the teaching staff at Morley’s. Inevitably, because he was the science master, he was nicknamed — as is the dreary custom at such boys’ schools — ‘Old Stinks’. It is unlikely that he could have controlled a class of five; but twenty-five was so far beyond his disciplinary capacities that he was reduced to utter helplessness. Still, he went through the motions of taking the ‘practical’, dreading, as he always did, the prospect of the headmaster walking in and finding everything in a turmoil.

  ‘Pay attention,’ he screamed in his high-pitched voice, ‘or I’ll have you all caned.’ This produced a wave of derisive laughter; the boys knew perfectly well that such a desperate measure would point to his own inability to maintain law and order.

  ‘Who’s going to do it, sir?’ yelled one of the boys. ‘You — or Mrs Plumpson?’ (Mrs Plumpson being the matron.)

  Morningways turned purple but said nothing. And now he had to nerve himself to turn his back on them in order to write on the blackboard. As he spoke he had to raise his voice above the din of general conversation that was the permanent background to his classes. ‘Anyway,’ he shouted, ‘let’s see how much about the electroscope you have learned so far.’ He always phrased his sentences back-to-front, and part of the game was to answer his questions in the same vein.

  Mockson said: ‘When on the to
p you put a positive charge, the leaves inside the flask are opened out.’

  Morningways was so used to his own idiosyncrasy being imitated that he no longer noticed it. ‘Quite correct, Mockson.’ The right course would now have been to ask the subsequent question to the next boy; but he was so relieved that somebody knew something that he stuck to Mockson. ‘And can you explain to the class why this is so?’

  Mockson suppressed a giggle. Riddle, sitting next to him, was eating an enormous bar of chocolate — as if he weren’t fat enough already. ‘The reason is,’ said Mockson, playing for time, ‘the reason is —’ And then he remembered vaguely; it was important to phrase the answer in the approved style. ‘Because something repels something, the reason is,’ he explained.

  ‘That’s a bit vague,’ said Morningways, ‘but it’ll do, perhaps, for the moment. Now, tell me how you would set about discharging the electroscope.’

  ‘I would the electrode to earth connect.’ This received a hilarious ovation from the rest of the boys.

  Morningways said: ‘That’s perfectly correct. But there’s no need to talk Chinese.’

  Riddle spoke with his mouth full of chocolate. ‘I don’t have to connect mine to earth,’ he said triumphantly. ‘It does it all by itself.’

  ‘Well now, that’s remarkably interesting,’ said the science master, wondering what unspeakable trick was about to be sprung. ‘Do you mind if I come and look?’ Rather hesitantly, Morningways walked round the end of one of the long trestle tables and came up to Riddle, who looked at him challengingly, the bar of chocolate held firmly in his chubby hand. The whole class was watching, unusually silent now, as if suspecting that ‘Old Stinks’ was, as usual, about to be had.

  Morningways rubbed his fountain-pen on a piece of cloth, thus charging it with static electricity. Then he touched the electrode at the top of the instrument. Immediately the leaves flew apart. He waited and watched, and sure enough, the leaves began to fold together again. He frowned.

  ‘That’s very funny,’ he said.

  ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’ enquired Mockson.

  ‘Funny peculiar,’ said Morningways, forgetting to be on the defensive for a moment. ‘There must be something wrong with the electroscope. Mockson! Hand me yours. Thank you.’ Once again he charged his pen, touched the top of the electroscope and the leaves opened as before.

  Then they closed again, quite slowly and deliberately. Mockson spoke seriously. ‘It didn’t do that a minute ago,’ he said.

  ‘Well, let’s put it back again.’ Mockson took it from Morningways, and placed it on the bench before him. On being tested once more, it behaved normally, remaining charged.

  Boys are strange creatures. Up to now they had been mocking the wretched Morningways until he had actually come to dread every class he took. For weeks he had tried to think of something that might genuinely interest the boys and so make them more easily controlled. Now the unexpected had happened, butter wouldn’t have melted in their hungry mouths. Slowly they began to gather round the bench, each competing for a good view of the offending electroscope. They watched the science master move the humble apparatus — it only consisted of a glass jar with an attachment on the top, from which was suspended, within the jar, two thin pieces of gold leaf — they watched him move the thing back to its original position near Riddle. It did the same, inexplicable thing.

  Then Morningways had a wild idea. So wild that for once he was laughing at himself, instead of leaving it to the boys to ridicule him. ‘Riddle, put that bar of chocolate down a minute. Over there.’ He indicated an empty bench. ‘You can have it back in a moment.’ Bemused, Riddle did as he was told without protest, wondering what it all meant. There was absolute silence now, as once again Morningways rubbed the pen on a duster and held it against the electrode. The leaves opened up again, and they all waited, hardly breathing.

  They waited a full two minutes, but the electroscope remained charged. Then Morning ways walked over to the empty bench and retrieved the mangled piece of chocolate, held it close to the electroscope. It discharged rapidly. A concerted, sotto voce gasp from the boys.

  At that point the headmaster came in on his tour of inspection. He was actually very surprised at the pitch of enthralled attention that prevailed in the laboratory, but was careful not to show it. He swept in, using one of his well-practised entrances, sweeping the air with his gown in a beautifully executed tight turn. ‘Ah, Morningways! An interesting experiment, I see!’ He strode up to the bench. ‘Well, what’s it all about?’

  Morningways gave him a complete demonstration. And although the Head shot Riddle a meaningful look when he learned the ownership of the chocolate, he did not interrupt until Morningways had finished. Then he said: ‘Well, I’m not a science man myself, but I take it you are suggesting that the chocolate’ — and again he paused over the word, catching Riddle’s eye as he did so — ‘is discharging the electroscope without touching it. Is that unusual?’

  ‘It’s not only unusual, Mr Ripley,’ said Morningways, ‘it’s impossible!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ roared the Head. ‘It can’t be! I’ve just seen it with my own eyes. Or’ — and here he laughed boomingly — ‘or is it some scientific conjuring trick? If so, I demand,’ he added with heavy humour, ‘as Headmaster, to be let into the secret!’

  The science master did not laugh. ‘No, sir, it is not a trick.’

  ‘Well then, don’t you know the explanation?’

  Morningways turned round and faced him hesitantly, and yet with a firmness he had never displayed before. His expression puzzled the Headmaster. Indeed, everything about the situation — the silence of the boys, their interest, the bar of chocolate openly displayed before him — puzzled him considerably.

  ‘There is only one possible explanation,’ said the junior man. ‘You see, the only thing that could discharge that electroscope, without touching it, is a quantity of electrons —’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the Head rather irritably, ‘technicalities of that sort are lost on me. Stick to the curriculum, man! Can’t you put it simply?’

  ‘Simply put,’ said Morningways, ‘that bar of chocolate is radioactive.’

  ‘What? But … but the boy has been eating it!’

  ‘Have you seen the afternoon papers?’ said Morningways.

  ‘Yes. What about them?’

  ‘The scare about the beans. They’ve now come up with the truth.’

  The Headmaster nodded. He was quite calm now. ‘I see.’ He turned to Riddle, who looked extremely guilty. The Head’s voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘Listen, my boy,’ he said. ‘I promise you that you won’t be punished, but you must tell me the truth. It is more important than you can possibly know that you should. Do you understand that?’ The boy nodded gratefully. ‘Now, you must tell me exactly where you got this chocolate and how much you have eaten. But for pity’s sake be truthful about it.’

  Riddle’s face turned scarlet. ‘My uncle sent it.’

  ‘But how? Relatives aren’t supposed to send you food.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Riddle, now warming to the happy task of telling the truth for once, without the prospect of a painful experience at the end of it, ‘but you see, sir, it was supposed to be books. The chocolate was packed between the two outside ones.’ A triumphant grin went with this revelation.

  There was the merest suggestion of a smile on the Headmaster’s face. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You certainly have your uncle very well trained. Well, I can find out from him where he got it. But how much did you eat and how much did he send?’

  ‘Well, sir, he was rather generous. He sent me half a dozen bars like this.’

  ‘Of which you have eaten?’

  The boy looked glum. ‘This is the last.’

  ‘Were they all the same make?’ asked the Headmaster, without revealing his feelings.

  ‘Yes, all the same, sir.’

  ‘Did you give any away?’

  ‘A few pieces off each bar, sir.’ />
  ‘All to the same person?’

  ‘No, different people, sir.’

  ‘So you’re the only person who has eaten a considerable amount of the stuff?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Riddle?’

  ‘Why did you let me off a punishment?’

  The Head didn’t know what to say. He would rather have thrashed the boy twenty times over than guess what could happen to him now. At last he said: ‘Perhaps it’s because I rather like chocolate myself. Would you like to give me a piece, as a token of mutual understanding?’

  Solemnly the boy broke a piece from the bar, and the Headmaster ate it appreciatively. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘You have a singularly co-operative uncle. I think I’d better confiscate the rest though, don’t you?’

  Riddle handed it to him, and the Headmaster made as if to leave. Then, apparently as an afterthought, he added: ‘Riddle, I want you to report to Matron.’

  ‘Now, sir?’

  ‘Yes. You’d better go now.’

  Morningways escorted his senior to the door, and the Head spoke quietly to him. ‘I am eternally in your debt,’ he said. ‘I only hope you didn’t find out too late.’ With that he left.

  And Morningways was sufficiently humanitarian to be more concerned for the boy than for the fact that the job he had been on the brink of losing was now secure.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HARGREAVES said: ‘I don’t have to tell you that the eyes of the world are now upon us. Things were bad enough before, but at least we thought the hazard was restricted to one product. Then this new, incredible, horrifying thing happens. We are now no longer faced with a serious accident endangering the lives of a known section of the community, but with an apparently limitless chain of danger of which we do not yet know the cause. The Atomic Energy Authority have so far kept off our territory — they felt that since no proof existed that this was our affair they had no more right or reason to investigate us than we had to investigate them. Now, of course, all that has gone by the board. The date of Gould’s ventilation fault is far too close to that of the Project 3 accident, and the two are only six miles apart. It is inconceivable that the two could be unconnected. Yet so far no one has managed to link them — that is the truly astonishing thing. The Atomic Energy Authority have asked permission (purely a courtesy, of course — they are in a position to do anything they think necessary) to inspect all chimneys and ducts at Marsdowne, and all disposal sites where fission products have been dumped. A team of their people have gone up by plane tonight. They do not, they have assured me, suggest that we have not done our damnedest to get at the facts, but they are frankly amazed that we have discovered so little, and I don’t blame them. I find it hard to understand myself. Therefore I am repeating, for the last time, my original urge that if anyone knows anything, however insignificant it may seem, that will throw any light on this, they must say so now. Because from now on every minute wasted may mean a life lost some time in the future, long after the Marsdowne incident is forgotten. Even at this moment, while we sit talking, thousands of people may be poisoning themselves without knowing it. Because the stark reality is that we no longer know where the deadly poison may be lying in wait.’ He picked up his glass of water and held it up. ‘A tumbler of water — this cigarette — Gatt’s stomach pills … all or any of these things could be lethal. All because of something we did … or didn’t do.’ He replaced the glass with such force that the water spilled over. ‘For God’s sake, gentlemen, let’s not leave this table today until we know the answer! Until Chiesman came through we thought the contamination was restricted to the sugar; now we know that it is not. What was it that conveyed the poison to the coffee? How can we find out just how the two radioactive substances became mixed in uneven proportions; did they, in fact, originate from the same source at all? We jumped to one abortive conclusion at the beginning of this investigation … are we justified in leaping to another one?’