‘I don’t suppose anyone could find a camera with a large enough lens,’ she said. ‘And incidentally, I don’t think this is one of the Visits. He sounded terribly cloak and dagger — actually very worried.’
‘Perhaps he’s discovered he’s got to go to the dentist himself and he’s terrified of the drill.’ He went over to the bar. ‘I think I’ll fix myself a drink. And you’d better have your milk.’
‘I don’t like milk.’
‘Don’t you want a nice, big, bouncing baby?’
‘There’s plenty of evidence that he’s quite big enough already.’ She stuck to the ‘he’ now.
‘I’ll stop your account at Harrods.’
She pulled a face. ‘That does it!’ She took a gulp of the milk. ‘Sadist!’
Ed poured a liberal dose of cognac into a balloon glass and swirled the brandy round thoughtfully. ‘I wonder …’
June said: ‘You’re thinking about the scare, aren’t you?’
‘Well, you’re not to think about it, anyway.’
‘Don’t be silly! You’ve been reading text-books about not worrying expectant mothers. And judging from what Mrs Harper told me on the phone today, you seem to be the classic case of expectant parenthood yourself!’
‘Remind me to fire Mrs Harper.’ His mood changed abruptly. ‘All the same, I wish I knew how things were going at the conference.’
‘Still worried about Jack?’ She put down her empty glass. ‘I think he’s all right. I would have noticed if he had been hitting the bottle last month when he was playing host to us. How long were we up in Glennaverley?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Well, I didn’t notice him overdoing it in all that time.’
‘Yes, I know. But I’m talking about nearly two years ago, when it happened. However …’ He came back to the fireplace.
She said: ‘What did they say on the television?’
‘Nothing very much. But the P.M. will be speaking in half an hour. Of course, in a way I think they’re making far too much of this. You have to eat a heck of a lot of strontium before anything much happens. And when I think of the radiation I’ve been exposed to in my time … well, I can’t see that a few days’ diet of nice, tasty isotopes is going to make any difference to anyone.’
‘Not everyone has your constitution! I knew what I was doing when I married you — you’re quite the strongest man I ever met!’
He raised his eyebrows and studied her over the top of his glass. ‘Just what does that mean?’
She was forestalled in her answer by the front-door bell. Ed looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to give him exactly ten minutes,’ he said sternly, ‘then I’m sending you up to bed. I’ll be in the work-room, if you want me.’
*
‘Nice of you to see me, June,’ said George, when he had settled into a chair. ‘Tonight’s the night, isn’t it?’
‘So was last night!’
He smiled faintly. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have bothered you, believe me, if I wasn’t pretty desperate. The fact is you’re the only person I feel I can talk to, about this. I need your advice.’ He rattled the ice cubes in his glass and sipped some of the Scotch.
‘Are you quite sure,’ she said gently, ‘that it’s something I can really help you with?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘You are the only person in the world I feel I can tell. You see, you will be able to tell me what to do.’ She waited for him to go on. ‘When I first started practising over here,’ he began, lighting a cigarette nervously, ‘you were kind enough to introduce me to a good many people. Among them were three members of the Atomic Development Commission. And I was particularly grateful; because being influential people they helped me extend my practice quite rapidly.’
‘Ed and I were glad to help — you know that. Besides, you’re a darn good dentist.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you.’ June found herself wondering what was coming. Had he made some ghastly mistake or something? ‘When I read the papers today,’ he continued, ‘I realised that I was faced with a major ethical problem. You see, back in 1957, one of these three people had a tooth out, for which, at his request, I gave him gas — he didn’t want a local. And, as a lot of people do, he talked under the anaesthetic.’
‘I think I’m beginning to see your problem, George.’
‘It is quite a problem, isn’t it? You see, one of the first principles of medical ethics is that you never tell — it’s sacrosanct. But this is rather different. Human lives may be lost if I do not pass on what I know.’
‘Are you going to tell me what was said?’
‘Yes. That’s why I’m here. You see, I trust you so much — and I trust Ed’s respect for your confidence so much — that I know you won’t even tell him if I don’t want you to.’
‘Was there a doctor present at the extraction?’
‘Yes. But he’s dead,’ he said shortly.
‘So you’re the only person who knows?’ She thought a bit. ‘You realise, don’t you, that if what you heard is important, you are asking me to take on a very big responsibility? Are you sure it’s fair?’
‘June, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Wouldn’t you ask the advice of the person you felt closest to?’
It was a pathetic moment. She knew she couldn’t turn him down now. ‘Yes. Of course I would. All right; what was it?’
‘I can remember the words exactly. It was not the sort of thing you easily forget. He said: “The second one, yes. But, oh God, from which end?” Then he gave a sort of groan, as if he were in pain, and added: “Faulty. Not my fault. Design was faulty. ” ’
‘Those were the exact words?’
‘Absolutely certain.’
‘And what did you make of it?’
‘At the time — nothing. But after hearing what’s been going on, I’m beginning to wonder.’
‘You mean, because of who it was?’
‘Yes. And when it happened.’
She paused for a few moments, then appeared to come to a decision. ‘Look, George. Why don’t you speak to Ed? This is all rather beyond me, you know. And you can trust him.’
‘I know I can, June. But Ed thinks I’m a bit screwy! He doesn’t take me very seriously.’
She smiled directly at him, and he knew exactly what the smile meant. ‘This is different,’ she said.
‘Okay, I’ll talk to him.’
And he just about had time to do so before June said ‘Darling!’ with a funny look at Ed, and there was a hasty search for the car keys that had been put in a special place for just this emergency.
And on Ed’s instructions Poor George put through a brief telephone call to the hospital. By the time he had hung up, the car had roared into life and crunched over the gravel and into the main highway.
Then George put through the other call that Ed had suggested.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HARRY, chief projectionist of one of the larger cinemas in the West End, checked that the film in the second projector was correctly laced and slammed the spool covers shut. He turned the knob of the arclight control until it was properly centred, and then peered through the little visor window of the projection-box to the big screen below.
Jim, his assistant, was also watching the action, watching for limping man walking along hospital corridor with arm in sling. This would be the first warning in anticipation of the changeover. And there it was now …
‘Stand by!’
Harry nodded, his hand now on the motor switch.
At the back of the projection-room a phone rang. ‘Leave it!’ said Harry. ‘Isn’t it marvellous? Always ring us up just as we’re doing a changeover!’
‘Never fails,’ agreed Jim. Then: ‘Motor!’ The cue mark had come up on the screen. Harry pressed the switch, and the smooth whirring of the changeover machine matched the one that was already running. The other cue flashed momentarily on the picture. ‘Over!’
Harry pressed the foot-pedal and at the same time flicked over the
fader knob hard against the left-hand stop. ‘Sneak that sound up a bit, Jim.’ The assistant nodded: the sound-head on this machine had been down just that fraction all day. In the morning it would have to be matched up again. Jim let the end of the reel run through the ‘dead’ machine and stopped the motor. A slight adjustment to the amplifier, and that was that.
Harry took one more look at the screen to check the focus. ‘Now let’s see what they want downstairs.’
He was forestalled, however, because the manager came in on the double, panting after having run up the stairs.
‘Sorry, Chief,’ he said, ‘as usual, I expect you were on a changeover. Well, actually I’ve got to stop the show and make an announcement. Wait five minutes till I get down to the stage and then cut your motor.’
‘What about the running time, sir?’
‘We’ll have to run late — if we have any customers left by the time I’ve finished saying what I’ve got to say!’ He looked rather grim, but didn’t wait to answer any questions. Jim waited for him to leave the box and remarked: ‘I can’t smell anything burning.’
*
When the house lights were switched on there came the usual ironical cheers and slow handclaps of an audience confronted with a breakdown at the crucial point in the film.
There was a further cheer from the audience as a spotlight came on and the manager appeared from the wings, carrying a stand-microphone to the centre of the stage. He waited patiently and good humouredly for the noise to die down. Then he said: ‘I must ask for complete silence.’
‘It looks as if we’ve got it!’ shouted someone in the front stalls. There was laughter.
‘What I have to say,’ said the manager, ‘is a matter of life and death. Your life and death.’ They were quiet this time. ‘But before I explain anything further, it is essential for your own safety that any of you who are eating sweets, ice-creams or nuts — anyone drinking lemonade, anyone smoking a cigarette … don’t. Put it down. Put it on the floor by your feet — it may be lethal.’ He saw someone get up and make as if to leave the theatre. ‘No one leave, please, until I have finished speaking. There is no danger in this building which you won’t meet outside. Now, I’ll explain …’
*
‘And so,’ said the Great Man, looking hard and square into the lens of the television camera, ‘a national emergency has arisen. A new kind of emergency. And because it is new, new measures must be taken against it. Otherwise we will all be in great danger — you, me, your wives, your children, your friends. Most of you, by now, will have read the evening papers, and will have learned the truth about the tins. “Why,” you will ask, “why weren’t we told the truth before?” Well, the answer to that, my friends, is that we didn’t know the truth. We know more of it now, and soon, I promise you, we will know the whole truth — no one and nothing will be spared in that endeavour …’
While the Prime Minister spoke, John and Julia sat before their television set, tense and appalled, not fully able to digest the magnitude of the situation. To them, it had never grown beyond the single can and the printing paper and the stricken child that they loved, and who now lay in a hospital bed …
In his Mayfair apartment Sydney Spigett, the man who for a time had loved success more than anything else, sat transfixed in front of the biggest and best television set that money could buy. And he knew the only thing that really mattered was that the woman he loved should survive his own act of negligence …
And at Morley’s preparatory school, Morningways sat in the headmaster’s study, watching the dimly lit screen of the ancient thing the Head called a television set, thinking of a fat little boy who was much too fond of chocolate. While the Prime Minister, impersonal, aloof yet somehow intimately, deeply concerned, spoke on …
‘… So this is what we have to do. Between now and tomorrow evening as much food as can be tested in the time will be sent to centres in each district — you will be told where they are over the radio and on television. Meanwhile, try to eat and drink as little as possible. By tomorrow morning, most of the water supplies will have been tested, but the more remote districts will take longer. Until then, use as little as you can, especially for drinking purposes …’
*
The telephone rang in the library. Sophie Tripling turned down the sound of the TV and picked up the receiver. ‘This is Dick,’ said a somewhat distant voice. ‘Dick Simmel.’
‘Hallo, Dick. Where are you? You sound an awful long way away.’
‘I’m in Scotland. Glennaverley. I went up in one of the helicopters. We’re doing a search here first thing tomorrow.’
Sophie raised her voice to compensate for the bad line. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear your voice.’
‘What?’
‘I said, it’s nice to hear your voice!’
‘Same here, plus!’ A pause. ‘Look, can I speak to your father?’
‘He’s not here. He’s at a War Office conference.’
‘Oh, damn!’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I can’t seem to get hold of anybody tonight — it’s absolutely verboten to disturb them at my Department — they’re still talking, and I should think they’ll be at it all night. But I discovered something rather interesting up here, and I think I ought to look into it. The trouble is I need a helicopter and I have no authority to take one up. I’ve got a pilot here beside me who’s perfectly willing, but he says he can’t do night flying without special permission. Of course, it’s especially dangerous in hilly country like this.’
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘In view of the general panic, no. The Prime Minister has just made a statement on radio and television, and the whole thing’s pretty grim.’
‘Yes, I heard him.’
‘Besides, there’s practically a full moon tonight, and we’ll be able to see all we want to see.’
‘What is it exactly that you hope to find out?’
‘Sorry; I didn’t get that.’
‘What do you hope to find out, if you take the helicopter up?’
‘It’s a bit complicated to explain over the phone, and this is such a lousy line. But I think it’s important enough to take a chance.’
‘All right, Dick. I’ll call Daddy and he will call you. What’s the number?’
‘I’m at the airstrip — Glennaverley 59.’
She repeated the number back to him. Then she said: ‘If Papa says you can go up, you will take care, won’t you?’
‘I will; and thanks!’
Two minutes later Sophie had her father on the line. ‘You will make it quick, dear, won’t you? I’m in the middle of a most urgent meeting.’
She came straight to the point. ‘Dick Simmel wants to take up a chopper tonight. He needs your authority.’
‘Why didn’t he phone the Commission?’
‘I gather they’re not taking any calls.’
Sir Horace sounded grim. ‘I’m not surprised! I suppose you don’t know what he wants it for?’
‘No. It was a bad line, so he didn’t give me any details. But he did say it was very important and has a direct bearing on the crisis. I told him you’d phone the authority through if you agreed.’
‘All right,’ said General Tripling gruffly. ‘But I hope he knows what he’s doing. If he fouls a blade on one of those escarpments up there, he won’t know what hit him. I’ll get my G-One to phone through. Anything else?’
Sophie bit her lip. ‘When the colonel phones through, will you ask him to insist that the helicopter stays on the radio all the time? Just in case anything happens?’
‘I get your point, Sophie. But don’t worry too much; I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. What’s the number?’
*
A few minutes before 10 p.m. Major Pentecue revved up the engine of the helicopter. He smiled ruefully at Dick. ‘What goes up must come down,’ he said. ‘But I hope we come down when we mean to, and with three blades still left on the
rotor!’
‘So do I, Major.’ He added, as an afterthought: ‘I’ve got a very good reason for staying alive.’
The plane took off, swiftly and vertically. Pentecue had to shout. ‘A girl?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘What’s she like?’
Dick gave the thumbs-up sign, and the pilot grinned. ‘In that case,’ he yelled, ‘I’ll try not to make this a suicide mission! Is that your river?’
Simmel looked down at the dark landscape below, then at the map he had across his knee. ‘I think so,’ he agreed. ‘Can you keep this altitude for a bit? Then we can get a general picture of the layout before we go in.’
‘The longer we stay up here,’ said the pilot, ‘the happier I am! And there’s the loch.’ At the head of the stream lay a dark patch of water, only visible because the moonlight was reflected from its surface. All around it rose the black, unfriendly cliffs.
‘The narrowest part of the river seems to be where it joins the loch,’ shouted Dick. ‘And that must be where the ancient dam was. Now it’s all crumbled away, they tell me.’
The pilot studied the shadowy contours below. ‘Still, as far as I can see there seems to be a fair amount of water in the loch.’
‘It must be quite shallow. Don’t forget there’s been some heavy rainfall. But when the level drops, a lot of the bed of the lake is exposed. Sorry, loch! Even now you can see a border of sand all the way round the water.’
Pentecue banked the aircraft to get a better view. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. What was the purpose of the dam, I wonder? I mean, why was it necessary to keep the loch up to that level?’
‘I gather it was used as a water supply in the old days. Must have been a bit pongy too, I should think! After all, it’s only a small stretch of water, and I dread to think how many cows must have fallen off the cliffs and got buried under the silt! The loch is still used for irrigation, I believe. It’s above sea-level, so the water flows out of it easily enough.’
The Major momentarily took his eyes off the controls. ‘Where did you get all your “gen” from, Simmel?’
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