by Chris Mullin
Molly kept her souvenirs of Perkins in a blue vanity case amid a pile of old boxes in the attic. They included that first note on official paper. Lunch Sunday? Ring me at midnight. And then the telephone number. Not even signed.
There was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists with the message inscribed on the inside cover: To a slightly Tory lady in the hope that she will see the light. Love, Harry and then the date. There were several other notes, mainly re-arranging the time of their weekly rendezvous, one on ministry notepaper, a couple on House of Commons paper and the rest on blank scraps. There was also a cheque for £5.20 drawn on the account of Harold A. Perkins at the Co-operative Bank, Leman Street, London, E.1, in payment for shopping. Because he was famous she had decided the cheque was worth more to her uncashed. And that was it. Not a lot to show for a love affair that lasted more than a year. She kept her souvenirs hidden because she did not want Michael to know. He would have seen the dates and worked out for himself that she had two-timed him almost to the day of their marriage.
Perkins would have been pleased to know that she voted Labour in the election. Actually it was no big deal. Michael and most of the top management of British Insulated had probably voted Labour, if the truth were known. After all they owed their jobs to Perkins. Had he not fought so hard for their reactor, British Insulated would have gone to the wall. Instead it had landed contracts to build four nuclear reactors in Britain with an option on two more. That in turn had led to orders from Saudi Arabia and Brazil. Thanks to Harry Perkins British Insulated had gone from strength to strength. And, who knows, they might one day have led the world, but for the disaster at Windermere.
The Windermere reactor was not simply a triumph of technology. It was also a triumph of politics. The splitting of the atom was as nothing compared with the five-year battle that raged between the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Save Windermere Society. There were public inquiries, High Court injunctions, parliamentary select committees and, when all else failed, sabotage.
The scientists argued that their nuclear power station was clean, safe and aesthetic. The Save Windermere Society said it was dirty, poisonous and ugly. The society argued that the Windermere reactor would drive away tourists, destroy wild life and one day perhaps incinerate Lancashire. The society had mobilised the National Trust, the Countryside Commission, Cumbria County Council and the Lake District National Park Authority, to say nothing of the Kendal Conservative Association and the Newby Bridge Amenity Society. Between them these organisations could count on more colonels, brigadiers and generals than the Duke of Wellington took to Waterloo. Yet in the end they met defeat. Whitehall decreed that the Windermere reactor should be built. Parliament and the judges endorsed it. And up it went.
But slowly. The building of it took four years longer than scheduled. Sugar was poured into the fuel tanks of the bulldozers that came to clear the site. There was an inter-union dispute over the lagging of pipes which led to a six-month shutdown. When the pipes were finally fitted many were found to have faulty welds. Then the boilers leaked. And then there was the little matter of the uranium that came off the rails somewhere between Liverpool docks and Preston.
There were times when British Insulated teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. There were times when the board seriously considered pulling out of reactors. There were times when Michael Jarvis wished he had been a schoolteacher, a postman or anything but the managing director of British Insulated. Yet in the end the Windermere reactor was built.
It occupied a shelf of land blasted out of the hills that run along the west shore of the lake. By no stretch of the imagination was it a thing of beauty except perhaps to nuclear engineers and architects. But neither was it dirty or poisonous. Not to begin with anyway.
The reactor dwelled in a huge windowless temple of sheer white concrete inlaid with aluminium. Inside the temple was crisscrossed by steel pipes and walkways all as spick and span as a hospital operating theatre. Down the centre a towering structure of yellow steel, not unlike a lighthouse, ran back and forth on rails feeding the god on enriched uranium. In all of this the intervention of human beings seemed irrelevant.
The god itself was encased in a concrete holy of holies seventy feet high and twelve feet thick and lined with steel, capable, or so it was said, of enduring heat at temperatures of up to seven hundred degrees centigrade and pressure of six hundred pounds per square inch.
The uranium pellets on which the god was fed were passed to it through the roof of the concrete chamber. The great heat given off by the uranium was blasted by carbon dioxide into water boilers which produced steam, which drove turbines which in turn produced electricity. That at least was the theory. And so it was in practice, until that fateful day in May when the Windermere reactor went out of control and almost took out Liverpool.
Jerry Turnbull was in charge of the control room when the temperature gauges started to rise. “Bloody gauge is playing up again,” he muttered, hammering the glass panel with his fist. The needle on the gauge did not move.
Phil Prescott, control assistant, came and stood behind Turnbull. He was yawning. It was the first hour of the night shift. “No sign of the red light.” He gestured towards the panel of lights which came on automatically in the event of an equipment failure. “Must be the gauge.”
Turnbull hammered on the gauge again. Still it didn’t move. He was not unduly worried. There had been two false alarms in the ten days since Windermere had been operating at full capacity and both had been traced to faulty wiring in the instrument panel. “Marvellous, isn’t it?” said Prescott. “We can split the atom, but we can’t wire a bloody circuit.”
Turnbull picked up a phone and dialled the instrument maintenance engineers. There was no answer. “Another fucking tea break,” he said loudly and slammed the phone down. Opening the log book he wrote the following entry: “2130, reactor coolant temperature gauge reading too high. Rang instrument maintenance. No reply.” At least my arse is covered, he thought as he closed the log.
Jerry Turnbull had risen about as far as he was going to get in the hierarchy of the power industry. Even now he was working above his grade. The regular nightshift controller had taken sick two days ago and Turnbull was filling in. He was forty-nine years old and bitter. He worked nightshifts because his wife had left him and because nights were quieter. “Mr Turnbull likes a quiet life,” his annual report had said. And it was true.
Unfortunately for Mr Turnbull, however, tonight was not going to be quiet.
He was dozing lightly when somehow his eye came to rest on the meter that measured radiation in the reactor hall. It was reading two hundred and fifty millirems per hour. He came to with a jolt. Carbon dioxide was leaking.
Turnbull looked at his watch; it was 0215. The reactor temperature gauge was still creeping up although there was no sign of a red light. He looked around for Prescott, but Prescott had gone for an early breakfast.
Trembling slightly Turnbull switched on the video scanner that monitored the pipes carrying the carbon dioxide into the reactor. The camera ran along the length of the pipes, hovering over the welds. There was no sight of a leak. He looked again at the radiation meter. It had gone up another twenty millirems.
Next, he turned on the scanner that monitored the pipes taking the steam out of the reactor to the generator. He scanned them once, twice. Turnbull was panicking now. He had worked seventeen years in nuclear power stations without once being near the scene of an accident. Now for the first time he found himself in sole charge.
He rang the canteen. Where the hell was Prescott? Gone down to the lakeside for a smoke. He rang instrument maintenance. The bastards still were not answering.
Even at this point, so the manuals assure us, there is no cause for alarm. All the reactor components essential to its safe functioning are duplicated. If the pumps which bring the coolant gas into the reactor fail, there are duplicates waiting to take over. If one of the pipes bringing the coolant into the reactors o
r taking the steam away should leak, there are others which will take the strain.
If all else fails, so the text book says, the reactor will automatically shut itself down. But none of this happened at Windermere that night.
By the time a nearly hysterical Turnbull got the general manager out of bed the meter reading for radiation in the reactor hall had risen to four hundred millirems an hour, ten times the permitted level.
Engineers in protective clothing were inside the hall searching for the source of the leak. The temperature gauge had reached seven hundred degrees but there was no sight of an automatic shutdown. When the general manager appeared on the scene around 0545 he found Prescott and Turnbull arguing furiously. Prescott wanted the reactor shut down. Turnbull was shouting that he was not going to be the man who shut down the Windermere reactor.
By the time the dayshift came on duty the radiation level in the reactor hall was over six hundred millirems. Medical checks on the engineers who had been inside the hall showed they were seriously contaminated. The general manager immediately ordered a shutdown of the reactor but some of the control rods appeared to have warped, making a complete shutdown impossible. Inside the reactor the uranium was melting. In the reactor hall automatic sprays had been activated, but they were insufficient to cope with the huge quantities of radioactive carbon dioxide now leaking from the reactor.
Tests in the atmosphere outside the reactor building showed no significant radiation leakage, but it was clearly only a question of time. The police were asked to stand by to evacuate everyone within a five mile radius. At 0800 Downing Street came on the line. The Prime Minister wished to be kept informed.
He was not the only one. A twenty-mile-an-hour wind was blowing due south. At that rate a cloud of radioactive carbon dioxide would take just fifteen minutes to engulf the village of Newby Bridge at the end of Windermere. Then, assuming no change in the direction of the wind, the radioactive cloud would continue south over Morecambe Bay and would reach Blackpool within little over an hour. Within three hours it could be over Liverpool.
“Facilities for the orderly evacuation of Liverpool do not exist,” said the Chief Constable of Merseyside when informed of the news.
By 0935 the Windermere engineers managed to get the emergency cooling system working which stopped the uranium melting, but the radiation level in the reactor hall was higher than ever. The meter reading was showing nearly one thousand millirems in the area of the reactor and even men wearing protective clothing could only work there for a few minutes at a time.
By midday, with the help of experts from London flown in by army helicopter, the engineers managed to insert the warped control rods and close down the reactor. Tests outside the building showed that radiation was reaching dangerous levels. Disaster had been averted. Just.
*
The preliminary investigation showed that the cause of the leakage was a series of hairline cracks in the base of the concrete pressure vessel which contained the reactor. The cracks had developed into fissures when the reactor overheated due to the failure of the emergency cooling system. Later enquiries revealed that the cracks occurred because the concrete used in the construction of the pressure vessel did not match the specifications laid down by the designers and approved by Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Neither had the vessel been adequately tested despite documentation that said otherwise. In other words, British Insulated Industries had a few questions to answer. A public enquiry was immediately announced, but it was not only British Insulated who would face questions.
On the Sunday morning after the accident at Windermere, David Booth made himself a pot of tea and sat out in the garden with the papers. It was the first time that year that the weather had been good enough to sit outside. His wife had taken the children to lunch at her mother’s, so he would not be disturbed.
The papers were full of the Windermere disaster. The Sunday Times Insight team had traced the whole history of the project and their report filled a special four-page pull-out. Most of the papers had been quick to pounce upon Harry Perkins’ role in the affair. There were long articles describing how he had forced the deal through in the teeth of bitter opposition from his own civil servants, the Atomic Energy Authority and the Central Electricity Generating Board. Several editorials called on Perkins to make a statement.
David Booth took more than a casual interest. He was a principal in the foreign exchange department at the Treasury, but thirteen years ago – exactly at the time the deal with British Insulated had been negotiated – he had been on a six-month secondment to the nuclear division of the Public Sector Department. Indeed he had actually taken part in some of the negotiations.
At the time, Booth had formed a sneaking regard for Perkins. He had been deeply impressed by the way Perkins had stood his ground over the reactors against virtually the entire establishment. He had also been appalled at the way his civil service superiors had behaved: refusing to circulate briefing documents; withholding from the minister information that did not tally with the case they were putting forward. There had been times when he had seriously wondered whether or not some of his colleagues were actually in the pay of the American reactor company.
But none of this concerned Booth that sunny Sunday morning. He was worrying that he knew what the Sunday Times Insight team did not, something that would cause a sensation if it became generally known. David Booth knew that, at the time Harry Perkins had been pushing British Insulated’s case through Cabinet he had been having an affair with the secretary to the managing director of British Insulated. Booth had seen the Secretary of State discreetly hand the girl that envelope during the negotiations at the department one morning. He had watched them drinking coffee together by the window overlooking the Thames. And in the weeks that followed he had seen the knowing winks and nods, the occasional pat of the elbow that the Secretary of State and the girl had exchanged.
The question was, what should he do about it? In all probability the affair was entirely innocent. Foolish perhaps for a man in Perkins’ position, but nevertheless innocent. He had no wish to do Perkins down. God knows, the man had enough trouble on his hands without all this being raked up. In any case he had worked with Perkins. The man was as straight as a die – even his worst enemies would concede that.
On the other hand, a doubt nagged him. Supposing the girl had influenced the decision over the reactor? Supposing she had led him, however unwittingly, to come down in favour of British Insulated? Almost certainly there was nothing in it, but it was his duty to report what he had seen.
Booth wrestled with the problem all weekend. He did not finally make up his mind until he arrived at his desk on Monday morning. Then he asked for an immediate appointment with his permanent secretary, Sir Peter Kennedy.
17
When the memorandum from Sir Peter Kennedy arrived on Sir Peregrine Craddock’s desk the DI5 chief’s eyes lit up. Sir Peregrine was not much given to displays of emotion, but he got up, paced his office and slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand. If this is true, he said to himself, we’ve got the bastard at last.
Composing himself Sir Peregrine returned to his desk and buzzed Fiennes.
“There’s a man called David Booth who works in the Foreign Exchange Department of the Treasury. I want to see him immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I want to get on to our man at the Public Sector Department. Ask him to get me the names and addresses of everyone from British Insulated Industries who took part in the reactor negotiations at the Department thirteen years ago.” He looked up at Fiennes who was standing almost to attention. “Everyone. Do you understand? Typists, clerks, stenographers, the lot.”
“At once, sir.”
“And when you’ve done that,” Sir Peregrine was still looking at Fiennes, “get on to the Special Branch inspector in charge of the Prime Minister’s security. Tell him I would like to see him as soon as possible, but that he is not to let anyone know he is comin
g here. Neither his superiors nor the Prime Minister. Especially not the Prime Minister.”
What’s all that about? wondered Fiennes, as he closed the door behind him and returned to the outer office. He knew better than to ask questions, however. He would find out soon enough.
David Booth arrived at Curzon Street House within the hour and was shown straight to Sir Peregrine’s office. His hands were shaking slightly as Fiennes showed him in. Even now he was not sure he had done right. Perhaps there was something in it after all. All the same, he never expected to be summoned by the head of DI5.
Sir Peregrine was in an affable mood. When Booth entered, he leaned across his desk and shook hands. “So good of you to come, Mr Booth. I shan’t keep you long.” He waved Booth to an armchair.
The interview lasted about ten minutes. Booth repeated what he had already told his permanent secretary that morning. Sir Peregrine went over the details carefully. Had he actually seen Perkins hand the envelope to the girl? Yes, he had. Did he have any idea what was in it? No, he did not. Could it have been connected with the reactor negotiations? Yes, possibly. Perhaps the Secretary of State had simply handed over some document for safe keeping that she would afterwards pass on to her boss? Possible, but unlikely. And in any case there was all that nodding and winking.
“Quite so,” said Sir Peregrine crisply, “but even Secretaries of State are not above occasionally making eyes at a pretty girl. That didn’t mean he was sleeping with her.”
Not necessarily, agreed Booth. He was beginning to feel that it was all in his imagination. There was nothing in Sir Peregrine’s reaction to indicate whether he believed the story or not.