‘Any coating? Electro-plating?’
‘Yes. We did some of that, too.’
‘I see. Please go on.’
‘Yes. Well, I used to solemnly X-ray the stuff we turned out — as they do in all steel foundries nowadays. Then came the business of the cobalt.’
‘What sort of cobalt?’ said Seff. ‘Do you mean the ordinary stuff you use for alloying with the metal?’
‘No. I mean the radioactive isotope — cobalt-60. It happened this way: I told the company it would be more efficient — as if they cared about efficiency! — when inspecting large quantities of steel, especially the heavier steel, if we had a portable radiographing plant which could be taken round the sheds on routine checks of the metal, instead of transporting the samples into the X-ray room. To my amazement, they agreed; and a machine of this type was delivered to the works a couple of months later. This particular apparatus didn’t use X-rays at all; instead, a piece of radioactive material was used. As you know this is quite a common practice these days.
‘Well, the machine arrived without the necessary material — which of course would be expected. So I gently pointed out to the works manager that I couldn’t possibly use the thing until some suitable radiating material arrived. They were very surprised — I think they thought that all you had to do was to plug the apparatus into the nearest lighting point. But when I had convinced them they tried to get hold of the stuff, but without success.’
Seff gave a sardonic laugh. ‘I’m not surprised!’ he said. ‘I don’t think I would have cared to send them a bag of bull’s eyes, let alone anything as lethal as an industrial isotope.’
‘And you would have been right,’ said Ganin seriously. ‘But they got it. Somehow. After all, they had to get it: they’d sold the X-ray machine by then! And it looked pretty bad, having no means of checking the thickness of the steel during the rolling process — except by stopping the mill. They got some cobalt-60, in a properly shielded lead canister, and told me to get on with the job.’
‘But how? said Gatt quietly but intensely. ‘How did they get it? Where did it come from?’
‘That’s one of the things I tried to find out,’ said Ganin in a tone that matched his. ‘But I only found out one thing for sure. Or rather, suspected it strongly enough in my own mind to be certain. And that was that they didn’t come by it honestly! However, to continue. I got to work with the new machine, and it was excellent in every way — we hadn’t had a particularly powerful X-ray equipment, and this new apparatus would penetrate much thicker material — and of course you could use a longer exposure. If you tried that on the ordinary X-ray, the tube got far too hot. Also there was practically no wear and tear on the machine; you could use it as much and as often as you liked provided you didn’t run out of the photographic plates. (Which of course, we very frequently did.) So we had a cheaper and better method of radiography that could go on for quite a while without replacing the cobalt — since its half-life is, of course, relatively long.’
‘Who looked after the cobalt?’ said Manson. ‘Did you?’
‘No, I wasn’t allowed to keep it at all. I used to go to the managing director of the firm when I needed it.’
‘Where was it kept, then?’
‘It was kept in its lead container, inside the safe. That is, when he remembered to put it there.’
‘Do you mean to say,’ said Seff incredulously, ‘that it was sometimes left lying about?’
‘In that firm,’ said Ganin, ‘anything could happen. Yes, I saw it sitting on his desk on two occasions. Naturally I made one heck of a fuss about it.’
‘Didn’t it ever occur to you,’ put in Manson, ‘to report this?’
Ganin looked directly across the table at him. ‘It occurred to me to report it,’ he said, ‘when I heard some pretty disturbing rumours on the ship while returning from South Africa. It started a couple of days before we docked at Liverpool, when it was heard that a ship belonging to the same line — called the Henry Starbuck, I think — had had some sort of trouble on board, and some of its crew were alleged to be suffering from radiation sickness. Naturally, being a physicist of a kind, I was more than interested. I found out from the captain of our ship that the source of the trouble was a cargo of tinned food. Since I had nothing else to do, I started thinking about it, and remembered some of the things I have just been telling you. I might not have put two and two together, but for one of those passengers who got on at Mombasa. He had heard that the men were in hospital, but didn’t know why. One thing led to another, until finally, two days ago, we got the other half of the story. And of course there was no mention of radiation sickness in the papers when we arrived in England — only a reference to food-poisoning, and some pretty exhaustive precautions that were being taken to combat it. But as soon as I saw the paper in Liverpool, I realised what was in the wind. That’s when I telephoned to Ed Springle.’
Hargreaves said: ‘What happened at Newlands after the row about the cobalt being left about?’
‘Well, things were being made pretty hot for me there, and it was obvious that my days were numbered. By that time, as you can imagine, I was only too ready to get out.
‘And sure enough, about a month or so later, things came to a head. Of course, the reason for my getting the sack was a trumped-up one. There was a fight. What actually happened was that two fellas started arguing and started a brawl. I had to separate them. Everybody knew this perfectly well. But when the final straw took place, they switched the story around a bit and I was blamed for starting the fight! I didn’t care, anyway. I’d had enough of Newlands Steel.’
‘What was the final straw?’ said Gatt. As if he hadn’t guessed already.
‘It was when I went to the managing director and asked for the capsule of cobalt-60. He’d lost it.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the meeting reassembled after a short break for tea, there was a large piece of apparatus set up on the table. Manson was tinkering about with it importantly. Dick couldn’t help catching Gresham’s eye — Manson locked so absurdly pompous.
‘For the benefit of those of us who are not familiar with the technicalities,’ said the Director, ‘I have asked Alec to explain briefly what is involved. I think it is essential that we should all know a little about the principles of radiation. Alec—’ Alec —?’
Manson opened his brief-case and produced two tins with the Spigett label upon them. He plonked them on the table with a dramatic gesture.
‘Here we have two cans of beans,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘The one on my left is an innocent one, the one on the right is contaminated. Don’t worry about the radiation though; there is not enough coming from this one to do any harm — it is one of the weaker ones. But it does come from the infected batch; that is, J4 — 22, QN4W.’ He rested a podgy fist on the detecting apparatus. ‘This machine is sensitive to radiation. The degree of radiation is registered on the big dial you see on the front.’