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.)