Crisis (24 page)

‘Beating up anyone who comes within yards of
your perimeter fence is a bit more than being
vigilant,’ said Bannerman.

‘Well, yes but …’

‘And being against nuclear power doesn’t automatically make you an “inadequate misfit”.’

‘Well, no but we get so much negative publicity
that perhaps we’re all just a bit paranoid in the
industry. We are constantly portrayed as harbingers
of danger rather than suppliers of cheap, clean power,’ said Rossman.

‘Perhaps,’ said Bannerman.

‘I understand you were monitoring the ground
outside the west fence,’ said Rossman.

‘That’s right. I wanted to see if there had been a
radiation leak in the recent past.’

‘But if there had been we would have …’

‘Covered it up like last time,’ interrupted
Bannerman.

Rossman looked at Bannerman in silence for a long
moment before saying, ‘‘I don’t think I understand
what …’

‘My information came from the Cabinet Office,’
said Bannerman.

‘‘
I see,’ said the manager, obviously wondering
how to deal with him. He got up from his desk and
walked over to a large map of the station which was
mounted on the back wall of his office. ‘If I might
ask you to join me, Doctor?’

Bannerman walked over to the map and Rossman
pointed to an area on the east side of the station. He
said, ‘We had a problem with a pipe carrying cooling
water from the reactor suite. There was a crack in it and we suffered a slight loss of fluid before it was
discovered.’

‘How slight?’

‘About a hundred gallons.’

‘How big an area was affected?’

‘We think not more than two hundred square
metres,’ said the manager.

‘You think?’

‘You’ve seen the ground round here. It’s hard to
say for sure.’

‘You seem pretty complacent about it,’ said
Bannerman.

‘On the contrary,’ said Rossman. ‘We cordoned off
an area twice that size and dug trenches along the perimeter. Contaminated earth was removed and
constant monitoring of the area was maintained for
several months after the incident. Apart from that
Doctor, no one lives to the east of the station. There
was never any danger to anyone.’

‘Then why cover it up?’ asked Bannerman.

Rossman adopted an exasperated air and said, ‘It
wasn’t a question of covering anything up. We just
didn’t publicize the affair and for the reasons I spoke
of earlier. We would have been pilloried by those
anxious to destroy the nuclear industry.’

‘Have there been other incidents that you didn’t
publicize?’ asked Bannerman.

‘No. None at all. This station is perfectly safe, I
assure you.’

‘Until a hundred gallons of radioactive cooling
water goes for a walk,’ said Bannerman.

That is exactly the kind of scaremongering we can do without in this industry!’ said the manager, going
slightly red in the face. ‘We provide a lot of jobs in the
area. You should think twice before putting them in
jeopardy with that kind of talk.’

‘What I said was the truth,’ said Bannerman. ‘Not scaremongering.’

‘It was a one-off incident,’ insisted the manager.

‘But it happened! You can’t dismiss it as if it never
really had!’

‘‘
I don’t think you fully understand the benefits
that nuclear power can bring to our country Doctor,’
said Rossman.

‘Oh but I do,’ insisted Bannerman. ‘I understand
the benefits perfectly. What really gets up my nose is your industry’s reluctance to face up to the problems.
You pretend that there aren’t any. You maintain that
accidents won’t happen when everyone else knows
that they will. You keep generating waste that you
can’t deal with because it’s going to be dangerous for
thousands of years and the best you can do is bury
it in holes in the ground and keep looking for more
holes.’

‘It’s not like that at all,’ said Rossman.

‘I think it is,’ said Bannerman.

‘Then I think we must agree to differ,’ said
Rossman.

Bannerman looked at his watch and said, ‘Time I
was going.’

‘I will have someone drive you home,’ said the
manager.

‘No you won’t!’ exclaimed Bannerman. ‘It took
me three hours to get to the perimeter fence from Inverladdie, I’m not doing that hike all over again. I want to get on with monitoring the ground I was
working on when your men got “vigilant”.’

‘But I’ve told you we’ve had no problem on that
side of the station,’ said the manager.

That you know of,’ added Bannerman.

The manager took a deep breath and then exhaled
slowly. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll have Mitchell’s men
take you back there.’

‘Good.’

‘I have also instructed Mitchell to make a personal
apology to you before you leave.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bannerman.

Bannerman was led away from Rossman’s office
by a security man who had been waiting outside
the door. Half-way along the corridor he paused at
a window to look down at the huge generating hall
and the figures clad in white plastic suits tending
to the machinery. The constant whine from the tur
bines seemed to pervade every part of the building,
despite the extensive use of soundproof double
glazing. There was a surgical cleanliness about the
whole operation, no coal dust or oil or furnaces,
just silent, invisible power sealed in concrete silos, its presence only advertised by the constant yellow and black radioactivity symbols.

Mitchell stood up when Bannerman was shown
into his room. He had recovered his aplomb and
his eyes were filled once again with self confidence.
‘‘I’m sorry for our little misunderstanding, Doctor,’
he said, ‘but I’m sure you appreciate just how careful
we have to be.’ He held out his hand and said, ‘Shall
we let bygones by bygones?’

The self-satisfied look on Mitchell’s face was too
much for Bannerman. He swung his right fist in a
short sharp hook to Mitchell’s jaw and the man went
down like a sack of potatoes. ‘If we’re going to do
that,’ he said, ‘then let’s start even.’

Mitchell sat on the floor holding his jaw with an expression of dazed bewilderment on his face. The
security man who had brought Bannerman back
moved in to grip Bannerman’s arms but Mitchell
held up a hand. ‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘Take him
where he wants to go.’

Once outside the fence, Bannerman cursed himself
for his lack of self control. Of all the stupid things
to do! You had to go and behave like a headstrong
schoolboy! You had to throw away the moral high
ground and hit him! You’re no better than he is!
Why do you do these things Bannerman? Are you
ever going to act your age? His self reproach was
total; he couldn’t find one redeeming factor in his
behaviour; he felt utterly disgusted with himself.
He stubbed out his cigarette and got up from the
boulder he had been sitting on. Perhaps if he threw
himself into the job at hand he might block out some
of the bad feelings.

During the course of the next three hours Bannerman
moved up and down the ground between Inverladdie
and the power station, meticulously scanning a
two-metre wide strip each time. He was aware
that he was being watched from the power station but no attempt was made to interfere with what he was doing. By the time he decided to call it a day
his fingers were numb with cold and rain water had
sought out several weak points in his waterproof
clothing. He packed the Geiger counter back into
his rucksack and set out on the long trek back. He
had found no evidence of radioactive contamination
of the soil at all.

Back at the hotel, Bannerman lowered himself
gingerly into a hot bath and slipped slowly beneath
the suds. He breathed a sigh of appreciation as the
warm water covered him up to his chin and started
to work on the aches and pains. The fact that he
had achieved nothing positive for all his efforts did not help the recovery process, but the prospect of a
hot meal and several whiskies to follow counteracted
any notions of failure for the moment.

As he nursed his second glass of malt whisky in
front of the fire in the bar, Bannerman wondered whether or not it would be worthwhile to continue
examining the ground between Inverladdie and the
power station. He had carried out a pretty exhaustive
scan of the border strip - about sixty metres wide, he
reckoned, but there were still other possibilities to
take account of. He had gone for the obvious scenario
of a leak occurring in the station and contamination
spreading outside the wire through the soil but there
were other possibilities.

Contamination could have occurred from the sea.
The station would have discharge pipes which
would empty into the sea. Officially the discharge
would be monitored and kept within agreed and
legally enforced limits of radioactivity but what if
an accidental discharge of high level waste had
gone into the sea? Conceivably the tide could
have brought it back on to the shore along the
Inverladdie coastal strip. Alternatively there could
have been aerial contamination from a discharge of radioactive gas.

Bannerman decided that it was worth him check
ing out the coastal strip of Inverladdie because a
two-metre scan along three hundred metres or so of
beach should reveal any tide borne contamination.
Checking for contamination from the air, however,
was a different matter. A gas cloud could have come
down anywhere and he couldn’t possibly hope to monitor the whole farm on his own.

His decision to examine the coastline at Inverladdie
meant that he had sentenced himself to another hard
day. He pondered on whether or not to have a day
off before going back but decided that that would
be giving in to his age. The landlord had agreed to
dry off his wet clothing and boots, so he decided
he would have one more whisky and then have an
early night.
As
he went to the bar to get his drink
the quarry worker he had come to know entered the
bar and Bannerman bought him a drink.

As they sat down together at the fire the quarry
man, now introduced as Colin Turnbull, said, The
word is that you think the nuclear station had
something to do with the meningitis deaths.’

‘Silly gossip,’ replied Bannerman, but he was
unpleasantly surprised at how fast it had travelled. ‘I met your boss last night,’ he said. ‘He seemed a
nice enough chap.’

‘Mr van Gelder? He’s OK and the job pays well.
The only drawback is that there are no prospects.’

‘Why not?’ asked Bannerman.

‘Search me,’ replied Turnbull. “The company
seems pretty enlightened in every other way, good pay, conditions, health care etc. but absolutely no
prospects of promotion. Senior posts are strictly for
the Dutch.’

‘Strange,’ said Bannerman.

‘
I’m thinking of taking them to the Race Relations
Board,’ smiled Turnbull.