‘What – to help them?’ Daisy tried to smooth any exasperation out of her voice. ‘But why, for God’s sake? We agreed – we should do everything we could – ’
‘Their case won’t succeed.’
This needed to be taken gently, not an approach that came naturally to Daisy. ‘How can you say it’s doomed? We don’t know till we try, do we?’
‘A case like that – it’ll take years and God only knows how many thousands of pounds.’
‘I know, but we’re not promising the family a lot of cash, are we? Just a token offering to get them going.’
‘
And
back-up – data, information, research, liaison …’
‘Well, of course …’
‘Which means a helluva lot of time and money.’ Alan agitated the jaws of the grip so rapidly that they made a loud clacking noise, like the teeth of a mad animal. He looked up, wearing his most resolute expression. ‘We decided right at the beginning, when Catch was first set up, that it would be absolutely futile to take on the agrochemi-cal industry direct while we had such limited funds, that confrontation would be a sure way of defeating
ourselves
. Nothing’s changed since then, Daisy. In fact, if anything there’s even
more
reason to avoid getting bogged down in something like this. We’re just as stretched as before, if not more so. Committed on too many fronts – the new newsletter, setting up all the regional groups … well – you
know
how it is. But a legal fight … it’d be a minefield, Daisy. We can’t afford to go pioneering, not over totally untested ground. We just don’t have the resources. The media –
that
’s our battlefield,
that
’s what we understand, it’s the only place where we know how to win.’
Daisy let this flow over her; it was familiar, not to say well-trodden, ground. ‘But it’s not us who’re taking on the case,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s the Knowles family.’
‘Quite.’ He waved the bulldog grip in the air, as if he had just succeeded in explaining everything. ‘The Knowleses should never have been encouraged to take legal action in the first place. The scientists are still totally divided, the evidence is too weak for any British court of law. You know that, I know that, but it seems the Knowleses of all people don’t know it.’
‘You’re making it sound as if I pushed them into it,’ she said defensively. ‘You’re making it sound as if I encouraged them. Which isn’t true, and you know it.’
Alan shot her a stern look. ‘Put it this way, perhaps you could have done a better job of discouraging them.’
‘Thanks,’ Daisy said sharply. ‘And how exactly do you tell people that the law is a total waste of time? How do you tell them that their whole experience has been for nothing?’
‘You tell them, that’s what you do. You tell them because it’s true.’
Daisy was losing ground but couldn’t see how to fight her way out of it.
‘Oh, the case’d get some publicity all right,’ Alan went on remorselessly. ‘On the last day of the case, that is. And maybe the first. But in the middle, all through the weeks and weeks of expert evidence and the months waiting for the second appeal, there’d be zilch. The only sure thing would be the catastophic expense and almost certain bankruptcy for the family.’ He finished with a flourish: ‘It seems rather a high price to pay for a little publicity.’
Daisy leant back in her chair and folded her arms tightly across her chest. ‘So what on earth are we doing here then?’ she said, unable to suppress the frustration in her voice. ‘I mean, if we can’t help people like the Knowleses?’
Alan stood up. ‘You know the answer to that – to campaign. It’s the only game we can play. More to the point, it’s the only game we can – ’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said wearily, ‘I know, I
know
– it’s the only game we can afford.’
A phone began to ring. Neither of them was in a hurry to answer it and it continued to sound eerily through the dingy rooms. Suddenly the street door banged and they heard the rapid tap of Jenny’s metal-heeled boots as she ran into the general office to snatch up the phone.
In the silence, Daisy picked up her argument again. ‘We should be doing both. Campaigning
and
offering support. Honestly, Alan, what’s the point otherwise?’
He gave an exasperated laugh. ‘But, Daisy … It’s always a mistake to get too …’ He hesitated. She had the feeling he had been about to say emotional, not a word she would have appreciated. Instead he murmured: ‘…
involved
in these things.’
Jenny’s voice called from the outer office, summoning Alan to the phone. Before disappearing he gave a gesture of regret, an affirmation that, according to his reckoning, he had won his point.
Daisy stood up and took a couple of turns round the filing cabinets, trying to make sense of her anger. It wasn’t just the lack of money, though that was a continual problem, it wasn’t even Alan’s habit of putting a dampener on her most precious ideas, though he did that often enough to make her suspect that he got a perverse satisfaction from it. No, the worst part was the knowledge that he had a point, that much as she longed to see a case brought against the agrochemical camp it would be wrong to let it go ahead at the Knowleses’ expense. However determined Alice Knowles was, however keen her son to find a purpose in his illness, it was doubtful that a case fought with such meagre resources would be worth the emotional and financial strain. Reluctant though she was to admit it, Alan could have been right, and she should have done a better job of talking the Knowleses out of it.
Dropping dejectedly back into her chair, she leafed through her diary, looking for a date when she could go and see Alice again. The weekend, as usual, was the only time she had free.
She started on the mail, automatically flipping the discarded envelopes into the box earmarked for recycling. Magazines, journals, reports, scientific papers, members’ letters, non-members’ letters: too much of it, always too much of it.
Opening a large envelope, she pulled out three smaller ones, each addressed to a box number at
Farmers Weekly
. In a guilty reflex, Daisy glanced over her shoulder. This was a little idea she’d forgotten to mention to Alan, but now was not, she felt, the moment to come clean. The ad had been simple enough: ALDEB.
Anyone experiencing health problems from exposure to this fungicide, please write Box No
… . Normally Catch accumulated their case histories through people like the Farmers’ Union Health Executive, through newspaper articles or contacts made on Catch’s behalf by friendly toxicologists. To Daisy these haphazard methods had always seemed inadequate, and she’d long been haunted by the almost certain knowledge that there were dozens of other cases out there, just waiting to be uncovered.
The first letter was not promising. It was from a lady in Wiltshire who’d worked on a chicken farm and wanted to know if Aldeb was the medicine they were always feeding the chickens, because if so, she thought it was responsible for her ‘hormones’. She’d been under the doctor for months, had had several operations, but was still suffering all her old troubles.
Daisy put the letter to one side. Investigating chickenfeed wasn’t within Catch’s present brief, though if anyone bothered to analyse a modern broiler hen’s intestines, it probably would be.
The next letter was from a Lincolnshire farmer whose wife had developed cancer. Their main crop was potatoes and, until they’d been alerted to the dangers of Aldeb the previous year, they’d been using the chemical continuously. The wife had been in charge of warehousing and storage, which involved regular applications of fungicide in enclosed conditions. Daisy felt a small spark of optimism: this was more like it.
The third letter was from a man with a Hertfordshire address. Daisy wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. He said he’d come across Aldeb and would like to tell her about it. He was in London for a few days, staying at a friend’s in Battersea, and suggested they meet for tea. No details, no suggestion of how he’d come into contact with Aldeb; it was all rather vague and unsatisfactory.
She went back to the farmer’s letter and read it again. Definitely worth following up. She started to dial the number then, remembering that farmers were rarely home at nine in the morning, called Simon instead. He was generally in the flat at this time of day, bashing out his articles before going in to the
Sunday Times
at about eleven to do his telephone research at the newspaper’s expense. The later part of the day was for interviews and meetings, the evenings for the novel. Between all this came Daisy, at least she thought she fitted into the picture somewhere, though it was difficult to be sure.
‘Is there any medical evidence of a link?’ he asked as soon as Daisy told him about the letter. ‘She might have got ill anyway.’
‘Not yet,’ Daisy conceded. ‘But if we run some tests on her and the results tally with the Knowles family – well, we might have something.’
‘Even then …’
‘Well, what?’
‘Not enough, is it?’
‘It’s a start.’
‘You could do with some more cases.’
Daisy thought of the Hertfordshire man who wanted to meet her for tea. ‘I’m working on it,’ she said. She almost asked Simon if he was working on the story too, but she didn’t like to press him, not when she’d given him a second hard sell only the previous week. She didn’t want him to think she was obsessive, not when she’d hardly got into her stride.
‘How about that Truffaut film?’ she asked lightly, putting a low inviting note into her voice. But if there were ways to entice Simon into sudden acts of recklessness this, apparently, was not one of them.
‘I’m working tonight and through the weekend,’ he said. There was a pause. ‘Umm – Tuesday?’
Tuesday was four days away. ‘No chance of a quick meal in between? Like Monday?’
‘Can’t. I’m going to the Ritz.’
‘The life you lead,’ she said. ‘What is it – a discussion on North Sea pollution washed down with a dozen oysters?’
‘Not quite,’ he said disapprovingly. ‘Morton-Kreiger are unveiling some plans. For an environmentally friendly chemical plant, something like that.’
‘Not so far wrong. Champagne and canapés in the lion’s den.’
‘Well, they’re trying at least.’
‘You could put it that way.’
‘They try harder than most.’
‘That’s because they’ve got more to hide.’
Simon put on his authoritative voice, the one he used to counter emotional and ill-argued opinions. ‘You can’t look at everything in black and white, Daisy.’
‘Maybe not, but even in colour Morton-Kreiger looks pretty murky.’
‘I’ll see you on Tuesday, Daisy.’
‘Don’t forget to ask them about Aldeb,’ she called, but he’d already rung off. Unfinished conversations seemed to be a feature of whatever relationship she was establishing with Simon. She had the feeling that, when it came to discussions, she failed to come up to his rigorous intellectual standards of debate. Well, she’d never pretended to be Oxford Union material. Jenny poked her head through the door, a fax dangling from her fingers. Jenny was a punkette, complete with gold nose-ring, leather miniskirt, black tights and hair the colour of an iridescent tropical bird. She had a degree in sociology and laughed a lot, which was just as well considering her working conditions. ‘It’s your Washington friend Paul Erlinger,’ she said.
‘Why do you say
friend
like that?’
‘I think he fancies you.’
‘I’ve never met him.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t let a small thing like that get in the way,’ Jenny said archly, closing the door.
The fax read:
Dear Daisy, The good news – the EPA won the Aldeb appeal. The bad news – by only two-one, and Morton-Kreiger International have been quick to file for a rehearing in the Federal Court of Appeal, and a stay of order. At the appeal hearing MKI pleaded bias in the testing procedures at the research company they used for the retesting demanded by the EPA. Rich, huh? The mind boggles at what comes next. More bad news – they’ve got a hold on the publication of the complete retest data, so I’ve nothing more to send you.
Daisy muttered to herself, a quiet heartfelt oath. She had been banking on that data. She had been hoping to be the first to send it to the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, prior to pressing for an urgent UK ban.
At this rate the whole thing will get to the Supreme Court some time next century. I dreamed about you the other night – crazy, huh? Something to do with having your picture (courtesy the Catch newsletter) pinned over my desk. Will you ever make it over this side? Love, Paul.
Morton-Kreiger would fight the Aldeb ban to the bitter end – she wouldn’t have expected them to do otherwise – but what surprised her was how successful their tactics were proving, and in the States of all places, where the balance was more heavily weighted in favour of consumer safety than anywhere else. Delays, appeals, hearings; Morton-Kreiger didn’t seem to run short of ideas.
She swore again, though it was more of a sigh this time, and felt her disappointment drift into something approaching acceptance. She began to draft a reply to Paul Erlinger, asking when he guessed the data might finally be released, and if there might be a dirty-tricks story in there somewhere, a few unsavoury facts about Morton-Kreiger’s tactics which might be suitable for leaking to the investigative press. She also asked for details of EarthForce’s most recent case histories, in case there was an obvious overlap with the Knowles case. His reply would make for a lengthy fax, but EarthForce could afford it. Their supporters numbered a healthy two-point-five million, rising fast.
She read the last part of Paul’s message again. It was hard to know how to respond. She’d seen a picture of Paul Erlinger in the EarthForce newsletter, and she didn’t have it pinned over her desk.
After some thought, she scribbled:
I’ll meet anyman anytime anywhere who gets me that Aldeb report.
She took the letter out to Jenny for typing and faxing, and, after sifting the papers for cuttings, spent the next few hours working on a report on the aerial application of pesticides, breaking off only to take a couple of calls, and, at eleven, to phone the Hertfordshire man who’d sent the odd reply to her ad in the farming magazine. In his letter he said he was staying in Battersea for a few days, at a friend’s flat, and he had given times when he could be contacted there. Eleven to eleven-thirty was the first slot.