The Unbegotten Read online

  Palfrey said, ‘Mr. Chairman, through you may I ask if there are any wells in the rural district area?’

  ‘Wells?’ echoed the Chairman. ‘Well, yes, I’ve got one at my farm. There are quite a lot in the district, Mr. Cobb, aren’t there?’

  ‘Seventy-three,’ replied Cobb promptly. ‘But none connects with the mains supply. Each is confined to its own private grounds. There is no independent town or village supply. Although the local well-water is good it contains an excessive supply of chalk, making it very hard, and the mains water is of course softened.’

  ‘By chemicals?’ asked Palfrey.

  ‘Yes. You seem to be—I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, I must say that Dr. Palfrey appears to be implying—’

  ‘Surely he’s not implying anything,’ soothed the Chairman. ‘We’re just establishing the facts.’

  ‘And I am giving the facts.’ The nut-cracker face was flushed, the Chief Engineer seemed very put out.

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Chairman,’ Palfrey said. ‘One or two things emerge very clearly. There is a daily test, which is admirable. There are chemicals added to the water for purification and softening—do you use fluoride in Middlecombe?’

  ‘Not so far as I know,’ said the Chairman. ‘Eh, Benjamin?’

  ‘We do not.’

  ‘Any other additives?’ asked Palfrey.

  ‘There is a complete list beginning with chlorine,’ began Cobb, only to break off as Palfrey asked the Chairman, ‘Can we be told how often these additives are put in?’

  ‘Daily!’ Cobb almost exploded.

  ‘If additives went in at the Weir Plant, how long would they remain in the main supply lines?’ enquired Palfrey.

  ‘They would be cleared within twenty-four hours,’ Cobb stated. ‘I do wish to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, that the supplies are fresh daily. All surplus supplies return to the Weir Plant so that any impurities which may have been acquired along the day can be cleansed.’

  ‘What kind of contamination is possible?’ asked Palfrey.

  ‘We have dye works, Mr. Chairman, two abattoirs, several cleaners, two industrial areas, one tannery. In this age some kind of contamination is inevitable.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Palfrey said. ‘If anything were added to the main supply it would be in the domestic supply for twenty-three hours, say, before being retested.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So if there were an additive at a given time, and the water containing the additive was cleansed at the Weir Plant before being circulated again there is a possibility of contamination lasting for twenty-three hours.’

  The engineer did not reply immediately.

  ‘Mr. Cobb,’ asked the Chairman.

  ‘It could happen,’ Cobb conceded, grudgingly. ‘But the chances are—’

  ‘Got to be sure,’ the Chairman declared. ‘Have you any more questions about water, Dr. Palfrey?’

  ‘No. Not at this juncture, thank you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Cobb. Now, George—Mr. Gregory.’ The Chairman looked at a plump, pale-faced man sitting next to Cobb.

  This man stood up, and in a markedly mellifluent voice, announced, ‘I am the Medical Officer in charge of the Department of Health in Middlecombe Rural District Council.’ His smile encompassed everybody, and was quite charming. ‘I have investigated very closely. No report of any epidemic among women and children has been made during the period under review—that is, the past ten months. All milk, all foodstuffs of every kind are inspected daily by my staff. Occasionally supplies have been rejected because they did not reach the standard laid down by the Ministry of Health but there is no record of any such foodstuff rejected which would, if taken by the public, have had any effect on the male or the female reproductive organisms. Copies of our records will be available—’

  ‘Just a moment,’ the Chairman interrupted. ‘What foodstuff does everybody take?’

  ‘Everybody?’

  ‘Yes—man, woman and child.’

  ‘We only want those who could—’ began a young woman sitting next to King.

  ‘Better have everybody,’ insisted the Chairman.

  ‘Milk,’ stated Gregory. ‘Water. After infancy, of course, there is bread, tea, coffee, soft or aerated drinks—’

  ‘Beer,’ a man put in and there was a general chuckle.

  ‘Potatoes—never heard of anyone who didn’t eat potatoes!’

  ‘The tests are carried out on all of these,’ insisted Gregory. ‘I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that none of the samples tested have shown any constituent which might affect—’

  ‘No one yet knows what might affect either a man or a woman,’ Maddern interrupted, to everyone’s surprise but Palfrey’s. ‘All we need to know is what’s been found in those foodstuffs which is common to all teenagers, children and adults. Everyone seems to assume that the effect on the woman is the only thing in question. Supposing this stuff, whatever it is, sterilises the male? And how do we know that only pregnancy is involved? How do we know that the blood isn’t contaminated? Or the heart, or the mind?’ There was a startled pause, a kind of mass intake of breath, before he added with a growl, ‘And if we go on talking like a lot of old windbags, we’ll never know the answers.’

  Chapter Eight

  LONDON

  Gregory looked as if he would explode. Cobb glared, furious. The Chairman raised his eyes, and Palfrey took the opportunity to speak.

  ‘We have to be quick and we also have to be thorough,’ he observed. ‘And there are a lot of other things, common to all households. Gas, for instance. Certain domestic detergents. Even electricity could be effective—certain types of lamp are used to kill flies and insects. An electrical current could affect everyone.’

  ‘Let’s hear from you, Charlie,’ the Chairman said.

  A tall, youthful man said, ‘I’m gas. And we’ve no evidence to show that—” He went on, brisk and to the point.

  ‘Electricity.’ The Chairman called next.

  ‘Electricity’ was a big, hearty, positive man who had no evidence of unusual use of, or effects of, electricity.

  One after another the Department chiefs stood up, and no one had any constructive ideas; while no one, from now on, talked too much or argued. One of the women was busy all the time, recording the reports; the second woman, to Palfrey’s surprise, stood up when the Chairman called, ‘Highways and byways.’

  ‘Transport—Miss Heather,’ the woman said briskly. ‘Not everyone travels on our buses, but everyone uses our roads. And everyone is affected by petrol and diesel fumes. If I may make a passing comment, Mr. Chairman, obviously the water supply and electricity are the most likely means of distribution—after that come milk or bread.’

  She sat down, while Gregory still glowered and Cobb appeared to sulk.

  Palfrey caught the Chairman’s eye, and for the first time since the meeting started, he stood up.

  ‘I agree largely with Miss Heather,’ he said. ‘But we might well have overlooked several possibilities. If you will concentrate on local conditions, you might come up with the truth we’re looking for. Meanwhile, don’t be surprised when the news breaks if you are visited by swarms of newspapermen and photographers, and hordes of sightseers.’ He looked across at King. ‘I imagine you will have some very serious traffic problems tomorrow, Superintendent. You may need a lot of help. Mr. Chairman, very many thanks for arranging this meeting.’

  He turned; Maddern followed; and almost before the meeting realised it they were out of the big committee-room.

  ‘So you can move fast,’ said Maddern, drily.

  ‘I’m going to be in London within the hour,’ Palfrey said. ‘Did you get in touch with your psychiatrist friend—Dr. Congleton?’

  ‘He’ll see the patient with me tonight and again in the morning,’ Maddern ann
ounced. ‘Palfrey—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think it is the water? Or milk? Or—’

  ‘So far, your guess is as good as mine,’ retorted Palfrey. ‘The chief hope of early results is probably through that young woman.’ They were in the stone hall of the Council Offices, and a doorman came from a little room beneath the stairs. He opened the front door, big and heavy and iron-studded.

  As he did so, there came a high-pitched, screeching sound followed by a roaring wind which swept down the stairs. The doorman was blown out into the road, Maddern was swept off his feet, while Palfrey, feeling as if all the breath had been sucked out of his body, was hurled against the wall.

  It happened before they could think or react; they were picked up as by a maelstrom.

  Then, the ceiling began to fall and the walls to cave in, and as the whole building collapsed, the agonising screams of men and women grew louder and louder.

  The ambulances came, the doctors arrived and the firemen were rushed to that chamber of death and despair.

  Palfrey stepped out of a helicopter on the landing pier which had been built near Lambeth Bridge, close by the weathered red-brick London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was met by two men, agents of Z5, who escorted him to a car with a Jamaican driver at the wheel. The driver took one look at Palfrey’s face and welcome froze on his own.

  Joyce Morgan was sitting in a corner of the car. It was the first time Palfrey could recall her having come to meet him outside Headquarters without his specific request. He was so on edge that he had to force himself to speak normally.

  ‘Hallo, Joyce. Urgent news?’

  ‘Not urgent in one way but urgent in another,’ she answered. Her voice was very tense, her manner strange. ‘Sap, this isn’t a secret to be kept from the people. You can play about with their lives, and you often have, but this is very different. I don’t think you realise its personal significance. I simply had to come and tell you how strongly I feel.’

  ‘I think I know,’ Palfrey said, gently.

  ‘I’m not sure that you do. And I’m not sure you’re capable of making the right decision.’ There was a defiant expression on her face as she said that. ‘You’ve been overworking for years. You—you’ve become a confirmed bachelor. You’re a celibate by preference.’ She couldn’t be sure of that; only that he had overcome a hundred moments of temptation to live with, to sleep with, her. ‘You’ve no right to make decisions about this, or influence others. You may feel the responsibility is yours but it isn’t. Not this time.’

  In a way Palfrey was angered by this outburst; in another, he felt only compassion. There was so much more in what she said than the words themselves.

  She had loved him for years.

  She had so longed to marry or to live with him.

  And he had not been ready for either, clinging as they both knew to the distant presence of his dead wife. He could tell how deeply Joyce felt over this subject, but was she speaking out of bitterness? Was she blaming him for not giving her a child? Was she saying that he had no right to make decisions since he had denied himself, for so many years, the right to fatherhood?

  She could not feel he had denied her any right to motherhood, yet she might feel that he knew how exclusive was her love for him, and that if her child could not be by him, then she would have none.

  Whatever the reasons, he sensed a great difference from the Joyce he had known for so long; a difference which, when he looked back, he realised had been developing for several months.

  Soon, they were being driven along Whitehall. There were cars in front of and behind him, and on the roofs of the great Government buildings police were watching. At every turret and parapet a man was on guard. Instead of the usual two or three uniformed policemen close to the door of No. 10 Downing Street, there were at least a dozen. These officers were keeping back a press of newspapermen and sightseers, which approached both from the steps leading to St. James’s Park, and Whitehall.

  The door of No. 10 opened and Palfrey was ushered through. Almost at once, he was taken to the office of the Prime Minister, Sir Douglas Hartwall, and with the tall, aesthetic-looking Hartwall there was Maddison Keys, the Home Secretary.

  ‘Sit down, Palfrey—Brandy?—’ The Prime Minister, determined to be both hospitable and imperturbable, poured out and then proffered cigars. He cut the end off one when Palfrey refused, while Maddison Keys lit a cigarette in a white holder.

  ‘How serious is the situation?’ Hartwall asked, dropping into an easy chair, still determined to be urbanely at ease. ‘Who survived in this shocking explosion?’

  ‘The chief of police wasn’t badly hurt,’ Palfrey answered. ‘And a Miss Heather, sitting next to him, was hardly touched at all.’ His voice grew chill as he went on, ‘The rest are either dead or dying.’

  ‘Dreadful,’ Hartwall murmured. ‘Dreadful.’

  ‘Do we know how it was done?’ demanded Maddison Keys.

  ‘Not yet,’ Palfrey answered. ‘But it appeared to be some form of pressure, quite invisible, which had the effect of an explosion. No known explosives were used.’ He put his hand to his forehead, as if wearily. ‘We’ve encountered something similar but on a much smaller scale several times.’

  ‘Do you think this particular attack was an attempt on your life?’ asked Hartwall.

  ‘I would doubt if it were only that,’ Palfrey said. ‘It is much more likely to have been intended as a warning to me—and so to all authorities, sir—to keep off. Killing me would be simply incidental.’

  ‘So you are presumably very close to the ring-leaders,’ remarked Keys. ‘Have you yet any idea who is involved, Palfrey?’

  ‘Not the faintest idea at all,’ admitted Palfrey. ‘All I do know is that soon after I began to investigate the phenomenon, attempts were made on my life and my agents were killed. It does look as if I’m pretty near a closely guarded secret of a method which can make all female mammals including women barren; or all males and so all men sterile. I asked for official C.I.D. protection instead of relying on my own agents, Mr. Keys, because I’d found you and the police generally reluctant to believe there was any cause for anxiety.’

  ‘Well, we believe there is now,’ remarked Keys, gruffly. ‘We lost four men from the Special Branch tonight. Have you any idea at all, Palfrey? Don’t you even know whether you are on the verge of a discovery?’ His manner became almost accusing.

  ‘The one positive clue is that the young women I told you about in my report appear to arrive by a rocket capsule, which could have come from a neighbouring county, halfway across the world, or from outer space,’ Palfrey answered, nettled. ‘It wasn’t until after the capsules were discovered that my agents ran into trouble.’

  ‘Can you define this “trouble”?’ asked Hartwall.

  ‘In a way,’ answered Palfrey. ‘They reported—and I have experienced—a pressure, somewhat like a high wind concentrated on one part of the body. Three times it struck me on the back and halfway down my thighs, and propelled me forward. It stopped, or was withdrawn, without warning. A similar kind of force could have caused the damage in Middlecombe tonight. Whether it is produced by these capsules—’

  ‘Have you put those under guard?’ Hartwall demanded.

  ‘There wasn’t a chance,’ Palfrey said. ‘They burned to ashes within minutes of being discovered, and the ashes were scattered by what was thought to be the wind but may have been the force I’ve told you about.’ He spread his hands. ‘There isn’t another thing I can tell you, I’m afraid. Except that we do have the girl we’ve called “Sue” captive. She needs to be placed under strict security and to be closely watched and examined. But that’s not going to be easy.’

  ‘My men were watching her at this Dr. Maddern’s house,’ Keys said. ‘She will be removed under armed guard, and placed under constant surveillance.
’ He coughed into his hand, stubbed out his cigarette and asked, ‘What do you suggest that we now do?’

  ‘As I’ve said earlier—break the story, as gently as it can be broken. And then warn all governments of the possibility of danger.’

  ‘But your overseas agents show negative results,’ protested Keys. ‘Your office telephoned me about this. Why do we need to cause worldwide alarm if this is purely a local problem? It could be, you know. It could be some crazed creature who’s got a special hate for the British. It could even be some psychopathic Englishman who says “If you won’t keep your population down we will do it for you.” We don’t know what there is to warn the other nations about, and we really don’t want to make ourselves laughing stocks.’

  ‘There isn’t much laughter in Middlecombe tonight,’ Palfrey rejoined softly.

  ‘That’s an emotional argument and we’ve got to use reason,’ insisted Keys stubbornly. ‘Don’t you think so, Douglas?’

  The Prime Minister, who had been looking from one man to the other, picked up his brandy glass and sniffed the bouquet with great deliberation. Palfrey found it almost impossible to hide his impatience. True, he could go over the Prime Minister’s head and approach world governments, but it needed the full weight of Great Britain to make the fullest impression.

  ‘I think we should be advised by Palfrey,’ Hartwall decided at last.

  ‘Palfrey hasn’t yet convinced me that we can’t cope with the situation ourselves,’ Keys protested. ‘Good God! This could be a purely local phenomenon, confined to Middlecombe, Tan-y-bas in North Wales and Wetherly in Northumberland. It could be the result of some experiment in birth control which has got out of hand. Or—’ He caught his breath.

  ‘It could be an experiment in birth control,’ Palfrey agreed. ‘The moment I began to investigate the phenomenon and found the capsules the attacks on me began. Certainly they know I’m in charge of Z5 and know Z5 has international influence; and clearly they don’t want that influence exerted.’