Free Famine by John Creasey Page B

report?”
    â€œOne for me, one for the Prime Minister. That will be enough.”
    â€œRight,” said Campson. He finished his coffee, and stood up, looking down at Palfrey with some seriousness. “You need a rest, old chap. Don’t ask too much of yourself, even over this. Spread the load as much as you can.”
    Palfrey nodded and Campson let himself out, without looking back. Palfrey did not stir from the chair, for a long time, and was still staring at the ceiling, when Joyce returned, carrying a sheaf of papers.
    â€œProfessor Copuscenti is on his way to Salisbury,” she announced.
    â€œThat’s good,” Palfrey mumbled.
    â€œThese reports have just come in,” Joyce went on. “There was a delay in the Telstar V system, or we would have had them before.” She handed Palfrey the sheaf, and waited as he looked through them.
    They came from Buenos Aires, Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Hanoi and Budapest. Each one gave details of heavy losses of grain and cereal stocks as well as sugar and chocolate unsuspected until the checking began. The losses were substantial enough in each case to cause local concern; in Hanoi, the losses were great enough to threaten the winter foods for the populations of large areas. With these added to the reports already in, there was enough to give cause for alarm throughout the world. One urgent problem would be to make sure that fear did not spread among the common people, and so produce the seeds of panic.
    As the thought entered his head, those very fears began to stir in him, spreading throughout his body. The sense of responsibility bit into him, the duty that his knowledge and awareness of danger imposed on him alone. The common people were, in the main, ignorant of the fact that any radioactive substances should be handled with extreme care, the handlers wearing protective clothing from head to foot even when such material was kept behind thick glass and handled by remote control. If Campson was right, radioactive objects were running loose in many parts of the world. Whether he was right or not, some particularly hideous situation was upon them. ‘A certain form of leukaemia’ was frighteningly vague. Wastage of the blood cells, wastage of the body – yes, hideous was the word. But radioactivity?
    The mist which had hidden the creatures had not been radioactive, or he would have been told.
    Palfrey stirred, and thought. “I’ve touched the bodies. I walked about those ruins.”
    He did not remind himself in so many words that he could be in deadly danger. So could Betty Fordham. He thought idly and irrelevantly that the name Betty was wrong for her. The thought passed, and awareness of the danger swept over him again.
    At half past two, he took a couple of sleeping tablets. By three o’clock he was heavily asleep, and he did not stir until a little before eight o’clock next morning.
    After the first moment of waking he recalled the intensity of fear, and half-longed for, half-hated the thought of, the report from Professor Copuscenti. It hadn’t come in, and he felt no ill-effects from yesterday’s activity; it was probably a false alarm. Apart from the danger of radioactivity there was plenty to worry about. He had a shave and a shower, tea and toast, and sent for Joyce. She looked rested and reassuringly normal; but then she always looked the same.
    There were a dozen or so further reports of food losses, of rabbit men having been seen near Winchester, Basingstoke and Warminster, but none appeared to have attacked human beings. All of these places were within easy distance of Salisbury, and might be from the missing colony. There was a request from Mrs. Betty Fordham, she had spoken to those who had seen the rabbit men, and believed she could tell him something he would find very useful.
    Joyce said helpfully: “Why don’t you see her at breakfast?”
    â€œWhere