Marx ticked off a column of figures. ‘They don’t have black girls because black men don’t need to read magazines,’ he said. ‘Black men get all the tail they want for real.’

‘Oh, bullshit,’ said the safety inspector. ‘Just because I fancy looking at some black ass now and again.’

‘Well, here’s something else to look at,’ said Herman, taking the black metal baton out of his pocket. ‘One of my guys found it in the wheat. A real toothbreaker, huh?’

The safety inspector peered at the baton for a moment, frowned, and then slowly put down his magazine.

‘Put it down,’ he said, in a cautious voice.

‘Why? What’s it going to do? Blow up? It hasn’t blown up yet.’

‘Put it down,’ insisted the safety inspector.

Herman, puzzled, laid the baton down on the desk. Errol inspected it through his spectacles, poked it with the end of his pencil, and said, ‘What the hell is it?’

‘I should be asking you that,’ said the safety inspector. ‘It came out of your wheat. Now, just you wait here for a while. I want to go get something. And make sure you don’t touch that thing any more.’

Herman shrugged at Errol, and told the safety inspector, ‘Okay. You’re the boss.’

They waited in silence for nearly five minutes. Herman packed his pipe again, and lit it, and the small office was clouded with aromatic smoke. Errol Marx sneezed twice, and then blew his nose on a Kleenex. ‘You don’t object to my smoking, do you?’ asked Herman, rhetorically.

Eventually, the safety inspector came back. As he came through the door, he was unzipping a black plastic carrying case, and taking out a grey rectangular instrument with a white calibrated dial.

‘What goes on here?’ asked Errol. ‘What the hell’s that thing?’

‘You never seen a geiger counter before?’ asked the safety inspector.

‘Geiger counter? Like, for radioactivity? You mean that thing could be radioactive?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m checking.’

The safety inspector switched the geiger counter on. Immediately, without him having to hold it anywhere near the black baton, it began to click as loudly and wildly as a migration of locusts.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said the safety inspector, switching it off. ‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Herman. ‘What is that thing? What goes on here?’

The safety inspector didn’t answer him. Instead, he picked up Errol Marx’s telephone and dialled a number. Errol glanced at Herman and shrugged as the safety inspector waited to get through. They both watched him biting his lips in anxiety.