Dr Benson shook his hand. He was a tall, sixtyish man with a marked stoop of the shoulders – mainly brought on by his chronic shortsightedness and his habit of attacking anything that interested him like a Greater Prairie Chicken. He wore large round eyeglasses, and his hair was fraying and white, but whenever he took his glasses off, he looked strangely boyish and young. It was common knowledge in Wichita that Dr Benson had lost his homely but vigorous wife to an interstate truck driver, and that for years he had suffered an alcoholic problem. Some of his unkinder colleagues called him ‘Booze Benson’.

‘Sit down,’ said Dr Benson, lifting a heap of Scientific Americans off his desk, hesitating a moment, and then dropping them on to the floor. The floor was already littered with stacks of alphabetical files, graph paper, magazines, books, and empty Kentucky Chicken boxes. On the walls there were federal information posters on the comparative effects of various fertilising agents.

‘You mind if I smoke?’ asked Ed, taking out one of his small cigars.

‘Why should I? Everybody’s entitled to kill themselves whichever way they want. I’ve got some early results for you, incidentally. We did some chemical and ultra-violet tests on those samples your fellow brought in, and it looks like we might be having some success.’

‘You know what it is?’

‘Well, not exactly. But we know what it isn’t.’

‘I see,’ said Ed. ‘And what isn’t it?’

‘Sit down,’ repeated Dr Benson. ‘Make yourself comfortable, at least.’

Ed, awkwardly, sat on the edge of a small bentwood chair that was already piled with newspaper cuttings and tom-open letters. Dr Benson picked up pieces of paper and flung them systematically into the air as if he were performing some arcane manufacturing process.

‘It isn’t powdery mildew,’ he said. ‘Nor any from of powdery mildew of any kind whatsoever. Erysithe graminis, that’s the technical name for it. And it’s not that. Which is quite a pity.’

‘Why is it a pity?’ asked Ed. ‘I thought you would have been relieved.’

‘Oh, no, I’m not relieved at all. If it had been powdery mildew, even in its worst form, we might have been able to spray for it. I’m not saying we could have done very much good, but it would have been better than nothing at all. As you know, federal regulations only give us the option of using sulphur, but I’m sure a little bit of political finagling could have given us an emergency exemption to use Vigil or something like that.’

Ed nodded. ‘My crops manager mentioned Vigil. Do you think it’s still worth trying to get a clearance to use it?’