Requiem by Clare Francis

could only be the opening gambit in an attempt to shift her.
    ‘We’re going to recommend full backing for the Knowleses, in their legal action and whatever else is needed,’ she reminded him.
    Alan closed the bulldog grip on his finger, screwed up his mouth in mild pain. Withdrawing the finger, he examined it carefully. ‘I think it would be a mistake.’
    ‘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