Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

Pink spots glowed in her cheeks. ‘That penny-pinching sonofabitch,’ she said vehemently.

‘Who?’

‘Donner. He offered me two hundred thousand dollars for the felling rights and I told him to go jump into Matterson Lake as soon as it was deep enough for him to drown in.’

I looked at Mac, who shrugged. ‘That’s Donner for you,’ he agreed.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Didn’t he raise his price at all?’

She shook her head. ‘He didn’t have time. I threw him out.’

‘Matterson isn’t going to let those trees drown if he can help it,’ I said. ‘Not if he can make money out of them. I bet he’ll make another offer before long. But don’t take a penny under four million, Clare; he’ll make enough profit on that.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I hate putting money in Matterson’s pocket.’

‘Don’t be sentimental about it,’ I said. ‘Stick him for as much as you can, and then think of ways of harpooning him once you’ve got his money. A person who didn’t like Matterson could do him a lot of damage with a few million bucks to play around with. You don’t have to keep the dough if you consider it tainted.’

She laughed. ‘You’ve got an original mind, Bob.’

I was struck by a thought. ‘Do either of you know of a Mrs Atherton?’

Mac’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead like two white furry caterpillars until they met his hairline. ‘Lucy Atherton? Where in hell did you meet her ?’

‘In your cabin.’

He was struck speechless for a moment and gobbled like a turkey-cock. I looked at Clare, who said, ‘Lucy Atherton is Howard’s sister. She’s a Matterson.’

Comprehension didn’t so much dawn as strike like lightning. ‘So that’s what her game was. She was trying to find out how interested I was in the Trinavants. She didn’t get very far.’

I told them what had happened at our meeting, and when I’d finished Mac said, ‘Those Mattersons are smart. They knew I wouldn’t be at the cabin because I had to get clear here — and they knew you wouldn’t know who she was. Old Bull sent her out on a reconnaissance.’

‘Tell me more about her.’

‘She’s in between husbands,’ said Mac. ‘Atherton was her second — I think — and she divorced him about six months ago. I’m surprised she’s around here; she’s usually busy on the social round — New York, Miami, Las Vegas. And from what I hear she could be a nympho.’

‘She’s a man-hungry vixen,’ said Clare in a calm, level voice.

I thought about that. When getting the Continental out of the mud I’d had a devil of a job to prevent her raping me. Not that I’m sexless, but she was so goddam thin that a man could cut himself to death on her bones, and anyway I like to make a choice for myself once in a while.

‘Now we know Bull is getting worried,’ said Mac in satisfaction. ‘The funny thing is that he doesn’t seem to care if we know it. He must have guessed that you’d ask me about the Atherton woman.’

‘We’ll figure that one out later,’ I said. ‘It’s getting late and we have to get this stuff back to the cabin.’

‘You’d better come with us, Clare,’ said Mac. ‘You can have Bob’s bed and the young bucko can sleep out in the woods tonight.’

Clare poked me in the chest with her finger and I knew she was getting pretty smart at interpreting the expression on my face. ‘I’ll look after my own reputation, Boyd. Did you think I was going to stay at the Matterson House?’ she asked cuttingly.

I changed gear noisily as I drove up to the cabin and there was a rustle of leaves at the roadside and the sound of something heavy moving away. ‘That’s funny,’ said Mac in perplexity. ‘There’s been no deer round here before.’

The headlights swung across the front of the cabin and I saw a figure dart away into cover. ‘That’s no goddam deer,’ I said, and jumped clear before the Land-Rover stopped moving. I chased after the man but stopped as I heard a smash of glass from within the cabin and whirled to dive through the doorway. I collided with someone who struck out, but it takes a lot to stop a man my size and I drove him back by sheer weight and momentum.

He gave ground and vanished into the darkness of the cabin and I felt in my pocket for a match. But then I caught the acrid reek of kerosene choking in my throat so thickly that I realized the whole cabin must have been wet with it and that to strike a match would be like lighting up a cigar in a powder-magazine.

There was a movement in the darkness ahead of me and then I heard the crunch of Mac’s footsteps coming to the cabin door. ‘Stay out of here, Mac,’ I yelled.

My eyes were getting accustomed to the interior darkness and I could see the light patch of a window at the back of the cabin. I dropped to one knee in a crouch and looked around slowly. Sure enough, the light patch was momentarily eclipsed as someone moved across it and I had my man placed. He was moving from left to right, trying to get to the door unnoticed. I dived for where I thought his legs were and grabbed him, and he fell on top of me but didn’t come to the ground.

Then I felt a sharp pain thumping in my shoulder and had to let go and there was a boot in my face before I could roll over out of the way. By the time I stumbled to the door there was just the sound of running footsteps disappearing in the distance, and I saw Clare bending over a prostrate figure.

It was Mac, and he got groggily to his feet as I walked up. ‘Are you all right?’

He held his belly. ‘He... just rammed... me,’ he whispered painfully. ‘Knocked the wind out of me.’

‘Take it easy,’ I said.

‘We’d better get him into the cabin,’ said Clare.

‘Stay away from there,’ I said harshly. ‘It’s ready to go off like a bomb. There’s a flashlamp in the Land-Rover; will you get it?’

She went away and I walked Mac a few steps to a stump he could sit on. He was wheezing like an old steam engine and I cursed the man who’d done that to him. Clare came back with the lamp and flashed it at me. ‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘It got stepped on. Give me the torch.’ I went into the cabin and looked around. The stink of kerosene made me gag and I saw the reason why it should; the place was a mess — all the sheets and blankets had been ripped from the beds, and the mattresses had been knifed open to liberate the stuffing. All this had been piled in the middle of the floor and doused with kerosene. There must have been five gallons because the floor was swimming.

I collected a pressure lantern and some cans from the larder and joined the others. ‘We’ll have to camp out tonight,’ I said. ‘The cabin’s too dangerous to use until we clean it out. It’s lucky I didn’t unpack the truck — we still have blankets we can use.’

Mac was better and breathing more easily. He said, ‘What’s wrong with the cabin?’ I told him and he cursed freely until he recollected that Clare was by his elbow. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I got carried away.’

She gave a low laugh. ‘I haven’t heard cussing like that since Uncle John died. Who do you think did this, Bob?’

‘I don’t know — I didn’t see any faces. But the Mattersons move fast. Mrs Atherton made her report and Matterson acted.’

‘We’d better report it to the police,’ she said.

Mac snorted. ‘A lot of good that will do,’ he said disgustedly. ‘We didn’t see who it was and we have no evidence to connect it with the Mattersons. Anyway, I can’t see the cops tackling Bull Matterson — he draws too much water to be bulldozed by Sergeant Gibbons.’

I said, ‘You mean that Gibbons has been bought just like everyone else?’