Desmond Bagley - The Snow Tiger

Scott noted the nearly empty gin bottle and the half full glass on the occasional table by the chair, and said, ‘That’s the only reason I’m here. Mr Ballard asked me to call in. He’s worried that you might be ill.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ said Dobbs. His voice was so low that Scott had to bend forward and strain his ears to catch the words.

‘Are you sure you’re the best judge of that? I’m the doctor, you know. What about me opening the little black bag and giving you a check over?’

‘Leave me alone!’ flared Dobbs in a momentary access of energy. The effort seemed to exhaust him and he relapsed into inanition. ‘Go away,’ he whispered.

Scott did not go away. Instead he said, ‘There must be something wrong, Harry. Why haven’t you been working for the past couple of days?’

‘My business,’ mumbled Dobbs. He picked up the glass and drank.

‘Not entirely. The company is entitled to some sort of explanation. After all, you are the mine manager. You can’t just abdicate without saying anything.’

Dobbs eyed him sullenly. ‘What do you want me to say?’

Scott used shock tactics. ‘I want you to tell me why you’re swinging the bloody lead, and why you’re trying to climb into that gin bottle. How many of those have you gone through, anyway?’ Dobbs was obstinately silent, and Scott persisted, ‘You know what’s going on out there, don’t you?’

‘Let Ian Bloody Ballard handle it,’ snarled Dobbs. ‘It’s what he’s paid for.’

‘I think that’s unreasonable. He’s paid to do his own job, not yours as well.’ Scott nodded towards the window. ‘You should be out there helping Ballard and Joe Cameron. They’ve got their hands full right now.’

Venom jetted from Dobbs. ‘He took my job, didn’t he?’

Scott was puzzled. ‘I don’t know what you mean. He took nothing. What happened was that you stayed at home and cuddled up to a bottle.’

Dobbs flapped his hand; it wobbled loosely at the wrist as though he had no proper control over it. ‘I don’t mean that — I don’t mean manager. The chairman promised me the job. Crowell said I’d go on the board and be managing director when Fisher went. But oh no! Along comes this young Pommy sprout and gets the job because he’s called Ballard. As though the Ballards don’t have enough money — they’ve got to take mine.’

Scott opened his mouth and then closed it again as Dobbs continued to speak. He looked pityingly at the older man as he ranted on. The floodgates of resentment had burst open and Dobbs was in full spate. Spittle drooled from the corner of his mouth. ‘I’m getting no younger, you know. I’ve not saved as much as I hoped — those thieves on the stock exchange took a lot of my money. Rogues, the lot of them. I was going to be managing director — Crowell said so. I liked that because I’d have enough to retire on in a few years. Then the Ballard family decided otherwise. They not only took my job but they expect me to serve under a Ballard. Well, they can damn well think again.’

Scott said gently, ‘Even so, that’s no excuse for pulling out now without a word. Not when there’s trouble. You won’t be thanked for that.’

‘Trouble!’ Dobbs ground out the word. ‘What does that whippersnapper know about trouble? I was running a mine when he was having his nappies changed!’

‘It’s not the mine,’ said Scott. ‘It’s the town.’

‘A lot of bloody nonsense. The man’s an idiot. He’s talking of spending millions to stop a few flakes of snow falling off a hillside. Where’s the money to come from — I ask you that? And now he’s got everyone running in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. And they tell me he’s closed down the mine. Wait until they hear about that in Auckland — to say nothing of London.’

‘You seem well informed for one who hasn’t been out of the house for a couple of days.’

Dobbs grunted. ‘I have my friends. Quentin came in to see what we could do to stop this fool.’ He picked up the glass and drank again, then shook his head. ‘Quentin knows the score all right but there’s nothing he can do. There’s nothing any of us can do. It’s all cut and dried, I tell you.’

Scott’s eyes narrowed. It had not taken him long to come to the conclusion that Dobbs was definitely unbalanced. Resentment had been festering within him and something had happened to cause it to burst out, and he had a good idea of what it was. Deliberately he said, ‘Do you think you could have handled the job of managing director?’

Rage burst from Dobbs. ‘Of course I could,’ he yelled. ‘Of course I could have done it.’

Scott stood up. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. I think we’d better get you to a safer place than this. If anything happens out there this house will be one of the first hit.’

‘Poppycock!’ jeered Dobbs. ‘A lot of flaming poppycock! I’m not moving and no one can make me.’ He grinned, his lips drawn back ferally over his teeth. ‘I might move if young Ballard comes here and apologizes for taking my job,’ he said sarcastically.

Scott shrugged and picked up his bag. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘And close the door when you leave,’ Dobbs shouted at Scott’s back. He wrapped his arms about his thin body. ‘I could have done the job,’ he said aloud. ‘I could have.’

When he heard Scott’s car start up he picked up his drink and went to the window. His eyes followed the car until it went out of sight and then he shifted his gaze to the mine buildings. It was difficult to see very far because of the mist, but he could just make out the outline of the office block. He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Closed down!’ he whispered. ‘All closed down!’

Suddenly the mist cleared as though by magic and he felt a strange vibration through the soles of his feet. The office block, now clearly to be seen, lifted off its foundations and floated through the air towards him. He looked at it, mouth gaping, as it soared right over his house. He actually saw his own desk tumbling out of it before it went out of sight overhead.

Then the window smashed before his eyes and a sliver of glass drove through his throat. He was hurled across the room before the house exploded around him, but of course he did not know that the house was destroyed.

Harry Dobbs was the first man to be killed in Hukahoronui.

As Dr Scott left Dobbs’s house he reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of the mind, particularly the weaknesses. Fundamentally a weak man, Dobbs had wanted the managing directorship and had deliberately suppressed the knowledge that he could not really handle it, and that knowledge was a canker inside him like a worm at the core of an apple.

The poor devil , thought Scott as he started his car. A retreat from reality.

He drove to the corner and turned, heading into town. He had gone about three hundred yards when he found there seemed to be something wrong with the steering — the car would not answer to the wheel and he had an eerie sensation of floating.

Then he saw, to his astonishment, that the car really was floating and that the wheels were a good three feet from the ground. He had not time even to blink before the car was flipped over on its back and he struck his head against the window plinth and was knocked unconscious.

When he came round he found he was still behind the wheel of the car, and the car was upright and on its four wheels. He lifted his hand and winced as his fingers explored the bump on his head. He looked about him and saw nothing; there was a heavy coating of snow on all the windows and they were opaque.

He got out of the car and stared blankly at what he saw. At first he could not recognize where he was, and when he did recognize his position his mind refused to believe it. A sudden spasm took him and he leaned against the car and vomited.