Desmond Bagley - The Snow Tiger

‘We had quite an argument up there on the mountain. I said the scouts must have been told to put the sign there and I guessed it was you who had told them. I said that maybe you were right about the danger of an avalanche. Charlie just stood there laughing and there was something funny about him right at that time. He said that an avalanche might be a good thing and anything that could get rid of Mr Ballard couldn’t be all bad.

‘He went on about Ballard for quite a while, a lot of real wild talk. He said that Ballard had killed his brother and stolen the mine from his father and that it was about time someone stopped him from stealing the whole of Hukahoronui. He ranted on like this for maybe five minutes, then he said the mine wouldn’t do Ballard much good if it wasn’t there.

‘I told him he was talking crazy and asked him how he could make a whole gold mine disappear. Suddenly he shouted, “I’ll show you!” and took off down the hill. He wasn’t going very fast and he kept jumping up and down very heavily. I went after him to try to stop him, but suddenly there was a crackling noise like French fries in the pan and Charlie gave a shout. I stopped and saw him jumping sideways up the hill.

‘Nothing seemed to happen at first and then I saw the snow cracking where Charlie had been. A lot of cracks zigzagged very fast and a bit of snow went up into the air. Then the slide started. Charlie and I were safe because we were above the fall. We just stood there and watched it happen and I’ve never seen a more awful sight.

We watched it go down into the mist over the town and I started to cry. I’m not ashamed of that. Charlie shook me and said I was a crybaby. He said to keep my mouth shut. He said if I told anybody about it he would kill me. I believed him when he said that — he was crazy enough for anything.

‘I asked him what we were going to do and he said we were going into town to see what had happened. He said it was just a lot of feathery stuff that had gone and it had probably just given the people a good scare, though he hoped it had done for the mine. He laughed as he said that. So we went into the town and saw the dreadful thing that had happened.

‘Then Charlie threatened me again. He said that if I as much as blinked an eyelid in his direction the world would not be big enough; he would search me out and find me wherever I was.

‘As God is my witness this is the truth of what happened that Sunday morning. I am deeply ashamed of my silence and I hope this letter will go towards making amends. I suppose there will be a public fund for the families of the victims because there usually is. I enclose a check for $10,000. This is nearly all my savings and I cannot afford more.’

Ballard looked up. ‘For God’s sake!’

‘It’s like holding an unexploded bomb, isn’t it?’

‘But we can’t use this .’

‘Why not? Stenning would just love you.’

‘To hell with Stenning. I wouldn’t do that to anybody. Besides...’

His voice tailed away, and McGill said, ‘Lover’s Lane must run straight and narrow? Ian, you have the Ballard Trust right in the palm of your hand.’

Ballard stared at the drink in front of him. He put his hand out, but only to push it away in a rejecting gesture. He turned to McGill. ‘Mike, tell me something and tell me honestly. Before the avalanche we were making every preparation possible. We expected an avalanche, didn’t we? Does this really make any difference?’ He tapped for emphasis on the bar counter and, as the bar-tender came running, he shook his head violently in negation. ‘You exonerated the pilot of that plane — you said the snow was ready to come down. Do you still believe that?’

McGill sighed. ‘Yes, I still believe it.’

‘Then we don’t use this.’

‘You’re too gentlemanly for your own good, Ian. This is a tough world we live in.’

‘I wouldn’t want to live in the kind of world where I’d use this letter.’

‘It won’t wash,’ said McGill flatly. ‘I know what you’re thinking. If this letter is produced you can say goodbye to Liz. But it’s not good enough. That son of a bitch killed fifty-four people. If Miller had claimed it was accidental I might have gone along, but he says Charlie did it deliberately. You can’t suppress it.’

‘What do I do, Mike?’

‘There’s nothing for you to do. It’s my responsibility. The letter is addressed to me.’ He took it from Ballard’s fingers, replaced it in the envelope, and put it back in his pocket.

‘Liz will never believe I didn’t go along with you,’ said Ballard gloomily.

McGill shrugged. ‘Probably not.’ He picked up his glass. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d like you as much if you’d grabbed the chance of hammering the Petersons with eager cries. You’re a silly bastard, but I still love you.’ He raised the glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to chivalry — still alive and living in Christchurch.’

‘I still think you’re drunk.’

‘That I am, and I’m going to get a hell of a lot drunker — if only to forget how many shits there are in this world.’ He drained his glass and set it down with a thump.

‘When are you going to give the letter to Harrison?’

‘Tomorrow, of course.’

‘Hold off for a bit,’ said Ballard urgently. ‘I’d like to get straightened out with Liz first. I wouldn’t want her to get this slammed at her cold at the Inquiry.’

McGill pondered. ‘Okay, I’ll save it for twenty-four hours.’

‘Thanks.’ Ballard pushed his untasted drink before McGill. ‘If you’re insistent on getting drunk there’s my contribution.’

McGill twisted on his stool and watched Ballard walk out of the bar, then he turned back to the hovering bar-tender. ‘Two more doubles.’

‘Then the gentleman is coming back?’

‘No, he’s not coming back,’ said McGill absently. ‘But you’re right about one thing. He is a gentleman — and there are damned few of them around these days.’

Ballard and Stenning dined together that night. Ballard was abstracted and in no mood for small talk. Stenning noted this and was quiet, but over coffee he asked, ‘Ian, what is your relationship with Miss Peterson?’

Ballard jerked his head, a little startled by the intrusive question. ‘I don’t see that’s any of your business.’

‘Don’t you?’ Stenning stirred his coffee. ‘You forget the matter of the Ballard Trust. It is still very much on my mind.’

‘I don’t see what Liz has to do with it.’ His lip curled. ‘Don’t tell me you want me to walk over her, too.’

‘I don’t want you to do anything you don’t wish to.’

‘You’d better not try,’ said Ballard.

‘Yet I have to interpret Ben’s wishes, and it’s much more difficult than I anticipated. Ben didn’t tell me about Liz Peterson.’

‘The old man didn’t think much of women,’ remarked Ballard. ‘He lived for business, and for him women had no place in business so consequently they didn’t exist. He didn’t tell you about Liz because, to him, she was a nonentity.’

‘You understand Ben better than I thought.’ Stenning paused with his coffee cup in mid-air, then set it down gently. ‘Yes, that is certainly something to be taken into consideration.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It depends on your relationship with Miss Peterson. It was something McGill asked me — he wanted to know, if you married her, whether it would have any effect in the “Peterson Bashing Contest”, as he called it.’

‘And what answer did you give him?’

‘A dusty one,’ said Stenning. ‘I had to think about it.’

Ballard leaned forward. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said in a low, but intense, voice. ‘Ben thought he was God. He manipulated me, and he’s been manipulating the family through the Trust. Now that’s all right if it’s just in the course of business, but if the old bastard is going to control my private life from beyond the grave, then that’s another thing.’