Hammond Innes - High Stand

GREEN SOLDIERS AGAINST POLLUTION Killed in Action Below were three smaller pictures, one of a tree falling in a clear-felled section of forest land and under it a quote — An unknown soldier of the forest. The middle picture showed a close-up of the man holding the banner. The long face, prominent nose and high cheekbones, the black hair showing beneath the cap and the way the ears stood out, even the same T-shirt. The third showed the inflatable, one side collapsed, the man with the banner diving over the side, and above him a man leaning over the bows of the barge with a boathook in his hand.

I looked across at McLaren. ‘Brian Halliday?’ He nodded. Taken last Wednesday. I’m told the silly fool nearly lost his life. But he had it all organized and was intent on causing the SVL Timber Company and the towing people as much hostile publicity as possible. There were film cameras out there and he deliberately let himself be run down. He dived overboard, as you see, just as the inflatable was trampled under by the bows of that tow. Damn lucky, if you ask me. He was picked up by a salmon fisher. By then he was half full of water, but uninjured except for a few bruises and abrasions. It was all on TV that same night. And the next day Greenpeace disowned him. Said it was nothing to do with them. They’re concentrated on whaling again, not running a West Coast save-the-trees campaign. Without their backing the story had a quick death, but he certainly made an impact. I watched the TV film of it on a friend’s boat and it was quite an action spectacular.’

‘The logs were presumably from the Cascades property.’ He nodded. ‘From the plantation he calls High Stand. It’s all there in the caption story at the bottom of the page.’ He rang the bell again and the woman in the pink dress appeared. ‘Copy these cuttings for Mr Redfern, will you.’ He handed her the file. ‘Then you can look them through at your leisure. Not that they’ll tell you anything you don’t already know.’ He glanced at his watch.

I apologized again for interrupting him and he smiled and shrugged and said, ‘Not to worry, but it is Monday, and that’s never a good day. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Just one thing,’ I said. ‘That sale agreement dated 20 September of last year. I take it that was the only one you drew up for Tom Halliday covering the western red cedar down by the river, the High Stand area?’

He nodded, smiling, his hands forming a steeple of his fingers again. ‘I know what you’re going to ask. I phoned the office the very next day and had my son get on the phone to SVL Timber in Seattle. He was informed that they were still working to the agreement covering the two hectares. The logs were of exceptional quality and because of that they would be kept clear of the water, no rafting or parking them in a booming ground the way they do pulp. Instead, they were bringing them down by barge and, again because of the quality, had spaced the delivery dates. Last week’s tow was the second of three separate deliveries to be made to the mill.’

‘And they won’t be cutting any more trees?’

‘Definitely not. Hugh Ringstrop made that quite clear to them — no trees could be felled, outside of the original two-hectare lot, until a new sale agreement had been negotiated and signed.’ The fingers pressed hard together and he added, ‘And, of course, nothing can be signed until Mr Halliday is found. That they understand and accept.’

I wasn’t sure about that and I wondered how forcibly his son had made the point. But when I told him about Wolchak’s offer, he nodded. They made similar approaches, first through Ringstrop, then direct to us. That was just after Tom was reported missing.’

‘You didn’t say anything about that in your letter to me.’

‘No?’ He hesitated. ‘No, you’re right. I thought about it, but it didn’t seem relevant. Not then. If Tom Halliday was dead, then of course I would have let you know. But right now any sale of the property is legally out of the question.’

I had a few other queries, small points of law mainly concerned with Tom Halliday’s position as a Canadian citizen and how the estate would stand from a tax point of view if that proved to be the basis on which we had to operate. Then I left him with the assurance that I would see him again before leaving for England if my visits to either the mine or the forestry area raised any further queries. To my surprise he had not been to either of the properties himself. ‘Our business is very much centred on Vancouver, companies chiefly.’ This as he rose to see me to the door. ‘My father and my uncle had a great many personal clients, but most of them are dead how and times have changed. The sons have tended to move into companies. It’s just the way we have expanded.’

I picked up the copies of the press cuttings from the pink dress, now looking even more severe with her glasses on the end of her nose and seated behind a word processor.

I lunched later that morning at a fish restaurant virtually under the high span of Granville Bridge, reading carefully through the press cuttings as I ate.

One of the cuttings had given the names of the towing company as Angeles Georgia Towing of Port Angeles, which my map showed to be just across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria and the south end of Vancouver Island, an ideal position for a tugboat company. I phoned them as soon as I got back to my hotel and when I said I had a query about the Cascades I was put straight through to Mr Stutz who sounded gruff and very Scandinavian. What I wanted to confirm, of course, was whether this was the second of three barge-loads and that there had not been any further felling of timber. ‘Ja,’ he answered immediately, ‘I think you are informed correctly, there is vun more tow to make.’

‘Only one?’ I asked.

‘Ja, vun only.’

‘When will you be towing it down?’

‘I dunno. No orders yet.’

‘But there are definitely some more logs to bring down?’

He didn’t answer that and when I asked him exactly how much timber was allowed for in the export licence, he said, ‘Look, who are you? A newspaper man, no?’

‘The owner’s English solicitor,’ I said and he closed up on me, referring me to SVL Timber. ‘Ve just tow. I know nothing about the ownership of timber, nothing about legislation. Okay?’

I had a thought then. ‘How many tugs do you operate?’ I asked him.

‘What you say? — how many tugs I got? None of your business. You talk to SVL, okay?’ And he put the phone down.

But when I got through to SVL Timber I found myself dealing with a Mr Barony who was as smooth as the towing company man had been gruff. There was one more load to be towed down under the existing agreement. It hadn’t yet been decided when. ‘I guess you’ve seen the reports of young Halliday putting himself under the barge. Well, we don’t want a repetition of that, do we, whether he’s a Greenpeace man or not, so you’ll appreciate when we do decide on a date for the tow we won’t be announcing it to the press.’ And he gave a gentle, conspiratorial chuckle.

He was not quite so forthcoming, however, when I asked him whether they were negotiating a new sales agreement. ‘We would like to, but as you will know, Mr Redfern, there are certain difficulties at the moment.’ He was referring, of course, to Halliday’s disappearance, and when I asked him how long it was since he had seen Mr Halliday he said, ‘I have never seen him. All our business has been through Ringstrop, his forestry man, and McLarens, the solicitors. If you know where he is please tell me.’ And when I said I didn’t know and that was the reason I was in Canada, he sighed gently and said that was a pity. ‘If you find him please contact us immediately.’