Desmond Bagley - Landslide

DESMOND BAGLEY

HARPER

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1967

Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1967

Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008211165

Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN 9780008211448

Version: 2016-11-23

Cover

Title Page DESMOND BAGLEY

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Landslide Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher HARPER an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Collins 1967 Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1967 Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008211165 Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN 9780008211448 Version: 2016-11-23

Landslide LANDSLIDE

Dedication DEDICATION For Philip Joseph and all good booksellers

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

For Philip Joseph and all good booksellers

I was tired when I got off the bus at Fort Farrell. No matter how soft the suspension of the bus and how comfortable the seat you still feel as though you’ve been sitting on a sack of rocks for a few hours, so I was tired and not very impressed by my first view of Fort Farrell – The Biggest Little City in the North-Eastern Interior – or so the sign said at the city limits. Someone must have forgotten Dawson Creek.

This was the end of the line for the bus and it didn’t stay long. I got off, nobody got on, and it turned and wheeled away back towards the Peace River and Fort St John, back towards civilization. The population of Fort Farrell had been increased by one – temporarily.

It was mid-afternoon and I had time to do the one bit of business that would decide if I stayed in this backwoods metropolis, so instead of looking for a hotel I checked my bag at the depot and asked where I could find the Matterson Building. The little fat guy who appeared to be the factotum around the depot looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and tittered. ‘You must be a stranger round here.’

‘Seeing I just got off the bus it may be possible,’ I conceded. I wanted to get information, not to give it.

He grunted and the twinkle disappeared. ‘It’s on King Street; you can’t miss it unless you’re blind,’ he said curtly. He was another of those cracker-barrel characters who think they’ve got the franchise on wisecracks – small towns are full of them. To hell with him! I was in no mood for making friends, although I would have to try to influence people pretty soon.

High Street was the main drag, running as straight as though it had been drawn by a rule. Not only was it the main street but it was practically the only street of Fort Farrell – pop. 1,806 plus one. There was the usual line of false-fronted buildings trying to look bigger than they were and holding the commercial enterprises by which the locals tried to make an honest dollar – the gas stations and auto dealers, a grocery that called itself a supermarket, a barber’s shop, ‘Paris Modes’ selling women’s fripperies, a store selling fishing tackle and hunting gear. I noticed that the name of Matterson came up with monotonous regularity and concluded that Matterson was a big pumpkin in Fort Farrell.

Ahead was surely the only real, honest-to-God building in the town: an eight-storeyed giant which, I was sure, must be the Matterson Building. Feeling hopeful for the first time, I quickened my pace, but slowed again as High Street widened into a small square, green with cropped lawns and shady with trees. In the middle of the square was a bronze statue of a man in uniform, which at first I thought was the war memorial; but it turned out to be the founding father of the city – one William J. Farrell, a lieutenant of the Royal Corps of Engineers. Pioneers , O Pioneers – the guy was long since dead and the sightless eyes of his effigy stared blindly down false-fronted High Street while the irreverent birds made messes in his uniform cap.

Then I stared unbelievingly at the name of the square while an icy shudder crawled down my spine. Trinavant Park stood on the intersection of High Street and Farrell Street and the name, dredged out from a forgotten past, hit me like a blow in the belly. I was still shaken when I reached the Matterson Building.

Howard Matterson was a hard man to see. I smoked three cigarettes in his outer office while I studied the pneumatic charms of his secretary and thought about the name of Trinavant. It was not so common a name that it cropped up in my life with any regularity; in fact, I had come across it only once before and in circumstances I preferred not to remember. You might say that a Trinavant had changed my life, but whether he had changed it for better or worse there was no means of knowing. Once again I debated the advisability of staying in Fort Farrell, but a thin wallet and an empty belly can put up a powerful argument so I decided to stick around and see what Matterson had to offer.

Suddenly and without warning Matterson’s secretary said, ‘Mr Matterson will see you now.’ There had been no telephone call or ring of bell and I smiled sourly. So he was one of those, was he? One of the guys who exercised his power by saying, ‘Keep Boyd waiting for half an hour, Miss So-and-so, then send him in,’ with the private thought – ’That’ll show the guy who is boss around here.’ But maybe I was misjudging him – maybe he really was busy.