Desmond Bagley - The Snow Tiger / Night of Error

‘I know. He was scathing about her at our last meeting.’

‘So he set up the Ballard Foundation. And he had to do two things: he had to make sure that he retained essential control – and he had to live for seven years. He did both. And he watched you like a hawk because he wanted to see how you turned out.’

Ballard grimaced. ‘Did I come up to expectations?’

‘He never found out,’ said Stenning. ‘He died before the Hukahoronui experiment was completed.’

Ballard stared at him. ‘Experiment! What experiment?’

‘You were being tested,’ said Stenning. ‘And this is how it went. You were now thirty-five; you were more than competent at any job you’d been given, and you knew how to handle men. But Ben had a feeling that you have a soft centre and he discovered a way to find out if this was indeed so.’ He paused. ‘I gather that you and the Peterson family have never got on too well together.’

‘An understatement,’ said Ballard.

Stenning’s face was firm. ‘Ben told me that the Petersons had walked all over you when you were a boy. He sent you to Hukahoronui to see if the same thing would happen.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Ballard was suddenly angry. ‘I knew he had a power complex, but who the hell did he think he was? God? And what the devil was it all for?’

‘You can’t be as naive as that,’ said Stenning. ‘Look at the composition of the Board of Trustees.’

‘All right; I’m looking. Two Ballards, yourself and two others. What about it?’

‘This about it. Old Brockhurst, Billy Bendell and I are all old friends of Ben. We had to have two of the family on the board so they wouldn’t smell a rat. If they had suspected what Ben was up to they’d have found a way to shove their oar in and wreck Ben’s plan. Any half-way criminal lawyer could have found a way of torpedoing the Foundation before Ben died. But for seven years the three of us have been playing the Ballards on a length of line so the boat wouldn’t be rocked. We’ve been playing along with the two Ballards on the board, only forcing our hand in things which didn’t matter too much to them. They think it’s going to continue in this way – but it’s not.’

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with me.’

Stenning said evenly, ‘Ben wanted you on the Board of Trustees.’

Ballard gaped at him. ‘So?’

‘So it’s arranged like this. The board is self-perpetuating. If a member retires there is a vote to elect his replacement and – this is important – the retiring member has a vote. Brockhurst is nearly eighty and has only held on to please Ben. When he retires you’ll have his vote, you’ll have Billy Bendell’s vote, and you’ll have my vote – and that’s a majority and there’s nothing the Ballards can do about it.’

Ballard was silent for a long time. Presently he said, ‘This is all very well, but I’m not an administrator, at least, not of the trustee kind. I suppose there’d be an honorarium, but I have a living to earn. You’re offering me a job for a retired business man. I don’t want to run a charitable fund, no matter how big.’

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