Landslide

The little office girl popped her head round the door. ‘You’ll have to go now; we’re closing up.’

I grinned at her. ‘I thought newspaper offices never closed.’

‘This isn’t the Vancouver Sun,’ she said. ‘Or the Montreal Star.’

It sure as hell isn’t, I thought.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ she asked.

I followed her into the front office. ‘I found some answers, yes; and a lot of questions.’ She looked at me uncomprehendingly. I said, ‘Is there anywhere a man can get a cup of coffee round here?’

‘There’s the Greek place right across the square.’

‘What about joining me?’ I thought that maybe I could get some answers out of her.

She smiled. ‘My mother told me not to go out with strange men. Besides, I’m meeting my boy.’

I looked at all the alive eighteen years of her and wished I were young again – as before the accident. ‘Some other time, perhaps,’ I said.

‘Perhaps.’

I left her inexpertly dabbing powder on her nose and headed across the square with the thought that I’d get picked up for kidnapping if I wasn’t careful. I don’t know why it is, but in any place that can support a cheap eatery – and a lot that can’t – you’ll find a Greek running the local coffee-and-doughnut joint. He expands with the community and brings in his cousins from the old country and pretty soon, in an average-size town, the Greeks are running the catering racket, splitting it with the Italians who tend to operate on a more sophisticated level. This wasn’t the first Greek place I’d eaten in and it certainly wouldn’t be the last – not while I was a poverty-stricken geologist chancing his luck.

I ordered coffee and pie and took it over to a vacant table intending to settle down to do some hard thinking, but I didn’t get much chance of that because someone came up to the table and said, ‘Mind if I join you?’

He was old, maybe as much as seventy, with a walnut-brown face and a scrawny neck where age had dried the juices out of him. His hair, though white, was plentiful and inquisitive blue eyes peered from beneath shaggy brows. I regarded him speculatively for a long time, and at last he said, ‘I’m McDougall – chief reporter for the local scandal sheet.’

I waved him to a chair. ‘Be my guest.’

He put down the cup of coffee he was holding and grunted softly as he sat down. ‘I’m also the chief compositor,’ he said. ‘And the only copy-boy. I’m the rewrite man, too. The whole works.’

‘Editor, too?’

He snorted derisively. ‘Do I look like a newspaper editor?’

‘Not much.’

He sipped his coffee and looked at me from beneath the tangle of his brows. ‘Did you find what you were looking for, Mr Boyd?’

‘You’re well-informed,’ I commented. ‘I’ve not been in town two hours and already I can see I’m going to be reported in the Recorder. How do you do it?’

He smiled. ‘This is a small town and I know every man, woman and child in it. I’ve just come from the Matterson Building and I know all about you, Mr Boyd.’

This McDougall looked like a sharp old devil. I said, ‘I’ll bet you know the terms of my contract, too.’

‘I might.’ He grinned at me and his face took on the look of a mischievous small boy. ‘Donner wasn’t too pleased.’ He put down his cup. ‘Did you find out what you wanted to know about John Trinavant?’

I stubbed out my cigarette. ‘You have a funny way of running a newspaper, Mr McDougall. I’ve never seen such a silence in print in my life.’

The smile left his face and he looked exactly what he was – a tired old man. He was silent for a moment, then he said unexpectedly, ‘Do you like good whisky, Mr Boyd?’

‘I’ve never been known to refuse.’

He jerked his head in the direction of the newspaper office. ‘I have an apartment over the shop and a bottle in the apartment. Will you join me? I suddenly feel like getting drunk.’

For an answer I rose from the table and paid the tab for both of us. While walking across the park McDougall said, ‘I get the apartment free. In return I’m on call twenty-four hours a day. I don’t know who gets the better of the bargain.’

‘Maybe you ought to negotiate a new deal with your editor.’

‘With Jimson? That’s a laugh – he’s just a rubber stamp used by the owner.’

‘And the owner is Matterson,’ I said, risking a shaft at random.

McDougall looked at me out of the corner of his eye. ‘So you’ve got that far, have you? You interest me, Mr Boyd; you really do.’

‘You are beginning to interest me,’ I said.

We climbed the stairs to his apartment, which was sparsely but comfortably furnished. McDougall opened a cupboard and produced a bottle. ‘There are two sorts of Scotch,’ he said. ‘There’s the kind which is produced by the million gallons: a straight-run neutral grain spirit blended with good malt whisky to give it flavour, burnt caramel added to give it colour, and kept for seven years to protect the sacred name of Scotch whisky.’ He held up the bottle. ‘And then there’s the real stuff – fifteen-year-old unblended malt lovingly made and lovingly drunk. This is from Islay – the best there is.’

He poured two hefty snorts of the light straw-coloured liquid and passed one to me. I said, ‘Here’s to you, Mr McDougall. What brand of McDougall are you, anyway?’

I would swear he blushed. ‘I’ve a good Scots name and you’d think that would be enough for any man, but my father had to compound it and call me Hamish. You’d better call me Mac like everyone else and that way we’ll avoid a fight.’ He chuckled. ‘Lord, the fights I got into when I was a kid.’

I said, ‘I’m Bob Boyd.’

He nodded. ‘And what interests you in the Trinavants?’

‘Am I interested in them?’

He sighed. ‘Bob, I’m an old-time newspaperman so give me credit for knowing how to do my job. I do a run-down on everyone who checks the back files; you’d be surprised how often it pays off in a story. I’ve been waiting for someone to consult that particular issue for ten years.’

‘Why should the Recorder be interested in the Trinavants now?’ I asked. ‘The Trinivants are dead and the Recorder killed them deader. You wouldn’t think it possible to assassinate a memory, would you?’

‘The Russians are good at it; they can kill a man and still leave him alive – the walking dead,’ said McDougall. ‘Look at what they did to Khrushchev. It’s just that Matterson hit on the idea, too.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ I said tartly. ‘Quit fencing around, Mac.’

‘The Recorder isn’t interested in the Trinavants,’ he said. ‘If I put in a story about any of them – if I even mentioned the name – I’d be out on my can. This is a personal interest, and if Bull Matterson knew I was even talking about the Trinavants I’d be in big trouble.’ He stabbed his finger at me. ‘So keep your mouth shut, you understand.’ He poured out another drink and I could see his hand shaking. ‘Now, what’s your story?’

I said, ‘Mac, until you tell me more about the Trinavants I’m not going to tell you anything. And don’t ask me why because you won’t get an answer.’

He looked at me thoughtfully for a long time, then said, ‘But you’ll tell me eventually?’

‘I might.’

That stuck in his gullet but he swallowed it. ‘All right; it looks as though I’ve no option. I’ll tell you about the Trinavants.’ He pushed the bottle across. ‘Fill up, son.’

The Trinavants were an old Canadian family founded by a Jacques Trinavant who came from Brittany to settle in Quebec back in the seventeen-hundreds. But the Trinavants were not natural settlers nor were they merchants – not in those days. Their feet were itchy and they headed west. John Trinavant’s great-great-grandfather was a voyageur of note; other Trinavants were trappers and there was an unsubstantiated story that a Trinavant crossed the continent and saw the Pacific before Alexander Mackenzie.

John Trinavant’s grandfather was a scout for Lieutenant Farrell, and when Farrell built the fort he decided to stay and put down roots in British Columbia. It was good country, he liked the look of it and saw the great possibilities. But just because the Trinavants ceased to be on the move did not mean they had lost their steam. Three generations of Trinavants in Fort Farrell built a logging and lumber empire, small but sound.

‘It was John Trinavant who really made it go,’ said McDougall. ‘He was a man of the twentieth century – born in 1900 – and he took over the business young. He was only twenty-three when his father died. British Columbia in those days was pretty undeveloped still, and it’s men like John Trinavant who have made it what it is today.’

He looked at his glass reflectively. ‘I suppose that, from a purely business point of view, one of the best things that Trinavant ever did was to join up with Bull Matterson.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve mentioned him,’ I said. ‘He can’t be the man I met at the Matterson Building.’

‘Hell, no; that’s Howard – he’s just a punk kid,’ said McDougall contemptuously. ‘I’m talking about the old man – Howard’s father. He was a few years older than Trinavant and they hooked on to each other in 1925. John Trinavant had the brains and directed the policy of the combination while Matterson supplied the energy and drive, and things really started to hum around here. One or the other of them had a finger in every goddam pie; they consolidated the logging industry and they were the first to see that raw logs are no damn’ use unless you can do something with them, preferably on the spot. They built pulping plants and plywood plants and they made a lot of money, especially during the war. By the end of the war the folks around here used to get a lot of fun out of sitting around of an evening just trying to figure out how much Trinavant and Matterson were worth.’

He leaned over and took the bottle. ‘Of course, it wasn’t all logging – they diversified early. They owned gas stations, ran a bus service until they sold out to Greyhound, owned grocery stores and dry goods stores – everyone in this area paid them tribute in one way or another.’ He paused, then said broodingly, ‘I don’t know if that’s a good thing for a community. I don’t like paternalism, even with the best intentions. But that’s the way it worked out.’

I said, ‘They also owned a newspaper.’

McDougall’s face took on a wry look. ‘It’s the only one of Matterson’s operations that doesn’t give him a cash return. It doesn’t pay. This town isn’t really big enough to support a newspaper, but John Trinavant started it as a public service, as a sideline to the print shop. He said the townsfolk had a right to know what was going on, and he never interfered with editorial policy. Matterson runs it for a different reason.’

‘What’s that?’

‘To control public opinion. He daren’t close it down because Fort Farrell is growing and someone else might start an honest newspaper which he doesn’t control. As long as he holds on to the Recorder he’s safe because as sure as hell there’s not room for two newspapers.’

I nodded. ‘So Trinavant and Matterson each made a fortune. What then?’

‘Then nothing,’ said McDougall. ‘Trinavant was killed and Matterson took over the whole shooting-match – lock, stock and barrel. You see, there weren’t any Trinavants left.’

I thought about that. ‘Wasn’t there one left? The editorial in the Recorder mentioned a Miss Trinavant, a niece of John.’

‘You mean Clare,’ said McDougall. ‘She wasn’t really a niece, just a vague connection from the East. The Trinavants were a strong stock a couple of hundred years ago but the Eastern branch withered on the vine. As far as I know Clare Trinavant is the last Trinavant in Canada. John came across her by accident when he was on a trip to Montreal. She was an orphan. He reckoned she must be related to the family somehow, so he took her in and treated her like his own daughter.’

‘Then she wasn’t his heir?’

McDougall shook his head. ‘Not his natural heir. He didn’t adopt her legally and it seems there’s never been any way to prove the family connection, so she lost out as far as that goes.’

‘Then who did get Trinavant’s money? And how did Matterson grab Trinavant’s share of the business?’

McDougall gave me a twisted grin. ‘The answers to those two questions are interlocked. John’s will established a trust fund for his wife and son, the whole of the capital to revert to young Frank at the age of thirty. All the proper safeguards were built in and it was a good will. Of course, provision had to be made in case John outlived everybody concerned and in that case the proceeds of the trust were to be devoted to the establishment of a department of lumber technology at a Canadian university.’

‘Was that done?’

‘It was. The trust is doing good work – but not as well as it might, and for the answer to that one you have to go back to 1929. It was then that Trinavant and Matterson realized they were in the empire-building business. Neither of them wanted the death of the other to put a stop to it, so they drew up an agreement that on the death of either of them the survivor would have the option of buying the other’s share at book value. And that’s what Matterson did.’

‘So the trust was left with Trinavant’s holdings but the trustees were legally obliged to sell to Matterson if he chose to exercise his option. I don’t see much wrong with that.’

McDougall clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘Don’t be naïve, Boyd.’ He ticked off points on his fingers. ‘The option was to be exercised at book value and by the time Donner had finished juggling the books my guess is that the book value had slumped in some weird way. That’s one angle. Secondly, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees is William Justus Sloane, and W.J. practically lives in Bull Matterson’s pocket these days. The Board of Trustees promptly reinvested what little they got from Matterson right back into the newly organized Matterson Corporation, and if anyone controls that dough now it’s old Bull. Thirdly, it took the Board of Trustees an awful long time to get off its collective fanny to do anything about ratifying the terms of the trust. It took no less than four years to get that Department of Lumber Technology going, and it was a pretty half-hearted effort at that. From what I hear the department is awfully short of funds. Fourthly, the terms of the sale of Trinavant’s holdings to Bull were never made public. I reckon he should have cut up for something between seven and ten million dollars but the Board of Trustees only invested two million in the Matterson Corporation and in non-voting stock, by God, which was just ducky for Bull Matterson. Fifthly … aaah … what am I wasting my time for?’

‘So you reckon Bull Matterson practically stole the Trinavant money.’

‘There’s no practically about it,’ McDougall snapped.

‘Bad luck for Miss Clare,’ I said.

‘Oh, she did all right. There was a special codicil in the will that took care of her. John left her half a million dollars and a big slice of land. That’s something Bull hasn’t been able to get his hooks on – not that he hasn’t tried.’

I thought of the tone of the leader in which the recommendation had been made that Miss Trinavant’s education should not be interrupted. ‘How old was she when Trinavant was killed?’

‘She was a kid of seventeen. Old John had sent her to Switzerland to complete her education.’

‘And who wrote the leader on September 7th, 1956?’

McDougall smiled tightly. ‘So you caught that? You’re a smart boy, after all. The leader was written by Jimson but I bet Matterson dictated it. It’s a debatable point whether or not that option agreement could have been broken, especially since Clare wasn’t legally of John’s family, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He flew out to Switzerland himself and persuaded her to stay, and he put that leader under her nose as an indication that the people of Fort Farrell thought likewise. She knew the Recorder was an honest newspaper; what she didn’t know was that Matterson corrupted it the week Trinavant died. She was a girl of seventeen who knew nothing about business.’

‘So who looked after her half million bucks until she came of age?’

‘The Public Trustee,’ said McDougall. ‘It’s pretty automatic in cases like hers. Bull tried to horn in on it, of course, but he never got anywhere.’

I went over the whole unsavoury story in my mind, then shook my head. ‘What I don’t understand is why Matterson clamped down on the name of Trinavant. What did he have to hide?’

‘I don’t know,’ confessed McDougall. ‘I was hoping that the man who consulted that issue of the Recorder after ten years would be able to tell me. But from that day to this the name of Trinavant has been blotted out in this town. The Trinavant Bank was renamed the Matterson Bank, and every company that held the name was rebaptized. He even tried to change the name of Trinavant Square but he couldn’t get it past Mrs Davenant – she’s the old battle-axe who runs the Fort Farrell Historical Society.’

I said, ‘Yes, if it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have known this was Trinavant’s town.’

‘Would it have made any difference?’ When I made no answer McDougall said, ‘He couldn’t rename Clare Trinavant either. It’s my guess he’s been praying to God she gets married. She lives in the district, you know – and she hates his guts.’

‘So the old man’s still alive.’

‘He sure is. Must be seventy-five now, and he wears his age well – he’s still full of piss and vinegar, but he always was a rumbustious old stallion. John Trinavant was the brake on him, but when John went then old Bull really broke loose. He organized the Matterson Corporation as a holding company and really went to town on money-making, and he wasn’t particular how he made it – he still isn’t, for that matter. And the amount of forest land he owns …’

I broke in. ‘I thought all forest land was Crown land.’

‘In British Columbia ninety-five per cent is Crown land, but five per cent – say, seven million acres – is under private ownership. Bull owns no less than one million acres, and he has felling franchises on another two million acres of Crown land. He cuts sixty million cubic feet of lumber a year. He’s always on the edge of getting into trouble because of over-cutting – the Government doesn’t like that – but he’s always weaselled his way out. Now he’s starting his own hydroelectric plant, and when he has that he’ll really have this part of the country by the throat.’

I said, ‘Young Matterson told me the hydro plant was to supply power to the Matterson Corporation’s own operations.’

McDougall’s lip quirked satirically. ‘And what do you think Fort Farrell is but a Matterson operation? We have a two-bit generating plant here that’s never up to voltage and always breaking down, so now the Matterson Electricity Company moves in. And Matterson operations have a way of spreading wider. I believe old Bull has a vision of the Matterson Corporation controlling a slice of British Columbia from Fort St John to Kispiox, from Prince George clear to the Yukon – a private kingdom to run as he likes.’

‘Where does Donner come into all this?’ I asked curiously.

‘He’s a money man – an accountant. He thinks in nothing but dollars and cents and he’ll squeeze a dollar until it cries uncle. Now there’s a really ruthless, conniving bastard for you. He figures out the schemes and Bull Matterson makes them work. But Bull has put himself upstairs as Chairman of the Board – he leaves the day-to-day running of things to young Howard – and Donner is now riding herd on Howard to prevent him running hogwild.’

‘He’s not doing too good a job,’ I said, and told him of the episode in Howard’s office.

McDougall snorted. ‘Donner can handle that young punk with one hand tied behind his back. He’ll give way on things that don’t matter much, but on anything important Howard definitely comes last. Young Howard puts up a good front and may look like a man, but he’s soft inside. He’s not a tenth of the man his father is.’

I sat and digested all that for a long time, and finally said, ‘All right, Mac; you said you had a personal interest in all this. What is it?’

He stared me straight in the eye and said, ‘It may come as a surprise to you to find that even newspapermen have a sense of honour. John Trinavant was my friend; he used to come up here quite often and drink my whisky and have a yarn. I was sick to my stomach at what the Recorder did to him and his family when they died, but I stood by and let it happen. Jimson is an incompetent fool and I could have put such a story on the front page of this newspaper that John Trinavant would never have been forgotten in Fort Farrell. But I didn’t, and you know why? Because I was a coward; because I was scared of Bull Matterson; because I was frightened of losing my job.’

His voice broke a little. ‘Son, when John Trinavant was killed I was rising sixty, already an elderly man. I’ve always been a free-spender and I had no money, and it’s always been in my mind that I come from a long-lived family. I reckoned I had many years ahead of me, but what can an old man of sixty do when he loses his job?’ His voice strengthened. ‘Now I’m seventy-one and still working for Matterson. I do a good job for him – that’s why he keeps me on here. It’s not charity because Matterson doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. But in the last ten years I’ve saved a bit and now that I don’t have so many years ahead of me I’d like to do something for my friend, John Trinavant. I’m not running scared any more.’

I said, ‘What would you propose to do?’

He took a deep breath. ‘You can tell me. A man doesn’t walk in off the street and read a ten-year-old issue of a newspaper without a reason. I want to know that reason.’

‘No, Mac,’ I said. ‘Not yet. I don’t know if I have a reason or not. I don’t know if I have a right to interfere. I came to Fort Farrell purely by chance and I don’t know if this is any of my business.’

He puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath explosively. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘I just don’t get it.’ He wore a baffled look. ‘Are you telling me that you read that ten-year-old issue just for kicks – or just because you like browsing through crummy country newspapers? Maybe you wanted to check which good housewife won the pumpkin pie baking competition that week. Is that it?’

‘No dice, Mac,’ I said. ‘You won’t get it out of me until I’m ready, and I’m a long way off yet.’

‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve told you a lot – enough to get my head chopped off if Matterson hears about it. I’ve put my neck right on the block.’

‘You’re safe with me, Mac.’

He grunted. ‘I sure as hell hope so. I’d hate to be fired now with no good coming of it.’ He got up and took a file from a shelf. ‘I might as well give you a bit more. It struck me that if Matterson wanted to erase the name of Trinavant the reason might be connected with the way Trinavant died.’ He took a photograph from the file and passed it to me. ‘Know who that is?’

I looked at the fresh young face and nodded. I had seen a copy of the same photograph before but I didn’t tell McDougall. ‘Yes, it’s Robert Grant.’ I laid it on the table.

‘The fourth passenger in the car,’ said McDougall, tapping the photograph with his fingernail. ‘That young man lived. Nobody expected him to live, but he did. Six months after Trinavant died I had a vacation coming, so I used it to do some quiet checking out of reach of old Bull. I went over to Edmonton and visited the hospital. Robert Grant had been transferred to Quebec; he was in a private clinic and he was incommunicado. From then on I lost track of him – and it’s a hard task to hide from an old newspaperman with a bee in his bonnet. I sent copies of this photograph to a few of my friends – newspapermen scattered all over Canada – and not a thing has come up in ten years. Robert Grant has disappeared off the face of the earth.’