Landslide

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.’