McGill sighed. ‘Yes, I still believe it.’
‘Then we don’t use this.’
‘You’re too gentlemanly for your own good, Ian. This is a tough world we live in.’
‘I wouldn’t want to live in the kind of world where I’d use this letter.’
‘It won’t wash,’ said McGill flatly. ‘I know what you’re thinking. If this letter is produced you can say goodbye to Liz. But it’s not good enough. That son of a bitch killed fifty-four people. If Miller had claimed it was accidental I might have gone along, but he says Charlie did it deliberately. You can’t suppress it.’
‘What do I do, Mike?’
‘There’s nothing for you to do. It’s my responsibility. The letter is addressed to me.’ He took it from Ballard’s fingers, replaced it in the envelope, and put it back in his pocket.
‘Liz will never believe I didn’t go along with you,’ said Ballard gloomily.
McGill shrugged. ‘Probably not.’ He picked up his glass. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d like you as much if you’d grabbed the chance of hammering the Petersons with eager cries. You’re a silly bastard, but I still love you.’ He raised the glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to chivalry — still alive and living in Christchurch.’
‘I still think you’re drunk.’
‘That I am, and I’m going to get a hell of a lot drunker — if only to forget how many shits there are in this world.’ He drained his glass and set it down with a thump.
‘When are you going to give the letter to Harrison?’
‘Tomorrow, of course.’
‘Hold off for a bit,’ said Ballard urgently. ‘I’d like to get straightened out with Liz first. I wouldn’t want her to get this slammed at her cold at the Inquiry.’
McGill pondered. ‘Okay, I’ll save it for twenty-four hours.’
‘Thanks.’ Ballard pushed his untasted drink before McGill. ‘If you’re insistent on getting drunk there’s my contribution.’
McGill twisted on his stool and watched Ballard walk out of the bar, then he turned back to the hovering bar-tender. ‘Two more doubles.’
‘Then the gentleman is coming back?’
‘No, he’s not coming back,’ said McGill absently. ‘But you’re right about one thing. He is a gentleman — and there are damned few of them around these days.’
Ballard and Stenning dined together that night. Ballard was abstracted and in no mood for small talk. Stenning noted this and was quiet, but over coffee he asked, ‘Ian, what is your relationship with Miss Peterson?’
Ballard jerked his head, a little startled by the intrusive question. ‘I don’t see that’s any of your business.’
‘Don’t you?’ Stenning stirred his coffee. ‘You forget the matter of the Ballard Trust. It is still very much on my mind.’
‘I don’t see what Liz has to do with it.’ His lip curled. ‘Don’t tell me you want me to walk over her, too.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything you don’t wish to.’
‘You’d better not try,’ said Ballard.
‘Yet I have to interpret Ben’s wishes, and it’s much more difficult than I anticipated. Ben didn’t tell me about Liz Peterson.’
‘The old man didn’t think much of women,’ remarked Ballard. ‘He lived for business, and for him women had no place in business so consequently they didn’t exist. He didn’t tell you about Liz because, to him, she was a nonentity.’
‘You understand Ben better than I thought.’ Stenning paused with his coffee cup in mid-air, then set it down gently. ‘Yes, that is certainly something to be taken into consideration.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It depends on your relationship with Miss Peterson. It was something McGill asked me — he wanted to know, if you married her, whether it would have any effect in the “Peterson Bashing Contest”, as he called it.’
‘And what answer did you give him?’
‘A dusty one,’ said Stenning. ‘I had to think about it.’
Ballard leaned forward. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said in a low, but intense, voice. ‘Ben thought he was God. He manipulated me, and he’s been manipulating the family through the Trust. Now that’s all right if it’s just in the course of business, but if the old bastard is going to control my private life from beyond the grave, then that’s another thing.’
Stenning nodded. ‘Your analysis of Ben’s attitude towards women has proved quite illuminating. I think you are quite right when you say that Ben didn’t mention Miss Peterson because he discounted her completely. This, therefore, has a strong bearing on how I intend to interpret his wishes. The conclusion I have come to is this: you may marry or you may not — you may even marry Miss Peterson or you may not. Whatever you do will have no bearing on my decision regarding your suitability as a trustee. If Ben discounted Miss Peterson, then so shall I.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ballard hollowly.
‘Of course, the problem still remains with the Peterson brothers.’
‘Thanks again,’ said Ballard. ‘For nothing. Do you really believe that if I walk over the Petersons, as you so delicately put it, I would stand a chance with Liz? God knows she doesn’t get on with her brothers, but she wouldn’t be the woman I think she is, the woman I want to marry, if she didn’t have some family loyalty.’
‘Yes, you would appear to have quite a problem.’
Ballard stood up. ‘Then to hell with you, Mr Stenning.’ He threw down his napkin. ‘And to hell with the Ballard Trust.’
Stenning watched him walk away, his face expressionless. He lifted the cup to his lips and found the coffee cold, so he called for another cup.
The Hearing
Twelfth day
Twenty-eight
Witness after witness passed before Harrison and his assessors, their actions minutely scrutinized, their utterances tested; a long parade of townsfolk, policemen, mountain rangers, doctors, engineers, scientists, soldiers and civil defence workers. Dan Edwards, wearied in the Press gallery, said to Dalwood, ‘I think the old bastard is hoping for a new job when he dies — he’s understudying the Recording Angel.’
I
There was a movement in the valley. At first there was just a handful of rescuers but the number swelled hour by hour, brought in by helicopter and ski plane. The mountain rangers came from Mount Cook, from Coronet Peak, from Mount Egmont, from Tongariro — men knowledgeable and skilled in their trade of snow rescue. Doctors came in Air Force and US Navy helicopters, which took out the children and the badly injured.
The mass of snow which blocked the Gap was attacked fiercely. Steps were cut and guide ropes laid so that within hours it was possible for any moderately active person to enter or leave the valley. This was done by volunteers from the mountain clubs who had come in dozens at a time to the place of disaster, many of them flying from as far as North Island.
These men knew what to do and, once in the valley, they formed teams to probe the snow, at first working under the general direction of Jesse Rusch. They were aided by a force of police and an even larger detachment of troops. Even so, they were not too many; the area to be patiently probed, foot by foot, was over four hundred acres.
At first Ballard acted as co-ordinator, but he was glad to be relieved by a professional civil defence man flown in from Christchurch. He stayed on to help Arthur Pye. The identification of the survivors and the dead and the listing of those still missing was work in which local knowledge was vital. There was pain in his eyes as he saw the name of Stacey Cameron on the list of the dead.