The Snow Tiger / Night of Error Page 22

  V

  Stacey Cameron took her father’s car and drove it to Dr Scott’s house which was where he held his surgery. Because she had first-aid training she had volunteered to help on the medical side should such help be necessary, and Scott, being the only doctor, was the hub around which all medical problems revolved. She drew up behind a station wagon which was parked outside Scott’s house.

  Liz Peterson was there. ‘Hi, there,’ said Stacey. ‘You a volunteer nurse, too?’

  ‘More of an almoner,’ said Liz. ‘Dr Scott wants us to round up medical supplies. He’s had to go because Ballard wants him to look in on Harry Dobbs.’

  ‘Harry?’ Stacey shook her head. ‘Isn’t he at the mine office?’

  ‘No,’ said Liz. ‘That seems to be the trouble.’

  Stacey offered Liz a cigarette. ‘Talking about Ian – what exactly happened last night?’

  ‘My idiot brother happened,’ said Liz. ‘Charlie’s a great big pain in the neck.’ She accepted a light. ‘Tell me, how are things in California?’

  Stacey was puzzled. ‘What do you mean – how are things?’

  ‘Conditions of living – and working. I’m thinking of leaving here.’

  ‘That’s a laugh,’ said Stacey. ‘I’m thinking of moving in here.’

  Liz smiled. ‘Perhaps we can do an even swap: jobs, houses – everything.’

  ‘I don’t live in a house. I rent an apartment.’

  ‘Any particular reason for burying yourself in a hole like Huka?’

  ‘My father.’ Stacey hesitated. ‘And other reasons.’

  ‘What’s the other reason’s name?’ asked Liz drily.

  ‘You were dancing with him last night.’

  Liz raised her eyebrows. ‘And at your invitation, too. I’m not blind or stupid, you, know. You were talking to me, and then you went to talk to him. Ian wasn’t drunk but he’d had just enough to say, “I’ll dance with Liz Peterson and to hell with her quarrelsome brothers.” And you gave him the idea. That’s a funny way for a girl to act towards her reason.’

  ‘I don’t want to appear possessive. At least, not at this delicate stage in our relationship.’

  ‘And what stage is that?’

  Stacey smiled. ‘The stage at which he hasn’t noticed I exist.’ She sighed. ‘And I only have a few days more.’

  ‘Well, he has a lot on his mind right now. Maybe your chance will come during the avalanche. All you have to do is to be gallantly rescued by Ian Ballard. Then he’ll have to marry you – it’s as good as making you pregnant, according to all the films I’ve seen.’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘A very nice man,’ said Liz coolly. ‘But I go more for his friend, Mike McGill.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no joy there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He says he’s been bitten before. His wife divorced him three years ago; she said she couldn’t live with a snowman who’s never at home. Mike said he couldn’t blame her. Who’d want a husband who alternates between the North Pole and the South Pole like a yo-yo?’

  Stacey nodded commiseratingly. ‘Tell me – what’s this quarrel between your brothers and Ian?’

  ‘Too old to bear repeating,’ said Liz briefly. She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘This isn’t stocking up the medical supplies. Let’s get busy.’

  They drove to the chemist’s shop in the main street and Liz got out of the car and tried the door, which proved to be locked. She knocked repeatedly but there was no answer and finally she gave up. ‘That bloody fool, Rawson, was told to be here,’ she said angrily. ‘Why the devil isn’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s been held up.’

  ‘I’ll hold him up when I find him,’ said Liz grimly. She looked past Stacey at a truck coming down the street, then stepped forward and waved it down. As it stopped she called, ‘Len, have you seen Rawson anywhere?’

  Len Baxter shook his head and turned to consult Scanlon. ‘Dave says he saw him going into the hotel about half an hour ago.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Liz turned to Stacey. ‘Let’s part him from his beer. Come on.’

  In any community there is a sizeable proportion of fools, and a large number of these were congregated together in the Hotel D’Archiac. The philosophy of the management appeared to be ‘Business as usual’, and perhaps business was better than usual. A rumble of male voices came from the crowded bar and the dining-room was being prepared for lunch as though it was any other Sunday of the year.

  Liz saw Eric standing at the entrance to the bar and brought him across the lobby with a jerk of her head. ‘What’s going on here? Don’t these people know what’s happening?’

  ‘I’ve told them and I’ve told them,’ said Eric. ‘It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. There are a lot of miners in there being stirred up by Bill Quentin. They seem to be holding a protest meeting about the mine being closed down.’

  ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Stacey. ‘Dad said nothing about it.’

  ‘Bill Quentin says it’s a certainty.’

  Liz looked at a waitress carrying a loaded tray of drinks into the dining-room. ‘This place should be closed down. Close it, Eric. We do own half the business.’

  Eric shrugged. ‘You know as well as I do that Johnnie and me are just sleeping partners. We agreed with Weston that we shouldn’t interfere with the day-to-day running. I’ve talked to him, but he says he’s staying open.’

  ‘Then he’s a damned fool.’

  ‘He’s a fool who’s coining money.’ Eric waved his hand towards the bar. ‘Look at it.’

  ‘To the devil with them!’ snapped Liz. ‘Is Rawson in there?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him talking to – ’

  ‘Get him out. I want him to open his shop. We need medical supplies.’

  ‘Okay.’ Eric went into the bar and was away a long time. Presently he came back with Rawson, a tall, gaunt man who wore thick-lensed spectacles.

  Liz took a step forward and said crisply, ‘Mr Rawson, you promised to be at your shop half an hour ago.’

  Rawson smiled. ‘Do you think this situation is so serious, Miss Peterson?’ His tone was of amused tolerance.

  Liz took a deep breath and said with iron control, ‘Whether it’s serious or not, the fact remains that you weren’t at your shop as you promised.’

  Rawson cast a longing look at the bar. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I suppose I’d better come.’

  ‘Are you staying here?’ Liz asked Eric.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m going to join Johnnie. This crowd won’t be shifted.’

  ‘Do it now,’ she advised. ‘Come on, Mr Rawson.’ As they left the hotel Stacey looked over her shoulder and saw Quentin come out of the bar to join Eric. They seemed to be starting an argument.

  When Rawson unlocked his shop he said fussily, ‘I don’t know that I’m not breaking the law by doing this.’

  ‘Pharmacists are allowed to open on Sunday in emergencies,’ said Liz. ‘I seem to know more about the law than you do.’

  Rawson went inside and snapped a light switch. When nothing happened he said, ‘Oh, I forgot. Never mind, I have a few candles at the back.’

  Liz said, ‘It’s light enough without candles. Let’s get on with it.’

  Rawson went behind the counter and adopted a professional stance. ‘Well, ladies,’ he said brightly. ‘What can I do for you?’ Stacey suppressed a smile. She had half-expected him to put on a white coat.

  ‘I have a list,’ said Liz, and gave it to him.

  Rawson scanned the papers slowly, going with maddening deliberation from one paper to the next. ‘My!’ he said at last. ‘This is a lot’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Liz patiently.

  Rawson looked up. ‘Who is going to pay for all this?’

  Liz looked at him expressionlessly and then glanced at Stacey who stood with open mouth. She leaned over the counter, and said sweetly, ‘Would you like payment before or after delivery, Mr Rawson?�
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  Obtusely, he did not catch the danger underlying her tone.

  ‘Well, this lot will take quite a time to add up.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s a good thing I bought one of those new electronic calculators. It makes things like this so easy, you know.’

  Liz slammed her hand on the counter. ‘Start producing, Rawson. If you’re worried about the money put it on Johnnie’s account – or don’t you think his credit is good?’

  ‘Oh no, that will be quite all right,’ said Rawson hastily. He peered at the list again. ‘Right, let’s begin. Bandages – ten dozen boxes of two-inch, ten dozen boxes of three-inch, the same of six …’ He broke off. ‘We’ll have to go into the stock room for those.’

  ‘Right, let’s get into the stock room. Where is it?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘There’s something not quite right here, Miss Peterson. All this morphine – here on the third page.’ He held it out to her. ‘I can’t really issue that without a prescription. And the quantity!’ He shook his head. ‘I could lose my licence.’

  ‘If you turn to the last page you’ll find Dr Scott’s signature.’

  ‘That’s not good enough, Miss Peterson. For one thing, page three isn’t signed, and for another, it should be done on the prescribed form. The Dangerous Drugs Act is very precise about this kind of thing. This is most irregular and I’m surprised that Dr Scott should have countenanced it.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ exploded Liz. Rawson was shocked and startled. ‘You could be killed at any time and you’re worried about names on bloody bits of paper. Now look here: if you don’t get moving and produce everything on that list I’ll have Arthur Pye confiscate your whole damned stock. He’d do it, too.’

  Rawson was affronted. ‘You can’t threaten me with the police!’

  ‘What do you mean – I can’t? I’ve just done it, haven’t I? Stacey, use that telephone and find Arthur Pye.’

  Rawson threw up his hands. ‘Oh, very well – but I insist on delivering any drugs on the dangerous list to Dr Scott personally.’

  ‘Good!’ said Liz briskly. ‘That means you’ll be helping at last. Where’s the stock room?’

  Rawson waved. ‘That door back there.’ As Liz strode towards it he said, ‘But it’s locked. Can’t be too careful about things like that.’ He joined her and took a chain from his pocket on the end of which dangled a bunch of keys. He unlocked the door. ‘All the bandages are on those shelves to the right. I’ll be in the dispensary getting the drugs together.’

  The two girls marched past him and he turned, shaking his head at the impetuosity of modern youth. Who would have thought that a nicely brought up girl like Elizabeth Peterson was capable of using language which hitherto he had only associated with bar-rooms?

  He went into the dispensary and unlocked the cupboard in which he kept the registered drugs. He took a box and began filling it with ampoules, keeping careful count and making a note every so often in the Poisons Register. This naturally took up time. He was a most meticulous man.

  He was not to know it but the combination of his broken promise and his scrupulosity meant that he was a dead man. If he had been on time at the shop he would have been there when the girls arrived and there would have been no waste of time in extracting him from the hotel bar. His meticulousness in putting everything in the Poisons Register meant that he was still in the dispensary when the avalanche hit.

  When the front of the shop caved in, the shock transmitted through the foundations caused a half-gallon bottle to leap off a shelf and fall and smash on the table before him. It was full of hydrochloric acid which splashed all over his face and the front of his body.

  Liz Peterson was saved by something which had begun five years earlier. In the winter of that year, which had also been cold, a drop of water had frozen in a minute crack in the concrete which formed the footing of the rear wall of the stock room. The water drop, turning into ice, had expanded and widened the crack. The following year the same thing happened, but with a little more water, and year by year the crack had widened until at this time it constituted a serious danger to the stability of the wall.

  Had Rawson known of this he would have had it repaired immediately, being the sort of man he was. But he did not know of it because it was underground. Consequently, when the shock of the avalanche struck, the rear wall constituted a weakness and it gave way easily and without resistance.

  Liz was hurled forward against stacked boxes of bandages which cushioned the shock, although the edge of a shelf broke two of her ribs. The whole mass, shelving, boxes and the bodies of Liz and Stacey, was forced against the rear wall which gave immediately, and Liz was precipitated through the air in a tangle of streaming and unwinding bandages.

  She fell on to snow, and more snow covered her, holding her body and clamping her arms and legs. She was quite conscious and rational and she wondered if she were about to die. She did not know that Stacey Cameron was in much the same position not more than ten feet away. Both girls lost consciousness at about the same time, roughly one-and-a-half minutes after being buried.

  Rawson was also buried about twenty yards away and was dying slowly and quite painfully as the acid ate at his flesh. Fortunately, when he opened his mouth to scream it filled with soft snow and he died mercifully and quickly of asphyxia.

  The Hotel D’Archiac, that abode of fools, was speedily demolished. Jeff Weston, the king of fools who had been coining it, was parted from more than his money. Business was so brisk that he had gone behind the bar to help the overworked bartender and when the building was hit he was struck on the head by a bottle of scotch whisky which left the shelf behind him like a projectile.

  Most of the men who were drinking in the bar were killed by flying bottles. Behind the bottles came the whole wall and, after that, came the snow which covered everything. They died because they were fools, although a cynic might have said they died of acute alcoholism. But there were no cynics left in Hukahoronui after that Sunday morning.

  Those in the dining-room died when the roof fell in. Alice Harper, the waitress who had served McGill with colonial goose on the previous evening, was killed by a heavy suitcase which fell from the bedrooms above. The suitcase belonged to the American, Newman, who had his own troubles at the time.

  Newman’s room no longer existed as a room and the same applied to the room next door which had been taken by his friend, Miller. Miller was most fortunate to be absent.

  Bill Quentin was exceptionally lucky because he had left the hotel with Eric Peterson only moments before the hotel was destroyed. He had gone into the lobby from the bar and found Eric. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘Does the council know what’s going on?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About closing the mine.’

  ‘The mine has been closed. Ballard closed it this morning.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I mean closing it permanently.’

  Eric shook his head a little wearily. ‘No one has said anything to us – yet.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to do anything about it?’

  ‘What the hell do you expect us to do when we haven’t been notified officially? I don’t believe it will close.’

  Quentin snorted. ‘Ballard said it would. He said it at a meeting yesterday. He said the company couldn’t afford to spend money on avalanche protection. I think this avalanche scare is a lot of balls. I think the company is trying to weasel out.’

  ‘Weasel out of what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Eric moved towards the door.

  ‘You know what these big companies are like.’ Quentin took a couple of steps to keep up with him. ‘I hear that Ballard is related to the big boss back in London. Know anything about that?’

  ‘I’ve heard it.’ Eric quickened his pace. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I’ll bet he’s been sent to do the hatchet job. Hey – where are you going?’

  ‘To join Johnnie in the old Fisher house.’

  ‘I think I’ll
come with you,’ said Quentin. ‘I think the council ought to know about this. Where’s Matt Houghton?’

  ‘At home.’

  They stepped off the pavement, and Quentin said, ‘That means he’s the only sensible man around here. Everybody else is shutting themselves up in holes.’

  Eric glanced at him. ‘Like me?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you believe in Doomsday?’

  Eric stopped on the opposite pavement. His back was to the Fisher house and so he did not see his brother run across the road towards the telephone exchange. ‘Johnnie’s no fool and he believes it,’ he said deliberately. ‘And I’m beginning to.’

  He resumed his stride at a quicker pace and Quentin, a much smaller man, was forced to trot to keep up with him. They entered the house and Eric glanced into the empty room off the hall. ‘He’ll be in the cellar.’

  The two men were just going down the steps into the basement when the house was hit. Eric tumbled the rest of the way and fell on top of young Mary Rees, breaking her leg. Bill Quentin fell on top of Eric and broke Eric’s arm. He himself was quite unhurt; he was untouched and inviolate and was not even scratched by the falling rubble of the collapsing house.

  VI

  After shouting his warning, McGill dropped into his own selected shelter, jostled by Ballard. He grabbed the telephone which had been installed by a mine electrician and rang the exchange which was busy. ‘For Christ’s sake, come on!’ he muttered.

  He waited for ten seconds which were more like ten minutes before the operator, Maureen Scanlon, came on the line. He said quickly, ‘Plug me into John Peterson, Mrs Scanlon, and then get the hell out of there – fast.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said, and the ringing tone came into his ear.

  ‘John Peterson here.’

  ‘McGill. Get your people under cover. She’s coming down.’

  ‘What about Maureen Scanlon?’

  ‘I’ve told her to get out. You can see the exchange from where you are. Keep an eye open for her.’