Campbell's Kingdom (2 page)

It is clear that the innate decency that characterised Innes's fictional heroes was very much alive in the author himself. Time and again in his novels, this stubborn sense of right is shown to be the best defence against greed, and the best way of surviving nature's ferocity. I think it is this hopefulness, and belief in the values of civilisation, that really marks Innes out and makes him more than merely a writer of ‘good yarns'. However, to under-appreciate his skills as a storyteller, first and foremost, would be to do him a disservice. He created brilliant plots that twist and turn and ratchet up the tension; stories bursting with energy and thrills. His books have given immense pleasure to many thousands of readers, and, with this new edition of
Campbell's Kingdom
, many more to come.

Andy McNab, 2013

I HESITATED AS
I crossed the road and paused to gaze up at the familiar face of Number Thirty-two. There was a coping stone missing from the roof and one of the dirt-blackened panes of the fanlight was cracked. A light on in one of the upper rooms gave it a lop-sided look. For years I had been coming home from the office to this rather drab old Georgian-fronted house on the edge of Mecklenburgh Square, yet now I seemed to be looking at it for the first time. I had to remind myself that those windows on the first floor just to the right of the front door were my windows, that behind them were all my clothes and papers and books, all the things that made up my home.

But there was no reality about it now. It was as though I were living in a dream. I suppose I was still dazed by the news.

I wondered what they'd say at the office—or should I go on as though nothing had happened? I thought of all the years I'd been leaving this house at eight thirty-five in the morning and returning to it shortly after six at night; lonely, wasted years. Men who had served with me during the war were now in good executive positions. But for me the Army had been the big chance. Once out of it I had drifted without the drive of an objective, without the competitive urge of a close-knit masculine world. I stared with sudden loathing at the lifeless façade of Thirty-two as though it symbolised all those wasted years.

A car hooted and I shook myself, conscious of the dreadful feeling of weariness that possessed my body; conscious, too, of a sudden urgency. I needed to make some sense out of my life, and I needed to do it quickly. As I crossed to the pavement, automatically getting out my keys, I suddenly decided I wasn't going to tell the office anything. I wasn't going to tell anybody. I'd just say I was taking a holiday and quietly disappear.

I went in and closed the door. Footsteps sounded in the darkness of the unlighted hall.

‘Is that you, Mr Wetheral?'

It was my landlady, a large, cheerful and very loquacious Scots lady who with their Lords of the Admiralty managed to support a drunken husband who had never done a stroke of work since his leg was blown off in the First World War.

‘Yes, Mrs Baird.'

‘Ye're home early. Did they give ye the afternoon off?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Och now, fancy that. Would it be some Sassenach holiday or was there nobody wishing to insure themselves against all those things, like arson and accident and annuity that you were talking aboot the other day?'

I smiled to myself, wondering what she would say if I told her the truth. As I started up the stairs she stopped me. ‘There's two letters for you in your room—bills by the look of them. And I put some flowers there seeing that ye'd no been verra well lately.'

‘That's very kind of you, Mrs Baird.'

‘Och, I nearly forgot. There was a gentleman to see you. He ha'na been gone more than ten minutes. He said it was very important, so I told him to come back again at six. He said that was fine for he'd to go to the Law Courts aboot anither matter.'

‘The Law Courts?' I stopped and stared down at her. ‘Did he look like a lawyer?'

‘Aye, he did that. He'd a black hat and a brief case and a rolled umbrella. Ye've no got yersel' into any trouble, Mr Wetheral, have ye noo?'

‘Of course not,' I answered, puzzled. ‘You're sure he was a lawyer?'

‘Aye, he was a lawyer all right. Shall I bring him straight up when he comes? I told him you'd be back at six. If ye're no in any trouble, perhaps it's some good news—one o' your relatives dead maybe?'

‘I'm making my will,' I said and laughed as I went on up to my rooms.

The last red flicker of the sunset showed through the trees of the square. I switched on the light. The trees stood out in bare silhouette against the lurid sky. But across the street it was already getting dark. My reflection stared back at me from the long french windows leading to the balcony—a ghostly transfer of myself against the brick façade of the houses.

I pulled the curtains quickly and turned back into the room. I suddenly felt desperately alone, more alone than I had felt in all my life.

For a while I paced back and forth, wondering what the devil a lawyer could want with me. Then I turned abruptly and went through into the bedroom. God! I was tired. I took off my coat and lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. And as I lay there sweating with fear and nervous exhaustion my life passed before my mind's eye, mocking me with its emptiness. Thirty-six years, and what had I done with them—what had I achieved?

I must have dropped off to sleep for I woke with a start to hear Mrs Baird's voice calling me from the sitting-room. ‘Here's the lawyer man to see ye again, Mr Wetheral.'

I got up, feeling dazed and chilled, and went through into the other room. He was a lawyer all right; no mistaking the neat blue suit, the white collar, the dry, dusty air of authority. ‘Mr Wetheral?' His hand was white and soft and the skin of his long, sad face looked as though it had been starched and ironed.

‘What do you want?' The rudeness of my tone was unintentional.

‘My name is Fothergill,' he replied carefully. ‘Of Anstey, Fothergill and Anstey, solicitors of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Before I state my business it will be necessary for me to ask you a few personal questions. A matter of identity, that is all. May I sit down?'

‘Of course,' I murmured. ‘A cigarette?'

‘I don't smoke, thank you.'

I lit one and saw that my hand was shaking. I had had too many professional interviews in the last few days.

He waited until I was settled in an easy chair and then he said, ‘Your christian names please, Mr Wetheral.'

‘Bruce Campbell.'

‘Date of birth?'

‘July 20th, 1916.'

‘Parents alive?'

‘No. Both dead.'

‘Your father's christian names please.'

‘Look,' I said, a trifle irritably. ‘Where's all this leading to?'

‘Please,' he murmured. ‘Just bear with me a moment longer.' His voice was dry and disinterested. ‘Your father's christian names?'

‘John Henry.'

‘An engineer?'

I nodded. ‘He died on the Somme the year I was born.'

‘What were your mother's names?'

‘Eleanor Rebecca.'

‘And her maiden name?'

‘Campbell.'

‘Did you know any of the Campbells, Mr Wetheral?'

‘Only my grandfather; I met him once.'

‘Do you remember his names?'

‘No, I don't think I ever knew them. He called my mother Ella, if that's any help.'

‘Where did you meet him?'

‘Coming out of prison.'

He stared at me, an expression of faint distaste on his face as though I had been guilty of some shocking joke.

‘He did five years in Brixton,' I explained quickly. ‘He was a thief and a swindler. My mother and I met him when he came out. I was about nine at the time. We drove in a taxi straight from the prison to a boat-train.' After all these years I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice. I stubbed out my cigarette. Damn it, why did he have to come asking questions on this day of all days. ‘Why do you want to know all this?' I demanded irritably.

‘Just one more question.' He seemed quite unperturbed by my impatience. ‘You were in the Army during the war. In France?'

‘No, the desert and then Sicily and Italy. I was in the R.A.C.'

‘Were you wounded at all?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where?'

‘By God!' I cried, jumping to my feet. ‘This is too much.' My fingers had gone automatically to the scar above my heart. ‘You come here poking and prying into my affairs, asking me a lot of damn-fool questions, without even having the courtesy—'

‘Please.' He, too, had risen to his feet and he looked quite scared. ‘Calm yourself, Mr Wetheral. I am only carrying out my instructions. I am quite satisfied now. I was instructed to locate a Bruce Campbell Wetheral and I was given certain information, including the fact that he was a Captain in the Royal Armoured Corps during the war and that he was wounded shortly after Alamein. I am now quite satisfied that you are the man I have been looking for.'

‘Well, now you've found me, what do you want?'

‘If you'll just be seated again for a moment—'

I dropped back into my chair and lit a cigarette from the stub of the one I had half crushed out. ‘Well?'

He picked up his brief case and fumbled nervously at the straps as he perched himself on the edge of the chair opposite me. ‘We are acting for the firm of Donald McCrae and Acheson of Calgary in this matter. They are the solicitors appointed under your grandfather's will. Since you only met him once it will possibly be of no great concern to you that he is dead. What does concern you, however, is that you are the sole legatee under his will.' He placed a document on the table between us. ‘That is a copy of the will, together with a sealed letter written by your grandfather and addressed to you. The original of the will is held by the solicitors in Calgary. They also hold all the documents, share certificates and so on relating to the Campbell Oil Exploration Company, together with contracts, leases, agreements, etcetera, and all the books of the company. You now control this company, but it is virtually moribund. However, it owns territory in the Rocky Mountains and Donald McCrae and Acheson advise disposal of this asset and the winding up of the company.' He burrowed in his brief case again and came up with another document. ‘Now, here is a deed of sale for the territory referred to . . .'

I stared at him, hearing his voice droning on and remembering only how I had hated my grandfather, how all my childhood had been made miserable by that big, raw-boned Scot with the violent blue eyes and close-cropped grey hair who had sat beside my mother in that taxi and whom I had only seen that once.

‘You're sure my grandfather went back to Canada?' I asked incredulously.

‘Yes, yes, quite sure. He formed this company there in 1926.'

That was the year after he came out of prison. ‘This company,' I said. ‘Was a man called Paul Morton involved in it with him?'

The solicitor paused in what he was saying, an expression of mild irritation on his face. He glanced through the sheaf of documents on the table. ‘No,' he said. ‘The other two directors were Roger Fergus and Luke Trevedian. Fergus was one of the big men in the Turner Valley field and Trevedian owned a gold mine. Now, as I was saying, the shares in this company are worthless. The only working capital it seems to have had was advanced by Fergus and the only work it has carried out appears to have been financed by him, the money being advanced on mortgage. This included a survey—'

‘Do you mean my grandfather was broke when he returned to Canada?'

‘It would seem so.' Fothergill peered at the documents and then nodded. ‘Yes, I should say that was definitely the case.'

I leaned back, staring at the lamp, trying to adjust myself to a sudden and entirely new conception of my grandfather. ‘How did he die?' I asked.

‘How?' Again the solicitor glanced through the papers on the table. ‘It says here that he died of cold.'

‘Of cold?'

‘Yes. He was living alone high up in the Rockies. Now, as regards the company; it does not seem likely that the shares are marketable and—'

‘He must have been a very old man.' I was thinking that my mother had been thirty-two when she had died in 1927.

‘He was seventy-nine. Now this land that is owned by the company. Your representatives in Calgary inform me that they have been fortunate enough to find a purchaser. In fact, they have an offer—' He stopped and the polished skin of his forehead puckered in an impatient frown. ‘You're not listening to me, Mr Wehteral.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I was just wondering what an old man of seventy-nine was doing living alone in the Rocky Mountains.'

‘Yes, yes, of course. Very natural. Let me see now. It's all in Mr Acheson's letter. Ah, here we are—apparently he became a little queer as he grew old. His belief that there was oil up in this territory in the mountains had become an obsession with him. From 1930 onwards he lived up there in a log cabin by himself, hardly ever coming down into the towns. It was there that he was found by a late hunting party. That was on the 22nd of November, last year.' He placed the letter on the table beside me. ‘I will leave that with you and you can read it at your leisure. There is also a cutting from a local paper. Now, about this land. There is apparently some scheme for damming the valley and utilising the waters for a hydro-electric project. One of the mining companies . . .'

I sat back and closed my eyes. So he had gone back. That was the thing that stuck in my mind. He had really believed there was oil there.

‘Please, Mr Wetheral. I must ask for your attention. This is important, most important.'

‘I'm sorry,' I murmured. I was trying to remember every detail of that one meeting, but it was blurred. I could remember the prison gates, the battered leather suitcase he had carried, the brass headlamps of the taxi—but not a word of the conversation between him and my mother. I looked across at the little lawyer. ‘You were saying something about a hydro-electric scheme.'