Put on the Armour of Light (20 page)

T
he
Red River is in no hurry to reach its outlet at Lake Winnipeg; it winds across the plains, cutting sweeping loops as it goes. The Bainbridge Millworks factory was built on just such a loop, a meander called Point Douglas in the very centre of the city where the land is surrounded on three sides by the river. It was close to midnight when Charles arrived at Sutherland Avenue and surveyed the Bainbridge factory from across the street. Feeling that he would be very noticeable in his clerical collar, he had changed into his work shirt, an old vest and corduroy trousers before leaving the church. He still felt rather conspicuous but there was a new building under construction behind him and he found that he could slip behind its wooden hoarding. Once there, he was hidden from the street but still able to watch the entry to the Bainbridge Millworks. The factory itself was an elongated building three storeys high made of buff-coloured brick and set back from the street by a gravelled yard. Along the ridge line of its roof there was a raised section that accommodated the steel beam on which the hoists and pulleys travelled the length of the building. If Trevor was in there, where exactly would he be? And how would he look for him without attracting a lot of notice?

He needed a plan. But something that Setter had said to Maggie was playing around in his head. Why was Setter so interested in what Martland had asked Maggie in the promenade? Martland thought Trevor was with her on the night of the murder and she said he wasn't. Martland must have gotten that idea from somewhere. From Trevor, he supposed. Well, so why would Trevor tell his father he was with Maggie if he wasn't?

Suddenly Charles said out loud. “Oh Lord! I never asked him how he got the papers!” He clamped his hand over his mouth and stayed perfectly still. With luck he was far enough away from the factory that nobody could have heard him. An abrupt hand had just scattered all the little dominoes that had been so neatly lined up in his mind. Now he had to arrange them into a new pattern, a pattern he liked much less than the first. But before he could work out all of the implications, there were sounds of men's voices across the street. He peeked out. It was a shift change at the factory.

It's a chance; I have to take it
. He edged out from behind the hoarding and walked as casually as he could across the street and toward the group of about thirty men walking through the factory gate in groups of twos and threes. He attached himself to a rag tag group and walked through into the yard and then through the factory doors. Once inside he was struck by a wall of ear-shattering noise from the belt-driven lathes and planers and a fine mist of sawdust hung in the air. The men ahead of him lined up in front of the timekeeper's cage. He stopped and pretended to be reading some notices on a board by the entrance. The men who had signed in were walking into another room. He slipped past the ones still signing in and followed the others into what turned out to be a cloak room where men were changing into overalls and putting masks over their faces to protect them from the sawdust. Charles walked through that room and into an adjoining room in which there were toilets and wash basins. He went into a stall, sat down and waited. The smell made his eyes water. He tossed several scoops of red clay down the hole but that didn't help much. Soon the sounds in the room grew less as the men filed out to work. When he hadn't heard anything for about two minutes, he came out of his stall gingerly, and peeked around the corner into the change room.
Empty. Good.
He walked back into the changing area. There were overalls and masks on pegs. He grabbed a pair of overalls, stepped into them, and pulled them up over his trousers and shirt, hiking the straps over his shoulders. The mask smelled musty when he pushed it tight against his face and tightened the canvas strap at the back of his head. A pair of canvas and rubber work gloves completed the ensemble. When he looked in the mirror over the sinks, the mask with its cylindrical metal snout gave him a distinctly pig-like appearance.

He took a deep breath and walked out of the cloakroom. Under cover of adjusting his mask and gloves, he tried to get his bearings. Behind the timekeeper's cage there was a counter and behind the counter an enclosed area of offices with a large window that looked out onto the factory floor. Through the window Charles could see a couple of desks, one bearing a large typewriter. There was a door marked
F.C. BAINBRIDGE
. High above the floor he saw hoists attached to the steel beam and pulleys hanging and a series of catwalks suspended from the roof to service the hoists. There was a kind of high mezzanine at the level of the catwalks and on this mezzanine an enclosed room with a door. An open metal stairway led up to this mezzanine.

“You!”

Charles almost leapt out of his skin. He looked around to see a burly figure with mask at half mast.

“Are you deaf? Get over there and load those balusters!”

He kept his own mask in place but nodded to the foreman, walking over to a pallet of turned balusters destined for some stairway or verandah railing farther west. The balusters were in rectangular bundles and bound by metal straps. Two other men were loading large flat dollies and Charles joined them. After his dolly was loaded he helped another man to roll it out to a loading dock at the back of the factory. This route took him past the bottom of the stairway. After two more trips all the balusters were out on the loading dock. Charles hung back as the other men returned to the floor. It was going to be hard to get up those stairs without being noticed. When he was sure the foreman wasn't looking, he sprinted up to the first landing and dropped onto his stomach. He wasn't so worried about the other men. There was solidarity in putting one over on a foreman. There. The foreman had gone out of view behind a large lathe. Charles bounded all the way to the top of the stairs and flattened himself against the outside wall of the factory, away from the edge of the mezzanine and out of sight from the floor. He moved behind a huge spool of greasy block and tackle chain and from that vantage point was able to observe the layout of the mezzanine.

He knew that the place where Trevor was being kept was higher up than Bainbridge's office. This room seemed to fit the bill and he couldn't see any other alternatives. For fifteen minutes he kept watch trying to think of what to do next. Suddenly the door opened and Charles had to duck down. Peeping around the side of the spool, he had to look twice to be sure. Yes. Grey Cap closed the door, and, after rolling the tobacco between fingers and thumbs he licked the cigarette paper and stuck the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. In defiance of numerous “No Smoking” signs posted around the factory, Grey Cap took a wooden match out of his pocket and flicked it with his thumbnail. It popped into flame and momentarily lit up his face as he turned and headed down the metal staircase.

It was then that Charles noticed that the walls of the room didn't rise all the way to the roof of the factory. He wanted a better look. By going up a metal ladder, he got onto the highest catwalk, the one up in the rafters, and from there he could easily step over onto a beam that, at the end of its span, ran along one wall of the room at ceiling height. He took his mask off, stepped over onto the beam and then lay down on top of it. The beam was coated with sawdust which made it easier to slide along. He tried not to think about the other things it was coated with. Now he was getting close. “Yes!” he whispered under his breath. The room was actually open to the factory roof. If he was careful, he would be able to look down into it. He was suddenly conscious of the fact that he could now hear himself sliding along and he stopped cold. He looked down over the edge of the mezzanine to the factory floor. All of the lathes and planers had been shut down and the men were evidently breaking them down and rubbing assorted parts with oily rags. He took a deep breath and inched closer to the wall of the room trying to make as little noise as possible. He was close enough now to lean over the edge, just far enough to see down into the interior of the room.
Oh Lord.

T
revor
was sitting on a chair, his hands bound behind him and his legs tied — one to an iron pole beside the chair and the other to the chair leg. He had apparently been gagged but the gag was now loosened and hung around his neck. There was a table in front of him and Martland sat opposite him, the remains of a meal and its packaging were on the table. Charles was shocked at the change in Martland's appearance. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes. His face was flushed and the rims of his eyes were red. As Charles watched, Martland ran his hands slowly through his hair where the sawdust had settled on it like snow on straw.

“Sorry we have to keep you tied up. If I could be sure of you, I'd let you go in a minute. You know that. Don't want to make you any more uncomfortable than necessary.” Martland toyed idly with the plate on the table.

Trevor opened his mouth, hesitated, but then Martland cut him off. “You know, for the life of me I can't think how you got that safe open. Did you get the combination from Joe?”

“No, no. Don't you remember? I was six or seven. You showed me how to open it when it was just new. I could have played with it for hours if you'd let me.”

“You surely didn't remember the combination?”

“No. But I did remember where you hid it. The same place after more than fifteen years.”

Martland looked sheepish. “That's right. That's right. I'm a man of habits. I had forgotten that. You used to visit me at the office quite often when you were a boy.”

“I used to bother the staff. I knew they couldn't box my ears for it.”

They both laughed.

“If I could have that night back again …” Trevor was suddenly serious again. “I never thought Joe would be in the office at that time of night. He tried to grab the papers back from me. He had his hand around my throat. I swear, I only meant to push him off me.”

“Don't trouble yourself, boy. Don't trouble yourself over the likes of Joe Asseltine. We're better off without him.”

“Trouble myself? He's dead! He was your partner for twenty years for God's sake!”

“Hah! Of course.” Martland was triumphant. “That's why you paid for McEvoy's lawyer, isn't it? Guilt money.”

“When he walked into the office and saw me, I panicked and ran like a fool. But if you hadn't stopped me I'd have done what I should have done in the first place.”

“Do you hate me so much? To ruin everything I've built for you?”

Trevor shook his head. “It would have been so much easier if I did hate you. I found a way to get you away from us, that's all. But I botched it. Too much of you in me, Father.”

Martland seemed to have no answer to this. He got up from the table and used a handkerchief to wipe off his forehead. “Damned sawdust. Why Bainbridge doesn't install better vacuum catchers on those bloody machines, I don't know.” He walked over and checked the knots on the ropes. “Too tight?”

Trevor said, “Yes. Why don't you untie them?”

Martland looked pained. “Not yet.”

He arched his back in a stretch and Charles, looking down, caught sight of something metallic on a belt under Martland's jacket. A pistol, a revolver, in what looked like an old army-issue holster on a belt over Martland's shoulder.

“Funny, I can always think of something but now, every way I turn, I see the way barred.” Martland said. “Thought I could buy some time — while you were on your fishing trip.” He gave Trevor a half-hearted smile. “Persuade you to give me the papers. We could maybe have brazened it out together then. But you put paid to that, didn't you?” He rubbed his eyes. “Well. I expect the police have them by now.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Now there'll be a scandal and you'll be held up to ridicule. And we'll both go to jail or worse.” He screwed up his face and shook his head. “I can't let that happen. No, no. That's not for us. We need to make a clean break, you and me. I won't let them gabble at you and hurt you. It's better this way.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about? This is craziness, Father!”

But Martland didn't seem to hear that. He reached under his jacket in a distracted fashion and adjusted the holster. “Strange for there to be nothing to look forward to. I've lived all my life for the future. For your future.” His face contorted, tears and sweat mixing in its knotted folds. He waged a visible struggle to hang on. After a long exhalation of air through gritted teeth, he said, “Is there anything you want? Whiskey? Maybe some brandy?”

Charles wanted to cry out. He willed Trevor to think of something, anything.

“Cigars. Those little Cuban ones.” Trevor's voice shook slightly. “That's what I'd like.”

Charles held his breath.

“Oh, yes. Yes. I like those, too. I've got a box at the office.” Martland took out his handkerchief once more and mopped his face. “I'll just go and get Kobler to fetch them.” He opened the door, closed and locked it again and Charles heard the sound of his boots on the metal staircase going down.

Charles swung off the beam and over the side of the wall in one motion. He dropped and landed nine feet below, giving at the knees and then falling over at Trevor's feet.

“Charles! God! How did you — can you untie me! Quick — he won't be gone long.”

Charles worked ferociously at the knots tying Trevor's hands.

“I can't believe it. I think he's going to —”

“No, he isn't.” The knots were finally loosened on Trevor's hands. He dove at the rope tying Trevor's leg to the pole while Trevor attacked the other leg. Sweat and sawdust stung his eyes. The knots were rock hard and his hands kept slipping on them.

Charles turned toward the door. “Hurry! He's —” Then everything happened at once. Martland was in the open doorway. Charles hurled himself at Martland's solar plexus and with perfect fullback technique brought him down outside the doorway of the room. They wrestled around on the floor and Charles was once again in the grip of Martland's powerful arms and shoulders. Somehow, Martland got his hand on the gun which, though Charles held the arm that held the gun, Martland began to turn, by trembling inches, in Charles's direction. With a mighty heave, Charles whipped his legs around and caught the older man by surprise. He was knocked over sideways. That momentum allowed Charles to get to his feet. He kicked at the gun and sent it skittering out of Martland's hand over toward the edge of the mezzanine where a gangway, barred by a flimsy metal gate, led out to a platform where the large roof hoist was serviced. Both men ran over to the gun but as Charles bent down to grab it, Martland kicked him in the ribs, sending him crashing through the gate and out onto the platform. Martland lumbered after him and kicked again. This blow propelled Charles right off the platform. Only his instinctive clutching at the edge saved him from falling. He hung suspended over the factory floor, kicking his leg upwards toward the edge of the platform, trying desperately to get a purchase.

Martland seemed to hesitate for a moment. He levelled the gun at Charles and their eyes met in complete wordless understanding. Charles thought,
The next thing I will feel is the bullet ripping into my brain.
He closed his eyes,
Lord, Lord, Lord …
There was a sound above him, as of a wounded animal.

Charles unscrewed his eyes and opened them to see Trevor and his father struggling, both men red faced, groaning and heaving with the effort. Now Trevor had the gun and threw it in one perfect arc over Charles's head and into space. The force of this gesture caused Martland to overbalance backwards. There was a moment. It was just a moment when father and son hung, it seemed, perfectly counterbalancing, hanging onto each other still. And then they pitched over Charles's head, Martland first and Trevor falling after. Charles covered his ears with his extended arms.

With almost his last strength, he swung his leg up to the platform. His ankle hooked it at last. With this solid anchor, he pulled himself up enough to grab onto a metal post with his left hand and with one final effort, heave himself up onto the platform, where he lay face down and breathing hard. There was someone thundering up the stairs.

“Lauchlan! Are you all right?”

“Think so. Need to rest for a sec.”

“Good, I've got to —” Setter began to get to his feet again but Charles had reached out and grabbed one of his lapels.

“Something you need to know. It was Trevor — the Asseltine thing, I mean.”

“I know. Just stay here and I'll get help.”

But Charles would not let him go. “It was an accident. Heard him say so. Understand?”

“Understood. That will help to clarify things.” He gently detached Charles's hand.

Then he heard Setter yelling as he ran back down the stairs. “Smithers! Get to a telephone and call the hospital. Gillies, clear the van. Are there stretchers here?”

Amid shouts and counter shouts, Charles was lying still, trying to catch his breath. He could feel that place in his ribcage where Martland had kicked him and knew that feeling would soon turn into pain. His hands throbbed and his body trembled but he inched slowly forward on his belly to the edge of the platform and forced himself to look down. And then he saw her. Maggie. Her arms reached upward toward the press of men trying to extricate the bodies from the chaos of the machinery and lift them down onto some blankets laid out on the floor. She was hatless and had tied the paisley shawl around her waist. Charles got to his feet by pulling hand over hand on the guardrail. He took a shuddering breath and then launched himself down the stairs.