by Ian Hamilton
‘A coat,’ said Alan deep in his throat.
‘Mine is the strongest,’ I said. It was the strongest, but I wanted my coat to be the one that was used. I slipped the jemmy out of my pocket. We would come back for that later. I struggled out of my coat and laid it on the ground; one hasty heave and the Stone was on the coat.
I seized one of the iron rings and pulled strongly. It came easily – too easily for its weight. ‘Stop,’ I said and shone my torch. What I saw astonished me, and for a moment I could not think what had happened. There was not one Stone but two. I had pulled a whole neat corner away, and it lay separate from the rest of the Stone, a gigantic cube, about one-quarter of the whole.
Of course, I should have been appalled, but I wasn’t. What the penalties were for breaking the Crown’s Regalia I neither knew nor cared. As a unit the Stone was nearly unmanageable; as two, it made our job easier. These were my thoughts then and they still are, although I was later to conceal them with much pious humbug, pretending to have been shocked and awestruck, when I was only relieved. I picked up the small part, small but still an armful which made me stagger, and opened the door to the Sacrarium with my shoulder and passed through. The light still burned at the far end of the nave, but it only accentuated the soaring darkness of the building. Of the watchman there was no sign.
Although I must have been carrying 100 pounds in my arms, nearly three-quarters of my own weight, I ran light-footed with my burden. Adrenalin is a great drug. I came out into the light outside the Poets’ Corner door, and plunged into the darkness of the mason’s yard, shouldering open the doors we had very wisely forced some hours before. Kay had seen me coming and had the car halfway down the lane. She opened the car door, and I rolled the piece of Stone onto the back seat.
‘We’ve broke it,’ I said, with unholy joy, lapsing into the language of my childhood. ‘Get back into cover.’ I don’t know what she thought, but by the time I was back into the Abbey the car was once more in position at the top of the lane.
The other two had made good progress. The steps leading down from the altar are wide and shallow, and they presented little difficulty to us. We grasped the coat between us, and swung it down step by step. Except for gasps for breath, and an occasional grunt of effort, we made little noise. Now and again there was a rending sound from the coat as the weight told on it, but my father sold only the best of cloth, and it stood up to the end.
We reached the foot of the steps and dragged it on across the nave. Sweat blinded us and we were breathless. As we turned into the transept there was a crunching noise. The plaque, which I had forgotten was still in the coat pocket, had fallen out, and the whole weight of the Stone had passed over it. Alan swiftly pocketed it. That simple action was later to give me a clue that saved the whole enterprise.
Suddenly and miraculously we were at Poets’ Corner door. We stopped for a breather because we were winded by the excitement as well as by our efforts. ‘One more pull,’ said Alan. ‘We’re not going to be beaten now.’
I opened the door to the lane, and as I did so I heard the car start up. It moved forward down the lane where it was clearly visible from the road. We still had to manhandle the Stone down the mason’s yard. It was too early to move forward yet. ‘The fool,’ I said, and dashed through the line of sheds to tell Kay to get back into cover.
The car was standing outside the door in the hoarding. I opened the nearside door. ‘Get the car back,’ I said. ‘We’re not ready yet.’
Kay looked at me coolly. ‘A policeman has seen me,’ she said. ‘He’s coming across the road.’
Chapter Twelve
There are times in life when one leaps forward to meet whatever is coming with a joy beyond expression. It amounts to an acceptance of challenge with the certainty of success. Failure is not thought of, and each fractioned second is lived with distilled intensity. This was one of these times. We had surmounted so many difficulties that nothing could dismay us. We were caught, but we were still fighting. Part of the Stone was lying there on the back seat for anyone to see, and we had a policeman coming towards us, yet it did not occur to either of us that this was the end. This was only one more incident in a long chain of incidents. We would cope.
I got into the car and silently closed the door. I reached forward and switched on the sidelights. Then I took deep breaths to steady myself and wiped the Abbey dust off my hands onto Kay’s jacket. I put one hand over the back of the seat and draped Alan’s spare coat over the fragment of the Stone. Then I took her in my arms.
It was a strange situation in which we found ourselves, yet neither of us felt perturbed. Kay was as cool and calm as though we were on our way home from a dance. It was our third night without sleep and I think that our tiredness helped. Certainly my heart did not race with panic, and I don’t think Kay’s did either. We were getting immune to adrenalin, or else our bodies had none left to give. Kay set me an example in her relaxed remoteness. She is a most remarkable woman. We cuddled one another and waited.
The policeman loomed in front of us. We could have predicted his first words.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.
What appeared to be going on was apparent to everyone. Kay and I did not fall apart until he had had plenty of opportunity to observe us.
‘It’s Christmas Eve, you know, officer,’ I explained.
‘Christmas Eve be damned!’ he thundered. ‘It’s five o’clock on Christmas morning.’
‘Ochone, ochone,’ said Kay, looking up at him with an assumed innocence that would have delighted anyone except a Wee Free minister. ‘Is it that time already?’
‘You’re on private property here,’ he told us severely. ‘And why did you move forward when you saw me coming?’
‘I know,’ I said humbly. ‘I knew we shouldn’t be here. We put on the lights to show you that we were quite willing to move on.’
‘But where can we go?’ asked Kay, voicing the eternal question of two youngsters caught in the sin of being alone together. ‘The streets are far too busy.’
‘You should be off home,’ he said severely, but beyond his sternness his voice was tender, as he looked down at her loveliness.
‘She’s my sister,’ I was about to say, eager to curry favour, and nearly blowing the whole ploy in three words. ‘We’re from Scotland,’ I said instead, and explained that we were on holiday and that we had arrived in London too late to get a bed. We had toured round instead, looking at the lights, and had ended up here to pass the night away. We sat and held hands shamelessly in front of him, and tried to give him the impression that we were a nice couple, too much in love to go to a hotel and be parted.
He began to warm to us. To my horror he took off his helmet and laid it on the roof of the car. He lit a cigarette, and showed every sign of staying until he had smoked it.
‘There’s a car park just along the road,’ he said helpfully. We knew that car park. The other car was there.
‘Och well,’ said Kay, putting her head into the lion’s mouth. ‘If we’re not comfortable there we can always get you to run us in and give us a bed in the cells.’
‘No, no,’ said the policeman knowingly. ‘There’s not a policeman in London would arrest you tonight. None of us want to appear in court on Boxing Day to give evidence against you.’
Kay gave my hand a squeeze.
‘A good night for crime,’ I said, and we all laughed.
All this time I had been conscious of a scraping sound coming from behind the hoarding. Why on earth didn’t they lie low until the policeman had gone? It transpired afterwards that they had no idea that we were entertaining the police, and they were grunting away with the Stone, and calling my parentage into question for sitting in the car talking to Kay while they did all the work.
Kay heard the noise too, and we engaged the constable in furious conversation. He thought us excellent company. His slightest sally brought forth peals of laughter, and when he made a joke we nearly had convulsion
s. Surely they would hear our laughter and be warned. They had. They thought we had gone off our heads with the strain.
At last there was a muffled thud from behind the hoarding. The constable stopped speaking, tense, intent, listening. My heart thudded, and I swallowed a dry tongue. Kay’s hand became rigid in mine. Then the constable laughed and said, ‘That was the old watchman falling down the stairs,’ and Kay and I laughed also; loudly we laughed at the idea of an old man falling down stairs. Surely they would hear us now.
‘I wish it was six o’clock,’ said the policeman, ‘and then I would be off duty.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door of the hoarding slowly opening. Gavin’s face appeared, followed by his head and shoulders. Suddenly he froze. He had seen the policeman. Inch by inch he edged back, and inch by inch the door closed behind him. The policeman finished his cigarette, and put on his helmet. ‘You’d better be going now,’ he said.
‘We had,’ I said, trying to keep the fervour out of my voice.
‘Will you show us the way?’ Kay asked, trying to get him off the premises.
‘Oh, you can’t miss the car park,’ he said, and redirected us.
Kay started the engine, and drove us off down the lane, leaving the policeman behind us. He had not asked for her licence, nor for any form of identification from me. He had asked for no papers of any kind. So far as we knew, he had not noted the car number, but it was too much to expect that he had not memorised it, or at least some of it. And some of it would be enough, since there were not many cars on the road at that time of the morning, and later on Christmas Day the roads would not be busy. Christmas was a time for home keeping. We reached Old Palace Yard, and Kay put her toe down.
As she drove, I reflected on what to do next. We had won away with part of the Stone, and even part of it was success. It was enough to make our point. We could not be expected to do more, and if we could get this part home it was more than anyone had done before us. A quick bolt to hide this bit somewhere seemed to be the sensible thing to do. No one could blame us for calling it quits.
Yet quits it was not. The greater part of the Stone still lay with our two friends in the mason’s yard. Somehow we must get back, and collect it, and get it into hiding. Meanwhile, the Anglia was a dangerous car. Both cars were dangerous, but of the two, the Anglia was the one more closely connected with the Abbey. As soon as the hue and cry was raised it would be stopped and its driver arrested. Ungallant as it was, Kay would have to be the one to take the greater risk, and go on with the Anglia, while I went back to the Abbey to try to get the larger part of the Stone.
As she pulled the car into the car park, it became apparent that risk was a consideration that did not weigh at all with Kay. Going on alone was no job at all for anyone, because in that car it meant almost certain arrest, and with the bit of the Stone in the back it would be a situation which no amount of talking would explain. However, it was the best we could do, and my thoughts were already turning back to the Abbey, where we had left Gavin and Alan, and our friend the policeman. Kay had a friend in the Midlands, and she was sure that she would help her. We were clutching at straws. Bales and bales of it, had we but known, for every Scot in the world was with us, but there was no one there to tell us.
The job was half done, and it had to be finished. The policeman had said that he went off duty at six o’clock, and from his casual conversation I rather thought that he would spend the last half-hour of his shift smoking in one of the police boxes that were dotted here and there about the great cities for the police to take rest periods in. If I delayed, there was less chance of meeting him again with the other car in the same lane. But I had to strike a balance. Very shortly the nightwatchman would go on his rounds, and discover that the Stone was missing. I would have to slot myself in before that. There was just time to put Kay onto the road to Victoria, and it would be quicker if I were to lead her there in the other car. I knew London better than she did, and once I had set her on her way I could drive back to the Abbey and pick up the other part of the Stone. It would be as simple as that. I got out of the Anglia, and felt through my pockets for the keys to the other car.
Car keys are a curse. They keep more owners out of cars than they do thieves. I hunted through all the pockets in my jacket, and then through my trouser pockets, and then back to my jacket again, and then to my horror I remembered that I had put the keys safely into my coat pocket which I had taken off in the Abbey as a sledge for the Stone. The keys would still be with the two boys there. If I were to help Kay and get back to the Abbey in time, I would have to run.
First I put on Alan’s old coat, which I had so recently and in such desperate circumstances laid over the bit of the Stone to cover it from the eye of the policeman. The coat fitted me more or less, though there was a shortage of buttons down the front. It was a rough disguise, for when we had talked to the policeman I had been coatless. Then I lifted the bit of the Stone into the boot, where it would be less conspicuous. All this was accomplished in a few seconds, and without another backward glance we drove out of the car park and into the maze of side streets beside the Abbey. At length we came to a set of traffic lights. This, I was certain, was Victoria. I stopped the car and got out.
‘You’re on your own from now on,’ I said. ‘Go that way,’ and for the benefit of a passer-by, I kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s been a lovely party, darling,’ I added. Her eyes flashed appreciation of the irony, and she drove off.
She told me later that she had only driven 500 yards before she had to stop again at traffic lights. As she pulled away, the lid of the boot flew open and her part of the Stone fell out onto the road. She stopped and lifted something approaching her own weight back into the boot, and drove off again and reached safety.
I’m not proud of everything I did that night. First of all losing the car keys, and then not fastening the car boot, for any sake! I was living life with such an incandescent intensity that I very nearly bungled it all. But Kay came through the whole adventure as a person of utter courage and calm, without blemish whatsoever.
Chapter Thirteen
Kay’s departure left me standing in that London street, but I did not feel alone. Abbey fever had me in its grip again, and I started to run. Then I slowed to a walk, for a running man in an empty street arouses suspicion, and I had far too much to do to wish to cause another incident. As I hurried with all the slowness at my command, I glanced at my watch and discovered it was no longer on my wrist. Later I found out that it had burst away when I had been tugging at the Stone in the Abbey. It had been a present to my father when he retired as session clerk of our local Church of Scotland, and it was to remain one of the great unsolved clues left for the police.
Clue for the police it was, but it left me only with my own estimate of time, and things were getting very tight. At first I was not sure where I was, but my frequent reconnaissance now stood me in good stead, and soon I found myself in familiar surroundings. I hoped that Kay was not too lost. Near the square I passed a policeman. I kept my head well down lest it was our friend. If it was, then the coat was a good disguise, because he went his way, longing no doubt for six o’clock and dreaming of promotion. A little quiver of compassion shot through me for the unfortunate fellow. He would have a lot of explaining to do to his superiors.
I circled the Abbey. When I came to the east side, I slowed to a troubled stroll. Everything was unnaturally quiet. I could scarcely believe it. It was either a trap or another chance, and if it was a chance I was willing to take it. As I rounded the snub nose of Henry VII’s Chapel there was no one in sight, so I swung straight into the lane, and passed through the door into the mason’s yard.
There was no one there. The place was in black darkness. I stood for a moment stock still, listening to the utter silence. Even the sounds of the night had gone. The Stone lay at my feet. I could feel it, but of Alan and Gavin there was no sign. They must be in hiding.
‘Alan! Gavin!’ I called
in a whisper.
The whole night seemed to quiver with my voice, but not an echo replied. Fear ran a feather over my hair.
I shook myself and moved up through the dark sheds. They might be in hiding in the Abbey. I eased open the door to Poets’ Corner and went in. The light still glowed at the far end of the nave. I risked a breathless whistle. There was no response.
I retraced my steps and looked for my coat. I searched in the dark for it, but I could not find it. My coat and my two friends had been swallowed up by the night. This time I was not only alone. I was unutterably lonely.
It came to me in a rush, and I was out of the yard, closing the door behind me. I swung into Old Palace Yard, and exchanged a bluff Merry Christmas with an early riser. As soon as he was out of sight, I broke into a trot. The other two would be waiting for me in the car park.
I reached the car park. The old Ford was still there, dirty as ever, but no human being was in sight. As I lacked the knowledge to start it without the key, it was so much junk. I was new to cars. I sat on the wing of the car and lit a cigarette. There was nothing more I could do. At such times you don’t philosophise. I don’t anyway. I can scarcely think. Yet I thought a little, and felt pretty bitter about it all. Success had been ours and we had failed to grasp it. We had got the Stone to the very edge of freedom, and luck, which had flowed so generously towards us, had started to ebb. I drew the smoke and it tasted like sand. We would be laughed at in Scotland and jailed in England, and we deserved to be, as we had been beaten.
I threw away my cigarette and broke into a run back to the Abbey. This time I was not worried about being conspicuous. There was no time for that. The chance was so slim that I was a fool to try it, yet in my mind there had been such faith that I did not for a moment think that success would elude us.
As I ran I thought. The keys of the car had been in my coat pocket. Presumably Alan and Gavin had looked for the keys in the coat pocket and had not found them. If they had, they would have taken the car. The car was still there. Therefore Alan and Gavin did not have the keys. The plaque which I had put in my pocket had been pulled out when we were dragging the Stone. Perhaps the keys had fallen out also. Perhaps if I went back into the Abbey and searched I would find them. Perhaps. I reached the Abbey and went in for the fourth time that night.
