The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  Matthews gave him a sardonic look. “It’s a long while since surgeons were barbers, Mr Shard. But I’ll put the point. The body’s available at forensic if you wish to see it.”

  *

  Hedge had left the Foreign Office in mid afternoon; he had an appointment with his doctor, he told his immediate boss, the Head of Security. The Head of Security had hoped, perfunctorily, that it was nothing serious, and Hedge had hedged, mumbling vaguely about his perennial indigestion and perhaps an ulcer. His appointment had been in fact with a public telephone box, which was a great deal more private than the Foreign Office lines, all of which were tapped twenty-four hours a day except for the personal security lines coloured red and even those could not be relied upon absolutely, not with MI5 always on the scent to charge everyone in sight with treason, even their own people.

  Hedge walked across the Horse Guards, into St James’s Park, across the Mall and up along Lower Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus. He disappeared into the underground station and hung about until a telephone was free, which it wasn’t for quite a while. This angered him and made him even more nervous than he had appeared to Shard. But patience, if it could be called that, was rewarded in the end. Hedge pounced in just ahead of what looked like a Chinese student and dialled a number in South Kensington. After a nail-biting three minutes, the call was answered by a male voice who asked who was calling.

  “You-know-who,” Hedge said.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it, ducky, all cloak-and-dagger today, are we?”

  “Don’t fool around,” Hedge hissed between his teeth, aware of a fat woman within a couple of inches of him, tapping a pudgy hand on the head of a small boy attached to her. She could be listening … Hedge said, his mouth tight against the telephone, “And don’t call me — what you just did. Now pay attention. I want to see Mr Crushe-Smith. Urgently. Is he available?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  Hedge sweated. “When will he be?”

  “Don’t know, do I? He’s not here. Gone down to Stockbridge.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” Hedge’s fingers shook. “I suppose you don’t know why, do you?”

  “No. Not really like. There was a phone call, that’s all I know —”

  “Who was the call from?”

  “Don’t know that either, do I, ducky? Oh — sorry. It’s no use you going on at me. All I know is, Wally buggered off to Stockbridge like his arse was on fire, said not to expect him back till he rang, all right? Anything else you want to know, is there?”

  “No.” Hedge rang off and his place was taken by the fat woman. Hedge was shaking with anxiety and also with anger. There was of course only one reason why Wally Crushe-Smith employed as butler (other people would have said handyman) a person who addressed callers as ducky and spoke of his employer as Wally. Hedge was not accustomed to such familiarity from servants whatever might be their relationships with their masters. Hedge was an important man, not so far from the top in the Foreign Office, which itself was many cuts above the ordinary Civil Service. Hedge was only two degrees removed from the Permanent Under-Secretary of State himself, a man who ranked close to God. However, there was currently more at stake than servants who got above themselves. Hedge knew he had to go down to Stockbridge, a few miles west of Winchester on the A272, as fast as possible. There would be more to talk about now than would be wise on the telephone, even a public one.

  *

  Shard dined alone in the King’s Head, his mind going round in circles, uselessly. He pondered on the notion that the body might be a fake; as Chief Inspector Matthews had said, you’d think someone would have missed a monk long since and the fact would be on the files in Central Registry at Scotland Yard. But that had been checked out. On the other hand, why try to make out a body had been a monk? There didn’t seem, on the face of it, any point in that. And again and again the query: what had all this to do with the Foreign Office, with Security — with Hedge?

  After dinner Shard went out, largely for a fresh-air walk before turning in but also, from sheer curiosity, to take a look at Theakston’s Brewery where the Old Peculier was produced. He skirted the market square outside the hotel, turned through an archway, passed some cottages, crossed the road at the end and walked along Red Lane. Theakston’s was opposite some holiday cottages; there were tall trees holding a large number of rooks’ nests; the rooks had not yet all gone to bed. Shard just missed a bombing attack as he crossed towards the brewery. The place was deserted; big gates were closed across a yard. Shard walked on, round a corner, round the side of the brewery. Ahead was another entry to the yard; this time no gate. He went in, found a sort of exhibition centre — history of Theakston’s, how beer was produced and so on. Of course, all closed down for the night. Shard looked through the windows without much interest. Nothing there to help at all; if only he knew what he was looking for. Frustration and a sense of total uselessness set in.

  He left the vicinity of the brewery, going along a footpath leading through a council estate. He emerged opposite a bungalow set in the grounds of an immense Victorian pile, turned to the right and came to the main Ripon-Leyburn road. Making back by a different route for the King’s Head, he turned right again, passing a filling station. The dark was coming down now. As he approached the hotel he saw a man standing outside, a man whom he recalled having seen in the bar earlier, drinking a whisky by himself in a corner, a man who had given him a number of interested glances but had made no move to speak to him.

  This man now stopped him on the way into the lobby.

  “Mr Shard?”

  “Yes?”

  “MI5. Name’s Wilson.” The man showed a pass concealed in the palm of his hand. “I checked with Reception. I hope you don’t mind. I’m in possession of certain knowledge, and I knew …” He changed tack. “I’d appreciate a word with you if you don’t mind.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “I knew the family of a man who was a monk. I thought you might be interested.”

  Two

  Hedge’s destination was not Stockbridge itself but a big house set in the isolation of well-wooded parkland some four miles to the north. This house, which, like the home of any country squire of old, bore no name on the big gateway, was approached by a long, twisting drive that ended in a gravelled square in front of double doors above a short flight of stone steps. Hedge parked his car, went up the steps and activated an old-fashioned bell-pull. The resulting jangle from below stairs could be heard through the muffle of a green-baize door.

  The front door bore an identification: a polished brass plate read, ORDER OF GOD’S ANOINTED. And in smaller lettering, The Jervaulx Resurrectionists.

  The wrenching of the bell-pull was answered by a youngish, tonsured man wearing a brown habit. “Yes?” this man said.

  “I wish to see the, er, Abbot.”

  “I’m sorry, Reverend Father is at compline.”

  “Oh. May I wait? The matter is important.”

  “You can wait, yes. Who shall I say it is?”

  Hedge said stiffly, “I am the, er, Abbot’s cousin. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Brother,” the youngish monk said reprovingly.

  Hedge stared. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am addressed as Brother. Brother Peter. Reverend Father is very particular about that. Politeness, see.”

  “Oh, very well then, Brother. May I come in?”

  The door was swung wide open. Hedge went in. Never mind that this was supposed to be a monastery or whatever, there was opulence around. Thick Indian rugs, parquet floors shining with polish. An old, dark oak staircase, and valuable-looking portraits on the walls, Gainsboroughs and Opies. Obviously, religion paid better than the Foreign Office … Hedge was admitted to a waiting room opening off to the left of the hall. He sat himself in a deep leather armchair and stared at more portraits, including one of his highly embarrassing cousin — second cousin really, though quite like Hedge in appearance. Always a thorn in the family
’s flesh, Wally Crushe-Smith had been worse than any mere thorn to Hedge. Hedge knew perfectly well that God’s Anointed and the Jervaulx Resurrectionists were nothing but eyewash. Wally Crushe-Smith had always had other axes to grind, of that Hedge was convinced though he had never been able to establish what these axes were. Nothing that would stand the light of day, he was certain. And he had always kept very quiet about his second cousin, never owning up to the relationship when he had applied for a Foreign Office career on coming down from Cambridge, which had been in the days when vetting was nothing like as penetrating as it had since become. These days, you had to be whiter than white which, on account of the so-called Abbot of God’s Anointed, Hedge was not. Or wouldn’t be, if anything ever came out.

  The wait was a long one; compline was evidently a lengthy process, to be completed before the brothers were dismissed to their cells. Cousin Wally must surely find it irksome; as a youth Cousin Wally had got out of churchgoing at every opportunity. He had been very imaginative when it came to excuses.

  At long last Brother Peter returned. Reverend Father would see his cousin now. Compline, Brother Peter said, had taken longer than usual; there had been various sins to be forgiven in the course of it. Brother Peter had not attended compline himself because he had not been in a state of grace owing to a contretemps in the kitchen when he had struck out with a soup ladle at Brother Paul who had called him a so-and-so little pouf. Brother Paul was also in disgrace as a result. Hedge, who could see for himself that Brother Paul’s accusation had been wholly justified, would have thought disgraced persons more than any others should attend compline so that they could offer up conciliatory prayer. But reflected that the phoney Wally Crushe-Smith had always been quite capable of making up his own rules as he went along.

  *

  “Please don’t for one moment imagine,” Hedge said pompously, “that I had any desire whatsoever to come to this wretched place.”

  Reverend Father smiled genially and tugged at a gold cross suspended on a gold chain around his neck. Taking up a crystal decanter he recharged his glass with whisky: single malt, Hedge could see from a bottle on top of a drinks cabinet — Glenturret from Scotland’s oldest distillery near Crieff in Perthshire. “You always were the most impossible little prig, Eustace,” Reverend Father said. “Why did you come if you’re so scathing?”

  “I came for my own protection,” Hedge said angrily.

  “Really? Can you be more precise?”

  “I can be very precise. You know very well that I hold a most important post in Her Majesty’s Foreign —”

  “Cut out the bullshit, my dear fellow, do,” Reverend Father said. “It simply doesn’t cut any ice with me —”

  “But don’t you see — my position, my career —”

  “Oh, I’ve always respected that, Eustace. Well, not respected exactly. I’ve played along with you, kept myself out of your hair — haven’t I?”

  “Yes,” Hedge said between his teeth, “because you know very well that I could make things very awkward indeed for you —”

  “And I for you, dear boy,” Cousin Wally said, pointing a finger. “I for you. Don’t forget that.”

  “I don’t forget it for one moment. That’s why I’ve come to see you. When I heard you’d gone down from South Kensington.”

  “Yes, I knew you’d telephoned. Oliphant rang to say so —”

  “Oh, really, and I wish you’d tell him not to address me as ducky. I don’t care for it.”

  Reverend Father raised his eyebrows above well-fed cheeks. “You don’t? I’m so sorry, Eustace. I’ll have words with the estimable Oliphant. Now: what exactly have you come here for? I don’t recollect that you’ve come across with that yet.”

  “No.” Hedge took a deep breath. “Well, here it is and you’ll see the seriousness. A body’s been discovered up in Yorkshire. Up a steep path near a place called Clapham. I happen to have been told … and the police are working on a murder theory.”

  “Ah. Well, yes, that’s useful information.”

  “It wasn’t intended to be merely useful information,” Hedge snapped. “There’s more to it, anyway. There was a medallion with the body, with markings. These markings included the letters JR. Which could be taken to refer to your wretched Jervaulx Resurrectionists. And in my position —”

  “Oh, really, dear boy, we’ve been into your position already and I’m damned if I’m going to go into it again.” Reverend Father paused, then said conversationally, “So Brother Beamish really has turned up.”

  “Beamish, is that the …” Hedge ticked over. He gripped the arms of his chair and stared at his cousin. “What did you say?”

  “I said, so Brother Beamish really has turned up. It’s not entirely surprising, I suppose. Time plays funny tricks, though in fact it’s not really so long ago. So what’s being done about it, dear boy?”

  “I … I …” Words failed Hedge. Was he now confronted by a murderer, a murderer who was his second cousin? Terror rose in Hedge. He did his best to regain his composure. Licking at dry lips he said, “I think you’d better explain, hadn’t you?”

  “Certainly I will, dear boy. It’s really quite simple.” Reverend Father added, “As a matter of fact you come with no more than confirmatory news. I’ve already been informed by a man in London —”

  “The phone call — Oliphant said —”

  “Yes, the phone call. Brother Beamish —”

  “Why Brother Beamish?” Hedge interrupted petulantly. “I thought monks were given saints’ names? I don’t recall a St Beamish.”

  “No, dear boy, Brother Beamish had become one of my lay monks. I don’t allow the names of saints to be given to my lay brothers, and anyway Brother Beamish was no saint, far from it.” Reverend Father gave a reminiscent chuckle. “But you wished me to explain. Keep your mouth shut, dear boy, and I’ll do so.”

  He did. Brother Beamish, he said, had been recruited by Oliphant, who whilst on holiday in the north of England had come upon him sleeping rough in York — Brother Beamish had been a Yorkshireman from Northallerton, a Yorkshire-man of good family who had fallen upon hard times. In short, he was a tramp. There had been what Reverend Father, with a smirk, had called an affinity between Oliphant and Brother Beamish. “No need to go into details about that, dear boy, I take it you’re a man of the world. Suffice it to say that closer intimacy revealed a briefcase concealed beneath such garments as Brother Beamish was then wearing. He was at a loss to explain how he had come by it, but the fact remained that it contained thirty thousand pounds in used twenties. No doubt the proceeds of some crime which would explain why its loss was never, to my knowledge, reported to the police …”

  Reverend Father went on to reveal that Brother Beamish had subsequently, with his cash, been initiated into the Order of God’s Anointed. He repeated that Brother Beamish had come far down in the world. He was lost to his family; he had been a drop-out since the age of nineteen when he had been sent down from Oxford and had drifted, initially living in a squat off the Edgware Road and playing an instrument in the London underground, a flute. Later he had descended to begging and then tramping the country in search, not of work, but of pickings.

  “Like the briefcase?”

  “Yes, dear boy.”

  “And no longer in touch with his family … so when he was murdered —”

  “Which may have been the case. I wouldn’t know about that, of course. But I take your point in advance. When he died, there would have been no-one to care, no-one to ask questions.”

  “Except you, Wally. Perhaps others of your monks. And Oliphant. I take it he disappeared from your Order … one would have thought you would have made a report about that, would one not?” Hedge felt he had scored a point. The Abbot of Stockbridge (which was what Cousin Wally called himself) looked, Hedge thought, a shade discommoded. But not for long.

  Reverend Father gave a sigh and said, “Yes, perhaps one would think that, but life is seldom as simple and straigh
tforward as all that, dear boy. The fact is that Brother Beamish, with his education — he’d been at a very good public school, you know — and also his somewhat interesting career since then — Brother Beamish had become quite one of us as the saying goes and very knowledgeable as to, shall we say, the affairs of the monastery. Unfortunately he decided to leave us. To revoke his vows, as it were. I think he found the life constricting, preferring the open road. It was his own choice, you see. And of course there was a fracas, which was most unfortunate.”

  “Fracas?”

  “Yes. Brother Beamish had made certain approaches to one of our novices, little more than a boy really. The boy,” Reverend Father added, “socked him one right on the kisser and then really set about stitching him up. It was soon after that that Brother Beamish scarpered. After that … well, I really don’t know what became of him. Now he’s dead, and I’m really very sorry. Prayers will be said, of course.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Hedge said grimly.

  “Not for his soul, dear boy. It’s never too late for that.”

  Hedge grunted. “I assume you kept the thirty thousand.”

  “Board and lodging, dear boy, board and lodging. I’m not made of money, you know.”

  Hedge shook his head in bewilderment and a mounting anxiety. His cheeks wobbled as he spoke. “I find it strange — after what you just said about his knowledge of the, er, monastery — that you should have simply let him go. Let him get away is what it amounts to. With his knowledge in his head.”

  Reverend Father’s expression altered rather suddenly. “Are you imputing, dear boy, that some sort of chicanery takes place here at Stockbridge?”

  “Oh no, no, certainly not —”

  “Just as well, dear boy.” The tone was icy, a different Cousin Wally now. “Just as well.”