The Abbot of Stockbridge
Page 3
“Yes. But I do know you, Wally.”
“And I know you, Eustace.” Reverend Father put the tips of his fingers together parsonically and stared at Hedge over them. “Cousin Eustace, I should say. Cousin Eustace the pompous prat, snobbish pillar of the Foreign Office, Cousin Eustace who preens in the shadow of the great, the important, the leaders of our land. Cousin Eustace who keeps his nose oh, so clean.” Reverend Father laughed, and there was an edge to his laugh, a keen edge like a knife. “It’s all crap, of course, but one wouldn’t expect you to see that. I remember you from way back, Cousin Eustace. Cousin Eustace the prim little sneak, Cousin Eustace who was caught looking up Aunt Mary’s —”
“Really, that’s —”
“Skirt. And said he’d seen a wasp going up there. At Christmas. No wasps. But you managed to escape a beating.”
Hedge’s cheeks were aflame. “Fancy dredging up the past like that. If you think —”
“Allow me to continue, Cousin Eustace of the Foreign Office. I concede that the episode of Aunt Mary’s skirt and the hypothetical wasp would be unlikely to interest your bosses in the Foreign Office. It would not be on account of juvenile curiosity that you would get the push and fall from a great height into oblivion … if you should be so unwise as to repeat anything of what has taken place between us this evening. Do you understand me, Cousin Eustace, or do you not?”
“I —”
“Because it would be in your interests to understand me very well. And I have been forthcoming in answering your questions for one reason and one reason only: you can be, will be, of use to me. Certain reports have been made to you. You will now do all that you can to have this investigation quashed. Brother Beamish, it appears, is dead. Dead he must remain. If anything is resurrected you will suffer, Cousin Eustace. You can be very sure I shall see to that.”
*
Quaking away from the big house that didn’t look in the least like a monastery, Hedge was in a state of utter confusion and fear. Cousin Wally he knew to be a dangerous man and a vindictive one; and when his role had so suddenly shifted from Reverend Father, Abbot of God’s Anointed, to Cousin Wally the bane of the family, Hedge had been left in no possible doubt that he meant precisely what he said. The steel had come through; and Hedge could almost feel it biting into his skin. He was now under a clear and bounden duty to make a report either to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard or to the Head of Security. Perhaps, in the circumstances, both. That was what he should do the moment he got back into London.
But he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t going to take the risk. Cousin Wally would manufacture any lies, any kind of story that would fit his wishes. Anything at all might be said. Hedge had visited Stockbridge. Why? In fact — Hedge quaked behind his steering wheel — to bring a warning about a murder. That was incontrovertible. With his personal knowledge of what the JR on that medallion had meant, or might have meant, he should have gone to the Yard (by phone anyway) and not, absolutely not, to Stockbridge. Already in a sense he had incriminated himself, become an accessory after the fact, or perhaps before the fact or facts if other as yet unknown facts should emerge, as they surely would.
It was a very nasty situation. And inside himself Hedge believed that Cousin Wally had been party to the murder of Brother Beamish and the depositing of the body in the earth, the collapsible grave in the wilds of North Yorkshire. Hedge, as he drove on towards London, bearing the heavy burden of his conscience, had recalled something that struck dire fear into his heart: Cousin Wally had leapt to an immediate conclusion that the murdered body was that of Brother Beamish. That could certainly be taken to indicate guilt, could it not? Yes, it could. On the other hand Cousin Wally surely would have a better guard than that upon his tongue; and of course he had already had the tip-off via Oliphant and some unknown man in London.
It was a most terrible dilemma. One that could finish Hedge in his career if ever he should be discovered to be as it were in cahoots with Cousin Wally.
It was now vital to contact Shard. But Shard was not immediately available. Just like Shard, Hedge thought vengefully, still furious at having been called a pompous prat, no thought for others, only for himself. The police were not what they had once been.
*
Wilson said the monk’s name was Beamish. He said that the churchyard would be a good place for a private talk. Shard concurred; with Wilson he walked past what had obviously once been the rectory, through an iron gate into the peace of the churchyard.
They walked slowly around the old gravestones. The man spoke of Beamish, telling Shard a story of Brother Beamish’s background that corroborated what the Abbot of Stockbridge had told Hedge way down south. Beamish had been a drop-out and the family had withdrawn from him as much as he from them. Contact had been totally lost; he had been heard of briefly in Australia, where there had been some difficulty with the young son of a station owner for whom Brother Beamish had worked for a time driving a tractor. After that, nothing.
“But you knew he’d been a monk,” Shard said. “How come?”
“I learned that much later, Mr Shard. A man who’d seen him in Stockbridge in Hampshire.”
“You know he’s dead? That his body has been found?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know?”
The man hesitated. “It was a sheer coincidence,” he said after a few moments. “In my line it’s sometimes necessary to … let’s say, disregard the law in its strictest interpretations. You’ll understand about taps. Only this morning I got a crossed line. A telephone in the vicinity of the Tottenham Court Road. A woman was speaking to a man she called Hooky. There was talk about the finding of a body. The body was that of a Brother Beamish from a monastery near Stockbridge. Of course, I went on listening … but there was nothing further.”
“Nothing at all?”
The man shook his head. “No. Obviously, a warning was being passed on —”
“Do you know where to?”
“A number in South Kensington. I have the number here.” He passed over a scrap of paper torn from a notebook. This showed the number. No name, but that could easily be established. Shard asked curiously, “With this information to hand … why come up to Yorkshire and find me? Why not the Met?”
“Because I happened to know you were on the case, on behalf of the Foreign Office. And because I have suspicions in other directions. I’ll be brief: the set-up near Stockbridge isn’t quite what it appears to be on the surface. They call themselves God’s Anointed and the Jervaulx Resurrectionists. I —”
“JR,” Shard interrupted. “As I’d thought, a Jervaulx connection. Beamish’s body was accompanied by a medallion.” He described it. “Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that. But having been a lay brother at Stockbridge I suppose it fits. The JR.”
“Go on with what you were saying,” Shard prompted. “Your suspicions about the set-up.”
“Yes. Well, the Jervaulx Resurrectionists — or so I believe anyway — deal in bodies right enough. Live ones. I believe they’re in the business of illegal immigration, though I have no proof of that.” There was a pause, then the man added, “There’s something else, something I found out while working on my theories earlier on. I’ll save you the trouble of finding out who lives at that South Kensington number. It’s the so-called Abbot of Stockbridge, who doesn’t act the abbot every day of the week. His name is Walter Crushe-Smith. And here’s another reason I came direct to you. His cousin — second cousin to be precise — is your boss.”
Shard stared through the gloom of the night. “Hedge?”
The man nodded.
Three
Hedge had slept very badly. It wasn’t just his over-riding anxieties: it was his stomach. Painful indigestion and a constant need for bismuth. When he had reached home he had found a note from his housekeeper: Mrs Millington was sorry, but she’d had an urgent call from her sister-in-law, who was ill with an attack of what sounded l
ike food poisoning, could be salmonella, and she’d had to catch a bus. She would telephone in the morning; meanwhile she had left Mr Hedge’s supper in the oven. Supper was done to a burned frazzle and Hedge had had to make do with a salad from the fridge. He’d overdone the radishes and the spring onions and thus had suffered.
Pain and discomfort added to his terrible worries about Cousin Wally. Everything would rub off on him if Cousin Wally was charged in connection with a murder. Perhaps he would do better to spike the enemy’s guns in advance, go straight to the Head of Security and make a clean breast of it. But then he would himself be accused — justly, of course — of covering up Cousin Wally all those years ago, and that would be regarded as an absolutely heinous sin in any gentleman in Foreign Office employ. Between his sheets Hedge shivered and took more bismuth in a glass of water. Confound Mrs Millington. Tonight of all nights. He dithered, wondering if it would be unwise to ring Shard in his hotel in — where was it? — Masham.
He almost did, but refrained. Too risky. He must simply be patient. In the morning, he would have Shard ordered back post-haste. And yet even here there was a dilemma: how far should he confide in Shard?
Everything was against him and it really wasn’t fair at this stage of his life. He was not so very far off retirement, and now even his comfortable, index-linked pension could be at risk. The Foreign Service could be a hard taskmaster and at times vindictive. During the night Hedge’s hot-water bottle leaked. He had always taken a hot-water bottle to bed whatever the weather, since it comforted him to clutch it. Leaking, it was far from comfortable. Really, Mrs Millington should have seen to that before rushing away to her relative’s aid. Surely he came first. Servants were such a pest, much too independent, not at all what they had been before the war.
*
When Hedge reached his office suite next morning, still with indigestion and in a very bleak mood, Shard, who had driven through most of the night, after driving west of the Pennines to view the dead monk, had got to the Foreign Office security section ahead of him. As Hedge was informed by his secretary.
“Oh, good. Send him up immediately. Are there any Rennies?”
“Yes, Mr Hedge, I always —”
“Yes. The Rennies first, then. Two.”
When Shard came up, there was the aroma of Rennies; he knew Hedge would be fractious. Hedge was.
“Oh, there you are, Shard. I’ve been wanting you. You’re never there when you’re wanted.”
“Your orders, Hedge.”
“Kindly don’t argue, Shard, I don’t like it. The fact is, I’m worried about this wretched body. Who —”
“Brother Beamish.”
Hedge’s mouth dropped open and he gave a fish-like stare. “What was that, Shard?”
“Brother Beamish. The identity of the body.”
“How do you know that?”
Shard shrugged. “I was contacted in Masham last night. A man from MI5 —”
“MI5?” Hedge showed alarm.
“By name Wilson. Do you know him, Hedge?”
“No, I don’t. Why MI5, Shard? Where do they come in?” Hedge was shaking badly. MI5 was the last interference he wanted.
“Wilson,” Shard said, “knows, or knew, the family of the corpse. The corpse of Brother Beamish. From a monastery near Stockbridge in Hampshire.”
“Really.”
“The abbot of which I understand is your cousin, Walter Crushe-Smith.”
Hedge stared glassily, the indigestion rising like a lump of concrete from his stomach. “A distant member of the family,” he mumbled. “We don’t get on, never have. I know absolutely nothing about him whatsoever.”
“You knew nothing of the monastery? Nothing of God’s Anointed, nothing of the Jervaulx Resurrectionists?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You’re sure of that, Hedge?”
“Yes.” Hedge was committed now; there could be no reporting his visit to Cousin Wally. That was in any case best kept hidden; there was no reason why it should come out, not unless Wally opened his mouth, which Hedge thought — or fervently hoped — was unlikely.
“So when you said that the JR on the medallion meant nothing to you, that was a simple statement of fact?”
Hedge’s face darkened. “Really, Shard, it’s not your damn business to — to catechise me in my own office —”
“I’m a policeman,” Shard said. “I think as a policeman and I act as a policeman. And I’d like an answer to my question if you don’t mind, Hedge.”
“Oh, very well. The answer is no. I mean yes. Yes, it was a statement of fact that I’d never heard of — of this JR.”
Shard nodded non-committally. “Just as well,” he said. “Considering the business interests of the Jervaulx Resurrectionists. I had a long talk with Wilson of MI5 last night.” He spoke of the illegal immigration racket operated, according to MI5, by the Abbot of Stockbridge. He said, “They’re not the ordinary illegal immigrants, Hedge. Not Indians or Pakistanis or whatever that used to come in that way. It’s bigger fish — politically undesirable entries to the UK. Men who upon being landed in various south coast ports, marinas and so on, or on lonely stretches of open coastline, are taken to the care of the Jervaulx Resurrectionists. They’re taken on the strength as temporary lay brothers and given temporary identities, not saints’ names. Brother Smith, Brother Jones, Brother what-have-you. These people, who don’t appear in the light of day until they’ve been moved on, are a mixed bunch … not all of them in fact political. They include big-time criminals who’ve sought sanctuary abroad in countries having no extradition arrangements and who have a temporary need to return to the UK for various reasons either personal or business. The politicals have included a number of Germans anxious to establish a presence in Britain, some of them neo-Nazis still loyal to the memory of Adolf Hitler, men who might be used as in situ spies in the event of any future conflict between us and a united Germany. Wilson —”
Hedge broke in, sweat pouring down his face. “If MI5 know all this, Shard, surely —”
“They don’t know it. Suspicions are strong but they’ve never managed to find proof. Walter Crushe-Smith is a clever man, Hedge. He —”
“So it’s all the merest supposition.”
“Not quite that, Hedge. As I said, MI5 just hasn’t got quite enough to go on. Yet.”
Hedge’s thoughts raced. Not quite enough yet. Not quite enough. Obviously, they had quite a lot, and one day they would pounce. After pouncing they would find out quite a lot more, that could be regarded as a certainty. He, Hedge, next in line to the Head of Security in the Foreign Office, innocent though he might be and certainly was except in the matter of failure to disclose a relationship years before — years before Cousin Wally had become a crook — would be for a very high jump. Did he confess to Shard here and now or did he try to ride it out? The dilemma was now worse than ever. And he shrank from the hard look in Shard’s eye, shrank like a shrinking violet from telling him that only yesterday he’d had close contact with Cousin Wally. To go to Stockbridge had been a colossal mistake, but it was one that could not now be rectified. Except, of course, by a confession; and that wasn’t on, Hedge decided. He couldn’t possibly forget Cousin Wally’s threat. Cousin Wally would see to it that he was utterly discredited in the FO.
Shard said, “Did you hear what I just said, Hedge?”
Hedge heaved himself out of a fog bank of terror. “I didn’t quite catch it, no.”
“It’s believed that the biggest fish of all is coming through soon.”
“Oh. Who?”
Shard said, “A man, a German, who’s known only as Klaus The Long Knife. The reference appears to be to events in pre-war Germany, Hitler’s Germany. The Night of the Long Knives — remember?”
Hedge said yes, he did remember. The murders; the persecution of Jews, the burning of the Reichstag, all back in the early nineteen-thirties when the Nazis were in the ascendant and the years were rolling on towards the outbreak of
war. Shard went on to say that MI5 had not been able to establish the identity of The Long Knife; the man was shrouded in personal mystery. But it was known that he was a firebrand, an agent provocateur with a very considerable underground following in Germany; and it was believed he was a killer many times over.
“What’s the purpose in infiltrating him?” Hedge asked.
“Go back over what I said earlier: the possible establishment of a Nazi presence in Britain, a kind of fifth column to be used in the event of a war with a re-emergent Germany. It’s not impossible, Hedge.”
Hedge said pettishly, “I can’t see the connection with that body. The man Beamish.”
“Beamish was just a sort of catalyst, Hedge, that’s all. Of himself, he’s probably not important. The discovery of the body … it concentrated some minds more closely on Stockbridge.”
“MI5 minds?”
“Yes. And when those boys ferret, they ferret.”
“But you said they don’t know the identity of this — this person from Germany. That’s not good ferreting, is it?”
“Maybe not. But things closer at hand can be more easily ferreted, Hedge.”
Hedge swallowed hard. “What’s that supposed to mean, Shard?”
“Just that I think you ought to search your mind a little more thoroughly, Hedge. You’ll have to open up on Walter Crushe-Smith. Even if it’s only to the extent of giving us a profile, a background of family knowledge, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, no doubt I can tell you a little in that way.” Aunt Mary’s skirt — but that was Hedge himself and not Cousin Wally — the disappearances of small amounts of money from people’s bedrooms when Wally had been present at Christmas gatherings, lies told about who had pushed the cat off an upper storey windowsill. “I expect I can help.”
“And anything else that occurs to you,” Shard said ominously. He knew Hedge very well indeed, and was more convinced than ever that he was holding back on something. Something — but what? He prodded. “MI5 is not going to let this thing go, Hedge. In a short time they’ll be in touch with the Head of Security. I’ve no doubt they’ll be asking for our help. Officially. What do you want me to do now?”