The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  Then the work stopped. There was some conversation that Shard was unable to catch. The tarpaulins were lifted and dragged to cover the newly dug hole in the ground, and then the truck swung round and lurched away towards where the monastery lay and behind it the monks trooped off as well.

  Shard remained where he was; the monks were totally unaware of his presence. So far, so good.

  He gave them fifteen minutes, playing safe. Then he came out from cover and went straight across a muddy clearing for the hole.

  *

  Hedge had dined well at his club and after dinner he sat in a very comfortable ante-room cradling a balloon glass of brandy and smoking an expensive cigar. And reflecting on many things: the wretched Abbot of Stockbridge, the Head of Security, his own terrible dilemma in respect of those two persons, and the perfidies of Mrs Millington his absent housekeeper whose sick relative was in effect costing him the price of dinner and brandy this very evening. There was just one pleasant reflection in Hedge’s mind: the Prime Minister. Mrs Heffer’s compliment had been very gracious indeed and had naturally increased the very great respect he felt for her. A charming woman. Mostly; she could be acerbic and was dangerous to cross. Hedge had never, of course, been close enough to her in the Establishment’s hierarchy actually to cross her; he hoped devoutly that such crossing would never arise; yet, with a shiver of apprehension, knew that it was bound to. His pleasure in the PM’s personal support diminished rapidly.

  His various reveries were interrupted by a club servant — clubs, gentlemen’s clubs, were about the last places in Britain where you still found good servants of the old sort — this particular club servant approaching with a discreet cough.

  “Mr Hedge.”

  Hedge looked up. “Yes, Parsons?”

  “Excuse me, sir. You are required on the telephone.”

  “Oh. Ah. Who is it, Parsons?”

  “The lady didn’t say, sir. Only that you were wanted urgently.”

  “Thank you, Parsons.” Hedge got to his feet, lumbered towards the members’ telephone booth. A lady. Not, surely, the Prime Minister again? No; she would scarcely be aware of his club or of his personal movements and there was no Mrs Millington at his home to tell anyone where he was. It was intriguing; but his roving thoughts came to an abrupt end when he spoke into the telephone.

  “Yes? Hedge —”

  “Oh, Mr Hedge. Amanda Gunning. You’re wanted right away.” Nothing further; the call was cut. Hedge’s fingers shook as he put the handset down. Amanda Gunning — the name alone had told him exactly where he was wanted, and also why. Amanda Gunning was personal secretary to a man high up in the scale, the dangerous scale of MI5. A stringy, virginal woman of uncertain age though believed to be in her fifties, she was capable of striking fear into the hearts of men and women in very high places; she was her boss’s mouthpiece. A call from Amanda Gunning could be lethal, had been lethal to many a hitherto hopeful career.

  Hedge was agitated enough now to leave the remainder of his brandy undrunk. He sent the servant out to wave down a taxi and within five minutes was on his way to an address in Knightsbridge.

  *

  Shard looked down on the neatly spread tarpaulins. He bent and lifted the edge of one of them. He flicked on his pencil torch and beamed it down the revealed hole. He could find no bottom, but there was a ladder, a long one. A deep burial hole, ready for future use?

  That seemed likely. No reasonable person would really bury arms or explosives in the ground when, in a monastery, there would surely be secure and dry places for concealment of such.

  Whose bodies? More corpses like Brother Beamish way up north near Ingleborough and its cave systems?

  There was nothing Shard could do currently other than report what he had found. Actually to penetrate the Monastery of God’s Anointed as a solo act would be worse than useless. He looked around: there was a track through the woods, the one the digging monks must have taken when their task was complete. It just might be worth going along that track, having a not-too-close look at the monastery’s rear, since he was half-way there already. A recce was after all what he had intended.

  Shard moved away from the ready-use grave and moved along the track. It was narrow, and the trees grew thickly to both sides. Twigs and branches scratched at him. He was still, he believed, some way from the monastery building when there was a commotion ahead of him.

  A man came out from the forest to his left, a monk with a torch which he shone directly on to Shard.

  “Oh, my! Who’re you? Not another bloody poacher.”

  Shard kept silent. He might as well be a poacher as anything else.

  The shadowy figure volunteered some information. “I’m Brother Peter, you know. Reverend Father’ll want words with you. There’s been too much of this sort of carry-on. Lucky I got caught short.”

  “Caught short?”

  “Something I ate didn’t agree with me. The others went on ahead. Oh, I’ve been ever so poorly, you wouldn’t believe! The gripes. Real agony, but I’m better now. You’d best come with me.”

  “Really. Where to?”

  “Reverend Father. The Abbot, like.”

  Shard acted what he had been accused of being. “Just for a bunny rabbit? Can’t you turn a blind eye just this once?”

  “Sorry, no. Reverend Father would do me if I did. More’n my life’s worth. And it may not be just a bunny rabbit for all I know.”

  Shard could have seen the hole in the ground, of course. And Brother Peter was made of sterner stuff than he sounded. In the back glow from the monk’s torch Shard caught the glint of steel, dull steel that formed what he believed to be a sub-machine gun. Brother Peter spoke next in un-monklike terms.

  “Put your mitts in the air. Any funny tricks and I’ll drill you full of bullets like a sieve.” It was traditional Chicago gunman.

  Cursing, Shard put his hands up. The beam of the torch travelled up and down his body. The next order came. “Move ahead of me. Take care. Don’t bloody try anything, or else.” Brother Peter moved aside, giving Shard clear passage past him as he stood half concealed in the trees. Shard moved, slow and cautious. Guns in the hands of those basically unaccustomed to them could sometimes be more lethal than those handled by professionals. As he drew level with Brother Peter, he dropped very suddenly to the ground and lunged sideways. Brother Peter was taken off guard. He fell.

  “Oooh, you bugger,” Brother Peter gasped out. The torch had flown from his hand and was beaming away somewhere in the undergrowth. Shard had his automatic out now and was covering the fallen monk in his bed of twigs and brushwood. He told Brother Peter to get to his feet, pronto.

  “I can’t, can I?” There was a snivel in Brother Peter’s voice.

  “Why not?”

  “Sprained me bloody ankle, haven’t I? Have to get Brother Matthew, you will. Brother Matthew’s the Infirmarer.”

  It was something of an impasse now. Brother Peter was whimpering with pain. He would be impossible to manoeuvre back to the Volvo anonymously. And Shard was not going to put his head into a hornets’ nest at this particular moment. The best thing to do would be to carry on in his role of poacher, and take the opportunity of vanishing fast. But this was not to be. Brother Peter, caught short for rather too long, was being searched for. Sounds along the track indicated the arrival of reinforcements. Five seconds later two more monks were on the scene, and both, like Brother Peter, were armed. It was some monastery.

  *

  Hedge was being put under the grill. MI5 were a very different kettle of fish from the FO’s Head of Security, they made him appear an amateur. The Head of Security was a civil servant, these men were not. They were hard-faced, professional interrogators, very efficient and no respecters of persons. They had Hedge gasping for air right from the start.

  “We wish you to answer questions regarding Walter Crushe-Smith, Mr Hedge.”

  Of course, he had guessed this; but he was unsure of his reactions. Had the Head of Secu
rity shopped him to these people, under pressure? Or had he not? Until he knew that he had to be very circumspect. MI5 could be playing cat-and-mouse with him, they were low enough for that. After due thought he repeated, “Walter Crushe-Smith?”

  “Yes, Walter Crushe-Smith, Mr Hedge. What are your connections with this person?”

  Panic. The dreaded moment had come. Hedge quaked; he licked his lips and by some miracle the right response came. He said hoarsely, “What makes you think I have any connections, may I ask?” The answer to that should reveal what part the Head of Security was playing, either for or against him.

  But it didn’t.

  “We believe Walter Crushe-Smith is known to you.” Known — Hedge registered the word. No mention of an actual relationship; not yet anyway. The cat-and-mouse element again? Hedge sweated. The make or break time was at hand and he would have to commit himself one way or the other.

  He made up his mind: the guilty always dithered so he had to answer promptly. He said, “Really, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I see, Mr Hedge. Then I shall put it another way. Is Mr Crushe-Smith known to you, or is he not?”

  This time, in his mounting agitation, Hedge gave the wrong answer. “No, he is not.”

  “Not?”

  He had to stick with it now even though he had realised the enormity of his error. “Not.”

  “I see. You’re quite, quite sure, Mr Hedge?”

  They wanted him to commit himself beyond all ability to wriggle out. Hedge temporised. He put on a look of reflection and puzzlement and said, “Now you mention it … I do seem to recall the name. Or I think I do. Smith …”

  “Crushe-Smith, Mr Hedge. Not an easy name, one would think, to mislay.”

  “So many Smiths …”

  “Not so many Crushe-Smiths. But we do know it’s familiar to you. Wilson of our lot reported the name to your man Shard.”

  Hedge allowed light to dawn. “Oh, yes! Yes, that’s where I’ve heard it, I do remember now. Yes. Crushe-Smith. May one ask, what about him?”

  “Everything about him, if you please, Mr Hedge.” The bombshell was dropped, nastily. “We shall stop playing around, Mr Hedge. We happen to know that Walter Crushe-Smith is your cousin.”

  *

  It had been a monumental shock even though Hedge had seen the way the wind was blowing. All those lies … he was now drenched in sweat. He managed to mutter, “My second cousin actually, I —”

  “Don’t split hairs with us, Mr Hedge.” They were respectful to the point of the mister, but that was all now. “The matter’s vital as you know very well, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do —”

  “Right, then. You’ll open up fully about your cousin and your own involvement with him —”

  Hedge protested, mopping at his face. “I’m not involved with him! Not in any way whatsoever, I do assure you. I —”

  “Then why the earlier untruths, Mr Hedge?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry about that. Very sorry. You see, I did hope the relationship wouldn’t come out, except to my chief who in fact hoped the same. It’s so very embarrassing, don’t you know. But I say again … I have no involvement with my — my cousin.”

  “Very well, we accept that. For the moment.” That, Hedge thought, was nasty. These fellows hadn’t the trust in him that Mrs Heffer had. Besides, they were not gentlemen, they were more like sergeant-majors of the military police, very pushing and stubborn and rude. “Now: firstly, is your cousin a man of means? Private means?”

  “I really don’t know. It’s so long since … well, yes, I remember there was money on his mother’s side of the family. His family, which was not necessarily mine.”

  “Meaning, Mr Hedge?”

  Hedge explained the relationship in detail. They didn’t press on that, except to prod him as to the extent of Cousin Wally’s mother’s family’s wealth. Hedge said again that he really didn’t know but believed there could have been quite a lot since Wally’s mother’s grandmother on her father’s side had inherited a nice competence from her husband who had been in steel. Birmingham. Involved, so Hedge believed he recalled having heard, with the Bessemers, the steel kings of nineteenth-century Birmingham. That did mean money but (according to the interrogators) perhaps not enough to run a monastery without some sort of extra financial assistance. Honest or otherwise.

  The point was pressed. “Would you call your cousin an honest man, Mr Hedge?”

  “I suppose so. I really don’t know much about him. I’ve said that already.”

  “Yes. What are your recollections of him?”

  “Recollections?”

  “In childhood, let’s say.”

  In childhood, Cousin Wally had been a stirrer up of trouble. There had been the episode of Aunt Mary’s skirt; just one of many incidents that had been capitalised upon by Cousin Wally, but MI5 wouldn’t be interested in all that. Hedge précis-ed his opinion of Cousin Wally. “Somewhat tiresome,” he said. “Quite nasty, really.”

  “Be more precise, Mr Hedge. I’ve spoken of honesty.”

  Hedge said stiffly, “I believe there were occasions when, er, small sums of money disappeared from people’s purses.”

  The MI5 man nodded. “The child is father to the man, so they say. But go on, Mr Hedge.”

  “I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Try, Mr Hedge. Try very hard. Small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle … you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. But … well, there was an incident with a gardener’s boy. Nothing to do with honesty, but …”

  “Describe the incident, Mr Hedge.”

  “I’d really rather not.”

  There was a sigh from the MI5 man. “Was it sexual?”

  Hedge shifted his legs uncomfortably. “Er … yes, it was.”

  “Your cousin was a homosexual?”

  “I think it was just an isolated incident. He was punished and I never heard of any repetition. A boyish indiscretion, I would say.”

  “And in later years, Mr Hedge?”

  Well, there was Oliphant, of course. Hedge thought it better to be absolutely honest where possible, so he spoke of Oliphant.

  “Oliphant?”

  “My cousin’s butler. At his South Kensington house.”

  “Recently? And you know this?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve had no contact with your cousin — you said.” Hedge sweated. “No. Not until now. I went to his house. I was acting under orders from my chief. To, er, ingratiate myself, and —”

  “Yes.” There was no further comment on that aspect; they had just been trying to trip him up, but he’d seen them off over that one very nicely. The interrogator went on, “This Oliphant. Tell us about him, Mr Hedge.”

  “Well … he struck me as odd. Peculiar.” They waited for him to go on; like TV interviewers, they knew the compulsion in the victim to say something further, as though it was rude not to. Hedge, as desired, went on. “He addressed me as ducky. If that’s not odd, then I don’t know what is.”

  “I take the point, Mr Hedge.”

  The interrogation seemed much concerned with Cousin Wally’s proclivities. Hedge could understand that; there had for years been anxieties about homosexuals in high places and of course they had to take that into first account and delve. Hedge could have told them about Brother Peter at the monastery, and since he wished to keep in with MI5, he very nearly did. He just stopped himself in time. He hadn’t, of course, been anywhere near Stockbridge. Not as far as MI5 was to know.

  There were a lot more questions designed to extract information about Cousin Wally’s connections and friendships of years and years ago. Hedge said he really couldn’t help there; they had drifted apart very early on, but he did believe that, unlike himself, Cousin Wally had not been a sticker. He had drifted from one thing to another. No, he couldn’t be specific but he had once heard that Wally had dabbled with the stage. MI5 pounced on that, linking it with homosexuality, but Hedge repeated
that he really didn’t know. However, he risked a question.

  “This man, the German, you know. The Long Knife. Is he a homosexual?”

  “Bi,” MI5 said, but didn’t elaborate. Soon after this, Hedge was allowed to leave. Much disturbed, he took a taxi home. Soon after he got in, the telephone rang. It was Mrs Millington, very put out.

  “I bin trying to get you ever so long, Mr Hedge. My sister-in-law is ever so poorly. I shan’t be back inside a week, I’m sorry but there it is. I dessay you’ll manage.”

  Hedge very much dessayed he wouldn’t, but it was no use telling her. Like all so-called servants these days, Mrs Millington ran her own life. But it all put Hedge in a bad temper and he would take it out on Shard in the morning. If Shard deigned to turn up.

  *

  A file of two armed monks, with one, an older man, marching behind like the sergeant of an escort and Brother Peter hopping on one leg, took Shard on towards the monastery. The sergeant monk had a broad Australian accent and from a somewhat angry conversation Shard gathered that this Australian was a lay brother by the temporary name of Brother Werribee. He gathered also that Brother Werribee considered Brother Peter to be not only a bloody pommie poufter but simple-minded with it.

  “Trust a bloody pom,” he said, “to fall out for a crap in the first place. But then to bloody act like a wet bloody fish and suggest the captured bloke should go for bloody Brother Infirmarer … wouldn’t have bloody taken the chance to bugger off, would he, oh, no. And there’s not much wrong with your bloody foot.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brother Peter said huffily. “How, I ask you, could I —”

  “Oh, bloody shut up, eh? Verbal bloody diarrhoea as well as the other sort, you are, mate.”

  By Shard’s side, Brother Peter seemed close to tears. He muttered to himself as they went along, something about it not being fair, everyone was always on to him about something or other and he had a good mind to ask for release from his vows. Brother Werribee overheard that one.

  “Vows me arse,” he said, and gave a coarse laugh. “What vows you ever took, Pansy-face? An’ don’t get any bright ideas about Reverend bloody Father ever letting you off the hook, right?”