The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  “I think you’re the Bill,” Reverend Father said, almost with monklike reproof to an erring brother. “What do you say to that, h’m?”

  “I’ll answer that by asking a question myself. Why should you fear the Bill?”

  Reverend Father smiled. “I don’t, Mr Jones. I have good reason for not fearing the Bill. But if you are the Bill, then you’ll not leave this monastery alive to tell your superiors of anything you may have seen or may yet see. In the meantime, you can be useful. Brother James?”

  “I reckon ’e is the Old Bill, Reverend Father.”

  “I wasn’t asking your opinion, Brother James. I think you know what to do now, don’t you?”

  Brother James was enthusiastic. “Yes, Reverend Father, that I bloody do an’ all.”

  *

  A man was monopolising a telephone box in Worthing’s Union Place, alongside the Post Office from where he had a commanding view of the exit from the police station. He was passing a running commentary on current happenings. Customs and Excise had not been the only observer of the seafarer’s departure from Splash Point. When Hermann Klein, which was the boatman’s name, had been pursued and arrested, the man now in the phone box had seen and had called a number in east London. He had kept that number informed since. Now he made his final report. “Police van leaving now, motor-cycle escort. My bet’s London, A24. I’ll keep in touch.” Leaving the box, he got into a battered-looking Nissan parked opposite, outside the Connaught Theatre. He made a fast getaway, turning left into Chapel Road, then two more left turns that took him to a roundabout just east of the police station. At this roundabout he picked up the police van with its escort and followed discreetly to four more roundabouts. When he had established that the police van and escort were definitely proceeding up the A24 he stopped at another telephone box and once again called the east London number. Though the caller was unaware of this, Hedge was also aboard the van.

  *

  Shard, taken away by Brother James and another monk who had been in attendance, was duly roughed up in an aboveground cell that boasted a barred window high up in one wall. He endured the roughing up; he said nothing. Brother James, the sleeves of his habit rolled up in a businesslike way, was angry. He glared down at Shard’s bloodied, swollen face.

  “Don’t say nothing, means you must be the Bill. Guilty conscience, see.”

  “You’re free,” Shard said with difficulty, “to form your own conclusions.”

  “Stands to reason.” Brother James aimed a hefty kick at Shard as he lay on a bare floor. The second monk held a handgun aimed at his head. Shard winced with the pain of the kick but kept silent. Leaving his assistant behind as guard, Brother James went away. He was back within five minutes; Shard made the assumption that there had been a further consultation with Reverend Father. “On your feet,” Brother James ordered.

  Shard got up. With the handgun pressing into his back, he was marched away behind Brother James. He was put back in the cell which he had occupied overnight. This time, possibly as the result of an oversight, the overhead light was left on. It was better than the darkness but otherwise it brought no comfort. He wondered what the next move was going to be. He was convinced by now that the German known as The Long Knife would be somewhere in the offing. In his current situation there was nothing whatsoever he could do about it. And that hole in the ground of the night before began to assume a much more personal significance.

  *

  As a result of the Nissan driver’s telephone call, certain matters were put immediately in hand from the east London number. Much use was made of the telephone; and from Leatherhead in Surrey a bunch of skinheads roared out on powerful motor-cycles, joining the A24 at the roundabout at the foot of Givons Grove. The skinheads continued south and met the police convoy on a corner, a nasty one, not far beyond the roundabout. They fanned out, blocking both carriageways. The police van braked hard. The immediate result was traffic chaos, a number of heavy shunts, a number of vehicles off the road, bodies scattered in all directions. The skinheads closed in on the back of the police van, which was already smashed in by the impact of a vehicle from behind. Two of the skinheads, using handguns, fired through into the van’s interior. The seafarer from Splash Point wouldn’t talk now: he died instantly, his head virtually blown from his body, while Hedge cowered in the front of the van. Then the skinheads, men with vicious faces and wearing Nazi emblems, used their guns on the policemen before mounting their machines again and, using the verges and threading through the wreckage, zoomed away, back the way they had come. The whole episode had taken little more than two minutes from start to finish.

  “Very expeditiously carried out, it seems,” the Head of Security said later in the Foreign Office. He had been given the reports from Scotland Yard and was passing them on in person to the Foreign Secretary. “The attackers got clean away. Of course, there’s a widespread search on … but the Yard’s not especially hopeful.”

  Rowland Mayes shook his head in what seemed to be disbelief. “Oh, but surely … a bunch of men wearing Nazi insignia — they can’t hope to get away with it, can’t possibly.” He blinked at the Head of Security, owl-like and earnest. “Can they?”

  “I’m advised they can, Foreign Secretary. Motor-cyclists with emblems are not exactly unusual. And this thing’s big. They’ll have any number of accomplices, any number of hideaways. No-one’s going to admit anything, it’ll be a blank wall for the police. And the chaos on the A24 … no-one seems to have got a good enough look at them. Not enough evidence for any positive identification. It was a case of sheer boldness paying off if you ask me.”

  “No motor-cycle numbers?”

  “None,” the Head of Security answered briefly. “It was a case of the chaos I mentioned. Total shock, I suppose. And a very well-executed operation. We’re not up against amateurs, Foreign Secretary.”

  “Oh, dear. And that man, the boatman, he could have been so useful.”

  “Which was why he was killed, of course.” The Head of Security was well aware that Rowland Mayes needed to have most things spelled out for him.

  “Of course. I realise that.” Rowland Mayes paused, blinking rapidly behind his glasses. “And your man? Mr Hedge?”

  “In a state of shock, I understand. Been taken to hospital in Redhill.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Otherwise unhurt. He was lucky. He reported that a bullet grazed the sleeve of his coat.”

  “Well, one must be thankful for that at any rate. The Prime Minister will be relieved I’m sure.”

  *

  “So very shocking, Roly,” Mrs Heffer said, sounding savage. “So many deaths, so many people’s lives upset — the injuries, you know. People are becoming totally unprincipled, don’t you think, Roly?”

  “Yes, indeed, Prime Minister —”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do about it?” Rowland Mayes’s eyebrows went up quite involuntarily. “Well, Prime Minister, I really think that the police —”

  “I’m not speaking of the police, Roly. I’m worried about the political implications, this dreadful spread of fascism, the whole democratic process coming under attack in such appalling ways. It’s all most worrying, and what am I to tell the Queen?”

  Rowland Mayes cleared his throat noncommittally. What the PM told the Queen was her worry, not his; but he did take the point that he was the Foreign Secretary and thus responsible for ideas imported from abroad. He cleared his throat again. “I have every confidence in Mr Hedge,” he said. “I —”

  “Mr Hedge, yes. I understand he was in the police vehicle. I was about to ask, how is he, Roly?”

  Rowland Mayes repeated the report from the Head of Security. “A case of shock only, and a near miss.”

  “Poor Mr Sedge — Hedge. So brave. So unselfish. Such a pity there aren’t more people like Mr Sedge.”

  “Yes, indeed, Prime Minister.” Rowland Mayes added that Hedge was currently in hospital.

&
nbsp; “In hospital. I see. I shall go to see him, Roly, as soon as I can find the time. There’s still the Queen. After that, we’ll arrange a time. Or perhaps the Queen could be left a little longer. In fact she would be the first to understand that one simply must show one’s appreciation of such loyal service.”

  Seven

  Hours passed; or so Shard believed. The monastery seemed oddly silent. A pregnant sort of silence, a waiting for something to happen?

  Of course the set-up was phony. But Shard would have expected a continuous façade, the so-called monks carrying out a sort of monastic routine, bells ringing for prayer or meditation, that kind of thing, and doing their allotted work, digging in the kitchen garden or whatever. But the place had almost a deserted feel about it, noticeable to Shard even in his basement cell. Not even any domestic sounds, kitchen noises, and he believed the kitchens were not far away.

  It was weird.

  However, explanations came eventually. There were footsteps in the passage outside and then the door was opened up. Brother Peter looked in.

  “Hullo,” he said, as if not expecting to see Shard.

  “Good afternoon, or evening,” Shard said.

  “Afternoon. Some silly bugger,” Brother Peter said crossly, “went and left the light on.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I dessay not, no.” Brother Peter had an automatic in his hand and had a trigger-happy look. Shard weighed the chances of a grab. The time might come if he could keep him talking, but it would be dangerous to rush things. The automatic was currently aimed at his chest and at short range even Brother Peter would be unlikely to miss.

  “It’s Brother Simon’s job really.”

  “What is?” Shard asked.

  “Check on lights.”

  “It was Brother James who put me in here.”

  “Yes.” Brother Peter made a face. “Ooh, I do hate that man!”

  “Brother James? I’m not surprised, but why in particular?”

  “He’s always on at me about something, that’s why. Bloody bully! Ooh, it’s lovely when he’s not here, I feel quite different about things.”

  “Oh? What things?”

  “The bloody monastery. Brother James isn’t here today. Just me and Brother Paul, that’s all.”

  “Day out?” Shard asked casually.

  “Sort of, yes. Reverend Father’s like that, unpredictable. Hires a coach and takes us to the seaside. It’s not the seaside today, though.”

  “Where is it, Brother Peter?”

  Brother Peter shook his head. “I’m not supposed to say. They won’t take me when it’s not the seaside. Reverend Father says I wouldn’t appreciate it.”

  Shard nodded, very noncommittal. Brother Peter wasn’t to be hurried. Shard sensed that he was lonely, wanted any company at all while the brethren were absent. In a moment, Brother Peter opened up a little further. “There’s a place in Salisbury,” he said with a touch of primness. “Massage parlour, they call it. Well, it’s natural. Or I suppose it is. There being no fanny in the bloody monastery, see. They get like restive. Reverend Father likes to keep them happy.”

  Shard reflected that Cousin Wally probably hired a coach so that he could keep the brothers together and under firm control, no beating it for the secular world. And he could understand why Brother Peter was considered unlikely to be appreciative of the non-seaside services offered. In the meantime a little more probing might reveal more, though Brother Peter didn’t strike Shard as being the sort of brother to be taken fully into Cousin Wally’s confidence.

  “You look tired, Brother Peter,” he said with sympathy. “Why not come in and sit down? Take the weight off?”

  Brother Peter tittered. “Not bloody likely! I’m not as green as I’m grass-looking, you know. You’ll make a grab.”

  “Nothing was further from my mind. And you’re certainly not green.”

  “No?” Brother Peter seemed pathetically pleased. No doubt he got little praise in the monastery. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes.” Shard paused. “You don’t strike me as happy in your work, Brother Peter.”

  “No, I’m bloody not.” Brother Peter’s tone was vicious. “I bloody hate the bloody place. And you know something?”

  “What?”

  “You calling me Brother Peter. Respectful like. No-one else does. They’re supposed to, but they don’t. They talk of me in the third person if you follow. Pansy-face. That effing little pouf. Especially that Brother sodding Werribee, bloody Australian.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry to hear that, Brother Peter.”

  Brother Peter gave a little clap of his hands. “There you go again, being decent. I reckon you’re a decent bloke. I’m sick and tired … being spoken of like that. It’s not bloody fair and it’s not bloody right. Okay, so p’raps I’m a little queer, let’s be perfectly open and honest. But there’s no call for all them buggers to be derogatory, is there?”

  “Certainly not. Harassment … there’s a law against it, I believe.”

  Brother Peter hooted at that. “Look, mate, there’s no fucking law, if you’ll pardon me, in this rotten, lousy place except Reverend Father’s and Brother James’s.” The hoot of laughter, as Brother Peter further contemplated his dreadful lot at the hands of his fellow monks, changed quite suddenly to tears. Tears of self-pity and frustration … Shard made sympathetic noises: the atmosphere was becoming propitious and he had a lot to learn. He said how sorry he was to hear of Brother Peter’s troubles.

  “Why not tell me all about it?” he suggested. “Get it off your chest. Then you’ll feel a whole lot better. Troubles shared,” he said tongue-in-cheek, “are troubles halved.”

  “Could be right at that.” Brother Peter delved into the recesses of his habit and his hand came out clutching a dirty handkerchief. He wiped away his tears and managed a smile. “You’re ever so nice,” he said. Shard almost felt threatened by yet another danger.

  *

  The Long Knife, safely disembarked at Worthing’s Splash Point long before the coastguard had picked up Hermann Klein’s boat, which had been put into the water by a Hamburg-registered cargo vessel whilst well out of sight of the British coast, had walked away through some municipal gardens containing a putting green and flower beds. Splash Point had been chosen for his illegal entry in preference to, for instance, Littlehampton where there was a marina and a load of customs and cops who’d made drugs hauls in the recent past and would be watching carefully for yet another pounce. Worthing was not the resort of drugs pushers; Worthing, prima donna of the Costa Geriatrica, was full of old ladies who had never even heard of crack. In addition to which The Long Knife knew Worthing. He had first been there as a student at one of the many language schools in the town and that indeed had been what had finally cemented his loathing of the English. The inhabitants of Worthing had been unfriendly to the foreign students, accusing them of moving about in hordes and pushing the occupants of zimmer frames off the pavements into the traffic, of monopolising the buses, of vandalising the town centre, et cetera, all of this being in fact strictly true but as a good Nazi The Long Knife disregarded the strict truth in the interest of feeding his anti-British fervour. The British stank. The British must be forced to change their allegiance to something and somebody worthwhile. Mrs Heffer and democracy had had their chance and had failed.

  So.

  The Long Knife had no gear other than his weaponry already checked in the German port. This, and enough British currency to last until he reached his destination and the sanctuary that would be accorded him while he put his mission into effect. First was the need to get clear away from the south coast. Stealing a car could be tricky; a bicycle would do. He found one, propped in a back alley, no padlock. Very likely someone else had stolen it first and then abandoned it when it was no longer required. It was required by The Long Knife and he took it and pedalled away out of the town, reaching the A27 and the route for Chichester, turning off for Petersfield. By the time murder
had been done on the A24, he was well on his way towards Winchester and Stock-bridge, looking not much like a fugitive on his anonymous bicycle in an age when fugitives sought the fastest vehicle possible. And the British police were concentrating on Splash Point back in Worthing …

  *

  Mrs Heffer had arrived at Redhill where Hedge had been given a bed in a cubicle and thus a little privacy though doctors and nurses tiresomely came and went and there were sundry noises off, clangs and the movement of trolleys.

  The advent of the Prime Minister caused a good deal of confusion and an upset to the routine, arriving as she did at short notice in the middle of the afternoon when the senior medical staff had largely gone about their private practices. Mrs Heffer’s heavily guarded car was met by the administrator, the medical staff being represented by a registrar.

  “How is Mr Sedge?” Mrs Heffer asked anxiously.

  The registrar shrugged. “Nothing wrong with him that I can find. Nerves playing up, but —”

  “Shock,” Mrs Heffer stated firmly, “is a serious condition.” She swept into the building guided by the registrar and the senior nursing officer to where Hedge lay.

  Hedge sat to attention. He had been told that Mrs Heffer was on her way and he was deeply appreciative of the gesture. “This is a great honour, Prime Minister.”

  Mrs Heffer inclined her head graciously. “The least one can do, Mr Sedge. One is so very concerned … one does hope you’re on the road to a full recovery.”

  “Thank you, Prime Minister —”

  “Such a terrible experience. And all those poor, innocent people who died. Really, words cannot, simply cannot, express what one feels and how much one detests the persons who perpetrate such vile actions.”