The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  “Oh, fiddlesticks, Roly, don’t try to wriggle out of your responsibilities.” Mrs Heffer’s eyes flashed. “I call that craven. Naturally the Home Office is concerned within this country and I have already made my views known. But where does this threat come from?”

  “Well, Prime Minister — from Germany.”

  “Precisely. From Germany. From a foreign country.”

  “The EC, Prime Minister —”

  “Don’t talk to me about the EC, Roly. We’re British. And foreigners are foreigners. We expect our Foreign Secretary to act accordingly. Now: tell me again about poor Mr Sedge.”

  “Hedge, Prime Minister —”

  “Kindly don’t contradict me, Foreign Secretary.”

  Rowland Mayes gave a sigh. The Prime Minister was in an awkward mood; when displeased with him, she always addressed him as Foreign Secretary. There was in fact nothing he could do about The Long Knife so long as he was outside the country other than to try to ensure that he didn’t enter. If he was already inside Britain than it really was up to the Home Office, and indeed it was the immigration people in the Home Office who should be making sure he didn’t enter, and if he had entered then all that there was to be done was to find him before he fomented any nasty trouble and that again was up to the Home Office … Rowland Mayes’s mind was in a whirl; Mrs Heffer frequently had that effect upon him, she being a congenital disturber of equilibrium. Anyway, he told her again about Hedge.

  “Of course he mustn’t accompany MI5 to this monastery,” Mrs Heffer said. “I quite understand his point, his reluctance to be revealed to his curious cousin. It’s so obvious. Tell your people that no notice whatever is to be taken of this MI5 person. Tell them at once.”

  “But Prime Minister —”

  “At once.”

  Once again the internal telephones became busy. Hedge was off the immediate hook. As the message was being passed, Mrs Heffer assumed a pensive look. When Rowland Mayes was freed from the telephone, she said, “Monastery, Roly.”

  “Monastery, Prime Minister?”

  “This place at Stockbridge.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister?”

  “It occurs to me that the assistance of the Archbishop might be of some use. What do you think, Roly?”

  Rowland Mayes pursed his lips. “Well, Prime Minister, there is the security position to be considered —”

  “The Archbishop is surely to be trusted?”

  “Oh yes, indeed he is, of course,” Rowland Mayes hastened to say. “But I fear that too many people … so many clergy and others in the see. And in any case I would imagine the God’s Anointed people are outside the jurisdiction of Canterbury.” Rowland Mayes racked his brains. “They’re, well, private. Not blessed by the Church. I don’t know quite how I can put it.” He thought further and then came up with a splendid panacea. “Like private medicine, Prime Minister.”

  “As opposed to the NHS? Yes, I take your point, Roly. We’ll leave the Archbishop out of it then.”

  Mrs Heffer was very hot on private medicine. Such a relief: to bring in the Church of England would be fatal in Rowland Mayes’s view and obviously in the Home Secretary’s view as well. All those bishops and deans and canons poking and prying and destroying evidence or whatever, it simply wasn’t to be thought of.

  *

  Still in his own home, Hedge was informed that Mrs Heffer had come to his aid. His relief was intense and he glared triumphantly at his MI5 tormentors.

  “What did I tell you?” he said.

  “That’s all right, Mr Hedge. We can’t win every time.”

  “I should think not! You’re not God Almighty.”

  “A matter of opinion, Mr Hedge. Well now, you’re free to move about. Free to leave the house.”

  “You mean this stupid watch is being withdrawn?”

  The fat man nodded. “Yes, that’s right, Mr Hedge. Only I’d use caution if I were you.”

  This was beneath Hedge’s dignity to acknowledge so he just gave an irritated grunt. MI5 departed. Ms Gunning looked absolutely furious. Hedge was left with the uncomfortable feeling that the watch was by no means withdrawn. They were still hoping to catch him out. Nevertheless, when he looked out of his window into the street he observed a man with long, dirty hair, wearing T-shirt and jeans and sandals, chuck his fag-end into the gutter, shove his copy of The Sun into a handy litter bin, lever his back off a lamp-post, and walk away.

  Possibly they were being honest. But Hedge doubted it. He went down to his garage and drove to the Foreign Office convinced that he had a tail.

  In the Foreign Office he sent down for Shard.

  There was no Shard.

  “Still absent?” Hedge demanded.

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “Where the devil is he?”

  “His current whereabouts are not known, sir.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, why not?”

  “Mr Shard’s movements are very often not known, sir.”

  Wretched police jargon. But it was true that Shard was like that. A law unto himself and keep people guessing, what a pest the man was most of the time. Hedge banged down his internal line and buzzed his secretary. He wanted coffee, strong coffee. And a couple of Rennies.

  *

  “You will tell me who you are,” The Long Knife said.

  “Neville Chamberlain,” Shard said.

  “Do not play the clever fool with me or you will suffer. Why did you come here?” The Long Knife had been given the whole story, as known, by Cousin Wally: Brother Peter’s fortuitous stomach complaint leading to the capture of the intruder. “Tell me at once.”

  Shard shrugged. “I’ve nothing to say. Except that I was just curious, I suppose.”

  “You suppose. Curious — at night, on an ordinary road, with nothing of the building in sight? You will need to think up something more convincing than that, my friend. But before long you will speak, and you will speak the truth. I am prepared to wait for that.”

  “You’ll wait a long time.”

  “I do not think so. But you sound determined. So it is plain you are no ordinary passer-by with curiosity to be satisfied. Such a person would have been wishful only to get away as fast as possible, I think. You —”

  The Long Knife broke off: Reverend Father’s telephone had rung, the outside line. “Abbot of Stockbridge,” Cousin Wally said briskly. “Oh, Oliphant,” he said. “Have you —”

  “I tried to get your cousin like you said. He was acting funny.”

  “What sort of funny, Oliphant?”

  “Odd funny. Look, I’m calling from a call box and I haven’t got much change. Don’t you expect your cousin to come to Stockbridge, that’s what I wanted to say like. Something’s up.”

  “What is, Oliphant?”

  There was a rattle and a jangle and a sort of whine followed by Oliphant’s voice saying ‘bugger’ and then silence. The change had run out. Reverend Father looked angry and frustrated. Shard, who had heard the whole conversation because Oliphant’s voice was a loud one, kept all expression out of his face. What, he wondered, was Hedge up to now? Or rather, perhaps, what was up with Hedge that was making him ‘act funny’? And what was ‘up’ with the caller?

  The Long Knife was wondering as well, it seemed. “What is funny, Herr —”

  “No names if you don’t mind. Just Reverend Father. It’s better that way as I’m sure you’ll understand. Nothing in particular is the matter. A slight hiatus, that’s all.”

  “It is important,” the German said heavily, “that I am informed fully. Please bear this in mind.”

  “Yes. Well, of course I do agree.” Reverend Father paused. “I was expecting a visitor but he is not coming after all.”

  “An important visitor?”

  Reverend Father waved a hand. “Oh, no. Not important.”

  “You are sure of this? Your manner does not support a lack of importance. Tell me, please.”

  Reverend Father said, “A person who is in
a position to help us. There has been … a slight delay, that’s all —”

  “There is no time for delay, Herr Reverend Father. I must set matters quickly in motion, and already I am expected in the north of Britain. It is unfortunate that there is delay.” The German looked at Shard. “And there is this man, whose presence indicates to me danger. Now I shall tell you what I want and you will see that it is done, Herr Reverend Father.”

  *

  Later that day, after Shard had been taken back to his ceil and once again locked in, a telephone message was taken in a house set remotely on a fellside in Wensleydale in North Yorkshire. It was taken by a man who looked like a farmer and whose guarded conversation consisted entirely of the word ‘aye’ several times repeated. When the caller had rung off the farmer dialled a number and spoke to a man whom he addressed as Arry. It was, the farmer said, to be the following night, in the early hours just before the succeeding dawn.

  Arry said, “Aye.”

  “Pass the word, reet?”

  “Aye.” The farmer was not the only monosyllabic Yorkshireman.

  That was all; at any rate in Wensleydale. Arry, who lived in Ripon, became busy. He used the telephone a number of times and when he had finished he went out, got into his car and drove towards the ruins of Fountains Abbey on the Pately Bridge road. The abbey grounds were open still and Arry, after halting at the hut where tickets were sold, drove on in and parked among a number of ducks seeking bread. Disregarding the ducks, Arry left his car and walked alongside a lake towards a place known as the Valley of the Seven Bridges. Crossing a ford where cows were drinking, he turned left along the valley, crossed the various bridges over a dried-out beck, encountering another man on the last of these bridges, a skinhead in a leather, metal-studded jacket.

  “All reet?” Arry asked.

  “Aye.”

  They went on together, no further conversation taking place. They went through a gateway into a heavily wooded area and trudged along an overgrown track until they came to what appeared to be a solid rock face. Still without speaking they turned to the right and ploughed through thick undergrowth beneath the rock face, going for a little over a hundred metres until they met a sharp declivity, the bank of a fairly fast-running beck. With some difficulty they descended the bank and let themselves down into the water, which ran knee-high. Pushing against the flow, they headed as it seemed straight into the rock itself, bending their backs to come below a great overhang and go on along a natural tunnel beneath the rock. They pushed through the water for a little more than a mile. It was deathly cold; a ledge about a foot wide ran alongside the underground stream, a ledge that stood visible in the beam of a waterproofed torch carried by the skinhead. Where the ledge widened a little the skinhead, who was in the lead, stopped and said, “Reet.”

  “Here, is it?”

  “Aye.”

  They clambered out of the stream. They walked along the ledge for perhaps another hundred metres, then the skinhead, behind the strong beam of his torch, dipped through a hole that led to a wide passage — wide but with little head-room so that both had to proceed bent double. On for another long stretch of acute discomfort. Then the skinhead stopped again, reached up and pressed hard on a point of rock level with his chin. Silently, as though on well-maintained hinges, a section of the rock moved, pivoting on a natural axis. The beam of the torch cut through to reveal a vast cavern, one so big that the powerful beam showed no boundary.

  It showed much else, however: the place was an armoury, a magazine of immense proportions of which any army command might well have been jealous. Stocks of explosives — Semtex, dynamite, TNT … huge piles of weapons, sub-machine guns, grenades, assault rifles of British Army pattern, rocket launchers and their missiles, a terrorist’s dream hidden away beneath the Yorkshire fells.

  Arry, not unexpectedly, was speechless.

  *

  Shard’s cell was opened up. Brother Peter was there again. “I’m ever so chuffed,” he said, smiling and happy.

  “Why? Have you got your ticket of release?”

  “Not exactly, no, but we’re moving out. It’s all because of you, I think. And the bloke that didn’t show up when Reverend Father wanted him.”

  Hedge, of course. Cousin Hedge. Shard asked, “We?”

  “That German, and us. You and me. Well, not just me. Bloody Brother Werribee’s coming too.”

  “Where are we going, Brother Peter?”

  Brother Peter said reprovingly, “Naughty! Shouldn’t ask that but you’ll see. It’s going to be ever so spooky, and what with Brother Werribee … still, mustn’t grumble, it’ll be better than the bloody monastery, where we’re going.”

  “When do we go?”

  “Right away. Here, mate, I got you this. Nicked it when Brother Kitchener’d gone for a pee.” Brother Peter reached beneath his habit and brought out something greasy. “Keep you going, this will.” He handed it to Shard. It was a beefburger, cold and unappetising in its covering of solidified gravy. However, Brother Peter had meant well. Shard ate the offering.

  *

  Mrs Heffer had called a meeting of the cabinet. At it, the Home Secretary was the King Pin. Law and order was under threat and the Home Secretary’s sway over the Metropolitan Police was in demand. It had been, in fact, at his instigation that Mrs Heffer had summoned her cabinet at short notice. There was a good deal of anxiety in Whitehall and Mrs Heffer stressed the point. “A great country like ours, to be put about by some pipsqueak German. I will not have it,” she said loudly and with the flash of battle in her eyes. “Oh, what is it, Roly?”

  Rowland Mayes went red. “Nothing, Prime Minister.” The Foreign Secretary had a bad go of piles and was shifting about on his chair like a small boy trying desperately to contain a desire to be excused. “I’m sorry, Prime Minister.”

  “Well, do stop wriggling, I find it distracting.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  “Now where was I?”

  “The pipsqueak German, Prime Minister.”

  “Yes. The neo-Nazis, the would-be Hitlers who wish not only to establish another German Reich but also to subjugate this country by suborning our people from their loyalties. We must make certain they never succeed.” Mrs Heffer paused, studying the impact of her words on her audience. It seemed quite satisfactory. “Home Secretary?”

  “Yes, Prime Minister?”

  “What do you suppose these wretched people are likely to do?”

  The Home Secretary, an earnest man, considered his answer carefully. “In regard to their aims, Prime Minister?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Home Secretary, what else?”

  “I’m sorry, Prime Minister.” The Home Secretary coughed in embarrassment. Mrs Heffer, a splendid woman of course, that went without saying, liked doing most of the talking herself and it was unwise for anyone else to say too much. She mostly shot down any suggestions in any case and the feeling in the cabinet was that they were all there to be told what to do rather than to be consulted. But now it seemed as though he was expected to make some contribution, so he made it. “I think their organisation is possibly widespread, Prime Minister —”

  “Yes, so do I. Well?”

  “An armed insurrection must be considered as a possibility and taken into account, Prime Minister.”

  “Yes. One has thought about that. How would they go about it? Where would they get the arms, for instance?”

  The Home Secretary considered again then said, “It is easy enough for terrorist organisations to equip themselves with arms, Prime Minister. It always has been, ever since the end of the last war. The Stern Gang in Palestine, the Mau-Mau in Kenya … the IRA, the Bader-Meinhoff gang, all those Middle East terrorists, the Red Army Faction and so on —”

  “Yes, very well, you’ve made your point, Rufus. And then?”

  The Home Secretary looked blank. “Then, Prime Minister?”

  “Yes, then,” Mrs Heffer said shortly. “I do wish you would pay attention. H
ow do they seize power?”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, Prime Minister, you yourself spoke of subornment. I see that as only too likely. A number of people will have been suborned in preparation, I’m quite sure —”

  “Who?”

  “Well, Prime Minister … persons in high places. In the armed services and the police, in the civil service and in local administration. That sort of thing, Prime Minister.”

  “Yes.” Mrs Heffer’s expression was grim. A number of persons had been known to disagree with her from time to time. Admirals, generals, air marshals who had seen their empires crumbling in the defence cuts had made rumbling noises of discontent; Mrs Heffer saw them all too clearly as possible Nazis. Likewise the police, who were always grumbling about their pay and conditions of service; they had come up against her over something to do with their rent allowances, or was it boots, she couldn’t really remember, having so much to think about. Some chief constables were an unruly lot, thinking themselves too superior — typical of people who might believe themselves to be better off under a form of Nazism. And the civil service! The civil service was always seething with discontent, though in their case the pull was to the left rather than to the right. As for the local authorities, anything was possible with them. They had bitterly (and stupidly) resented being rate-capped, had resented the Community Charge that had made them accountable to their electors, which was sheer chicanery and self-seeking as any intelligent voter ought to see. The trouble was that the voters were not intelligent, or those who failed to vote for her were not, and they as well as the nondescript bunch of mayors and chief executives and magistrates might be led into seeing neo-Nazism as being salvation. This Long Knife and his henchmen might not even need a supply of weapons. Mrs Heffer had often reflected that the voters would elect Satan himself if he promised to increase the retirement pension, lower interest rates for all except OAPs with large balances in the building societies, and offer free board and lodging on the NHS to those same OAPs …

  “Edward?”

  Edward Parker-Smeaton was the Secretary for Social Security. “Yes, Prime Minister?”