The Legend of the Black Monk

by Nigel Cubbage

  ‘Blimey! Rupe! I’d almost forgotten him!’ Laura’s hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Some girlfriend you are!’ Drew shook his head in mock disgust.

  ‘Perhaps he’s back by now?’ Laura looked hopeful. Drew’s expression was doubtful. Rebecca shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so, Gilmour. I think we are going to have to find him.’

  Von Krankl shook hands with James Hendricks, nodded to Rebecca, Drew and Laura and disappeared swiftly out of the church, pushing his wheelchair before him towards a little car park down the winding path. Drew smiled as he watched the old man depart. Rebecca picked up an old leather-bound book off a pile beside where Hendricks had been working.

  ‘The parish records,’ said the old vicar, seeing her questioning frown. ‘Do borrow one if you think it might be of any assistance to you. Here, these are the forties and early fifties, immediately after the war.’

  ‘Thank you Reverend,’ said Rebecca. ‘I will let you have them back soon.’

  ‘Yes, of course. All jolly good fun, what?’

  * * *

  ‘That vicar is barking,’ smirked Drew as they retreated down the path from the chapel.

  ‘All that stuff about the war, real serious thinking stuff, then ‘Jolly good fun, what?’ Jimmy flaming Hendrix!’

  ‘Had you heard of him?’ asked Laura. ‘Meant nothing to me’.

  ‘Legendary guitarist, one of the all-time greats, says Rebecca’s Uncle Henry. Actually, I’ve never heard anything he did.’

  ‘And who on earth is Gide?’ Laura and Drew shrugged at one another.

  ‘French writer and philosopher.’ They both looked across at Rebecca, who had not been paying attention and appeared lost in thought, the books Hendricks had entrusted to her clasped firmly under her arm.

  Drew gave Laura a conspiratorial look. ‘And you thought Rupe was a boffin. The things this girl knows make you wonder if she’s real sometimes. But hey, the great brain is ticking, I can feel it.’

  Rebecca looked up as Drew raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ she said. ‘If you are leaving what you think may be your last message to the world, surely you would try and leave some clear clue? – I would.’

  ‘What did the code say? That bit about the location?’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Laura, fumbling in her pocket and producing the scrap of paper.

  ‘De dah de – here! … Only I know the true location. My life’s work, Saladin’s nemesis, Napoleon, where to look.

  ‘There!’ said Rebecca. ‘Why his life’s work? Odd phrase, don’t you think?’

  ‘It was all he thought he had left to do, I guess,’ said Drew.

  ‘But did the monks make him do, if they had him here for all that time? Ten years after the war ended?’ Rebecca warmed to her theme.

  ‘The vicar said the monks helped restore the chapel after the war. They made the stained glass window,’ said Laura.

  ‘Did they indeed?’ Rebecca looked up sharply, a half-smile breaking out on her face.

  She looked up at the window, shrouded in darkness. ‘What if the window is the key?’

  ‘The window? How?’ Drew’s expression suggested he thought Rebecca had taken leave of her senses.

  Rebecca went closer and gazed up at the coloured glass. She noticed a couple of hooks inset into one of the panes, her expression momentarily puzzled.

  ‘We need daylight to see better,’ said Laura.

  ‘We don’t know he definitely DID work on it, do we?’ asked Drew. ‘We’re just guessing.’

  Rebecca looked at him disparagingly. ‘Chapel is restored after the war, window is restored. Monks do work. Kraus is prisoner of monks during said time. Call me daft but I’d call that a possibility worth investigating.’

  ‘And we, her friends, have to put up with this. The loss of the Empire has not dimmed this Englishwoman’s superiority complex,’ said Drew to Laura. She smiled and took his arm.

  ‘You are so good natured about it. I’d tell her what for.’

  ‘No, I’d rather just do all the donkey work, find all the clues, Morse code messages, that sort of thing. She can have the glory.’ Drew and Laura nodded, in clear agreement with each other.

  ‘I’ve got a few donkey droppings to hand out for tomorrow, so don’t dawdle,’ said Rebecca, giving them both a look and setting off back in the direction of the farm.

  ‘There’s Rupert to track down … and what is all that stuff about Saladin and Napoleon?’

  Chapter 19

  Daedalus

  Rupert Dewhurst-Hobb, grandson to Admiral Bertram, British war hero and thief. I am Daedalus.’

  Rupert looked up from the bare bench to which he had been dragged from the room where he had spent the half hour since his arrival at Druid’s Rock. He was in a dimly-lit chamber, sparsely furnished, with narrow, lead-lined windows. Before him was a large desk behind which sat the hook-nosed monk. On the wall behind the monk was a chilling, unmistakeable image. Adolf Hitler.

  ‘My grandfather was not a thief.’

  Daedalus raised his eyes slowly until they looked into Rupert’s. They had a cold intensity that Rupert found very intimidating. He looked away. ‘Your Grandfather and the traitor Kraus stole something that was not theirs.’

  ‘Which you and your friends had stolen in the first place. I have read about you and what the Nazis did on the net. Looting, murder, racial hatred.’

  ‘Ah the obsession of you young people with your internet! So reputable a source of truth that any numbskull can, how do you say ‘blog’ any claptrap they like on it without fear of retribution. Absence of talent or intellect is no longer a hindrance.’ Daedalus leaned back into his high, leather chair.

  ‘You deny what the Nazis did? You deny the holocaust?’

  ‘I deny nothing. I am proud of what I have done in my life and loyal to the cause. You call it a holocaust. That is but one perspective. I call it a cleansing. I merely say that the lessons of history suggest there are lies, damned lies and statistics.’

  ‘So the murder of six million Jews is just a statistic that could be acceptable when viewed from another “perspective”?’

  ‘Certainly. Murder is an emotive term.’

  ‘You make me sick.’

  ‘The weak have no stomach for these matters.’ He stood up suddenly. ‘Luckily for mankind, there are those of us who are stronger. It was a Frenchman, Rousseau who said ‘If a man’s will is out of keeping with the general “will’’ then he must be forced to be free. I am a soldier of the general, free will.’

  ‘What gives you the right to decide how other people shall live or die? My Grandpa was worth a hundred of you! He fought for freedom, so that people did not have to live their lives afraid of monsters like Hitler … and you.’

  ‘You believe your country allows you freedom? How perfectly naïve … but then I have not the time to debate with a small, ignorant boy. The gold … where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  There was a sudden rattle of rain against the window. Daedalus came slowly and deliberately round the desk and leaned on the edge in front of Rupert. He bent down until his face was inches from Rupert’s own and Rupert could feel his breath. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper. ‘Your grandfather left you a message. Don’t insult my intelligence by denying it. You will now tell me what was the message?’

  Rupert swallowed hard and gritted his teeth. He must try and delay to give the others time to find him. ‘Your friend John Sky – and he is your friend, isn’t he? – locked me up before I had a chance to even find it. Bright of him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘So you do not have the message. Who then does? Your friends?’

  Rupert tried desperately not to betray a sudden fear for the others. ‘No, no! It is hidden it away.’

  ‘Where?’ snapped the monk, viciously.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked defiantly at Daedalus. ‘It’s hidden, remember?’

 
The hooked nose twitched. ‘You are very spirited for one so young. But I will have my answer. Perhaps we shall have to bring a little … pressure to bear.’ He gave Rupert a chilling look.

  Rupert went rigid, his heart thumping. He had no idea what Daedalus was going to do but was certain that it would not be a pleasant experience. He wrung his hands together. They were clammy with sweat. Abruptly, the old monk got up and walked out of the room.

  ‘Take him back to his room,’ he barked at a monk standing outside the door.

  * * *

  ‘Are you okay, Becks?’ Laura wore a concerned expression on her face. Returning from the chapel, they had flopped in front of the fireplace in the sitting room. Gaston had appeared briefly to inform them, most distractedly, that Rachel and Guinevere had left earlier in the day, having decided to get away for a couple of days to visit relatives.

  He had not noticed Rupert’s absence, seeming preoccupied with the responsibility of having to run the farm on his own. There was no sign of Sky. Rebecca had sat down, lost in thought, with the old parish volumes unopened on her lap. She gave a short laugh.

  ‘I’m fine … actually … no I’m not. This whole business is scary, we are way out of our depth. There are people at work here who are … really bad … evil. God, Laura! Nazis for heaven’s sake! Rupert has been taken off we don’t know where, with we don’t know whom doing we don’t know what to him. These are people who thought nothing of bricking a man up, alive. And then …’

  ‘What?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Dead men, troubled in their graves by violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Jane Eyre, look never mind. I … I saw something, saw and heard some things.’ Rebecca looked quickly at her friend for a moment, then looked away.

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I never told you everything about when I was in Scotland. I … you really are not going to believe this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I met somebody from the past, somebody who spoke to me.’

  Laura sat up in astonishment.

  ‘You mean … somebody … dead? A … ghost?’

  ‘Oh God, it’s ridiculous! NO! … Yes, I suppose … it didn’t seem like that. They were there, they were real …’ She paused and looked at Laura closely. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do, it’s just … Becks, it’s just a bit difficult to imagine.’

  ‘I think it’s happening again.’

  ‘WHAT? What have you seen?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. Look, forget I said anything, it’s probably just my wild and vivid imagination, as Uncle Henry would say.’

  ‘What is the plan tomorrow, then, McOwan?’ Drew sailed into the room, his arrival a welcome distraction for Rebecca.

  ‘I’m glad you asked me that,’ said Rebecca, smiling sweetly at him. Laura bit her lip. She would have to wait for another opportunity to quiz Rebecca.

  Chapter 20

  Hot Pursuit

  Very early next morning, Rebecca burst through the door of the room she and Laura shared, so early that it was barely light outside. On the horizon, tufts of grey cloud flecked a crimson sky above a dark blue sea. Rebecca was clutching one of the leather volumes James Hendricks had given her. She sat down on Laura’s bed, cross- legged. Laura propped herself up, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Becks? It’s the middle of the night! Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘Never mind about that! I’ve been up for hours reading these parish records. It’s amazing! 1955, on 3rd July the curate Sidney Brazier hears strange and unnatural cries late at night, emanating from somewhere deep in the chapel. Then on the 5th July, a couple out for a walk hear the same thing. They are convinced it came from under the earth and fear it was the cry of the devil.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘The writer, who I think is the vicar of the time, one Theodore Betts, declares the majority belief is that it is the ghost of the Black Monk. He cites another, age-old record made by the Reverend Cornelius Gilchrist in the seventeenth century, of a conversation between Gilchrist and the gravedigger who had put Nathan Trevellyan in the ground. The man, Silas Weaver, swore he had heard hammering from the inside of the coffin. Terrified, he feared the hand of the devil himself. He ran to Reverend Gilchrist to tell and seek absolution. Apparently Nathan Trevellyan was buried alive … and his spirit is therefore supposedly trapped in eternal purgatory.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Laura was horrified. ‘Your ghost, Becks! It’s your ghost!’

  ‘No of course it isn’t! The 1955 incident wasn’t the Black Monk at all.’

  Deflated, Laura stared at her, expecting her to continue. ‘… So? Who was it?’

  Rebecca looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Wakey, wakey! Kapitan Kraus, of course! A bit further on, Theodore Betts describes the restoration of the chapel. There’s a lot of waffle as you’d expect, then he gets to the window: ‘started in 1948 and took seven years to complete.’ Seven years, 1955 by my maths, when we know Kraus died.

  He talks about ‘The quiet one’ who does all the work, a master glass cutter from Leipzig … Kraus came from Leipzig, remember the tape? Rupert’s Grandfather went there looking for him but couldn’t get there ’cause it was in the new East Germany, controlled by the Russians. Nobody got in or out, unless they were a spy.’

  ‘So if glass-cutter was his job, the window could have been his ‘life’s work’ then?’

  ‘You’re waking up! Now I am convinced there is a clue in the window. Guess where we are going this morning? Come on! Rise and shine!’

  In a swirl, Rebecca turned and was out of the door in an instant. Her head poked back round. ‘I’ve sent Drew off trailing Sky, to see if he leads us to Rupert, as I think he will. Come on! Up and outside in five! No time for breakfast, seeing as you’ve lazed about in bed so long already.’ She gave an exaggeratedly sweet smile and was gone before Laura could respond.

  * * *

  The bike Drew discovered in the barn was not the most modern he had ever ridden.

  Judging by its condition, and having to extricate it from under a pile of broken fencing, it had not been used in ages. There were only three gears, very dodgy brakes and an old-fashioned bell, which he made up his mind immediately not to use. Far too embarrassing.

  It was gingerly and with trepidation that he set off down the lane.

  It was before seven and still barely light. As he wobbled along astride his new steed, Drew muttered darkly about the irony that such tasks always landed on him. But Rebecca’s night-time vigil with the parish records had left her in that determined mood with which he knew argument was pointless. Wrenched from his warm bed, he was tasked with locating John Sky and to discover what had happened to Rupert. There was now little doubt of Sky’s involvement and good reason to suspect he had engineered Rupert’s disappearance.

  Rupert had said that Sky worked at offices by a roundabout on the outskirts of St Morwenna’s. This was his destination, a couple of miles away through the Cornish lanes.

  The morning air chilled his face as he gathered speed, his confidence in the machine he was riding slowly growing. It was not long before the rooftops of St Morwenna’s came into view, slumbering peacefully in the golden morning light. Birds twittered in the hedgerows and all in all it looked like being an idyllic day. Difficult to believe that there could be such a drama playing out with Nazis at large in the Cornish countryside.

  As he rounded a bend, he approached a roundabout. Right next to it was the entrance to an office complex. Lights were on and he could see people moving about inside the reception area, so he dismounted and went through a revolving glass door. Behind a reception desk a woman sipped a cup of tea.

  ‘You’re up early. Can I help you, young man?’

  ‘I’m looking for John Sky. Can you tell me which office he works in?’

  The woman looked blankly at him. ‘Joh
n Sky? Nobody here by that name, dear. Are you sure you have the right place?’

  ‘This is Tremarrion Holdings?’

  ‘Yes, that’s us.’

  ‘Then this is where I was told he works.’

  ‘Sorry. I know everyone, dear. Never been a John Sky here. Nice old bike by the way! My old Dad used to have one of them! Ha ha!’

  Drew gave a quick smile, colouring slightly. Back outside, he remounted the ‘nice old bike’ and sat, undecided what to do next. So Sky must have lied about where he worked.

  If he did not work here, then where did he go every day? His eye was drawn to the distant towers of the monastery, beyond the hilltop. Monks, monastery, Himmel … Sky, he mused.

  At least a possibility.

  Chapter 21

  Checked Out

  Rupert slept badly, due in part to a cold, hard bed but mainly because his mind was in turmoil. What were the others up to? What had happened, what had they found out in his absence? Did they know the truth about Sky? Did anyone know where he was?

  The awful thought struck him that perhaps nobody had missed him yet.

  The room in which he was locked was long, narrow and bare- walled, with a stone fireplace the only feature. There was no fire in its small, iron grate. A recessed window above his bed let in the only light other than a weak yellow glow given by a lamp in the corner. Furniture comprised the uncomfortable bed and a small wooden table and chair. A single radiator suggested heating, although it had been cold to the touch since his arrival.

  The window looked out over a small bay. He had stood there the previous evening, gazing into the night, listening to the waves breaking against the rocks below.

  The door to the room creaked open. There was silence for a few seconds. Rupert turned to see what was going on. Two black Dobermans padded in, sniffing the floor and making unsettling low growling sounds. He shrank back across the bed and pressed himself into the wall. If these were not the two dogs which had attacked the car, then they looked equally as fierce and, this close up, far bigger. One of them stopped facing him, mouth open, panting gently, saliva glistening around the edges of his jaws. Powerful muscles twitched in his neck and shoulders. Unblinking eyes.