Felburgh

by Ivan B

  Peter got up and walked around the floor of the house, still talking to Aquinas who diligently followed him around.

  “But if it used to have a basement then it used to have access to said basement, but I’ve not noticed any hidden doors or stairs have you?”

  Aquinas did not reply.

  Peter got to the hall and stopped by the staircase.

  “The logical place would be here.” And he pulled out Aquinas’ dog-bed and studied the floor. Sure enough in the floor was a small brass fold down ring. Peter pulled it and virtually the whole of the cupboard floor moved. It was a counterbalanced hatch cover. As Peter opened it up light flooded out from the basement below. Peter assumed there must be an automatic light switch although he hadn’t heard a click. The open hatch revealed a set of metal stairs at a fairly acute angle they looked like the sort you’d find on a ship.

  “Of course,” he said to his dog, who was now sitting in his dog-bed daring Peter to try and move it again. “Of course this is dead right if this place was taken over by the Navy during the last war.”

  He turned round and gingerly climbed down the steps.

  Standing at the bottom of the steps he thought the word basement was an understatement. It looked just like a wartime set. Concrete walls with evenly spaced brick pillars that supported iron girders about every six feet across the concrete ceiling. Looking up at the hatch he decided the concrete ceiling was about two-foot thick. He carefully attained his orientation. “So” he said to himself, “the front door must be about here and that wall must be at the back of the house.” But it was no good; the basement seemed much larger in floor area than the house he had just left. The basement appeared to be totally empty and he wandered over to the other side, as he got closer he realised that part of the wall was closer than the rest and was in fact a concrete blast screen placed a few feet away from the wall. As he rounded it he saw there was a tunnel. “This is getting silly,” he told himself and looked down the tunnel. It looked about a hundred feet long and had bare light bulbs every ten feet or so. After a moments hesitation he walked down the tunnel. It led to another concrete screen and into what must have been at some time an air-raid shelter. In it were three rusty metal wardrobes, an Apple-Mac computer with the largest monitor Peter had ever seen, an A1 size inkjet printer and the Revd Reginald Graye.

  All the equipment was running and it looked just like Reginald had rested his head on the desk and gone to sleep. But it was obviously the long sleep, not a long sleep. Peter walked over to the desk. A screen-saver program was running on the monitor showing a tropical fish-tank. Peter stopped not quite knowing what to do. There was a mobile phone on the desk so Peter assumed he could phone the police to report the death. But just what had Reginald been doing down here? Curiosity overcame him and he nudged the mouse. The screen-saver disappeared and a giant image of a €500 note appeared. Peter blinked and looked again. He then moved over to the printer; sure enough lying in the output tray was a sheet of Euro notes. Peter sat on the edge of the desk and he looked at Reginald again and could not understand why he had not decomposed, after all it had been nearly six months since his ‘disappearance’. Peter then became conscious of a gentle hum in addition to the computer. He turned round; there by the wall was a de-humidifier/air condition unit. Peter found he was beginning to ask more questions than he could answer. How did he get all this equipment into here? How did he pay for it? Just where was all the electricity coming from? However, there was no doubt about one thing; Reginald was seriously into the forging business.

  Peter was wondering what to do next when he noticed that Reginald’s hands had on them those thin plastic gloves beloved by surgeons. He looked around; sure enough there was a box of them on the floor just as you came out of the tunnel. Peter took two out and put them on. He was going to keep his options open; curiosity demanded that he have a poke around, but he didn’t want the police to find his fingerprints. Peter’s logical mind reasoned that if Reginald had been here for six months another hour or two wouldn’t matter. Peter investigated the three metal cabinets. One held stocks of paper. The next held stocks of ink. The third held a stock of cash. Peter carefully looked at the contents. A shelf stacked high with used ten pound notes; at least they looked like used ten-pound notes. Another shelf with piles of used fivers, and a smaller shelf of used twenty-pound notes. Peter tried to take a quick estimate, and failed. He had no idea just how much cash was here, but it was not trivial. He smiled ruefully, nearly all the people he’d met who’d talked about his predecessor had said the same thing; he always paid cash. Looking away from the body Peter surveyed the air-raid shelter. It was not very large and on the opposite side from the tunnel was another concrete blast screen. Behind it was a pair of doors held shut by a metal bar that you rotated to free the doors. Peter twisted the bar round and slightly pulled open one of the doors, to be met be a scene of twisted undergrowth. Peter opened the door fully and peered at the undergrowth. In reality it trailed over the edge of whatever was above and in all probability it could be moved quite easily. Peter walked up some concrete steps pushing the undergrowth aside until peering through the branches; he could just make out the back of the churchyard. He must be in the mysterious air-raid shelter that Albert said lay at the bottom of the vicarage garden. Peter retreated back down, shut the doors, and walked back inside. What to do, he thought; what to do.

  The obvious thing to do was to ring the police, but for some unknown reason Peter was hesitant to do this. As he was making up his mind Peter noticed for the first time that whatever desktop drafting package Reginald had been using, it was not the only programme running on the computer. Peter moved the mouse and called up the other programme; it was a simple word processor and on the screen was a letter from Reginald:

  ‘I don’t know who will find me and I’m sorry if I have caused you distress’.

  ‘I have decided that I cannot lead this duplicitous life any longer’.

  ‘My heart says I want to follow Christ and I wish with all my being that I could be left to do so in peace. However, my former associates have other ideas and it was either work for them or see my son harmed’.

  ‘My son died yesterday and now they have no hold on me other than making my involvement in their fraud public. I no longer care’.

  ‘If by chance you are not the police then please feel free to use the money for a good cause - that does not include using it for St Nathaniel’s, they already have too much money anyway. Maybe something good can come out of all this. But it is too late for me. The price for using the money is to remove the hard disc that is painted red from this machine and destroy it’.

  ‘I do not care what you do with my body, there is no one left to mourn; but please pray for my soul that I might be with Jesus in paradise’.

  Peter was now at a total loss. For one thing, as far as he knew, Reginald was a bachelor and had never been married. Although it was true that he had come to Faith in a prison.

  Peter leaned over the body and printed the suicide note. Then he turned off the computer and printer, left the air conditioner running, and went to leave the shelter. On his way out he noticed some light switches; they worked and the shelter was plunged into darkness. Peter turned off all the lights as he made his way back up to the house. Once back he shut the hatch and moved Aquinas’ bed back onto the hatch. He was still squatting by the dog-bed when the doorbell rang. Peter looked at his watch, “Good grief, is that the time?” He said to Aquinas, “That must be the Major.” The Major had made an appointment to see Peter at the end of the council meeting. Peter composed himself and went to the door; as he reached for the handle he realised that he was still wearing the plastic gloves; he tore them off and stuck them in his pocket before he opened the door.

  The Major entered and Peter showed him into the lounge and they settled down.

  “I’ll come straight to the point,” he said, “Are you serious about building a community centre with the church money?”

&nb
sp; “No,” Peter replied.

  “No!” He blustered. “Then why say it?”

  “Because we can’t just have that money sitting around, it’s obscene.”

  “So you want to spend the lot?”

  Peter smiled at the Major while he tried to compose his thoughts as they kept drifting towards Reginald Graye in the basement.

  “Not necessarily, I don’t mind keeping some back for contingencies, but I think it would be a hell of a contingency that needed a nearly half a million.”

  “But just discussing the various things we could do with the money could be divisive.”

  “Not if we handle it carefully. The first thing is that we get the Church Council to agree on the best proposals and present them to the church for prayerful consideration.”

  The Major considered this.

  “But you personally would go for a community centre?”

  “Probably. The church is there to reach out in love to those around it; what better way than to provide a safe place to meet where we can demonstrate that love in action.”

  “What about using the money to fund an orphanage for children dying of AIDS in Africa?”

  “Sorry, what did you say?” said Peter his thought having drifted too far away from the conversation.

  “What about using the money to fund an orphanage for children with AIDS in Africa?”

  “Equally valid.”

  The Major nodded.

  “I was out in Africa three months ago on a short term project with the St Cedd Uphold Africa Association. Its one thing to read in the paper or see clips on the news; it’s quite different to be there. You don’t quite get the scale of the problem until you’ve been there.”

  “Shouldn’t we also put money into education to stop the spread of AIDS?”

  The Major thoughtfully shook his head.

  “Perhaps, but there are plenty of international projects on education and so forth, but they don’t seem to reach the villages where the children often lose both parents and grandparents.”

  They were both quite for a while, the Major remembering Africa and Peter remembering the basement. Eventually the Major got up.

  “Thanks for your time Peter. At least there might be one thing we agree on.”

  Peter showed him out and virtually fell into his study armchair; he was still feeling the effects of the migraine and was tired out. But one thing he was sure of, he could not tackle the Revd Graye and his legacy without help; but who from?

  Peter woke up about an hour later feeling stiff and uncomfortable. To wake himself up and think things through he took Aquinas for a walk. As usual Peter started up a one-sided conversation with him.

  “Well old boy this is not easy. I think there are three options. One, go to the police. Two, go to the police, but remove the money first. Three don’t go to the police.”

  They turned down the lane towards the church.

  “I wonder if I went to the police if we could keep the money? No that would never happen as they would consider the money as the rewards for fraud and therefore ill-gotten gains.”

  They turned into the churchyard.

  “So if I want to use the money I don’t go to the police.”

  They walked past the church and into the churchyard.

  “But do I want to use the money?”

  Peter stopped, whether subconsciously or not, he had come round to the back of the churchyard and was looking at his garden. Between the churchyard and the garden was a deep ditch, an overgrown hedge and beyond that the thicket of brambles and bushes that made up the end of his garden. The entrance to the air-raid shelter was completely invisible. Peter moved closer to the hedge and inspected the end of his garden bush by bush. Even then it took him twenty minutes to find the entrance to the shelter, and only then because he remembered looking at a Rowan tree in the churchyard. He found the tree, but had trouble finding the shelter. Of one thing he was certain; it would be a total accident if it were ever discovered from this approach.

  That evening Peter could not settle, even trying to watch a film did not work. In the end he went into the spare bedroom, knelt at his prayer desk, and emptied his thought to God. He was there quite a long time.

  Friday, being his day off, and not wanting to draw attention to himself, he took a drive in the Suffolk countryside. By chance he discovered the Sutton Hoo Centre and for a few hours he was lost in the world of the Anglo-Saxons. Friday evening he went to the real cinema and watched the latest Hollywood blockbuster. It was rubbish, but enjoyable rubbish all the same.

  Come Saturday, Peter had made up his mind. He called Mark and asked him if he was free to come over at some time. Mark was more than happy to come now as Lucy was away at her cousins for a break. When Mark arrived Peter sat him on the old pew in the hall.

  “Mark,” he said slowly.

  “This is delicate. I don’t want to put you in a difficult situation so it will work like this. I’ll show you my problem and we’ll take it from there.”

  Mark looked at Peter curiously, wondering what would come next.

  “Did you know this house has a basement?”

  Mark grinned.

  “Sort of. My dad used to say that the Navy had this house during the war and the large dyke between Felburgh Creek and the sea came from the hole they dug under the house. But we thought they filled it in before they left in ‘53.”

  “Do you know what they did here?”

  “No, it was dead secret; so secret that there was no disclosure after fifty years and we’ll have to wait until 2045 to find out.”

  Peter got up and went to Aquinas’ cupboard. After some persuasion he managed to get Aquinas to move; he then pulled out the dog-bed and opened the hatch.

  “Well shiver my timbers,” said Mark laughing, “What’s down there, the crown jewels?”

  Peter grinned as he replied, “nothing so easy.”

  Mark followed Peter into the basement. Peter couldn’t help noticing that Mark went down the steep steps facing forward, nautical style. Peter turned the lights on.

  Mark looked round. “Some place.”

  “I think it is bigger than the floor area of the house,” said Peter, “I think it runs out under the front lawn almost halfway to the lane.”

  He led Mark to the rear of the basement and turned on the tunnel lights. They started to walk down the tunnel, but Mark stopped a third of the way down. “Where does this lead to?” he said pointing towards a door in the wall of the tunnel. Peter in his first excursion down here had not noticed it as it was almost exactly between a pair of light bulbs.

  “Can we look at that later? What I want to show you is along here.”

  Peter led him into the air-raid shelter and turned on the lights. Mark took in the scene.

  “Secret hidey-hole,” he eventually said, “just what was he doing down here?”

  “Forging money. It looks like he was creating forged Euro notes. But you’d better read this.”

  Peter handed mark the copy of the suicide note. Then he showed him the three cupboards and the hoard of money.

  “This is some operation,” said Mark, “he could not have funded this himself. It must have taken him an age to get it set up.”

  “I have a suspicion,” replied Peter, “that he was not here long enough to produce any forged notes. There are none lying around and the one sheet in the printer isn’t quite right; if you hold it up to the light the double sided printing doesn’t line up properly.”

  Mark looked at Peter.

  “Just after the Revd Graye disappeared two very odd gentlemen appeared in the town looking for him. They looked just like a pair of hoodlums and they were certainly unimpressed when we said that he had just gone missing. They left town on a Friday and on the Sunday the vicarage was broken into. The police said that it was a professional job; we were not sure if anything was taken, but the place was certainly turned over.”

  “His associates,” said Peter.

  “Probably,” sai
d Mark, “Let’s just hope that they are not keeping an eye on this place. I would not want to fall foul of them on a dark night.”

  Peter considered this statement, and his general unease.

  “Right, lets call the police.”

  “Wait a mo,” said Mark, “let’s not be too hasty. If ‘is nibs has been down here since last summer and no one’s noticed then I reckon we are fairly safe.”

  “Someone must be noticing,” responded Peter, “someone must be paying the electricity bill.”

  Mark grinned like a Cheshire cat.

  “I expect that’ll be the army. They were the last to use our tower and they had great difficulty with the power supply. We were up to our maximum and the electricity board wouldn’t upgrade our own supply any more. The army ran in their own power cable from the sub-station by the old warehouse. They ran it down the edge of the churchyard in the ditch. They have been moaning ever since that their bill is too high - the meter is in the sub-station. They even accused us once of running the church heating off of their supply!”

  “Let’s hope they never check that cable,” said Peter, “that could land us in deep trouble.”

  They both pondered the problem. Eventually Mark said, “I’m game if you are.”

  “If we get caught it could mean prison.”

  “Only in the early stages,” said Mark, “Once we’ve disposed of the body and got rid of the red hard-drive we’re home and dry. We can deny all knowledge of the power supply tap and the police would have no proof it is not our money.”

  Peter laughed, “Oh it’s all so simple, we just dispose of a body so no-one notices and launder thousands of pounds with no one commenting!”

  They both went over to the money-cupboard and stared at the contents.