Felburgh

by Ivan B

  Peter said.

  “Let’s count the rest.”

  “The shaft?”

  “It can wait.”

  They counted the fivers. They amounted to £40,365. Then they tackled the twenty-pound notes. These yielded £75,480. They also discovered sixteen loose fifty-pound notes. Mar’s eyes suddenly went wide.

  “Hang on!” and looked at the fifty-pound notes again. “These have all got the same serial number – see” and he thrust one under Peter’s nose. “This cash must come from the forgery of fifty-pound notes and now he was turning his hand to Euros.”

  Peter said quietly, “£366,995. A little bit over a third of a million.”

  “If you call thirty odd thousand a little bit,” murmured Mark.

  Peter looked at Mark.

  “Do we go on, or do we stop here?”

  They pondered this and eventually Mark stood up.

  “In for a penny in for a pound, or rather a third of a million pounds.”

  Peter nodded.

  “But not one penny for us.”

  “Agreed.”

  Peter looked at his watch.

  “Still time for a quick explore?”

  Mark nodded and pulled two large torches with shoulder straps, and two hard hats out of his bag. Before Peter had a chance, Mark nipped over and swung himself into the shaft and started climbing down. Peter followed counting the hoops on the way down. He reckoned that the hoops were about eight inches apart and it was forty-seven hoops till they reached the bottom. Mark swung his torch onto the power cable; it disappeared into one of two rusty looking fuse boxes. The lever on the second fuse box was in the ‘off’ position.

  “Shall we?” asked Mark.

  “Why not,” said Peter.

  Mark pulled the lever up and a string of lights appeared highlighting a slightly curving tunnel with a pair of narrow-gauge railway tracks built into the floor. Mark swung his torch in the other direction; the tunnel obviously went somewhere else, but that portion was not lit. Meanwhile, Peter was studying some blue bags on the tunnel floor.

  “These are cash bags,” he said, and opened one. “Good grief it’s full of pound coins – how much more money will we find lying around?”

  They investigated the bags; there were four bags, three full of pound coins and one full of two-pound coins.

  “Are these forged or real?” asked Mark.

  “Real I think, unless they forged coins with different designs and dates.”

  “Curioser and curioser,” muttered Mark.

  Without speaking they started following the tunnel; it continued curving for about four hundred yards and then straightened up. It ran for some considerable distance and then ended abruptly under another shaft.

  Mark climbed up the shaft followed by Peter. When Mark reached the top he tried to open the hatch, but to no avail. He inspected it closely and then said.

  “Its welded shut. The welds are quite rusty so it must have been closed off some time ago.”

  “And from the inside.”

  Mark re-shone his torch, “Yes, from the inside. How odd.”

  They climbed down the shaft and retraced their steps. Mark kept count of how many paces it took. They then entered the unlit part of the tunnel, it was much shorter: probably less than a hundred yards. But this end of the tunnel was quite different: it ended in an underground room. The room was about forty feet long, half as wide and about ten feet high. The railway track ended about six feet into the room under an old rusting block and tackle.

  Peter shone his torch about.

  “You know what this reminds me of? An underground magazine, it’s very similar in size and shape to those I’ve seen under old World War Two gun batteries.”

  “Possibly,” replied Mark dubiously. “But why here and why hide it?”

  Peter remembered his conversation with Gracie.

  “I guess because they did something here that they wanted to keep secret both then and now.”

  They walked back to the moneybags, Mark again counting the paces.

  “What shall we do with this lot?” said Mark.

  “Leave it here, it’ll be safe; we’ll count it another day.”

  By the time they had closed the hatch it was nearly 6pm and Mark made a swift exit as he’d promised his wife he would be home for tea.

  Peter had barely settled down when his doorbell rang. It was Eva. Peter invited her in, but she said she was on her way home. She took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry about this morning; Jules is my boss and he sort of dragged me into it.” She blurted out.

  “Not Juan then.”

  She shook her head.

  “And I’m not Eva, I’m Hannah.” and she held out her hand.

  Peter shook it.

  “Thanks for coming back. But if that’s the way your newspaper works are you happy staying there?”

  She shook her head again.

  “No, I decided to move on a few weeks ago. Both Jules and Bill make me squirm, but I haven’t found anywhere yet. In my line of business you need a couple of decent articles and at least one exposé behind you before you can really get started.”

  A gem of an idea formed in Peter’s mind, it might be risky he thought, but it might pay off.

  “I can point you towards an exposé,” he said.

  She looked doubtful.

  “Have a close look at the funeral directors in town; you might find one and his techniques very interesting.”

  “Which one.”

  “Manager’s name begins with C.”

  “Thanks for the tip, and again I am sorry about this morning.”

  “That’s really OK.”

  Peter then finally managed to get himself something to eat. He was very conscious that he had done very little real work during the day, but could not settle down to paper work so he went upstairs and indulged in his second hobby. About eight-thirty Mark called on the telephone.

  “Hi,” he said, “I’ve been playing with some maps and it is all beginning to look interesting.”

  “In what way?” replied Peter.

  “I’ve had a go at placing the tunnel on the map and guess what. The far end, I think, finishes somewhere in the old factory site and I’m pretty sure that storage room is directly under the church.”

  Peter digested this.

  “Makes some sort of weird sense; you could always hope that the enemy would try not to bomb a church if it could help it. But I bet the good citizens of Felburgh would not be too happy about having some sort of arsenal beneath their feet on a Sunday morning!”

  “Don’t think it’s the full picture though. Make whatever it was in the factory - yes. Store the goods in the small room - yes. But then what?”

  Peter groaned.

  “Don’t tell me you think there is another exit, or tunnel, or shaft, please!”

  Mark replied quietly.

  “We’ll probably never know, but might be worth another look sometime. Oh Lucy is coming in. See you Saturday, bye.”

  As Peter was in his study he checked his e-mail - just one from Jasper. The curate would now be coming in six weeks time; apparently they had been given some special leave. Peter sent an e-mail off to the Diocesan Housing Office asking them where they were in housing the Revd Parker and asking for a copy of the rental contract.v He wanted to make sure that Jasper was not stitching him up too far and had no plans to house Charlie apart from in the vicarage.

  The following morning Peter went to St Cedd’s school to introduce himself. It was a mixed morning and as Peter had feared he could sign quite well enough for the children to understand him, but somehow he could not actually relate to them. Peter was also horrified at the poor standard of equipment the children were using. Most of it was adequate, but clearly well worn; some of it should have been thrown out years ago. Peter remembered his experience with Caroline and asked the head if they used web cams via the Internet to communicate with other deaf schools. The reply of ‘chance would be a fine thin
g’ just reinforced how under-funded they were. However, Caroline’s touch was plain to see; the school did not have the best equipment, but it must have had the finest wall paintings of any school in Suffolk. The head, Miss Huttle, saw him looking at the walls and praised Caroline to the hilt, apparently her art lessons needed to be seen to be believed. Before he left Peter tackled the head about the school’s funding. She gritted her teeth.

  “The County Council give us more than adequate funding overall, but it also has to cover building maintenance and teacher salaries. For the last two years we have invested in an extra teacher and tried to make the classrooms less bland and more colorful. The extra teacher has helped greatly, but at the cost of not being able to get the latest equipment. Its swings and roundabouts – we chose the roundabout.”

  “Right choice?” asked Peter.

  “Most definitely, people contact makes a considerable difference.”

  When Peter arrived back at the Vicarage, Mark was waiting for him on the doorstep.

  “We have a major, major problem,” he said.

  Mark took Peter straight to the church crypt and showed him the floor. Large cracks had appeared in the concrete.

  “It must be the vibration from the generator,” Mark explained. “The army has done test runs on it, but last Sunday was the first time it had to run continuously. It must have run for over four hours.”

  Peter did not comprehend what Mark was actually meaning, he shrugged.

  “Well let’s call the army up and get them to repair the damage.”

  Mark shook his head.

  “If I’m right then there will also be cracks in the ceiling of the storage room we found yesterday. If we call the army, they could discover the room below and follow the tunnel to…”

  But Mark did not have to finish; Peter had got the idea.

  “To the money,” he said.

  They stood looking at the cracks.

  “How often does the army come?” Asked Peter.

  “Not sure they have their own keys.”

  Peter walked over to a clipboard attached to the side of the generator.

  “By the looks of this they come every ninety days. That means they are due again in…”

  Peter worked through the dates in his head.

  “In five weeks.

  That gives us time to remove the money if we have to.”

  “What about the computer and air-conditioning unit?”

  “We’ll need to move them too, but I think I’ve found a good home for them.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow.

  “St Cedd’s school is in desperate need of good computers and large monitors.”

  Mark nodded .

  “Let’s go and look from underneath to make sure.”

  They went back to the house, through the hatch, across the basement, through the joining tunnel, into the air raid shelter, down the shaft, through the underground tunnel and into the storage room. Mark shone a torch up to the ceiling; they could not see any cracks, but it was obvious that large flakes of concrete had fallen off the ceiling. One brief look at the floor confirmed this.

  “How did we miss this before?” said Mark.

  “Because we weren’t looking for it,” replied Peter.

  They made their way back to the house and went to the kitchen to make a drink and think. As Peter put the kettle on Caroline appeared and signed to Peter,

  “Have you got any anchovies?”

  Peter replied, “Sorry, no.”

  “Can I use your computer?”

  “Of course.”

  She disappeared, heading towards the study. Mark had gone white.

  “What’s she doing here? I thought the front door was locked?”

  “I’d forgotten; she’s working upstairs in the attic ,” Peter replied smacking his forehead at the same time. “She’s been there since early Tuesday.”

  “You mean she was in the house on Tuesday afternoon when we left the hatch open for hours?”

  Peter sat down.

  “I just forgot she was here, I haven’t seen her or heard her and I totally forgot about her.”

  Mark shook his head in disbelief.

  “Do you think she’s noticed our coming and going?”

  “Thankfully, no; she would not have heard us and I don’t believe she’s come downstairs until now.”

  Mark shook his head again.

  “Gordon Bennett,” he said. “If she’d found us with the money…”

  They contemplated this fact in silence. Eventually Mark looked upwards.

  “How long is she here?”

  “I have no idea” answered Peter, “Tammy said it could be ten days or more.”

  Mark said, almost in a whisper.

  “We have got to shift that money.”

  “No need to whisper,” replied Peter, “she can’t hear us. We’ll just have to use the hatch to the garage to extract the money; the attic windows look the other way so Caroline will not see us.”

  Peter paused.

  “It’s not extracting the money, it’s going to be storing it. We can’t use anywhere in the house as Caroline is here and in any case Jo cleans the place like a dervish and would notice something odd. Is there anywhere in the church we could use?”

  Mark considered what he knew of the church.

  “No. The obvious place would have been the crypt, everywhere else is too public.”

  Peter snapped his fingers.

  “Can you fit a door-lock?”

  “Yale type?”

  “Yes.”

  “No trouble.”

  Peter smiled.

  “There’s under-eave storage in the flat over the garage and if we fit a lock on the door to it there’s plenty of room.”

  Mark relaxed slightly. They chatted some more about the logistics and agreed to move the money the following day during school hours; that way Bryan would not disturb them. Fortunately Peter knew that Albert went to a bowls club with Harriet on Thursdays, so he too would be out the way. As Mark was leaving, Henry arrived with a large carrier bag. “Essential supplies,” he said. “We’ve been through sardines with jam and Marmite with Salmon and have moved on to anchovies with custard, she must be doing well.”

  The following day it took the two of them four hours to move the money and paper up into the under eave storage and to put the computer and it’s peripherals, the dismantled desk and the air-conditioning unit into Peter’s Land Rover. It was a very tight squeeze and the main computer unit had to be strapped in the front seat. Thankfully they found a MOD symbol on every one of the old cupboards, so they could stay underground. They then checked over the air-raid shelter thoroughly for anything that might have been left by mistake. They then switched off the old fuse box and pulled out the cable. Mark pronounced the area clean and they retreated to the house. As Mark prepared to go he whispered to Peter.

  “Those moneybags full of coins; I have a use for one of them.”

  “Safely?”

  “Oh yes; the inshore lifeboat is having a boat pull through the town this weekend and is asking people to toss pound coins into the boat to help keep it running.” Mark grinned, “guess who’s got the job of counting the money and banking it, yours truly. It should be a piece of cake to shuffle in an extra few coins.”

  “Then be my guest.”

  Mark went into the flat and came out with a coin-bag hidden in a plastic carrier bag.

  “And Mark,” said Peter, “thanks.”

  Mark grinned again.

  “Haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years. Clandestine money, body disposal, church meetings in pubs, riots at weddings, not to mention the mafia running round in circles; it all helps to pass the time.”

  Mark climbed onto his motorbike and asked.

  “What now? Wait for the army?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “No. I think it best to use a little inter-service rivalry. I’m going to contact an old friend in the Navy; with any luck they will be so keen t
o cover their tracks that they won’t ask too many questions.”

  Mark looked dubious, but nodded.

  “Whatever we do could be fraught with problems, so give it a go.”

  Peter patted him on the shoulder.

  “Mark I will not bring you into this, as far as possible I will intimate that only I know of the situation, that might be easier all round.”

  Peter then drove over to St Cedd’s and delivered the computer. They were ecstatic, especially over the giant monitor and A1 printer. The only tricky moment was when Miss Huttle asked Peter where it had all come from, as she wanted to write a thank-you letter. Peter managed a white lie about a closed down factory. This was reasonably true Peter thought, but not the whole truth; however, the head was satisfied. The school declined Peter’s offer of setting up the computer, as one of the teachers was more than competent. Peter drove away feeling immensely satisfied. Just a mere third of a million to go he thought, but also made a silent promise that somehow a little bit of that money would go to the school for better facilities.

  Peter arrived home at about 4pm and went to his study. He had decided to contact his old friend Anthony; they had shared a house together at university and Anthony had gone into the Navy. The problem was how? He had no idea where Anthony was; however he knew a woman who would. Sure enough, Jane was still in contact with Anthony and his wife Alice. Once he had a phone number he phoned Alice, he had not talked to her for about ten years and even that conversation had been at a wedding (actually he thought, it had been their wedding!) Peter phoned and got Alice straight away; after a few minutes conversation he asked Alice if he could get in touch with Anthony; her reply surprised him.

  “I’m not sure you can directly, he’s just leaving for the Mediterranean. He should have left port by now, but you might get him on his mobile phone if he’s still within sight of the coast. Is it urgent?”

  “Not sure,” replied Peter, “but I’ll give it a go.”

  Peter then dialed Anthony’s mobile phone number. It rang and rang but there was no answer; Peter was just about to put the receiver down when a voice answered.