The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  “I say again, very quick.” A fist was bunched beneath Brother Paul’s nose. The fist pushed. Brother Paul gave a hoot of hurt surprise, very offended; The Long Knife pushed past and entered the monastery’s plush hall. “Go now and do as you were told. Quickly.”

  “Oh, all right! Who shall I say it is?”

  The man grinned, showing very white teeth. “No names. Just go.”

  Two minutes later The Long Knife was closeted with Reverend Father, the latter showing an unusual degree of respect and deference. “Just tell me what you want,” he said, “and it’ll be seen to promptly. Once the question of finance has been discussed, that is.”

  The Long Knife waved a heavy hand. “That is taken care of. My associates in this country will deposit two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling in Geneva. You will be notified when this has been done, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so to what I wish. It is simple. First there is the matter of security, of safety. For me, whilst I am in the United Kingdom.”

  “Oh, you’ll be very safe here,” Reverend Father said with confidence. “No-one will —”

  “I do not wish to remain here in this place. Not for very long. Here is a list.” The Long Knife reached across Reverend Father’s desk and took up a notepad. From a pocket he drew a biro and began writing rapidly. “It is a list of names,” he said, “of persons I have to meet in secrecy. This you will please arrange soonest possible.”

  He finished writing and handed the list across. Reverend Father scanned it. Many of the names were those of well-known persons in politics, men and women from both sides of the political spectrum, right and left though mainly far right and far left. Reverend Father understood that; in the same way as love in the opinions of psychiatry is close to hate in the circle of human emotion, so the extremes of right and left had much in common, the operative word being dictatorship. And Reverend Father, in his role of Cousin Wally at all events, knew precisely what The Long Knife’s mission was. Among the names were those of high-ranking officers of the armed forces and of the law. Other names were not familiar. Reverend Father pursed his lips. He asked, “Are all these people to give you their support?”

  “No.” The Long Knife uttered a harsh laugh. “Some most certainly will not. Therefore they are better, shall we say, removed from public life.”

  “From public life?”

  “From life.”

  “Yes. I had an idea you meant that.”

  “And your reaction, Reverend Father?”

  “Rather poor, I’m afraid. If you’re suggesting I arrange for these persons to come here for your convenience, then I’m sorry I really can’t oblige —”

  “That is not what I want, Reverend Father. I understand the difficulty. This place would immediately be investigated if it was known that the persons had come here —”

  “Quite. And of course it bloody well would be known.” Reverend Father sat back in his chair, closed his eyes in thought and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. One of the names on the list was that of Cousin Eustace Hedge, causing Cousin Wally to wonder why the Germans should bother with him. Another was Ms Gunning, of whom Reverend Father had heard mention in his club, which was the Athenaeum. An indiscreet remark by a somewhat inebriated MP had slipped into Cousin Wally’s eavesdropping ear the information that ‘the bloody Gunning woman’ worked for MI5.

  Cousin Wally didn’t see what could be done about Ms Gunning but Cousin Eustace would be very useful in a number of ways. In the meantime, he had no intention of revealing the family connection to his visitor. He asked, “What do you wish me to do, then, in the matter of putting you in contact with these people?”

  The Long Knife indicated the list, which was in two columns. “Those in the first column can be brought here at your invitation. Those are the ones who will assist. They will already know that they are to be summoned and they will not talk indiscreetly. The names in the second column are for disposal.”

  “Ah. Disposal — by whom?”

  The Long Knife leaned forward, stared into Reverend Father’s eyes. “You are known to my principals. You are trusted by them. This you know.”

  “Yes —”

  “And they know that you have many contacts among people who can arrange such deaths. It should be very easy … and there is a need for speed. The time for the strike is coming fast now.”

  “So I’m to be the middle man?”

  “Yes. For which you are being very well paid. And afterwards you will be much honoured.”

  “H’m.” Reverend Father rubbed at his chin. The name of Hedge was in the second column, the disposal one. So were the names of Mrs Heffer and of the Leader of the Opposition.

  *

  The Long Knife said he would stay overnight and would then be on his way. He didn’t say where that way would take him. (He said that in due course, no dates given, a number of other men and women would be arriving at the monastery from Germany. Reverend Father would be expected to accommodate them and at the proper time to infiltrate them into the wider world together with the necessary documents to enable them to exist officially — National Insurance, National Health, this, that and the other. This was right up Reverend Father’s street, no problem at all.) And Reverend Father knew in broad outline what The Long Knife had come to achieve, which was the take-over of Britain. Just that. People in high places had already been primed up. It should be easy, according to The Long Knife. Hitler had done it. Take over the reins of power and the populace would follow like sheep. They were largely sick to death of party politics, the inevitable musical chairs of Mrs Heffer and Mr Cannock. The Long Knife’s outfit would provide the thrust that the various facets of the Liberal Party and the Greens had failed to provide. The people would thereafter be happy. A fait accompli was always better than a lot of talk and promises about bigger retirement pensions, more hospitals and play groups and what-have-you. The people demanded positive action to break the mould, which was of itself a somewhat old-fashioned phrase now. The mould was now unbreakable. Except by The Long Knife. In his own view.

  Reverend Father knew of course that the British were a different kettle of fish from the Germans. They wouldn’t stomach another Hitler. But Reverend Father, with the perspicacity of Cousin Wally, didn’t argue the point. There was cash to be made from both sides. All he had to do in the meantime was to humour The Long Knife and play along with him so far as it suited. He would make good use of Cousin Hedge.

  And there was something, or someone, else.

  Reverend Father said, “I have a man in custody. An intruder.”

  “Who is this person?”

  “He refuses to talk. Perhaps you’d care to have a word with him?”

  *

  Hedge’s telephone rang. The sound jangled at overwrought nerves and Hedge, cursing, took up the handset. It might be MI5 again, checking that he had remained inside his house as per orders. They could never leave anybody alone.

  It wasn’t MI5. The voice, instantly recognisable, said, “Hullo. Is that Mr Hedge?”

  Oliphant. Hedge broke out into a heavy sweat. Damn Oliphant: the line was sure to be tapped and but for his thought that it might be MI5 he wouldn’t have answered. He said in a high squeak, “Yes it is and I don’t know who you are —”

  “Come off it, ducky. Just to say you’re wanted you know where. All right?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hedge said loudly, and banged the receiver down. Oliphant was Oliphant but he was no fool, or anyway Hedge hoped he wasn’t; he would tick over, guess something was up, and not ring again.

  He did ring again. Or someone did and Hedge wasn’t going to risk further Oliphant. He shook with worry but let the instrument go on ringing. Eventually it stopped. Hedge poured himself a stiff shot of whisky. He reflected that it could have been just Mrs Millington with news of her sick sister-in-law. But when the phone rang again he still didn’t answer. About twenty minutes later his front door bell ra
ng. He peered down from a window; his visitors were hidden by the porch. Shaking, he went down to the hall and opened up. The fat man was there again. So was Ms Gunning.

  “A few more words, Mr Hedge,” the fat man said. “If we might come in.”

  “I suppose I’ve no option,” Hedge said.

  “You could put it that way, Mr Hedge.”

  Hedge led the way upstairs to his study. On arrival he saw the way Ms Gunning was looking at the whisky decanter and the half-empty tumbler and he heard her very audible sniff. The fat man wasted no time at all.

  “You failed to answer the phone, Mr Hedge. Why was that?”

  Hedge opened his mouth but no inspiration came. The fat man said, “Allow me to suggest why. You believed it might be the earlier caller again. The man who addressed you as ducky.” There was an unpleasant intonation in the fat man’s voice as he uttered the ducky. “Is this not the case, Mr Hedge? Well,” he added when Hedge didn’t answer, “let us assume it was, in the absence of any denial. And we would like very much indeed to know who the caller was, why you were wanted, and whereabouts you-know-where is. It might assist you if I was to reveal that our tap identified the call as coming from the house of your cousin Mr Walter Crushe-Smith. In South Kensington, that is.”

  There was a wealth of meaning in the tone as the fat man spoke of South Kensington. Hedge racked his brains, wondering how to explain Oliphant. He was saved too much thought when the fat man said, “Not the Stockbridge area. Which we rather think is where you-know-where is. Am I right, Mr Hedge?”

  “I really don’t know. You ask such confusing questions.”

  “Then allow me to refer you back to that telephone call,” the fat man said, and added in an unfriendly tone, “ducky.”

  There was another sniff from Ms Gunning. It was likely enough, Hedge thought, that she acted as MI5’s sniffer-out of homosexuals. Urged again by the fat man to reveal where you-know-where was and to confirm that that was where he had been bidden to by Oliphant, Hedge’s resistance went into collapse.

  “Yes,” he said abjectly. “I really don’t know why I didn’t say so straight away.”

  “Nor do we, Mr Hedge.”

  “I’ve done my best to be helpful and — and honest with you. Indeed I’ve always done my best for — for the Empire, don’t you know —”

  “The Empire, Mr Hedge?” This time there was a snort from Ms Gunning: she had no time for dinosaurs. The fat man was smirking.

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” Hedge said testily.

  “For Queen and Country?”

  “Yes. I’ve done my duty.”

  “Quite, Mr Hedge. Now further duty awaits. We shall go to you-know-where. All three of us. This should prove interesting.”

  Hedge felt suddenly faint. Blood rushed to his head, overwhelmingly. He couldn’t possibly arrive at the monastery in company with MI5. Cousin Wally would be wily enough to reveal things hostile to Hedge’s somewhat shaky position whilst not revealing anything dangerous to himself. Cousin Wally was a rotter, a term that to Hedge conveyed everything that was ungentlemanly, selfish, dishonest and generally unpleasant. And, vis-à-vis Cousin Wally, Hedge was not exactly innocent. There was that extorted undertaking to help him by reporting things gleaned in the course of his Foreign Office duties. There was also the reverse side of that coin: the Head of Security, who had allotted him the task of working his way into Cousin Wally’s confidence and reporting that way as well. A number of cleft sticks loomed, but in a sudden flash Hedge saw that the Head of Security could be made good use of in his current dilemma.

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “Go with you to Stockbridge, I mean.”

  “Why is that, Mr Hedge?”

  “Because my — er — cover would be blown. I’ve already, I think, told you that my chief has given me certain orders concerning Stockbridge. I must follow those orders. You’ll surely understand that.”

  “There are times, Mr Hedge, when matters of national security over-ride the Foreign —”

  “But for heaven’s sake … the Head of Security is national security —”

  The fat man brushed this aside. “And this happens to be one of those times, Mr Hedge. I must insist.”

  Hedge had been prodded in a sensitive area. The Foreign Office stood supreme in the Establishment hierarchy and was never to be set aside by common minions of MI5, mere jumped-up policemen and cocky with it. “If you continue to insist as you call it, I shall at once report the matter to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, who will report it to the Foreign Secretary. The Prime Minister, whose confidence I enjoy in the fullest measure, will also be informed … and I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the two of you were suspended from duty and charged with — with blasted treason against the best interests of the crown and state —”

  The fat man lifted a hand, soothingly. “Really, Mr Hedge, there’s no need to go overboard. Naturally, I shall confirm my request with your Head of Security. This I shall do at once. If I may make use of your security telephone?”

  *

  Brother Peter had been sent down with another brother to unlock Shard’s cell.

  “Is this a release?” Shard asked, knowing what the answer would be.

  “Reverend Father wants to see you. There’s another bloke with him.”

  “Another brother?”

  “If he is, he’s lay. Don’t reckon he’s English. Good-looking, though. Strong with it, all muscle, lovely … anyway, come on out or Reverend Father’ll be ever so angry and then he’ll take it out on me.”

  Shard left the cell. Brother Peter and his mate both carried handguns and the mate looked dangerous, with a sort of crazed look in his eye. While Brother Peter led the way the other brother kept his gun pressed firmly into Shard’s spine. They went along the cell passage, up some stairs to a green-baize door and through this into the hall. Thence up a wide and graceful staircase leading to what Shard took to have once been a minstrels’ gallery. Off this gallery another corridor opened, a short corridor with a heavy door at its end. Brother Peter knocked at this door and was admitted. He stood aside for Shard to enter, falling in behind him with his gun at the ready.

  “Done what you said, Reverend Father —”

  “All right, Brother Peter. You can both go.”

  “Yes, Reverend Father.”

  “Make sure the door’s locked and stand guard outside.”

  “Yes, Reverend Father.”

  The brothers turned away and left the room. Reverend Father, or Cousin Wally, appeared to be alone. But not for long. A tall, muscled man emerged from the lee of thick curtains drawn back from a big window that gave on to wooded parkland. He stood beside Reverend Father’s desk, looking Shard up and down. He carried no overt weaponry but his whole aspect was threatening, blood-thirsty, the look of a born killer who enjoyed his work. Shard knew instinctively that this was the man they called Klaus The Long Knife, the man with the mission against the United Kingdom.

  Nine

  Hedge’s submissions had paid off. Telephoned on the security line, his chief had stood by him. He had a use for Hedge and didn’t want him blown to Cousin Wally. The fat man, however, had stood his ground: it was vital, for certain reasons, that Hedge should confront his cousin in the presence of MI5. They wanted, the fat man said down the phone, no worms in the woodwork.

  “Meaning Mr Hedge?”

  “If the cap fits, sir.”

  “It doesn’t, and if I were you I’d watch my words.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I shall have to insist —”

  “So shall I. However, to satisfy you, I shall contact the Permanent Under-Secretary of State.”

  It was a wordy wrangle; so wordy and protracted and eventually one conducted in such frigid tones of upset protocol and relative status, that it went, as predicted by Hedge, to the Foreign Secretary. And thence, by sheerest chance owing to the sudden and unexpected arrival of Mrs Heffer in the Foreign Office, to the Prime Minister herself.

&nbs
p; Mrs Heffer caught the end of the telephone conversation. “What’s all this about Mr Hedge, Roly, or isn’t it really Sedge?”

  “Hedge, Prime Minister.”

  “Hedge, then. Such a splendid person, and that dastardly attack.” Mrs Heffer glanced in a handy mirror behind the Foreign Secretary and patted at her hair-do before sitting down. “Well, Roly, what is it all about?”

  Rowland Mayes explained in some detail: Mr Hedge was in something of a pickle. His loyalties were in doubt.

  “In doubt, Roly?”

  “Well, Prime Minister, let us say a slight cloud —”

  “What utter nonsense,” Mrs Heffer broke in briskly. “Not Mr Sedge — Hedge. Who says so?”

  “I understand,” Rowland Mayes said with diffidence, “that MI5 —”

  “An unreliable bunch,” Mrs Heffer stated. “Always looking under beds. We must never forget Mr Hedge’s sterling work during that wretched business with Moscow — the threat of poisoned water supplies by that mad German. And talking of mad Germans,” Mrs Heffer continued, changing tack a little away from Hedge, “it is because of that other mad German that I’m here.” It was certainly most unusual for the mountain to come to Mahomet, Rowland Mayes reflected with a certain amount of unease. The PM normally summoned people and expected them to arrive at Number 10 even before the telephone had been put down. “The Long Knife, I mean.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister?”

  “Has he, or has he not, arrived in this country?”

  “That is not yet known, Prime Minister —”

  “Why not? That man who was reported off where was it, Worthing — has there been no progress on that?”

  “There is nothing known for certain, Prime Minister —”

  “Then it is time there was, Roly. This wretched affair is to be given the first priority. The whole security of this country may be at stake. All these wretched neo-Nazis rearing their heads and making trouble, one will simply not know whom one can trust which I think is a very unsatisfactory situation and it’s time it was taken seriously.”

  “It is being, Prime Minister, I assure you. But it’s primarily a Home Office concern and —”