Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

He was standing two thirds of the way down a long reception room brightly lit by three scintillating crystal chandeliers. Young girls in national costume were walking round with trays of drinks. Three of scotch for every one of anything else. A long table at the far end of the room was covered with a profusion of Scottish confections and produce, from smoked salmon to black bun.

In the centre of the room as of right, and in the centre of the largest and liveliest group, was his host, Fergus McDonwald, His Excellency the Scottish Ambassador to England. Matlock could dimly remember his first appearance in London. “My dear,” a Foreign Office acquaintance had said to him, “there’s no such man. It’s a character actor they’ve hired for the part. It must be. And such a ham! That voice and that beard!”

That voice, roughly burred, with a guttural lilt to it, was booming out from above that beard, rich red just lightly flecked with the silver which told the man’s age. He was an imposing figure, nearly six and a half feet tall with breadth of shoulder to match. He wore the dress kilt of his clan and looked in no way ridiculous despite the malice of many of his guests. A good story about him (there were many) related that a particularly strident lady columnist had asked him what he wore under his skirt. He had instantly raised his kilt and shown her. Then advancing on her he cried, “And what d’ye have hidden under yer ain, my dear?”

She fled.

Those who met the man realized that if the story were not true, it was still necessary to invent it.

McDonwald’s pale blue eyes caught Matlock’s gaze upon him and he paused in his conversation, or rather his monologue, to wave genially across the room, the delicate white lace at his wrist falling back from the huge deep-lined hand.

Matlock waggled the heavy glass back and some of the contents slopped over his hand. He transferred the glass to the other and shook the drops off energetically.

“I say, steady on,” said a tall young man turning to see what had dampened the back of his neck. Matlock recognized Browning’s aide who had called for him that morning.

“Hello there! Clive, isn’t it? How are you, Clive? And the master, Clive? How’s the master?”

Others of the group turned and looked at Matlock. I must be a bit drunk, he thought. Clive stared at him coldly for a moment, opened his mouth as if to speak, then turned away without saying a word.

He was going to put me down with a sharp quip, thought Matlock gleefully, but he changed his mind. They must still be hoping I’ll play.

“Ladies and gentlemen!”

An unmistakable voice was bellowing from the centre of the room. Fergus McDonwald used no M.C. He did his own shouting.

“I just want to say how glad I have been to have you all under my roof tonight. You know I’m not much of a hand at standing in a draught, shaking hands and saying good-night, and anyway I hate to stop people enjoying themselves. But I must be off to my dinner just now. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to it. Stay as long as you want. The scotch will last longer than you lot, eh?”

He gave a laugh then ploughed his way through the guests towards Matlock who watched his approach with a fixed smile on his face.

“Matt Matlock!” cried McDonwald in a voice which was audible in every comer. “You’ll be stopping for a wee bite with us? Come along, eh?”

His great arm rested like a yoke round Matlock’s shoulders and he was steered unresisting towards the door. Before they left the room Matlock caught a glimpse in a mirror of the crowd of wildly surmizing faces they left behind. In their centre was Browning’s man, his face impassive.

“The world will know,” he said as the door closed behind them.

“Know what, eh?”

“That we’re just good friends.”

The red-haired man laughed immoderately but did not pause in his progress down the long corridor which lay before them. Matlock was almost trotting to keep up with the man’s powerful strides.

“What’re we doing? Working up an appetite?”

“Oh, how I love your English wit.”

They reached the end of the passage and as they did so the door facing them opened. McDonwald swept him in without pause.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to one of two uncomfortable looking chairs which were the room’s only furnishings. The total effect, despite the better state of the walls and ceiling, was much the same as that of the room where he had talked with the Abbot.

“No thanks,” he said.

“The Laird said ‘sit’,” said a voice so deep and accented it made McDonwald’s sound like a middle-class drone. From behind the door, shutting it with his shoulder as he stepped forward, came a figure not much more than five feet high and just as broad. His head was shaped like a cottage loaf, wide-jawed rising to a low peak at the black-thatched crown. His nose looked as if it had been added as an afterthought in plasticine and his eyes were tiny and blankly evil. Brother Francis seemed a happy memory.

“Sit,” he repeated jabbing Matlock in the chest with a finger like an iron rod.

Matlock staggered back, the creature advanced. McDonwald said in a mildly admonitory tone, “Now Ossian,” and Matlock brought his right hand round, fully expecting to break his wrist.

He was still holding the whisky glass.

It shattered with a mild explosive noise as it crashed into Ossian’s head just above the left ear. His face registered little change except for the superficial embellishment of a great ribbon of blood which flowed swiftly from his temple to his nose, and he sank to the floor without a murmur.

Matlock looked at his hand which still clutched the solid base of the glass. The broad silver ring he wore on his middle finger had a drop of blood like a ruby perched upon it. He dropped the base and looked intently at his open palm. It was unmarked. He bent down and wiped the ring carefully on the unconscious man’s jacket.

“Now,” he said, “What about dinner?”

“What do you think this is?” asked McDonwald. “A bloody fight behind the fives court? Just because you’re drunk enough to knock this bungler out doesn’t mean you impress me, Matlock. You’ll sit for me now.”

Matlock sat, wearily.

“What about him?”

“Succour for the fallen foe, eh? He’ll be all right just now. I wouldn’t be around if I were you.”

“I’d like that.”

“In that case, just tell me quickly what I want to know. What was Browning’s offer?”

“A seat in the Cabinet.”

“You accept?”

“Not yet.”

“And that bloody rambling priest?”

“He wasn’t as generous. He merely threatened to kill me if I came to terms with Browning.”

“That all, eh?”

“Oh yes.”

“Nothing about me.”

“Oh no.”

Oh yes — a great deal about you, my kilted Celt. Enough to have made me more careful.

“Now listen to me, Matlock. We don’t like you much in Scotland. We have long memories there.”

“Then you’ll remember that it was me who made you independent.”

“Aye. And we remember what you said.”

The Scots had been agitating for decades for some form of independent government. The Age Law proposals were used as the basis of yet another great wave of patriotic protest. People were taking to the hills in droves. Matlock was badgered day and night in and out of Parliament. A militant group in Edinburgh occupied St Andrew’s House and proclaimed secession. Their broadcast statements were so anti-English in tone that Matlock was urged from all quarters to send the troops in. He didn’t. He accepted the secession, gave two days grace for transference across the border either way, required all Scots domiciled or wishing to remain in England to register as aliens, deported those who wouldn’t, including the entire Scottish Nationalist Party in Parliament, and threw a line of barbed wire across the border which was later replaced by what the papers called a prefabricated version of Hadrian’s wall.