Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

Matlock recognized instantly the figure which had turned away from him at the stepping stones that morning. But some deeper, older nag of near-recognition was scratching at his mind.

He shifted his position slightly to try to get a better view of the man. Under his shoed foot a stone clinked.

The monk stopped and turned. He seemed to be peering doubtfully towards the shadows where Matlock stood, but the shadows on his own face were still impenetrable.

“Is that you, Brother James?” enquired a querulous, high-pitched voice.

A remembered voice.

An old man’s voice.

“My God,” said Matlock.

“Who is that?” asked the old man. Then with a sudden strength which echoed ancient authority.

“Who is that, I ask? Come out and show yourself.”

My God, breathed Matlock, now certain, but still desperately uncertain. Believing and incredulous at the same time.

He took three steps forward out of the shadows, then stood and shifted his hood back.

The monk stood like a weather-worn statue for a few moments then imitated the gesture revealing a thin ascetic face topped by a wiry tangle of white hair. It was a face which should have been long decayed in the earth. But the eyes were too full of a lively intelligence to belong to a ghost.

“Hello, Matt,” he said.

“Carswell?” said Matlock. “Carswell!”

The old man suddenly looked furtively around, pulling his hood back over his head.

“Come,” he said, beckoning like a figure from a Gothic novel, and he moved swiftly back into the Chapter House.

Matlock followed more slowly, still trying to catch his thoughts. His suspicions about the Abbey had been along these lines, but this dramatic and personal confirmation of them had caught him entirely unprepared.

Carswell, his one-time father-in-law had led the Party for over forty years, finally retiring well over the E.O.L. to enjoy the year of grace permitted to anyone retiring from a post which had held exemption privileges.

He should have been dead for seventeen years.

Now he sat like Death itself on the white marble which showed the last resting place of John de Cancia, the thirteenth-century abbot who had been responsible for many important developments at Fountains.

“Well, Matt,” he said, “I didn’t think we would ever meet again. Not after the last time.”

Matlock thought back to that last occasion they had come face to face.

A wet day. October. Gusty. Umbrellas full of air interfering with dignity. Substituting irritation for grief.

Edna’s funeral.

They had stood facing each other across the grave, the priest between.

Nothing had been said. Nothing dramatic was done much to the disappointment of the reporters and photographers with closely focused zooms resting on the cemetery wall.

“You should have let me know,” he said. “I’d have sent you a telegram on your hundredth birthday.”

Surprisingly, the old man laughed at the gibe.

“You remember that? The King used to do it. To mark a rarity. Even rarer now, isn’t it, but no telegrams. Wouldn’t do at all.”

“No, I suppose not. Well, Carsie. What’s the set-up? Are you going to tell me, or just leave me to make intelligent guesses?”

“You’d be good at that. But not Carsie, by the way. Adeste.”

“Adeste?”

“Brother Adeste Fideles. That’s me. We choose our own religious names. It seemed fitting.”

“O come all ye faithful.”

“That’s right. Wouldn’t do for you, Matt, would it? You shopped us all.”

A shadow passed over Matlock’s face then his mouth puckered with distaste.

“And you, Brother Adeste Fideles, have betrayed yourself.”

The old man grinned, his teeth gleaming white in the cavern of his cowl.

He’s in good nick, thought Matlock. Over a hundred. We could all be like that.

As if catching his thought, Carswell nodded vigorously.

“Here we are on the same side again, Matt. After all these years. That might be good. It might be bad. I don’t know. I’m too old for memories. Memories are the debris of life. When you get to my age, you start again. Dump the junk. But I do remember that you’re a dangerous man. That’s the first thing I thought when I first met you and talked with you. Here’s a dangerous man, I thought. Like Cassius. Or rather, like Brutus, the really dangerous one because it didn’t show too much to most people. But to me it showed. And you made my party. And you made my daughter. I suppose in a way, you made me. Leader of an insignificant minority group to Prime Minister of the most powerful government this country has ever known. Do you remember that day we met, the first cabinet, at my house? In the orchard? Every tree seemed packed full of the fruit of the tree of life. It was there for the picking. There for the picking.”

Matlock found himself trembling, with what emotion he did not know. The old man hadn’t finished.

“And I picked it, Matt. That’s what I’ve done. Me and a hundred others. All these Brothers going round with their cowls up. We’re the new immortals, whip back those hoods and you’d find a few faces you thought long gone. But you’d guessed all this?”

“In general terms. I was suspicious.”

“And that’s what you’re doing now? Having a prowl around to see what you can pick up? I bet you were headed for the Abbot’s rooms?”

He seemed to relapse into thought for a while, then he leapt to his feet.

“That’s not such a bad idea still, Matt. There are one or two bits of the jigsaw I’ve lost sight of lately. I’ll join the expedition if I may. In fact, as I know the layout of this place better than you, I’ll lead it. It won’t be the first time will it, Matt? Me leading, you in charge?”

There was nothing bitter in his voice but Matlock felt constrained to say something. He caught the old man by his arm as he brushed lightly past.

“Carsie,” he said. “I was sorry about Edna. Truly sorry.”

“Memories are debris, Matt. I told you that. You’d better be ready to ditch them if you’re joining the club. It’s the only rule.”

They set off together, the old man slightly ahead and seeming to find no need for stealth. They turned left out of the Chapter House, then left again down a passage which led into a smaller covered court, and then into another corridor, the Cloister Passage which Matlock knew led to the Infirmary with a branch off to the Chapel of Nine Altars and the body of the Church. He also knew from what Phillip had said and what he had seen in the Abbey plans in the history book that the Abbot’s rooms were above the court they had just left and that his own private corridor to the Church ran parallel to and above the Cloister passage. But how to get into the rooms other than by entering the Church (impossible while the service was on) and working back he did not know.

They now reached the right-angled offshoot to the main passage and without hesitation, Carswell turned up it. As they progressed along it, the sounds of the service in progress ahead grew louder and louder. Matlock became afraid that the old man intended to march full into the sanctuary and announce his presence. He reached forward a restraining hand.

“Not to worry. Matt,” said Carswell reassuringly. “Nearly there.”

“Nearly where?” hissed Matlock.

For answer the old man stopped and began feeling the wall.

Momentarily there was utter silence in the Church and Matlock was too intimidated by it even to whisper.

“Uh-huh,” said Carswell. “There we are.”

A section of the wall, to the eye solid stone, slid back smoothly and Carswell stepped into the space revealed, pulling Matlock after him.

The stone slid behind.