Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

The floor rose beneath their feet so unexpectedly that Matlock’s knees buckled slightly and he stumbled against his companion who gripped his elbow.

“Careful now. You’ve got to watch things at your age,” said Carswell with open irony. “It’s just a lift. Likes his creature comforts, does our dear Abbot. Here we are.”

The door slid open and they stepped out into another corridor. It might have been another world. There was no ancient stone here, dimly lit by smoky flambeaux but a smooth metal wall, with a plastic coated floor, all lit by concealed fluorescent lights.

The old man moved from one foot to another, almost dancing in his glee at the revelation.

“Like it? Nice eh? You’ve got to be special to get up here, you see. Not one of the religious boys.”

Matlock kept his face impassive as he looked around.

“Yes. Very nice, Brother Adeste. You mean there really are genuinely religious monks here?”

“Oh yes. But of course. We all are, really. But some of us have rather more esoteric Gods. But the most are your gen-u-ine Bible-punchers. Come and see.”

Matlock followed the old man to the nearest end of the corridor. Carswell reached up to the wall and slid aside a small section revealing a peep-hole.

“Look.”

Matlock peered through. He found he was looking down into the Abbey at right angles to the High Altar, at which stood the Abbot, his head bent in prayer. Then he was shoved aside and Carswell peeped down.

“Come on,” he said. “They’re skipping through it tonight. We haven’t got long.”

As they moved back, Matlock noticed a door in the wall to his right.

“What’s behind that?” he asked.

“That leads into the clerestory gallery. You can get right round it into the tower. But not tonight. It’s full of people who’d ask questions. This way, if you don’t mind.”

They pressed on back down the corridor, turning once through a right angle which confirmed Matlock’s estimate that they were following the exact line of the passage below.

“Here we are then,” said Carswell, coming to a halt before another door. “In we go.”

Matlock expected another great performance with concealed locks and catches, but Carswell merely thrust the palm of his hand forward and the door swung open. They passed through.

Once again there was a change of period, not so violent as the transformation from medieval to modem, but merely the gentle step back of about a hundred years. Or more or less, depending on how you dated it. It was a style which men of wealth and culture had affected for their private studies for many many decades and Matlock didn’t know whether its origin was Edwardian, Victorian, Regency or whether indeed it was any kind of historical style at all. Oak panelling, solid comfortable furniture, silver candelabra, a wall full of leather-bound books, a huge fireplace with what looked like a potentially serviceable arrangement of logs in the hearth, old prints on the wall and what looked like an ancestral portrait over the mantel-shelf. The figure depicted there wore eighteenth-century dress. His face was familiar, but the dress confused Matlock sufficiently to delay his recognition by a few seconds.

It was the Abbot, or someone closely related to him.

“Oh it’s him all right,” said Carswell at his elbow. “He’s got one of himself in an Elizabethan ruffle, but we all laughed so much when he brought that one out that he’s hidden it away.”

Matlock shrugged the picture’s fascination off him and turned to the rest of the room. There was an elegant writing bureau in the far comer and he moved purposefully over to it, ready to use violence. But it was unlocked and for the next couple of minutes he rifled quickly through all the papers it contained while Carswell stood and watched him. There was nothing there but the kind of paper one would expect to come across in the administrative centre of a place like the Abbey. Bills, accounts, work rosters, what looked like sermon notes.

Frustrated, he dumped the lot back where he’d found them and began casting round the rest of the room.

“What are you looking for, Matt?” asked Carswell politely.

Matlock stopped and faced the old man. “I’m not sure, Carsie. But now I come to think of it, you showed me up here, so there must be something you hoped I’d find. You tell me what that is, and perhaps I’ll be able to tell you what I’m looking for. In fact, I think we should have a long talk now. You might be able to tell me so much that I needn’t look for anything at all.”

The old man shrugged.

“What do you want to know, Matt? But wait a minute. Let’s know where we are, eh? Or rather where he is.”

He reached into a recess beside the bookcase. A television monitor slid silently forward. He flicked a switch. The screen glowed, then the High Altar appeared on it with the Abbot in clear view.

“That’s nice. Now Matt.”

He stood there with a kind of naive expectancy on his face. His cowl was down again and Matlock found it strangely hard to look into those still bright blue eyes.

This was a man he had once respected as much as anyone in the world.

But to the world it had seemed that he had used him then betrayed him.

Finally, controlling his voice with his will, he said, “How many of you are there here? Over the top, I mean.”

“One hundred and sixty-three over. Twenty-two waiting.”

“Who are these men?”

Carswell grinned.

“Oh, all sorts and conditions. Lots of old friends. Thurlow, my Chancellor — you’ll remember him; Jenkins; Whitmarsh from the Treasury; Field Marshall Curwen — he’s a great help — Sir Augustus Terce, the old King’s physician; Herb Slattery of Force Physics Inc.; oh you could write a Who’s Who from our ranks, or rather a Who Was Who, eh?”

“Tell me about this place, Carsie.”

The old man settled into one of the voluminous armchairs drawn up by the hearth, lighting a cigar from a box on one of the many stone ledges of the fireplace. As an after-thought he pressed a switch near the floor and instantly the logs burst into flame.

“You fool,” said Matlock. “He’ll know.”

Carswell smiled and moved the switch again. The flames died. The logs were unchanged.

“It’s like hell. All-consuming flames which never consume. Here we go again.”

The flames licked their way up the chimney once more.

Seating himself opposite the old man, Matlock found that the scene — the dark panelled room, the great fire, the whitehaired benevolent looking old monk, his features now sharp now shadowed in the shifting light of the fire — was having a strangely soporific effect upon him. It was like moving into the archaic world of a picture on a Christmas card. He had to wrest his mind round to full attention to the old man’s words. He had dropped the flip, casual style of speech he had effected since their meeting, and reverted to the old lectorial style Matlock remembered very clearly.

“The main difficulty of beating the Age Laws has always been one of organization. Any fool with enough money can go for Op, skip the country and lead whatever precarious semi-legal life his wealth can buy him in whatever other country will let him in. Switzerland’s the only real answer in Europe and they’re so full of Age-Law refugees of all nationalities that they work an unofficial quota system — and only the very very rich even get on the waiting list.

“Scotland’s the only other European country without Age Laws and at best all an Englishman can expect there is confiscation of his assets and a labour camp. Utopian rumours of certain South American states reach us from time to time. But what trust can you put in rumour? and we’re all so isolated now.