Matlock's System

7

You “must be tired, Mr. Matlock,” said the Abbot.

“Not too tired to talk, Abbot,” said Matlock, determined to take an early initiative. But in fact great waves of exhaustion were swelling over his eyes and nothing seemed more attractive than sleep.

The old wrinkled face looked at him kindly and there were the beginnings of a smile round the mouth.

“Yes, I think to talk. There is much to talk about, Mr. Matlock, and I would not have you feel that you were at any disadvantage. A few hours’ sleep first. You have had a trying time.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” yawned Matlock.

“I hope you will be comfortable. We pay more attention to comfort here in the Strangers’ House than in our own cells, but our store is not great, and the demands on it are many.”

Matlock looked round the simply furnished room. A narrow bed, a chair, a cupboard.

“This is fine,” he said, sitting on the bed.

“I will see you later then, Mr. Matlock.”

“Of course.”

Matlock drew his legs up on to the bed then allowed his head to sink back on the pillow.

“Till later then,” said the Abbot as he closed the door.

Matlock was already asleep.

He awoke from a dream of Lizzie so real that he was physically excited and put out his hand to seek her beside him. Then he sat up and looked around the darkened room, taking a second or two to realize where he was.

His excitement quickly faded and he lay back, staring sightlessly at the changing dapples of light on the ceiling. Outside, the river which threw the light bubbled and hissed over the stones. It must be running low. It had been a hot summer. Mingled with it were other noises, separable only after many minutes’ quiet listening. A fragment of birdsong. The long hoot of an owl (not very merry in spite of Shakespeare). Occasional water noises which were more than just the flow of the stream. Small things plunging.

If there weren’t so many of us, more of us could hope to hear this, he thought. Then he smiled at the old familiar paradox of the words.

What is the answer then? Compulsory birth control? Surely it’s better to control death than love? But we would not control love only the begetting of children. Then you have an old man’s world, a world in which a man cannot hope to achieve anything worthwhile till he’s seventy or eighty.

The Long Adolescence.

One of my phrases that. Good of its kind.

Was I right?

No matter, thought Matlock as he turned on his side and stared at the old-fashioned curtained window. No matter. What I have seen these past years is nothing of my begetting. It is not what I started.

It is not what I intended.

“It is no matter!” cried Matlock, sitting upright on the narrow, hard bed.

The window drank up his words, diluted them with the river, and washed them away as though unspoken.

He realized that a new sound had joined the noises of pure nature which filled the room. Yet in its way it too was river-like, flowing, swelling, ebbing, sinking.

It was the monks chanting at their evening service in the Abbey.

Now he rose from his bed and went to the window. He was facing the river and therefore quite unable to see the Abbey, but the chant came to him quite clearly now. On an impulse he opened the small window wide and stepped through it — with some difficulty — on to the river-bank.

The night was warm but fresh. He knelt by the water and bathed his hands and his face till he felt fully awakened. Then he moved off along the edge of the Strangers’ House till he cleared the corner and was able to see across to the main group of buildings of the Abbey itself.

When he had arrived at the Abbey earlier in the day, this had been his first view of it for over fifty years. The sight which had met him was one he would never forget. He knew that reconstruction had taken place, he knew the Meek had begun to build again. But still in his mind had been that curious mixture of artifice and nature which is called a ruin, mighty pillars growing from grass; great arched windows framing trees and hills and sky; chambers with floors of turf, and paving-stones with roofs of cloud; birds nesting in clerestories and flowers growing out of capitals.

Instead as they levelled off their flight, then began to drop more sedately towards the grass before the West Doorway, he saw beneath him a complete building, arches unbroken, roofs unpierced, windows glazed, gutters leaded. The sight had struck him so powerfully that he paid little notice to the group of welcomers gathered outside the doorway, until the helicopter landed.

The Abbot had come forward smiling and greeted Francis with a chaste embrace and a kiss on the cheek. Matlock had been treated to a mere handshake, but his attention was still more involved with the building behind than the people in front of it.

“You will see it later, Mr. Matlock. All we have shall be shown to you. But first let us attend to your bodily needs.”

And he had been led politely but firmly away from the Abbey itself across the grass to where, by the river, stood the Guesthouse for Strangers. Then had come the tiredness and the Abbot’s insistence that he should sleep before they talked. Now he had slept. It was time to talk.

It was an eerie experience to move through the soft darkness of the night towards the source of that old music. The west window was only dimly lit and he realized that the main activity of the service would be taking place at the east end. When he reached the door he hesitated momentarily; he had been properly brought up and knew that you never interrupted a man at prayer or sex. If entry had meant opening the double outer doors he would probably have waited, but there was a smaller door built into one side of the large one and it swung noiselessly open at the touch of his hand. He stepped into an ill-lit porch and a couple of steps more took him to an inner door under which shone a faint crack of light from the nave beyond. There was no small door for inconspicuous entry this time and he had gripped the great iron ring of the door handle and was about to turn it when a thin but very bright beam of light flickered across his eyes, then went out.

“Allow me, Brother,” said a gentle educated voice with a touch of Norfolk in it.

Out of the darkness came a robed figure. Matlock was still too dazzled to see him as anything but a silhouette, his grey robes just visible against the general blackness. But when the man opened the door for him and the thin light from the church spilled out he saw that he was a slight, grey-haired man with a smile whose benevolence fitted the robes of his Order.

“Brother Phillip,” said the monk by way of self introduction. “We thought you might care to join us, Mr. Matlock. It is my humble duty this evening to sit at the threshold and welcome any wayfarers who may chance this way in search of rest. Pray enter.”

“Thank you,” said Matlock and passed into the Abbey.

“I will see you later I hope, Brother,” said Brother Phillip, and closed the door gently behind him, leaving Matlock pondering what kind of rest chance wayfarers might expect from the Mark 2 Force Rifle he had glimpsed propped up against the wall before Brother Phillip had closed the door.

But the interior of the Abbey swept such profane thoughts out of his mind. The nave stretched before him for a distance he reckoned at about a hundred yards, and the arch of the roof seemed almost a similar height above, though this he recognized as an illusion caused by the mingling of the dim night light filtering through the clerestory windows with the brighter but even more deceptive shiftings of fume and shadow cast by the torches below. For at first glance the only illumination, at this end of the nave at least, seemed to be these comet shaped brands stuck in brackets attached to every third or fourth pillar. But the eye was drawn irresistibly down the nave, across the transept, through the choir (the terms came unbidden to his mind) to where brilliantly illumined against what seemed the sombre background of a great East Window, the High Altar stood.

He also realized he had viewed this scene before. On the television set at his first meeting with the Abbot.

He turned swiftly and peered up at the dark wall behind. There seemed to be some kind of cavity almost at the very top and he strained his eyes to penetrate the mirk when a rustle of noise behind him made him swing round just in time to see the floor of the nave rise up and burst into a thousand tongues of flame. The truth he realized almost simultaneously, but that almost left enough time to step back a pace and taste superstitious fear deep in the throat.

What had happened was that several hundred monks, dark-robed, cowled, lying prostrate on the floor and shielding close in their hands the small flame of a candle, had stood up.

Now the chant which had caught his attention as he made his way over to the Abbey and which had so blended with the background that he had ceased to notice it, was taken up by the entire congregation and the sound rose with the multiple blaze of the candles and filled the arch of the roof. The light brought the ceiling closer but did not make it any the less impressive. Now the only part of the building in darkness was the corridor of the clerestory where the shadows of the massy pillars, whose double column ran before him down the nave, became even blacker in the new light. Again as Matlock looked up he had a sense of movement, of darker shadows in the shadow but he could not be certain.

Suddenly the chant rose to a climax then stopped. The silence was as complete and eerie as if the birds had stopped singing in an orchard on a summer’s day. The light dimmed as the monks cupped their candles in their hands once more, this time to act as a windbreak as they moved slowly forward. At the end of the nave they were turning to the right (into the south transept, Matlock cumbersomely worked out) and thence, he supposed, out of the church into the working and living quarters of the Abbey. He followed them as far as the cross-aisle of the transepts. As the last monk went through the tall double door, it rolled quietly to behind him and Matlock, alone, felt the dimensions of the building, vast enough already, rush dizzily away from him till he was a pinprick of human warmth in a huge cross of space and time and cold darkness.

He turned to follow the monks, eager for human contact.

“Will you not stay a little longer, Mr. Matlock? You may find what you want here.”

He recognized the voice, but could not place its source for a moment.

“Where are you?” he asked in a voice pitched slightly higher than he intended.

The Abbot chuckled.

“Here I am,” he said, emerging from the shadows of the choir. “Where else should I be?”

Right, thought Matlock, if he’s going to play the man of God, I’ll play the man of action.

“I’m glad to meet you like this, Abbot,” he said briskly. “There’s a lot needs straightening out between us. Where can we talk?”

“Why, here,” said the Abbot, unperturbed. “But do not be too keen to rush into practicalities, Mr. Matlock. We must make plans, it is true, but not, I hope, as a means of escape.”

“Escape from what?”

“Why, from this.”

The small gesture of the ruby-ringed finger sent Matlock’s gaze and, against his will, thoughts spinning back round the shaped darkness above him.

“It’s a strange thing, a church, Mr. Matlock. I mean the building, not the organization, though the two are inextricably linked. All buildings express their purpose. Obviously a house is not a shop and vice versa. And a church, whose purpose is far more complex than either of these, must express this purpose in the most complex of ways.

“At its simplest, a church is a cross. A cross on which our Lord is still crucified. In a church you are close to the body and passion of Christ at the same time as you are in his outstretched arms.”

“That’s a little grisly, don’t you think?” said Matlock, but the Abbot went on as though uninterrupted.

“But a church is also an eye. A great eye facing East, always searching for the Light to rise which shall re-illumine the world. A telescope if you like. No wonder Galileo’s claims for his little glazed tube met with the scorn of those other watchers of the sky. And it is an arrow, leaping skywards in a thousand different ways, in pinnacles, arches, steeples, buttresses. Upwards, upwards, always upwards. Lightness, airiness, that’s what they were after, those great builders.”

He laughed and slapped a massive pillar as they passed.

“Are you trying to convert me?” asked Matlock reasonably.

“Oh, no. No. At the moment that is the last thing I should want. Though in fact, I might be going to tempt you. I shall act the Devil for once and take you to a high place and tempt you.”

The switch from religious fervour to urbane badinage did not seem at all out of place in the Abbot. They had stopped now and Matlock looked up, realizing they must be beneath the off-centre tower which dominated the external mass of the church.

“Let us ascend,” said the Abbot, moving purposefully to a small door in the furthest column. “We still have a spiral staircase if you like, but I prefer this.”

He opened the door, motioned Matlock ahead of him, and together they stepped back into the twenty-first century.

It was an elevator.

The Abbot pressed a button and the floor pressed forcibly against Matlock’s feet. The journey only took a couple of seconds, but he noticed that there were according to the buttons another two floors they could have stopped at, though their speed had been too great for him to see anything of them in passing.

“Top floor, Mr. Matlock. Won’t you step out?”

The room they entered was windowless and might have been the control room of a very tiny airport. It was in semidarkness and two monks sat incongruously watching two radar screens while a third flicked idly from one picture to another on the television monitor before him.

“You look for God in curious ways, Abbot,” said Matlock.

“Oh no. God has long been here. It is the Devil in various forms that we try to keep out. Though I am not sure I have not invited him here myself.”

He raised his eyebrows quizzically at Matlock.

“But you are disappointed, I can see. You expected a fine view. Well, of course, you can view any part of the grounds you like from here. Any undue movement on the screens and a picture can be conjured up immediately.”

One of the monks spoke. The brother in charge of the tele leaned forward and altered his picture. Trees, undergrowth, came into sharp focus. Through them something moved. The picture zoomed in on it.

“I doubt if you’ve ever seen that before, Mr. Matlock. A badger.”

Matlock looked curiously at the animal which moved cautiously through tall bracken, unsuspecting that it was so closely observed.

“There are not many left now. Blunt, tough beasts who live their lives in such obscurity that when they do appear, everyone fights for a good look. They would give a great deal for such a creature in London, Mr. Matlock, archaic and superseded though it is.”

Matlock shook his head sadly.

“The trouble with religion is that if you’re not careful you start confusing allegory with reality, the image with the thing itself. Some people even start believing in human immortality in human terms.”

“I see that nothing less than a real sight of real things will please you. It will please me also. Come.”

He went to a corner of the room and pulled a lever. From the roof there swung down a set of aluminium steps. The Abbot ran lightly up them and pushed open a small trap in the ceiling. Through the hole Matlock saw a square of the night sky. The Abbot’s head was black against a haze of stars.

“Come up. Do.”

He climbed out on to the top of the tower and stood quite still for a moment to accustom himself to the new light.

It was a fine clear night though there was no moon. Silhouetted above the castellated parapet was the now familiar cowled head of a monk who moved away at a soft-spoken instruction from the Abbot and swiftly descended the steps, pulling the trap-door shut behind him.

“You see we do keep a more traditional type of watch, Mr. Matlock. I am glad to see these hints of a love of tradition in you. This is part of your appeal to your followers. The English have always been a nostalgic race, but nostalgia has never been a real political force. During our own youth there were always plenty of people willing to talk longingly of the twenties, the thirties, even the forties and fifties. But no one ever really wanted to get back to them, or at least only an insubstantial minority. But things have changed. For the first time ever in our history there is a real desire to go back, to reverse the tide. And you are our Canute.”

“And just as helpless I suppose.”

“Oh no. If Canute had really wanted to impress the people, which he didn’t, he would merely have worked out where the next high tide line would be, and stood there. That’s what you can do. Nothing is really changed by man. It’s just that some men happen to be about when the changes take place. But you are full of questions, Mr. Matlock. Why not ask them?”

“Right. Question. What has happened to my friends?”

The Abbot shrugged eloquently.

“The first time we met, I gave you what I believe was true information about your friends. That is, that at least two of them, the woman Armstrong, and the man, Colquitt, were in Browning’s service. I fear that you disregarded this information and continued to take them into your full confidence. Ask yourself what seemed to be known by the authorities and what did not. And compare this with what you told your friends.”

“I have done so a hundred times, Abbot. Nothing conclusive appears. Are you suggesting that Browning’s latest moves are the result of this alleged betrayal?”

“Not directly. The timing, I think; yes, that might be. But this was carefully planned, not hastily put together overnight. In any case, he had information which was not yours to give. Names, places, times.”

“Just what has happened? I only know what the tele-news told me.”

The Abbot leaned against the old stone of the parapet and stared out down the valley through which the scarcely audible river ran.

“Our organization was not a tightly-bound thing, you understand, with levels of control and authority clearly marked. In no sense a pyramid. No, it was a loose union of diverse interests — and individuals linked together by a common aim. Revolution. The overthrow of Browning. The repeal of the Age Laws. Such diversity required a focal point. That’s where you came in, Matlock. The Apostate. The man who had the blinding vision which converted him and could convert the world.”

“Who was in this organization?”

“Oh, many thousands you would not know. Could not. But there were four or five main groups scattered over the North. The North West was controlled by an old friend of yours. The Chief Constable of Manchester. Don’t be surprised. He played his part well whenever he met you. He was a pillar of strength to us.”

“Was?”

“He was shot during last night’s purge. Resisting arrest they say. My informants tell me he was shot in bed before he opened his eyes.”

Matlock was silent, remembering the man. And his own puzzlement when he had appeared personally to escort them from the hall where Percy was killed. He really was protecting us, he thought bitterly. He really was.

The Abbot was speaking again.

“The other main rallying points for our cause were the Head of the North East Development Corporation, who has disappeared without trace, and the Doncaster Poetry Appreciation Society and the Women’s Guild of Nottingham, neither of whose ridiculous guises proved strong enough to fool Browning. The President of the Doncaster Society was hanged after a summary trial and his entire committee arrested; while the ladies of Nottingham have either gone to earth or been put to earth. Nothing has been heard of them since yesterday. There have been many arrests in the rank and file, but Browning’s too clever to overdo it. Prisoners are a nuisance, and become martyrs. Freedom with fear is much more useful. His men have let so many of ours know that they are known that even those still unsuspected go in fear of constant observation.”

Matlock shivered in a light breeze which momentarily touched the tower.

“Tell me,” he said, “why in all this activity have the Meek remained untouched?”

“You must ask Browning that,” laughed the Abbot. “It seems to me that here at Fountains we have one advantage not shared by our colleagues. We are a united group. All together. All in one place. To destroy us would need a major operation. As I’ve said, Browning doesn’t want this. He wants to cut the beast’s hamstrings, not butcher the body. He knows we are warned. He knows that alone we are impotent. And though our strength lies in our unity, so does our weakness. For we are easy to watch, both from inside and outside.”

“So,” said Matlock, clutching the parapet tightly, “it is over. You have shown me the Promised Land, then turned me back to the wilderness.”

“Why, the atmosphere of the place is affecting you after all, Mr. Matlock.”

“I want no jokes. What happens now?”

“Now? I think bed, Mr. Matlock. Bed I think.”

He moved back towards the trap, but Matlock stepped smartly in front of him and grasped his robe.

“What about the future, Abbot? Is there any hope?”

The Abbot disengaged himself gently.

“There is always hope, Mr. Matlock. We shall see. Let us wait in patience.”

“I can’t wait too long. I have a birthday. Remember?”

“Oh don’t let that concern you one little bit. We have our own adjusting machine. We’ll give you another fifty years in a jiffy.”

The rush of relief through his whole body made Matlock ashamed. He found himself talking to try to stem the selfish joy which the news had brought him.

“And Lizzie? Ernst and Colin? You’ll try to find out about them?”

“Of course I will. Though I suspect that the first two are either reaping the rewards of their success or paying the penalty of their failure. It just depends how Browning looks at it. But let’s go down now. It is rather chilly up here. I have duties to perform. Only my duties are important here. All else can wait till tomorrow.”

Four days later Matlock was still waiting for this tomorrow. He had woken up the following morning, breakfasted simply but well, and then he had set out across the grass towards the main buildings determined to get some outstanding matters settled. But as he approached the Abbey a smiling figure he recognized as Brother Phillip, the guardian of the porch, had come to meet him.

The Abbot, he explained, had a great deal of work, both administrative and pastoral, to catch up on just at the moment and he had asked if he, Brother Phillip, would look after Mr. Matlock’s needs until an interview could be arranged.

Brother Phillip smiled sympathetically as he said this and Matlock felt his anger evaporating under the charm of the man.

“I see why you were picked for the job.”

“I hope that’s a compliment, Mr. Matlock. Would you like to see round the Abbey?”

“Why not?”

So had begun a conducted tour of the buildings. Phillip had proved to be such a good guide — informative, intelligent, humorous — that Matlock had found himself enjoying the day despite his sense of time fleeing past; time important in any plan to overthrow Browning, and time even more important to himself.

His birthday was now less than a week away. But he had determined to make as good use of this waiting period as possible. The set-up at the Abbey was obviously a great deal more complex than the Abbot had implied and he felt pretty certain there must be other reasons for its immunity from Browning’s purge than those he had been offered. So he questioned Phillip closely about everything he saw, but had to admit that the monk seemed to answer freely with no attempt at concealment. Yet Matlock at the end of four days felt himself no nearer the solution of any of his problems.

The very beauty of the place only made him feel more cut off from reality. It was many years since he had felt himself so secluded from the great cities which now covered so much of the countryside. There was not a sign of their existence visible from most of the grounds which had been exquisitely laid out in the eighteenth century with a series of ornamental lakes, lily-ponds and classical statues. It was not until you reached their easternmost end where the Skell poured smoothly down a small but impressive drop that the distant edge of the multicity which comprised Ripon, Boroughbridge and Harrogate, could be seen.

There was a set of stepping stones or rather slabs over the river just above the fall, and a rather curious incident took place here on the fourth day.

Matlock was sitting in the grass looking out towards the cityscape and wondering what was going on in the world of men and action he seemed to have left behind. Suddenly impatient for activity he jumped to his feet and without a word to Phillip set off across the stones. As he trod on the first one a hooded monk started across from the other side. When he saw Matlock he stopped sharply and stared right at him. The sun was striking athwart his hood and only the barest hint of features could be made out in the dark shadows beneath.

Then he stepped back to the bank. At first Matlock took this to be merely an act of courtesy but as he continued over the stones, he saw the monk, pulling his cowl still further over his head, set off briskly along the path beside the river.

Matlock stood in the middle of the river and watched him go. He heard Phillip come up behind him.

“He didn’t want to meet one of us,” Matlock said.

“Surely not. A change of plan. Something remembered which took him back that way. That was all.”

“If you say so.”

But Matlock was beset by a strange sense of familiarity as he watched the now distant figure.

“Tell me, Phillip,” he said, “are there two types of monk here? Or degrees or ranks? The Abbot said something about this when we first met, and I’ve noticed that many of the Brothers always wear their cowls up indoors and outdoors.”

Phillip paused a while before answering.

“That’s two questions really,” he said. “Yes there are degrees of course, under the Abbot. Degrees of responsibility in the running of the Abbey and degrees of religious initiation. But the wearing of hoods is only indirectly related to this. Some of our brethren prefer this ultimate in withdrawal, this final abasement of self, the concealment of the face, or most of it anyway. It’s a logical spiritual step, if that’s not a contradiction.”

“It must make things rather difficult. Surely you want to be able to recognize people at some time.”

“Why? We are interchangeable, equal before God. Even our names are borrowed. We have them chosen for us on arrival.”

“Do you shed your old identities completely?”

Phillip laughed.

“That would be very difficult. We are still under the Law here. We must report ourselves according to the dictates of the Law.”

“And your heart clocks?”

Phillip looked at him quizzically.

“When our time is up, we must be accounted for like anyone else.”

“But I thought the Meek would inherit the earth?”

“A metaphor, Mr. Matlock. A metaphor.”

Matlock grunted, trying not to sound too disbelieving. His mind was once again sharpening for action and he didn’t want to show the full depth of his dissatisfaction. There was much here in need of investigation and he was not altogether certain whether Phillip was merely his guide or also his guard.

That evening Matlock made a great play of borrowing a history of the Abbey, saying he was going to get some real insight into the traditions and aims of the place. He almost overdid it for Phillip became very keen to stay with him in the Strangers’ House and guide him through the labyrinthine chapters of the massive tome, but Matlock finally persuaded him to leave the discussion till the morning and join the others in the usual pre-midnight service.

“They’ll drum you out if you don’t start paying more attention to your religion and less to me,” he said lightly.

“Same thing,” said Phillip, “you’re the lost sheep.”

Blacksheep, thought Matlock as he watched Phillip move across the grass to the church. Then he turned swiftly and went back to his room. He had chosen this particular time for two reasons. The first was that in a few minutes nearly all the monks, including the Abbot, would be participating in the service. The second was that the watchers in the tower would be more easy to fool if they happened to be scanning the area between the Strangers’ House and the main buildings. At least he hoped so, as he pulled from his bed the tattered remnants of the blanket he had spent the previous night hacking to pieces. Now he draped it over his shoulders and carefully set another piece on his head.

He only had a small shaving mirror and from what he could see of himself in that, he didn’t look much like a monk. But he hoped that on the television screen, if he was unfortunate enough to appear there, his shadowy image would pass muster.

He moved to the door of the Strangers’ House and peered out into the darkness. He saw a couple of figures move swiftly across an open space, then they disappeared into the shadows. Taking a deep breath as though he was about to dive into water, he stepped out into the night.

When he reached the protecting wall of the main building, he felt a sense of relief but recognized it instantly as premature. He had no way of telling if he had been observed or, if observed, whether he had been detected in his disguise. But there was nothing else to do now but continue with his plan.

Plan was perhaps rather too organized a word for what he had in mind, he thought as he slipped through the low arched door into the Cellarium, the Abbey’s main store-house. His destination was the Abbot’s private rooms and his purpose — he shrugged, and the blanket nearly slipped off his shoulders. To look around. To test a few suspicions. To do something instead of waiting for something to be done to him.

It was eerie down here in the Cellarium. Almost as long as the church, but much lower roofed, the building was totally unlit, and he stood for a while till his eyes grew used to the darkness.

Gradually the long row of central pillars began to form themselves out of the darkness like an exercise in perspective; then the arches of the vaults which sprang out of them. And finally, prosaically, the shadowy shapes and forms of the crates, boxes and cans of provisions which packed the vaults.

Distantly he heard the now familiar line of chanting which told him the service was under way. As quietly as possible, he made his way across the Cellarium and through the door that led into the cloister court. Compared with the darkness he left behind him, thin starlight glinting on the faintly damp grass was very bright indeed. He kept to the right, as far as possible moving always in shadow. He had no anticipation of meeting anyone, but the instinct of self-preservation seemed to have strengthened in him during the past few days.

I have the cloak, he thought hugging his blanket closer. Now I only need the dagger.

Surprisingly, he suddenly felt in need of a weapon. The gun he had had with him when he first came to the Abbey had disappeared during his first sleep. He hadn’t thought it worth mentioning to Phillip. Either he would know, in which case he would be an accessory to the theft. Or he wouldn’t know. In which case he wouldn’t know.

In any case it had been Francis’ gun.

Francis. He hadn’t had even a glimpse of him since the first day. Matlock surprised a sentimental fondness for the man in himself. They had been through trouble together. Such things had an illogical binding power.

But Francis was very firmly the Abbot’s man. Never forget that.

The thought of the Abbot suddenly snapped his mind back to the present. He had been moving forward with a stealth which was purely physical. His mind had been only half concerned with his progress. And his return to full alertness almost came too late.

He was just at the corner of the court nearest the arch which led through into the Chapter House. Inside he heard the shuffle of sandalled feet.

Silently he moved sideways till he came up against the wall.

Out of the Chapter House came a cowled figure who walked slowly, as though in deep thought, over the square of bright grass.

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!”