Crybbe

CHAPTER V

'One more, I make it,' Gomer said, a short trail of recumbent stones in his destructive wake. 'Then that's the lot.'

'You know, Gomer,' Minnie Seagrove said, sitting quite placidly next to him in the cab, the three-legged dog on her lap. 'You've surprised me tonight.'

'Surprised myself,' Gomer said gruffly. 'I'll be very surprised if I collect a penny for all this.'

'No, what I mean is… Well, I'd come to the conclusion – and I'm sorry if this sounds insulting – I'd come to the conclusion that there weren't any really decent men in Crybbe. Like, men we used to say would do anything for you. Nothing too much trouble, sort of thing… if it was the right thing.'

'Done a few bloody wrong things tonight, Minnie, my love,'

Gomer said, plunging the digger halfway down the riverbank. 'That's for certain.'

'No they weren't. They weren't wrong things at all. You've saved me from being arrested for murder, you're working overtime at a minute's notice to help that poor old chap who looks like he's on his last legs. And you've been no end of help to young Joe…'

Gomer ploughed through an unstable-looking fence and up into the field that served as a narrow flood-plain for the river.

'I got no regrets about gettin' you out of a bit o' bother,' he said. 'An' I'd stand up in court an' say so. But that Joe – well, I'd like to think that young feller'll keep 'is mouth shut, see, that's all. You know much about 'im?'

'Not a lot,' said Minnie. 'But I'm sure he's all right.'

'It's rather sad, really,' Jean said. 'They're all bottle stones to Joe.'

Fay started to feel faint. To pull herself together, she said – screamed it out inside her head, like biting on something hard, to fight extreme pain,