Crybbe

CHAPTER V

What have you got to lose?' Rachel had asked him, and he wondered about this.

The cottage was on a little grassy ridge, overlooking the river. Rachel told him Max had been so taken with the little place he'd thought of spending nights here himself until work on the stable-block was finished. But, with extra builders, overtime, bonuses, it looked as if the stables would be habitable within the next few days. And Max had to spend a long weekend in London, anyway.

'So it's yours,' Rachel said, if you want it.'

It had only four rooms. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and this small, square living-room, with a panoramic, double-glazed view downstream.

'A writer's dream,' Rachel said non-committally.

'Furnished, too,' Powys said.

'It was a second home. The first thing Max's agent did was acquire a list of local holiday homes and write to the owners offering disproportionate sums for a complete deal, basic furniture included. Just over a third of them said yes within two days – boredom setting in, wouldn't it be nice to have one in Cornwall instead? Then, out of the blue, here's Fairy Godfather Goff with a sack of cash.'

'And you say he's in London for the weekend?'

'That's the plan,' Rachel said. 'But – you may be glad to hear, or not – I'm staying.'

Powys kissed her.

'Mmm. I'm staying because there's a public meeting to organize for next week. The people of Crybbe come face to face with their saviour for the first time and learn what the New Age has to offer them.'

'Should be illuminating. You think any of them know what New Age means?'

'J.M., even I don't know what it means. Do you?'

'All I was thinking, if it involves having big stones planted in their gardens, country folk can be a tiny bit superstitious, especially stones their ancestors already got rid of once.'

Rachel perched on the edge of a little Jotul wood-burning stove. She licked a forefinger and made the motions of counting out paper money. 'Rarely fails,' she said. 'And if they're really superstitious, they can always move out and sell Max the farm for.. .'

'A suitably disproportionate sum,' said Powys. 'It's another world, isn't it? So, er, you'll be on your own this weekend.'

Rachel moved a hip. She was wearing tight wine-coloured jeans and a white blouse. Max suggests I move out of the Cock and into the stables.'

'But nobody'll be there to know one way or the other, will they?' Powys had been quite taken with the reproduction brass bed upstairs.

'There's Humble, in his caravan. He doesn't like me.'

'Does he like anybody?'

'Debatable,' said Rachel.

'I'm sure we can work something out. What's the rent on this place, by the way?'

'I think it's part of the advance against royalties. There'll be an agreement for you to sign. This gives you a small – small to Max, but not necessarily to you – lump sum as well. If you don't finish The Book of Crybbe he gets the cottage back. He also reserves the right to install standing stones or other ritual artefacts on your lawn.'

'Rachel, luv, help me. What do I do?'

'My advice? Take it, but ask for a bigger lump sum. He won't double-cross you. He's a very determined man. The town does not know what's hit it. Not yet. I'd feel better if you were here as some sort of fifth column. He'll listen to you.'

Powys shook his head, bemused.

Perhaps you've come here to find some manner of redemption.

Perhaps.

All he had to do was make one phone call and Annie would dive on the chance of taking over Trackways for an unspecified period. Just her and Alfred Watkins and an ever-broadening selection of New Age trivia. It might even start making a reasonable profit.

Rachel said, 'One more thing. If you'd like a word processor, please specify the make and model, to match your existing software.'

Powys thought about this, chin in hands, patched elbow on the pine dining-table. 'New ribbon for the Olivetti?'

When they reached the Tump, they split up, for the sake appearances. It was 7 p.m. The rain was holding off, but the evening was very still and close, the sky hanging low, looking for trouble.

Rachel looked around and saw quite a big semi-circle of people, many more than had been at the lunch.

Word had got around that something was going to happen. Word very soon got around in this town, she'd found.

'What's going on, Ms Wade?' Jocasta Newsome was posing dramatically against the lowering sky in a glistening new ankle-length Barbour, conspicuously more expensive than Rachel's.

'Max is going to get rid of the wall around the Tump.'

'Oh,' said Jocasta, disappointed. 'That's all?'

'It's a major symbolic gesture,' Rachel said patiently.

'Is that a television camera?'

'They're making a documentary about Max.'

'Oh.' Jocasta brightened. 'That's… er… oh, Guy Morrison, isn't it? I think he's rather good, don't you?'

'Yes, excellent,' Rachel said absently. 'Excuse me.'

She'd seen Fay on the edge of the field, with the dog still on the end of a clothes-line. Fay looked forlorn in a royal-blue cagoule that was too long for her. She wore no make-up and her hair was damp and flattened.

'I know,' she said. 'Don't tell me. He's here.'

'Do you mean Guy? Or the Offa's Dyke man?'

Fay raised both eyebrows. 'Surrounded, am I?'

'I'm sorry about this. Fay, I really am.'

'They rang me,' Fay said. 'Offa's Dyke rang and said, don't bother with it, we're covered. I think they're trying to edge me out.'

'Ashpole's a tedious little man.'

'Poisonous,' Fay said.

'Fay, look, perhaps there's something…' If she could somehow turn Max round, fix it so he'd only talk to Fay. Most unlikely.

'Not your problem, Rachel, if I can't function here. Tempted to blame it on the town, but that's the easy answer, isn't it?' Fay grinned, if you really want to do something, I suppose you could suggest Ashpole might get some terrific actuality of the wall coming down if he stood directly beneath it…'

She wound the end of the clothes-line more firmly around her hand. 'Come on, Arnold, we'll go down by the river.'

Max Goff was on the summit of the Tump. He had a microphone on a long lead. The dripping trees were gathered around him.

Crouched under a bush, Guy Morrison's cameraman was shooting Goff from a low angle. It would look very dramatic, this apparition in white against the deep-grey sky and the black trees. On his knees next to Goff, as if in worship, Guy's soundman held a two-foot boom mike encased in a windshield like a giant furry caterpillar.

There were two big speakers on the roof of a van at the foot of the mound.

'This has been a dramatic and tragic week,' said Goff.

'Yeah, not too bad for level,' the soundman said.

'It fucking better be, pal,' the assembly heard, 'I'm not saying it again.'

Behind the speaker van, Powys smiled.

Guy Morrison said, 'I'm not pleased with him, Joe. He dropped this on me without any warning at all. A spontaneous idea, he said. He's got to learn that if he wants spontaneity we have got to know about it in advance.'

I have always disliked the Tump for some reason.

Powys thought, What does the wall mean, Henry? Why is there a wall around it?

He scrambled across the field, away from the crowd, unable to shake the feeling that perhaps getting rid of the wall was not the best thing to do – but wondering whether this feeling had been conditioned by Henry's misgivings about the mound.

Halfway across the field he saw the hub-cap from Henry's Volkswagen, glinting in a bed of thistles. It reminded him that his own car was still parked in a layby alongside the road at the end of this field.

Henry's journal was in the car.

Bloody stupid thing to do. Anybody could have nicked the car, gone off with the journal.

Behind him Goff's voice boomed out of the speakers. 'I'm glad-ad that-at so many of you were able to come today-ay.'

Powys moved swiftly through wet grass towards the road. He reached it at a point about fifty yards from the layby. The white Mini was there; it looked OK.

'Is that your car?'

A lone bungalow of flesh-coloured bricks squatted next to the layby, and at the end of its short drive stood a stocky, elderly woman in a twinset and a tartan skirt, an ensemble which spelled out: incomer.

'Yes, it is,' Powys said, taking out his keys to prove it; unlocking the boot.

'You arrived just in time, dear, I was about to report it to the police.'

'Yes, I'm sorry, I got delayed.'

Actually, I was beaten up and then went to bed with a woman I'd never seen before but whose voice I'd heard on my answering machine, but you don't want to hear about all that.

Henry Kettle's journal lay where he'd left it, on top of the spare tyre.

'What's going on over there?' She had a Midlands accent.

'They're pulling down the wall around the mound.'

'Why are they doing that?'

Did she really want to know this? 'Well, because it's a bit ugly. And out of period with the Tump. That's what they say.'

'I'll tell you one thing, dear, that wall's never as ugly as the thing in the middle. I don't like that thing, I don't at all. My husband, he used to say, when he was alive, he used to say he'd seen prettier spoil-heaps.'

'He had a point,' Powys said, opening the driver's door.

'I'm on me own now, dear. It frightens me, the things that go on. I'd leave tomorrow, but I wouldn't anywhere near get our money back on this place, not the way the market is. It wouldn't buy me a maisonette in Dudley.'

Powys closed the car door and walked over.

'What did you mean, it frightens you?'

'You from the local paper, dear?'

'No, I'm…'

A shopkeeper.

'I'm a writer. My name's Joe Powys.'

'I've never heard of you, my love, but don't take it to heart. Mrs Seagrove, Minnie Seagrove. Would you like a cup of tea? I'm always making lea for people in that layby. Lorry drivers, all sorts.'

'I won't put you to that kind of trouble,' said Powys. 'But I would like to know what, specifically, frightens you about that mound?'

Mrs Seagrove smiled coyly. 'You'll think I'm daft. That girl from the local radio thinks I'm daft. I ring her sometimes, when it gets on top of me, the things that go on.'

'What things are those? I'll tell you honestly, Mrs Seagrove, I'm the last person who's going to think you're daft.'

Following the river. Fay walked Arnold down the field, towards the bridge, close to where she and Rachel had gone with the bottle of wine on a sunny afternoon that seemed like weeks and weeks ago.

It was one of Fay's 'thinking' walks. She wanted, as someone once said, to be alone.

Before leaving, she'd pored over some of the books in her small 'local' collection – Howse's History of Radnorshire, Ella Mary Leather's The Folklore of Herefordshire, Jacqueline Simpson's The Folklore of the Welsh Border. Not quite sure what she was looking for.

Anything to do with dogs, really. Dogs and bells.

There'd been separate entries on both. Two books referred to the Crybbe curfew, one of only a handful still sounded in British towns – purely tradition – with two of them along the Welsh border. There was all the usual stuff about the bequest of Percy Weale, wealthy sixteenth-century wool merchant, to safeguard the moral welfare of the town. One book briefly mentioned the Preece family as custodian of the tradition.

Fay untied Arnold's clothes-line. He snuffled around on the riverbank, going quite close to the water but never getting his paws wet. Interested in something. Perhaps there were otters. The river looked fat, well-fed by rain.

Not raining now, but it probably would before nightfall, the clouds moving in together like a street gang, heavy with menace.

It was only since coming to Crybbe that Fay had begun to regard intangibles like the sky, the atmosphere, climatic changes as. .. what? Manifestations of the earth's mood?

Or something more personal. Like when a mist seemed to cling to you, throwing out nebulous tentacles, as if you and it… as if it knew you.

And the atmosphere hereabouts – threatening or blandly indifferent – was not an expression of the earth's mood so much as.. . She stopped and stared across the darkening river at the huddle of Crybbe.

Not the earth's mood, but… the town's mood.

This thought came at the same moment as the shot.

Fay whirled.

The riverside field was empty, the clouds united overhead, thick and solid as a gravestone. There were no more shots and no echo, as if the atmosphere had absorbed the shock, like a cushion.

Everything still, the field unruffled, except for a patch of black and white – and now red – that pulsed and throbbed maybe twenty yards from Fay.

'Arnold?' she said faintly. 'Arnold?'