Crybbe

CHAPTER IV

The following morning, Sunday, just before 9 a.m., there was a sudden burst of sunlight, a splash of dripping yellow in a washed-out, watercolour sky.

The light looked to be directly over the Tump, the trees on its sides and summit massing menacingly around the watery orb. It was, Rachel thought, as if a green-gloved hand had reached out from the foliage, snatched the emergent sun and crunched it like an egg.

'I think we should call the police,' she said.

'Why?' said Humble. 'Whoever done it saved us a job.'

The Tump squatted under the sun, fat and smug. You could almost think the Tump was the culprit – as if the great mound had taken a deep breath, pulled in its girth and then let go, bellying out and crumbling the wall before it.

Then Rachel had seen the bulldozer, still wedged in the rubble.

'And there's Gomer Parry,' she said. 'What's he going to say?'

'Proves him wrong, dunnit? He reckoned the machine wouldn't go through the wall.'

'Without the wall collapsing on it. Which it has.'

A chunk of wall about fifteen feet wide had been smashed in or wrenched out and then the bulldozer plunged in again. Clearly an amateur job, but the spot had been well-chosen. It would leave a jagged gap directly under the huge picture- window in the stable-block.

'All we do about Gomer, we just pay him off,' Humble said. He was unshaven. He wore a black motorcycle jacket. Half an hour ago he'd rung J. M. Powys's riverside cottage. 'Put Rachel on.' She'd been quite shocked, didn't see how he could possibly have known about her and J.M.

It meant Max would know by now. Max would not be particularly annoyed that she was with J. M. Powys, but she'd done it without clearing it with him first – that was the serious offence.

Time to move on, Rachel decided abruptly. The facade's crumbling. Time to negotiate a settlement.

'I think the bulldozer's damaged,' she said. 'Look at the way the blade-thing is twisted.'

'Couple of thou' should see Gomer right. See, Rachel, you bring in the Old Bill, you're causing unnecessary hassle. Some f… body might get the idea we paid him to do it. Max would not like that.'

Him? You sound as if you know who did it.'

'Yeah, well, I got my suspicions.'

'Would you like to share them?'

'I keep my eyes open,' Humble said.

'Not much you don't know, is there, Humble?'

Humble smirked. 'Not much, Rachel. Not much.'

The metal plate on the door said. When red light is showing, do not attempt to enter.

The red light was on.

Not sure what to do, Powys walked around the dull, brick building which had once been a lavatory. When he arrived back at the door he was holding up a foot.

'Oh shit, what's this?'

Making a face, Powys scraped off the used condom against a corner of the wall.

She was watching him in some amusement from the studio door, open now, the red light still on.

'Sorry, should have warned you. You'll never pick up a dog turd in this town, but French letters… an all-too-common hazard. Especially just here.'

Powys looked around and counted five of the things, shrivelling into the gravel. 'Favourite place,' Fay said. 'The grunts and squeals can be quite disconcerting when you arrive here in the dark.'

'Maybe it's the red light gets them going.' Powys looked up at the sign. ' "Do not attempt to enter." Obviously nobody takes much notice of that.'

'Come in,' said Fay.

He followed her into the little building and looked around. 'Incredible. A radio studio in Crybbe.'

'Geographically convenient.' Fay was unpacking two reels of quarter-inch tape. It's certainly not a reflection of the importance of the town.'

She set the tape rolling. I won't waste time. This is one bit. Henry Kettle's dowsing masterclass.'

'OK. Here we go. Is there any…? Fucking hell, Henry!'

'Caught you by surprise, did it?'

Powys grinned. 'Bit like sex, isn't it. The first time. Did the earth move for you?'

'Certainly did when he put his hands over mine. The rod just sort of flipped over. I did wonder afterwards if he was making it happen. Just go get it over with, get me off his back. He was obviously very busy. But I can be quite persistent, I suppose.'

He thought she probably could. She looked very nice this morning, in a dark skin and a glittery kind of top.

She noticed him studying the ensemble, 'I'm going to church afterwards.' Pushing the buttons on the tape-machine and flipping the controls on the console. 'Then I've got to go and pick up Arnold from the vet's.'

He's OK?'

'Actually the vet said on the phone that I might get a bit of a shock when I saw him, but there was nothing to worry about. Have you ever been inside the church?'

He shook his head. 'But you're a regular churchgoer, I suppose. With your dad in the business.'

'Oh hell, nothing to do with that. And I'm not, actually. What it is, Dad tells me Murray – that's the vicar – is doing his sermon on the New Age Phenomenon In Our Midst. I'll probably get a story out of it. Murray's a very mixed-up person. The town's damaged him, I think.'

'You think this town damages people?'

'It's damaged me,' said Fay. 'Listen, this is the bit. Obviously, what I was really interested in was what Henry Kettle was doing for Goff, and at one point I asked him, straight out.'

'… So, tell me, Henry, you're obviously in the middle of a major dowsing operation here in Crybbe. What exactly does that involve?'

'Oh, I… Oh dear. Look, switch that thing off a minute, will you?'

'He was waving his arms about, the way people do when you ask them a question they can't answer.'

'And did you switch off?'

'I did, I'm afraid.' Fay said. 'Sometimes you flip the pause button a couple of times to make it look as if you have and then record the lot, but I was starting to like him. "Don't press me, girl," he kept saying.'

'Did he say anything to indicate he was bothered, or upset by what he was finding?'

'I think he did, and it must be on the other tape.' Fay spun all the way back and pulled the reel off the deck. 'Hold this a minute, would you, er… sorry, I don't actually know what the J.M. stands for.'

'Joe.'

'Joe Powys. Mmm. It's a whole different person. Now, Joe Powys, some answers.' She had her fists on her hips, the second reel clutched in one. 'Who killed Henry Kettle?'

'Ah,' he said.

'You don't think it was an accident at all, do you?'

'Well,' he said, 'I don't think it's who killed him so much as what killed him. I'm sure nobody tampered with his brakes or anything.'

'So you think it might be something, shall we say… supernatural? And don't say it depends what I mean by supernatural.'

'How about you put the tape on, then we'll talk about it?'

'And you went to see Mrs Seagrove again, didn't you?'

'We loonies have to stick together.'

'So you did go to talk about the black dog… OK, OK, I'll put the tape on.'

She dragged the yellow leader tape past the heads, set it running on fast forward, stopped it. 'Somewhere around here, I think. I'd caught up with Henry in the wood between the Court and the church. I'd come straight from another job and I still had about half a tape left, so I just ran it off, walking along with Henry. When you're putting a package together you need lots of spare atmos and stuff.'

'Atmos?'

'Ambient sounds. Birdsong, wind in the trees. Also, I needed bits of him trudging along doing his dowsing bit. Radio's nearly as much of a fake as telly, you reshape it afterwards, rearrange sentences, manufacture pauses for effect in using spare ambience. So here's Henry in the wood. I hope.'

'That's curious. That is curious.'

'That's it. Hang on a minute, Joe, I'll find the start. OK, here we go…'

'… keep you a minute. Fay, just something I need to look at. Bear with me.'

'That's OK, Mr Kettle. Can I call you Henry during the interview? Makes it more informal.'

'You please yourself, girl. Call me a daft old bugger if you like.

Powys felt almost tearful. Every time someone like Henry died, the world faded a shade further into neutral.

'Well, bugger – don't mind me, Fay, talking to myself. That's curious. That is curious. If I didn't know better, I'd almost be inclined to think it wasn't an old stone at all. Funny old business. .. Just when you think you've come across everything you find something that don't… quite… add up. Come on then Fay, let's do your bit of radio, only we'll go somewhere else if you don't mind. ..'

Powys said, 'Can you just play that bit again.'

'… almost be inclined to think it wasn't an old stone at all…'

That's the bit.' There was a parallel here, something from Henry's journal. 'Fay, where was this, can you show me? Have you time before church?'

'We'll have to be a bit quick, Joe,' Fay said, rewinding.

Murray Beech watched his sermon rolling out of the printer with barely an hour to go before the service. Normally he worked at least three weeks in advance, storing the sermons on computer disk. This one had been completed only last night, at great personal risk – Murray had twice lost entire scripts due to power cuts.

But the electricity rarely failed in the morning, and the printer whizzed it out without interruption.

Certain claims have already been made for the effects of this so-called New Awakening…

Why am I doing this? he asked himself.

Because it's what they want to hear, he answered shamefully. Never imagined it would come to this. What harm were they causing, these innocent cranks with their ley-lines and their healing rays?

Ironically, Murray had come to Crybbe aware of the need for tolerance with country folk, their local customs, their herbal remedies. But it had proved to be a myth. Country people, real country people weren't like this, not in Crybbe anyway, where he'd never been offered a herbal remedy or even a pot of home-made jam. And where the only custom was the curfew, an unsmiling ritual, performed without comment.

On a metal bookshelf sat the three-volume set of Kilvert's Diary given to him by Kirsty when he told her he was leaving Brighton to become a vicar in the border country.

'Just like Kilvert!' She'd been thrilled. He'd never heard of Kilvert, so she'd bought him the collected diaries, the record (expressively written, if you liked that sort of thing) of a young Victorian clergyman's life, mainly in the village of Gyro, about twenty miles from Crybbe. Kilvert had found rich colours in nature and in the people around him. He'd also found warmth and friends, even if he did have a rather disturbing predilection for young girls.

Murray's stomach tightened; he was thinking of dark-eyed Tessa, a sweat dab over her lips.

Loneliness.

Loneliness had brought him to this.

I've no friends here.

Kirsty had spent a week in Crybbe, long enough to convince her this was not the border country beloved of Francis Kilvert.

'You once said you'd follow me anywhere my calling took me. Africa… South America…'

'But not Crybbe, Murray. I'd die. I'd wither.'

She'd given him Kilvert's diary for his birthday two years ago.

Exactly two years ago. Today was his birthday.

'Is there no chance of your finding a living down here, Murray?' his mother had asked this morning, on the phone.

They'd been proud, of course, as he had, when he'd been given Crybbe – such a large parish, such a young man.

Nobody else wanted it.

No home-made jam. No Women's Institute. No welcome at the primary school. No harvest-supper. No bell-ringers. No friends. No wife.

He could, of course, have betrayed the inert, moribund villagers by siding openly with the New Age community, who at least sought some kind of spirituality, albeit misguided. He could, perhaps, have made friends, of a sort, amongst them.

But he knew his role as priest was to support his parishioners, even if they did not support him, apart from token mute appearance at his services. Even if they did not deserve him.

Murray was disgusted with himself for thinking that.

Loneliness. Loneliness had brought him to this.

The only way either of them knew into the wood was through the Court grounds. When they arrived there in Fay's Fiesta, Rachel was outside the stables with one of the interior designers, a small, completely bald man she introduced as Simon.

'What this place is about,' Simon was saying, 'is drama. Drama and spectacle.'

Powys didn't even have to go inside to see what he meant. The original stable doors had been replaced with huge portals of plate-glass, through which you could look down into a kind of theatre, the kitchen and dining-room walled off from a single cavernous room, the length of the building, ending in a wide wooden desk, its back to the huge picture-window.

And the Tump.

When Max was sitting at his desk, he would be directly under the mound. From the top of the room it would look as if the great tumulus with its wavy trees was growing out of his head.

Especially now that…

'What happened to the wall?'

Rachel grimaced. 'Person or persons unknown came in the night to do Max a big favour, using Gomer Parry's bulldozer. I'm sure Humble knows who it was, he tends to be out there in the small hours, killing things. But Humble isn't saying.'

The attack on the wall, the opening up of the stable-block, with glass at either end… the formation of a conduit between the Tump and Crybbe.

Powys looked at it through Goff's eyes: a stream of healing energy – deep blue – surging through the stables, through the Court itself, through the wood to the church and then into the town.

Equally, though, you could see the Tump as a huge malignant tumour, assisted at last to spread its black cells and bring secondary cancers to Crybbe, a town already old and mouldering.

'Natural drama,' Simon, the designer, said. 'Great.'

In the centre of the wood was a huge hole, newly dug, around five feet deep.

'Must be destined for a big one,' Powys said. 'And they're making sure it's going to be visible.'

Fay looked around in horror. 'There was a bit of a clearing when I was here with Henry, but nothing… nothing like this.'

The immediate area was strewn with chainsaw carnage, stumps of slaughtered trees, heaps of wet ash where branches had been burned.

Looking back the way they'd come, Powys could see the roof of the Court. 'I reckon most of this wood's going to disappear. They want to open up the view from the prospect chamber, reconnect the town with the Court – and the Tump.'

'But you can't just chop down a whole wood!' Fay glared at Rachel, who backed off, holding up both hands.

'Listen, I know nothing about this. This is Boulton-Trow's province.'

'Aren't trees like this protected?'

'I should imagine so,' said Rachel. 'But it's hardly an imprisonable offence. You can take out injunctions to prevent people chopping down individual trees, but once they're gone, they're gone, and if you do it quietly, well…'

'Like starting from the middle and working outwards,' Powys said. 'I don't know how old this wood is, but the indication from the prospect chamber is that at the end of the sixteenth century it wasn't here at all. I reckon it was planted not to give the Court more privacy but so the townsfolk couldn't see the Court. So they could pretend it wasn't there. Just as the stable-block was put in to block the Court off from the Tump. They were scared of something.'

He was balancing on the edge of the hole, looking down. So, Fay, this is where Henry discovered there'd been a stone.'

'I think so. Must be.'

'And yet he had the feeling the stone that stood here wasn't an old stone.'

'That's what he seemed to be saying.' Fay was more concerned about the wholesale destruction of the wood. 'And they are supposed to be bloody New Age people!' She peered through what remained of the trees. 'Can I get to the church this way?'

'Sure,' Rachel said. 'Five minutes' walk. There's a footpath newly widened. Goes past a redbrick heap called Keeper Cottage, which is where Boulton-Trow's living.'

'He lives here?' Powys said, surprised. 'In the wood?'

'Yes, and rather him than me. Go past it, anyway. Fay, and you're in the churchyard in no time.'

'Thanks.' Fay pulled a bunch of keys from her bag. 'Do me a favour, Joe, I've got to catch Murray's blasted sermon. Could you bring my car round to the church when you've finished here. It's got the Uher in the back. I'll need to interview him afterwards.'

She vanished into the bushes. Like an elf, he thought.

'I came to a decision this morning,' Rachel said.

She sat down on a tree stump. 'I'm going to quit.'

'Good. I mean, that's terrific. You're wasted on that fat plonker.'

'I'm becoming peripheral anyway. Max doesn't listen to me any more. He's getting so fanatical I don't think there's anything you or I can do to stop him. Also, he's entering one of his DC phases. He's besotted with Boulton-Trow."

'Andy? Is it reciprocated?'

'You know the guy better than me. J.M.'

'He's an opportunist.'

'There you are, then.'

He watched her, pale and graceful in this arboreal charnel house. She brushed a stray hair out of one eye.

He said, 'When will you tell him?'

'Probably after his public meeting on Tuesday.'

'That's marvellous, Rachel. You won't regret it. Coming to church?'

Rachel stood up. 'Oh gosh, far too busy. Least I can do is make sure his stable-block's ready for him. Besides, I'm not a churchy person. I'm one of those who thinks it's a waste of a Sunday – what do you call that, an atheist or an agnostic?'

He put an arm around her waist. 'You call it a smug bitch.'

He grinned, happy for her.