Crybbe

CHAPTER I

Even for Crybbe the night was rising early.

It rose from within the shadowed places. In the covered alleyway behind the Cock. Beneath the three arches of the river bridge. In the soured, spiny woodland which skirted where the churchyard ended with a black marble gravestone identifying the place where Grace Legge, beloved wife of Canon A. L. Peters was presumed to rest.

It filtered from the dank cellars of the buildings hunched around the square like old, morose drinking companions.

It was nurtured in the bushes at the base of the Tump.

It began to spread like a slow stain across the limp, white canopy of the sky, tinting it a deep and sorrowful grey.

And not yet seven-thirty.

'Give us a white-balance,' Larry Ember said, and Catrin Jones stood in the middle of the street and held up her clipboard for him to focus on.

Guy Morrison looked at the sky. 'Shoot everything you can get. I can't see it brightening up again. I think this is it.'

'Wasn't forecast,' Larry said. 'No thunderstorms.'

'And I can't see there being one in there,' Guy said, glancing at the town hall. 'This is probably a wasted exercise.'

'What you want me to do then, boss?'

'We've got permission to go in and grab some shots of the assembly before it starts, so shoot absolutely everything you can, plenty of tight shots of faces, expressions – I'll point out a few. Then just hang on in there till they actually ask you to leave, and then… well, stay outside, close to the door, and Catrin and I will try and haul out a few punters with opinions, though I'll be very surprised if these yokels manage to muster a single opinion between them.'

The Victorian facade of the town hall reared over the shallow street like a gloomy Gothic temple, its double doors spread wide to expose a great cave-mouth, through which the younger townsfolk wandered like tourists. Many had probably never been inside before; there weren't many public gatherings Crybbe.

Guy ordered shots of their faces, shots of their feet. The feet are probably saying more than the faces, he thought with frustration. At least they're moving.

For the first time he began to wonder how he was going to avoid making a stupefyingly boring documentary. He'd been determined to keep the voice-over down to a minimum, let the events tell their own story. But to get away with that, he needed a pithy commentary on these events from a collection of outspoken locals. So far, the only outspoken local he'd encountered had been Gomer Parry, who lived at least three miles outside the town.

'What are we going to do?' he whispered despairingly to Catrin – showing weakness to an assistant, he never did that.

Catrin gave his thigh a reassuring squeeze. 'It'll be fine.'

'… God's sake, Catrin, not in public!'

Catrin. How could he have?

This place was destroying him.

Parking his Escort XR3 in the old cattle market behind the square, Gavin Ashpole had no fears at all about his story being boring.

This was the beauty of radio. The place might look like a disused cemetery, but you could make it sound like bloody Beirut. Whatever happened here tonight, Gavin was going to put down a hard-hitting voice-piece for the ten o'clock news describing the uproar, as beleaguered billionaire Max Goff faced a verbal onslaught by hundreds of angry townsfolk fearing an invasion by hippy convoys lured to the New Age Mecca.

Somebody had suggested to Gavin that perhaps he could try out the new radio-car on this one. Park right outside the meeting, send in some live on-the-spot stuff for the nine-thirty news.

Gavin thought not; the station's only unattended studio was not three minutes walk from the town hall. And he hadn't been able to drag his mind away from last night's interrupted fantasy in that same studio. Somehow, he had to get little Ms Morrison in there.

Ms Morrison who'd really screwed any chance she had of holding down the Offa's Dyke contract. Who'd failed to provide a report on last night's tractor accident. Who hadn't even been reachable on the phone all day.

'I'll go in live at nine-thirty,' he'd told the night-shift sub, James Barlow. 'And I want a full two minutes. I don't care what else happens.'

He was thinking about this as he parked his car in the old livestock market. Unusually dark this evening; even the sky looked in the mood for a set-to.

Humid, though. Gavin took off his jacket, locked it in the boot and slung his Uher over his shoulder.

Two cars and a Land Rover followed him into the market, half a dozen men got out. Tweed suits, caps, no chat, no smiles. Farmers, in town for the meeting, meaning business.

I like it, Gavin told himself. Everybody who was anybody in the district was going to be here tonight to listen, with varying degrees of enthusiasm or hostility to Goff's crazy, hippy themes. There was a small danger that if the opposition was too heavy, Goff might have second thoughts and decide to take his New Age centre somewhere else – like out of Offa's Dyke's watch, which would be no use at all. But this was highly unlikely; Goff wasn't a quitter and he'd probably already invested more than Gavin could expect to earn in the next ten years, even if he did become managing editor. No, Goff had gone too far to pull out. Too many people relying on him. Danger of too much bad publicity on a national scale if he let them down.

He crossed the square and followed everybody else into the side-street leading to the town hall.

Gavin quickened his pace and walked up between a couple – skinny guy with a ratty beard and a rather sultry wife. Gavin had to walk between the man and woman because they were so far apart, not talking to each other. Obviously had a row.

That was what he liked to see. Acrimony and tension were the core of all the best news stories. It was building in the air.

Gavin mentally rubbed his hands.

Alex and Jean were taking tea in the drawing-room.

The Canon, wearing his faded Kate Bush T-shirt, was standing in front of the Chinese fire screen, legs comfortably apart, cup and saucer effortlessly balanced in hands perfectly steady.

Earlier, he'd spotted himself in a mirror and it had been like looking at an old photograph. Hair all fluffed up, the famous twinkle terrifyingly potent again. Old boy's a walking advert for the Dr Chi New Age Clinic.

He was aware that Jean Wendle had been looking at him too, with a certain pride, and several times today they had exchanged little smiles.

'So,' Jean was on the sofa, hands linked behind her head. Jolly pert little body for her age. 'Shall we go? Or shall we stay in?'

Several times today she'd looked at him like that. Just a quick glance. One really was rather too old to jump to conclusions; however…

'Which do you think would be most, er, stimulating?'

'Och, that depends,' Jean said, 'on what turns you on. Perhaps your poor old brain is ready at last for the intellectual stimulus of public debate, as Max strives to present himself gift-wrapped, to the stoical burgers of Crybbe.'

'Give me strength,' said Alex.

'Fay'll be there, no doubt.'

'Won't want me in her hair.'

'Or there's Grace. All alone in Bell Street. Will she be worried, perhaps, that you haven't been home for a couple of nights?'

'I thought you said she didn't exist as anything more than a light form.'

'She didn't. Unfortunately, she's become a monster.'

'Uh?' Alex lost his twinkle.

'Tell me,' Jean said. 'Have you ever performed an exorcism?'

The Cock was no brighter than a Victorian funeral parlour, Denzil, the licensee, no more expressive than a resident corpse. Half past eight and only two customers – all his regulars over the town hall.

J.M. Powys stared despairingly into his orange juice, back to his habitual state of confusion. Everything had seemed so clear on the hillside overlooking the town, when Fay was aglow with insight.

Arnold lay silently under the table. Possibly the first dog in several centuries to set foot – all three of them – in the public bar of the Cock. 'We can't,' Fay had warned. 'Sod it,' Powys had replied, following the dog up the steps. 'I've had enough of this. Who's going to notice? Who's going to care?'

And, indeed, now they were inside there was nobody except Denzil to care, and Denzil didn't notice, not for a while.

Powys glanced up at Fay across the table, it could all be crap,' he said.

'There.' Fay was drinking tomato juice; it was a night for clear heads. 'You see…'

'What?'

'You're back in Crybbe. You're doubting yourself. You're thinking, what the hell, why bother? It's easy to see, isn't it, why, after four centuries, the apathy's become so ingrained.'

'Except that it could though, couldn't it? It could all be crap.'

'And we're just two weirdoes from Off trying to make a big deal out of something because we don't fit in.'

'And if it's not – not crap – what can we do about it?'

'Excuse me, sir." Denzil was standing by their table, low-browed, heavy-jowled. He picked up their empty glasses.

'Thanks,' Powys said. 'We'll have a couple more of the same.' Glanced at Fay. 'OK?'

Fay nodded glumly.

'No you won't,' Denzil said. 'Not with that dog in yere you won't.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Don't allow no dogs in yere.'

Powys said mildly, 'Where does it say that?'

'You what, sir?'

'Where does it say, "no dogs"?'

'We never 'ad no sign, sir, because…'

'Because you never had no dogs before. Now, this is interesting.' Powys tried to catch his eye; impossible. 'We're the only customers. There's nobody else to serve. So perhaps you could spell out – in detail – what this town has against the canine species. Take your time. Give us a considered answer. We've got hours and hours.'

Powys sat back and contemplated the licensee, who looked away. The bar smelled of polish and the curdled essence of last night's beer.

'No hurry,' Powys said. 'We've got all night.'

Denzil turned to him at last and Powys thought. Yes he does. .. He really does look like a malignant troll.

'Mr Powys,' Denzil said slowly. 'You're a clever man…'

'And we…' said Fay, '… we don't like clever people round yere.' And collapsed helplessly into giggles.

Denzil's expression didn't change. 'No more drinks,' he said. 'Get out.'

It was getting so dark so early that Mrs Seagrove decided it would be as well to draw the curtains to block out that nasty old mound. Ugly as a slag-heap, Frank used to say it was.

The curtains were dark-blue Dralon. Behind curtains like this, you could pretend you were living somewhere nice.

'There,' she said. 'That's better, isn't it, Frank?'

Frank didn't reply, just nodded as usual. He'd never had much to say, hadn't Frank. Just sat there in his favourite easy-chair, his own arms stretched along the chair arms. Great capacity for stillness, Frank had.

'I feel so much safer with you here,' Mrs Seagrove said to her late husband.