Crybbe

CHAPTER I

No, no… don't hold him like that. Not so tightly. You're like a nervous kiddy riding a bike.'

'Oh, sorry. Like this?'

'Better. Don't think of him as an implement – he's an extension of your arms. Be comfortable.'

'I think I've got it. What do I do now?'

'Just walk across towards the tree – and don't be so nervous, girl.'

'Well, I've never done it before, Henry. I'm a virgin.'

She thought, shall I leave that?

Nah. Maria will only chop it. She'll think I'm trying to be clever. Too clever for Offa's Dyke Radio, God forbid.

Fay marked it up with a white Chinagraph pencil, sliced and cut just over a foot of tape with a razorblade cutter, spliced the ends, ran the tape again.

Crunch, crunch. Rustle, rustle.

'All right, now, Fay, ask yourself the question.'

'Huh? Oh, er… is… Is There Any Water Under Here? I feel a bit daft, to be honest, Henry. And there's… nothing… happening. Obviously haven't got your natural aptitude, if that's the word.'

'Course you have, girl. Anybody can do it as really wants to. It's not magic. Look, shall I help you?'

'Yes please.'

'Right, now, we'll do it again. Like this.'

'Oh, you're putting your hands…'

'Over yours, yes. Now relax, and we'll walk the same path and ask ourselves the same question.'

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

Laughter.

'Caught you by surprise, did it?'

'You could say that.'

Pause.

'Look, Henry, do you think we could do that bit again, so I can moderate my response?'

Fay marked the tape. Fast forwarded until she heard her say, 'OK, Take Two', made another white mark after that and picked up the razorblade.

Shame really. Never as good second time around. All the spontaneity gone. 'Whoops' had been the best she could manage the second time, when the forked hazel twig had flipped up dramatically, almost turning a somersault in her hands, near dislodging the microphone from under her arm.

'Whoops'… not good enough. She started to splice the ends of the tape together, wondering if she had time to go into a field with the Uher and do a quick, 'Gosh, wow, good heaven I never expected that,' and splice it in at the appropriate point.

The phone rang.

'Yes, what?' The damn roll of editing tape was stuck to her hands and now the receiver.

'Fay Morrison?'

'Yes, sorry, you caught me…'

'This is James Barlow in the newsroom.'

'Which newsroom?' Fay demanded, being awkward because the voice somehow reminded her of her ex-husband, who always called people by their full names.

'Offa's Dyke Radio, Fay.' No, not really like Guy. Too young. A cynical, world-weary twenty-two or thereabouts. James Barlow, she hadn't dealt with him before.

'Sorry, I was editing a piece. I've got tape stuck to my fingers.'

'Fay, Maria says she commissioned a package from you about Henry Kettle, the water-diviner chap.'

'Dowser, yes.'

'Pardon?'

'Water-diviner, James, is not an adequate term for what he does. He divines all kinds of things. Electric cables, foundations of old buildings, dead bodies…'

'Yeah, well, he obviously wasn't much good at divining stone walls. Have you done the piece?'

'That's what I'm…'

"Cause, if you could let us have it this morning…'

'It's not for News,' Fay explained. 'It's a soft piece for Maria. For Alan Thingy's show. Six and a half minutes of me learning how to dowse.' Fay ripped the tape from the receiver and threw the roll on the editing table. 'What did you mean about stone walls?'

'Tut-tut. Don't you have police contacts, down there, Fay? Henry Kettle drove into one last night. Splat.'

The room seemed to shift as if it was on trestles like the editing table. The table and the Revox suddenly looked so incongruous here – the room out of the 1960s, grey-tiled fireplace, G-plan chairs, lumpy settee with satin covers. Still Grace Legge's room, still in mourning.

'What?' Fay said.

'Must've been well pissed,' said James Barlow, with relish, 'straight across a bloody field and into this massive wall. Splat, actually they're speculating, did he have a heart attack? So we're putting together a little piece on him, and your stuff…'

'Excuse me, James, but is he…?'

'… would go quite nicely. We'll stitch it together here, but you'll still get paid, obviously. Yes, he is. Oh, yes. Very much so, I'm told. Splat, you know?'

'Yes,' Fay said numbly.

'Can you send it from the Unattended, say by eleven?'

'Yes.'

'Send the lot, we'll chop out a suitable clip. Bye now.'

Fay switched the machine back on. Now it no longer mattered, Take Two didn't sound quite so naff.

'… whoops! Gosh, Henry, that's amazing, the twig's flipped right over. If your hands hadn't been there, I'd've…'

A dead man said, 'Dropped it, I reckon. Well, there you are then, Fay, you've found your first well. Can likely make yourself a bob or two now.'

'I don't think so, somehow. Tell me, what exactly was happening there? You must have given it some thought over the years.'

'Well… it's nothing to do with the rod, for a start. It's in you, see. You're letting yourself connect with what's out there and all the things that have ever been out there. I don't know, sounds a bit cranky. You're, how can I say… you're reminding your body that it's just part of everything else that's going on, you following me? Never been very good at explaining it, I just does it… You can mess about with this, can't you, Fay, make it sound sensible? Fellow from the BBC interviewed me once. He…'

'Yes, don't worry, it'll be fine. Now, what I think you're saying is that, in this hi-tech age, man no longer feels the need to be in tune with his environment.'

'Well, aye, that's about it. Life don't depend on it any more, do he?'

'I suppose not. But look, Henry, what if…?'

She stopped the tape, cut it off after 'Life don't depend on it any more.' Why give them the lot when they'd only use four seconds?

Anyway, the next bit wasn't usable. She'd asked him about this job he was doing for Max Goff and he'd stepped smartly back, waving his arms, motioning at her to switch the tape off. Saying that it would all come out sooner or later. 'Don't press me, girl, all right?'

Later, he'd said, 'Not being funny, see. Only it's not turned out as simple as I thought it was going to be. Something I don't quite understand. Not yet, anyway.'

She hadn't pressed him. Very unprofessional of her. She had, after all, only approached Henry Kettle about doing six minutes for the 'people with unusual hobbies' spot because she'd heard Max Goff had brought him to Crybbe and it was her job to find out what Goff himself was doing here.

But she'd ended up liking Henry Kettle and actually liking somebody was sometimes incompatible with the job. So now nobody would know what he'd been doing for Goff unless Goff himself chose to disclose it.

Fay sat down, she and the room both in mourning now. He'd been a great character, had Henry, he'd leave a gap.

But if you had to go, maybe Splat wasn't a bad exit line at the age of – what was he, eighty-seven? Still driving his own car, too. Fay thought about her dad and the sports cars he'd had. He'd prefer Splat to arterial strangulation anytime.

Talking of the devil, she caught sight of him then through the window, strolling back towards the cottage with the Guardian under his arm, looking at ladies' legs and beaming through his big, snowy beard at people on either side – even though, in Crybbe, people never seemed to beam back.

The cottage fronted directly on to the street, no garden. Canon Alex Peters pushed straight into the office. He wasn't beaming now. He was clearly annoyed about something.

'Don't they just bloody love it?'

'Love what?' Fay joined some red leader to the end of the tape, deliberately not looking up, determined not to be a congregation.

'A tragedy. Death, failure – 'specially if it's one of the dreaded People from Off.'

'What are you on about, Dad?'

'That's what they say, "From Off. Oh, he's from Off." I've calculated that "Off" means anywhere more than forty miles away. Anywhere nearer, they say, "Oh, he's from Leominster" or "He's from Llandrindod Wells". Which are places not near enough to be local, but not far enough away to be "Off".'

'You're bonkers, Dad.' Fay spun back the finished tape. 'Anyway, this poor sod was apparently from Kington or somewhere, which is the middle category. Not local but not "Off". So they're quite content that he's dead but not as happy as they'd be if he was from, say, Kent.'

It clicked.

'You're talking about Henry Kettle.'

'Who?'

'Henry Kettle. The dowser I interviewed yesterday morning.'

'Oh God,' Canon Peters said. 'That's who it was. I'm sorry, Fay, I didn't connect, I…'

'Never mind,' Fay said soothingly. Sometimes, on his good days, you were inclined to forget. Her father, who'd been about to sit down, was instantly back on his feet. 'Now look… It's got nothing to with Dr Alphonse sodding Alzheimer.'

'Alois.'

'What?'

'Alois Alzheimer. Anyway, you haven't got Alzheimer's disease.'

The Canon waved a dismissive hand. 'Alzheimer is easier to say than arteriosclerotic dementia, when you're going gaga.'

He took off his pink cotton jacket. 'Nothing to do with that anyway. Always failed to make connections. Always putting my sodding foot in it.'

'Yes, Dad.'

'And stop being so bloody considerate.'

'All right then. Belt up, you old bugger, while I finish this tape.'

'That's better.' The Canon slung his jacket over the back of the armchair, slumped down, glared grimly at the Guardian.

Fay labelled the tape and boxed it. She stood back and pulled down her T-shirt, pushed fingers through her tawny hair, asking him, 'Where was it, then? Where did it happen?'

Canon Peters lowered his paper. 'Behind the old Court. You know the tumulus round the back, you can see it from the Ludlow road? Got a wall round it? That's what he hit.'

'But – hang on – that wall's a bloody mile off the road.'

'Couple of hundred yards, actually.'

'But still… I mean, he'd have to drive across an entire field for Christ's sake.' When James Barlow had said something about Mr. Kettle crossing a field she'd imagined some kind of extended grass-verge. 'Somebody said maybe he'd had a heart attack, so I was thinking he'd just gone out of control, hit a wall not far off the road. Not, you know, embarked on a cross country endurance course.'

'Perhaps,' speculated the Canon, 'he topped himself.'

'Cobblers. I was with him yesterday morning, he was fine. Not the suicidal type, anyway. And if you're going to do yourself in, there have to be rather more foolproof ways than that.'

'Nine out of ten suicides, somebody says that. There's always an easier way. He was probably just confused. I can sympathize.'

'Any witnesses?' Above the tiled fireplace, opposite the window, was a mirror in a Victorian-style gilt frame. Fay inspected her face in it and decided that, for a walk to the studio, it would get by.

Canon Peters said, 'Witnesses? In Crybbe?'

'Sorry, I wasn't thinking.'

'Wouldn't have known myself if I hadn't spotted all the police activity, so I grilled the newsagent. Apparently it must have happened last night, but he wasn't found until this morning.'

'Oh God, there's no chance he might have been still alive, lying there all night…?'

'Shouldn't think so. Head took most of it, I gather, I didn't go to look. A local milkman, it was, who spotted the wreckage and presumably said to himself, "Well, well, what a mess," and then wondered if perhaps he ought not to call Wynford, the copper. No hurry, though, because…'

'He wasn't local,' said Fay.

'Precisely.'

Fay said it for the second time this week. 'Why don't you get the hell out of this town, Dad? You're never going to feel you belong.'

'I like it here.'

'It irritates the hell out of you!'

'I know, but it's rather interesting. In an anthropological sort of way.' His beard twitched. She knew she wasn't getting the whole story. What was he hiding, and why?

Fay frowned, wondering if he'd seen the spoof FOR SALE notice she'd scribbled out during a ten-minute burst of depression last night. She said tentatively, 'Grace wouldn't want you to stay. You know that.'

'Now look, young Fay,' Canon Peters leaned forward in the chair, a deceptive innocence in the wide blue eyes which had wowed widows in a dozen parishes. 'More to the point, there's absolutely no need for you to hang around. You know my methods. No problem at all to find some lonely old totty among the immigrant population to cater for my whims. In fact, you're probably cramping my style.'

He raised the Guardian high so that all she could see was his fluffy while hair, like the bobble on an old-fashioned ski hat.

'Anyway,' he mumbled. 'Early stages yet. Could be months before I'm a dribbling old cabbage.'

'Dad, I'll…!' The phone rang. 'Yes, what…? Oh, Mrs. Seagrove.'

All she needed.

'Serves you right,' rumbled the Canon from the depths of the Guardian.

'I saw it again, Mrs Morrison. Last night. When the power was off.'

'Oh,' Fay said, as kindly as she could manage. 'Did you?'

'I can't bear it any more, Mrs Morrison.'

Fay didn't bother to ask her how she could see a huge coal-black beast when all the lights were out; she'd say she just could. She was one of the aforementioned lonely old Midland immigrant widows in a pretty cottage on the edge of town. One of the people who rang local reporters because they needed someone to make a cup of tea for.

'I'm at the end of my tether, Mrs Morrison. I'm going out of my mind. You wouldn't think anything as black as that could glow, would you? I'm shivering now, just remembering it.'

In other places they rang the police for help. But in Crybbe the police was Sergeant Wynford Wiley and nobody wanted to make a cup of tea for him.

'I've tried to explain, Mrs Seagrove. It's a fascinating.. .'

'It's not fascinating, my love, it's terrifying. It's no joke. It's frightening me out of my mind. I can't sleep.'

'But there's nothing I can do unless you're prepared to talk about it on tape. I only work for the radio, and unless we can hear your voice…'

'Why can't you just say someone's seen it without saying who I am or where I live?'

'Because… because that's not the way radio works. We have to hear a voice. Look,' Fay said, 'I really would like to do the story. Perhaps you could find someone else who's seen it and would be prepared to talk about it and have it recorded.'

Mrs Seagrove said bitterly, They all know about it. Mrs Francis at the post office, Mr Preece. They won't admit it. They won't talk about it. I've tried telling the vicar, he just listens and he smiles, I don't think he even believes in God, that vicar. Perhaps if you came round this afternoon, we could…'

'I'm sorry,' Fay said, 'I've got several jobs on the go at the moment.'

'Ho, ho,' said the Guardian.

'Look,' Fay said. 'Think about it. It's quite easy and informal, you know. Just me and a portable recorder, and if you make any fluffs we can keep doing it again until you've got it right.'

'Well, perhaps if you came round we could…'

'Not unless you're prepared to talk about it on tape,' Fay said firmly.

'I'll think about it,' Mrs Seagrove said.

Fay put the phone down. Of course she felt sorry for the lady. And ghost stories always went down well with producers, even if the eye-witnesses were dismissed as loonies. Local radio needed loonies; how else, for instance, could you sustain phone-in programmes in an area like this?

But ghost stories where nobody would go on the record as having seen the apparition were non-starters. On that same basis, Fay thought ruefully, a lot of stories had been non-starters in Crybbe.