Crybbe

CHAPTER IX

FAY was still seeing it like a bad home video: fuzzy, ill-lit, full of camera-shake and over-reaction. Women screaming, people staring at each other in shock, trying to speak, faces hard and grainy in the blue, deep-freeze light. Stricken Max Goff convulsing on the floor. Col Croston bending over him.

'Get a doctor!'

Portly man from Off shouldering his way to the front. Fay recognized him as the local GP.

Wynford Wiley – probably the last to react – moving like a sleepwalker, Fay following in his considerable wake, up the central aisle, pushing past Guy. Hilary Ivory stumbling towards them, face in a permanent contortion like that painting of Munch s – The Scream – etched in similar stark, nervy colours because of the stammering lights.

Hilary's hands squeezing her hair and then the hands coming out like crimson rubber-gloves and Hilary's shrieks almost shredding Col's crisp command:

'Nobody move! Nobody leaves the hall!'

And then, turning to the doctor, 'Bloody obvious. Had his throat slashed.'

At which point, spangled brightness burst out of the wrought-iron chandeliers – an electrical blip – and Fay saw the Mayor, Councillor James Oswald Preece, standing on the edge of the raised area, holding his arms as though, with his frail frame, he could conceal the carnage.

'Silence!'

Even Wynford Wiley stopped, so suddenly that Fay almost bumped into his big blue back. The big lights stuttered again, leaving the Mayor with a momentary jagged aura of yellow and black.

'Listen to me!'

'Is he dying?' a woman demanded from the New Age quarter.

One of the men in suits said, 'Look, I'm his legal advisor and this is…'

'Is Max dead?'

'… I insist you call an ambulance.'

'Is he…?'

'Will… you… be… quiet madam!'

A new and significant Jimmy Preece, Fay saw. No longer the husk of a farmer, flat-capped, monosyllabic – 'ow're you, 'ow're you. .. Authority there now. Resonance.

'Now,' Jimmy Preece said. 'I'm not going to elaborate on this. Isn't the time. So don't none of you ask me. I'm speaking to you as your First Citizen, but I'm also speaking as a Preece and most of you'll know what I'm saying yere.'

The Mayor's eyes flickered to one side. 'For all the newcomers, I'd ask you to accept my word that… that we are in.. . well…'

He stopped. His jaw quivered.

'… in serious, mortal danger… '

He let this sink in. Fay looked around to see how they were taking it. Some of the Crybbe people looked at each other with anxiety and varying amounts of understanding.

'Serious. Mortal. Danger,' Jimmy Preece intoned again, almost to himself, looking down at his boots.

The lawyer said, 'Oh, for heaven's sake, man…'

'And it's more than us what's in danger. And it's more than our children and… and their children.'

The doctor stood up, flecks of blood on his glasses.

'No!' somebody shouted. 'Oh God, no!' And the New Age quarter erupted.

Jimmy Preece held up a hand. 'I…' His voice slumped. I'm sorry he's dead.'

'… through the oesophagus, I'd imagine,' the doctor told Col Croston quietly, but not quietly enough.

'I mean it,' the Mayor said. 'I wished 'im no harm, I only wished 'im… gone from yere.'

Fay glanced at Guy. His face sagged. His blond hair, disarranged, revealed a hitherto secret bald patch. Catrin Jones was several yards away, looking past him to where Larry Ember was walking up the aisle, camera on his shoulder.

'Who let you in?' Jimmy Preece said wearily, 'Switch that thing off, sir, or it'll be taken from you.' Guy turned, tapped Larry's arm and shook his head.

To the side of Guy, the Newsomes mutely held hands.

'I'm going now,' Jimmy Preece said, 'to see to the bell. I urge you all – and this is vital – to stay absolutely calm.'

'… come with you, Jim,' somebody said.

'No you won't. You'll stay yere. You'll all stay yere.'

'Ah, look…' Col Croston said, 'Mr Mayor, there's been a murder here. It's not a normal situation.'

'No, Colonel, it's not normal, and that's why nobody goes from yere till I sees to the bell. I don't say this lightly. Nobody is to leave, see. Nobody.'

'Who's to say,' Col came close to the Mayor, 'whoever did this isn't still in the room?'

'No. 'E isn't yere, Colin, you can…'

Wynford Wiley pleaded, 'Let me radio for assistance, Jim. Least let me do that.'

'Leave it, Wynford. You're a local man, near enough. This is not a police matter.'

'But it's a murder,' Col Croston protested.

'It's a Crybbe matter, sir!'

'Jim,' Wynford whined, 'it's more than my…'

'Your job? A blue vein throbbed in the Mayor's forehead. 'Your piffling little job? You'll take out your radio, Wynford Wiley, and you'll put 'im on that table.'

Wynford stood for a moment, his small features seeming to chase each other around his Edam cheese of a face. 'I can't.' He hung his head, turned away and trudged back towards the main door.

But when he reached it, he found his way barred by four large, quiet men of an unmistakably agricultural demeanour.

'Don't be a bigger fool than you look. Wynford,' said the Mayor, walking slowly down the aisle. 'Just give me that radio.'

Wynford sighed, took out the pocket radio in the black rubber case with the short rubber aerial and placed it in Jimmy Preece's bony, outstretched hand.

'It's for the best, Wynford. Now.' The Mayor turned and looked around him. 'Where's Mrs Morrison?'

Oh Christ.

'I'm here, Mr Preece.'

His deeply scored lips shambled into something that might have become a smile. 'You're not very big, Mrs Morrison, but you been stirring up a lot o' trouble, isn't it?'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

One of the men opened a door for him. Another handed him a lamp, a farmer's lambing light.

'Means I don't want you left in yere,' said Jimmy Preece 'Christ alone knows what ole rubbish you'd be spoutin'.'

He pushed her out of the door in front of him.

Outside, it was fully dark.

It was only 9.40.

Oh my God, my God… Oh…

'It's only a dead body,' Mr Preece said, 'It can't hurt you, any more than that Goff can hurt anyone now.'

'It's horrible,' Fay said. 'It's… perverse. You knew it was here, didn't you, like… like this?'

She was shaking. She couldn't help it.

'No,' said the Mayor. 'I didn't think it was gonner be like this. But it don't surprise me.'

'But, Mr Preece, it's your own grandson. How can you bear it?'

'I can bear it, 'cause I got no choice,' said Mr Preece simply. He turned the light away from the coffin and pulled her back, but she could still see the image of Jonathon showcased like a grotesque Christmas doll.

Glad the power was off. Only wished somebody would disconnect the atmosphere.

Was she imagining this, or was it Jonathon she could smell, sweet corruption, bacteria stimulated by exposure to the dense, churchy air?

'Would you mind if I waited outside?'

'You'll stay yere.'

'It's… I'm sorry, Mr Preece, it's the smell.'

'Aye. We should lay him flat and put the lid back on.'

Don't ask me to help. Please don't ask me to help.

'Gonner give me a hand, then?'

No…! But he was taking her arm. 'We 'ave time. Ten minutes yet, see.' Guiding her into the body of the church. She held fingers over her nose.

'Mr Preece…'

'What?'

She took her hand away from her face. 'Why me? Why'd you really bring me along?'

The question resounded from invisible walls and rafters.

'Just hold that.' Giving her the lambing light.

Fay stayed where she was, well back, and shone the light on the coffin, looking away.

'Closer, girl. Shine it closer.'

She felt him watching her. She moved a little closer. The smell was appalling. She imagined bloated, white maggots at work inside Jonathon Preece, although she knew that was ludicrous. Wasn't it?

Fay pushed knuckles into her mouth to stifle the rising panic.

Mr Preece was on his knees beneath the coffin, its top propped against the pulpit. 'Never get 'im back on that trolley. Lay 'im… flat… on the ground. All we can do.' He pushed at the coffin until it was almost upright and the body began sag and belly out, like a drunk in a shop doorway.

'Jesus, Mr Preece, he's slipping! He's going to fall out! He's going to fall on me!'

'Push him back in, girl! Put the light down.'

'I can't!'

'Do it, woman!'

She did. She touched him. She pushed his chest, felt the ruched line of the post-mortem scar. He was cold, but far from stiff now, and she remembered him on the riverbank, soaked and leaking, tongue out and the froth and his skin all crimped.

She closed her eyes and pretended the stink was coming from elsewhere, until the coffin, with its sickening cargo, was flat on the stones and Jimmy Preece was fitting the lid on. Then she was bending over a pew, retching, nothing coming up but bile, like sour, liquid terror.

'Dead, poor boy,' Jimmy Preece said.

She stood up. Wiped her mouth on her sleeve. The smell was still in the air, sweetly putrid. Would she ever get away from that smell?

Heard herself saying. 'Who was it, Mr Preece? Who did this? Who made a sideshow out of him?'

'Dead,' he said. 'Can't hurt you now, can 'e?' He came close. 'Won't hurt that dog, neither, will 'e?'

Oh no. Something had been whispering to her that it was going to be this, but she'd kept pushing it back.

'That's why you brought me, isn't it? That's why you made me touch him.'

He stood there, recovering from the exertion, his breathing like coins rattling in a biscuit tin. Max Goff stabbed to death something unspeakably vile seeping into Crybbe, but it was the death by drowning of one Jonathon Preece, young farmer of this parish…

'Family thing,' he said, voice as dry as wood ash. 'Something I 'ave to know before I die. Jack sent Jonathon out to make away with that animal of yours.'

'And why?' she said, but he didn't answer that.

'And he never came back.'

'OK, I'll tell you,' Fay said, in a rush. 'I'll tell you what happened, OK?'

His words of a moment long ago lurched back at her… before I die? Have to know before I die.

She didn't even want to think what he meant by this, so she told him everything. Everything except for the feelings Joe Powys had said he'd experienced on the riverbank with the gun in his hands and the urge to kill.

Mr Preece went on breathing like a dying man. When she'd finished, he said, 'There's more to it than that.'

'No, there isn't, I swear.'

'Jonathon was a strong boy and a good swimmer. 'E also – unlike that brother of 'is – 'e had a bit o' common sense.'

'I'm sorry,' Fay said. 'I can't tell you what happened when he'd gone. Perhaps… I mean, with hindsight, we should have stayed. With hindsight, we should never have thrown the gun in the river in the first place. I'm sorry. I really am desperately sorry, Mr Preece. ..' She was aware of her voice becoming very small and a bit pathetic.

He was moving away towards the entrance, pulling out a pocket watch the size of a travel alarm-clock. It had big luminous hands.

'Right,' he said. 'You can wait in the porch, by yere, but you don't go out. You don't open that door until the bell's finished, you understand?

'I want to come up with you.'

'We goes up alone,' he snapped. 'Now you remember what I said, you keep that door shut. Understand?'

'Yes. Look… Mr Preece…'

'Make it quick, Miss, make it very quick.'

She was remembering how controlled he'd been in the hall, how sure that the killer had left the building.

'You know who did this… to Jonathon, don't you?… you know who killed Max Goff when the lights were out.'

He turned his back on her and mounted the first step.

'Don't you?'

He didn't look back, and a turn in the spiral staircase took the light away.

'Is that a Crybbe matter, as well?' she yelled. 'Or is it.. .?'

God, she thought, as the darkness in the church became for a while, absolute, I can still smell it. Still smell Jonathon.

And she put her hands over her face.

Is it a family matter? was what she'd almost said.

Because it ought to be Warren he was bringing up here tonight. It ought to be Warren.

She heard the Mayor stumble on the steps.

'Are you all right, Mr Preece?'

She heard another footstep, and his ratchet breathing starting up again, like a very old lawn-mower.

Quietly, she began to ascend the steps, until she could see his wavering torch beam reflecting from the curved stonework. And then the beam was no longer visible and she climbed two or three steps until the stairway curved round and she could see the weakening glimmer once more.

The footsteps above her stopped. There was a long silence and then,

'Get back, you…'

He began to cough, and she could hear the fluid gathering in his lungs and throat, like thick oil slurping in the bottom a rusty old can.

'All right, I'm sorry, I'm going back… all right.'

Clattering back to the foot of the stairway, thinking, anything happens to him now, am I going to have the guts to go up there, drag him out of the way or climb over him and pull on the rope a hundred times?

Have I the strength to pull a bell-rope a hundred times? (There's a kind of recoil, isn't there, like a gun, and the rope shoots back up and sometimes pulls large men off their feet.) God almighty, will I have the strength to pull it once?

Leave him. He knows what he's doing. He won't stumble and break his ankle. He won't have a stroke. He won't have a heart attack. He's a Preece.

Like Jack, mangled by his own tractor, under intensive care in Hereford.

Like Jonathon, putrefying in his coffin just a few yards away.

But was there, at the heart of the Preece family, something even more putrid?

She stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for the blessed first peal which only a few nights ago, walking Arnold in the old streets of this crippled town, she'd dreaded.

Presently, she saw the light hazing the stones again and heard his footsteps.

Don't understand.

He's coming down.

She heard his rattling breath, then there was a clatter and the light was all over the place as she heard the lamp rolling down from step to step.

It went out as she caught it.

'Mr Preece… are you…?'

He stood before her breathing roughly, breathing as though he didn't care if each breath was his last.

Fay flicked frantically at the switch and beat the lamp against the palm of her left hand until it hurt. It relit and she shone it at him and reeled back, almost dropping the thing in her shock, and the beam splashed across the nave.

She held the lambing light with both hands to stop it shaking and shone it at the wall to the side of Mr Preece so it wouldn't find him and terrify her with the obscenity of it.

It was wrapped around him like a thick snake.

'What is it?' Fay whispered, and as the whisper dried in her throat she knew.

Perhaps it was winding itself around his neck, choking out of him what little life remained.

Mr Preece let it fall to the stone floor.

He said hoarsely, 'It's the bell-rope, girl. Somebody cut the bell-rope.'

And even Jonathon, with his putrid perfume and his post-mortem scar, hadn't scared her half so much as the s face of his grandfather, an electric puzzle of pulsing vessels, veins and furrows.