Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (5 page)

   
Magic.

   
This was what made radio so
much more satisfying than television. The intimacy of moments like this. And
the fact that you could do all the creative work on your own, only going into studio
for the final mix.

   
Fay really missed all that.
Hadn't imagined she'd miss it
so
much.

   
Tonight, she'd waited until her
father had wandered off to the pub for his nightly whisky and his bar-supper. And
then she'd gone into her office, which used to be Grace Legge's sitting-room.

   
And still was, really, in the daytime.
But at night you could switch off the G-plan furnishing and the fifties
fireplace, and the front room of Number 8, Bell Street, Crybbe, became more tolerable,
with only a second-hand Revox visible in the circle light from the Anglepoise.

   
Fay had a package to edit for
Offa's Dyke Radio. Only a six-minute piece to be slotted into somebody else's
afternoon chat-and-disc show on what was arguably the worst local shoe-string
station in the country.

   
But it was still radio, wasn't
it? After a fashion.

   
And this morning, doing her
contribution for a series on - yawn, yawn - 'people with unusual hobbies', Fay
had actually got
interested
in something.
For a start, he was ever such a nice old chap - most of the people around here,
far from being quaint rural characters, were about as appealing as dried
parsnip.
   
And he'd actually been happy to talk
to her, which was a first. Until, she'd come here. Fay had encountered very few
people who didn't want to be on the radio: no cameras, no lights, and no need
to change your shirt or have your hair done. But in this area, people would
make excuses - 'Oh, I'm too busy, call again sometime.' Or simply refuse - 'I
don't want be on the wireless' - as if, by collecting their voices on tape you
were going to take their souls away.
   
Yes, it was
that
primitive sometimes.
   
Or so she felt.

   
But the water-diviner, or
dowser, had been different and Fay had been fascinated to learn how it was
done. Nothing apparently, to do with the hazel twig, as such. Simply a faculty you
developed through practice, nothing as airy-fairy as 'intuition'.

   
And it definitely was
not psychic
.

   
He kept emphasizing that,
scrutinizing her a bit warily as she stood there, in her T-shirt and jeans,
wishing she'd brought a sweater and a wind-muff for the microphone. It had been
bit breezy in that field, even if tomorrow was Midsummer Day.

   
'Do you think
I
could do it, Henry?' she'd asked, on
tape. You always asked this question, sounding as if it had just occurred to
you. There would then follow an amusing couple of minutes of your attempting to
do whatever it was and, of course, failing dismally.

   
'You could have a try,' he'd
said, playing along. And she'd taken the forked twig in both hands. 'Hold it
quite firmly so it doesn't slip, but don't grip it too hard. And, above all,
relax
. . .'

   
'OK,' she'd heard herself say
through the speaker. And that was when the power went off.

   
'Bloody
hell!
' Fay stormed to the window to see if the other houses in the
street were off. Which they were.

   
It was the fourth power cut in
a month.

   
'I don't believe it!'

   
OK, you could imagine that on
some distant rock in the Hebrides, even today, there would be quite a few times
when the power got waylaid on its way from the mainland.

   
But this was close to the epicentre
of Britain. There were high mountains. And they were not in the middle of an electric
storm.

   
She couldn't remember if it was
South Wales Electricity or Midlands Electricity. But neither could be up to
much if they were unable to maintain supplies to a whole town - OK, a very
small
town - for longer than a fortnight
without a break.

   
Hereward Newsome, who ran the
art gallery in town, had complained to his MP and tried to get up a petition
about it, but he'd given that up in disgust after collecting precisely fifteen
signatures, all from newcomers, including Fay and her dad.

   
Of course, the Newsomes' problem
did appear to be somewhat more serious. Not only were they having to suffer the
power cuts but they were affected by other surges in supply, which, Hereward
swore, were almost doubling their electricity bills. He was getting into a terrible
state about it.

   
Actually, Fay was a bit dubious
about the huge bills being caused by a fault in the system. She grinned into
the darkness, it was probably Jocasta's vibrator, on overdrive.

   
There was a bump and the sound
of two empty spools clattering to the floor.

   
'Pushkin, is that you?'

   
Grace's cats got everywhere.

   
Fay decided she didn't like
this room very much in the absolute dark.

   
She felt along the wall for the
tape-recorder plug, removed it and went to bed.
   
Living in Crybbe would drive anybody
to a vibrator.

Warren should have known.
   
Sixteenth-century lock. Not as if it
was Chubb's finest, was it? Stanley knife into the groove, sliding it around a
bit, that's all it took. Then the screwdriver pushed into the gap. Hit just
once with the palm of his hand.
   
It didn't exactly fly open, the box.
Well, it wouldn't, would it?
   
Being as how it had turned out to be
lead-lined.
   
Fucking lead! No wonder it was so
heavy. Good job he didn't tried to cut into it through the bottom.

   
'Course that lead lining was a
bit of a disappointment. Warren had been hoping the box weighed so much because
was full of gold coins or something of that order. Lead, even antique lead, was
worth bugger all, he was pretty sure of that.

   
Funny smell.

   
Well, not that funny. Old, it
smelled old and musty. He moved the lambing light closer, poked a finger in.

   
Cloth, it was. Some sort of old
fabric, greyish. Better be a bit careful here, bloody old thing might
disintegrate.

   
On the other hand, he couldn't
afford to waste any time. His old man - who wasn't much of a drinker - might
even be on his way back from the church. He might, of course, have called back
round the pub for one with Jonathon and his mates. (If Warren was in the pub
with
his
mates and the old man came in,
he'd turn his stool round, pretend he hadn't seen him, but Jonathon would call
him over, buy him a pint; that was the kind of smarmy git Jonathon was.) But
most likely he'd come home, getting a few early nights in before haymaking time
and dipping and all that rural shit.

   
And as he came up the track
he'd see the light in the shed.

   
Warren pulled the lamp down,
away from the shed window. He couldn't see much through the glass, with its
thick covering of cobwebs full of dust and dead insects, except that it was very
nearly dark and there was a mist.

   
He was feeling cold now,
wanting to get it over with and go back to the house. It was going to be no big
deal, anyway. Old papers probably. Some long-dead bugger's last will and testament.

   
He prodded the cloth stuff with
the end of the Stanley knife and then dug the blade in a bit and used the knife
to pull the fabric out of the box in one lump.

   
What was underneath the cloth
was whiteish and yellowish like brittle old paper or parchment crumpled up.

   
He gave it a prod.

   
And the Stanley knife dropped out
of Warren's fingers - fingers that had gone suddenly numb.
   
'Aaaa . . .'

   
Warren caught his breath, voice
gone into a choke.

   
The knife fell into the box and
made this horrible little chinking noise.

CHAPTER V

Mr. Kettle raised a hand to Goff as he drove away. He was thinking,
well,
somebody
had to buy the place. Better
this rich, flash bugger - surely - than a family man with a cosy wife and perhaps
a daughter or two, with horses for the stables and things to lose. Good things.
Peace of mind.
Balance
of mind.

   
He left the town on the Ludlow
road which would take him past the Court. It wouldn't be Goff's only home.
Well, he'd move in and stride around for a while, barking orders to battalions
of workmen, changing this and restoring that in the hope it would give the
house some personality, a bit of atmosphere. And then he'd get tired of the
struggle and go back to London, and the Court would become a weekend home, then
an every-other-weekend home, then a holiday home, then just an investment.

   
Then he'd sell it.

   
And the process would begin all
over again.

   
Dead ahead of him at this
point, the Court crouched like an animal behind the Tump. The Tump was a mound
which at some stage may or may not have had a castle on top. Trees sprouted
from it now and brambles choked the slopes. The Tump was a field away from the
road, about two hundred yards, and there was a wall around it.

   
Arnold whined once and crept
into the back seat where he lay down.

   
Behind the wall, the Tump
loomed black against the dull, smoky dregs of the dusk. All the more visible
because there were no lights anywhere. Nothing. Had there been a power cut?

   
It had always been obvious to
Mr. Kettle that whether or not the Tump had once had a castle on it, before
that - long, long before that - it had been a burial place of some importance. He'd
been up there but found no sign of it having been excavated. Which was not that
unusual; mounds like this were ten a penny in the Marches.

   
The business of the stones.
That
was unusual.

   
What
would
happen if he put them back, the same stones where you could
find them, substitutes where they'd vanished entirely? Well, probably nothing.
Nothing would happen. That was what Mr. Kettle told himself as he drove in the
direction of the Tump along a road which vaguely followed the ley he'd marked
on the Ordnance Survey map as 'line B'. The mound, of course, was on the line.

   
He was relieved when the road
swung away from the ley and the shadow of the Tump moved over from the
windscreen to the side window. Now, why was that?
Why
was he relieved?

   
He slowed for the final bend
before the town sign and glanced in the mirror, seeing in the dimness the dog's
intelligent eyes, wide, bright and anxious.

   
'He don't know really what he's
takin' on, Arn,' Mr. Kettle said, his voice softening as it always did when he
and the dog were alone.

   
He put out his left hand to switch
on the headlights. Towns ended very abruptly in these parts. Full street
lighting and then, in the blink of an eye, you were into the countryside, where
different rules applied. But tonight there were no lights; it was all one.

   
People said sometimes that the
Court must be haunted, whatever that meant. Atmospherics, usually. The couple
of times he'd been in there it had been cold and gloomy and had this miserable,
uncared for kind of feeling. In Mr. Kettle's experience, so-called haunted
houses were not normally like that - they could be quite bright and cheerful in
the daytime, except for those cold bits. There were always cold bits.

   
But what was wrong with the
Court was more fundamental. It was a dead spot. Nothing
psychic
, though, you understand? Just nothing thrived there.
Indeed, he couldn't figure out why it hadn't been abandoned and left to rot
centuries ago, long before it had become a 'listed' building, deemed to be of
historic interest.

   
Arnold sprang up on the back
seat and growled.

   
'And what's up with you now?'

   
The dog had his front paws on
the back of Mr. Kettle's seat, his furry head against- his master's cheek, lips
curled back, showing his teeth, white and feral in the gloom.