Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (37 page)

   
At least the delay was a
breathing space.

   
'Which you want to go for,
then?' the cameraman, Larry Ember, asked him, pulling his tripod out of the mud
close to the summit of the mound.

   
Guy pushed angry, stiffened
fingers through his blond hair. 'Whichever we go for, it'll be wrong,' he said
uncharacteristically. 'Look, if we set up next to Goff, how much of the
bulldozer stuff do you reckon you can shoot from here?'

   
'Useless,' Larry Ember said.
'You're shooting a wall collapsing, you got to be under the thing, like it's
tumbling towards you. Even then, with one camera, you're not going to get much.'

   
'Maybe we can fake it
afterwards. Get the chap to knock down another section of wall round the back
or something. We've got no choice, I need to get his reactions.'

   
'Could always ask
him
to fake it afterwards.'

   
'Perhaps not,' said Guy.

   
'Fucking cold up here,' Larry
said. 'What kind of summer is this?'

   
A swirling breeze - well, more
than a breeze - had set the trees rattling around them.

   
'Going to rain, too, in a
minute.' Larry Ember looked up at a sky like the inside of a rotten potato. 'We
should have had lights up here. I told you we needed a sparks, as well. You
can't cut costs on a job like this.'

   
'I didn't
know
it was going to happen,' Guy hissed. 'Did I? I thought it was
going to be a couple of talking heads and a few GVs'

   
Goff lurched over, white jacket
flapping in the wind. 'Some flaming cock-up here. Switch that damn thing off
for now, Guy, will you?'

   
'You the producer, or is he?'
the cameraman wondered provocatively.

   
'Go along with him. For now.'
Guy had gone red. His dumpy, serious-faced assistant, Catrin Jones, squeezed
his arm encouragingly. Guy knew she'd been in love with him for some time.

   
Below them, the speakers on the
van began to crackle. Goff's voice came out fractured. '. . . et . . . chel
Wade . . .up here. Get Rach . . . ade ... up here NOW.'

   
Catrin zipped up her fleecy
body-warmer, 'It's a funny thing . . .'

   
'Nothing,' snapped Guy, 'about
this is funny.'

   
'No, I mean it's so cold and
windy up here and down there . . . nothing.' She waved a hand towards the crowd
below - some people drifting away now. 'No wind at all, nobody's hair is
blowing or anything.'

   
'OK.' Guy prodded Larry Ember's
left shoulder, bellowed down his ear. 'Executive decision. Let's get down
there. Take a chance, shoot it from below.'

   
"... ucking sticks gonna
blow over.' Larry clutched his camera as the wind buffeted the tripod. The wind
seemed to be coming from
underneath
.
Catrin's clipboard was suddenly snatched from her hands and wafted upwards with
a wild scattering of white paper, like a bird disturbed.

   
She squealed. 'Oh
no
!' Clawing frantically at the air.

   
'Leave it!' Guy said.

   
'It's the shot-list!'

   
'Just let it go!'

   
Five yards away, Goff was
shrieking into the microphone, to no effect. The sound had gone completely.

   
'. . . king weird, this set-up.'
Larry's words snatched into the swirling wind.

   
'One more shot!' Guy screaming
down the cameraman's car again. 'Get Goff. Get him
now
!'

   
Goff's arms were flailing, the
wide lapels of his white jacket whipped across his chin, the trees roaring around
him, the sky black. He was out of control.

   
Guy wanted this.

Powys edged round the field, concealed - he hoped - by gorse-bushes and
broom, then crossed it diagonally, approaching the man, Jonathon Preece, from
behind, as quietly as he could. Feeling himself quivering: outrage and
apprehension. He could see the woman lying not quite flat, spread across the
dog, looking up now at Preece.

   
Heard her harsh whisper. '. . .
done, you bastard?'

   
'I'm allowed,' Preece said
with, Powys thought, surprising belligerence, the shotgun under his arm, barrel
unbroken, if a dog's threatening sheep . . .'

   
'There
are
no bloody sheep!'

   
'There is in that next field,'
he insisted. 'Up there, 'e was. I seen 'im before. We 'ad four lambs killed up
there t'other week.'

   
'You're lying! This dog wasn't
even here last week.'
   
'If a farmer got reason to think . .
.' Waving his arms for emphasis, the gun moving about under one.
   
'You going to shoot
me
now?'

   
Jonathon Preece looked down at
the gun under his arm and stepped back a pace or two. Powys froze, only three
or four yards behind him now. Preece bent down, watching the woman all the
time, and laid the shotgun on the grass to one side, .

   
'See. I put 'im down now, the
ole gun. You go 'ome. Nothing you can do.' A bit defensive now. 'I'm within my
legal rights, you ask Wynford Wiley. Can't be 'elped. No place for dogs, sheep
country.'

   
The woman didn't move. Powys
saw a tumble of tawny hair over a blue nylon cagoule.

   
A curious thing happened then.
Although it was way past 9 p.m. and the sky was deep grey - no trace of
sunlight for hours - a shadow fell across the field like an iron bar.

   
And down it, like a gust of
breath through a blowpipe, came a harsh wind.

'What's he doing? What
is
he
doing?'

   
Rachel couldn't believe it. Max
was lumping up and down on the summit of the mound, his white jacket swirling
around him, his white trousers flapping, as if he was trying to keep his
balance, struggling to stay on his feet.

   
'Looks like 'e's been caught in
a hurricane,' Gomer Parry observed.

   
But there was no wind. The
trees behind Goff on the Tump appeared quite motionless, while Goff himself was
dancing like a marionette with a hyperactive child wielding the strings.

   
He's just angry, Rachel
thought. Out of his mind with rage because the wall isn't collapsing and the PA
system's broken down. Teach him to hire local firms for a job like this.

   
She was aware, on the edge of
her vision, of Andy Boulton-Trow in his white shirt and his tight, black jeans
looking up at the dancing bear on the mound. Andy's beard-shadowed face was
solemn and watchful, then it split into a grin and he started shaking his head.

He saw Jonathon Preece look up in sudden alarm as the shaft of wind made
a channel of black water across the river, from bank to bank.

   
There was a strangled yelp from
the woman or the dog or both, but he couldn't hear either of them clearly
because of the wind.

   
It came like a hard gasp of
breath.
   
Bad
breath.

   
The wind smelled foul. And as
Powys, choking, reeled away from it, his senses rebelled and the whole scene
seemed to go into negative for a moment, so that the sky was white and the
grass was red and the river gleamed a nauseous yellow.

   
He stumbled, eyes streaming, a
roaring in his ears.

   
And when the noise faded and
the halitosis wind died and his vision began to clear, Joe Powys found he was
holding the twelve-bore shotgun.

   
It was heavier than he
expected, and he stumbled, almost dropping it. He gripped it firmly in both
hands, straightened up.

   
Jonathon Preece roared, 'Who
the 'ell . . . ?' Powys saw his face for the first time - raw pink checks. Age
maybe twenty-two or three.

   
'Steady, pal.'

   
'You give me that gun, Mister!'

   
'Advise me, Jonathon.' Powys
pointed the shotgun in the general direction of Jonathon Preece's groin. 'I've
never used one of these before. Do I have to pull the two triggers to blow both
your balls off, or is one enough?'

   
He was gratified to see fear
flit, fast as an insect, across Jonathon Preece's eyes, 'I don't know who you
are, mister, but this is none of your business.'

   
Powys felt himself grinning. In
his right hand, the barrel of the twelve-bore was comfortably warm, like
radiator pipes. The stock fitted into his armpit, firm as a crutch.

   
'You watch it. Mister. Ole
thing'll go off.'

   
'Yes,' Powys said.

   
He raised the barrel, so that
it was pointing into Jonathan's chest.

   
'You put 'im down. Be
sensible!'

   
His finger under the
trigger-guard, so firm. He thought, this man deserves what's coming to him.
This man needs to die. He felt a hard thud of certainty in his chest. An acute
satisfaction, the flexing of an unknown muscle.

   
He drank in the dusk like rough
ale, closed his eyes and squeezed.

   
"Nnnn . . . oooo.'

   
Saw, in slow-motion, the chest
of Jonathon Preece exploding, the air bright with blood, a butcher's shop
cascade.

   
A tiny, feeble noise. He
turned. The woman in the blue cagoule was up on her knees now, breathing hard.
The tiny, feeble noise came out of the lump of sodden fur exposed on the grass.

   
'Arnie!' She looked up at
Powys; he saw tear-stained, blood-blotched cheeks, clear green eyes and a lot
of mud. 'Oh God, he's hanging on. Can you help me?'

   
Powys's mouth was so dry he
couldn't speak.

   
Jonathon Preece screamed. 'You
got no bloody sense? Gimme that gun!'

   
'I . . .'

   
'Please,' the woman begged.

   
'Gimme it!' The farmer took a
step forward.

   
From out of the town's serrated
silhouette came the first sonorous stroke of the curfew.

   
Powys looked down in horror at
the gun. It felt suddenly very cold in his hands.
   
'Gimme . . .'

   
'Get it yourself,' Powys said,
backing away, far enough away for Jonathon Preece, in this light, to remain
unsure of what was happening until he heard the splash.

   
When the gun hit the water,
Powys saw Mrs Seagrove hurrying down the bank towards them and then he saw
Jonathon Preece's purpling face and became aware, for the first time, as the
farmer advanced on him with bunched fists, that Jonathon Preece was bigger than
he was. As well as being younger and fitter and, at this point, far angrier.

   
'You fuckin' done it now,
Mister. Antique, that gun is. Three generations of my family 'ad that gun.'

   
Powys shrugged, palms up,
backing off. He felt loose, very tired suddenly. 'Yeah, well ... not too deep
just there . . . Jonathon. Be OK. When it dries out.'

   
Preece's head swivelled - Mrs
Seagrove coming quickly towards them, red-faced, out of breath - and he
stopped, uncertain.

   
Mrs Seagrove stood there in her
twinset and her plaid skirt, breathing hard, eventually managing to gasp, 'Did
you see it?
Did you?'

   
Powys looked at her, then at
Jonathon Preece who'd turned to the river, was glaring out. The river looked
stagnant. Preece hesitated, stared savagely into the drab water, started to say
something and then didn't.

   
'Please,' the woman said from
the grass.

   
It began to rain, big drops you
could see individually against the hard sky.

   
Powys pulled off his jacket and
knelt down. The dog's eyes were wide open, flanks pulsating. Powys didn't know
what to do.
   
The dog squirmed, blood oozed.

   
Powys laid the jacket down. 'Put
him on this.' He slid both hands beneath the dog. 'Gently. We'll get him to a
vet. You . . . you never know your luck.'