Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (75 page)

   
It didn't take him long to get
a reaction on the suicide. Unlike most people in this area, Gomer appeared to
have a healthy appetite for the unpleasant.

   
'Handel Roberts.' Gomer beamed.
'Sure to be.'

   
'And who precisely was Handel
Roberts?

   
'Copper,' said Gomer. 'While
back now. I wasn't so old, but I remember Handel Roberts all right. Didn't
Wynford tell you about this? No, I s'pose 'e wouldn't. Coppers, see. They don't
gossip about their own.'

   
Gomer broke off to wipe
something revolting from his glasses with an oily rag.

   
He blinked at Guy. 'That's
better. Aye, Handel Roberts. He was station sergeant, see, like Wynford. Only
there was twice as many police in them days, before there was any crime to
speak of - there's logic, isn't it? Well, this was the time they'd built the
new police 'ouses as part of the council estate. And it comes to Handel
retiring and the County Police lets him carry on living in the old police
'ouse, peppercorn rent, sort of thing, everybody happy. Until - I forget the
details - but some new police authority takes over and they decides the old
police 'ouse is worth a bob or two so they'll sell it.'

   
Guy could see where this was
going. Old Handel Roberts, unable to afford the place, no savings, nowhere to
go.

   
Nowhere but the bathroom.

   
'Ear to ear,' Gomer said with a
big grin. 'Blood everywhere. But 'e 'ad the last laugh, the old boy did. They
couldn't sell the police 'ouse after that, not for a long time. And then it was
a cheap job, see. Billy Byford 'ad it for peanuts. Newly wed at the time -
Nettie played 'ell, wouldn't move in till Billy stripped that bathroom back to
the bare brick, put in new basin, bath and lavvy.'

   
Guy said delicately, 'And he
still, er, that is Handel Roberts, was believed to haunt the place, I gather.'

   
'Well, you're better informed
than what I am,' Gomer said. 'Anything funny going on there, Nettie'd've been
off like a rabbit. Oh hell, aye. Want me to tell you all this for the telly
cameras? No problem, just gimme time to get cleaned up, like.'

   
'No, no . . . just something I
needed to check.'

   
'Anything else you wanner know,
you'll find me around most of the week. 'Ad this job lined up with the council,
but it's been put back, so I'm available, see, any time.'

   
'That's very' kind of you
indeed, Gomer. I won't hesitate. Oh, there is one final thing . . . Handel Roberts,
what did he look like?'

   
Gomer indulged in a long sniff.
He seemed immune to the appalling stench from the soakaway.

   
'Big nose is all I remember,
see. Hell of a big nose.'

Powys drove to Fay's house, but there was no one in. He didn't know
where else to go, so he sat there in the Mini, in Bell Street. It was
two-thirty. He'd bought some chips for lunch and ended up dumping most of them
in a litter bin, feeling sick.

   
He'd learned from Graham
Jarrett that Rachel's body had been sent for burial to her parents' home,
somewhere in Essex, Jarrett thought. He ought to find out, send flowers, with a
message.

   
Saying what?
I think I know why you died, Rachel. You
died because of a cat. A cat placed in the rafters to ward off evil spirits.
You died because a four-hundred-year-old dead cat can't hurl itself from the
building. Because somebody has to be holding it and, unfortunately for you,
nobody else was around at the time.

   
The Bottle Stone was no more
than a sick coincidence, albeit the kind that questioned the whole nature of
coincidence.

   
But the cat had been part of
the ritual procedure to prevent something returning. Before the spirit could
regain its occupancy, the cat had to go.

   
Just a little formality.

   
Powys took a tight hold of the
steering wheel.
   
I
am not a crank.

CHAPTER VI

Powys waited half an hour for Fay. She didn't show. He couldn't blame
her if she'd just taken off somewhere for the night or possibly forever, she
and Arnold, battle-scarred refugees from the Old Golden Land.

   
Leaving him to convince Goff
that the Crybbe project was a blueprint for a small-scale Armageddon.

   
On impulse, he started the car
and drove slowly through the town towards the Court.

The afternoon was dull and humid. The buildings bulged, as though the
timber frames were contracting, squeezing the bricks into dust. And the people
on the streets looked drained and zombified, as if debilitated by some organic
power failure affecting the central nervous system or the blood supply.

   
Which made Powys think of Fay's
dad, the old Canon, whose blood supply had been impeded but who now was fast
becoming a symbol of the efficacy of New Age spiritual healing.

   
Maybe everybody here could use
a prescription from Jean Wendle's Dr Chi. Maybe, in fact, Jean, the acceptable,
self-questioning face of the New Age, was the person he ought to be talking to
this afternoon.

   
But first he would find Goff
and, with any luck, Andy too. Sooner or later Andy had to resurface. It seemed
very unlikely, for instance, that he wouldn't be at tonight's public meeting.

   
Rachel had said Goff was
'besotted with Boulton-Trow'. If there was indeed a sexual element, that would
mean complications. But Goff wasn't stupid.

   
However, even as he drove into
the lane beside the church he was getting cold feet about making a direct
approach to Goff, and when he arrived at the Court he saw why it was useless.

   
Something had changed.
Something with its beginnings, perhaps, in an effluvial flickering in the eaves
two nights ago.

   
Powys drove out of the wood,
between the gateposts and, when the court came into view, he had to stop the
car.

   
You didn't have to be psychic
to experience it.

   
Where, before, it had worn this
air of dereliction, of crumbling neglect, of seeping decay - the atmosphere
which had caused Henry Kettle to record in his journal,

. . . the Court is a dead place, no more than a shell. I
can't get anything from the Court.

   
- it was now a distinct and
awesome presence, as if its ancient foundations had been reinforced, its
Elizabethan stonework strengthened. As if it was rising triumphantly from its
hollow, the old galleon finally floating free from the mud-flats.

   
He knew that, structurally,
nothing at all had altered, that he was still looking at the building he'd
first seen less than a week ago as a shambling pile of neglect.

   
It had simply been restored to
life.

   
Its power supply reconnected.

   
Occupancy regained.

   
There was a glare from the
rear-view mirror. The Mini was stopped in the middle of the narrow drive,
blocking the path of a big, black sports car. Goff's Ferrari, headlights
flashing. As Powys released the handbrake, prepared to get out of the way, the
Ferrari's driver's door opened and Goff squeezed out,
raising a hand.

   
Powys switched the engine off.

   
'J.M.! Where ya been?'

   
Goff, untypically, was in a
dark double-breasted suit over a white open-necked shirt. He looked strong and,
for a man of his girth, buoyantly fit.

   
'You're a very elusive guy,
J.M. I've been calling you on the phone, putting out messages. Listen, that
problem with cops . . . that's sorted out now?'

   
'I'd like to think so. Max.'

   
'Fucking arsehole cops can't
see further than the end of their own truncheons. They got so little real crime
to amuse them in these parts, they can't accept a tragic accident for what it is.'

   
Powys said nothing. He was
pretty sure Goff must have known about him and Rachel.

   
'Listen,' Goff said, 'the
reason I've been trying to track you down - I need you at the meeting tonight.
I don't anticipate problems, I think the majority of people in Crybbe are only
too glad to see the place get a new buzz. But . . .
but
I'm the first to recognise they might find me a little - how
can I put this - overwhelming? Larger than life? Larger than
their
lives, anyhow. You, on the other
hand . . . you're a downbeat kind of guy, J.M. Nobody's gonna call you flash,
nobody's gonna call you weird.'

   
'That a compliment, Max?'

   
Goff laughed delightedly and
clapped Powys on the shoulder. 'Just be there, J.M. I might need you.'

   
Powys nodded compliantly, then
said casually, 'Where's Andy these days, Max?'

   
Goff's little eyes went
watchful. 'He's around.'

   
'Just for the record . . . this
whole idea, the idea of coming to Crybbe. That was Andy's, wasn't it?'

   
'It was mine,' Goff said
coldly.

   
'But you did know about Andy's
ancestral links with the Court?'

   
Dangerous ground, Powys. Watch
his eyes.

   
Goff said, 'You got a problem
with that?'

   
'I was just intrigued that
nobody talks about it.'

   
'Maybe that's not yet something
you advertise.' Goff went quiet, obviously thinking something over. Then he put
a hand on Powys's shoulder.

   
'J.M., come over here.' He
steered Powys into the centre of the drive, to where the Court opened out
before them like an enormous pop-up book. 'Will you look at that? I mean
really
look.'

   
Powys did, and felt,
uncomfortably, that the house was looking back at him.

   
'J.M., this was once the finest
house in the county. Not that it had much competition - this part of the
border's never been a wealthy area - but it was something to be envied. You can
imagine what it musta been like. This introverted, taciturn region where, by
tradition, survival means keeping your head down. And this guy builds a flaming
palace
. Well, jeez - to these people,
they're looking at a Tower of Babel situation. Here's a guy who takes a pride
in the place he lives, who loves this countryside, who wants to make a
statement about that. They couldn't get a handle on any of it, these working
farmers, these . . .
peasants
.'

   
Powys said, to get the name out,
'Sir Michael Wort.'

   
'Listen, this guy has been
seriously maligned.'
   
'He hanged people.'

   
'Goddamn it, J.M.,
all
high sheriffs hanged people.'
   
'In the attic?'

   
'Arguably more humane than
public execution. But, yeah, OK, that was the other thing about him they
couldn't handle. He was a scientist. And a philosopher. He wanted to know where
he came from and where he was going to. He wanted to find - what's that phrase?
- the active force . . .'

   
'The force above human reason
which is the active principle in nature.'

   
'Yeah.'

   
'Definition of natural magic.
John Dee.'

   
'Yeah. I got this Oxford
professor who's so eminent I don't get to name him till he comes through with
it, but this guy's doing a definitive paper on the collaboration between John
Dee and Wort. Has access to a whole pile of hitherto unknown correspondence.'

   
'From the Wort side?' Powys
thought of Andy's Filofax, wondered whether the professor had been given
all
the correspondence.

   
'Maybe. Yeah. Maybe, also, some
of Dee's papers that came into Wort's possession, all authenticated material.
This is heavy stuff, J.M. Point is, you can imagine how the people hereabouts
reacted to it back in the sixteenth century?'

   
'Pretty much the way some of
them are reacting to your ideas now, I should have thought.' Powys wondering
how Dee's private notes - if that was what they were - had fallen into Wort's
hands. Unless Wort had taken steps to acquire them in order to remove any proof
of the collaboration.