Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (86 page)

   
The hand-lamp was tucked into
the cleft between two tree roots. Humble was sitting in the grass a few feet
away from the lamp.

   
He couldn't see Humble very
well, but he could see what Humble was holding. It was a crossbow: very modern,
plenty of black metal. It had a heavy-looking rifle-type butt, which was
obviously what Humble had hit him with. Back of the neck, maybe between the
shoulder blades. Either way, he didn't want to move.

   
'What he said was,' Humble
explained, 'his actual words: "Joe Powys is
very
obedient." He always does what he's told. Someone tells
him to go to the Tump, he goes to the Tump.'

   
Powys senses were numbed.

   
'Well, that's how I prefer it,'
Humble said. '
Making
people do fings
is very time consuming. I much prefer obedience.'

   
'Where's Andy?' Powys was
surprised to discover he could still talk.

   
'Well, he ain't here, is he?
Somebody indicate he might be?'

   
Humble lifted his crossbow to his
shoulder, squinted at Powys. He was about ten feet away. The was a steel bolt
in the crossbow.

   
Powys cringed.

   
'Pheeeeeeew,' Humble said.
"Straight frew your left eyeball, Mr Powys.'

   
Powys didn't move. You live in
fear of the unknown and the unseen and, when you're facing death, death turns
out to be a yobbo with a mousetrap mouth and a lethal weapon favoured by the
lower type of country-sport enthusiast.

   
'But it won't come to that,'
Humble said. 'Seeing as obedience is one of your virtues. I won't say that's
not a pity - I never done a human being with one of these - but if I got to postpone
the experience, I got to postpone it. On your feet, please, Mr P.'

   
'I don't think I can. I think
you broke my collar-bone.'

   
'Oh, that's where you keep your
collar-bone these days, is it? Don't fuck with me please, get up.'

   
And Powys did, accepting without
question that this guy would kill him if he didn't. Humble stood up, too. He
was wearing a black gilet, his arms bare. Humble was a timeless figure, the
hunter. He killed.

   
'Now, we're going to go down
off the Tump, Mr Powys, on account you can't always trust your reactions up
here, as you surely know. We're going to go down, back over that wall,
OK?'

   
'Where's Andy?' Powys said.

   
'I'm empowered to answer just
one of your questions, and that wasn't it, I'm sorry.'

   
Powys tripped over a root and
grabbed at a bush. 'Aaah.' Thorns.

   
'Keep going, please. Don't turn
round.'
   
Powys froze.
He's going to kill me. He's going to shoot me from behind.

   
Something slammed into his back
and be cried out and lost his footing and crashed through the thorn bush and
rolled over and over.

   
'. . . did tell you to keep
going.'

   
As he lay in a tangle at the
foot of the mound, Humble dipped down beside him, just inside the wall.

   
'I'll tell you the answer, shall
I? Then you can work out the question at your leisure. The answer is - you
ready? - the answer is .. .
his mother
.
Now get on your feet, over the wall
and across to the old house.'

The night has gathered around Warren, and he's loving it. Earned himself
a piece of it now - a piece of night to carry 'round with him and nibble on
whenever he's hungry.

   
And he's still hungry, his
appetite growing all the time.

   
He's off out of the back door
of the town hall and across the square, into the alley by the Cock, the Stanley
knife hot his right hand. Only it's not
his
hand any more; this is the Hand of Glory.

   
The ole box is just a box now,
and what's in the box is just bones. His is the hand and his will be the glory.

   
Felt like doing a few more
while he was in there. That Colonel Croston, of the SAS. That'd have been a
laugh.

   
Incredible, the way he just
walked in the back way and the lights had gone, dead on cue, like wherever he
goes he brings the night in with him.

   
He has this brilliant night
vision now. Just like daylight.
Better
than daylight 'cause
he
can see and
no bugger else can.

   
Standing behind this fat phoney,
big man on a squidgy little chair, glaring white suit - you'd have to be blind
not
to see him - and all the time in the
world to choose where to put it in.

   
Didn't need to choose. The Hand
of Glory knew.

   
Brilliant. Thought he'd be squealing
like a pig, but he never made more than a gurgle.

   
Brilliant.

   
There's someone behind Tessa in
the alley. Tall guy.
   
'Who's this?'

   
Tessa laughing. 'My teacher.'

   
'How's it going, Warren?' the
teacher saying. 'How are you feeling?'

   
Warren grinning, savouring the
night in his mouth, and his eyes are like lights. Headlights, yeah.
   
'Good lad,' says the teacher.

Minnie Seagrove was not too happy with the Bourbon creams.

   
It was long after nine when she
placed a small china plate of the long brown biscuits on one of the occasional
tables and set it down by the side of Frank's chair at just the right height. Putting
the camping light on the table next to the plate, still dubiously pursing up her
lips. 'I do hope they're all right, Frank. They're nearly a month over the
sell-by date. I remember I bought them the day they took you into the General.
They'd just opened that new Safeways near the station, and I thought I'd go
down there from the hospital, 'cause it's not far to walk, take me mind off it,
sort of thing.'

   
Tears came into Mrs Seagrove's
eyes at the memory. 'I bought a whole rainbow trout, too. I thought, he's never
managed to catch one, least I can do is serve him one up for his first dinner
when he comes out.'

   
She turned away and grabbed a Scottie
from the box to dab her eyes. They were Kleenex really, but Mrs Seagrove called
all tissues Scotties because it sounded more homely.

   
'Had to throw it in the bin,
that trout, well past its sell-by. Still, you
did
come back from the General, after all, didn't you, Frank?'

   
Looking at him through the tears,
Mrs Seagrove had to keep blinking and on every other blink, Frank seemed to
disappear. She applied the Scottie to her eyes again and sat down opposite him.
He didn't look well, she had to admit.

   
'Eat your Bourbons, Frank,' she
said. 'There'll be nothing left of you if you go on like this. I know, I'll put
the wireless on - you can listen to the local news.'

   
Mrs Seagrove kept the wireless
on the sideboard. To tell the truth, it wasn't her kind of wireless at all.
Justin had bought it for them last Christmas but one. It was a long black thing
with dozens of switches and you could see all these speakers through the
plastic grilles, big ones and little ones, all jumbled up. Why they couldn't
make them with just one speaker and cover it up neatly like they used to, she'd
never know.

   
Being that changing stations
was so complicated, she had it permanently tuned to Offa's Dyke Radio. She'd
have preferred Radio Two herself, that young Chris Stuart had ever such a comforting
voice, but Frank said if you were living in a place you ought to keep up with
what was happening around you, even if it wasn't very interesting. Mrs Seagrove
certainly found most of it quite boring - too much about councils and sheep
prices - so she put it on quite low tonight (Frank had good ears, belter than
hers) and she only turned it up when she heard that Max Goff mentioned.

   
' . . . at a packed public meeting to discuss his plans for the
so-called New Age mystical healing centre in the border town of Crybbe . . .
from where Gavin Ashpole now reports.'

   
Gavin who? What had happened to
Fay Morrison? She might have been a bit awkward about the . . . thing. But she did
seem quite a nice girl when you actually met her.

'. . . Townsfolk listened
in hostile silence as Max Goff explained his plans to turn Crybbe into a kind
of New Age Lourdes, bringing in thousands of tourists from all over the world
and providing a massive boost for the local economy. However, he said, it would
be up to the town whether it. . . Oh . . . Oh, you bitch . . .oh, you . . . oh,
please . . .'

   
Mrs Seagrove recoiled from the
wireless as if a wasp had flown out of one of the speakers.

   
'Frank, did you hear that?'

   
'Oh . . . oh . . . please ... yes... yes, do it... ! CHEW IT
OFF!!'

   
There was a long silence and
then the voice of the news reader came back.

   
'I'm sorry, I ... I'm not sure what happened there. We'll try and
return to that report. . . er, other news now . . .'

   
'Frank,' said Minnie Seagrove.
'Did you hear that, Frank? That's your precious Offa's Dyke Radio for you.
Chris Stuart never goes to pieces like that. Did you hear . . . Frank?'

   
Frank's chair was empty.

   
All the Bourbon biscuits were still
on the plate, six of them arranged in a little semi-circle.
   
'Frank? Frank, where are you?'

   
Breathing faster, Mrs Seagrove
turned and switched off the wireless and turned back to the chair and rubbed
her eyes with the screwed-up tissue, but Frank was gone and the door was closed.

   
She started to feel very
confused.
   
Get a grip, Minnie, get a grip.

   
Nothing was right.
Nothing
was right. Mrs Seagrove went to
the window and flung back the curtains. 'It's you, isn't it? It's
you
.'

   
Great, ugly slag-heap thing.
She'd probably be able to see the church if it wasn't for that; always liked to
see a church in the distance, even if she didn't go.

   
She could see the mound quite
clearly tonight, even though there was no moon. It was a bit like the mound was
lit up from inside, not
very
lit up,
sort of a yellowish glow like a lemon jelly.

   
She thought she could see a
shadow moving across the field.

   
'Is that you, Frank?' She
banged on the window. 'You're not going out in that wet grass this time of
night!'

   
He was stupid sometimes, Frank,
like a little boy. He'd walk down to that river and just stare at it, wondering
why he never caught that many fish.

   
She pulled her walking shoes
from under the sideboard. 'You come back here, Frank Seagrove. It's not safe
out there!'

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.'