Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (90 page)

   
A man in a suit, one of the
Epidemic lawyers, said, 'Look - let us out of here now and we'll say no more
about it. But if this goes on, I'm warning you, you're all going to be in very serious
trouble. Impeding the course of justice'll be the very least of it.'

   
'I've found,' Col told him, very
clipped, 'that in a situation like this, telling people what serious trouble
they're going to be in is the fastest way to inflame what could be a highly
combustible situation. I estimate there are more than three hundred adults in
this room and the fact that one of them happens to be dead could just turn out
to be the very least of our worries. Now please sit down.'

   
Aware of a sudden commotion by
the main doors, he yelled into the New Age quarter, 'will somebody please
restrain that lady!'

   
The feminist astrologer was
threatening to damage the genitals of one of the farmers if he didn't get out
of her way. It was Catrin Jones, physically stronger than the astrologer and also
a woman, who was finally able to lead her back to her seat.
   
'They're not real, these people.' The
astrologer shook her spiky head. 'They're bloody zombies. Everything's freaky.'

The Cock being empty and Denzil looking at a bit of a loose end, Gomer
Parry thought it was only reasonable to have two pints, aware this could
conceivably put him over the limit. But what kind of copper stopped a digger
driver trundling along a country lane at 30 m.p.h.?

   
It was after ten when he drove
out of the square in the yellow tractor with the big shovel raised up out of
the way. The roads were about as quiet as you could get.

   
Fact everywhere was a bit on
the quiet side. This Goff was obviously a big attraction. Not a soul on the
streets and with all the lights out, Crybbe looked like one of them film-sets
when everybody'd gone home.

   
Pulling out on to the Ludlow
road, something else struck Gomer: he hadn't heard the bell. They never didn't
ring that bell. Used to be said that old Jimmy Preece - well, young Jimmy
Preece as he'd have been then - had even rung the curfew the day he got
married. A hundred bongs on his wedding night, Mrs Preece wouldn't be that
lucky.

   
Poor old devil back on the
night-shift now, then. Talk about bad luck . . . you wouldn't credit it. Even
if Jack pulled through with both legs still attached, didn't seem likely he'd
be in any state to make it up them old steps for a good long while. Have to be
putting the arm on that young tearaway, Warren.

   
Gomer was never sorry to leave
Crybbe - miserable old place: miserable buildings, miserable folk - but he was
never that happy about going home neither, not since his old lady had handed in
her mop and bucket. He'd work every hour of daylight to put off that terrible
moment when he had to get his own keys out instead of seeing the door opening
as he tramped across the yard and hearing the old kettle whistling on the Rayburn.

   
When midsummer was past and the
working days started getting shorter, Gomer's spirits started to droop, and
tonight had been a freak foretaste of autumn, black clouds crowding in for a
storm that never came, and dark by nine.

   
Now there was mist as well.
That came down bloody quick. Gomer snapped on the full beams, only to discover
his left headlight bulb had gone.

   
Bollocks. No copper'd be able
to resist pulling him in to point this out, and then he'd get a good whiff of
Gomer's breath . . . Mind just blowing in this yere nozzle, sir . . . Oh, dear,
afraid I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the station, well, Gomer could
already see the smile cracking up the fat features of that bastard Wynford Wiley,
and he couldn't stick
that.

   
What he'd have to do then was
switch off the headlights and try and get through the mist on the itsy-bitsy
sidelights which were bugger-all use on these roads on the best of nights.

   
So he flicked off the heads and
slowed down to about twenty, and it was still like skin-diving in a cesspit and
he had to drop down to second gear.

   
Bloody Crybbe.

   
Didn't know why he said that,
you couldn't blame everything on Crybbe.

   
Well, you
could .
. .

   
Gomer hit the brakes. 'What the
'ell's that?'

   
Bloody hell fire, it's the old
Tump. Where'd he come from?

   
Hang on a bit, boy, you done
something a bit wrong yere. Isn't usual to see that thing straight up ahead,
looming out of the mist so sudden like that, enough to scare the life out of you.

   
Hello ... not on the road now,
are we?
   
We surely are not!

   
Bloody teach you to go over the
limit. Thought you could handle a couple of pints, no problem, but the thing
is, you're getting older, boy, your reactions isn't what they was, see.

   
And now, look what you done,
you gone clean off the road, over the verge and you're on the bloody common now
and if you keep on like this you'll be knocking down that Goff's wall for him
after all and buggering up your digger like they did the bulldozer.

   
Gomer was about to pull up
sharp when the front end took a dip and he realized that if he didn't go with
it he was likely to turn this thing over. And he thought about Jack Preece . .
. talk about lightning striking twice. Well, he didn't like this, not one bit.

'I can't stand it!' Hilary Ivory shrieked suddenly. 'This room so black
and negative. It's oppressing me, I've got to have out. And I can't stand to
look at him any more!'

   
'Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not
going to cover him up,' Col told her. 'Really daren't risk disturbing anything,
isn't that right, Sergeant?' Wynford Wiley nodded vaguely, his cheese face
sliced clean of expression; he'd given up -
he
should be directing this situation and look at him . . . jacket off, tie around
his ear, glazed-eyed and sweating like a pig.

   
'All I can suggest is you look
the other way, Mrs Ivory, I'm sorry.'

   
'It's
your
fault,' Hilary turned furiously on her husband 'You knew it
was coming. You should have warned him. What use is a seer who sees and doesn't
tell?'

   
'Me?' Hitherto gloomily silent,
Adam Ivory was stunned into speech. 'You didn't want me to say a word, you
bloody hypocritical cow!' Halfway out of his seat, gripping his knees 'You
didn't want to throw a shadow over things. You didn't want to lose your cosy
little flat in your cosy little town in . . in . . .'

   
'Just a minute.' Col Croston
jumped down from the platform and strode over to where the couple were sitting
amidst Jarrett, a bunch of healers, the Newsomes and Larry Ember standing up,
smoking a cigarette, his camera held between his ankles.

   
'What's this about? What are
you saying?'

   
Guy Morrison said wearily, Adam
reads tarot cards. He saw disaster looming.'

   
'Oh,' said Col, disappointed,
'I see.'

   
'No, you don't,' said Guy.
'Don't knock it, Col. This is a very weird set-up. Guy Morrison used to think
he knew everything there was to know about the supernatural, i.e. that the
whole thing was a lame excuse for not milking real life for everything one
could get.'

   
Guy made a steeple out of the
fingers of both hands and pushed them together, hard. 'But for once,' he said,
'Guy Morrison was wrong.'

   
'What d'you mean exactly?' Col
looked for somewhere to sit down. There wasn't a spare chair, so he squatted,
hands on thighs. 'What's the score here, as you see it, Guy? I mean, Christ,
I've been around. Been in some pretty odd places, among some pretty primitive people,
but, well, we don't notice things under our noses, sometimes. We think it's
what you might call . . . what? Rural eccentricity, I suppose.'

   
'No. Look . . .' Guy had taken
off his expensive olive leather jacket. He didn't seem to notice it was lying
on the floor now, entangled in dusty shoes. 'Which is Mrs Byford? Ask her if
she knows her granddaughter's some kind of witch . . . that girl, the artist.
Ask her about the ex-policeman who cut his throat in her bathroom. Go on. Ask
her.'

   
Oh hell, Col Croston thought.
Bit barmy. He decided not to tell Guy the girl was here, displaying an
anatomical interest in the corpse.

   
'You think I'm crazy, don't
you? Ask her!'

   
'Shut up,' Jocasta Newsome hissed.
'Just shut up, Guy. Just for once.'

   
Guy whirled on her, eyes
alight. '
You
know I'm not crazy, you
of all people. You showed me the drawings. You sent me to talk to the bloody
girl. You . . . uuurh.'

   
Hereward Newsome's thin,
sensitive, artistic hands were around his throat. 'You. . . smooth. . .
self-opinionated . . . bastard!'

   
Col Croston leapt up as Guy's
chair crashed over into the aisle, the chair's and Guy's legs both in the air,
Hereward, teeth clenched, trying to smash Guy's head into the boarded floor.
   
'No wonder . . . she wanted you to . .
. open the fucking . . .exhibition.' Col Croston gripping Hereward's shoulder,
wrenching him off, as Catrin Jones - 'Guy!' - fell down heavily beside her
producer 'Are you all right?' Lifting his head into her lap. 'Guy?' Staring up,
appalled, at the madman with the thinning hair and the greying, goatee beard,
held back by his collar like a snarling dog, hands clawing at the air.

   
'He's only been screwing my
wife,' the madman spat, and Catrin froze - maybe he was not so mad, after all -
allowing Guy's head to fall to the floor with an audible thump.

   
Larry Ember was cradling his
camera, ostensibly to save it from being kicked, the lens pointed casually at
the scene before him. 'One for the Christmas tape,' he murmured to Tom, the soundman.
'Got to keep the old spirits up, ain'tcha?' On the same tape were the pictures he'd
surreptitiously shot of Max Goff's body, while carrying the camera under his
arm at waist level.

   
'You'll put that thing away!'
Sharp-featured Mrs Byford, the council clerk, was on her feet, back arched.

   
'Wasn't aware it was out,
darlin'.' Larry inspecting his trousers.
   
'Colonel!'

   
'Come on, old boy, please. Leave
the thing under the table, hmm?'

   
'I don't think so, squire.'
Larry raising the camera to his shoulder, aiming it at Col, adjusting the
focus.

   
'Guy, would you mind exerting
your . . . ?'

   
But Guy, still sprawled half-stunned
in the aisle, was staring over the Colonel's shoulder, eyes widening. 'She . .
.
she's there
. . . Jocasta . . .
tell them
. . .'

   
The girl stood on the edge of
the platform. She wore black jeans and a black top. Even her lipstick was
black. Her skin, in the blue fluorescence, was like a grim, cloudy day.

   
A small, grey-faced man,
perhaps the husband, snatched ineffectually at Mrs Byford's arm as she stepped
out, screeching, 'Tessa! What you doing in yere ... ? Get out . . . No,
I . . .'

   
'Nobody gets out,' Tessa said
sweetly.

   
Guy was up, staggering, one hand
massaging the back of his head, the other groping for the cameraman's arm. 'The
girl. Shoot her. I want the girl.'

   
As Larry advanced slowly towards
the girl, camera on his shoulder, eye hard to the projecting viewfinder, Mrs
Byford launched herself at him from behind, pummelling his back, clawing at his
neck.

   
'Nettie!' the grey-faced man
shouted. 'No! Don't cause no . . .'

   
Col pulled her off with one hand,
getting his face scratched. 'Mrs Byford! Guy, can't you stop this stupid
bastard before . . .'

   
'So . . .' Guy was panting,
'this is Mrs Byford, is it? Perhaps she can tell us all about Handel Roberts,
who topped himself in her bathroom . . .
and
yet was in this room tonight?'

   
'Now listen, Mr Clever TV Man .
. . Guy turned slowly and painfully and looked into tiny, round eyes and a
small, fleshy mouth set into a face too big for them.

   
'Handel Roberts is
dead
,' said Wynford Wiley.