by Unknown
'Doesn't sound as if it would have made very good telly, in that case, even if we got in.'
'Excruciatingly boring telly,' Col confirmed. 'Unless you've got some sort of infra-red equipment capable of filming undercurrents. 'Nother one?'
'No ... no thanks.' Guy covered his glass with a hand. 'Sounds like you have this place pretty well weighed up, Col.'
'Good Lord, no. Only been here a few years. That's just about long enough to realise one needs to've been established here a good six generations to even get close to it. Annoy the hell out of me, these newcomers who profess to be like that - Col hooked two fingers together - 'with the locals after a month or two. I know where I stand, and I don't mind, we've got an interesting home with about fourteen acres I'm still trying to decide what to do with. And I'm the token outsider on the council, which is just about as close as anyone can aspire to get. When I'm Mr Mayor I'll try to effect a few minor structural changes on the council which will doubtless disappear when the next chap takes over. Mrs Byford will see to that - she's the clerk. Mayors come and go, Mrs B doesn't.'
'Is that Tessa Byford's mother?' Guy watched the Colonel's eyes.
'Grandmother.' No specific reaction. 'The girl, Tessa, lives with them. What they call in Crybbe a problem child. Shows a lot of promise as an artist, apparently - that's not a very Crybbe thing to be, as you'll have realised. She'll leave, go to college and never come back. They all do.'
'All?'
'Anybody who doesn't want to be a farmer or a shopkeeper or some such. Sad, but that's the way it tends to be.'
'Ah,' said Guy, 'but will she move away now - now there's a place for artistic types? Now Crybbe looks set to become a little melting pot for ideas and creativity?'
'Look, Guy, creativity and ideas have always been frowned upon in Crybbe - and, before you ask, no, I certainly won't say any of that on camera. 'Nother drink, did I ask you?"
Graham Jarrett was just too smooth, too confident. Powys didn't trust him. He'd wander down to your subconscious like he owned the fishing rights.
'I assure you," Jarrett insisted, 'that this is on the level. I've checked dates, I've checked what facts I can and . . . Now, here's something . . . The Bull. The girl said she lived at the Bull, and as you know there's no such pub in Crybbe any more. But I've discovered the Bull was actually the original name of the Cock. And that's not a cock-and-bull story.' Graham Jarrett straightened his cardigan. 'I have it on very reliable authority.'
He'd given Powys a transcript of the Catrin tape without argument, because Graham Jarrett wanted to be in The Book, didn't he?
'OK, how many other cases have you encountered where the subject is regressed to the very same town where the regression is taking place?'
'It's been known. Very often they specifically return to a town because they feel they've been there before.'
'But she didn't. She came here to work.'
Jarrett opened his hands. 'Stranger things . . .'
'Yeah, OK. But you've got a situation here where one personality is fading and another just forces its way in over the top, right?'
Graham Jarrett shrank back into the dark-green drapery of his consulting room. Powys was sure there must be more on the tape than there was on the transcript. Jarrett claimed he'd given the cassette to Guy, but he wouldn't have done that before making a copy.
'I know what you're going to suggest, Joe.'
'Well?'
'Don't. Don't even use that word "possession" in here.'
There was a bonus for Guy in his visit to Col Croston's house. He'd raised the matter of the suicide, the old man and the razor, less inhibited about it now and less intimidated by it as time went on. There'd been no disturbance in his room at the Cock last night, unless one included Catrin's shrill moments of ecstasy. Catrin had been quite amazing. With the light out.
'No,' Col Croston said. 'Can't say I have.' But he'd referred the question to his wife, neither of them, fortunately, seeming over-curious about Guy's interest in local suicides.
'I know,' Mrs Croston had said. 'Why not ask Gomer? Gomer knows everything.'
The little man working on the soakaway to the Crostons' septic tank had been only too happy to come out of his trench for a chat. There was a disgustingly ripe smell in the vicinity of the trench and Guy found that he and Gomer Parry were very soon left alone.
'Good chap, the Colonel,' Gomer said. "Ad this other job lined up, over to Brynglas, see, and it was postponed, last minute. Straightaway, the Colonel says, you stick around, boy, do my soakaway. Fills in two days perfect. Very considerate man, the Colonel.'
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 pa
rt 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.
'They drove Wort to suicide, the people around here. A witch hunt by ignorant damn peasants, threatening to burn down the Court.' Goff stood up straight, his back to his domain. 'Tell you one thing, J.M. No fucker's gonna threaten to burn me out.'
You do have this one small advantage. You haven't hanged anybody. Yet.'
; Goff laughed. 'You really wanna know about this hanging stuff, doncha? Listen, how many people get the opportunity to study precisely what happens when life is extinguished? When the spirit leaves the body?'
'Doctors do. Priests do.'
Goff shook his head. 'They got other things on their minds. The doctor's trying to save the dying person, the priest's trying to comfort him or whatever else priests do, last rites kinda stuff.'
Powys saw Goff's eyes go curiously opaque.
'Only the watcher at the execution can be entirely dispassionate,' Goff said. Powys could tell he was echoing someone else. 'Only he can truly observe.'
CHAPTER VII
In a helter-skelter hill road, a mile and a half out of Crybbe, there was a spot where you could park near a wicket gate with a public-footpath sign. The path, quite short, linked up with the Offa's Dyke long-distance footpath and was itself a famous viewpoint. From just the other side of the gate, you could look across about half the town. You could see the church tower and the edge of the square, with one corner of the Cock. You could see the slow, silvery river.
From up here, under a sporadic sprinkling of sunlight from a deeply textured sky, Crybbe looked venerable, self-contained and almost dignified.
It was nearly 5 p.m.
They'd come out here because there were secrets to exchange which neither felt could be exchanged in Crybbe; there was always a feeling that the town itself would eavesdrop.
When Powys had returned to Bell Street, Fay had been in her car outside, with Arnold. 'Dad's not back yet. Tried to steel myself to go in. Couldn't do it alone. Feeble woman chickens out.'
'Well, if you've left anything in there that you want me to fetch,' he said, 'forget it.'
'I suspect you're being indirectly patronising there, Powys, but I'll let it go.'
Her eye actually looked worse, the rainbow effect quite spectacular. Part of the healing process, no doubt. He was surprised how glad he was to see her again.