Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

'Fay, where can we go? Quickly?'

  He was aware of a picture forming in his head. Glowing oil colours on top of the drab turpentine strokes of rough sketching and underpainting. Everything starting to fit together. Coming together by design - someone else's design.

  'Studio,' Fay said, opening her bag, searching for the keys.

  'Right.'

  He didn't need the gavel. Didn't need even to call for silence, in fact, he rather wished he could call for noise - few murmurs, coughs, bit of shifting about in seats.

  Nothing. Not a shuffle, not even a passing 'Ow're you' between neighbours. Put him in mind of a remembrance service for the dead, the only difference being that when you cast an eye over this lot you could believe the dead themselves had been brought out for the occasion.

  Been like this since Goff and his people had come in and the cameraman had left: bloody quiet. Sergeant Wynford Wiley, in uniform, on guard by the door as if he was expecting trouble.

  No such luck, Col Croston thought. Not the Crybbe way. No wonder the cunning old devil had stuck this one on him.

  Thanks a lot, Mr Mayor.

  Gavin Ashpole's Uher tape recorder and its microphone lay at the front of the room, half under the chairman's table and a good sixty feet from where Gavin himself sat at the rear of the hall. The stupid, paranoid yokels had refused to accept that if he kept the machine at his feet he would not surreptitiously switch it on and record their meeting.

  He saw a man from the Hereford Times and that snooty bastard Guy Morrison. Nobody else he recognized, and Gavin knew all the national paper reporters who covered this area.

  There was no sign of Fay Morrison.

  Bitch.

  The Newsomes sat side by side, but there might have been a brick wall between them, with broken glass along the top.

  Hereward had planned to come alone to the meeting, but Jocasta had got into the car with him without a word. The inference was that she did not want to remain alone in the house after this alleged experience (about which Hereward was more than slightly dubious). But he suspected the real reason she'd come was that she hoped to see her lover.

  With this in mind, Hereward had subjected each man entering the hall to unobtrusive scrutiny and was also watching for reactions from his wife. The appalling thought occurred to him that he might be the only person in the hall who did not know the identity of the Other Man.

  He could be a laughing stock. Or she a liar.

  Col looked at the wall-clock which the caretaker had obligingly plugged in for the occasion. Five minutes past eight. Off we go then.

  'Well,' he said. 'Thank you all for coming. I, er . . . I don't think . . . that we can underestimate the importance of tonight.'

  Why did he say that? Wasn't what he'd meant to say. The idea was to be essentially informal, take any heat out of the situation.

  'Let me say, straight off, that no decisions will be made tonight. That's not what this meeting's about. It's simply an attempt to remove some of the mystery and some of the myths, about developments here in Crybbe. Developments which are transpiring with what might seem to some of us to be rather, er, rather bewildering speed.'

  Bloody bewildering speed, by Crybbe standards.

  'And let me say, first of all, that, apart from minor planning matters, the changes, the developments, introduced to Crybbe by Mr Max Goff, are, for the most part, outside the remit of local government and require no special permission whatsoever.'

  'What we doin' yere, then?' a lone voice demanded. A man's voice, but so high-pitched that it was like a sudden owl hoot in silent barn.

  Nobody turned to look whose it was. Obviously the voice spoke for all of Crybbe.

  Col looked up and saw Hereward New-some staring at him. He smiled. Hereward did not.

  'Can I say, from the outset,' Col said, 'that from here on in, only questions directed through the chair will be dealt with, however - what are we doing here? This - as it happens - was the point I was about to move on to. What are we doing here?'

  Col tried to look at everyone in the room; only those in the New Age quarter, to his right, looked back.

  'We're here tonight ... at the instigation of Mr Max Goff himself. We're here because Mr Goff is aware that aspects of his project may appear somewhat curious - even disturbing - to a number of people. What's he doing erecting large stones in fields, even if they do happen to be his own fields? Why is he keen to purchase property for sale in the locality?'

  Col paused.

  'What is this New Age business really all about?'

  On a single page of The Ley-Hunter's Diary 1993, with a fibre-tipped pen and a none-too-steady hand, Powys had drawn the rough outline of a man with his arms spread.

  Fay thought it looked like one of those chalk-marks homicide cops drew around corpses in American films.

  'The Cock,' Powys said breathlessly. 'Why do they call it the Cock? It's self-explanatory.'

  'This is going to be rather tasteless, isn't it?'

  'Look.' Powys turned the diary around on the studio desk to face her. He marked a cross on the head of the man. 'This is the Tump.'

  He made another cross in the centre of the man's throat. Crybbe Court.'

  He traced a straight line downwards and put in a third cross. The Church.' It was in the middle of the chest.

  'And finally . . .'

  Where the man's legs joined he drew in a final cross.

  'The Cock,' he said. 'Or more precisely, I'd guess, the alleyway and perhaps this studio.'

  She looked at him uncertainly, his face soft focus in the diffused studio lighting. 'I don't understand.'

  The Cock, which used to be called the Bull, occurs precisely on the genitalia. If we want to get down to details, this studio would cover the testicles, and the erect . . . er, organ would project into the square very much as the pub itself leans. I remember when I spent the night there with Rachel I was thinking the upper storey hung over the square like a beer gut. Close, but. . . Anyway, we were in the room which is directly over the passage, the alley, and we're on that same line now.'

  'Joe, this is ridiculous.'

  'Not really. You ever do yoga, anything like that?'

  'I never had the time.'

  'OK, well, Eastern mysticism - and Western magic - suggests there are various points in the human body where physical and spiritual energy gathers, and from where it can be transmitted. The chakras.'

  'I've heard of them. I think.'

  'So what we could be looking at here are some of the key chakras - the centre of the forehead - mental power; the throat, controlling nervous impulses; the centre of the breast, affecting emotions. And the sex glands, responding more or less to what you'd expect.'

  Fay leaned back against the tape-machine. 'I'm still not getting this, Joe, you're going to have to spell it out. Like simply.'

  'The town ... is the man. Is the town.'

  'Oh shit . . . What man?'

  'Wort. Black Michael. In essence he's never gone away. He's fused his energy system, his spirit, with the town. I'm not putting this very well.'

  'No, you're not.'

  'This girl Jane - the character assumed by Catrin Jones - speaks of the sheriff promising he'll never leave her. He hasn't. He's left the sexual part of him here. His cock.'

  Fay looked down at the Electrovoice microphone, eight inches long with a bulb-like head. 'Jesus . . .'

  'It might even be - I don't know - buried somewhere . . .'

  'Powys, I don't want to hear this. This is very seriously creepy.'

  'So anybody making love - having sex, love doesn't come into it - is getting some added . . . impetus, buzz, whatever, from a four-hundred-year-old . . .'

  Fay never wanted to do another voice-piece with that microphone. 'Come on,' she said, between her teeth, 'let's get out of here before - if what you say is correct - we start ripping each other's clothes off.'

  Ironically - given the ragged quality of local communal singing, the absence of a trained choir or the
will to form one - the church was widely known for its excellent acoustics.

  And so the Revd Murray Beech heard it all.

  Standing, appalled, behind the curtain separating the side entrance from the nave, he heard everything.

  The astounding confession, and then the bumps and crashes.

  It was not long after eight, although dark enough to be close to ten, the churchyard outside reduced to neutral shades, the birdsong stilled, the small, swift bats gliding through the insect layer.

  When Murray had first picked up the noises he'd been on his way to the public meeting at which, he rather hoped, he would be able to assume the role of mediator, while at the same time putting a few pertinent theological questions to the self-styled heralds of the New Age.

  He was wearing a new sports jacket over his black shirt and clerical collar. He'd felt more relaxed than for quite some time. Had, in fact, been looking forward to tonight; it would be his opportunity to articulate the fears of townsfolk who were . . . well, unpractised, let us say, in the finer techniques of oratory.

  At least, he had been relaxed until he'd heard from within the church what sounded like a wild whoop of joy. In this situation it might, in fact, be wise to summon the police.

  Or it might not. He'd look rather foolish if it turned out to be a cry of pain from someone quite legitimately in the church who'd, say, tripped over a hassock.

  Also he hadn't reported the minor (by lay standards) acts of vandalism of the past two nights. And if this intruder did turn out to be the perpetrator of those sordid expressions of contempt, a quiet chat would be more in order. This was a person with serious emotional problems.

  So Murray had hesitated before going in quietly by the side door, noting that its latch had been torn away and was hanging loose, which rather ruled out the well-meaning but clumsy parishioner theory.

  No, sadly, this was the sick person.

  'Well, well,' he heard now. 'Don't you look cheesed-off?'

  As, behind the floor-length curtain, he could not be seen from anywhere in the church, the remark could not have been aimed at him.

  Which meant Warren Preece was addressing his dead brother. His - if this crazed boy was to be believed - murdered brother.

  The confession had emerged in a strange intermittent fashion, incomplete sentences punctuated by laughter, as if it was a continuous monologue but some of it was being spoken only in Warren's head.

  It was deranged and eerie, and Murray remembered the malevolence of Warren's face in the congregation on Sunday, the way the hate had spurted out in shocking contrast to the unchanging stoical expressions of his father and his grandparents.

  Murray was in no doubt that this boy at least believed he'd drowned Jonathon. The hard-working, conscientious, older brother slain by the youthful wastrel. Almost like Cain and Abel in reverse.

  He ought, he supposed, to make a quiet exit, summon the police and let them deal with it. And yet there was, in this situation, a certain social challenge of a kind not hitherto apparent in Crybbe. The inner cities were full of disturbed youth like Warren Preece - always a valid project for the Church although some ministers shied away.

  If Warren Preece was a murderer, Murray could hardly protect him. But if there was an element of self-delusion brought about by guilt, causing a strange inversion of grief, he could perhaps help the boy reason it out.

  He heard footsteps but could not be sure from which direction they came or in which direction they were moving, for these acclaimed acoustics could, he'd found, sometimes be confusing.

  With three sharp clicks, the lights came on, and Murray clutched at the curtain in alarm.

  'Very nice' he heard. 'Very nice indeed.'

  And the perverse laughter again, invoking an image in his head of the communion chalice on the altar and what it had contained.

  A sudden, white-hot sense of outrage overrode his principles, his need to understand the social and psychological background to this, and he swept the curtain angrily aside.

  'All right!'

  Murray entered the nave in a single great stride, surprised at his own courage but aware also of the danger of bravado, his eyes sweeping over the body of the church, the stonework lamplit pale amber and sepia, the stained-glass windows rendered blind and opaque.

  And in the space between the front pews and the altar rail, the aluminium bier empty and askew like an abandoned supermarket trolley.

  'Stay where you are!' Murray roared.

  And then realized, in a crystal moment of shimmering horror, how inappropriate this sounded. Because the only Preece in view had no choice.

  The vicar wanted to be sick, and the bile was behind his voice as it rose, choking, to the rafters lost in their shadows.

  'Come out! Come out at once, you . . . you filthy . . . !'

  Another slack, liquid chuckle . . . 'eeeheheh . . .' trailing like spittle.

  Murray could not move, stood there staring compulsively into the closed, yellowed eyes of Jonathan Preece.

  The open coffin propped up against the pulpit like a showcase, the body sunk back like a drunk asleep in the bath, the shroud now slashed up the middle to reveal the livid line of the post-mortem scar, where the organs had been put back and the torso sewn up like a potato sack.

  Jonathon's corpse splayed in its coffin like a pig in the back of a butcher's van, and Murray Beech could not move.

  His nose twitched in acute, involuntary distaste as the smell reached him. Otherwise, he was so stiff with shock that he didn't react at first to the swift movement, as a shadow fell across him and he heard a very small, neat, crisp sound, like a paper bag being torn along a crease.

  When he looked down and saw that his clerical shirt had come apart - a deep, vertical split down the chest and upper abdomen, so that he could see his white vest underneath turning pink then bright red - he couldn't at first work out precisely what this meant.

  CHAPTER IV

  The square was absolutely empty. Flat, dead quiet under a sky that was too dark, too early.

  Powys looked up at the church tower hanging behind the serrated roofs of buildings which included the town hall. Behind him, leaning towards him, was the Cock.

  They stood in the centre of the square, which was where the navel would be.

  'We're on the solar plexus,' Powys said. 'The solar plexus, I think, is the most significant chakra, more so than the head. It's like the centre of the nervous system - I think - where energy can be stored and transmitted.'

  Fay hung on to his arm, wanting warmth, although the night was humid.

  'You see, I've never gone into this too deeply. It's just thing you pick up in passing. We may not even be looking at chakra at all.'

  Fay began to shiver. She began to see the town as something covered by a huge black shadow, man-shaped. She knew nothing about chakras, almost nothing about ley-lines, energy lines, paths of the dead . . .

  'It's happening tonight,' she said. 'Isn't it? Black Michael is coming back.'

  'Yeah.' Powys nodded. 'I think it's possible.'

  It was working. From the rear of the hall - packed out, way beyond the limits of the fire regulations - Guy Morrison saw it all as though through the rectangle of a TV screen, and, incredibly, it was working.

  In spite of his evangelical white suit, Goff was starting to convey this heavy, sober sincerity, beside which even the authoritative Col Croston looked lightweight. Col in his ornate Gothic chairman's chair, Max Goff standing next to him at the table, having vacated a far humbler seat, but oozing Presence.

  Goff standing with his hands loosely clasped below waist level.

  Goff, looking down at first, saying, not too loudly, 'I want you to forget everything you ever heard or read about the New Age movement. I'm gonna give you the Crybbe version. I'm gonna tell you how it might relate to this town. I'm gonna make it simple, no bull.'

  Then slowly raising his eyes. 'And the moment I cease to make sense to any one of you, I wanna know about it.'

&
nbsp; Smiling a little now, an accessible kind of smile, if not exactly warm. 'I want you to stand up and stop me. Say, "Hey, we aren't following this, Max." Or "Max, we don't believe you.

  We think you're trying to pull the wool." '

  It could have sounded patronizing. It didn't. Guy could see only the backs of the heads of the two distinct factions - New Age, Old Crybbe. No heads moved on either side. They'd been expecting a showman in a white suit, but Goff had changed. Even his small eyes were compelling. Not a showman but a shaman.

  'You see, what I don't want is any of you people just sitting there thinking, "Who is this lunatic? Why are we listening to this garbage? Who's he think he's kidding?" because . . .'

  Bringing his gaze down very slowly from the back rows to the front rows, taking in everybody.

  '. . . Because I'm not kidding. I never kid.'

  'I look at this town,' Fay said, 'and I don't see streets and buildings any more, I only see shadows.'

  Powys didn't say anything. He'd been seeing shadows everywhere, for years.

  'When there's a gust of wind,' Fay said, 'I look over my shoulder.'

  Maybe it's me, he thought. Maybe I've contaminated her

  'And when the lights go out . . .'

  'Look.' Powys said quickly, 'he's always been there. Bits of him.' He kept snatching breath, trying to keep his mind afloat. 'Just like, behind us, along the passage there's a pool of sexual energy that builds up in the hours approaching the curfew. Accumulates in the place where the studio is. No doubt other forms of energy gather elsewhere. But it all dissipates when the curfew bell starts to ring. Each night, the ringing of the curfew frustrates the spirit's attempts to collect enough energy to activate all the power centres simultaneously.'

  'All right,' Fay said. 'So, one hundred strong, evenly spaced tolls of the bell sends the black energy back to the Tump with its tail between its legs. Why do real dogs howl?'

  She looked down at Arnold, lying on the bottom step front of the Cock, panting slightly.