Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

  'We're talking sex magic, aren't we? I was once at a signing session for Golden Land. Some regional book fair, and one of the other writers there was this retired pathologist. He said, apropos of something, that a remarkable number of hangings which look like suicide are actually accidents. Blokes - or teenage kids in a lot of cases - trying for this uniquely mind-blowing sexual buzz you're supposed to get from hanging by the neck.

  Like, when the rope jerks, you jerk off down there, too. That it?'

  Andy said nothing. Powys could see him trying surreptitiously to move different muscles.

  'And with sex magic, you use the build up of sexual tension to harden and focus your will. And then, at the moment of orgasm . . . whoosh. Max Goff used to play about with it. Who taught him? You?'

  Andy was stretching his neck, easing it from side to side.

  'Sex and death. Hell of a powerful combination. This was how Black Michael pro . . .'

  'Don't call him that,' Andy snapped.

  'This was how Sir Michael Wort . . .' Bloody hell, Joe Powys always does what he's told . . . 'This was how Black fucking Michael projected himself into Crybbe, fused his spirit with the spirit of the town so that the town is the man is the town is the . . .'

  Andy stopped trying to flex muscles and stared at Powys in the electric lamplight, and his eyes were so strange that Powys wasn't sure any more which of them he was talking to, Andy or Michael. But, clearly, the stage Andy had been striving to reach was something that went beyond personalities.

  'What did it really mean, though?' Powys said. 'Was it simply a quest for eternal power? Some kind of semi-physical immortally?'

  You have to fracture the cool, he remembered telling himself. To damage this guy, you have to tip his balance, dislodge him from his mental lotus position. Even lying there, with unknown injuries, he can, maybe, still take you unawares.

  'Or is it,' Powys said casually, 'just the ultimate ego-trip? Getting your end away from beyond the grave?'

  He had to look away. The blackness from Andy's eyes came out like iron spikes.

  Iron spikes. Images of Rose cruelly speared his own cool and he stared back into the eyes of the thing that had dispassionately manipulated their fate.

  'I can't move,' Andy said suddenly, the first sign of human panic, 'I can't fucking move, Joe. I can't move my arms or legs. I'm fucking paralysed.'

  'What I think . . .' Powys remembered conversations with Barry the osteopath, his neighbour in the Trackways building ' . . . is your back was broken in the fall. You can obviously move your neck. What about your shoulders? Try shrugging your shoulders.'

  Andy's shoulders convulsed. There was a sudden sheen of sweat on his body.

  'How's your breathing?'

  'I can breathe.'

  'In that case,' Powys said slowly and callously, 'you'll probably be what's known as a tetraplegic. It won't be much fun, but no doubt a lot of innocent people'll be saved a lot of grief by your confinement in Stoke Mandeville or wherever you wind up.'

  'You're a worthless piece of shit, Joe.'

  'Me? I'm shit?'

  'You couldn't even kill me.'

  'You're safer like this. Dead, you could be a problem.'

  Andy turned his head and looked into the eye-sockets of Black Michael. As an exercise in mummification, Powys thought, Michael had turned out to be rather less impressive than Tiddles.

  He said, 'Where are the other bits buried?'

  'Why should I tell you that?'

  'The head, naturally, was in the Tump. Did you ever go into the Tump? Physically, I mean.'

  'No.'

  'And the genitals are under the Cock. Walled up somewhere in the cellars, I'd guess, somewhere directly beneath that passageway leading to the studio. The heart under the church - is there a crypt?'

  Andy didn't reply.

  'And who would have buried your bits, Andy, after the hanging? Humble?'

  'Where is Humble? Occurring to Andy, perhaps, that there might be more wrong than he knew.

  Powys said, 'What's happening down in the town? What's on fire?'

  'Not my problem,' Andy said.

  'You're beyond me.' He was getting impatient. And nervous. He was face to face with the man who'd smashed his life and all he wanted to do was get out of here. Call an ambulance, anonymously. Man with a broken back. Tried to hang himself. Take him away.

  Yet there were things he had to know.

  'Look . . . I mean . . . For Christ's sake, why? Is your mother behind this?'

  'What?'

  'Jean Wendle.'

  Andy laughed. It wasn't a very strong laugh, suggesting his breathing was not, after all, unaffected. 'There's no blood link between Jean and me. She's my spiritual mother, if you like. It's a concept you wouldn't understand.'

  'Which of you is the descendant, then?'

  'Listen . . . Jean had been studying Wort for years, right? There's almost . . . this kind of Michael Wort Society. Very exclusive, Joe. Not for the New Age morons. Not for the wankers. Not for the . . . authors of popular trash books. Not for the . . . the fucking popularisers. For the Few. And now . . .'

  Andy began to cough.

  'I can't feel that,' he said. 'I can't feel it in my guts, you know?'

  'And now . . . what?'

  'The New Age.' He gave a short, wheeze of a laugh. 'Suddenly this . . . worldwide movement dedicated to throwing esoteric knowledge at the masses. Max Goff - millions of pounds to . . .'

  'So you hijacked Goff?'

  'Well put. Yeah, I hijacked Goff. He loved me. In all kinds of ways.'

  'To provide the money and the psychic energy you needed to condition Crybbe for the Second Coming of Black Michael.'

  Andy grimaced. 'Let's get this right, there was no Second Coming. We were just completing Michael's plan. I've had access to all his papers since I was sixteen, and to the people who could explain what it all meant. And then it got to the stage where I knew more than any of them. We were completing the plan. Patching up the damage John Dee did. Also, removing the Preece problem and altering the psychic climate.'

  'Stirring things up. Emotional conflict. Anger, bitterness and confusion.'

  'We awoke the place,' Andy said, 'from centuries of sleep. An unhealthy, drugged sort of sleep. Psychic Mogadon, self administered. I've been planting little time bombs, like . . . OK, I took a job for a few months, teaching art at the local high school. I wanted a girl. I wanted to take a girl living in Crybbe and turn her. There was a perfect one - I mean, this happens, Joe, there's always somebody there who fits, and she was entirely perfect. I worked with this kid over a year. I taught her to paint, I mean really paint . . .'

  'In your studio. In the wood.'

  'Sure. I taught her the arts. The real arts. You give them a little at that age, they become quite insatiable. She was a natural. She can make paintings that become doorways . . . But that's something else. Also, I used her . . . to penetrate the Preece clan. And in the heart of the Crybbe household, I - well, Michael and I - we created the most wonderful little monster, a creature entirely without heart, dedicated to destruction. In the heart of the Preece household. Again, ripe for it. Warren Preece. Maybe you'll meet him. Everybody ought to meet Warren.'

  'You're a scumbag, Andy,' Powys said.

  'So kill me,' Andy said quietly.

  There was silence in the little well-like cell, its ceiling jaggedly open to the attic.

  'You still got that bread knife? Kill me. Cut my throat. It's that easy. Even Warren managed to cut Max Goff's throat tonight, with a Stanley knife.'

  'What?'

  'You didn't know about Max? He was killed in the public meeting during a power cut. It was quite beautiful. And perhaps the most beautiful thing of all is that when this is all over, who's going to get the blame for this orgy of destruction? The New Age movement. You've got to laugh. Warren says that. Got to laugh.'

  Powys said coldly, 'You're insane. Your brains have turned to shit. I'll get you an ambulance.'

>   'No, you'll kill me, Joe.'

  'Like I said, I wouldn't trust you dead.'

  'You'll kill me. Look, you're squeamish about knives, use the rope. Strangle me. No hassle. I'm weak, I'll go easy. It'll just look like I hanged myself and the rope broke.'

  He'd almost forgotten the noose still hanging loosely around Andy's neck. Hesitantly, he walked across, began to remove the rope, trying not to touch Andy's skin. 'Just in case you're lying about not being able to move your arms. Hate you to try and do it yourself.'

  Andy grinned, white teeth exploding through the beard.

  'Do it!'

  'No.'

  'OK, something you didn't know. Rose, right? Poor spiked little Rosie. And the baby was spiked too, yeah? Your baby, Joe?'

  Powys shook his head. 'I've got past that. I don't want to kill you for that. I'm happy you're going to be a paraplegic or a tetraplegic. I hope your breathing degenerates, you'll be even safer in an iron lung.'

  'It wasn't your baby, Joe.'

  His hands froze on the rope.

  'I'd been fucking Rose quite intensively for several months. I've always found I can get any woman, any man ... I want. Part of the Wort legacy, if you will. Also, it was my understanding that, come bedtime, the great visionary writer's creative imagination would tend to go into abeyance, and so . . .'

  Powys wrenched down the noose, jerked Andy's head back, slammed the knot tight into the back of the neck. Andy grinned up at him; even the whites of his eyes were almost black.

  Abruptly, Joe Powys let the rope go slack and pulled the noose over Andy's head.

  'I'll get you an ambulance,' he said.

  CHAPTER III

  Gomer couldn't get near the church, least not within thirty- yards. Not much he could have done, though, anyway. Be a long time before that ole place saw another service. If ever. Roof mostly gone, windows long gone. Still some flames - plenty of wood in the nave, pews and stuff, to keep them well-nourished for some hours yet - but the worst was over. The stone walls would stay up, and so would the tower, even it wasn't much more than a thick chimney by now.

  'Bugger-all use fetchin' the fire brigade,' Gomer concluded.

  'Burned 'imself out, see.' He turned to his companion; no way of hedging round any of this. 'Pardon me askin' this, but your Jonathon - was 'e gonner be cremated anyway, like? 'Cause, if 'e 'ad to . . .'

  'Gonner be buried. And he still will be, whatever's left.'

  They'd come upon Jimmy Preece sitting on the low part of the churchyard wall watching the fire. The digger had crunched out of the wood and there the old feller was, hunched up, knotted and frazzled like a rotting tree stump, sounding like it was gonner take Dyno-Rod to clear his lungs. And it was clear, straight off to Gomer that nothing happening tonight would have been a mystery to Jimmy Preece.

  'Who done this, Jim?' he asked bluntly. 'And don't give me no bull.'

  Arnold the dog limped over to Jimmy Preece and stood there, watchful. Jimmy Preece leaned down, hesitated for several seconds and then patted him. Arnold wagged his tail, only twice and just as hesitant, and then plodded off. Gomer had the feeling this was a very strange thing, momentous-like and patting a dog was only pan of what it was about.

  'I'm glad,' the Mayor said, to nobody in particularly. 'Wish I was dead, but I'm glad. Couldn't go on, see.'

  'What couldn't?'

  'You're not a Crybbe man, Gomer, is the problem.'

  'Well, hell, Jim, I'm only a few miles up the valley, born an' bred.'

  'Not a Crybbe man,' Jimmy Preece said firmly. Gomer was near fuming.

  'Who done it, Jim? Too late for all that ole crap. Just bloody spit it out.'

  Something gave. Jim's grimy face wobbled and what had looked like a smear of thick oil down one side of it gleamed in the firelight and didn't look like oil any more. When he opened his mouth the words oozed out in a steady stream.

  'Same one as run your bulldozer in the wall, same one as slashed my face, same one as left me to suffocate, same one as . . . as done for Jonathon.'

  The Mayor looked away. 'Pretended I was dead, see - didn't take a lot o' pretendin' Wanted to close the ole door to the tower, keep the fire out, last duty, see. Then I was gonner lie down. Next to Jonathon.'

  Gomer saw Minnie Seagrove trying to climb out of the digger and held up a hand to tell her to stay where she was.

  'Couldn't do it,' Jimmy Preece said, studying his boots now. 'Not got the guts. Fire too hot. Ole body sayin', get me out o' yere. Ole body allus wins.'

  'Where is 'e, Jim?' Gomer had no doubts who they were talking about any more. 'Where is e? Dead?'

  'That's all I got left to hope for,' said Jimmy Preece. 'But I reckon we've long ago given up all rights to hope. In Crybbe.'

  'Jim . . .' Gomer feeling sorry for him now, town falling apart, family collapsing round his ears. 'I'd like to 'elp.'

  The Mayor stared for a long time into the ruined church before he replied.

  'You reallv wanner do some'ing, Gomer?'

  'What I said.'

  'Then get rid of all these bloody stones for me. Do it before morning, while every bugger's otherwise engaged, like. Whip 'em out. Make it like so's they was never yere, know what I'm askin'?'

  'Tall order,' said Gomer. 'Still . . . Only I don't know where they all are. Seen a couple around, like.'

  'I'll tell you where they are. Every one of 'em.'

  'Might mean goin' on people's property, though, isn't it? Trespassin'.'

  'Depends on what you thinks of as other people's property, isn't it?'

  'Course, if it was an official council contract, like . . .'

  'Consider it an official council contract,' said Jimmy Preece wearily.

  They carried Alex into The Gallery, Joe Powys and the capable looking guy who'd introduced himself as Col Croston.

  He was quite a weight.

  'Obviously too much for his heart,' Col said. 'And it was a hell of a big heart. How old was he?'

  'Old,' Fay said distantly. 'Pushing ninety.' She sniffed. 'Pushed too hard.'

  Alex had still been lying on the cobbles when Powys had stumbled uncertainly into the square, seemingly bringing the lights with him - the power was back. He'd walked past Wynford Wiley and Wiley had hardly glanced at him. Guy Morrison had nodded and said nothing. He'd gone directly to where Fay sat, close to the steps of the Cock, guarding her father's body like a mute terrier. 'I thought you were going to be dead, too,' was all she'd said, and then had laughed - unnaturally, he thought, and he wasn't entirely surprised.

  They put Alex on the only flat, raised surface in The Gallery, the display window, under mini-spotlights. He looked peaceful, laid out with pictures. 'He'd hate that,' Fay mumbled. 'Looking peaceful.'

  'Don't suppose,' Col Croston said, 'that there's much I can say, is there? The awful thing is, nobody will ever know what he achieved in the last few minutes of his life. Even I can't begin to explain it, and I was there. And I know . . .' He broke off, looking uncharacteristically lost. 'I don't know what I know, really. I'm sorry.'

  'He won't mind,' Fay said. 'It was quick, and he never became a vegetable, did he? That was all he was scared of. The geriatric ward. He might have done something silly. Like half a bottle of malt whisky and some pills, or a last train to Soho or somewhere, with a view to departing in the arms of some . . . ageing harlot.'

  She's rambling, Powys thought. She's blocking it out. Her body's producing natural Valium. Everybody has a breaking point.

  From behind them, a small, raw cry.

  After letting them in, the woman who ran The Gallery, Mrs Newsome, had remained silently in the doorway, leaving Powys wondering about the weals and bruising on her throat.

  Now she was pointing at a door to the left of the glass counter. It was a white door, but there were marks and smears all over it now, in red.

  Col saw the blood, flung out an arm to hold everyone back, snapped, 'What's behind there?'

  'He . . .' It wasn't easy for her to talk and he
r voice, when it emerged, was like a crow's. Hereward's workroom.'

  'Anybody in there,' Col called out harshly, 'will get back against the wall and keep very still. Understood?'

  The marks on the door included smeared fingerprints and one whole palmprint.

  'Mrs Newsome, have you any idea . . . ?'

  The act of shaking her head looked as painful as talking.

  Col shrugged and nodded. 'Everybody keep back then,' he said and hit the door with a hard, flat foot, directly under the handle. Powys wondered why he didn't simply open it. Shock value, he supposed, as the door splintered open and Col jumped back and went into a crouch.

  'Oh, Christ.' Powys stared into the shadowed face of the man he'd left fifteen minutes earlier lying crippled in the centre of a little stone chamber.

  Remembered thinking as he'd run out of the Court that Andy might not be so badly injured as he appeared. That someone practised in yoga and similar disciplines might be able to contort his body sufficiently to simulate a broken spine.

  But Powys hadn't gone back. He'd kept on running all the way to the car and then driven to the phone box on the edge of town. Which worked, thank God. 'Ambulance, yes. And . . . police, I suppose. And the fire brigade. In fact, send the lot, Jesus. In force.'

  'God in heaven,' Col Croston was saying. 'Don't come in, Mrs Newsome."

  The face, Powys saw with short-lived relief, was only in a very large painting - Andy dressed in the kind of sombre clothing Michael Wort might have worn, standing by a door meaningfully ajar. Powys remembered Andy talking about the girl, the artist, who could 'create doorways'. With that in mind he didn't look at it again. But what was beneath it was worse

  The unframed canvas was hanging on the wall above a wooden workbench with sections of frames strewn across it and fastened to the side, a large wood-vice with a metal handle and wooden jaws.

  The vice would hold a piece of soft timber firmly, without damaging it, unless you really leaned on the handle, in which case it would probably squash anything softer than iron.

  Powys nearly choked. He didn't go in. Blood was still dripping to the sawdusted floor and there were deltas down the walls made by high-pressure crimson jets.