Crybbe aka Curfew

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 part 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.'