Crybbe aka Curfew

'I saw its light in the eaves. I watched it spit… Rachel out. Along with the cat. Not much of a guardian any more, but it was there, it had to go. The next point on the line is the church, supposedly the spiritual and emotional heart of the town, from where the curfew's rung. Jack Preece rings the curfew, Jonathon, his son, was to inherit the job. Something's weeding out Preeces.'

'No wonder old Jimmy was so desperate to get to the church after Jack had his accident.'

'He's a bit doddery, isn't he, the old chap?'

'Stronger than he looks, I'd guess. But, sure, at that age he could go anytime. Joe, can nobody else ring it? What about you? What about me? What about – what's his name – Warren?'

'I don't see why not. But it was a task allotted to the Preeces and perhaps only they know how vital it is. The big family secret. The Mayor's probably training this Warren to take over. He's got to, hasn't he?'

Fay was still trying to imagine taciturn, wizened old Jimmy Preece in the role of Guardian of the Gate to Hell. No more bizarre, she supposed, than the idea of Crybbe Court being looked after by a mummified cat.

'What happens,' she said, 'if the curfew doesn't get rung?'

Powys stood up. 'Then it comes roaring and spitting out of the Tump, through the Court, through the new stone in the wood and straight into the church – through the church, gathering enormous energy… until it reaches…'

He began to walk across the cobbles, his footsteps hollow in the dark and the silence. '… here.'

He stood in the centre of the square. The centre of Crybbe.

'My guess is there used to be a stone or a cross on this spot, but it was taken down with all the stones. I bet if you examine Goff's plans, you'll find proposals for some kind of monument. Wouldn't matter what it was. Could be a statue of Jimmy Preece.'

'The Preece Memorial,' Fay said.

'Wouldn't that be appropriate?'

Fay was silent, aware of the seconds ticking away towards ten o'clock. Sure she could feel something swelling in the air and a rumbling in the cobbles where Arnold lay quietly, no panting now.

'So what do we do?'

'If we've got any sense,' Powys said, 'we pile into one of the cars and drive like hell across the border to the nearest place with lots of lights. Then we get drunk.'

'And forget.'

'Yeah. Forget.'

Fay said, 'My father's here. And Jean.'

'And Mrs Seagrove. And a few hundred other innocent people.'

The rumbling grew louder. Fay was sure she could feel the cobbles quaking.

'We can't leave.'

Powys said, 'And Andy's here somewhere, Andy Wort. I don't even like to imagine what he's doing.'

'It's too quiet.'

'Much too quiet.'

Except for the rumbling, and two big, white, blazing eyes on the edge of the square.

Powys said, 'What the hell's that?'

The eyes went out, and now the thing was almost luminous in the dimness. A large yellow tractor with a mechanical digger on the front.

'I'm gonner park 'im yere.' They saw the glow of a cigarette and two tiny points of light from small, round spectacles. 'Nobody gonner mind for a few minutes.'

'It's Gomer Parry,' Fay said.

'Ah… Miss Morris, is it?'

'Hello, Gomer. Where are you off to?'

'Gonner grab me a swift pint, Miss. Just finished off down the Colonel's, got a throat like a clogged-up toilet. Flush 'im out, see?'

They watched Gomer ascending the steps to the Cock, a jaunty figure, entirely oblivious of whatever was accumulating.

The commotion of the digger's arrival had, for just a short time, pushed back the dark.

Powys said, 'Fay, look, we've got to start making our own waves. It'll be feeble, it probably won't do anything, but we can't drive away and we can't just stand here and watch.'

'Sure,' Fay said, more calmly than she felt.

'We need to try and break up that meeting well before ten. Because if they all start pouring out of the town hall and there's something… I don't know, something in the square, I don't know what might happen. We're going to have to break it up, set off the fire alarm or something.'

'I doubt if they've got one, but I'll think of something.'

'I didn't necessarily mean you.'

'I'm the best person to do it. I've got nothing to lose. I have no credibility left. What you need to do – because you know all the fancy terminology – is go and see Jean, see if she's got any ideas. And make sure Dad lies low. Can you take Arnold?'

'Sure.'

He looked down at her. He couldn't see her very well. She looked like an elf, if paler than the archetype. A plaster elf that fell off the production line at the painting stage, so all the colours had run into one corner of its face.

He put his arms around her and lightly kissed her lips. The lips were very dry, but they yielded. He felt her fear and hugged her.

Fay smiled up at him, or tried to. 'Watch it, Joe,' she said. 'Remember where you are.'

CHAPTER V

Have you ever performed an exorcism?

Sitting in the near-dark in Grace's parlour. Sitting awkwardly, with his elbows on the table where Fay used to keep her editing machine until… until somebody broke it.

And the only voices he could hear were Jean's and Murray's alternately repeating the same strange question.

Exorcism.

Well, have I?

Canon Alex Peters remembered the sunny afternoon when Murray was here – only about a week ago – the very last sunny afternoon he could remember.

Remembered exploring his memory with all the expectation of a truffle-hunter in Milton Keynes… finally dredging up the Suffolk business. 'Wasn't the full bell, book and candle routine… more of a quickie, bless-this-house operation.

'Actually I think I made it up as I went along.'

Grace's chair waited in front of Grace's fireplace. The brass balls twisted in the see-through base of Grace's clock, catching the last of the light, pulsing with the final death-throes of the day.

And now, when you really need the full bell, book and candle routine, you haven't got the right book and the only bell in town is the bloody curfew which we don't talk about.

Candles, though. Oh yes, plenty of bloody candles. Everybody in power-starved Crybbe has a houseful of bloody candles.

Alex dipped his head into his hands and moaned.

What are you doing to me, Wendy? I can't handle this, you know I can't.

He looked at the clock. He could see the twisting balls but not the time. But it must be getting on for nine.

Nine o'clock and Alex sitting waiting for his dead wife, and frightened.

Oh yes. Coming closer to the end didn't take away the fear.

'Dear Lord,' said Alex hopelessly. 'Take unto Thee Thy servant, Grace. Make her welcome in Thine Heavenly Kingdom, that she should no longer dwell in the half-light of limbo. Let her not remain in this place of suffering but