Gavin Ashpole was discovering that there was virtually nowhere quite as dark as a tiny, windowless, unattended radio studio during a power cut.
Belonging as it did to Offa's Dyke Radio, the Crybbe Unattended, unlike the town hall, did not have a generator, the emergency lighting amounted to an old bicycle lamp which Fay Morrison left on the table in the outer office. It took several minutes and a lot of explicit cursing for Gavin Ashpole to find it.
He knew time must be getting on as he sat down at the desk to transcribe his notes and scramble together a voice-piece. A phone call confirmed it.
'Gavin! Where've you been, man? You're on air in two minutes!'
'Huh?' Gavin aimed the bicycle lamp at his watch. It said 9.28. Shit, shit, shit.
'Much of a story, is it, Gav? We've left you a full two minutes, as instructed.'
'Sod all,' he said tersely. 'And you're getting it down the phone – the fucking power's off. Listen, James, cut me back to one and shove it back down the bulletin. Bring me in around 10.35, OK?'
'Not sure we've got…'
'Just do it, eh? Take down the link now, I'll keep it tight. OK, ready? There's been a hostile reception tonight for billionaire businessman Max Goff at a packed public meeting to discuss his plans for a so-called New Age mystical healing centre in the border town of Crybbe… from where Gavin Ashpole now reports. Got that?'
Gavin hung up.
He had enough for one minute with what he'd already written. He pulled off his tie, stretched out his legs, switched off the lamp and waited for the studio to ring.
Sodding power cut. Maybe he should have brought the radio car after all. He could have done an exclusive interview with the famous Fay Morrison.
Stupid slag. She deserved everything she was going to get. Everybody knew Max Goff was pretty well- established in shirt lifting circles, but, unless you were seriously suicidal, you didn't bring up this issue before about three hundred witnesses including a couple of suits who looked like outriders from the Epidemic legal department.
He should sue the pants off the bitch.
Aaaah!
Went through him like a red-hot wire. He nearly took off.
Ssssstrewth!
He wanted her.
In truth, he wanted anybody, but superbitch Fay Morrison was the one whose image was projected naked into his lap with its legs wrapped around him in the dark.
Hot.
Stifling in here, warm air jetting at him like a fan-heater.
Too fucking hot.
And who was there to notice, anyway, if he took off his trousers?
The phone rang. 'Gavin, news studio, can you hear this OK?'
Plugged into the news…
'Yeah,' Gavin croaked. 'Yeah.'
The fluorescent bars were only secondary lighting, linked to what must have been a small generator. The room was still only half-lit and the light from the walls was blue and frigid.
Fay, unmoving at the rear of the hall, knew that something had changed and the light was part of it; it altered the whole ambience of the room and better reflected the feeling of the night.
In that it was a cold, unnatural light.
She couldn't understand, for a moment, why so few people were taking in the ludicrous spectacle of her ex- husband, the sometimes almost-famous TV personality, making such a prat of himself over the appalling Jocasta Newsome.
Then she heard the silence. Silence spreading like a stain down the hall, from the people at the front who'd seen it first.
Fay looked and didn't believe, her eyes hurrying back to stupid Guy – standing in the aisle now, dusting off his trousers, mumbling, 'Sorry, sorry, must have tripped.'
Col Croston, up on the platform next to Max Goff, didn't see it either, at first; Goff's back was turned to him. 'Ah,' Col Croston was saying. 'Here we are. Lights. We can continue. Splendid. Well, I think, if there are no more questions, we'll… Sorry?'
Max Goff's hand on his arm.
'You want to say something? Sure. Fine. Go ahead.'
Fay was not aware that Goff had actually asked the Colonel anything, but now the bulky man was coming slowly, quite lazily, to his feel and opening his mouth as if to say something monumentally significant. But there was no sign of the large, even, white teeth which normally shone out when the smooth mat of red beard divided. A black hole in the beard, Goff trying to shape a word, but managing only:
'Aw…'
And then out it all came.
He's being sick, said the sensible part of Fay's mind. He's been eating tomato chutney and thick, rich strawberry jam full of whole, ripe strawberries.
'Awk…'
A gob of it landed –
In the front row, Hilary Ivory exploded into hysterics and struggled to get out of her seat, something crimson and warm having landed in her soft, white hair.
Fay saw that Max Goff had two mouths, and one was in his neck.
He threw back his head with an eruption of spouting blood, raised both white-suited arms far above his head – like a last, proud act of worship. And then, overturning the table, he plunged massively into the well of screams.
chapter viii
His own light was in his eyes.
'You know, Mr Powys,' Humble said, 'Mr Trow was dead right about you.'
The hand-lamp was tucked into the cleft between two tree roots. Humble was sitting in the grass a few feet away from the lamp.
He couldn't see Humble very well, but he could see what Humble was holding. It was a crossbow: very modern, plenty of black metal. It had a heavy-looking rifle-type butt, which was obviously what Humble had hit him with. Back of the neck, maybe between the shoulder blades. Either way, he didn't want to move.
'What he said was,' Humble explained, 'his actual words: 'Joe Powys is
Powys senses were numbed.
'Well, that's how I prefer it,' Humble said. '
'Where's Andy?' Powys was surprised to discover he could still talk.
'Well, he ain't here, is he? Somebody indicate he might be?'
Humble lifted his crossbow to his shoulder, squinted at Powys. He was about ten feet away. The was a steel bolt in the crossbow.
