Crybbe aka Curfew

Powys cringed.

'Pheeeeeeew,' Humble said. 'Straight frew your left eyeball, Mr Powys.'

Powys didn't move. You live in fear of the unknown and the unseen and, when you're facing death, death turns out to be a yobbo with a mousetrap mouth and a lethal weapon favoured by the lower type of country-sport enthusiast.

'But it won't come to that,' Humble said. 'Seeing as obedience is one of your virtues. I won't say that's not a pity – I never done a human being with one of these – but if I got to postpone the experience, I got to postpone it. On your feet, please, Mr P.'

'I don't think I can. I think you broke my collar-bone.'

'Oh, that's where you keep your collar-bone these days, is it? Don't fuck with me please, get up.'

And Powys did, accepting without question that this guy would kill him if he didn't. Humble stood up, too. He was wearing a black gilet, his arms bare. Humble was a timeless figure, the hunter. He killed.

'Now, we're going to go down off the Tump, Mr Powys, on account you can't always trust your reactions up here, as you surely know. We're going to go down, back over that wall, OK?'

'Where's Andy?' Powys said.

'I'm empowered to answer just one of your questions, and that wasn't it, I'm sorry.'

Powys tripped over a root and grabbed at a bush. 'Aaah.' Thorns.

'Keep going, please. Don't turn round.'

Powys froze. He's going to kill me. He's going to shoot me from behind.

Something slammed into his back and be cried out and lost his footing and crashed through the thorn bush and rolled over and over.

'… did tell you to keep going.'

As he lay in a tangle at the foot of the mound, Humble dipped down beside him, just inside the wall.

'I'll tell you the answer, shall I? Then you can work out the question at your leisure. The answer is – you ready? – the answer is… his mother. Now get on your feet, over the wall

and across to the old house.'

The night has gathered around Warren, and he's loving it. Earned himself a piece of it now – a piece of night to carry 'round with him and nibble on whenever he's hungry.

And he's still hungry, his appetite growing all the time.

He's off out of the back door of the town hall and across the square, into the alley by the Cock, the Stanley knife hot his right hand. Only it's not his hand any more; this is the Hand of Glory.

The ole box is just a box now, and what's in the box is just bones. His is the hand and his will be the glory.

Felt like doing a few more while he was in there. That Colonel Croston, of the SAS. That'd have been a laugh.

Incredible, the way he just walked in the back way and the lights had gone, dead on cue, like wherever he goes he brings the night in with him.

He has this brilliant night vision now. Just like daylight. Better than daylight 'cause he can see and no bugger else can.

Standing behind this fat phoney, big man on a squidgy little chair, glaring white suit – you'd have to be blind not to see him – and all the time in the world to choose where to put it in.

Didn't need to choose. The Hand of Glory knew.

Brilliant. Thought he'd be squealing like a pig, but he never made more than a gurgle.

Brilliant.

There's someone behind Tessa in the alley. Tall guy.

'Who's this?'

Tessa laughing. 'My teacher.'

'How's it going, Warren?' the teacher saying. 'How are you feeling?'

Warren grinning, savouring the night in his mouth, and his eyes are like lights. Headlights, yeah.

'Good lad,' says the teacher.

Minnie Seagrove was not too happy with the Bourbon creams.

It was long after nine when she placed a small china plate of the long brown biscuits on one of the occasional tables and set it down by the side of Frank's chair at just the right height. Putting the camping light on the table next to the plate, still dubiously pursing up her lips. 'I do hope they're all right, Frank. They're nearly a month over the sell-by date. I remember I bought them the day they took you into the General. They'd just opened that new Safeways near the station, and I thought I'd go down there from the hospital, 'cause it's not far to walk, take me mind off it, sort of thing.'

Tears came into Mrs Seagrove's eyes at the memory. 'I bought a whole rainbow trout, too. I thought, he's never managed to catch one, least I can do is serve him one up for his first dinner when he comes out.'

She turned away and grabbed a Scottie from the box to dab her eyes. They were Kleenex really, but Mrs Seagrove called all tissues Scotties because it sounded more homely.

'Had to throw it in the bin, that trout, well past its sell-by. Still, you did come back from the General, after all, didn't you, Frank?'

Looking at him through the tears, Mrs Seagrove had to keep blinking and on every other blink, Frank seemed to disappear. She applied the Scottie to her eyes again and sat down opposite him. He didn't look well, she had to admit.

'Eat your Bourbons, Frank,' she said. 'There'll be nothing left of you if you go on like this. I know, I'll put the wireless on – you can listen to the local news.'

Mrs Seagrove kept the wireless on the sideboard. To tell the truth, it wasn't her kind of wireless at all. Justin had bought it for them last Christmas but one. It was a long black thing with dozens of switches and you could see all these speakers through the plastic grilles, big ones and little ones, all jumbled up. Why they couldn't make them with just one speaker and cover it up neatly like they used to, she'd never know.

Being that changing stations was so complicated, she had it permanently tuned to Offa's Dyke Radio. She'd have preferred Radio Two herself, that young Chris Stuart had ever such a comforting voice, but Frank said if you were living in a place you ought to keep up with what was happening around you, even if it wasn't very interesting. Mrs Seagrove certainly found most of it quite boring – too much about councils and sheep prices – so she put it on quite low tonight (Frank had good ears, belter than hers) and she only turned it up when she heard that Max Goff mentioned.

'… at a packed public meeting to discuss his plans for the so-called New Age mystical healing centre in the border town of Crybbe… from where Gavin Ashpole now reports.'

Gavin who? What had happened to Fay Morrison? She might have been a bit awkward about the… thing. But she did seem quite a nice girl when you actually met her.

'… Townsfolk listened in hostile silence as Max Goff explained his plans to turn Crybbe into a kind of New Age Lourdes, bringing in thousands of tourists from all over the world and providing a massive boost for the local economy. However, he said, it would be up to the town whether it… Oh… Oh, you bitch…oh, you… oh, please…'

Mrs Seagrove recoiled from the wireless as if a wasp had flown out of one of the speakers.

'Frank, did you hear that?'

'Oh… oh… please… yes… yes, do it…! CHEW IT OFF!!'

There was a long silence and then the voice of the news reader came back.

'I'm sorry, I… I'm not sure what happened there. We'll try and return to that report… er, other news now…'

'Frank,' said Minnie Seagrove. 'Did you hear that, Frank? That's your precious Offa's Dyke Radio for you. Chris Stuart never goes to pieces like that. Did you hear… Frank?'

Frank's chair was empty.

All the Bourbon biscuits were still on the plate, six of them arranged in a little semi-circle.

'Frank? Frank, where are you?'