Crybbe aka Curfew

His deeply scored lips shambled into something that might have become a smile. 'You're not very big, Mrs Morrison, but you been stirring up a lot o' trouble, isn't it?'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

One of the men opened a door for him. Another handed him a lamp, a farmer's lambing light.

'Means I don't want you left in yere,' said Jimmy Preece 'Christ alone knows what ole rubbish you'd be spoutin'.'

He pushed her out of the door in front of him.

Outside, it was fully dark.

It was only 9.40.

Oh my God, my God… Oh…

'It's only a dead body,' Mr Preece said, 'It can't hurt you, any more than that Goff can hurt anyone now.'

'It's horrible,' Fay said. 'It's… perverse. You knew it was here, didn't you, like… like this?'

She was shaking. She couldn't help it.

'No,' said the Mayor. 'I didn't think it was gonner be like this. But it don't surprise me.'

'But, Mr Preece, it's your own grandson. How can you bear it?'

'I can bear it, 'cause I got no choice,' said Mr Preece simply. He turned the light away from the coffin and pulled her back, but she could still see the image of Jonathon showcased like a grotesque Christmas doll.

Glad the power was off. Only wished somebody would disconnect the atmosphere.

Was she imagining this, or was it Jonathon she could smell, sweet corruption, bacteria stimulated by exposure to the dense, churchy air?

'Would you mind if I waited outside?'

'You'll stay yere.'

'It's… I'm sorry, Mr Preece, it's the smell.'

'Aye. We should lay him flat and put the lid back on.'

Don't ask me to help. Please don't ask me to help.

'Gonner give me a hand, then?'

No…! But he was taking her arm. 'We 'ave time. Ten minutes yet, see.' Guiding her into the body of the church. She held fingers over her nose.

'Mr Preece…'

'What?'

She took her hand away from her face. 'Why me? Why'd you really bring me along?'

The question resounded from invisible walls and rafters.

'Just hold that.' Giving her the lambing light.

Fay stayed where she was, well back, and shone the light on the coffin, looking away.

'Closer, girl. Shine it closer.'

She felt him watching her. She moved a little closer. The smell was appalling. She imagined bloated, white maggots at work inside Jonathon Preece, although she knew that was ludicrous. Wasn't it?

Fay pushed knuckles into her mouth to stifle the rising panic.

Mr Preece was on his knees beneath the coffin, its top propped against the pulpit. 'Never get 'im back on that trolley. Lay 'im… flat… on the ground. All we can do.' He pushed at the coffin until it was almost upright and the body began sag and belly out, like a drunk in a shop doorway.

'Jesus, Mr Preece, he's slipping! He's going to fall out! He's going to fall on me!'

'Push him back in, girl! Put the light down.'

'I can't!'

'Do it, woman!'

She did. She touched him. She pushed his chest, felt the ruched line of the post-mortem scar. He was cold, but far from stiff now, and she remembered him on the riverbank, soaked and leaking, tongue out and the froth and his skin all crimped.

She closed her eyes and pretended the stink was coming from elsewhere, until the coffin, with its sickening cargo, was flat on the stones and Jimmy Preece was fitting the lid on. Then she was bending over a pew, retching, nothing coming up but bile, like sour, liquid terror.

'Dead, poor boy,' Jimmy Preece said.

She stood up. Wiped her mouth on her sleeve. The smell was still in the air, sweetly putrid. Would she ever get away from that smell?

Heard herself saying. 'Who was it, Mr Preece? Who did this? Who made a sideshow out of him?'

'Dead,' he said. 'Can't hurt you now, can 'e?' He came close. 'Won't hurt that dog, neither, will 'e?'

Oh no. Something had been whispering to her that it was going to be this, but she'd kept pushing it back.

'That's why you brought me, isn't it? That's why you made me touch him.'

He stood there, recovering from the exertion, his breathing like coins rattling in a biscuit tin. Max Goff stabbed to death something unspeakably vile seeping into Crybbe, but it was the death by drowning of one Jonathon Preece, young farmer of this parish…

'Family thing,' he said, voice as dry as wood ash. 'Something I 'ave to know before I die. Jack sent Jonathon out to make away with that animal of yours.'

'And why?' she said, but he didn't answer that.

'And he never came back.'

'OK, I'll tell you,' Fay said, in a rush. 'I'll tell you what happened, OK?'

His words of a moment long ago lurched back at her… before I die? Have to know before I die.

She didn't even want to think what he meant by this, so she told him everything. Everything except for the feelings Joe Powys had said he'd experienced on the riverbank with the gun in his hands and the urge to kill.

Mr Preece went on breathing like a dying man. When she'd finished, he said, 'There's more to it than that.'

'No, there isn't, I swear.'

'Jonathon was a strong boy and a good swimmer. 'E also – unlike that brother of 'is – 'e had a bit o' common sense.'

'I'm sorry,' Fay said. 'I can't tell you what happened when he'd gone. Perhaps… I mean, with hindsight, we should have stayed. With hindsight, we should never have thrown the gun in the river in the first place. I'm sorry. I really am desperately sorry, Mr Preece…' She was aware of her voice becoming very small and a bit pathetic.

He was moving away towards the entrance, pulling out a pocket watch the size of a travel alarm-clock. It had big luminous hands.

'Right,' he said. 'You can wait in the porch, by yere, but you don't go out. You don't open that door until the bell's finished, you understand?

'I want to come up with you.'

'We goes up alone,' he snapped. 'Now you remember what I said, you keep that door shut. Understand?'

'Yes. Look… Mr Preece…'

'Make it quick, Miss, make it very quick.'

She was remembering how controlled he'd been in the hall, how sure that the killer had left the building.

'You know who did this… to Jonathon, don't you?…you know who killed Max Goff when the lights were out.'

He turned his back on her and mounted the first step.

'Don't you?'

He didn't look back, and a turn in the spiral staircase took the light away.

'Is that a Crybbe matter, as well?' she yelled. 'Or is it…?'

God, she thought, as the darkness in the church became for a while, absolute, I can still smell it. Still smell Jonathon.

And she put her hands over her face.

Is it a family matter? was what she'd almost said.

Because it ought to be Warren he was bringing up here tonight. It ought to be