Crybbe aka Curfew

Warren.

She heard the Mayor stumble on the steps.

'Are you all right, Mr Preece?'

She heard another footstep, and his ratchet breathing starting up again, like a very old lawn-mower.

Quietly, she began to ascend the steps, until she could see his wavering torch beam reflecting from the curved stonework. And then the beam was no longer visible and she climbed two or three steps until the stairway curved round and she could see the weakening glimmer once more.

The footsteps above her stopped. There was a long silence and then,

'Get back, you…'

He began to cough, and she could hear the fluid gathering in his lungs and throat, like thick oil slurping in the bottom a rusty old can.

'All right, I'm sorry, I'm going back…all right.'

Clattering back to the foot of the stairway, thinking, anything happens to him now, am I going to have the guts to go up there, drag him out of the way or climb over him and pull on the rope a hundred times?

Have I the strength to pull a bell-rope a hundred times? (There's a kind of recoil, isn't there, like a gun, and the rope shoots back up and sometimes pulls large men off their feet.) God almighty, will I have the strength to pull it once?

Leave him. He knows what he's doing. He won't stumble and break his ankle. He won't have a stroke. He won't have a heart attack. He's a Preece.

Like Jack, mangled by his own tractor, under intensive care in Hereford.

Like Jonathon, putrefying in his coffin just a few yards away.

But was there, at the heart of the Preece family, something even more putrid?

She stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for the blessed first peal which only a few nights ago, walking Arnold in the old streets of this crippled town, she'd dreaded.

Presently, she saw the light hazing the stones again and heard his footsteps.

Don't understand.

He's coming down.

She heard his rattling breath, then there was a clatter and the light was all over the place as she heard the lamp rolling down from step to step.

It went out as she caught it.

'Mr Preece… are you…?'

He stood before her breathing roughly, breathing as though he didn't care if each breath was his last.

Fay flicked frantically at the switch and beat the lamp against the palm of her left hand until it hurt. It relit and she shone it at him and reeled back, almost dropping the thing in her shock, and the beam splashed across the nave.

She held the lambing light with both hands to stop it shaking and shone it at the wall to the side of Mr Preece so it wouldn't find him and terrify her with the obscenity of it.

It was wrapped around him like a thick snake.

'What is it?' Fay whispered, and as the whisper dried in her throat she knew.

Perhaps it was winding itself around his neck, choking out of him what little life remained.

Mr Preece let it fall to the stone floor.

He said hoarsely, 'It's the bell-rope, girl. Somebody cut the bell-rope.'

And even Jonathon, with his putrid perfume and his post-mortem scar, hadn't scared her half so much as the s face of his grandfather, an electric puzzle of pulsing vessels, veins and furrows.

CHAPTER X

GRACE PETERS

I928-I992

Beloved wife of

Canon A. L. Peters

White letters.

Cold, black marble.

Pressing his forehead against it, he thought, A. L. Peters. That's me, isn't it? But it isn't my grave. Not yet, anyway. Only one of us is dead, Grace.

What am I doing here?

He remembered now, walking in a dignified fashion through the darkened streets, arm in a crook parallel to his chest. In his best suit, of course, with his dog-collar; she would not be seen out with him if he were attired in anything less.

Certainly not a faded T-shirt with the flaking remains of Kate Bush across his chest.

Peered down at it. Too dark to read the words, not white and gleaming like the letters on the grave. But he remembered the name, Kate Bush. Who the hell was Kate Bush, anyway?

Ought to know that.

Or maybe not. He could hear somebody, a woman, saying:

'There's a chance you'll lapse quite soon into the old confusion and you'll have that to contend with, too. I'm sorry.'

Sorry. Well, aren't we all? Hmmph.

Cold black marble.

Cool hands.

What was all that about?

Alex shook his head.

Well, here I am, sitting on Grace's grave at the less-fashionable end of Crybbe churchyard at God knows what time of night. Haven't the faintest idea how the bloody hell I got here. Not exactly a cold night, but this is no place to spend it.

Wonder if I simply got pissed? And a bit maudlin, the way I do. Stagger along to pay your respects to the little woman. Sorry if I dislodged some of these dinky chippings that your will was so insistent we should use to make this end of the churchyard look like a bloody crazy-golf course. No wonder Murray had you shoved out here – probably hoping the wood would overgrow the thing. And the sooner the better, stupid cow, no taste at all, God knows how I ever got entangled with you.

Guilty? Me? Bloody hell, you ensnared me, you conniving creature.

Alex clambered to his feet. Chuckled. Don't take any notice of me, old girl, I'm rambling again. Must have been on the sauce, I could certainly do with a pee.

He stumbled into the wood and relieved himself with much enjoyment. There were times, he thought, when a good pee could be more satisfying than sex.

Consideration for the finer feelings of his late wife, who – let's get this in proportion once and for all – did not deserve it, had taken him deeper into the wood than he'd intended, and it took him a while to find his way back to the blasted churchyard.

Emerging, in fact, several yards away from Grace's grave, catching a foot on something, stumbling, feeling himself going into a nosedive.

'Damn.' Alex threw out both hands to break his fall. Bad news at his age, a fall, brittle bones, etc. – and, worst of all, a geriatric ward.

Something unexpectedly soft broke his fall. One hand felt cloth, a jacket perhaps.

'Oh gosh, terribly sorry.' Thinking at first he must have tripped over some old tramp trying to get an early night. This was before he felt all the wet patches.

'Oh dear. Oh hell.' It was all very sticky indeed, and his hands felt as if they were covered in it already. Tweedy