Crybbe aka Curfew

'Backtrack.'

The bald, bearded guy waved it way. 'Disappointing, if you don't mind me saying so, J.M. No magic.'

'Wasn't really meant to be magical.' Powys said. 'The idea was just to walk the leys and see if they were as obvious now as when Watkins discovered them.'

'Yeah, and you found some of them to be distinctly dodgy. That's not what we want, is it?'

Powys laughed.

'Well, it's not, is it? People pouring scorn on the whole idea, your archaeologists and so on, and here's J. M. Powys defecting to the Establishment viewpoint.'

'Not exactly. What I feel is, we might have been a bit premature in explaining them as marking out channels of earth energy. Why not – because they connect so many burial mounds and funerary sites, even churchyards- why not simply paths of the dead…?'

The customer stepped back from the dowsing display he'd been fingering. He looked shocked. 'Paths of the dead?' he said. 'Paths of the dead? What kind of negative stuff is that?'

Halfway through the door, he turned round. 'You sure you're J. M. Powys?'

'Fay?'

'Oh. Hullo, Guy.'

'You didn't return my call.'

'No, I didn't, did I? Well, Dad's having one of his difficult days.'

'He sounded fine last night.'

'Well, he isn't now,' Fay said testily. Maybe he thought she was making it all up about the Canon going batty. Maybe she ought to produce medical evidence.

'No, I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you.'

Oh, please, not the sympathy. 'What do you want, Guy?'

'I want to help you, Fay.'

No comment.

'I'd like to put some money in your purse.'

Fay began to smoulder. Purses were carried by little women.

'As you may know. I'm currently on attachment to BBC Wales as senior producer, features and docos.'

Guy had been an on-the-road TV reporter when she'd first known him. Then a regional anchorman. And then, when he'd realized there'd be rather less security in on-screen situations after he passed forty or so, he'd switched to the production side. Much safer; lots of corners to hide in at cut-back time.

'And I've got quite a nice little project on the go on your patch,' Guy said. 'Two fifty minute-ers for the Network.'

'Congratulations.' But suddenly Fay was thinking hard. It couldn't be…

Guy said, 'Max Goff? You know what Max Goff's setting up?'

Shit!

'He's developing a conscience in his middle years and putting millions into New Age research. Anyway, he's bought this wonderful Elizabethan pile not far from you, which he plans to

restore.'

'And where did you hear about this, Guy?'

'Oh… contacts. As I say, we'll be doing two programmes. One showing how he goes about… what he's going to do…how the locals feel about him, this sort of thing. And the second one, a few months later, examining what he's achieved. Or not, as the case may be. Good, hmm?'

'Fascinating.' The bastard. How the hell had he pulled it off? 'And you've got it to yourself, have you?'

'Absolutely. It means Goff will have this one reliable outlet to get his ideas across in an intelligent way.' Fay seethed.

No Radio Four documentary. Not even any exclusive insider stuff for Offa's Dyke. So much for Rachel Wade and her promises. All the time, they'd been negotiating with her ex-husband – obviously aware of the connection, keeping quiet, leading her along so she wouldn't blow the story too soon.

'So what I was thinking. Fay, is… Clearly we're not going to be around the whole time. We need somebody to keep an eye on developments locally and let us know if there's anything we should be looking at. I was thinking perhaps a little retainer for you – I can work it through the budget, we producers have full financial control now of a production, which means…'

Black mist came down. The smug, scheming, patronizing bastard.

When Fay started listening again, Guy was saying, '… would have offered you the official researcher's contract, but one of Max Goff's conditions is that we use the author of some trashy book which seems to have inspired him. Goff wants this chap to be the official chronicler of the Crybbe project and some sort of editorial adviser on the programmes. Of course, that's just a formality, I can soon lose him along the way…'

Fay put the phone down.

Screwed again.

The clock ticked. Arnold lay by her feet under the table. The chair where, in her mind, the smug, spectral Grace Legge had sat, was now piled high with box files. Nothing could sit in it now, even in her imagination.

Fay picked up the phone again and – deliberate, cold, precise – punched out the number of the Offa's Dyke Radio News desk.

'Gavin Ashpole, please. Oh, it is you. It's Fay Morrison. Listen. I can put you down a voice-piece for the lunchtime news. Explaining exactly what Max Goff intends to do in Crybbe.'

She listened to Ashpole asking all the obvious questions.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'Impeccable sources.'

Fay put down the phone, picked up the pad and began to write.

CHAPTER IV

The police station was at the southern end of the town centre, just before the road sloped down to the three- arched river bridge. Attached to the station was the old police house. Murray Beech strode boldly to the front door and rapped loudly with the knocker, standing back and looking around for someone he might say hello to.

He very much wanted to be seen. Did not want anyone to think there was anything remotely surreptitious about this visit, indeed, he'd been hoping Police Sergeant Wynford Wiley would be visible through the police-station window so he could wave to him. But he was not. Nobody was there.

As a last resort Murray had been round to Alex Peters's house, hoping to persuade the old man lo come with him as adviser, witness and… well, chaperone. There'd been no sign of Alex or his daughter, no answer to his knocks.

But Murray didn't have to knock twice on the door of the old police house. She must have been waiting behind it.

'Good afternoon, Tessa,' he said loudly, putting on his most clergymanly voice.

Tessa Byford looked at him in silence. Eighteen. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-faced. Often seen leather- jacketed on street corners with the likes of Warren Preece.

But not an unintelligent girl. A talented artist, he'd heard. And more confident than most local girls. Born here, but brought up in Liverpool until her mother died and her father had dumped her on his parents in Crybbe so he could go back to sea.

Murray could understand why she'd never forgiven he father for this.

He thought: sullen, resentful and eighteen. Prime poltergeist fodder… if you accept the tenets of parapsychology.

About which Murray, of course, kept an open mind.

He smiled. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm here.'

Tessa Byford did not smile back. Without a word, she led him into a small, dark sitting-room, entirely