Crybbe aka Curfew

'It seems we're on the end of a power line, or something. So whenever there's a problem elsewhere it trips a switch and the whole valley goes off. Something like that. It'll be back on in a few minutes, probably.'

Powys put out a hand to her then held back and put the hand on the cool window-ledge. Things to sort out first, before he allowed himself to forget.

'Henry Kettle,' he said. 'His car went out of control and crashed into the wall around the Tump. Freak accident. What did Goff have to say about that?'

Rachel said, 'You don't want to hear that. Come back to bed, J.M.'

They did go back to bed. But she told him anyway.

'The nearest thing to a Stone Age shaman. I mentioned that.'

She lay in the crook of his arm, his hand cupped under her breast.

Powys said. 'Nobody knows a thing about Stone Age shamans or what they did.'

'Maybe it was Bronze Age.'

'Know bugger all about them either.'

'Max said they would sometimes sacrifice themselves or allow themselves to be sacrificed to honour the Earth Spirit or some such nonsense.'

'Theory,' Powys said.

'He said it must have been like that with Henry Kettle. Getting old. Knew he was on borrowed time. So he… consciously or subconsciously, he decided to end it all and put his life energy into Max's project. Max was standing there looking at the wreckage of Kettle's car. 'Whoomp!' he kept saying. 'Whoomp!' And clapping his hands.'

'OK, you've convinced me,' Powys said. 'This guy's wanking in the dark, and he has to be stopped before it goes all over everybody…'

Arnold whimpered. Fay awoke, feeling the dog trembling against her leg.

Although the bedroom light was out, she knew somehow that all the lights were out.

Knew also that in the office below, the little front room that had been Grace Legge's sitting-room, she was in residence. Pottering about, dusting the china and the clock. The empty grin, eye-sockets of pale light.

And would she see, through those resentful, dead sockets, the hulk of the wrecked Revox and the fragments of its innards sprayed across the room?

Or was that not a part of her twilit existence?

Oh, please… Fay clutched Arnold.

Probably there was nothing down there.

Nothing.

Probably.

PART FOUR

Most of the natives once stood in superstitious awe of the

ancient standing stones which are dotted up and down

Radnorshire. Even today there are farmers who prefer to

leave the hay uncut which grows round such stones and

some people avoid them at night as they would a

graveyard.

W. H. Howse,

History of Radnorshire

CHAPTER I

Around mid-morning. Fay picked up the phone and sat there for several minutes, holding it to her ear, staring across the office, at nothing. The scene-of-crime man had just left, a young detective with a metal case. Lots of prints on the Revox and the desk, but they'd probably turn out to be her own and her father's, the SOCO had said cheerfully, fingerprinting them both. Everybody was a bit of a pro these days. He blamed television.

Fay held the phone at arm's length as it started making the continuous whine that told you you'd knocked it off its rest. She looked into the mouthpiece. The SOCO had fingerprinted that as well.

She tapped the button to get the dialling tone back. Could she really make this call?

… And what's the story. Fay?

It's very bizarre, Gavin. The fact is, I've discovered there are no dogs in Crybbe.

No dogs in Crybbe.

None at all. That is, except one.

Just the one.

Yes, mine. That's how I found out.

I see. And how come there are no dogs in Crybbe, Fay?

Because they howl at the curfew bell, Gavin. People don't like that.

That figures. But if there are no dogs in Crybbe, how do you know they howl at the curfew?

Well, I don't. I'm assuming that's the case, because Arnold howls at it. That's Arnold, my dog. Least, I think he's my dog.

Yes, well, thank you very much. Fay. Look, this illness your old man's got. This dementia. Anything hereditary there, by any chance?

'Oh God!'

Fay crashed the phone down.

Arnold lay at her feet, an ungainly black and white thing with monster ears and big, expressive eyes.

The only dog in Crybbe.

This morning, Fay had gone out soon after dawn into intermittent drizzle. She'd followed a milkman, at whom no dogs had barked no matter how carelessly he clanked his bottles. She'd followed a postman, whose trousers were unfrayed and who whistled as he walked up garden paths to drop letters through letter-boxes and on to doormats, where they lay unmolested by dogs.

She'd walked down by the river, where there was a small stretch of parkland with swings for the children and no signs warning dog owners not to allow their non-existent pets to foul the play area.

Finally, at around 8.15, she'd approached a group of teenagers waiting for the bus to take them to the secondary school nine miles away.

'Does any of you have a dog?'

The kids looked at each other. Some of them grinned, some shrugged and some just looked stupid.

'You know me, I'm a reporter. I work for Offa's Dyke Radio. I need to borrow a dog for an item I'm doing. Can any of you help me?'

'What kind of dog you want?'

'Any kind of dog. Doberman… Chihuahua… Giant wire-haired poodle.'

'My sister, she had a dog once.'

'What happened to it?'

'Ran away, I think.'