Crybbe aka Curfew

having a wash this morning, when it was really days ago. They peed in the wardrobe by mistake.

Fay, now – that child was suffering a severe case of misplaced loyalty. If he couldn't get rid of her, it was his solid intention to pop himself off while he could still count on getting the procedure right. She'd thank him for it one day. Better all round, though, if he could make it look like an accident. Fall off the bridge or something.

Would have been a pity though, with all these alternative healing characters swanning around, not to give it a try first. What was there to lose?

The first chap he'd been to, Osborne, had not been all that encouraging. Almost as depressing as the doc. Alex got the feeling old age was not what the New Age was about.

And all this 'like cures like' stuff. A drop of this, a drop of that. Little phials of colourless liquid, touch of the medieval apothecary.

'How long before it starts to work?'

'You mustn't expect dramatic results, Alex,' Osborne told him. 'You see, holistic medicine, by definition, is about improving the health of the whole person. Everything is interconnected. Obviously, the older one is, the more set in its ways the body is, therefore the longer…' He must have seen the expression in Alex's eyes. 'Look, my wife's an acupuncturist, perhaps that might be more what you…'

'All those bloody needles. No thanks.'

'It isn't painful, Alex.'

'Pain? I don't mind pain!'

Just the image of himself lying there, an overstuffed pincushion.

This kind of healing was a good deal more dignified, if you concentrated on those cool hands and didn't think too hard about what was supposedly going on in the spirit world.

He'd grilled her, naturally.

'Dr Chi? Dr bloody Chi? You don't look like a nutter, Wendy. How can you seriously believe you're working under the supervision of some long-dead Chinky quack?'

'My name's Jean,' she'd corrected him softly.

'Dr Chi!' Alex draining his Scotch. 'God save us.'

'Do you really want to know about this, Alex, or are you just going to be superior, narrow-minded, chauvinistic and insulting?'

'Was I? Hmmph. Sorry. Old age. Senile dementia.'

'Are you really old enough to be senile, Alex? What are you, seventy?'

'I'm certainly way past flattery, Wendy. Way past eighty, too. Go on, tell me about this Peking pox-doctor from the Ming dynasty.'

He'd forced himself to listen patiently while she told him about Dr Chi, who, she said, she'd once actually seen – as a white, glowing, egg-shaped thing.

'The name is significant. Dr Chi. Chi is the oriental life force. Perhaps that's the name I've subconsciously given him. I don't know if I'm dealing with a doctor from the Ming dynasty, the T'ang dynasty or whenever. He doesn't speak to me all sing-song, like a waiter serving chicken chow mein. All I know is there's a healing force and I call him Dr Chi. Perhaps he never was a human doctor at all or perhaps he's something that last worked through a Chinese physician. I'm not clever enough to understand these things. I'm content to be a channel. Good gracious, don't you believe in miracles, Alex? Isn't that the orthodox Anglican way any more?'

Regarding the Anglican Church, he wasn't entirely sure what he believed any more.

Powys found the page, ran his finger down the column headed Veterinary Surgeons. 'OK, D. L. Harris. Crybbe three-nine-four.'

Mrs Seagrove dialled the number and handed him the phone.

The woman in the bloodstained blue cagoule sat in the hall. The dog lay on Powys's jacket on the woman's knee, panting.

'Have a cup of tea while you're waiting,' Mrs Seagrove said.

She shook her head. 'No. Thank you…We may have to take him somewhere.'

The number rang for nearly half a minute before a woman answered.

'Yes.'

'Mr Harris there, please?'

'What's it about?' Local accent.

'We've got a very badly injured dog. Could you tell me where to bring it?'

A silence.

'Dog, you say?' Shrill. As if he'd said giraffe or something.

'He's been shot.'

'I'm sorry,' the woman said flat-voiced. 'But Mr Harris is out.'

'Will he be long? Is there another vet?'

'Sorry.' Cool, terse. 'We can't help you.'

A crackle, the line broke.

'I don't believe it,' Powys said. 'She said the vet was out, I asked when he'd be back or was there anyone else, and she said she couldn't help me. Can you believe that? This was a vet's, for God's sake.'

'Wrong,' Fay Morrison said bitterly. 'This was a Crybbe vet's,'

'What the fuck was happening up there?' Max Goff lay on his bed in his room at the Cock.

'You tell me,' said Andy Boulton-Trow.

'I never felt so high. Like, at first I was really angry, really furious at the inefficiency. Why weren't they bringing the flaming wall down, why was nothing happening, why was the sound failing?'

'And then?'

'Then I felt the power. The energy. I never felt anything so heavy before. It took off the top of my skull. That ever happen to you?'

'Once or twice,' Andy said.

'Come to London with me,' Goff said. 'Stay at my place.

'I have things to do here.'

'Then I'll stay here. We'll stay in this room. You got things to teach me, I realize this now. We'll stay here. I'll get rid of Ms Wade. I'll send her back to London.'

Andy placed a hand on Max's knee.

'You go back to London, Max. There's such a thing as too much too soon. You'll get there. You'll make it.'

Andy didn't move his hand. Max shivered.

'Took off the top of my skull. And then the curfew started.'

'Yes,' Andy said. 'The curfew.'

'I don't think I like that curfew,' Jean Wendle said, pouring Earl Grey, after the treatment. 'I don't know whether it's the bell or what it represents. I don't like restrictions.'

'Oh, quite,' Alex said. 'Couldn't stand it if it was a real curfew. But as a bit of picturesque traditional nonsense, it's all right, isn't it?'

'I think it is a real curfew, in some way,' Jean said, 'I don't know why I think that. Well, yes, I do – people do stay off the streets while it's being rung, have you noticed that? But I think there's something else. A hundred times a night is an awfully big tradition.'

'I suppose so.'

Alex would give her the benefit of the doubt on anything tonight. He didn't remember when he'd last felt so relaxed, so much at peace. And him a priest. Best not to go into the implications of all this.

'It's a very odd little town,' Jean said. She drew gold-dusted velvet curtains over a deep Georgian window.

'Aren't they all.'

'No, they aren't. This is. There are – how can I put it? – pockets of strange energy in this town. All over the place. People see things, too, although few will ever admit it.'

'See things?' Alex was wary.

'Manifestations. Light effects. Ghosts.'