Crybbe aka Curfew

Which building?

Go in a bit, Mel.'

The helicopter banked, and Max looked back. Shit, it was the Cock, he'd never realized the line cut through the pub… the pub he'd known intuitively he had to buy. Maybe, sleeping there in that crummy room, he'd picked up the flow. These things happened when you were keyed into the system.

His thoughts came back to Rachel. Who, for once, had not been keyed in. Who hadn't known how to handle country people. Who hadn't believed in the Crybbe project, hadn't believed in much.

Should he feel any kind of guilt here? Leaving her to handle things while he was in London, knowing she was out of sympathy with the whole deal?

'OK, Max?'

'Yeah, sure, Mel. Take us in.'

Thrown out on the fucking rubbish heap – like the Court itself didn't want anybody in there hostile to the project. Rough justice. Jeez.

Was this fanciful, or what?

What he'd do, he'd have some kind of memorial to Rachel fashioned in stone. A plaque on a gate or a stile along the ley-walk, well away from the Court. Couldn't have people staring up at the prospect chamber – 'Yeah, this was where that woman took a dive, just here.'

But accidents were bad news. First thing, he'd need to have that cross-bar replaced, arrange things so the whole room was sealed off until it was fully safe.

They cleared the river and headed back over the town towards the Court. The other leys were not so obvious as the big one down the middle; this was because fewer than half the new stones were in place, several farmers refusing to give permission until after the public meeting. Or, more likely, they were holding out to see how keen he was, how much he was prepared to pay. Yeah, he could relate to that.

Cars in the courtyard. People waiting for him. Press conference scheduled for 5 p.m.

He looked at his Rolex. It was 11.15. Time to find out precisely what had happened. Talk to the police before he faced the newsmen and the TV crews, whose main question would be this:

Mr Goff, this is obviously a terrible thing to happen. It must surely have overshadowed your project here?

The press were just so flaming predictable.

Arnold was in fact moving remarkably well. 'He doesn't think he's disabled,' Fay said. 'He just thinks he's unique.'

They climbed over a stile. Arnold managed to get under it without too much difficulty. She picked him up for a while, carried on walking across the field with the dog in her arms. The few sheep ignored them.

The sky was full of veined clouds, yellow at the edges, like wedges of ancient Stilton cheese.

Powys had watched Fay wander down the field and at one point Memory, vibrating on its helipad, turned her into Rose in a long white frock and a wide straw hat, very French Impressionist.

He blinked and Rose was Fay again, in light-blue jeans and a Greenpeace T-shirt.

She put Arnold down. He fell over and got up again.

Fay stopped and turned to him.

'Where is it, then?'

He said faintly, 'It isn't here.'

'I thought perhaps there was something wrong with my eyes,' Fay said.

'I don't understand it. This was the field. There's the river, see. The hills are right. There's the farmhouse, just through those trees.'

Fay didn't say a word.

'You think I'm bonkers, don't you?'

'Scheduled ancient monuments don't just disappear,' she said. 'Do they?'

CHAPTER VI

One of the women who cleaned the church was paid to come into the vicarage on weekdays to prepare Murray's lunch. He rarely saw her do it, especially in summer; it would just be there on a couple of dishes, under clingfilm. Variations on a cold-meat salad and a piece of fruit pie with whipped cream. She never asked if he enjoyed it or if there was something he would prefer.

He lifted up a corner of the clingfilm, saw a whitish, glistening smudge of something.

Mayonnaise. He knew it could only be mayonnaise.

But still Murray retched and pushed the plate away. This had been happening increasingly, of late – he'd scraped the lunch untouched into the dustbin. He never seemed to miss it afterwards, rarely felt hunger, although he knew he was losing weight and even he could see his face was gaunt and full of long shadows. Pretty soon, he though sourly, there would be rumours going around that he had AIDs.

Next week he might let it be known that he was interested in a move. He would see how he felt.

Today was not the day to do anything hasty.

Today he'd left the vicarage as usual, before eight, and walked the fifty yards to the church where he'd found what he'd found.

The church door had not been damaged because it was never locked. Nothing had been torn or overturned. Only the cupboard in the vestry, where the communion wine and the chalice were kept, had been forced.

Murray had heard of cases where centuries-old stained glass had been smashed or, in the case of Catholic churches, plaster statues pounded to fragments. Swastikas spray-painted on the altar-cloth. Defecation in the aisle.

Nothing so unsubtle here.

What was missing was that element of frenzy, of uncontrolled savagery. This was what had unnerved him, made him look over his shoulder down the silent nave.

Candles – his own Christmas candles – had been left burning on the altar, two of them, one so far gone that it was no more than a wick in a tiny pool of liquid wax. Between the candles stood the communion chalice, not empty.

What was in the bottom of the cup was not mayonnaise.

Murray had looked inside once, then turned away with a short, whispered, outraged prayer – it might have been a prayer or it might have been a curse; either way it was out of character. His reserve had been cracked.

With distaste, he'd placed the chalice on the stone floor, remembering too late about fingerprints but knowing even then hat he would not be calling in the police, because that was all they'd done.

And it was enough.

It was inherently worse than any orgy of spray-paint and destruction. The single small, symbolic act, profoundly personal, almost tidy. Appalling in its implication, but nothing in itself, simply not worth reporting to the police and thus alerting the newspapers and Fay Morrison.

'They always ask you,' he remembered a colleague with an urban parish complaining once, 'if you suspect Satanism. What are you supposed to say? It's certainly more than anti-social behaviour, but do you really want some spotty little vandal strutting around thinking he's the Prince of Darkness?'

But this, he thought – staring down at his cling-wrapped lunch, suddenly nauseous and unsteady – this is another gesture to me. It's saying, come out. Come out, 'priest', come out and fight.

However, as he'd thought while rinsing out the chalice this morning, this can hardly be down to Tessa Byford, can it?

Murray had thrown away the candles, performed a small, lonely service of reconsecration over the chalice and decided to keep the outrage to himself. By the time the Monday cleaner came in at ten, there had been no sign of intrusion.

As for the small cupboard in the vestry – he would unscrew it from the wall himself and take it to an ironmonger's in Leominster, explaining how he'd had to force the lock after being stupid enough to lose the key. Silly me. Ha ha.