Crybbe aka Curfew

considerable interest, is trying not to laugh.

'See, it's no problem. Gran,' Warren said slowly and slyly. ' 'Cause I've already 'ad 'im off once, see, that ole lid.'

He stood with his hands on narrow hips encased in tight, leather trousers, and his lips were just the merest twist away from a smirk.

Jean had been listening to the tension in the air in the small, brown living-room, humming and then singing, dangerously off-key, sending out invisible wires that quickly tautened and then, finally, snapped.

'Get out!' Mrs Preece's big face suddenly buckled. 'GET OUT!' She turned to Jean, breathing rapidly. 'And you as well, if you please.'

Jean stood up and moved quietly to the door. 'I'm really very sorry, Mrs Preece.'

'Things is not right,' Mrs Preece said, sniffing hard. 'Things is far from right. And no you're not. None of you's sorry.'

They'd stopped for coffee but hadn't eaten, couldn't face it.

Fay still felt a bit sick and more than a bit alone. She badly needed someone she could rely on and Joe Powys no longer seemed like the one. But while she felt slightly betrayed, she was also sorry for him. He looked even more lost than she felt.

'All I can think of,' he said, driving listlessly back to Crybbe, 'is that the stone near the cottage is the actual one – the Bottle Stone.'

'You mean he had it dug up under cover of darkness and…'

'Sounds crazy, doesn't it?'

'I'm afraid it does, Joe. Why would Boulton-Trow want to do that, anyway?'

'Well, he knows that was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and…'

'And he wanted to bring it all back by confronting you with the stone again? That would make him… well, you know… quite evil. I can't imagine…'

'I'm sorry. I'm asking too much of you. Maybe I ought to stay out of your way for a while.'

Fay looked at him hopelessly. 'Maybe we'll take some time and think about things. See what we can come up with.'

She decided she'd go, after all, to Goff's press conference, in a private capacity, just to listen. See what questions other people raised and how they were answered.

'I don't think we have much time,' Joe Powys said, 'I really don't.'

'Why? I mean… before what?'

'I don't know,' he said.

He looked broken.

Alone again, Mrs Preece shut herself in the living-room, fell into her husband's sunken old chair and began to cry bitterly, her white hair spooling free of its bun, strands getting glued by the tears to her mottled cheeks.

When the telephone rang, she ignored it and it stopped.

After some minutes Mrs Preece got up from the chair, went to the mirror and tried to piece together her bun without looking at her face.

Out of the corner of her right eye she saw the onion in its saucer on top of the television set.

Then Mrs Preece let out a scream so harsh and ragged it felt as though the skin was being scoured from the back of her throat.

The onion, fresh this morning, was as black as burnt cork.

CHAPTER VII

Goff said, 'As you say, Gavin, it's been a hell of blow, obviously cast a pall over things here. Rachel'd been with me nearly four years. She was the best PA I ever had. But you ask if it's gonna dampen my enthusiasm for what we're doing here… I have to say no, of course it isn't. What we have here is too important for Crybbe… and for the human race.

Gavin Ashpole, of Offa's Dyke Radio, nodded sympathetically.

At the back, behind everybody. Fay groaned. Nobody noticed her, not even Guy.

There were about a dozen reporters and two TV crews in the stable-block, everybody asking what Fay thought were excruciatingly banal questions.

But, OK, what else could they ask? What did they have to build on? If it hadn't involved Max Goff, all this sad little episode would have been worth was a couple of paragraphs in the local paper and an Offa's Dyke one-day wonder. A small, insignificant, accidental death.

OK, Goff didn't want the residue of anything negative hanging on him or the Crybbe project. But if Rachel had been here, she'd have talked him out of this mini-circus; it wasn't worth a press conference, which would only draw the wrong kind of attention.

But then, if Rachel had been here… Fay fell the clutch of sorrow in her breast and something else less definable but close to anxiety.

Joe had said, 'Got to sort this out. I'm going to find him.'

'Boulton-Trow? Is that wise?'

'I want to take a look at this place he's got, in the wood.'

'I saw it. Yesterday, when I look the short-cut to church. It might be better inside, but it looks like a hovel.'

'We'll find out.'

'I didn't like it. I didn't like the feel of the place.'

Joe had shrugged. She'd felt torn. On one hand, yes, he really ought to sort this thing out, even it meant facing up to his own delusions. On the other hand, well, OK, she was scared for him.

'You go to your press conference,' he'd said, touched her arm hesitantly and then walked away, head down, across the square towards the churchyard.

So here she was, sitting a few yards behind Guy's stocky, aggressive-looking cameraman, Guy standing next to him, occasionally whispering instructions. The chairs had been laid out in three rows in the middle tier of the stable-block, so that the assembled hacks were slightly higher than Goff.

And yet, somehow, he appeared to be looking down on them.

Goff was at his desk, his back to the window and the Tump, as if this was his personal power-source.

'Max,' one of the hacks said, 'Barry Speake, Evening News. Can I ask you what kind of feedback you're getting from the local community here? I mean, what's the local response to your plans to introduce what must seem to a lot of ordinary people to be rather bizarre ideas, all this ley-lines and astrology and stuff?'

Goff gave him both rows of teeth. 'Think it's bizarre, do you, Barry?'

'I'm not saying I think it's bizarre. Max, but…'

'But you think simple country folk are too unsophisticated to grasp the concept. Isn't that a little patronizing, Barry?'

There was a little buzz of laughter.

'No, but hold on.' Goff raised a hand. 'There's a serious point to be made here. We call this New Age, and, sure, it's new to us. But folks here in Crybbe have an instinctive understanding of what it's about because this place has important traditions, what you might call a direct line to the source… Something I'd ask the author, J. M. Powys, to elaborate on, if he were here… Yeah, lady at the back.'

Fay stood up. 'Mr Goff, you're obviously spending a lot of money here in Crybbe…'

'Yeah, just don't ask me for the figures.'

Muted laughter.

Fay said, 'As my colleague tried to suggest, it is what many people would consider a slightly bizarre idea, attempting to rebuild the town's prehistoric heritage, putting back all these stones, for