In this dream, the one that wasn't, Juanita stood on one side of what tourists sometimes saw as a broken archway, where the stone arms reached for the chalice.
On the other side of the archway that wasn't, stood another woman.
Both white, incandescent in the moonlight.
When Powys either awoke or didn't, Juanita was alone.
Woolly came out of the garden shed. 'Ain't much useful in there, man, to be honest.'
He handed Sam a garden fork.
'It's got a wonky handle.'
'The alternative's a bent lawn rake.'
'What's yours, then?'
'I'm a man of peace, remember?' Woolly whispered.
'Come on, move it.'
They climbed over into the field. Under the moon, the Tor looked surprisingly sinister. Sam figured he was seeing it from the same angle as when…
Don't think about it.
'You know your way round here? Shit, this field's waterlogged.'
'Couple of hours it'll be ice-logged,' Woolly muttered. 'Sure, I used to do a bit of gardening for the Colonel. He had a greenhouse then. I figured maybe I could grow certain exotic plants on the side, like. Never thought he'd know what one looked like. Still, he was very nice about it.
Died the following year, poor old soul.'
Sam looked up at the Tor. Something was bothering him.
'Woolly, where I saw this road, look. There's no way they could run it through there. I was so blown away by… you know, him… that I just didn't figure it out proper. I remember thinking it looked like it was aimed straight at the centre of the Tor, under the tower. And, like, you see from here, that's where it would have to go, else Meadwell'd be right in the middle of the central reservation, and it's a double-listed building, so that's out, right?'
'What you saying? And keep your bloody voice down.'
'I don't think that excavation's anything to do with the road. Not directly.'
'So what was it?'
'Fuck knows. You're the earth-mysteries expert.'
'Think about it later,' Woolly said. 'We got to scare these bastards away before they have the top of that well off.'
By moonlight, they skirted the edge of the field, keeping to the hedge. They heard the clunk of a pickaxe on concrete, saw the muffled glow of a lamp on the ground. Sam moved quietly through the shallow drainage ditch, his shoes and the bottoms of his jeans soaked through. There was an old stile he vaguely remembered from his days with the Ramblers' Association. From way back, when there was like a little pilgrims' way to the Meadwell.
Amazingly, he found the stile, tested it with one foot, it seemed solid enough to stand on, so he stood on it. He signalled to Woolly. Then, just as the pickaxe struck metal, he bawled out,
'Avon and Somerset Police. Don't no bugger move!'
And then he was over the stile and going hard for Darryl Davey, swinging the garden fork like an axe at a tree.
Darryl had started to run, and the shaft of the fork caught him under both knees and he came down on the concrete with a smack. Sam was aware of the other guy legging it, but that didn't matter because the lamp on the ground showed him where to put the fork, like hard under Darryl's chin.
Woolly was with him now. 'You see who the other fucker was?'
'Don't give a shit. This is my man. Darryl, as I recall, it was in 1972 when you persuaded me to part with my dinner money or face a difficult nosebleed situation. I got to tell you, you got precisely five seconds to say what you done with Diane, else it's a prong up each nostril and then I start beating your lovely big teeth out with the handle, look. And after that…'
Darryl twisted his neck round and a rusting prong nudged his Adam's apple. He screamed. 'Where's them cops?'
'Four,' Sam said. 'Three. Two…'
'I don't fucking know, do I?' Darryl began to cough.
Sam raised a foot.
'Leave it out,' Woolly said. 'He can't say much with your shoe on his gob.'
'One,' Sam said.
'No, listen… All we done was scare her. Then Ceridwen comes in and tells us to piss off. I don't know what they done with her after that, honest to…'
'Where was this, Darryl?'
'Outside Woolaston's shop. Len and Wayne done his window, right. I'm following Lady L… Diane.'
'Following her, why?'
'Cause they told me to.'
'Who?'
'Like… your old man, yeah?'
'Shit,' Sam said in disgust. 'You get your orders from the old man?'
'Sometimes.'
Woolly said, 'Who was with you, then?'
Darryl went silent.
'We missed that, Darryl,' Sam said.
'You can kill me,' Darryl Davey shouted. 'But I ain't sayin' no more.'
So they let him go. They let the bastard go.
They went back to the house and they put on every light in the place.
It was gone three a.m.
'Would you trust Darryl Davey with anything worth knowing?' Woolly said.
'Would you trust my old man?'
'Not unless I had no choice,' Woolly said. 'Go on. Go get him, boy.'
'I'm not leaving you here. Woolly. What if the other bugger comes back?'
'Then I'll handle it. Go, Sammy.'
'Can't we both go? This well thing, is that really so… ?'
'Yeh. It is. It is, Sammy. Go.'
Sam drove away from Meadwell in Joe Powys's Mini. Glad, on one level, to be leaving Meadwell. Not glad to be leaving Woolly.
Premonition?
Not that much of a convert.
FOURTEEN
She felt her anger like a bed of white-hot coals in her plexus. Her eyes, wide open, watched the mist weaving between the great pillars.
Diane watched the tendrils of cold steam interlacing the air above her, hearing Archer's politician's voice, dark old oak seasoned by his heritage.
All I need to know is, do you, the people of Glastonbury want it to happen?… damned hippies and squatters… turning this into a jungle…
Archer. Who, all through their childhood, had watched her from a distance. Which was frightfully easy to do at Bowermead. Archer's face, still as an owl's, amid the branches of a tree as she pushed her doll's pram through
