'It's OK, you won't recognise me.' The policeman leaned on the wound-down window. 'I was at the fire.'
'Oh,' Juanita said.
'I'm glad to see you looking so much better. We were a bit worried about you. I put my jacket under your head. Tried to keep you calm until the ambulance got through. You kept saying, 'Get the cat.'' I thought, If there's a cat in here he can get himself out.'
Powys felt rather than saw Juanita go absolutely rigid.
The one time Don Moulder had felt safe going down to the field was at dawn, when the cross would make a proud and rugged silhouette against the eastern sky and the Tor.
At night, no silhouette was a good silhouette.
Bloody woman. How could she have seen flames down here? And wouldn't it have been easy just to stop the car and have a quick glance over the hedge? She did it on purpose; sensed there was something he didn't like in the bottom field but wouldn't tell her.
Trouble with this field, you approached it from the farmhouse and you couldn't see what was inside it till you were practically through the gate.
Protect me, Lord.
Don slid the bar and walked in, praying under his breath.
No flames No light at all, except from his lamp. Which he kept switched on and tightly in his right hand all the way to the cross
Feeling safer when he reached the cross. He went to embrace it, that good and sturdy telegraph pole he'd bought far 50p when they moved the lines.
The cross felt oddly light when he threw his arms about it. And brittle, like a husk. He felt his fingers sinking in.
His arms dropped, nerveless, to his sides, the lamp still clutched in his right hand. He backed away and held up his left hand to the light. It was black.
He let out a cry as the wooden cross started to shiver.
Charcoal. It was burned to charcoal. Lord, how could it be?
How can it be, Lord? D'you hear me?
He shone the light on the cross. Black as soot. Black as sin. Burned to a black cinder and still standing, like the fire had come from inside.
This was what the missus seen? Not ten minutes ago, coming home from the WI, she'd seen the cross on fire?
Couldn't be.
Don flung himself at the cross and hugged it close, feeling it flaking in his arms, beginning to crumble.
He began to whimper. It was burned through, and worse than that, worse than that…
… Worse than that, it was cold.
In a corner of the field, an old engine cranked into unholy life.
Behind the barriers, the Christmas tree lay in slaughtered sections at the side of the road. Christmas had been cancelled and the market cross exposed again, a solitary finger accusing God.
Powys winced. 'I suppose you know this guy Woolaston.'
'Yes.' Her voice sounded slack. 'And Kirsty Cotton.'
He pulled sharply into the kerb just below Carey and Frayne. The pavements were deserted, most of the shop lights were out. Even The George and Pilgrims had looked quiet, a muted glow beyond the ancient windows.
'Woolly has a reputation', Juanita said, 'for being the slowest driver under seventy in the entire West Country. It doesn't bear thinking about.'
But she still sounded as if there was something else pressing on her mind, something the policeman had said before he told them about the horrific accident. Maybe it was being reminded of the fire by someone else who'd been there. More likely, though, it was what the policeman had said about the cat. Had Jim Battle had a cat?
Powys climbed out of the Mini, took the suitcase from the boot, went round and opened Juanita's door wide.
It was a penetratingly cold night. She stood shivering in the road. Almost directly across the street, the goddess smouldered in purple, in one of the very few windows which remained lit.
'My God.' Juanita looked slowly around her as if she might be in the wrong town.
If it's all changed so much from this morning, Powys thought, what the hell must it seem like after more than a month?
She seemed unsteady. He put a hand under her arm, guided her to the pavement.
And stopped.
There was a new sign in the window of Carey and Frayne.
It had been pasted to the outside and was clearly legible under the streetlamp. He realised it was effectively covering a sign which the printer guy, Sam, had made and Diane had stuck up on the inside of the glass. The sign which said, COMING SOON – THE AVALONIAN.
This one was much bigger. It had foot-high black letters on luminous yellow paper, pasted the full width of the window right at the top, where you couldn't hope to reach it from outside. Whoever had done this must have had ladders. Or maybe parked a van on the pavement and stood on its roof.
The sign said, THEAVALOONIAN IS HERE.
ELEVEN
'It's all right.'
'Oh please… please, no… I won't tell any… Oh, no… no, please don't…'
'Shhhhhhh.'
'No! Get away from me! You dis-'
'Open your eyes, Diane. You're safe. Nobody's going to do anything to you.'
She opened her eyes. Into other eyes. Shut them in panic.
'Take it easy. You're all right.'
'Oh. Oh gosh.'
'You see?'
'Have they…?'
'Gone. Yes they have. They wouldn't tangle with me. Diane, my dear, you're trembling horribly.'
Light from the tin-shaded bulb sprayed down on her.
Her relief turned it into golden tinsel.
'They were going to rape me.'
'I do believe they were,' said Ceridwen.
Juanita ran up the stairs with her coat flapping and her useless gloved hands held out in front of her like fins.
'Diane? Diane!'
Joe Powys followed, doing what Juanita couldn't, tossing doors open, smacking lights on.
He found her standing in the middle of the upstairs living room. She looked about to faint. He made her sit down.
'She's not here, Powys. Where is she? Why isn't she here?'
'Oh hey, she could be anywhere. She's working flat out on The Avalonian. Goes to meetings and things. Teaches correspondents how to write shorter paragraphs.'
'Well, she can't have been here when whoever it was put that sign up.'
'They could have done it in the last few minutes. Anytime. These Glastonbury First guys move fast. What's more, nobody seems to stop them.'
'How do you know it's them?'
