Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

  'Come . . . down ... on me.'

  'No!' Jocasta said calmly.

  'Oh please! Please ... I can't, I can't . . . I can't hold on!'

  He tried to put his arms around her neck to pull her down on him, but his arms went right through her, as though she had no substance.

  He dreamt then - the way you did sometimes - that he woke up, still feeling alarmingly excited. He was in his room at the Cock and he could still feel her presence above him, her bodily musk in his nostrils. He moaned and breathed in deeply.

  And almost choked.

  She smelt foul.

  A decaying, rancid smell that filled up his throat and turned the sweat on his body to frost, and when he opened his eyes he stared into the whitened, skeletal face of the woman from The Gallery' with the little needle-teeth.

  He really woke up then, in a genuine cold sweat.

  No more nights alone in the Cock, Guy Morrison decided. Tonight. . . well, tonight would have to be a very special night for his adoring production assistant, Catrin Jones.

  The lesser of several evils.

  Chief inspectors were getting younger. This one was a kind of Murray Beech in blue; steely eyed, freshly shaven although he may have been up most of the night.

  'Yes,' she said. 'We'd been to pick up my dog from the vet's. I ... I needed somebody to drive the car so I could keep the dog on my knee.'

  'No,' she said. 'No I haven't known him long. Just a couple of days in fact. In this job you get to know people quite well quite quickly.'

  Don't ask what was wrong with the dog, she pleaded silently. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this. Nothing.

  'We got back ... I suppose it would have been shortly before seven. Yes, he drove back. The last I saw of him, he was walking home ... to the cottage he was living in. Max Goff had commissioned him to write a book about Crybbe.

  'Miss Wade?' she said, 'Yes, I ... got on very well with her. I suppose we had similar backgrounds.'

  'Rose?' she said later. 'Rose who . . . ?'

  'Rose Hart,' replied Chief Inspector William Hughes, a high flier from Off. 'Have you heard of her?'

  'No . . . Oh, wait a minute. Photographs by Rose Hart. On the cover of The Old Golden Land, it said "Photographs by Rose Hart". Is that who you mean?'

  'You don't know anything about her? You never met?'

  'No . . . What's the connection here?'

  'Mrs Morrison, I have to be intrusive. What's your relationship with Joseph Miles Powys?'

  'What?'

  'Were you sleeping with him?'

  'What. . . ?

  'I'm sorry, I have to ask this.'

  'Of course I wasn't bloody sleeping with him. I'd only known the bloke a couple of days.'

  'And how long had he known Miss Wade?'

  'Oh,' Fay leaned back in the metal chair in the bare little room. There was a table and two other metal chairs; the Chief Inspector in one, Wynford Wiley in the other. Fat, florid, red-

  necked Wynford Wiley, with a suggestion of a smile on his tiny lips.

  'I see what you mean,' Fay conceded quietly.

  'Two days? Three days? Four perhaps?'

  'Yes, OK. It was what you might call a whirlwind romance.'

  'Quite normal for some people, Mrs Morrison.'

  'Yes, but Rachel wasn't . . .'

  'No?'

  'No. Listen. Perhaps relationships do form quickly when . . . when you aren't happy.'

  'Miss Wade wasn't happy?'

  'She . . . She wasn't happy working for Max Goff, no. She wasn't happy about what he was doing in Crybbe. She thought he was pouring money down the drain. The thing is ... it wasn't too easy to quit, she was being paid an awful lot o money as Goff's PA.'

  The way you babbled under interrogation, no matter how smooth you thought you were at handling people.

  'How unhappy would you say she was?'

  'Look,' Fay said, rallying. 'I think it's time you made it clear what kind of investigation this is. What do you suspect? Suicide? Or what?'

  'Or what?' repeated the Chief Inspector.

  'Or murder, I suppose,' Fay said.

  'What do you think it was?'

  'I don't know the circumstances. Are you trying to say - I mean, is this the bottom line? Powys pushed poor Rachel out of the window because she found out he was having it off with me? I mean, bloody hell, come on.'

  'It wasn't a window, Mrs Morrison. It was something called the prospect chamber. Do you know it?'

  'No. That is . . . I've heard of it.'

  'Did you go out again last night, after Mr Powys had brought you home?'

  'No.'

  'Is there anybody who can . . . ?'

  'My father.'

  'I understand he's not been very well, Mrs Morrison. I believe he gets a bit confused.'

  'Oh God, Hughes, do you get a kick out of this?'

  'It's my job, Mrs Morrison.'

  'Still, what have I got to complain about? It'll sound interesting on the radio tonight, won't it?'

  Wynford Wiley grinned, which wasn't pleasant. 'Which radio you gonner 'ave it on, Mrs Morrison?'

  He looked down at his big hands. Hands like inflated rubber gloves, twirling a pen.

  'Only I yeard Offa's Dyke Radio wasn't too happy with you lately, see. Just what I yeard, like . . .'

  Hughes said, 'Mrs Morrison, do you know what happened to Rose Hart?'

  Fay shook her head slowly.

  The Chief Inspector consulted a file on the table in front of him.

  'Twelve years ago,' he said, 'Rose Hart and Joe Powys were sharing a flat in Bristol. It was a Victorian building in a not very pleasant area of town, and Mr Powys told the inquest they were hoping to move somewhere else.'

  'Inquest?' Fay said faintly.

  'At the rear of the house was an overgrown area which couldn't really be called a garden. One afternoon Joe Powys went up to London to see his publisher - this is what he told the inquest. When he got back he couldn't find Rose anywhere, but a window was wide open in the flat - this is the fourth floor.'

  'Oh no,' Fay said.

  'Joe told the coroner he dashed downstairs and out the back, and there she was. Rose Hart.'

  Fay brought a hand to her mouth. There was such a thing as coincidence, wasn't there?

  'The verdict was accidental death. Nobody quite believed that, everybody thought she'd killed herself, but coroners tend to be kind. When there's room for doubt, when there isn't a note . . .'

  'That's very sad,' Fay said.

  'It certainly was Mrs Morrison. Half-buried in this overgrown patch at the back of this building in Bristol, where they lived, there were these old railings.'

  'Jesus,' Fay whispered.

  'They had spikes, rusty iron spikes. Three of them went through Miss Hart. One deeply into the abdominal area where she was carrying what was thought to be Mr Powys's baby.'

  Fay said nothing.

  'Very messy,' Hughes said.

  CHAPTER III

  People were flinging themselves out of windows to the ground, and the grey masonry was cracking up around them.

  The single bolt of lightning had caused a great jagged cleft in the tower. Fire and smoke spewed out.

  'What's this one mean?' Guy Morrison asked.

  Adam Ivory didn't look up. His wife whispered, 'This card is simply called The Tower. Or sometimes The Tower Struck by Lightning. It signifies a cataclysm.'

  'Is that good or bad?' Guy was not greatly inspired by the tarot. What he'd really been after was a crystal-ball type of clairvoyant One could do things with crystal balls televisually. He supposed it might be possible to match up some of these images with local scenes, but it would be a bit contrived.

  'What I mean is, are we talking about something cataclysmically wonderful, or what?'

  'It can be either way,' Hilary Ivory said She was older and bigger than her husband; her hair was startlingly white. 'Good or evil. A catharsis or simply a disaster, with everything in ruins. It depends on th
e spread.'

  The cameraman, Larry Ember, looked up from his viewfinder, the Sony still rolling. His expression said. How long you want me to hold this bloody shot?

  Guy made small circles with a forefinger to signify Larry should keep it running. Initially this was to have been no more than wallpaper - images of New Age folk doing what they did. But then he'd persuaded Adam Ivory, who called himself a tarotist, to try and read the future of the Crybbe project.

  Guy had managed to convince him that this was being shot with Goff's full approval and would in no way threaten the Ivorys' tenure of this comfortable little town-centre apartment. It occurred to him that the opportunity of relocating to form part of a like-minded community in Crybbe had been something of a godsend for Adam and Hilary; the tarot trade couldn't have been very lucrative in Mold.

  Ivory had agreed to be recorded on VT while doing his reading but had stipulated there was to be no moving around, no setting up different angles, no zooming in or out, or anything that might affect his concentration.

  Larry had done a bit of snorting and face-pulling at this. Cameramen weren't over-concerned about public relations and it was evident to Guy that this cameraman thought this interviewee was a snotty little twerp.

  Guy Morrison would not have disagreed completely, but in the absence of a crystal-ball person, this might be the best he'd get in the general area of divination.

  The camera had been rolling for nearly seven minutes, and for the last four the shot had been entirely statis: Adam Ivory - who wore a suit and looked more like a dapper, trainee accountant than a clairvoyant - intent on the spread of nine cards, the last of which was The Tower.

  Little gaily dressed puppet-figures hurling themselves to the ground.

  Guy thought of Rachel Wade. An unfortunate incident. It would bring regional news crews into Crybbe, if they weren't here already. Trespassers on his property.

  'Adam, are you going to tell us what the cards are indicating?' Guy asked softly.

  Silence.

  Larry Ember, who'd been a working cameraman when Guy was still at public school, stepped back from his tripod, the camera still running.

  He looked straight at his director, the way cameramen did, conveying the message, You're supposed to be in charge, mate, what are you going to do about this fucking prat?

  Then, turning away from Guy, Larry lit a cigarette.

  Hilary Ivory was on him in seconds, furiously pointing at her husband and shaking her hair into a blizzard. Guy tensed, just praying she didn't snatch the cigarette out of Larry's fingers; he'd once known a film unit cameraman who'd hit a woman in the face for less than that.

  Adam Ivory himself rescued the situation. He moved. Larry bent over his camera again.

  Ivory's movement amounted to taking off his glasses, cleaning the lenses on the edge of the black tablecloth and putting the glasses back on again.

  He resumed his study of the cards and Larry's shoulders slumped in disgust. Time, Guy realized, was getting on. Goff was coming back, he'd heard, in the wake of this Rachel Wade business. His eyes were drawn back to The Tower. It would be inexcusably tasteless to cut from shots of policemen and the upstairs window at the Court to these little puppet-figures tumbling from a greystone tower struck by a bolt of lightning. Pity.

  Adam Ivory looked up suddenly, eyes large and watery behind the rimless glasses.

  The soundman's boom-mike came up between Ivory's legs, fortunately out of sight.

  'Forget it,' Ivory croaked. 'Scrap it.'

  'Scrap it?' Guy said. 'Scrap it?'

  He didn't believe this.

  'I'm sorry,' Ivory said. 'It isn't working. I don't think it's . . . It's not reliable. The cards obviously don't like this situation. I should never have agreed to do a reading in front of a TV camera. As well as . . .'

  He fell silent, staring hard at the cards, as if hoping they'd rearranged themselves.

  'As what?' Guy said, trying to control his temper. 'As well as what?'

  'Other negative influences.' Ivory glanced nervously at the glowering cameraman and glanced quickly away. 'The balance is so easily affected.'

  Guy said carefully, 'Mr Ivory, are you trying to say the cards were ... the prediction was unfavourable?'

  The camera was still running. Guy very deliberately walked around to Ivory's side of the table and peered over his shoulder at the cards. He saw Death. He saw The Devil.

  'I am not . . .'

  Ivory swept the nine cards together in a heap. Guy noticed his fingertips were white.

  '. . . trying to say ...'

  He snatched his hands away, as if the cards were tainted.

  '. . . anything.'

  And pushed both hands underneath his thighs on the chair, looking like a scared but peevish schoolboy.

  Larry Ember shot half a minute of this then switched off and slid the camera from its tripod. 'Fucking tosser,' he muttered.

  Hilary Ivory went to her husband, looking concerned in a motherly way.

  A single tarot card fell over the edge of the table. Guy picked it up. It was The Hanged Man.

  He put it carefully on the table, face-up in front of Ivory.

  'What's this one mean?'

  'It's very complicated,' Hilary said. 'The little man's hanging upside down by his foot, so it's got nothing to do with hanging, as such.'

  'Look, would you please leave?' the tarotist almost shrieked, his face sweating like shrink-wrapped cheese under the TV lights. 'I . . . I don't feel well.'

  Larry Ember lit another cigarette.

  'No,' Mr Preece said, 'I won't.'

  He and his wife had not been inhospitable. Catrin Jones, Guy's production assistant, had been given the second-best chair and a cup of milky instant coffee.

  'But you see . . She didn't know where to begin. The blanket refusal was not at all what she'd expected, even though she conceded it had been a difficult week for Mr Preece, with the drowning of his grandson and everything.

  'Biscuit?' offered the Mayor.

  'Oh no, thank you.'

  Catrin wondered why there was an onion in a saucer on top of the television.

  'Because what we were thinking,' she said rapidly, 'is that it would be far better to talk to you in advance of tomorrow night's public meeting rather than afterwards at this stage, because . . .'

  'You are talkin' to me,' said the Mayor simply.

  'On camera, Mr Preece,' Catrin said. 'On camera.'

  'I'm not going to change my mind. I'm keeping my powder dry.'

  'Oh, but, you see, you won't be giving anything away because it won't be screened for months!' Catrin's voice growing shrill and wildly querulous. 'And it's not a great ordeal any more being on television, we could shoot you outside the house so there wouldn't be any need for lights, and as well as being terrifically gifted, Guy Morrison is well-known for being a very understanding, caring sort of producer,'

  'That's as maybe,' Mr Preece said. 'All I'm sayin' is I don't 'ave to be on telly if I don't want to be, and I don't.'

  'But, you will be during tomorrow night's meeting. What's the difference?'

  'I doubt that very much.'

  'Mr Preece, you are supposed to be chairing the meeting.'

  'Aye, but as you won't be allowed in with that equipment, it makes no odds, do it?'

  Catrin, outraged, sat straight up in her chair. 'But it's a public meeting! Anybody can go in. It's all arranged with Max Goff!'

  'Max Goff?' Mr Preece's leathery jowls wobbled angrily. 'Max Goff isn't running this town yet, young woman. And if I says there's no telly, there's no telly. Police Sergeant Wynford

  Wiley will be in attendance, and any attempts to smuggle cameras in there will be dealt with very severely.'

  'But . . .' Catrin was close to tears. She had never before encountered anyone less than delighted and slightly awed at the possibility of being interviewed by Guy Morrison.

  ' 'Ave another cup of coffee,' said the Mayor.

  What he kept seeing was not R
achel plunging out of the sky. Not the willowy, silvery body broken on the rubbish pile.

  He would not think of that - not here, in this grim Victorian police station. If he thought of that he'd weep; he wasn't going to indulge in that kind of luxury, not here.

  No, what he kept seeing was the grey-brown thing, falling like smoke.

  He'd seen it again as he waited for the police. It lay where it had landed, three or four yards from the pile, light as the fluff which collected in a vacuum cleaner.

  I've seen them before, Powys thought now. In museums, in glass cases, labelled: remains of a mummified cat found in the rafters, believed to have been a charm against evil.

  The cat had fallen to the ground after Rachel.

  He hadn't told them that.

  'And you heard her scream, did you?'

  'She cried out. Before she fell. '

  'She wasn't screaming as she fell?'

  'I don't think so. I mean, no, she wasn't. . .'

  'Didn't that strike you as odd?'

  'Nothing struck me at the time, except the sheer bloody horror of it.'

  Telling it four times at least. How he'd attacked the rubbish heap, frantically hurling things aside to reach her.

  Lifting her head. Staring into her face, eyes open so wide that you could almost believe . . . until you fell the dead weight, saw - last desperate hopes corroding in your hands - the angle of the head to the shoulders.

  Staring stricken into her face, and the curfew bell began to toll, a distant death knell.

  '.. . can we return to this point about the door, Mr Powys. You say you tried the rear door to the courtyard and found it locked. You couldn't budge it.'

  'No, It was locked. I put my full weight against it'

  'Then how do you explain why, when we arrived, this door was not only unlocked but was, in fact, ajar?'

  'I can't explain that. Unless there was someone else in there with Rachel.'

  'Someone other than you . . .'

  'Look, I've told you, I . . .'

  They'd gone over his statement several times last night and then said OK, thank you very much, you can go home now, Mr Powys, but we'll undoubtedly want to talk to you again.

  But he knew, as he tried to sleep back at the cottage, that they were out there, watching the place, making sure he didn't go anywhere. And it was no real surprise when the knock came on the door at 8 a.m., and the car was waiting - a car, to take him less than a quarter of a mile across the bridge to the police station.