'OK.' Guy prodded Larry Ember's left shoulder, bellowed down his ear. 'Executive decision. Let's get down there. Take a chance, shoot it from below.'
"… ucking sticks gonna blow over.' Larry clutched his camera as the wind buffeted the tripod. The wind seemed to be coming from underneath. Catrin's clipboard was suddenly snatched from her hands and wafted upwards with a wild scattering of white paper, like a bird disturbed.
She squealed. 'Oh no!' Clawing frantically at the air.
'Leave it!' Guy said.
'It's the shot-list!'
'Just let it go!'
Five yards away, Goff was shrieking into the microphone, to no effect. The sound had gone completely.
'… king weird, this set-up.' Larry's words snatched into the swirling wind.
'One more shot!' Guy screaming down the cameraman's car again. 'Get Goff. Get him now!'
Goff's arms were flailing, the wide lapels of his white jacket whipped across his chin, the trees roaring around him, the sky black. He was out of control.
Guy wanted this.
Powys edged round the field, concealed – he hoped – by gorse-bushes and broom, then crossed it diagonally, approaching the man, Jonathon Preece, from behind, as quietly as he could. Feeling himself quivering: outrage and apprehension. He could see the woman lying not quite flat, spread across the dog, looking up now at Preece.
Heard her harsh whisper. '… done, you bastard?'
'I'm allowed,' Preece said with, Powys thought, surprising belligerence, the shotgun under his arm, barrel unbroken, if a dog's threatening sheep…'
'There are no bloody sheep!'
'There is in that next field,' he insisted. 'Up there, 'e was. I seen 'im before. We 'ad four lambs killed up there t'other week.'
'You're lying! This dog wasn't even here last week.'
'If a farmer got reason to think…' Waving his arms for emphasis, the gun moving about under one.
'You going to shoot me now?'
Jonathon Preece looked down at the gun under his arm and stepped back a pace or two. Powys froze, only three or four yards behind him now. Preece bent down, watching the woman all the time, and laid the shotgun on the grass to one side,.
'See. I put 'im down now, the ole gun. You go 'ome. Nothing you can do.' A bit defensive now. 'I'm within my legal rights, you ask Wynford Wiley. Can't be 'elped. No place for dogs, sheep country.'
The woman didn't move. Powys saw a tumble of tawny hair over a blue nylon cagoule.
A curious thing happened then. Although it was way past 9 p.m. and the sky was deep grey – no trace of sunlight for hours – a shadow fell across the field like an iron bar.
And down it, like a gust of breath through a blowpipe, came a harsh wind.
'What's he doing? What is he doing?'
Rachel couldn't believe it. Max was lumping up and down on the summit of the mound, his white jacket swirling around him, his white trousers flapping, as if he was trying to keep his balance, struggling to stay on his feet.
'Looks like 'e's been caught in a hurricane,' Gomer Parry observed.
But there was no wind. The trees behind Goff on the Tump appeared quite motionless, while Goff himself was dancing like a marionette with a hyperactive child wielding the strings.
He's just angry, Rachel thought. Out of his mind with rage because the wall isn't collapsing and the PA system's broken down. Teach him to hire local firms for a job like this.
She was aware, on the edge of her vision, of Andy Boulton-Trow in his white shirt and his tight, black jeans looking up at the dancing bear on the mound. Andy's beard-shadowed face was solemn and watchful, then it split into a grin and he started shaking his head.
He saw Jonathon Preece look up in sudden alarm as the shaft of wind made a channel of black water across the river, from bank to bank.
There was a strangled yelp from the woman or the dog or both, but he couldn't hear either of them clearly because of the wind.
It came like a hard gasp of breath.
Bad breath.
The wind smelled foul. And as Powys, choking, reeled away from it, his senses rebelled and the whole scene seemed to go into negative for a moment, so that the sky was white and the grass was red and the river gleamed a nauseous yellow.
He stumbled, eyes streaming, a roaring in his ears.
And when the noise faded and the halitosis wind died and his vision began to clear, Joe Powys found he was holding the twelve-bore shotgun.
It was heavier than he expected, and he stumbled, almost dropping it. He gripped it firmly in both hands, straightened up.
Jonathon Preece roared, 'Who the 'ell…?' Powys saw his face for the first time – raw pink checks. Age maybe twenty-two or three.
'Steady, pal.'
'You give me that gun, Mister!'
'Advise me, Jonathon.' Powys pointed the shotgun in the general direction of Jonathon Preece's groin. 'I've never used one of these before. Do I have to pull the two triggers to blow both your balls off, or is one enough?'
He was gratified to see fear flit, fast as an insect, across Jonathon Preece's eyes, 'I don't know who you are, mister, but this is none of your business.'
Powys felt himself grinning. In his right hand, the barrel of the twelve-bore was comfortably warm, like radiator pipes. The stock fitted into his armpit, firm as a crutch.
'You watch it. Mister. Ole thing'll go off.'
'Yes,' Powys said.
He raised the barrel, so that it was pointing into Jonathan's chest.
'You put 'im down. Be sensible!'
His finger under the trigger-guard, so firm. He thought, this man deserves what's coming to him. This man needs to die. He felt a hard thud of certainty in his chest. An acute satisfaction, the flexing of an unknown muscle.
He drank in the dusk like rough ale, closed his eyes and squeezed.
"Nnnn… oooo.'
Saw, in slow-motion, the chest of Jonathon Preece exploding, the air bright with blood, a butcher's shop cascade.
A tiny, feeble noise. He turned. The woman in the blue cagoule was up on her knees now, breathing hard. The tiny, feeble noise came out of the lump of sodden fur exposed on the grass.
'Arnie!' She looked up at Powys; he saw tear-stained, blood-blotched cheeks, clear green eyes and a lot of mud. 'Oh God, he's hanging on. Can you help me?'
Powys's mouth was so dry he couldn't speak.
Jonathon Preece screamed. 'You got no bloody sense? Gimme that gun!'
'I…'
'Please,' the woman begged.
'Gimme it!' The farmer took a step forward.
From out of the town's serrated silhouette came the first sonorous stroke of the curfew.
Powys looked down in horror at the gun. It felt suddenly very cold in his hands.
'Gimme…'
'Get it yourself,' Powys said, backing away, far enough away for Jonathon Preece, in this light, to remain unsure of what was happening until he heard the splash.
When the gun hit the water, Powys saw Mrs Seagrove hurrying down the bank towards them and then he saw Jonathon Preece's purpling face and became aware, for the first time, as the farmer advanced on him with bunched fists, that Jonathon Preece was bigger than he was. As well as being younger and fitter and, at this point, far angrier.
'You fuckin' done it now, Mister. Antique, that gun is. Three generations of my family 'ad that gun.'
Powys shrugged, palms up, backing off. He felt loose, very tired suddenly. 'Yeah, well… not too deep just there… Jonathon. Be OK. When it dries out.'
Preece's head swivelled – Mrs Seagrove coming quickly towards them, red-faced, out of breath – and he stopped, uncertain.
Mrs Seagrove stood there in her twinset and her plaid skirt, breathing hard, eventually managing to gasp, 'Did you see it? Did you?'