Crybbe aka Curfew

'Sour grapes, eh?'

'You said it, old chap.'

'I don't know what to do,' Murray said, desolate.

Alex sighed.

'I could be good at this job,' Murray said. 'Anywhere else, I could be really good. I'm a good organizer, a good administrator. I like organizing things, running the parish affairs, setting up discussion groups, counselling sessions. I've got ideas. I can get things done.'

'Archdeacon material, if ever I saw it.'

'Don't laugh at me, Alex.'

'Sorry.'

'You see, I did what I thought was right in the context of my position in Crybbe. The sermon, I mean. I expected people to come up to me outside. You know… Well said, Vicar, all this. I thought I was echoing their own thoughts. I know they don't like what's happening at the Court.'

'How d'you know that?'

'Not from listening to them talk, that's for certain. They don't even seem to talk to each other. No chit-chit, no street-corner gossip. Do you think that's natural? Nobody said a word to me today. I was standing there holding out a hand, thanks for coming, nice to see you, hope you're feeling better now, the usual patter. And some of them were taking my hand limply, as if I was offering them a sandwich at the fete. Then they'd nod and trudge off without a word. No reaction in church either except for Fay's outburst and the boy, Warren Preece, who was staring at me with the most astonishing malevolence in his eyes.'

'Which boy's that?'

'Warren Preece? The Mayor's grandson, the younger brother of the chap who drowned in the river. Looking at me as if he blamed me for his brother's death.'

'Doesn't make much sense, Murray.'

'Didn't to me, either. I tried to ignore it. Perhaps it was nothing to do with his brother. He's a friend of the girl, Tessa Byford. You remember I asked you about exorcism.'

'Oh. Yes. How did that go?'

'You haven't heard anything, then?'

'Nothing at all, old chap. Didn't it go well?'

'You're sure you haven't heard anything? You wouldn't be trying to save my feelings?'

'Sod off, Murray, I'm a Christian.'

Murray said. 'That girl's seriously disturbed. Tessa Byford. The Old Police House. I think I'm talking about evil, Alex. I think I was in the presence of evil. I think she invited me in to flourish something m my face. As if to say, this is what you're up against, now what are you going to do?'

'And what did you do?'

'I ran away,' Murray said starkly. 'I got the hell out of there, and I haven't been back, and I'm scared stiff of meeting her in the street or a shop because I think I'd run away again.'

'Oh dear,' Alex said.

Murray leaned his head back into the chair and closed and opened his eyes twice, flexing his jaw.

Alex said, 'I seem to remember asking you what you thought were the world s greatest evils.'

'I expect I said inequality, the Tory government or something. Now I'd have to say I've seen real evil and it was in the eyes of a schoolgirl. And now, I don't know, in a boy of eighteen or nineteen. What does that say about me?'

'Perhaps it says you've grown up,' Alex said. 'Or that you've been watching those X-rated videos again. I don't know either. I've been fudging the bloody issue for years, and now I'm too old and clapped out to do anything about it. Perhaps, you know, this is one of those places where we meet it head-on.'

'Crybbe?'

'Just thinking of something Wendy said. May look like a haemorrhoid in the arsehole of the world, but the quiet places are often the real battlegrounds. Some of these New Age johnnies are actually not so far off-beam when you talk to them. You come across Wendy?'

Murray loosed blank.

'Strict Presbyterian upbringing,' Alex said. 'No nonsense. Yet she apparently cures people of cancer and shingles and things with the help of an egg-shaped oriental blob called Dr Chi. Now, I ask you… But it's all terminology, isn't it. Dr Chi, Jesus Christ, Allah, ET… There's a positive and a negative and whatever all this energy is, well, perhaps we can colour it with our hearts. Pass me another beer, Murray, I don't think I'm helping you at all.'

'I thought you weren't supposed to drink.'

'Sod that,' said Alex. 'Look at me. Do I seem sick? Do I seem irrational?'

'Far from it. In fact, if you don't mind my saying so, I've never known you so lucid.'

'Well, there you are, you see. Dr Chi. Little Chink's a bloody wonder. And there's you trying to drive his intermediary out of town. We think we're so smart. Murray, but we're just pupils in a spiritual kindergarten.'

'I think I'm cracking up,' Murray said.

'Perhaps you need to consult old Dr Chi as well. I can arrange an appointment.'

Murray stood up very quickly and headed for the door. 'Don't joke about this, Alex. Just don't joke.'

'Was I?' Alex asked him innocently. 'Was I joking do you think?'

CHAPTER VII

'But…'

Well, she couldn't say she hadn't been warned.

The vet, an elderly, stooping man in a cardigan, said there'd been quite a concentration of shotgun pellets in the dog's rear end.

'Fairly close range, you see. Must have been. If he'd moved a bit faster, the shot would have missed him altogether. I got some of them out, and some will work to the surface in time. But he'll always-be carrying a few around. Like an old soldier.'

Arnold was lying on a folded blanket, his huge ears fully extended. His tail bobbed when Fay and Joe appeared. His left haunch had been shaved to the base of the tail. The skin was vivid pink, the stitching bright blue.

'But he's only got three legs,' Fay said.

'I did try to save it, Mrs Morrison, but so much bone was smashed it would have been enormously complicated and left him in a lot of pain, probably for life. It's quite unusual for the damage to be so concentrated. But then, dogs that are shot are usually killed.'

'He's a survivor,' Fay said.

Arnold was not feeling sorry for himself, this was clear. He thumped his tail against his folded brown blanket and tried to get up. Fell down again, but he tried. Fay rushed to pat him to stop him trying again.

'Never discourage him from standing up,' the vet said. 'He'll be walking soon, after a fashion. Managed a few steps m the garden this morning. Falls over a lot, but he gets up again. He's young enough to handle it with aplomb, I think. Be cocking his stump against lampposts in no time. Need a lot of attention and careful supervision when he's outside, for a while. But he'll be fine. Some people can't cope with it, you know. They have the dog put down. It's kinder, they say. Kinder to them, they mean.'

With a stab of shame. Fay found herself thinking then about her father.

'And there's one thing,' the vet said. 'He won't be considered much of a danger to sheep now. I can't see this particular farmer coming after him again.'

'Most unlikely,' Powys agreed.

There must have been twenty or thirty people around the Court this afternoon, pulling things down, turning out buildings like drawers. And this was a Sunday; every one of them, no doubt, on double-time. Money- no object.

The Crybbe project seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Everything was happening unbelievably quickly, three or four months' work done inside a week. As if Max knew he had to seize the place, stage a coup before bureaucracy could be cranked into action against him.

And it was happening all around Rachel, as if she wasn't there. Had Max ordered her to stay behind here just to make this point?

Max's own energy seemed to be pumped entirely into his project, as if he didn't have an empire to run. Even from London, directing people and money to Crybbe.

Because, unknown to its hundreds of employees, this was now the spiritual centre of the Epidemic Group. Crybbe. The Court.

The Tump.

She'd caught sight of a specimen of his proposed new logo: a big green mound with trees on it. In Max's vision, all the power of Epidemic – the recording companies, the publishing houses, the high-street shops – would emanate from the Tump.