Crybbe aka Curfew

He lifted up a corner of the clingfilm, saw a whitish, glistening smudge of something.

Mayonnaise. He knew it could only be mayonnaise.

But still Murray retched and pushed the plate away. This had been happening increasingly, of late – he'd scraped the lunch untouched into the dustbin. He never seemed to miss it afterwards, rarely felt hunger, although he knew he was losing weight and even he could see his face was gaunt and full of long shadows. Pretty soon, he though sourly, there would be rumours going around that he had AIDs.

Next week he might let it be known that he was interested in a move. He would see how he felt.

Today was not the day to do anything hasty.

Today he'd left the vicarage as usual, before eight, and walked the fifty yards to the church where he'd found what he'd found.

The church door had not been damaged because it was never locked. Nothing had been torn or overturned. Only the cupboard in the vestry, where the communion wine and the chalice were kept, had been forced.

Murray had heard of cases where centuries-old stained glass had been smashed or, in the case of Catholic churches, plaster statues pounded to fragments. Swastikas spray-painted on the altar-cloth. Defecation in the aisle.

Nothing so unsubtle here.

What was missing was that element of frenzy, of uncontrolled savagery. This was what had unnerved him, made him look over his shoulder down the silent nave.

Candles – his own Christmas candles – had been left burning on the altar, two of them, one so far gone that it was no more than a wick in a tiny pool of liquid wax. Between the candles stood the communion chalice, not empty.

What was in the bottom of the cup was not mayonnaise.

Murray had looked inside once, then turned away with a short, whispered, outraged prayer – it might have been a prayer or it might have been a curse; either way it was out of character. His reserve had been cracked.

With distaste, he'd placed the chalice on the stone floor, remembering too late about fingerprints but knowing even then hat he would not be calling in the police, because that was all they'd done.

And it was enough.

It was inherently worse than any orgy of spray-paint and destruction. The single small, symbolic act, profoundly personal, almost tidy. Appalling in its implication, but nothing in itself, simply not worth reporting to the police and thus alerting the newspapers and Fay Morrison.

'They always ask you,' he remembered a colleague with an urban parish complaining once, 'if you suspect Satanism. What are you supposed to say? It's certainly more than anti-social behaviour, but do you really want some spotty little vandal strutting around thinking he's the Prince of Darkness?'

But this, he thought – staring down at his cling-wrapped lunch, suddenly nauseous and unsteady – this is another gesture to me. It's saying, come out. Come out, 'priest', come out and fight.

However, as he'd thought while rinsing out the chalice this morning, this can hardly be down to Tessa Byford, can it?

Murray had thrown away the candles, performed a small, lonely service of reconsecration over the chalice and decided to keep the outrage to himself. By the time the Monday cleaner came in at ten, there had been no sign of intrusion.

As for the small cupboard in the vestry – he would unscrew it from the wall himself and take it to an ironmonger's in Leominster, explaining how he'd had to force the lock after being stupid enough to lose the key. Silly me. Ha ha.

Impractical souls, vicars. Absent-minded, too.

Just how absent-minded he was becoming was brought dramatically home to him when the doorbell rang just before two o'clock and he parted the lace curtains to see a hearse parked in front of the house with a coffin in the back.

It had slipped his mind completely. But, even so, wasn't it at least a day too early?

'Ah, Mr Beech,' the undertaker said cheerfully. 'Got Jonathon Preece for you.'

'Yes, of course.'

'Funeral's Wednesday afternoon, so it's just the two nights in the church, is it?'

'Yes, I… I wasn't expecting him so soon. I thought, with the post mortem…'

'Aye, we took him for that first thing this morning and collected him afterwards.'

'Oh. But didn't you have things to, er…?'

'No, we cleaned him up beforehand, Mr Beech. If there's no embalming involved, it's a quick turnover. Right then, top of the aisle, is it? Bottom of the steps before the altar, that's where we usually…'

'Yes, fine. I'll… '

'Now you just leave it to us, Mr Beech. We know our way around. We'll make 'im comfortable.'

'In that case,' Jean Wendle said firmly, 'do you mind if I come in and wait? If that wouldn't be disturbing you.'

A refusal would be impossible. This was a deliberate, uncompromising foot-in-the-door situation, it having occurred to Jean that if she took it easy, she might actually get more out of the wife.

Mrs Preece took half a step back. With no pretence of not being reluctant, she held the cottage door open just wide enough for Jean to slide inside. There were roses around the door, which was nice, which showed somebody cared. Or had cared.

'Thank you.'

The first thing Jean noticed in the parlour was a fresh onion on a saucer on top of the television.

She was fascinated. She hadn't seen this in years.

Mrs Preece actually had hair like an onion, coiled into a tight, white bun, and everything else about her was closed up just as tight.

She looked unlikely to offer her guest a cup of tea.

'I do realize things must be very difficult for you at present,' Jean said, if there is anything I can do…'

Mrs Preece snorted.

Jean smiled at her. 'The reason I'm here, the public meeting will be upon us tomorrow evening and I felt there were one or two things I should like to know in advance.'

'If you're yere as a spy for Mr Max Goff,' Mrs Preece said bluntly, 'then there's no need to dress it up.'

Jean was not unpleasantly surprised.

'Do you know, Mrs Preece,' she said, being equally blunt, 'this is the first experience I've ever had of an indigenous Crybbe person coming right out with something, instead of first skirting furtively around the issue.'

'Maybe you been talking to the wrong people,' said Mrs Preece.

'And who, would you say, are the "wrong" people? By the way, I wouldn't waste that nice onion on me.'

'I beg your pardon.'

'Just don't tell me,' Jean said levelly, 'that the onion on the saucer is there to absorb paint smells or germs. You put it there to attract any unwelcome emanations from people you don't want in your house. And when they've gone you quietly dispose of the onion. Will you be getting rid of it when I leave, Mrs Preece?'

Mrs Preece, face reddening, looked down at her clumpy brown shoes.

'Or am I flattering myself?' Jean said.

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Och, away with you, Mrs Preece. I'm no' one of your London innocents.'

'You're none of you innocent,' Mrs Preece cried. 'You're all as guilty as, as…' Her voice dropped. 'As guilty as sin.'

'Of what?' Jean asked gently.

Mrs Preece shook her head. 'You're not getting me going, I'm not stupid. You must know as you're doing no good for this town.'

'And why is that, Mrs Preece? Do you mind if I sit down?'

And before Mrs Preece could argue, Jean had slipped into the Mayor's fireside chair.

'Because it seems to me, you see, that all the new people love Crybbe just exactly the way it is, Mrs Preece. They would hate anything to happen to the local traditions. In fact that's why I'm here. I was hoping your husband could tell me a wee bit about the curfew.'

Mrs Preece turned away.

'I'm also compiling a small history of the town and its folklore,' Jean said.

'Nothing to tell,' Mrs Preece said eventually. 'Nothing that's not written down already.'

'I don't think so. I think there is a remarkable amount to tell which has never been written down.'