Crybbe

The Cock, which used to be called the Bull, occurs precisely on the genitalia. If we want to get down to details, this studio would cover the testicles, and the erect… er, organ would project into the square very much as the pub itself leans. I remember when I spent the night there with Rachel I was thinking the upper storey hung over the square like a beer gut. Close, but… Anyway, we were in the room which is directly over the passage, the alley, and we're on that same line now.'

'Joe, this is ridiculous.'

'Not really. You ever do yoga, anything like that?'

'I never had the time.'

'OK, well, Eastern mysticism – and Western magic – suggests there are various points in the human body where physical and spiritual energy gathers, and from where it can be transmitted. The chakras.'

'I've heard of them. I think.'

'So what we could be looking at here are some of the key chakras – the centre of the forehead – mental power; the throat, controlling nervous impulses; the centre of the breast, affecting emotions. And the sex glands, responding more or less to what you'd expect.'

Fay leaned back against the tape-machine. 'I'm still not getting this, Joe, you're going to have to spell it out. Like simply.'

'The town… is the man. Is the town.'

'Oh shit… What man?'

'Wort. Black Michael. In essence he's never gone away. He's fused his energy system, his spirit, with the town. I'm not putting this very well.'

'No, you're not.'

'This girl Jane – the character assumed by Catrin Jones – speaks of the sheriff promising he'll never leave her. He hasn't. He's left the sexual part of him here. His cock.'

Fay looked down at the Electrovoice microphone, eight inches long with a bulb-like head. 'Jesus…'

'It might even be – I don't know – buried somewhere…'

'Powys, I don't want to hear this. This is very seriously creepy.'

'So anybody making love – having sex, love doesn't come into it – is getting some added… impetus, buzz, whatever, from a four-hundred-year-old…'

Fay never wanted to do another voice-piece with that microphone. 'Come on,' she said, between her teeth, 'let's get out of here before – if what you say is correct – we start ripping each other's clothes off.'

Ironically – given the ragged quality of local communal singing, the absence of a trained choir or the will to form one – the church was widely known for its excellent acoustics.

And so the Revd Murray Beech heard it all.

Standing, appalled, behind the curtain separating the side entrance from the nave, he heard everything.

The astounding confession, and then the bumps and crashes.

It was not long after eight, although dark enough to be close to ten, the churchyard outside reduced to neutral shades, the birdsong stilled, the small, swift bats gliding through the insect layer.

When Murray had first picked up the noises he'd been on his way to the public meeting at which, he rather hoped, he would be able to assume the role of mediator, while at the same time putting a few pertinent theological questions to the self-styled heralds of the New Age.

He was wearing a new sports jacket over his black shirt and clerical collar. He'd felt more relaxed than for quite some time. Had, in fact, been looking forward to tonight; it would be his opportunity to articulate the fears of townsfolk who were… well, unpractised, let us say, in the finer techniques of oratory.

At least, he had been relaxed until he'd heard from within the church what sounded like a wild whoop of joy. In this situation it might, in fact, be wise to summon the police.

Or it might not. He'd look rather foolish if it turned out to be a cry of pain from someone quite legitimately in the church who'd, say, tripped over a hassock.

Also he hadn't reported the minor (by lay standards) acts of vandalism of the past two nights. And if this intruder did turn out to be the perpetrator of those sordid expressions of contempt, a quiet chat would be more in order. This was a person with serious emotional problems.

So Murray had hesitated before going in quietly by the side door, noting that its latch had been torn away and was hanging loose, which rather ruled out the well-meaning but clumsy parishioner theory.

No, sadly, this was the sick person.

'Well, well,' he heard now. 'Don't you look cheesed-off?'

As, behind the floor-length curtain, he could not be seen from anywhere in the church, the remark could not have been aimed at him.

Which meant Warren Preece was addressing his dead brother. His – if this crazed boy was to be believed – murdered brother.

The confession had emerged in a strange intermittent fashion, incomplete sentences punctuated by laughter, as if it was a continuous monologue but some of it was being spoken only in Warren's head.

It was deranged and eerie, and Murray remembered the malevolence of Warren's face in the congregation on Sunday, the way the hate had spurted out in shocking contrast to the unchanging stoical expressions of his father and his grandparents.

Murray was in no doubt that this boy at least believed he'd drowned Jonathon. The hard-working, conscientious, older brother slain by the youthful wastrel. Almost like Cain and Abel in reverse.

He ought, he supposed, to make a quiet exit, summon the police and let them deal with it. And yet there was, in this situation, a certain social challenge of a kind not hitherto apparent in Crybbe. The inner cities were full of disturbed youth like Warren Preece – always a valid project for the Church although some ministers shied away.

If Warren Preece was a murderer, Murray could hardly protect him. But if there was an element of self-delusion brought about by guilt, causing a strange inversion of grief, he could perhaps help the boy reason it out.

He heard footsteps but could not be sure from which direction they came or in which direction they were moving, for these acclaimed acoustics could, he'd found, sometimes be confusing.

With three sharp clicks, the lights came on, and Murray clutched at the curtain in alarm.

'Very nice' he heard. 'Very nice indeed.'

And the perverse laughter again, invoking an image in his head of the communion chalice on the altar and what it had contained.

A sudden, white-hot sense of outrage overrode his principles, his need to understand the social and psychological background to this, and he swept the curtain angrily aside.

'All right!'

Murray entered the nave in a single great stride, surprised at his own courage but aware also of the danger of bravado, his eyes sweeping over the body of the church, the stonework lamplit pale amber and sepia, the stained-glass windows rendered blind and opaque.

And in the space between the front pews and the altar rail, the aluminium bier empty and askew like an abandoned supermarket trolley.

'Stay where you are!' Murray roared.

And then realized, in a crystal moment of shimmering horror, how inappropriate this sounded. Because the only Preece in view had no choice.

The vicar wanted to be sick, and the bile was behind his voice as it rose, choking, to the rafters lost in their shadows.

'Come out! Come out at once, you… you filthy…!'

Another slack, liquid chuckle… 'eeeheheh…' trailing like spittle.

Murray could not move, stood there staring compulsively into the closed, yellowed eyes of Jonathan Preece.

The open coffin propped up against the pulpit like a showcase, the body sunk back like a drunk asleep in the bath, the shroud now slashed up the middle to reveal the livid line of the post-mortem scar, where the organs had been put back and the torso sewn up like a potato sack.

Jonathon's corpse splayed in its coffin like a pig in the back of a butcher's van, and Murray Beech could not move.

His nose twitched in acute, involuntary distaste as the smell reached him. Otherwise, he was so stiff with shock that he didn't react at first to the swift movement, as a shadow fell across him and he heard a very small, neat, crisp sound, like a paper bag being torn along a crease.