'Mr Goff…' Thin steel in Col's voice. 'This is a public meeting, and I'm the chairman. Go ahead, Mrs Morrison, but I hope this is relevant. I don't want a slanging match.'
'Thank you, Mr Chairman,' Fay said. 'I've certainly no intention of being at all argumentative.'
Oh God, go for it, woman.
'I'd simply like to ask Mr Goff what contribution he expects will be made to the general well-being of Crybbe by employing a descendant of perhaps… perhaps the most hated man the history of the town.'
She paused. People were turning to look at her, especially from the Crybbe side of the room and Goff was on his feet. 'This is ridiculous…'
The chairman slammed down his gavel. 'Please!'
'I'm referring,' Fay said, raising her voice, 'to the sixteenth century sheriff known popularly, since his death, as Black Michael, and widely known at the tune for unjustly hanging…'
'Mrs Morrison,' said the chairman. 'With the best will in the world, I don't honestly think…'
'Andy Trow has, of course, reversed his real surname. He is Andy Wort, isn't he, Mr Goff?'
There was a silence.
Oh fuck it. Fay thought. Take it all the way.
'He's also, I understand, your lover.'
And the lights went out.
CHAPTER VI
Plea se. Take my arm.
Better.
Good.
Do you remember when I used to offer you my arm in the street and you absolutely refused to accept it 'Not until we're married,' you would say, even though you were quite poorly. Worried about your reputation, I suppose. Bit late for that.
And then, of course, when we were married it was quite impossible, with you in a wheelchair and me pushing the damn thing..
All right now, though, isn't it?
Yes. All right now.
Which way shall we go? No, you choose. Down to the river?
No?
To the church! Yes, of course. Bring back some memories. Young Murray did rather well, I thought. Yes, I agree about the amendments to the vows; saved any embarrassment, didn't it? Indeed it did.
It is dark, isn't it? Careful now. Mind you don't trip over the kerb or the end of your shroud.
Do tell me, won't you, if you're feeling tired.
Jolly good.
As Joe Powys drove, on full headlights, into the lane that slipped down beside the church, he formed an image of Crybbe as an old and poorly built house riddled with damp. Periodically new people would move in and redecorate the rooms: bright new paint, new wallpaper, new furniture. But the wet always came through and turned the walls black and rotted the furniture.
And eventually people stopped throwing money at it and just tried to insulate themselves and their families as best they could. It wasn't much fun to live in, and the people who stayed there were the ones with few prospects and nowhere else to go.
And that was the basic socio-economic viewpoint.
Trying to explain the supernatural aspects in terms of rising damp was more complicated.
If only he could speak to the shadowy figure who, in the late 1500s, had attempted to install, just above ground-level, an effective damp-proof course.
Let's assume this man was John Dee, astrologer at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.
Powys braked hard as a baby rabbit shot from the hedgerows, into the centre of the road and then stopped, turning pale terrified eyes into the headlights.
He switched off the lights, and the rabbit scampered away
Just for a moment, Powys smiled.
There's a portrait. John Dee in middle age. A thin-faced man with high cheekbones. Watchful, but kindly eyes. He wears a black cap, suggesting baldness, and has a luxurious white beard, like an ice-cream cone.
In Andy's notes, Dee (if it is he) gives only graphic descriptions of experiences, like the visit of the spirit (Wort?) in the night.
Perhaps somewhere Dee has documented the action he took to contain the rampant spirit after Wort's death.
Dee never seems to have been very wealthy. Towards the end of his life he was virtually exiled to the north, as warden of Christ's College, Manchester. With Elizabeth dead and James on the throne – James who was in constant fear of Satanic plots and clamped down accordingly on all forms of occultism – the elderly Dee was forced to defend himself and his reputation as a scholar against various accusations that he practised witchcraft. Ill-founded accusations, no doubt, but these were dangerous, paranoid times.
So what would the penurious Dee do if contacted by old friends or relatives in Crybbe with tales of hauntings and oppression by dark forces invoked by the late Sir Michael Wort?
He drove past the turning to Court Farm and could see no lights between the trees. No lights anywhere. He might, out there, be twenty miles from the nearest town. It was like driving back in time, or into another dimension
To Percival Weale,
Merchant of Crybbe
My Dear Mr Weale,
It was with much sorrow that I received your letter informing me that our mutual associate, Sheriff Wort continues to torment the town from a place beyond this life.
It has long been apparent to me that the ethene layer is so dense upon the atmosphere along the border of Wales and
England that it may not always be so comfortable a place of habitation…
And did Dee, old, impecunious and in constant fear of arrest, appeal to Percy Weale to make financial provision for the curfew to be rung (so that the most dangerous hours of darkness might remain peaceful) and to assign some long-established local family to the task?
And being unable to travel to Crybbe himself, did he vaguely suggest that if the malignant spirit were to be controlled it was essential for the stones to be removed, the Tump walled in and the spiritual energy level to remain low.
And you must warn the townspeople to continue with their lives but not to expand the town to any great extent and, above all, to offer no challenge to the spirit. And, as for the hand and any other of his limbs or organs that should come to light, no purpose will be served in their destruction. You must take these and enclose them in separate and confined places – I would suggest within a chimney or fireplace or beneath a good stone floor – where they may never be exposed to the light or the air. This is far from satisfactory, but my knowledge does not extend to more. Forgive me.
Powys drove between the gateposts of Crybbe Court and felt the house before he saw it, a dark and hungry maw.
He thought, Hand? What hand? I don't know anything about a hand.
Get your act together, Powys.
He thought about Fay and started to worry, so he thought about Rachel instead, and he looked up towards the house and felt bitterly angry.
Better keep to the path, I think, my dear. Somewhat safer, in the dark.
Not that they take much care of this path, or indeed the church itself, never much in the way of civic pride in Crybbe. Poor Murray's got his hands full.
Ah. Now. I know where we're going.
We're going to your grave, aren't we?
Now, look, before you say anything, I'm sorry it had to be down at this end – not exactly central, I realise that, another few yards in fact, and you'd be in the wood. But it's surely shady on a warm day, and you never did like too much sun, did you? I suppose you spent most of your life in the shade, really, and… well, you know I always had the impression that was how you wanted it to be.
I know, I know… the flowers. I keep forgetting, memory isn't what it was, as you know. You bring a few flowers with the best of intentions, and then you forget all about them and the next time you come they're all dead and forlorn and there are stalks and seed-pods everywhere, all a terrible mess, and I do understand the way you feel about that, of course I do.