Crybbe

She pulled both palms down her cheeks. Shook her hair, like a dog. 'What am I going on about? Not your problem. Thanks for everything you've done. I shall buy you a new jacket.'

'I don't want a new jacket.' Powys opened the car door. 'I like them full of patches and sewn-up bits.'

He drove carefully out of the town, dipping the headlights politely when they met another vehicle. They didn't meet many. The lights sometimes flashed briefly into the eyes of rabbits sitting in the hedgerows. Once, J. M. Powys had to brake for a badger scampering – that was really the word, she'd have expected badgers to lumber – across the road and into a wood.

Fay realized she hadn't phoned her dad. He'd be worried. Or he wouldn't, depending on his state of mind tonight. Too late now.

'Arnold!' Powys said suddenly, breaking five minutes of slightly sleepy silence.

'What?'

'Arnold. Not Henry Kettle's dog? You aren't the person who's looking after Henry's dog?'

'And not making an awfully good job of it, so far.'

'Stone me,' said Powys. 'Sometimes coincidence just seems to crowd you into corners.'

'Especially in Crybbe,' Fay said. She wished she was travelling through the night to somewhere else. Virtually anywhere else, actually.

The bones were very white in the torchlight. There were also some parchment-coloured bits, skin or sinew, gristle.

'Ah,' Tessa said, less than awed, 'I know what that is.'

Warren was miffed. How the fuck could she know anything about it?

'Yeah,' Warren said. 'It's a hand.'

'It's a Hand of Glory."

'What you on about?'

'A dead man's hand.'

'Well, that's bloody obvious, isn't it?'

A hanged man's hand,' Tessa said.

Warren squatted down next to her. The spade lay on the grass, next to a neat pile of earth and the square of turf, set carefully to one side so it could be replaced.

'Which means it's got magic powers,' Tessa said. Where'd you find it?'

'Around.'

'All right, don't tell me! What's that Stanley knife doing in there?'

'Well, I…' Buggered if he was going to tell her he'd been scared to put his hand in and take the knife out. 'I'm seeing what effect it 'as on it. You know, like you puts an old razorblade under a cardboard pyramid and it comes out sharp again. New Age, that.' Warren cackled. 'I'm learnin' all about this New Age, now, see. 'Ow'd you know that?'

'Know what?'

' 'Bout it being a hanged man's hand.'

'I think I'd like to draw it,' Tessa said. 'Maybe I'll come up here again.'

'No.' It was his hand. 'Keep diggin' it up, the ground'll get messed up and somebody else might find it.'

'They won't. Do you know why you brought it here, Warren?'

'Good a place as any.'

Tessa smiled.

'What you done with then other drawings, the old feller?'

'Got fed up with him,' Tessa said. 'Passed him on.'

'Who to?'

'Dunno where he might end up,' Tessa said mysteriously. 'Part of the fun.' She smiled and fitted a forefinger down the front of Warren's jeans and drew him towards her, across the old box.

'Let's do it here… do it… by the box. Leave it open, see what happens.'

'Prob'ly come crawlin' out an' pinch your bum,' Warren said slyly. 'Anyway, it's too late now, for that.'

Tessa took her finger out of Warren's jeans, 'I waited for you.'

'Had a job to do.'

'What was so important?"

'You'll find out,' Warren said.

Tessa reached out and touched a white knuckle-bone.

'Cold,' she said, it's nice and cold.'

'It was cold in the river, too,' Warren said.

Rachel lay in the brass bed. When he slid in gratefully beside her, she awoke.

'J.M.?'

'I couldn't put a light on. The power's off again.'

He'd lit up Bell Street with the headlights, watching the small figure in bloodstained blue nylon walking to her door. When she was safely inside, he drove back into the lightless main street, where all the windows were blind eyes. Then down the hill and over the bridge. A tight right turn, and there was the perfect little riverside cottage. He'd almost expected it not to be there, like a dream cottage.

The presence of Rachel in the bed reinforced a sense of home. Before she could ask, he told her where he'd been, poured it all out, the whole bizarre episode.

'Arnold?' Rachel sat up in the darkness. 'Jonathon Preece shot Arnold?'

He told her about the shotgun, how he'd come to pick it up from the grass.

'I really wanted to kill him. I thought I had killed him at one point. I could feel myself pulling the triggers, both triggers, and then his chest… It was as if time had skipped a beat, and I'd already shot him.'

'You're overtired,' Rachel said.

'Then the dog – Arnold – whimpered, and I was back in the second before I did it. Arnold was Henry Kettle's dog.'

'I know.'

'You don't know how badly I wanted to kill that guy.'

'This doesn't seem like you, J.M.'

'No,' Powys said, it didn't.'

There was a window opposite the bed. Across the river, he saw a few sparse lights coming on, like candles on a cake.

'Power's back.'

'And you're a hero, J.M.,' Rachel said, moulding her body into his. 'Although you'll be a marked man in Crybbe if anyone finds out.'

PART FIVE

You won't need to worry and you won't have to cry

Over in the old golden land.

Robin Williamson

From the album

'Wee Tarn and the Big Huge'

CHAPTER I

No, don't move 'im yet, Gomer.'

Jack Preece ambled across the field to where Gomer Parry and his nephew, Nev, were preparing to get the bulldozer back on the lorry.

'Don't speak to me, Jack.' Gomer didn't turn round. 'Embarrassed? Humiliated, more like!'

'Aye, well, I'm sorry, Gomer.'

'Sorry? You bloody should be sorry, Jack Preece. Never before have Gomer Parry Plant Hire failed to carry out a contract. Never! I should 'ave told your dad where 'e could stick 'is…

'Only, see, the district council's 'avin' a bit o' trouble on the new landfill site over Brynglas,' Jack Preece said. 'Need of an extra bulldozer, quickish, like. Three days' work, sure t'be.'

Gomer Parry turned shrewd eyes on Jack Preece, standing in the damp old field, between downpours, his back to the Tump and the famous wall – still intact, except for the bits of masonry dislodged when old Kettle had his crash.

'Reckon you can do it, Gomer?'

Gomer shot him a penetrating took through his wire-rimmed glasses. 'Something goin' on yere, Jack. Don't know what it is, but there's something.'

'Aye, well,' Jack Preece said, eyes averted. 'No need to worry about your reputation, Gomer, anyway. You'll be all right. We looks after our own, isn't it.'

He started to walk away then turned back. You seen Jonathon about?'

'Not lately,' Gomer said.

'Boy didn't come 'ome last night.'

'Likely 'avin' 'is end away somewhere,' said Gomer. 'Only young once, Jack.'

'Aye,' said Jack. Sure t'be.'

Powys drove back to Hereford, loaded up a couple of suitcases, a box of books, his Olivetti and two reams of A4.

'Aha,' said Barry, the osteopath from upstairs. 'Ensnared. He's got you. I knew he would. What was the deciding factor Powys. The money?'

Powys shook his head.

The women?'

Powys said, 'Just hold that door open for me, would you?'

'I knew it! It's the Summer of Love in Crybbe. You always were a sucker for a cheesecloth cleavage.'