Crybbe

Sexy bitch.

He stretched his legs under the desk, feeling the calf muscles tighten and relax, imagining her in here with him, in this tiny little studio, not big enough for two, you'd be touching one another all the time.

Projecting forward to tomorrow night. He was back in Crybbe covering the public meeting, the big confrontation between Goff and the town councillors. Fay had followed him in here, apologizing for her behaviour, saying she'd been worrying about her father, letting it take her mind off her work, couldn't handle things any more, couldn't he see that?

He could see her now, kneeling down by the side of his chair, looking up at him.

Got to help me, Gavin.

Why should I help you?

I like muscular men, Gavin. Hard men. Fit men. That's how you can help me, Gavin.

He put his hands out, one each side of her head, gripped her roughly by the hair.

Her lips parted.

'Gavin!'

'Huh?'

'We've been calling out for five minutes.'

'You couldn't have been,' Gavin rasped into the microphone. He was sweating like a bloody pig.

'We could certainly hear you panting, mate. What were you doing exactly?'

'Very funny, Elton. I've been for a run. Six miles. You going to take some level or not?'

'Go ahead, I'm rolling. Hope you're going to clean up in there afterwards, Gavin.'

Angrily, Gavin snapped the switch, set his tape turning. This was another little clever dick who'd be looking for a new job when he was managing editor.

He took his hand out of his shell-suit trousers, put it on the desk below the mike and watched it shaking as if it wasn't his hand at all.

CHAPTER VIII

On reflection, maybe chopping holes in this particular wood wasn't such a crime. It was not a pleasant wood.

Something Powys hadn't consciously taken in when they were here yesterday and Fay had been so incensed about the slaughter of the trees, and Rachel had…

No. He didn't like the wood.

And it was uncared for. Too many trees, overcrowded, trees which had died left to rot, strangled by ivy and creepers, their white limbs sticking out like the crow-picked bones of sheep, while sickly saplings fought for the soil in between the corpses.

The wood was a buffer zone between the Tump and the town, and some of what would otherwise have reached the town had been absorbed by the wood, which was why it had such a bad feel and why people probably kept out.

And perhaps why Andy Boulton-Trow had chosen to live there.

Until you reached the clearing, the path was the only sign that anyone had been in this wood for years. It was too narrow for vehicles; a horse could make it, just about. But nobody with car would want Keeper's Cottage.

It was redbrick, probably 1920s, small and mean with little square windows, looked as if it had only one bedroom upstairs. It was in a part of the wood where conifers – Alaskan Spruce or something – had choked out all the hardwoods, crowding in like giant weeds, blinding Keeper's Cottage to the daylight.

A sterile place. No birds, no visible wildlife. Hardly the pick of Goff's properties. Hardly the type of dwelling for a Boulton-Trow. Even the gardeners which he assumed certain

Boulton-Trows would employ wouldn't be reduced to this.

The door had been painted green. Once. A long time ago.

Powys knocked.

No answer. Unsurprising. Nobody in his right mind would want to spend too much time in Keeper's Cottage.

OK, either he isn't here or he is, and keeping quiet.

Powys felt old sorrow and new sorrow fermenting into fury, he called out, 'Andy!'

No answer.

'Andy, I want to talk.'

Not even an echo.

Powys walked around the cottage. It had no garden, no outbuildings, only a rough brick-built shelter for logs. The shelter was coming to pieces, most of the bricks were loose and crumbling.

So he helped himself to one. A brick. And he went to the back of the house, away from the path, and he hefted the brick, thoughtfully, from hand to hand for a moment or two before hurling it at one of the back windows.

A whole pane vanished.

Powys slipped a hand inside and opened the window.

Dementia, Alex thought, was an insidiously cunning ailment, it crept up on you with the style of a pickpocket, striking while your attention was diverted.

One didn't wake up in the morning and think, hello, I'm feeling a bit demented today, better put the trousers on back to front and spray shaving foam on the toothbrush. No, the attitude of the intelligent man – saying, Look, it's been diagnosed, it's there, so I'm going to have to watch myself jolly carefully – was less effective than one might expect.

And the problem with this type of dementia – furred arteries not always letting the lift go all the way to the penthouse, as it were – was that the condition could be at its most insidiously dangerous when you were feeling fine.

Today he'd felt fine, but he wasn't going to be fooled.

'Keep calm, at all times,' Jean Wendle had said. 'Learn how to observe yourself and your actions. Be detached, watch yourself without involvement. I'll show you how to do this, don't worry. But for now, just keep calm.'

Which wasn't easy when you lived with someone like Fay, who'd made a career out of putting people on the spot.

She'd come in just after six and put together rather a nice salad with prawns and other items she obviously hadn't bought in Crybbe. Bottle of white wine, too.

And then, over coffee…

'Dad, we didn't get a chance to finish our conversation this morning.'

'Didn't we?'

'You're feeling OK, aren't you?'

'Not too bad.'

'Because I want to get something sorted out.'

God preserve me from this child, Alex thought. Always had to get everything sorted out

'The business of the Revox. You remember? The vandalism?'

'Of course I remember. The tape recorder, yes.'

'Well, they haven't actually pulled anybody in for it yet.'

'Haven't they?'

'And perhaps you don't think they ever will.'

'Well, with that fat fellow in charge of the investigation, I must say, I'm not over-optimistic.'

'No, no. Regardless of Wynford, you don't really think…'

'Fay,' Alex said, 'how do you know what I think or what I don't think? And what gives you…?'

'Because I heard you talking to Grace.'

'Oh,' said Alex. He had been about to take a sip of coffee – he didn't.

Fay was waiting.

'Well, you know,' Alex said, switching to auto-pilot, 'I've often had parishioners – old people – who talked to their dead husbands and wives all the time. Nothing unusual about it, Fay. It brought them comfort, they didn't feel so alone any more. Perfectly natural kind of therapy.'

'Dad?'

'Yes?'

'Has Grace brought you comfort?'

Alex glared with resentment into his daughter's green eyes.

'Why did you think it was Grace who smashed up the Revox?'

He started to laugh, uneasily. 'She's dead.'

'That's right.'

Alex said, 'Look, time's getting on. I've a treatment booked for eight.'

'With Jean? What's she charging you, out of interest?'

'Nothing at all. So far, that is. I, er, gave her a basic outline of the financial position and she suggested I should leave her her fee in my will.'

'Very accommodating. Perhaps you could make a similar arrangement regarding your tab at the Cock. Now, to return to my question…'

Alex stood up. 'Let me think about this one, would you, Fay?'

How could he tell her his real fears about this? Well, of course dead people couldn't destroy property on that scale. Even poltergeists only tossed a few books around. Even if dead people felt a great antipathy to someone in their house, it was only living people who were capable of an act of such gross violence.