Phil Rickman - The Chalice

'Weil find somewhere.' He held open the passenger door for her, watched her get in without using her hands, holding them in front of her as if the gloves were borrowed and mustn't get dirty. She fell back into the little bucket seat, closed her eyes and breathed in.

They stopped at a newsagent's and he bought her forty Silk Cut. Unwrapped a packet, lit one for her.

'Sorry. This is pathetic. But I just feel so… frail. They tell you you're going to, but you don't really expect it. You're so looking forward to your first breath of real air. And real smoke.'

Waiting to get into the traffic, he was aware of her taking the cigarette from her lips, trapping it not very effectively between the very tips of her fingers. The next time he glanced at her she was shuddering, breathing very fast.

'Can we stop? I'm sorry.'

He pulled into the side of the road to a chorus of hooting, revved-up road rage from behind.

'Sorry.' She let him take the cigarette. 'Thanks. I nearly dropped it. This is ridiculous, I just… It's on fire, you know? It never occurred to me before that they were on fire. Christ.' She exhaled. 'I always thought if it ever came to this I'd get myself quietly put down.'

Powys said, 'Dan Frayne's been worried about you.'

'Good old Danny.' She leaned her head back over the seat, stared at the tear in the roof fabric. 'Your publisher now?'

'Possibly. '

'You are the only one, aren't you? I mean he hasn't persuaded a whole bunch of esoteric authors to come to the aid of the disabled bookseller? I'm not going to find John Michell redecorating the flat, Colin Wilson hoovering the sitting room.'

Juanita sat up, laughed and coughed. 'God, what am I going to do if half of me's screaming for a cigarette and the other half's terrified to hold one? Don't forget to note this. For your report.'

'I'm doing a report?'

'To Dan. He's sent you to find out how crazy I've become, right? Why I tried to burn myself to death.'

'Well, no,' Powys said. 'The official brief is to find out how crazy Glastonbury's become.'

'Glastonbury's always been crazy. He knows that.'

He told her about the book Frayne wanted them to co-write. She spent some time examining her gloves.

'Forget it.' She didn't look up. 'He's just being kind. You don't need me. Were I to write about Glastonbury, the way I'm feeling now, it'd read like either Paradise Lost or Dante's Inferno. He doesn't want that. He sent you because he's feeling a bit of residual guilt from a long time ago, but he's afraid to come himself.'

'He's afraid to see you again. He thinks it might destroy his marriage.'

'Mr Smooth mouth. If he saw me now, he'd be booking the hotel for his golden wedding.'

'I don't think so. Um… I've read your letters. Everything you ever wrote to Dan Frayne since about 1977.'

After a considered silence, she said, 'l may kill him for this.'

She held up a gloved hand. 'I'm not supposed to wear these. They're quite painful. I'm supposed to let the air get at my hands.

How squeamish are you?'

'My dog has three legs,' Powys said.

Diane collapsed against the Abbey gates. Closed. As if God had shut his eyes.

She looked up at the charcoal sky through her tears.

How could you? Doesn't this town matter to you anymore?

Across the street, men with chainsaws were cutting the remains of the Christmas tree into slices.

Don Moulder had driven her back into town until they came up against a traffic tailback and diversion signs. Diane had got out in the Safeway car park where Don could turn round. He'd been silent most of the way, then, as she was getting out, he'd said, 'Field I got next to the road, I agreed to let 'em have it for car parking. When the bishop comes to the Tor on Thursday. I been thinkin', maybe if I was to ask him – the bishop – to bless the bottom field. Sure to count for something, a bishop.'

Diane had nodded dubiously. 'Anything's worth a try.'

Minutes later, she was learning about the terrible accident from Matthew Banks, the tall, willowy herbalist, loading apples and grapes and Linda McCartney TV dinners into his 2CV.

'This is awful, Matthew. Why did he stop like that? Cat run across the road or something?'

'Oh, something bigger than that,' Matthew had said. 'So big that nobody else saw it.'

Diane turned her back on the Abbey, edged around the POLICE ACCIDENT signs and the taped-off area and walked down Benedict Street, where Woolly had his shop.

She had to tell him. Not that it would help him much, credibility wise. The good news: somebody else believes you saw a black bus that wasn't there.

The bad news: it's Lady Loony.

You could see the big house now, the lights just coming on, winking through the stripped-off trees. Only, it wasn't a friendly wink; the lights were a baleful white. In Sam Daniel's view, Bowermead Hall made Dartmoor Prison look like the House at Pooh Comer.

The moon had risen over the woods, making it easier to see the footpath even when it got tangled. So far he was legal, not even trespassing, although you wouldn't know that from the signs.

New signs. Aggressive signs with red lettering.

PRIVATE LAND. KEEP OUT. SECURITY PATROLS. ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

Sam knew all these public paths. Two or three years ago, he and Hughie had joined a protest with the Ramblers' Association when Gerry Rankin had fenced off a right-of-way with barbed wire. They'd taken wire-cutters to the fence, and Rankin couldn't say anything apart from, I'll remember your faces. Which was when Hughie grew his beard.

There was plenty of new barbed wire now, dense and high. But there were ways. Rankin had to get in and out. Stay clear at the hall was the answer, go for Rankin's farmhouse, which was about five, six hundred yards from the Hall, tucked into the bottom of a wooded hill. The vineyards were the other side of it, facing the town and Glastonbury Tor. Between the farmhouse and the entrance the vineyards Sam saw what looked like new hunt kennels: two long, low sheds in a cobbled yard.

He thought about the possibilities. Maybe he could pull a stroke the night before, like letting the hounds into the vineyards.

Or, presuming the meet was at the Old Bull like it used to be, with stirrup cups and all this shit… well, that was over three miles away, so they'd be using transport – horse transporters, dog wagons. Maybe he could find out tonight where they'd got the trucks. Then come up here very early Boxing Day morning and slash all the tyres.

Wilful damage, Sammy? Hughie's voice in his head. They'll throw the book at you this time, son. You 're known. You've been warned. Conditional discharge… conditional, yeh? Also, you just don't do this kind of stuff when you're angry. That's how you get nicked.

'Oh. I see. You do it when you're feeling rather tolerant about blood sports. My mistake.'

Sam stopped hallway over a rotting wooden stile. Bloody well talking to himself now. You really are in a bad way now, Sammy. You know what this is? It's what love does to you.

'Piss off. Don't be soft.'

A dog barked in the kennels, and then another.

Damn. Once they started, it would go on and on. That was why it was normally best to do a recce in the daytime. Come the innocent rambler bit if anyone saw you.

Except when they know your face -..

Sam detoured off the path and into the woods behind the new kennels. He was on higher ground now and suddenly he could see the Tor, like an upturned paraffin funnel prodding the white moon.

The Tor would do that, suddenly come into view from nowhere. If poor bloody Woolly was here now, he'd be climbing to the top of the next hill to see if he could see the tower of Stoke St Michael church, which was the next point on his beloved St Michael Line.