Phil Rickman - The Chalice

Diane paused, sure she'd heard a footfall behind her. But there was nobody. It was unusually quiet, as though the tragedy had made people want to lock their front doors and cling to their families.

It must be wonderful to have a family you cling to.

She stopped.

A shadow had flitted around a corner about a hundred yards away and vanished into the alley leading to Woolly's square. And another one, another shadow. She saw them through a vague mist. So much mist on the street these nights.

Diane slipped into the doorway of a dry cleaner's about seventy yards away from Woolly's alley. Just as there came one of those sounds that instinctively made you cringe: the shattering of glass.

And then,

'Woolaston!' Echoing from the square. 'We've come for you, Woolaston! Get yourself out here, you murdering little fucker!'

A rolling, local accent. Young. Diane dragged in a long, trembling breath, held herself close to the shop door.

More breaking glass, but a blunter sound this time. She pictured a boot hacking out the shards left at the edges of the window.

Woolly's shop had just the one window, about the size of a living-room window in a small terraced house. It screened a little museum display of reproduction antique instruments, usually a narrow, eighteenth-century Spanish guitar and a tiny mandolin with lots of mother of-pearl. And, unless he'd sold it at last, one of Woolly's own inventions with a long neck and a terracotta sound box the size of a football.

There was cackling male laughter, then a different voice, mock-official.

'Councillor Woolaston?'

Silence. Oh gosh, don't let him be in. But where would he be? Where could he go tonight and not have to endure the stares and the righteous abuse?

'Councillor Woolaston, sir!' Louder, rougher. A roar. 'You better get into your best suit and your dinky little bobcap. You've just been invited to a special meeting of the beating-the-shit-out-of-mangy-little-hippies sub-committee'

'And are you?' Juanita said.

'I doubt it. I doubt he was capable by then.'

The self-service restaurant had a Christmas tree and all the counter staff wore little Santa hats. It was quite crowded and Juanita was feeling jittery, holding her hands in front of her like pieces of cracked porcelain.

She sat down at a window table, as far away from other people as possible. She needed to find out very quickly whether J.M. Powys was someone she could trust.

'So, if you aren't his son…?'

'Then it's probably in some way down to me. Some aspect of me comes down in the night, rearranges the shelves, untidies the room. Something in me that hates being a has-been recluse and would like to be a great and famous writer like his namesake. Something that wrecks the little refuge to force me to get my act together.'

'And dispatches you to Glastonbury?'

'That was Dan Frayne. And coincidence.'

'That's not very convincing, Mr Powys. I'm slightly horrified to hear myself say it, but this is one of those cases where the paranormal explanation seems the more logical.

She watched him unwrap a straw and put it into his coffee.

'That's the slippery slope, Mrs Carey. Some things we are not meant to make sense of.'

'That's the coward's philosophy,' Juanita said. 'OK, it's been my philosophy too. Otherwise, Glastonbury buggers you up. Pixhill's parting message; ignore it at your peril, Glastonbury Buggers You Up.'

'And how did it bugger him up?' Powys asked. 'In the end.'

'He went out one cold morning in November and had a fatal coronary halfway up the Tor. They brought him back and hid him out on the dining table at Meadwell. Where he lay for three days, guarded by little Verity, his housekeeper. That, er… that room, according to legend, was where the last abbot of Glastonbury had his final meal. Before they strung him up. On the Tor. On November 15. Which was, of course…'

'The date Pixhill died?'

'Another coincidence for you.' Feeling slightly foolish, Juanita sipped her coffee through the straw, the first time she'd done this in public.

'Mrs Carey,' Powys said. 'I – I'm not sure how to put this – I seem to have walked into a… a situation.'

'Oh yes.'

'Diane says it's meant.'

'Diane thinks everything is meant,' Juanita said. 'Let me guess – you're John Cowper Powys, she's Dion Fortune and you've both been brought to Glastonbury to help deal with something of apocalyptic magnitude.'

Powys stirred his tea. 'So you think she's…?'

'Off her trolley?'

Juanita thought for a while, watching the young waiters looking overworked, underpaid and sullen in their Santa hats.

'No,' she said at last. 'There've been times when I've thought she was… shall we say psychologically stretched. A victim of her upbringing. Living a fantasy life of her own creation because real life at Cold Comfort Hall was so bloody dire and restrictive. I feel a bit ashamed of thinking that now.'

'Now?'

'Being in hospital you have a lot of time to think. That's not always good. I don't know. Maybe I'm just as screwed up as she is.'

'What do I do about these?' Powys pulled over a plate with two chocolate muffins on it.

'Embarrassing.' Juanita said. 'Can't pick it up, Powys. In hospital they fed me like an animal in the zoo. Little Karen was probably right, I could be in deep trouble out here.'

'How about this?' Powys presented a muffin in a napkin. 'I'll hold it while you take a bite. Or I could take a bite out of the other side at the same time and then everyone will think we're soppy lovers and they'll be embarrassed.'

Juanita smiled.

They'd smashed the window with a brick and pulled out about five instruments. The eighteenth-century-style guitar was clamped to the stomach of a stocky, wide-shouldered man who was standing in the middle of the street trying to prise heavy metal chords out of it.

Another, much younger person was banging on a shamanic drum with half a brick and bawling up at the window over the shop, 'Come on out, Woolly. Join the band. You little piece of dogshit.'

Diane had recognised him at once. It was Wayne Rankin.

Eighteen years old, the farm manager's son who had kicked Headlice in the face while he lay on the ground.

She had crept to the corner of the cobbled alley. Could see them clearly under a tin shaded exterior bulb. She might be called on to identify them if they got away before the police came.

If Woolly was inside he would surely have telephoned for help by now. If he wasn't, it was up to her; all the other premises in the little square were lock up shops and there were no lights in the apartments or storerooms. No one had come out; either they hadn't heard the breaking glass and the shouting or they didn't want to get involved.

If there'd still been a policeman back in the town centre, she would have run to him. As it was, she would have to knock on someone's door.

The half brick finally ruptured the parchment of the deep-bodied stannic drum. Wayne Rankin let it fall, drew back his foot and sent the drum rolling down the cobbles like an empty barrel.

'Come on. Woolly!' the heavy man bellowed. 'We wants a private consultation with our councillor, look.' He gave up trying to find power chords on the little guitar, swung the instrument round by the neck and shattered it against the wall.

Diane cringed.

'That's what we're gonner do to you, Woolaston,' Wayne Rankin sang. 'You gonner come out, baby-killer?'

'We know you're in there' The big man had put on an American cop voice. He pulled a beer can from his pocket and ripped at the ring-pull.

'Woolaston!' Wayne screeched. 'You don't come out, you piece of hippy shit, we're gonner have your door in.'

He began to jump up and down on the soundbox of the guitar.

It was too much. Diane's eyes flooded. They were making as much noise as they could, and where was everybody.