Phil Rickman - Crybbe

Powys said coldly, 'You're insane. Your brains have turned to shit. I'll get you an ambulance.'

'No, you'll kill me, Joe.'

'Like I said, I wouldn't trust you dead.'

'You'll kill me. Look, you're squeamish about knives, use the rope. Strangle me. No hassle. I'm weak, I'll go easy. It'll just look like I hanged myself and the rope broke.'

He'd almost forgotten the noose still hanging loosely around Andy's neck. Hesitantly, he walked across, began to remove the rope, trying not to touch Andy's skin. 'Just in case you're lying about not being able to move your arms. Hate you to try and do it yourself.'

Andy grinned, white teeth exploding through the beard.

'Do it!'

'No.'

'OK, something you didn't know. Rose, right? Poor spiked little Rosie. And the baby was spiked too, yeah? Your baby, Joe?'

Powys shook his head. 'I've got past that. I don't want to kill you for that. I'm happy you're going to be a paraplegic or a tetraplegic. I hope your breathing degenerates, you'll be even safer in an iron lung.'

'It wasn't your baby, Joe.'

His hands froze on the rope.

'I'd been fucking Rose quite intensively for several months. I've always found I can get any woman, any man… I want. Part of the Wort legacy, if you will. Also, it was my understanding that, come bedtime, the great visionary writer's creative imagination would tend to go into abeyance, and so…'

Powys wrenched down the noose, jerked Andy's head back, slammed the knot tight into the back of the neck. Andy grinned up at him; even the whites of his eyes were almost black.

Abruptly, Joe Powys let the rope go slack and pulled the noose over Andy's head.

'I'll get you an ambulance,' he said.

Gomer couldn't get near the church, least not within thirtyyards. Not much he could have done, though, anyway. Be a long time before that ole place saw another service. If ever. Roof mostly gone, windows long gone. Still some flames – plenty of wood in the nave, pews and stuff, to keep them well-nourished for some hours yet – but the worst was over. The stone walls would stay up, and so would the tower, even it wasn't much more than a thick chimney by now.

'Bugger-all use fetchin' the fire brigade,' Gomer concluded.

'Burned 'imself out, see.' He turned to his companion; no way of hedging round any of this. 'Pardon me askin' this, but your Jonathon – was 'e gonner be cremated anyway, like? 'Cause, if 'e 'ad to…'

'Gonner be buried. And he still will be, whatever's left.'

They'd come upon Jimmy Preece sitting on the low part of the churchyard wall watching the fire. The digger had crunched out of the wood and there the old feller was, hunched up, knotted and frazzled like a rotting tree stump, sounding like it was gonner take Dyno-Rod to clear his lungs. And it was clear, straight off to Gomer that nothing happening tonight would have been a mystery to Jimmy Preece.

'Who done this, Jim?' he asked bluntly. 'And don't give me no bull.'

Arnold the dog limped over to Jimmy Preece and stood there, watchful. Jimmy Preece leaned down, hesitated for several seconds and then patted him. Arnold wagged his tail, only twice and just as hesitant, and then plodded off. Gomer had the feeling this was a very strange thing, momentous-like and patting a dog was only pan of what it was about.

'I'm glad,' the Mayor said, to nobody in particularly. 'Wish I was dead, but I'm glad. Couldn't go on, see.'

'What couldn't?'

'You're not a Crybbe man, Gomer, is the problem.'

'Well, hell, Jim, I'm only a few miles up the valley, born an' bred.'

'Not a Crybbe man,' Jimmy Preece said firmly. Gomer was near fuming.

'Who done it, Jim? Too late for all that ole crap. Just bloody spit it out.'

Something gave. Jim's grimy face wobbled and what had looked like a smear of thick oil down one side of it gleamed in the firelight and didn't look like oil any more. When he opened his mouth the words oozed out in a steady stream.

'Same one as run your bulldozer in the wall, same one as slashed my face, same one as left me to suffocate, same one as… as done for Jonathon.'

The Mayor looked away. 'Pretended I was dead, see – didn't take a lot o' pretendin' Wanted to close the ole door to the tower, keep the fire out, last duty, see. Then I was gonner lie down. Next to Jonathon.'

Gomer saw Minnie Seagrove trying to climb out of the digger and held up a hand to tell her to stay where she was.

'Couldn't do it,' Jimmy Preece said, studying his boots now. 'Not got the guts. Fire too hot. Ole body sayin', get me out o' yere. Ole body allus wins.'

'Where is 'e, Jim?' Gomer had no doubts who they were talking about any more. 'Where is e? Dead?'

'That's all I got left to hope for,' said Jimmy Preece. 'But I reckon we've long ago given up all rights to hope. In Crybbe.'

'Jim…' Gomer feeling sorry for him now, town falling apart, family collapsing round his ears. 'I'd like to 'elp.'

The Mayor stared for a long time into the ruined church before he replied.

'You reallv wanner do some'ing, Gomer?'

'What I said.'

'Then get rid of all these bloody stones for me. Do it before morning, while every bugger's otherwise engaged, like. Whip 'em out. Make it like so's they was never yere, know what I'm askin'?'

'Tall order,' said Gomer. 'Still… Only I don't know where they all are. Seen a couple around, like.'

'I'll tell you where they are. Every one of 'em.'

'Might mean goin' on people's property, though, isn't it? Trespassin'.'

'Depends on what you thinks of as other people's property, isn't it?'

'Course, if it was an official council contract, like. ..'

'Consider it an official council contract,' said Jimmy Preece wearily.

They carried Alex into The Gallery, Joe Powys and the capable looking guy who'd introduced himself as Col Croston.

He was quite a weight.

'Obviously too much for his heart,' Col said. 'And it was a hell of a big heart. How old was he?'

'Old,' Fay said distantly. 'Pushing ninety.' She sniffed. 'Pushed too hard.'

Alex had still been lying on the cobbles when Powys had stumbled uncertainly into the square, seemingly bringing the lights with him – the power was back. He'd walked past Wynford Wiley and Wiley had hardly glanced at him. Guy Morrison had nodded and said nothing. He'd gone directly to where Fay sat, close to the steps of the Cock, guarding her father's body like a mute terrier. 'I thought you were going to be dead, too,' was all she'd said, and then had laughed – unnaturally, he thought, and he wasn't entirely surprised.

They put Alex on the only flat, raised surface in The Gallery, the display window, under mini-spotlights. He looked peaceful, laid out with pictures. 'He'd hate that,' Fay mumbled. 'Looking peaceful.'

'Don't suppose,' Col Croston said, 'that there's much I can say, is there? The awful thing is, nobody will ever know what he achieved in the last few minutes of his life. Even I can't begin to explain it, and I was there. And I know…' He broke off, looking uncharacteristically lost. 'I don't know what I know, really. I'm sorry.'

'He won't mind,' Fay said. 'It was quick, and he never became a vegetable, did he? That was all he was scared of. The geriatric ward. He might have done something silly. Like half a bottle of malt whisky and some pills, or a last train to Soho or somewhere, with a view to departing in the arms of some… ageing harlot.'

She's rambling, Powys thought. She's blocking it out. Her body's producing natural Valium. Everybody has a breaking point.

From behind them, a small, raw cry.

After letting them in, the woman who ran The Gallery, Mrs Newsome, had remained silently in the doorway, leaving Powys wondering about the weals and bruising on her throat.