Phil Rickman - Crybbe

'Different sizes, right? Even where they'd vanished entirely, Kettle was able to figure out how tall they'd been.'

'Using his pendulum, I suppose.'

'Of course, what we're seeing here gives an exaggerated idea of what they'll look like in situ. Half of the length'll be under the soil. Maybe more than half. Like giant acupuncture needle in the earth.'

'Who's going to advise you about these things now Mr Kettle's dead?' Rachel wondered, as men in donkey jackets and orange slickers moved around, making preparations to get the grey and glistening monoliths down from the truck. One stone had to be at least fifteen feet long.

'And how do you know it's the right kind of stone?' Things were moving too fast for Rachel now. Max was an awesome phenomenon when he had the hots for something.

'Yeah, well, obviously, Kettle was good – and he knew the terrain. But Andy Boulton-Trow's been studying standing stones for nearly twenty years. Been working with a geologist these past few weeks, matching samples. They checked out maybe a dozen quarries before he was satisfied, and if he's satisfied, I'm satisfied.'

A clang came from the back of the truck, a gasp of hydraulics, somebody swore. Max called out sharply, 'Hey, listen, be careful, yeah? I want you guys to handle those stones like you're dealing with radioactive flaming isotopes.'

He said to Rachel, 'Andy's moving up here, end of the week. He's gonna supervise planting stones on our land. Then we'll bring the farmers up here, show 'em what it looks like and go into negotiations. Hey, you had a call from J. M. Powys yet?'

'He'll only have got my letter this morning. Max.'

'Give him until lunchtime then call him. I want Powys. I don't care what he costs.'

The customer was short and fat and bald. He wore denims, a shaggy beard and an ear-ring.

'You're J. M. Powys, right?'

Teacher, Powys thought. Or maybe the maverick in some local government planning department.

'You are, man. Don't deny it. I recognize you from the picture on the cover. You've gone grey, that's all.'

Powys spread his arms submissively.

'Hey listen, man, that was a hell of a book. The Old Golden Land.'

'Thanks,' Powys said.

'So what are you doing here, running a shop? Why aren't you writing more? Got to be ten years since Golden Land.'

'Even longer,' Powys said. 'More like twelve.'

You could count on at least one of these a week, more in summer. Sometimes they were women. Sometimes, in the early days of the Watkins Centre, friendships had developed from such encounters. The Old Golden Land had hit the market at the right time, the time of the great mass exodus from the cities, couples in their thirties in search of meaning and purpose.

People were very kind when they found out who he was. Usually they bought something from the shop, often a paperback of the book for him to sign. Most times he felt guilty, guilty that he hadn't followed through; guilty that he'd written the thing in the first place and misled everybody.

'I did that one that takes a new look at Watkins's original leys,' he offered, a bit pathetically. 'Backtrack.'

The bald, bearded guy waved it way. 'Disappointing, if you don't mind me saying so, J.M. No magic.'

'Wasn't really meant to be magical.' Powys said. 'The idea was just to walk the leys and see if they were as obvious now as when Watkins discovered them.'

'Yeah, and you found some of them to be distinctly dodgy. That's not what we want, is it?'

Powys laughed.

'Well, it's not, is it? People pouring scorn on the whole idea, your archaeologists and so on, and here's J. M. Powys defecting to the Establishment viewpoint.'

'Not exactly. What I feel is, we might have been a bit premature in explaining them as marking out channels of earth energy. Why not – because they connect so many burial mounds and funerary sites, even churchyards- why not simply paths of the dead…?'

The customer stepped back from the dowsing display he'd been fingering. He looked shocked. 'Paths of the dead?" he said. 'Paths of the dead? What kind of negative stuff is that?'

Halfway through the door, he turned round. 'You sure you're J. M. Powys?'

'Fay?'

'Oh. Hullo, Guy.'

'You didn't return my call.'

'No, I didn't, did I? Well, Dad's having one of his difficult days.'

'He sounded fine last night.'

'Well, he isn't now,' Fay said testily. Maybe he thought she was making it all up about the Canon going batty. Maybe she ought to produce medical evidence.

'No, I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you.'

Oh, please, not the sympathy. 'What do you want, Guy?'

'I want to help you, Fay.'

No comment.

'I'd like to put some money in your purse.'

Fay began to smoulder. Purses were carried by little women.

'As you may know. I'm currently on attachment to BBC Wales as senior producer, features and docos.'

Guy had been an on-the-road TV reporter when she'd first known him. Then a regional anchorman. And then, when he'd realized there'd be rather less security in on-screen situations after he passed forty or so, he'd switched to the production side. Much safer; lots of corners to hide in at cut-back time.

'And I've got quite a nice little project on the go on your patch,' Guy said. 'Two fifty minute-ers for the Network.'

'Congratulations.' But suddenly Fay was thinking hard. It couldn't be…

Guy said, 'Max Goff? You know what Max Goff's setting up?'

Shit!

'He's developing a conscience in his middle years and putting millions into New Age research. Anyway, he's bought this wonderful Elizabethan pile not far from you, which he plans to restore.'

'And where did you hear about this, Guy?'

'Oh… contacts. As I say, we'll be doing two programmes. One showing how he goes about… what he's going to do… how the locals feel about him, this sort of thing. And the second one, a few months later, examining what he's achieved. Or not, as the case may be. Good, hmm?'

'Fascinating.' The bastard. How the hell had he pulled it off? 'And you've got it to yourself, have you?'

'Absolutely. It means Goff will have this one reliable outlet to get his ideas across in an intelligent way.' Fay seethed.

No Radio Four documentary. Not even any exclusive insider stuff for Offa's Dyke. So much for Rachel Wade and her promises. All the time, they'd been negotiating with her ex-husband – obviously aware of the connection, keeping quiet, leading her along so she wouldn't blow the story too soon.

'So what I was thinking. Fay, is… Clearly we're not going to be around the whole time. We need somebody to keep an eye on developments locally and let us know if there's anything we should be looking at. I was thinking perhaps a little retainer for you – I can work it through the budget, we producers have full financial control now of a production, which means…'

Black mist came down. The smug, scheming, patronizing bastard.

When Fay started listening again, Guy was saying, '… would have offered you the official researcher's contract, but one of Max Goff's conditions is that we use the author of some trashy book which seems to have inspired him. Goff wants this chap to be the official chronicler of the Crybbe project and some sort of editorial adviser on the programmes. Of course, that's just a formality, I can soon lose him along the way…'

Fay put the phone down.

Screwed again.

The clock ticked. Arnold lay by her feet under the table. The chair where, in her mind, the smug, spectral Grace Legge had sat, was now piled high with box files. Nothing could sit in it now, even in her imagination.

Fay picked up the phone again and – deliberate, cold, precise – punched out the number of the Offa's Dyke Radio News desk.

'Gavin Ashpole, please. Oh, it is you. It's Fay Morrison. Listen. I can put you down a voice-piece for the lunchtime news. Explaining exactly what Max Goff intends to do in Crybbe.'