Phil Rickman - Crybbe

Quickly he shoved bits of brick into the opening, ramming them tight with the heel of his trainer. Then shone the torch back up the chimney for the old man pretty damn fast.

In fact, for the rest of the day he'd been a very willing labourer – 'You stay there, Dad, I'll get it.' 'Want me to mix the cement down here and pass it up, Dad?' 'Cuppa tea, Dad?' Anything so the old man'd get the job done and bugger off out of the way.

The old man had been surprised and pleased, grinning through a faceful of soot, patting Warren on the shoulder. 'We done a good job there, boy. He won't set on fire again, that ole chimney. Fancy a pint?'

He'd never said that before. Well, not to Warren. Most nights, sometimes with Jonathon, he just went off to the Cock without a word.

So Warren, too, was surprised and almost pleased. But wasn't going for no pint with the old man tonight. No way.

'Told Tessa I'd be round, Dad. Sorry.'

The old man looked quite relieved. Warren had watched him tramping off up the track, eager to wash the dust out of his throat. So eager he hadn't bothered to clean up the mess in the hearth and so hadn't noticed anything he shouldn't.

Stupid git.

Warren got himself a can of Black Label from the fridge and went back to the fireplace to pull out them old bricks.

He'd got the box out, was squatting on the hearth, dusting off, when he heard Jonathon's car. He'd tucked the box under his arm – bloody heavy, it was, too – and got it out through the back door and round the back of the barn, where he'd hidden it in the bottom of an old water-butt.

And gone up to his room and waited for Jonathon to piss off.

The way he saw it, you didn't seal up an oak box like this and stash it away in a secret compartment in the chimney unless there was something pretty damn valuable inside. And, as he'd discovered, just about anything a bit old was valuable these days.

Warren had a mate, a guy who got rid of stuff, no questions asked. He could be looking at big money here on the box alone, it was in good nick, this box, sealed up warm and dry for centuries. Warren looked at the box and saw- a new amplifier for the band. He looked harder and saw this second-hand Stratocaster guitar. Felt the Strat hanging low round his hip, its neck slippy with sweat.

The curfew bell was tolling in the distance. His dad had sunk a swift pint and plodded off up the tower to do his night duty, silly old bugger.

Why do you keep on doing that. Dad? Don't pay, do it? And no bugger takes any notice 'part from setting their watches.'

'Tradition, boy. Your grandad did it for over thirty year. And when I gets too rheumaticky to climb them steps Jonathon'll do it, right, son?'

Jonathon nodding. He was always 'son', whereas Warren was 'the boy'. Said something, that did.

What it said was that Jonathon, the eldest son, was going to get the farm. Well, OK, if Jonathon wanted to wallow in shit, shag sheep all his life, well, fair enough.

Warren didn't give a toss about going to college in Hereford either, except that was where the other guys in the band lived.

But Crybbe – he could hardly believe this – was where Max Goff was going to be.

Max Goff, of Epidemic Records.

He'd seen him. Been watching him for days. Somehow Max Goff had to hear the band. Because this band was real good – he could feel it. This band fucking cooked.

The box was in one of the sheds on the old workbench now. He'd rigged up an old lambing light to work by, realizing this was going to be a delicate operation. Didn't want to damage the box, see, because it could be worth a couple of hundred on its own.

Now. He had a few tools set out on the bench: hammer, screwdriver, chisel, Stanley knife. Precision stuff, this.

Warren grinned.

OK, if it came to it, he would have to damage it, because he hadn't got all bloody night. But better to go in from underneath than cut the lid, which had a bit of a carving on it nothing fancy, like, nothing clever, just some rough symbols. Looked like they'd been done with a Stanley knife. A sixteenth century Stanley knife. Warren had to laugh.

Round about then, Crybbe had another power cut, although Warren Preece, working in the shed with a lambing light, wasn't affected at all.

But Fay Morrison was furious.

She'd always preferred to do her editing at night, especially in the days when she was producing complete programmes, there'd just be her and the tape-machine under a desk-lamp, and then, when the tape was cut together, she would switch off the lamp and sit back, perhaps with a coffee, and play it through in the cosy darkness. Only a red pilot-light and the soft green glow of the level-meters, the gentle swish of the leader tape gliding past the heads.

Magic.

This was what made radio so much more satisfying than television. The intimacy of moments like this. And the fact that you could do all the creative work on your own, only going into studio for the final mix.

Fay really missed all that. Hadn't imagined she'd miss it so much.

Tonight, she'd waited until her father had wandered off to the pub for his nightly whisky and his bar-supper. And then she'd gone into her office, which used to be Grace Legge's sitting-room.

And still was, really, in the daytime. But at night you could switch off the G-plan furnishing and the fifties fireplace, and the front room of Number 8, Bell Street, Crybbe, became more tolerable, with only a second-hand Revox visible in the circle light from the Anglepoise.

Fay had a package to edit for Offa's Dyke Radio. Only a six-minute piece to be slotted into somebody else's afternoon chat-and-disc show on what was arguably the worst local shoe-string station in the country.

But it was still radio, wasn't it? After a fashion.

And this morning, doing her contribution for a series on – yawn, yawn – 'people with unusual hobbies', Fay had actually got interested in something. For a start, he was ever such a nice old chap – most of the people around here, far from being quaint rural characters, were about as appealing as dried parsnip.

And he'd actually been happy to talk to her, which was a first. Until, she'd come here. Fay had encountered very few people who didn't want to be on the radio: no cameras, no lights, and no need to change your shirt or have your hair done. But in this area, people would make excuses – 'Oh, I'm too busy, call again sometime.' Or simply refuse – 'I don't want be on the wireless' – as if, by collecting their voices on tape you were going to take their souls away.

Yes, it was that primitive sometimes.

Or so she felt.

But the water-diviner, or dowser, had been different and Fay had been fascinated to learn how it was done. Nothing apparently, to do with the hazel twig, as such. Simply a faculty you developed through practice, nothing as airy-fairy as 'intuition'.

And it definitely was not psychic.

He kept emphasizing that, scrutinizing her a bit warily as she stood there, in her T-shirt and jeans, wishing she'd brought a sweater and a wind-muff for the microphone. It had been bit breezy in that field, even if tomorrow was Midsummer Day.

'Do you think I could do it, Henry?' she'd asked, on tape. You always asked this question, sounding as if it had just occurred to you. There would then follow an amusing couple of minutes of your attempting to do whatever it was and, of course, failing dismally.

'You could have a try,' he'd said, playing along. And she'd taken the forked twig in both hands. 'Hold it quite firmly so it doesn't slip, but don't grip it too hard. And, above all, relax…'

'OK,' she'd heard herself say through the speaker. And that was when the power went off.

'Bloody hell!' Fay stormed to the window to see if the other houses in the street were off. Which they were.