Phil Rickman - Crybbe

It was the fourth power cut in a month.

'I don't believe it!'

OK, you could imagine that on some distant rock in the Hebrides, even today, there would be quite a few times when the power got waylaid on its way from the mainland.

But this was close to the epicentre of Britain. There were high mountains. And they were not in the middle of an electric storm.

She couldn't remember if it was South Wales Electricity or Midlands Electricity. But neither could be up to much if they were unable to maintain supplies to a whole town – OK, a very small town – for longer than a fortnight without a break.

Hereward Newsome, who ran the art gallery in town, had complained to his MP and tried to get up a petition about it, but he'd given that up in disgust after collecting precisely fifteen signatures, all from newcomers, including Fay and her dad.

Of course, the Newsomes' problem did appear to be somewhat more serious. Not only were they having to suffer the power cuts but they were affected by other surges in supply, which, Hereward swore, were almost doubling their electricity bills. He was getting into a terrible state about it.

Actually, Fay was a bit dubious about the huge bills being caused by a fault in the system. She grinned into the darkness, it was probably Jocasta's vibrator, on overdrive.

There was a bump and the sound of two empty spools clattering to the floor.

'Pushkin, is that you?'

Grace's cats got everywhere.

Fay decided she didn't like this room very much in the absolute dark.

She felt along the wall for the tape-recorder plug, removed it and went to bed.

Living in Crybbe would drive anybody to a vibrator.

Warren should have known.

Sixteenth-century lock. Not as if it was Chubb's finest, was it? Stanley knife into the groove, sliding it around a bit, that's all it took. Then the screwdriver pushed into the gap. Hit just once with the palm of his hand.

It didn't exactly fly open, the box. Well, it wouldn't, would it?

Being as how it had turned out to be lead-lined.

Fucking lead! No wonder it was so heavy. Good job he didn't tried to cut into it through the bottom.

'Course that lead lining was a bit of a disappointment. Warren had been hoping the box weighed so much because was full of gold coins or something of that order. Lead, even antique lead, was worth bugger all, he was pretty sure of that.

Funny smell.

Well, not that funny. Old, it smelled old and musty. He moved the lambing light closer, poked a finger in.

Cloth, it was. Some sort of old fabric, greyish. Better be a bit careful here, bloody old thing might disintegrate.

On the other hand, he couldn't afford to waste any time. His old man – who wasn't much of a drinker – might even be on his way back from the church. He might, of course, have called back round the pub for one with Jonathon and his mates. (If Warren was in the pub with his mates and the old man came in, he'd turn his stool round, pretend he hadn't seen him, but Jonathon would call him over, buy him a pint; that was the kind of smarmy git Jonathon was.) But most likely he'd come home, getting a few early nights in before haymaking time and dipping and all that rural shit.

And as he came up the track he'd see the light in the shed.

Warren pulled the lamp down, away from the shed window. He couldn't see much through the glass, with its thick covering of cobwebs full of dust and dead insects, except that it was very nearly dark and there was a mist.

He was feeling cold now, wanting to get it over with and go back to the house. It was going to be no big deal, anyway. Old papers probably. Some long-dead bugger's last will and testament.

He prodded the cloth stuff with the end of the Stanley knife and then dug the blade in a bit and used the knife to pull the fabric out of the box in one lump.

What was underneath the cloth was whiteish and yellowish like brittle old paper or parchment crumpled up.

He gave it a prod.

And the Stanley knife dropped out of Warren's fingers – fingers that had gone suddenly numb.

'Aaaa…'

Warren caught his breath, voice gone into a choke.

The knife fell into the box and made this horrible little chinking noise.

Mr. Kettle raised a hand to Goff as he drove away. He was thinking, well, somebody had to buy the place. Better this rich, flash bugger – surely – than a family man with a cosy wife and perhaps a daughter or two, with horses for the stables and things to lose. Good things. Peace of mind. Balance of mind.

He left the town on the Ludlow road which would take him past the Court. It wouldn't be Goff's only home. Well, he'd move in and stride around for a while, barking orders to battalions of workmen, changing this and restoring that in the hope it would give the house some personality, a bit of atmosphere. And then he'd get tired of the struggle and go back to London, and the Court would become a weekend home, then an every-other-weekend home, then a holiday home, then just an investment.

Then he'd sell it.

And the process would begin all over again.

Dead ahead of him at this point, the Court crouched like an animal behind the Tump. The Tump was a mound which at some stage may or may not have had a castle on top. Trees sprouted from it now and brambles choked the slopes. The Tump was a field away from the road, about two hundred yards, and there was a wall around it.

Arnold whined once and crept into the back seat where he lay down.

Behind the wall, the Tump loomed black against the dull, smoky dregs of the dusk. All the more visible because there were no lights anywhere. Nothing. Had there been a power cut?

It had always been obvious to Mr. Kettle that whether or not the Tump had once had a castle on it, before that – long, long before that – it had been a burial place of some importance. He'd been up there but found no sign of it having been excavated. Which was not that unusual; mounds like this were ten a penny in the Marches.

The business of the stones. That was unusual.

What would happen if he put them back, the same stones where you could find them, substitutes where they'd vanished entirely? Well, probably nothing. Nothing would happen. That was what Mr. Kettle told himself as he drove in the direction of the Tump along a road which vaguely followed the ley he'd marked on the Ordnance Survey map as 'line B'. The mound, of course, was on the line.

He was relieved when the road swung away from the ley and the shadow of the Tump moved over from the windscreen to the side window. Now, why was that? Why was he relieved?

He slowed for the final bend before the town sign and glanced in the mirror, seeing in the dimness the dog's intelligent eyes, wide, bright and anxious.

'He don't know really what he's takin' on, Arn,' Mr. Kettle said, his voice softening as it always did when he and the dog were alone.

He put out his left hand to switch on the headlights. Towns ended very abruptly in these parts. Full street lighting and then, in the blink of an eye, you were into the countryside, where different rules applied. But tonight there were no lights; it was all one.

People said sometimes that the Court must be haunted, whatever that meant. Atmospherics, usually. The couple of times he'd been in there it had been cold and gloomy and had this miserable, uncared for kind of feeling. In Mr. Kettle's experience, so-called haunted houses were not normally like that – they could be quite bright and cheerful in the daytime, except for those cold bits. There were always cold bits.

But what was wrong with the Court was more fundamental. It was a dead spot. Nothing psychic, though, you understand? Just nothing thrived there. Indeed, he couldn't figure out why it hadn't been abandoned and left to rot centuries ago, long before it had become a 'listed' building, deemed to be of historic interest.