Phil Rickman - Crybbe aka Curfew

Later, he'd said, 'Not being funny, see. Only it's not turned out as simple as I thought it was going to be. Something I don't quite understand. Not yet, anyway.'

She hadn't pressed him. Very unprofessional of her. She had, after all, only approached Henry Kettle about doing six minutes for the 'people with unusual hobbies' spot because she'd heard Max Goff had brought him to Crybbe and it was her job to find out what Goff himself was doing here.

But she'd ended up liking Henry Kettle and actually liking somebody was sometimes incompatible with the job. So now nobody would know what he'd been doing for Goff unless Goff himself chose to disclose it.

Fay sat down, she and the room both in mourning now. He'd been a great character, had Henry, he'd leave a gap.

But if you had to go, maybe Splat wasn't a bad exit line at the age of – what was he, eighty-seven? Still driving his own car, too. Fay thought about her dad and the sports cars he'd had. He'd prefer Splat to arterial strangulation anytime.

Talking of the devil, she caught sight of him then through the window, strolling back towards the cottage with the Guardian under his arm, looking at ladies' legs and beaming through his big, snowy beard at people on either side – even though, in Crybbe, people never seemed to beam back.

The cottage fronted directly on to the street, no garden. Canon Alex Peters pushed straight into the office. He wasn't beaming now. He was clearly annoyed about something.

'Don't they just bloody love it?'

'Love what?' Fay joined some red leader to the end of the tape, deliberately not looking up, determined not to be a congregation.

'A tragedy. Death, failure – 'specially if it's one of the dreaded People from Off.'

'What are you on about, Dad?'

'That's what they say, "From Off. Oh, he's from Off." I've calculated that "Off" means anywhere more than forty miles away. Anywhere nearer, they say, "Oh, he's from Leominster" or "He's from Llandrindod Wells". Which are places not near enough to be local, but not far enough away to be "Off".'

'You're bonkers, Dad.' Fay spun back the finished tape. 'Anyway, this poor sod was apparently from Kington or somewhere, which is the middle category. Not local but not "Off". So they're quite content that he's dead but not as happy as they'd be if he was from, say, Kent.'

It clicked.

'You're talking about Henry Kettle.'

'Who?'

'Henry Kettle. The dowser I interviewed yesterday morning.'

'Oh God,' Canon Peters said. ' That's who it was. I'm sorry, Fay, I didn't connect, I…'

'Never mind,' Fay said soothingly. Sometimes, on his good days, you were inclined to forget. Her father, who'd been about to sit down, was instantly back on his feet. 'Now look… It's got nothing to with Dr Alphonse sodding Alzheimer.'

'Alois.'

'What?'

'Alois Alzheimer. Anyway, you haven't got Alzheimer's disease.'

The Canon waved a dismissive hand. 'Alzheimer is easier to say than arteriosclerotic dementia, when you're going gaga.'

He took off his pink cotton jacket. 'Nothing to do with that anyway. Always failed to make connections. Always putting my sodding foot in it.'

'Yes, Dad.'

'And stop being so bloody considerate.'

'All right then. Belt up, you old bugger, while I finish this tape.'

'That's better.' The Canon slung his jacket over the back of the armchair, slumped down, glared grimly at the Guardian.

Fay labelled the tape and boxed it. She stood back and pulled down her T-shirt, pushed fingers through her tawny hair, asking him, 'Where was it, then? Where did it happen?'

Canon Peters lowered his paper. 'Behind the old Court. You know the tumulus round the back, you can see it from the Ludlow road? Got a wall round it? That's what he hit.'

'But – hang on – that wall's a bloody mile off the road.'

'Couple of hundred yards, actually.'

'But still… I mean, he'd have to drive across an entire field for Christ's sake.' When James Barlow had said something about Mr. Kettle crossing a field she'd imagined some kind of extended grass-verge. 'Somebody said maybe he'd had a heart attack, so I was thinking he'd just gone out of control, hit a wall not far off the road. Not, you know, embarked on a cross country endurance course.'

'Perhaps,' speculated the Canon, 'he topped himself.'

'Cobblers. I was with him yesterday morning, he was fine. Not the suicidal type, anyway. And if you're going to do yourself in, there have to be rather more foolproof ways than that.'

'Nine out of ten suicides, somebody says that. There's always an easier way. He was probably just confused. I can sympathize.'

'Any witnesses?' Above the tiled fireplace, opposite the window, was a mirror in a Victorian-style gilt frame. Fay inspected her face in it and decided that, for a walk to the studio, it would get by.

Canon Peters said, 'Witnesses? In Crybbe?'

'Sorry, I wasn't thinking.'

'Wouldn't have known myself if I hadn't spotted all the police activity, so I grilled the newsagent. Apparently it must have happened last night, but he wasn't found until this morning.'

'Oh God, there's no chance he might have been still alive, lying there all night…?'

'Shouldn't think so. Head took most of it, I gather, I didn't go to look. A local milkman, it was, who spotted the wreckage and presumably said to himself, "Well, well, what a mess," and then wondered if perhaps he ought not to call Wynford, the copper. No hurry, though, because…'

'He wasn't local,' said Fay.

'Precisely.'

Fay said it for the second time this week. 'Why don't you get the hell out of this town, Dad? You're never going to feel you belong.'

'I like it here.'

'It irritates the hell out of you!'

'I know, but it's rather interesting. In an anthropological sort of way.' His beard twitched. She knew she wasn't getting the whole story. What was he hiding, and why?

Fay frowned, wondering if he'd seen the spoof FOR SALE notice she'd scribbled out during a ten-minute burst of depression last night. She said tentatively, 'Grace wouldn't want you to stay. You know that.'

'Now look, young Fay,' Canon Peters leaned forward in the chair, a deceptive innocence in the wide blue eyes which had wowed widows in a dozen parishes. 'More to the point, there's absolutely no need for you to hang around. You know my methods. No problem at all to find some lonely old totty among the immigrant population to cater for my whims. In fact, you're probably cramping my style.'

He raised the Guardian high so that all she could see was his fluffy while hair, like the bobble on an old-fashioned ski hat.

'Anyway,' he mumbled. 'Early stages yet. Could be months before I'm a dribbling old cabbage.'

'Dad, I'll…!' The phone rang. 'Yes, what…? Oh, Mrs. Seagrove.'

All she needed.

'Serves you right,' rumbled the Canon from the depths of the Guardian.

'I saw it again, Mrs Morrison. Last night. When the power was off.'

'Oh,' Fay said, as kindly as she could manage. 'Did you?'

'I can't bear it any more, Mrs Morrison.'

Fay didn't bother to ask her how she could see a huge coal-black beast when all the lights were out; she'd say she just could . She was one of the aforementioned lonely old Midland immigrant widows in a pretty cottage on the edge of town. One of the people who rang local reporters because they needed someone to make a cup of tea for.

'I'm at the end of my tether, Mrs Morrison. I'm going out of my mind. You wouldn't think anything as black as that could glow, would you? I'm shivering now, just remembering it.'

In other places they rang the police for help. But in Crybbe the police was Sergeant Wynford Wiley and nobody wanted to make a cup of tea for him.