Phil Rickman: Crybbe aka Curfew

'Is it a tree stump?' And then, 'Hey, you're kidding, it can't be!' The little eyes suddenly sparking. He'd be ruthless and probably devious in his business, this feller, but he had this enthusiastic innocence about him that you couldn't altogether dislike.

'Jeez,' Goff said. 'I thought they'd all gone!'

'Why don't you go over and have a look at 'er?' Mr. Kettle put down his bag and sat on it under the hedge and patted the grass so that Arnold, his dog, would sit down, too. And they both sat and watched this bulky, bearded bloke making his ungainly way across the tufted meadow. Impatient, stumbling, because he'd thought they'd all gone, the old stones of Crybbe…

Mr. Kettle, too, had believed they'd all gone, until this morning when they'd finally let him into the field for the first time and he'd located the line and walked slowly along it, letting it talk to him, a low murmur.

And then the tone had altered, strengthened, calling out to him, the way they did. 'I'm here, Henry, the only standing stone left standing within a mile of Crybbe.'

Or vibrations to that effect. As megaliths went, she wasn't impressive, but she hadn't lost her voice. Not a voice he liked, though; he felt it was high and keening and travelled on a thin, dry wind.

But it proved he hadn't lost his capacity to receive. The faculty .

'Still there, then, Arnold. Every time I goes out I reckon it isn't bound to work any more,' He scratched the dog's head. 'But it's still there, boy.'

The only conclusion Mr. Kettle could reach about why this stone had survived was that there must've been a wood here and the thing had been buried in brambles. And if they'd noticed her at all, they, like Goff, might have thought it was just an old tree stump.

He could see the figure in the white suit bending over the stone and then walking all around, contemplating the thing from different angles, as if hoping she'd speak to him. Which, of course, she wouldn't because if Goff had possessed the faculty there'd have been no reason to send for Henry Kettle.

An odd customer, this Goff, and no mistake. Most of the people who consulted dowsers – that is, actually paid them – had good practical reasons. Usually farmers looking for a water supply for their stock. Or occasionally people who'd lost something. And now and then those afflicted by rheumatics, or worse, because they'd got a bad spring under the house.

'Why am I still thinking he's trouble then, Arnie?'

The dog considered the question, looked serious.

Well, hell, he didn't want to think that. Not at all, became this Goff was the first person who'd ever paid him to go ley-hunting.

'Mr. Kettle,' he'd said, coming straight to the point, which Mr. Kettle liked, 'I've been advised that this used to be quite a centre for prehistoric remains, and I wanna know, basically, what happened to them. Can you find out where they used to be? The old stones? The burial mounds? And I'm told you can kind of detect ley-lines, too, yeah?'

'Well,' Mr. Kettle had said carefully, 'I know what you mean. It do sometimes seem they fall into straight lines, the old monuments.'

'No need to be coy with me, Mr. Kettle. I'm not afraid to call a ley-line a ley-line.'

Now this had, at first, been a joy, taking the old chap back nigh on seventy years. He remembered – a memory like a faded sepia photo – being on a hazy hilltop with his father and other members of the Straight Track Club. Mr. Watkins pointing out the little bump on the horizon and showing how the line progressed to it from mound, to stone, to steeple. The others nodding, impressed. The picture frozen there: Mr. Watkins, arm outstretched, bit of a smile under his stiff beard.

Now, remarkably – and loathe as Mr. Kettle had been, at first, to admit it – this Goff had stumbled on something Mr. Watkins would, no question, have given his right arm to know about.

So it had proved unexpectedly exciting, this survey, this ley-hunt. Bit of an eye-opener. To say the least.

Until…

One morning, knowing there had to have been a stone in a particular place in Big Meadow and then digging about and finding part of it buried nearby, Mr. Kettle had got a feeling that something about this was not regular. In most areas, old stones were lost gradually, over centuries, plucked out at random, when exasperation at the damage done to a plough or a harrow had finally overcome the farmer's inbred superstition.

But at Crybbe, he was sure, it had been systematic.

Like a purge.

Mr. Kettle's excitement was dampened then by a bad feeling that just wouldn't go away. When he dug up the stone he thought he could smell it – something faintly putrid, as if he'd

unearthed a dead sheep.

And, as a man who lived by his feelings, he wondered if he ought to say something. About the purge on the stones. About the history of the Court – John Dee, Black Michael and the hangings. And about the legends, which travelled parallel to history and sometimes, if you could decode them, told you far more about what had really happened than the fusty old documents in the county archives.

Mr. Kettle, who kept his own records, was getting more and more interested in Crybbe – wishing, though, that he didn't have to be. Wishing he could ignore it. Detecting a problem here, a serious long-term problem, and wishing he could turn his back on it.

But, as the problem was likely to remain long after he'd gone, he'd taken steps to pass on his fears. With a feller like this Max Goff blundering about the place, there should always be somebody who knew about these things – somebody trustworthy – to keep an eye open.

He supposed he ought to warn Goff, but the thought of 'something sinister' would probably only make the place more appealing.

'And, anyway, you can't tell these New Age types anything, can you, Arnold?' Mr. Kettle was scratching the dog's head again. 'No, you can't, boy.'

Ten minutes later Goff was back, puffing, the flush in his cheeks making his close-mown beard seem even redder. Excitement coming off him like steam.

'Mr. Kettle, let me get this right. According to your calculations, this is line B, right?'

'That's correct.'

'And by following this line, as you dowsed it, we suddenly come across what could be the only remaining stone in the alignment. Is it exactly where you figured it'd be?'

'Well… Mr. Kettle got to his feet and picked up his bag. Max Goff eyed it.

'Got the rods in there? Can we dowse the line some more, maybe find another stone?'

No, we bloody can't, Mr. Kettle thought. You might as well ask, how about if we grabs hold of this electric cable to see if he's live?

He saw, to his dismay, that Goff was looking at him in some kind of awe; he'd found a new guru. It was not a role Mr. Kettle fancied. 'Getting late,' he said. 'I ought to be away. Don't like driving in the dark these days.'

'When can you come again?'

'Look,' Mr. Kettle said. 'I'm an old man. I likes my fireside and my books. And besides, you got it all now. You know where they all are. Or used to be.'

This Goff was a man whose success in business had convinced him that if you knew a source, knowledge and experience could be bought like… what would this feller buy?…

cocaine? Mr. Kettle, who still read two newspapers every day, knew a bit about Max Goff and the kind of world he came from.

'Maybe your role in this is only just beginning,' Goff said. 'How about I send a car for you next time?'

Money was no object for this bugger. Made his first million by the time he was twenty-seven, Mr. Kettle had read, by starting his own record company. Epidemic, it was called. And it had spread like one. Now it was international magazines and book publishing.

'Well,' Mr. Kettle said. 'Isn't much more as I can tell you, anyway. You've got the maps. Nothing more to be found, even if you excavates, I reckon.'