Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (61 page)

   
'Well,' she said, still on her
feet, 'Henry Kettle was, of course, the
first
person to die in an accident here, wasn't he?'

   
'Aw now, hey,' Goff said.

   
Several reporters turned their
heads to look at Fay. Maybe some of them hadn't heard about Henry. He was
hardly a national figure, except in earth-mysteries circles. His death had been
a minor local story; his connection with Goff had not been general knowledge,
still wasn't, outside Crybbe.

   
It occurred to her that what
she'd inadvertently done here was set the more lurid papers up with a possible
Curse of Crybbe story. She imagined Rachel Wade looking down on the scene from
wherever she was, rolling her eyes and passing a hand across her brow in pained
disbelief.

   
Fay started to feel just a
little foolish. Gavin Ashpole, sitting well away from her, was smirking discreetly
into his lap.

   
She knew Goff had to make a
move here.

   
He did. He gave the hacks a
confidential smile.

   
'Yeah, take a good look,' he
said, extending a hand towards Fay. 'This is Ms Fay Morrison.'

   
More heads turned. Guy's, not
surprisingly, was one of the few which didn't.

   
'Ms Morrison,' drawled Goff,
'is a small-time freelance reporter who earns a crust here in town by stirring
up stories nobody else can quite see.'

   
Some bastard laughed.

   
'Unfair,' Fay said, starting to
sweat, 'Henry Kettle . . .'
   
'Henry Kettle' - Goff changed
effortlessly to a higher gear - 'was a very elderly man who died when his car
went out of control, probably due to a stroke or a heart attack. We'll no doubt
find out what happened when the inquest is held. Meantime, I - and any right-thinking,
rational person - would certainly take a dim view of any sensation-mongering
attempt to make something out of the fact that my company had paid him a few
pounds to do a few odd jobs. I think suggesting any link between the death of Henry
Kettle in a car accident and Rachel Wade in a fall is in extremely poor taste,
indicating a lamentable lack of professionalism - and a certain desperation
perhaps - in any self-styled journalist who raised it.'

   
Goff relaxed, knowing how good
he was at this. Fay, who'd never been much of an orator, lapsed, red-faced,
into a very lonely silence.

   
'Now,' Goff said, not looking at
her, 'if there are no further questions, I have ten minutes to do any TV and
radio interviews outside.'

   
The heads had turned away from
Fay. She'd lost it.

   
'You don't do yourself any
favours, do you. Fay?' Ashpole said drily, out of the side of his mouth,
passing her on the way out, not even looking at her.

'I suppose,' Guy Morrison said, 'you'd know about all the suicides
around here, wouldn't you?'

   
Seven p.m. The only other
customer in the public bar at the Cock was this large man, the local police
sergeant, Wynford somebody. He was leaning on the bar with a pint, obviously relieved
at unloading the two Divisional CID men who'd spent the day in town in
connection with this Rachel Wade business.

   
Guy was feeling relieved, too.
His heart had dropped when Max Goff had approached him immediately after the conclusion
of the appalling press conference - Guy expecting to be held responsible for
his wayward ex-wife and, at the very least, warned to keep her out of Goff's
way in future.

   
But all Goff wanted was for the
crew to get some aerial pictures of Crybbe from his helicopter, so that was OK.
Guy had sent Catrin Jones up with Larry and escaped to the pub. Sooner or later
he'd be forced to have a discreet word with Goff and explain where things stood
between him and Fay - i.e. that she was an insane bitch and he'd had a lucky
escape.

   
Meanwhile, there was this business
of the suicide and the haunting. This was upsetting him. He wouldn't be able to
concentrate fully until it was out of the way because Guy Morrison didn't like
things he didn't understand.

   
He waited for Wynford's reaction.
He'd got into suicides by suggesting that perhaps Rachel Wade had killed
herself. Would they ever really know?

   
Guy Morrison was an expert at
manipulating conversation, but Wynford didn't react at all.

   
As if he hadn't noticed the silence,
Guy said, 'Doesn't do a place's reputation any good, I suppose, being connected
with a suicide. I was talking to that woman who runs The Gallery. It seems her
house is allegedly haunted by a chap who topped himself.'

   
Wynford didn't look up from his
beer, but he spoke at last. 'You been misinformed, my friend.'

   
'I don't mean anything recent,'
Guy said. 'This probably goes back a good while. Talking about the same place,
are we? Heavily renovated stone farmhouse, about half a mile out of town on the
Hereford road?'

   
'Yes, yes,' Wynford said. 'The
ole Thomas farm.'

   
'Well, as I said, it could be
going back quite a while. I mean, any time this century, I suppose, maybe
earlier.'

   
How long had there been
cut-throat razors anyway, he wondered. Hundreds of years, probably.

   
'Bit of a romancer, that woman,
you ask me,' Wynford said. 'From Off, see.'

   
Meaning a newcomer, Guy supposed.
It was an interesting fact that he personally was never regarded as a stranger
in areas where he was recognized from television. If they'd seen you on the box,
you'd been in their living-rooms, so you weren't an intruder.

   
Except, perhaps, here in
Crybbe.

   
'No, look,' Guy said, 'this
happened in the bathroom. Oldish chap. Cut his own throat with one of those
old-fashioned open razors.'

   
Wynford licked his cherub's
lips, his eyes frosted with suspicion.

   
'What's wrong?' Guy asked.

   
'Somebody tell you to ask me
about this, did they?'
   
'No,' Guy said. 'Of course not.'
   
'You sure?'

   
'Look, Sergeant, what's the
problem here?'

   
Wynford had a drink of beer.
'No problem, sir.'

   
'No, you
do
. . .' Guy was about to accuse him of knowing something about
this but keeping it to himself.

   
He looked into the little inscrutable
features in the middle of the big melon face and knew he'd be wasting his time.

   
Wynford swallowed a lot of beer,
wiped his mouth. His face was very red. He's on the defensive, Guy thought, and
he doesn't like that.

   
He was right. Wynford looked at
him for the first time. 'Somebody said you was married to that Fay? Or is it
you just got the same name?'

   
'No, it's true. I'm afraid. We
were married for . . . what? Nearly three years. I suppose.'

   
Wynford smiled conspiratorially,
a sinister sight. 'Bit of a goer, was she?'

   
What an appalling person. Guy,
who didn't like people asking
him
questions unless they were about his television work, looked at his watch and claimed
he was late for a shoot. And, actually, they had got something arranged for
later; Catrin had set up one of those regressive hypnotist chaps and agreed to
be the subject.

   
Should be entertaining. Perhaps
in some past life she'd actually been someone interesting. He wondered, as he
strolled into the square, what crime she could have committed to get landed
with the persona of Catrin Jones.

In the Crybbe Unattended Studio Gavin Ashpole sniffed.

   
He knew the pace used to be a
toilet, but that wasn't what he could smell.

   
This was a musky, perfumed
smell, and the odd thing was

that Gavin wasn't sure he could actually smell it at all. It was just
there
.

   
Probably because Fay Morrison
used this studio for an hour or so every day.

   
There were a few of her scripts
on the spike in the outer room. All hand-written, big and bold in turquoise
ink.

   
Gavin picked up the phone and
sniffed the mouthpiece. Sweating comfortably, cooling in his shell-suit. Gavin
was a fitness freak, kept a hold-all in the back of his car with his jogging
gear and his trainers inside. Any spare half hour or so he'd get changed, go
for a run. Tuned your body, tuned your mind, and other people could sense it, too.
You were projecting creative energy, dynamism.

   
He'd got an hour's running in
tonight. Been up into the hills. Felt good. In control of himself and his
destiny. Within a year he'd either be managing editor of Offa's Dyke radio or
he'd have moved on.

   
Unlike Fay Morrison, who was
over the hill and going down the other side fast. Left to him, the station
would never have agreed to use her stuff. She was unreliable, awkward to deal with.
And obviously unbalanced.

   
Bloody sexy, though.

   
The thought hit him surprisingly
hard, a muscular pulse, where you noticed it.

   
He hadn't really considered her
on this level before. She was older than he was. She'd had a lot more
experience on radio, and although she never mentioned that, it was always there
in the background, making her sound superior.

   
And she was a nutter. Not
rational. Not objective as a reporter.

   
He'd see the boss tomorrow and
explain precisely what had happened at Goff's press conference. She's doing us
a lot of damage, he'd say. If she's put Max Goff's back up, who else is she
antagonizing? No need to say anything to her or put anything in writing, just fade
her out. Use less and less of her material until she stops bothering to send
any. Then we'll put somebody else in.

   
Gavin attached a length of red-leader
to the end of his tape. It hadn't taken much editing, just a forty-second clip
for the morning.

   
He rang the newsroom to tell
them he was ready to send, put on the cans, waited for the news studio to come
through on the line.

   
He felt Fay in the cans. She'd
worn them over that dark-blonde hair.

   
Sexy bitch.

   
He stretched his legs under the
desk, feeling the calf muscles tighten and relax, imagining her in here with
him, in this tiny little studio, not big enough for two, you'd be touching one
another all the time.
   
Projecting forward to tomorrow night.
He was back in Crybbe covering the public meeting, the big confrontation between
Goff and the town councillors. Fay had followed him in here, apologizing for
her behaviour, saying she'd been worrying about her father, letting it take her
mind off her work, couldn't handle things any more, couldn't he see that?

   
He could see
her
now, kneeling down by the side of
his chair, looking up at him.

   
Got to help me, Gavin.
   
Why should I help you?

   
I like muscular men, Gavin.
Hard men. Fit men. That's how you can help me, Gavin.

   
He put his hands out, one each
side of her head, gripped her roughly by the hair.
   
Her lips parted.
   
'Gavin!'
   
'Huh?'

   
'We've been calling out for
five minutes.'
   
'You couldn't have been,' Gavin rasped
into the microphone. He was sweating like a bloody pig.

   
'We could certainly hear you
panting, mate. What were you doing exactly?'

   
'Very funny, Elton. I've been
for a run. Six miles. You going to take some level or not?'

   
'Go ahead, I'm rolling. Hope
you're going to clean up in there afterwards, Gavin.'

   
Angrily, Gavin snapped the
switch, set his tape turning. This was another little clever dick who'd be
looking for a new job when he was managing editor.

   
He took his hand out of his shell-suit
trousers, put it on the desk below the mike and watched it shaking as if it
wasn't his hand at all.