Fascinating for an author. Fascinating if you were outside looking in. If you didn't let your viewpoint become cluttered by something plump and vulnerable.
All the stuff Diane had told him, about Dion Fortune, Pixhill and the Dark Chalice was still washing restlessly around his head. He'd wound up in Bristol because, to get a handle on whatever was happening, or whatever Diane imagined was happening, he needed to talk to someone who wasn't Diane. Someone who knew the score but was temporarily apart from the game.
Also – face it – he was very curious to meet Juanita Carey and, after what had happened to her van, there was a fairly good chance Diane would not be here tonight.
'You a friend of hers?' the nurse in the burns unit had asked him. Not waiting for an answer. 'Do you think it might be possible to talk a bit of sense into her?'
Oh.
Mrs Carey glared at him. She was fully dressed, which was a slight surprise. Long skirt full of exotic colours. Low cut, sunny lemon top. Bright orange moccasins. Copious, dark hair down below her shoulders. Skin aglow,
Iridescent.
The bed between them, her eyes like distant warning lanterns.
He became aware of the way her arms were hanging unnaturally away from her like the arms of a dress shop mannequin plugged in at the shoulders the wrong way round. The hands frozen like a mannequin's but not with that fashioned abandon; they were both curled arthritically and as colourful in their way as the skirt
'Um, Joe Powys,' he said. 'Dan Frayne sent me.'
The awful energy something like this generated. The town would be alive with it all night.
The sick mythology was already taking shape. Sam had heard one teenage girl telling another that the baby had been taken away in two shoeboxes.
'I can't believe it,' Hughie Painter said. Not the most original remark tonight. 'It's just… Could've been one of mine, you know?'
Not very original either. Sam watched two coppers taking measurements and photos. The container lorry – car parts for Swindon – had been pulled out of the market cross monument. Council blokes checking out the stonework in case it was in danger of collapse.
'Think he'll be charged?'
'Woolly? I dunno.' Hughie was still looking quite white. 'Can you be done for slamming on your brakes without warning? Maybe.'
'If half these people had their way, the poor little bugger'd be hanged.'
'He didn't help himself,' Hughie said severely. 'You heard what he said when he got out of his car.'
'I didn't hear it. I was told. Every bugger's probably been told by now. So with Woolly's past, everybody naturally assumes he was doped up to the eyeballs. This'll finish him, Hughie. Who's gonner vote for him now?'
'Good news for your old man.'
'Yeah. Good news for Glastonbury First all round, once the weeping's over.'
'Aye. Well.' Hughie sniffed. 'I'm off home now, Sammy. Going to count my kids.'
Sam nodded and walked into the road, single-lane traffic going through sluggishly now. Counting his kids. A lot of mums and dads would be doing that tonight. Even Alternative mums and dads with a shelf full of meditation tapes and a cannabis plant in the greenhouse. Why did he think that even Hughie Painter, father of three, might well think twice about voting for Woolly again?
The fucking irony of it, though. The great anti-traffic evangelist. Slamming on in the middle of the rush hour for a bus that nobody else managed to see. Just swerving out into the centre of the road. The driver of the lorry behind him pulling the other way to avoid smashing into the back of Woolly, and the lorry going out of control and crunching through the Christmas tree, the people and the pram, smack into the side of the market cross.
Neither of them could've been going very fast. Not in the town centre, in the rush hour. But they didn't have to be.
Const… ance…
Ah, Jesus, was he going to hear that every time he walked past here, like the shriek was imprinted on the fabric of the street?
Constance Morgan. Four months old. Hardly aware she had a life before it was gone. Her mother, now in danger of losing a leg, was Kirsty Morgan.
Nee Cotton.
Daughter of Quentin Cotton.
So the chairman of Glastonbury First loses his grandchild, gets his only daughter crippled in an accident caused by…
'I can't believe this,' Sam hissed.
'' Scuse me, squire, would you mind?'
A bloke wanted to set up a black tripod. Sam moved back, thinking it was a police photographer, until the bloke slid a big video camera into the top of the tripod and a white light came on, revealing a woman in a sheepskin coat, very short blonde hair. Tammy White from BBC Bristol with a big boom microphone in a furry cover.
'What about we do it here, Rob?' Tammy White said.
'Can you get the lorry in?'
'Yeah, if the two of you come out a bit. That's fine. That'll do.'
Sam stepped into the doorway of the Crown Hotel as the camera light shone bright as day on the face of Archer Ffitch.
'Sorry to put you on the spot like this,' Tammy White said in a low, non-interviewing voice. 'They'll only use about half a minute, but I need to cover myself. Is that all right?'
'Anything you require, Tammy,' Archer said smoothly. 'It's a pretty difficult situation for me, but you've got your job to do.'
'I'm recording,' the cameraman said. 'In your own time, Tammy.'
Tammy White straightened up, held the microphone between her and Archer, just above waist level.
'Mr Ffitch, this is obviously a terrible thing to happen, particularly in the week before Christmas. What are your feelings?'
Archer said, 'It is the most appalling tragedy. People… children… gathering for this joyful occasion – the lighting of the Christmas tree… My heart goes out to the family.'
'And you saw what happened?'
'I was returning from the station when we were held up. It had happened only minutes before and there was tremendous chaos. The driver was trapped in his cab, the poor mother was semi conscious, and I don't think anyone realised at that stage that there was a pram underneath.'
Archer's voice faltered. Sam saw his jaw quiver. Sam's fists clenched.
Tammy White said, 'Now, you're one of the supporters of the plan for a Central Somerset relief road which many people are objecting to…'
'Tammy,' Archer held up a restraining hand. 'This is not the time to make political capital. I realise that many local people will be saying that, if such a road existed, commercial traffic of this size would not be passing through Glastonbury. Personally, I would rather not comment at this stage especially as the leader of the campaign against this road is tonight being questioned by police in connection with the incident.'
'This is the second death in just over a month connected with traffic congestion in the town. The other involved a fire, which emergency services couldn't reach because of New Age travellers' vehicles on the approach road to Glastonbury Tor. You've initiated a campaign to limit access to the Tor. Do you think that's a related issue?'
Tammy made a face at the clumsiness of her question, but Archer was straight in there.
'I think what both these tragedies are telling us is that this is a town which has been getting seriously out of control. I think we have to calm down, consider whether we believe Glastonbury has been going in the right direction and then take steps to ensure the town is run for – and by- normal, decent, law-abiding people.'
Meaning, Avalon out, Woolaston out. Sam felt like rushing out there, making a scene, giving them some real footage for their programme.
'Thank you.' Tammy nodded to the cameraman to wind up.
'Got all you wanted?' Archer asked obligingly as the camera light went out.