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And now Gene glowered across the lectern at Sam, and his voice rolled around the echoic space of the church. ‘Let
me
put it in perspective, Tyler. The Western – the
true W
estern – is not “just” a film. It’s an inspiration – an inspiration for men like you and me, men who go out there into a tough world full of tough bastards and make tough decisions with real consequences. Men who spill blood for the sake of what’s right – others' blood, and their own. Men who stand up for something bigger than themselves; a principle, a code, justice, whatever you want to call it. When Gary Cooper walks out into that high noon to face the Miller Gang, that’s
you
walking out there, Tyler, it’s
me –
it’s Ray, it’s Chris, it’s every copper who ever walked a beat, it’s every fireman who ever ate smoke, it’s every snotty-nosed kid in every school yard who ever vowed that today, damn it, today he would NOT let them bullies shove him around. Those images on the screen, they’re there to instruct us, lift us up, warn us, set us straight. Yes, I know, it ain’t real, it’s just some mincers togged up in costume – but what it
means,
Tyler, what it all
represents
shines through the play-acting and the fake blood. It shines through and it
burns –
it burns into a fella’s heart and mind and it marks him. He sees himself on that screen. He sees what he
should
be, what he
could
be, what he ain’t and what he ought to be. He sees what’s best, and what’s worst, in the deepest part of himself. He’s humbled in the presence of the Western – humbled, and raised up, all at the same time.’

Gene’s face changed, pulled into a sneer, as he said, ‘But what the hell can we say about that kiddies’ crap with Brynner? Robots?! Flamin’ cowboy bloody robots?! Is that a worthy emblem for men to be inspired by? Is that what our world now looks up to? And what about that nonce in the lead, the fairy with the ‘tache, the one always running away like a wasp just zapped his nadgers – what in the name of John Ford is
that
about?! Where’s the dignity in watching that sort of shameless carry on? Where’s the grace, where’s the aspiration? Oh, I’m sure it’s all a big hoot for you college boys, getting the horn over metaphors for society and some crap about machines turning on man – like
that’s
gonna happen! – but where’s the guidance for the youngsters of today? We need heroes, not ruddy metaphors – and the young need ’em most of all. And heroes are
men,
not Chinky robots. They bleed. Heroes bleed. And what the hell’s the point in any of us carrying on in this stinking world if we don’t strive to bear our wounds like heroes? The Western is there to remind us of this, over and over. So don’t you
ever
dismiss them images on the screen as “just a film”, Tyler, or next time I’ll jump right down out of this ruddy pulpit and twist you into so many bends I could use you as a bloody coat hanger! Here endeth the lesson!’

He banged his hand down on the bible. The sound echoed away like a gunshot.

‘That was quite a sermon, Guv,’ am said.

After a long pause, Gene said: ‘And I
still
can’t place the name Earles!’ And then he added: ‘Do they have khazis in this gaff? I’m breaking me neck for a gypsy’s.’

Gene prowled off in the direction of Joe’s Caff across the way, already fiddling with the fly of his trousers as he crossed the road. He hadn’t been kidding – he really
was
desperate for a slash. Sam was going to wait for him in the Cortina, but something drew him to linger in the churchyard. Walking among the headstones, he peered at the engraved names that time and the weather had worn away to sad anonymity. Grey clouds moved silently by overhead. The wind picked up, and Sam pulled his jacket around his body to fend off the chill.

What was he doing here, loitering about amid all this death? What was compelling him to stay when he could be snug in the Cortina, the radio on and some Bowie or Bolan or Floyd blaring out?

Something moved on the very edge of his vision, and when Sam turned and saw what it was, he realized at once, with a cold sense of dread, what had brought him here.

A black balloon was bobbing above an open grave. And beneath the balloon, on the lip of the freshly dug hole, stood the Test Card Girl, her little feet primly together, her dolly-clown cradled against the front of her pinafore dress. She was staring directly across at Sam, her mouth turned down, her eyes wide and sad, feigning sorrow.

‘What is it this time?’ Sam asked, approaching slowly. He didn’t want to get too close to that open grave. It revolted him. ‘Who’s in the ground, mmm? Whose funeral is it? Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?’

The Girl slowly shook her head. She was waiting for Sam to come to the edge of the grave and see for himself.

Warily, Sam went towards it. A terrible, arctic cold seemed to be flowing up out of the open grave. His breath steamed. He began to shiver.

‘I can guess what I’m going to see down there,’ he said, trying to stop his teeth from chattering. ‘It’s going to be me, isn’t it.’

The Test Card Girl just looked at him with puppy-dog eyes and said nothing.

‘Or it’s going to be Annie. I’ve seen it all before, you little bitch. You’ve really got to sharpen your game, you’re getting predictable.’

The cold was becoming intolerable, but still Sam moved forward. He was drawing close to the edge of the grave. Like a nervous man on the brink of a cliff, he inched forward, leaning slightly to see over the lip. Sam was bracing himself to see his own dead face down there, or – worse – to see Annie’s. Already, he was repeating to himself in his mind that it was all just trickery designed to make him despair, that it was mind games, just mind games, nothing but mind games …

‘Not this time, Sam,’ the Test Card Girl said gently. ‘This time, it’s very real.’

The body in the open grave was faceless. The skull was nothing but a muddied confusion of broken flesh and ripped bone, but Sam recognised the dark coat that the corpse was wearing, the tightly-knotted tie and, most tellingly of all, the over-starched collar held down with old-fashioned silver collar studs. It was McClintock.

‘What did you do to him ...?’ Sam whispered, unable to look away.

‘Me, Sam? I did nothing but stand by and watch.’

‘What … What did
Gould
do to him?’

‘What did he
do
, Sam? He did …’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘He did more than enough.’

So Sam had been right. What he had seen in the cinema had been a glimpse of McClintock’s defeat; his murder at the hands of Clive Gould. As promised, he had tried – desperately, hopelessly perhaps – to make contact with Sam before the end. But as it turned out, it was Annie he had connected with.

‘You know you’re next on the list, Sam,’ the Girl said gently. ‘You know it’s your turn now. Very soon, I’ll be standing by another open grave, just like this one – looking down into it and seeing a black leather jacket, and a wing-collar shirt, and a cute little pair of Chelsea boots, all sitting in an ice-cold mush of dead, dead, deadness. Just like this.’

Sam felt his head spinning. Blurry shapes filled his vision. He felt nauseous.

‘Yes, you’re right to feel poorly, it’s a horrible prospect,’ he heard the Girl say. ‘But it doesn’t have to be like that. I can take you away before all that happens. I can take you to a place where you can sleep, and forget everything, and disappear completely. You don’t need to feel the pain that Mr McClintock felt. And you don’t ever need to know what Annie’s going to go through – for ever – and ever – and ever.’

Sam tottered, on the verge of passing out, and the next thing he knew he was crashing down heavily onto what felt like mounds of ice. The shock and the cold brought him to his senses. Horrified, he found himself looking up at a patch of grey sky framed by the rectangular limits of the open grave, the Test Card Girl leaning over and peering back down at him. Then, hardly daring to breathe, he turned and looked at the solid, frozen corpse of McClintock on which he was lying. The ripped flesh, the coiled intestines, the lungs and liver and exposed, punctured heart, all were rock hard and colder than death. The mutilated face was inches from Sam’s own, the skull visible beneath the slashed skin, the mouth wide open and distorted in a silent, eternally frozen scream. A slender gold chain hung from the ruined lips, and then Sam saw that the fob watch was still wedged hard in his mouth, just where Gould had thrust it.

Sam grabbed the watch. It came away with a tug, bringing slivers of frost with it. He could not leave it behind. It was all the hope he had left.

‘No hope,’ the Test Card Girl corrected him. ‘There is no hope. Better to come with me, Sam – away, into oblivion.’

Ignoring her, Sam held the watch close to his body.

‘It won’t help you, Sam. Forget it. Forget
everything,
and come with me.’

But Sam clasped the cold metal casing of the watch in his fist, refusing to let go of hope, hanging on to whatever fraying thread of life remained.

‘Come with me, Sam. Before it’s too late. Forget everything. Forget.’

Sam hauled himself to his feet, thrust the watch into his pocket, and began clawing at the sides of the grave, fighting to get out. Above him, the Test Card Girl’s sad, pale face gazed back down, but Sam snarled at it, cursed it, refused to be crushed and broken by the little brat, no matter what horrors she subjected him to. With all his strength, he dragged himself up, hooked his elbows over the lip of the grave and kicked frantically with his legs, until at last he rolled onto the damp grass of the church yard. Panting, he glanced across. The Test Card Girl was gone. All that remained was the black balloon bobbing above the open pit. But even as he looked, the balloon freed itself from its string and went sailing away into the grey sky. The ground shifted, and the grave fell in on itself, smothering the frozen remains of McClintock beneath a cascade of mud.

Exhausted, Sam got to his feet, looking down at what was now a freshly filled-in grave, nameless, awaiting the delivery of its headstone. A single withered flower lay on the newly turned soil.

‘Christ, Tyler, what the
chuff
have you been doing?!’

It was Gene, bellowing at him from the Cortina. He was back from Joe’s Caff, a dark smattering of moisture visible around the front of his trousers and down his left leg.

Sam looked down at himself, at the mud all over his clothes.

‘I tripped, Guv,’ he called back. ‘I just … tripped over.’

‘You really are a twerp,’ he heard Gene mutter as he climbed into the car, fired her up, and began impatiently gunning the engine.

But Sam hesitated for a moment. He looked down into his filthy hand, and there was the fob watch, very real, and still ticking.

I refuse to believe this thing had no meaning,
he thought.
It’s just a watch, and it didn’t save McClintock, but even so …

He glanced up at the church spire above him.

Even so, I’ve got to have faith. What else have I got?

The Cortina parp-parp-parped at him to stop dicking about. Sam slipped the watch into his pocket, swept the worst of the mud from his jacket, and obeyed the Guv’s imperious summons.

The Railway Arms was heaving; the air thick with tobacco smoke, raucous laughter, and the reek of men. The pints were flowing, the crisps were crackling, and Nelson was working flat out trying to keep up with the demand.

Gene forged his way through the throng like an icebreaker ship. Nothing and no one was going to stand between him and the liquid treasures at the bar. Sam could just make out Chris and Ray already ensconced at the end of the bar, and with them was Annie, looking unhappy and preoccupied.

She’s here under sufferance,
he thought.
The Guv’s orders. He’s got on her on a short leash. He doesn’t want to let her out of his sight.

Sam cursed the crowd, cursed the noise, cursed the impossibility of getting Annie alone somewhere so they could talk. He knew what was eating her up inside. She was starting to realise that 1973 wasn’t really 1973 at all, that she was part of a far bigger – and potentially far darker – reality.

Sam looked through the jostling crowd to where Nelson was working flat out to keep up with the call for drinks. Not a single one of that thirsty rabble had the slightest inkling of the power and majesty embodied by that grinning Jamaican in his gaudy shirt and flowing dreadlocks. Only Sam had been graced with a glimpse of the true man – if, indeed, Nelson was a ‘man' at all.

Gene had elbowed and barged his way to the bar and was demanding immediate service.

‘Patience, mah friend,
paay-shaance
!’
Nelson called to him, serving eight other customers all at the same time. ‘I only get de one pair o’ arms! I ain’t no octopus!

‘You smell like one,’ Gene growled. ‘Move it and shake it, Nelson, we need our beer! Courage, Courage, Courage, and another pint of Courage – God Almighty we need it. Oh, and something pissy with a cack of lemon in it for the bird.’

Nelson got round to their drinks – four frothing pints of deep, rich Courage Best, and a small gin and tonic – and as he lined them up on the bar, he caught Sam’s eye.

‘A lot of crap on your jacket there, Sam,’ he said. ‘Been playin’ mud pies?’

‘I tripped. In the churchyard.’

‘Not into a grave, I hope!’ he laughed. His mouth smiled, but somehow his eyes didn’t. ‘I hope you ain’t getting careless, Sam.’

Sam felt like he had been chastised.

‘I’m not getting careless, Nelson.’ Instinctively, he reached into his pocket and felt the hard surface of the fob watch, warmed now by his own body. ‘I’m looking after myself.’

‘Well, I hope so.’

‘I know what’s at stake.’

Sam wanted to say more, but men were hollering for their drinks. It was impossible to talk, so he picked up his pint and joined the others.

‘Here we all are!’ announced Gene, casting his eyes over his team. ‘The whole family together in joyous harmony! Like bloody Christmas but without
Morecambe & Wise
.’ He fixed his gaze on Annie, who was looking unhappy and distracted. ‘Buck up, luv, there’s girls in this town would give their eye teeth to be relaxing at the bar with Adonis Hunt.’