The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  'And what happened? I mean, that first album, that was terrific. I wore mine out.'

  'Aye, but it all got very heavy, with drugs and stuff, and Moira broke her contract, came back to Scotland, went solo. Signed up with Mr Kaufmann, who's... well, he's no' exactly part of the rock scene.'

  'I wondered about that.'

  'The other singers on Mr Kaufmann's books are, like, mostly, y'know, nightclub or operatic or kind of Jimmy Shand type of outfits.'

  'Who?'

  Fiona dug into a profiterole; cream spurted. 'See, Moira made it clear she wisny gonny have anything to do with the rock scene ever again. And that's how it's been. She just does traditional folk concerts and selected cabaret-type dates. Really boring. Hell of a waste.'

  'It's very intriguing. What do you think happened?'

  Fiona shrugged. 'Most likely she just got in with a bad crowd. I used to think, well, maybe she was doing drugs in a big way. Heroin or something. And realised it was, like, a one- way street, y'know?'

  'But you don't think that now?'

  She shook her head. 'I know her better now. She's too strong. She widny touch drugs - not the kind that might get any kind of hold on her, anyway. I think it's more likely she just rejected the psychic stuff, the way they were fooling about, Max Goff and these guys. She knows what it can do, right? Like, if one person can shoot all the drawers out of a filing cabinet, what's gonny happen wi' four or five of them ... ?'

  'This is fascinating, Fiona.' The kid was smarter than he'd figured. 'You're saying maybe she came back to Scotland to, kind of, put herself in psychic quarantine. Maybe scared of what she could do.'

  'I'm only guessing,' Fiona said, 'but how come she'll no play any of the old songs any more? I think she wants to put all that stuff behind her. But can you do that? Being psychic, I mean, it's no' like a jumper you can take back to Marks and Spencer. Drink your coffee, Mungo, 's gonny get cold.'

  He drank his coffee, not tasting it. He'd been fooling himself that this thing about Moira was purely ... well, more than physical ... romantic, maybe. She was beautiful and intelligent, and he loved her music from way back. But maybe it went deeper. Maybe this was a woman who he'd instinctively known had been closer to ... what? The meaning of things?

  Things that having money and influence and famous friends couldn't let you into?

  Time of life, he thought, staring absently into Fiona's cleavage. Or maybe I really do have Celtic roots.

  'Mungo,' she said. 'Can I ask you something?'

  'Go ahead.' He could guess.

  'All this stuff about a miniseries ...'

  'Kaufmann told you about that?'

  'I keep my ear to the ground.'

  Or the door. He grinned. 'Yeah?'

  'Was that on the level?'

  'You mean, are we gonna go ahead with a film about, uh ...'

  'An American guy who comes over here to trace his roots and ...'

  'OK, OK ...'

  '... falls in love with this beautiful...'

  'Aw, hey,' she said. 'I think that's sweet.'

  'So maybe you'll help me.'

  'How?'

  'Tell me where I find her.'

  'I don't know,' Fiona said. 'Really.'

  Part Five

  our sheila

  From Dawber's Secret Book of Bridelow (unpublished):

  The oldest woman in Bridelow commands, as you would expect, considerable respect, as well as a certain affection.

  Ma Wagstaff? No, I am afraid I refer to Our Sheila who displays her all above the church porch.

  The so-called Sheelagh na gig (the spelling varies) is found - inexplicably - in the fabric of ancient churches throughout the British Isles: a survival of an older religion, some say, or a warning against heathen excess. Usually it is lazily dismissed as 'some sort of fertility symbol'.

  The shapes and sizes vary, but the image is the same: a female shamelessly exposing her most private parts. Pornography, I am glad to say, it isn't. The faces of these ancient icons are normally grotesque in the extreme, their bodies compressed and ludicrous.

  Our Sheila, however, is a merry lass with an almost discernible glint in her bulging stone eyes and a grin which is more innocent than lewd.

  Do not dismiss her as a mere 'fertility symbol'. She has much to say about the true nature of Bridelow.

  CHAPTER I

  Round about 6.30, Chrissie had got a phone call from the police. Would she mind popping over to the Field Centre?

  When she'd arrived the place was all lights. Police car and a van outside, an unmarked Rover pulling in behind her.

  When the two CID men from the Rover walked across, they looked as if they'd been laughing. Now, facing her across her own desk, they were straight-faced but not exactly grim.

  'I'm Detective Inspector Gary Ashton,' the tall one said. 'This is DS Hawkins' - waving a hand at the chubby one in the anorak. 'Now ... Miss White.'

  'Chrissie,' she said.

  'Lovely: He was a fit-looking bloke, short grey hair and a trenchcoat. Fancy that ... even with policemen, fashion goes in circles.

  'If you've been trying to get hold of Dr Hall,' she said helpfully, 'he went to a funeral, but it should be well over by now.'

  'Thank you. We know,' Ashton said. 'He left early, apparently, and went home. He's on his way. Now, just to get our times right, when exactly did you go home?'

  Oh, sugar, Chrissie thought. 'We finish at four forty-five,' she said.

  Actually she'd left at 4.15. Just before four, Alice had fallen back on the irrefutable - claiming she had one of her migraines coming on. Chrissie had stuck it for fifteen minutes on her own and then thought, sod it, and gone to fetch her coat.

  'Four forty-five,' Ashton said. 'Right.' They could tell when you were lying, couldn't they? If he could, he didn't seem too concerned.

  'Now,' he said. 'You're responsible for locking up, are you?'

  'I do it if there's nobody else. I wouldn't say I'm responsible. There's the caretaker, he comes on at five. And then a private security firm comes round a few times at night ... that's just since he's been here. They were worried there might be a few, you know ... weirdo types, wanting to have a look. Or something. What's happened, then? Has there been a break-in?'

  'So when you left, everything was locked up. What d'you do with the keys?'

  'The front and back door keys we drop off at the caretaker's office at the main college building. The keys to the bogman section ... we keep those in here, I'm afraid. Is that bad? In one of the filing cabinets - but that's always locked at night, of course.'

  If this chap's an inspector, she realised, it's got to be more than just a break-in.

  'And the big doors at the back?'

  'We never open them. Well, only when ... when the bogman arrived in a van. They brought him straight in that way.'

  'Do you go round and check those doors, Chrissie, before you leave? Round the outside, I mean.'

  'Do I buggery,' said Chrissie. 'I'm an office manager, not a flaming night watchman. Look, come on, what's this all about? What's happened?'

  Ashton smiled. 'So you didn't see or hear anything suspicious before you left?'

  'No. Not tonight.' Oops.

  'What d'you mean, not tonight?'

  'Well ... I thought I heard a noise in there, where ... he is ... a couple of nights ago, but it was nothing. Probably a bird on the roof.'

  'You didn't raise the alarm?'

  'What for? It was locked. I knew nobody could get in through those doors without making a hell of a racket, so there didn't seem ...'

  'Somebody got in tonight, Miss White.'

  'Oh, hell,' said Chrissie. 'They didn't damage him, did they? Roger'll go hairless.'

  She was cold. The BMW beckoned.

  She could, after all, simply drive away from this.

  Nobody invited you, girl.

  Frost on the cobbles. No one else on the street. Curtains drawn, chimneys palely smoking.

  Ah, the burden of guilt
and regret. All he'd done for you, all he meant to you, and the thought that you'd never see him again.

  Well, you saw him.

  She shivered.

  Problem with this place was there was nowhere you could even get a cup of coffee ... except the pub.

  She stood and stared at it from across the road. It was a large, shambling building set back from the street, with a field behind it and nothing behind that but peat. Dark sooty stone. Windows on three floors, none of the upper ones lit. Outside was a single light with an iron shade, a converted gaslamp, quite a feeble glow, just enough to light up the sign above the door: The Man I'th Moss. In black. No picture.

  Didn't look like Lottie Castle's kind of place. Lottie was big sofas and art-nouveau prints.

  Moira stepped lightly across the cobbles, peered through the doorway. Only a dozen or so people in the bar, Lottie not among them. Willie was there, with Eric Marsden. The big dollop of hair over Eric's forehead had gone grey but he looked no more mournful than he always had. Eric: the quiet one. In every band there was always a quiet one.

  Go in then, shall I?

  Why, it's Moira ...

  Come to help us re-form the band?

  Just one problem. We had to bury Matt.

  Never mind. Have a drink, lass.

  She turned away, gathering her cloak about her. Moved quietly across the forecourt to the steeply sloping village street.

  There was a guy leaning against the end wall of a stone terrace, smoking a cigarette. She kept her distance, walked down the middle of the street, along the cobbles.

  Nothing for you here. Go back to what you know. The fancy clubs and the small halls. You can play that scene until you're quite old, long as the voice holds out. Save up the pennies. In twenty years you can retire to a luxury caravan, like the Duchess. Sea views. All your albums collected under the coffee table.

  As she came abreast of him, the guy against the wall turned and looked at her, muttered something. Sounded like 'Fucking hell'.

  Then he tossed his cigarette into the road at her feet. 'And they tell me,' he said, 'that this used to be a respectable neighbourhood.'

  'Who's that?' Too dark to make out his features.

  'You don't know me.'

  'But you know me, huh?'

  'Yeah,' he said. 'But not nearly as well as my dad did.'

  'Oh,' Moira said.

  His voice had sounded different when she last heard it. Like high, pre-pubertal.

  She sighed.

  'Dic,' she said. 'You want to go somewhere and discuss all this?'

  He laughed. A short laugh. Matt's laugh, A cawing.

  'Well?' she said.

  'I'm thinking,' he said from deep within his shadow.

  ''Cause I don't mind,' Moira said. 'I'm easy.'

  'Yeah,' he said, 'we all knew that.'

  Moira paused. 'That was your chance, Dic. I threw you that one. You gave the predictable, adolescent answer. So go fuck yourself, OK?'

  She turned away, moved quickly up the street, clack, clack, clack on the cobbles. As good a way as any to do your exit.

  Grabbing the chance to go out angry; it helped. On either side of her were the gateposts of the stone cottages, a black cat on one, watching her like it knew her well. Lights behind curtains, lights from an electrified gaslamp projecting from an end wall, and over them all, like another moon, the illuminated church clock. Take it all in, you won't see it again. Bye-bye, Bridelow.

  'All right!' It rang harshly from the cobbles like an iron bar thrown into the street.

  It didn't stop her.

  'Yeah, OK!' Running feet.

  She carried on walking, turned towards the lych-gate, the corpse gate, but passed it by and entered the parking area behind the church, where it was very dark.

  She was taking her keys out of her bag when he caught up with her.

  'I'm sorry. All right?'

  'Good. You'll be able to sleep.' Fitted the key in the car door. 'Night, Dic. Give my love to your mother.'

  'Look ...'

  'Hey,' she said gently. 'I'm leaving, OK? You know your dad was screwing me, what can I say to that?'

  'I want to talk about it.'

  'Well, I'm no' talking here, it's cold and I'm no' going to the pub, so maybe you should just go away and think about it instead, huh? Call me sometime. Fix it up with my agent. I'm tired. I'm cold.'

  'Where will you go?'

  'And what the fuck does that have to do with you? I shall find a nice, anonymous hotel somewhere ...'

  'Look,' Dic said. 'There is somewhere we can talk. Somewhere warm.'

  'Cosy.' Moira got into the car. 'Goodnight.'

  'Moira ...'

  She started the engine, switched on the lights, wound down the window- 'By the way. Your playing, it was ... Well, you're getting there.'

  'I don't want to get there,' he said without emotion. 'I just wanted to please him.'

  'Aye,' Moira said.

  'It never did, though.'

  'No,' she said.

  A dumpy, elderly man walked through the headlamp beams. He wore a long raincoat and a trilby bat, like Donald's, only in better shape. 'Good evening,' he said politely, as he passed.

  The lights were on in the church, am be ring the pillars in the nave. A suitcase stood by the font.

  Ernie Dawber watched the new curate manhandling a metal paraffin stove into the vestry.

  'All right, lad?'

  Joel Beard, alarmed, set down the stove with a clang.

  'Ernie Dawber, lad. We met the other day, with Hans.'

  'Ah, yes.' The curate recovered, stood up straight. He was wearing his cassock and the huge pectoral cross. 'Look, I'm sure you mean well, Mr Dawber, but I'd rather not discuss anything tonight, if you don't mind.'

  'Beg your pardon?'

  'The funeral, Mr Dawber. What happened at the funeral. You were about to tell me how innocuous it all was. I'm saying I'd rather not discuss it.'

  'Well, I think we should discuss it, Mr Beard. Because it looks like you're in charge now.'

  Joel Beard looked bewildered. He'd obviously rushed away from the graveside, dashed down to his little cell to recover and didn't yet know about Hans.

  Ernie told him.

  'Oh,' Joel said. 'Oh, my Lord.'

  'Aye.'

  'Is he going to be all right?'

  'Happen,' said Ernie. 'If he gets some rest. If he doesn't spend all his time worrying what the bloody hell's going on back in Bridelow.'

  Joel Beard gave him a hard look for swearing in church.

  'Now look, lad,' Ernie said. 'Pull yourself together. You're not really going to kip down there?'

  'I am.' Joel rested an arm on the edge of the font. 'It's quite clear to me that it's become even more important to sleep in God's pocket. You were there today, I think, Mr Dawber. You saw what went on.'

  'I saw a big, soft bugger making a bloody fool of himself,' said Ernie stoutly. 'Now, come on, it's getting cold. Pick up your suitcase; you can stay in my spare room for tonight, and we'll have a bit of a chat.'

  Joel Beard made no reply. He stood very call and very still, the amber lights turning his tight curls into a golden crown.

  'Good night, Mr Dawber,' he said.

  The double doors crashed back. Roger Hall burst in, and he was white to the edges of his beard.

  Chrissie was sitting at her desk, the senior detective, Ashton, casually propping his bum against it, hands deep into his trenchcoat pockets, the detective-sergeant playing with the zip on his anorak.

  Roger just stood in the doorway breathing like a trainee asthmatic. He was wearing casual gear, the polo shirt and the golfing trousers. 'All right, what's happened?' Staring all round the room and finally noticing her. 'Chrissie ... ?'

  'Don't look at me like that, Dr Hall. I know less than you.' Obviously. Being the minion.

  'How much did they tell you on the phone, Dr Hall? Ashton asked, corning to his feet.

  'Just ... Just that ... Is this on the lev
el? It s not a joke?'

  Ashton shook his head. 'Doesn't look like it, I'm afraid sir.

  Roger glared across the office at the metal door. It was shut. 'It's unbelievable.' Shaking his head. 'What happened to the so-called security patrol?'

  'We'll be talking to the company, sir, have no doubts.

  Meantime, we didn't like to touch anything until you got here, so it you'd be good enough to take us through ...'

  Roger nodded dumbly. Chrissie was almost feeling sorry for him. His face was like a crumpled flour bag. He looked like a parent who'd just learned his child had been found on a

  railway line. In fact, to him, if somebody had vandalized his beloved bogman, this was probably worse

  Which is why Chrissie didn't quite feel sorry for him.

  The two detectives, Ashton and the chubby one in the anorak, waited while Roger went to unlock his personal high-security cabinet. He brought out both keys. The detectives followed him to the ante-room and then all three of them went through to the inner lab.

  Chrissie stayed behind, elbows on her desk, chin propped in her hands, waiting for the eruption. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry on his behalf.

  'No...!' Roger's voice echoing back. 'Look ...Inspector, is it?'

  'Gary Ashton, sir. Greater Manchester.'

  'I'm ... I just can't believe this has happened. What I ... Look, let me do some checks. It's possible ... unlikely, but possible ... that there's a rational explanation. I've been away for a few days this week. It's conceivable, I suppose, that something was arranged and by some incredible oversight I wasn't informed.'

  'You mean whoever it was forgot to inform the caretaker they'd be dropping in, sir? After dark?'

  'No. You're right. Clutching at straws, I suppose. God almighty, this is ... How did they actually get in?'