The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  'Look, it's OK, that's sorted out.'

  'Sorted out?' She had to stand up, walk away from the fire, although she was shivering and it hurt when she swallowed.

  'Moira, come on, sit down. I promise you, it's OK.'

  'Why?' Moira demanded. 'Why is it OK, Cathy?'

  'Because,' said Cathy simply, 'the bogman's had a full Christian burial.'

  CHAPTER II

  By now the sky was the colour of police trousers, Ashton thought prosaically, and damn near as thick. 'Tent would've been better,' he said as the rain started up again, steel needles in the arc lamp. 'Does it matter if he gets wet?'

  'Depends what state he's in.' Roger Hall was struggling with his umbrella.

  'Glad to see you're still sure he's down there.'

  'Count on it,' Hall said.

  Ashton's lads had erected a grey canvas screen, about seven feet high, around the grave; still just a mound of soil, no headstone yet, that saved a bit of hassle.

  'Anyway, you've brought your own coffin, have you?'

  'I wouldn't call it that,' Hall said. 'My assistant has it, over there.' Pointing at Chrissie White, shivering in fake fur, a plywood box at her feet.

  'What's that white stuff inside then, Dr Hall?'

  'Polystyrene chips. Shut that lid properly, Chrissie, we don't want them wet. We've also brought a few rolls of Clingfilm, Inspector. We wrap him in that first, so we don't lose anything.'

  'Like a frozen turkey,' Ashton said. 'Anyway, it's good to see we haven't pulled a crowd. Yet. Let's just hope we can get this sorted before anybody knows we're here. Now, where's that gravedigger bloke?'

  The big, curly-haired clergyman came over. Wearing his full funeral kit, Ashton noticed. Long cassock and a short cape like coppers used to have on point-duty in the good old days.

  He looked nervous. Might he know something?

  'This is Mr Beckett, Inspector. Our verger.'

  Little pensioner with a big, stainless-steel spade.

  'You dig this grave first time around, Mr Beckett?'

  'Aye, what about it?'

  'Usual depth?'

  'Six feet, give or take a few inches. No need to measure it, sithee, when tha's done t'job a few score times.'

  'And when Mr Castle was buried, did you notice if the earth had been disturbed?'

  'It were bloody dark by then,' said Mr Beckett uncompromisingly, patting his chest, as if he'd got indigestion.

  But actually smoothing the bulge in his donkey jacket.

  For, in its inside pocket, shrouded in household tissue, lay a little brown bottle.

  Be his job, this time, to get the bloody bottle into Matt Castle's coffin, which they'd have to get out of the way before they could get at the bogman.

  This was a new bottle. Alf had gone with Milly Gill to Ma Wagstaff's house, and he'd stood guard while Milly made it up, all of a dither, poor lass, "I'm not doing it right, Alf, I'm

  sure I'm not doing it right.'

  'It's thought as counts,' Alf had said, not knowing what the hell he was on about. 'Ma always said that.' Standing at the parlour door, watching Milly messing about with red thread and stuff by candlelight.

  'Alf.'

  'What?'

  'Go in t'kitchen, fetch us a mixing bowl.'

  'What sort?'

  'Any sort. Big un, I'm nervous. Come on, hurry up.'

  Alf handing her a white Pyrex bowl, standing around in the doorway as Milly put the bowl on the parlour floor, feeling about under her skirts. 'Well, don't just stand there, Alf. Bugger off.'

  The door closed, only streetlight washing in through the landing window, ugly shadows thrown into the little hall, the bannisters dancing. Milly's muffled muttering. And then the unavoidable sound of her peeing into the Pyrex.

  Alf, trying not to listen, standing where Ma's body must have landed. Looking up the stairs into a strange, forbidding coldness. Him, who'd patrolled the empty church on wild and windy nights and never felt other than welcome.

  'Hurry up, lass. Giving me t'creeps.'

  'This is Ma's house.' The sound slowing to a trickle. 'There's not a nicer atmosphere anywhere.'

  Alf deliberately turning his back on the stairs.

  'Aye. But that were when Ma were alive.'

  This time Moira went off to make the tea. Gave her time to think.

  She'd asked Cathy who was left in the Mothers' Union, apart from Milly Gill. Cathy had looked gloomy and said, don't ask.

  Moira lifted the teapot lid and watched the leaves settle. Seemed the Mothers' Union wasn't what it used to be. Ma Wagstaff used to say they'd let things slide a bit, Cathy said.

  Moira put the teapot on a tray with a couple of mugs. Some dead leaves hit the window. From the doorway behind her, Cathy said, 'Ma thought there was something out there trying to get in. She said the air was different.'

  'How do you know all this, Cathy? Do you have to be a mother to be in the Mothers' Union?'

  Cathy grinned. There were bags under her eyes and her hair looked dull in the hard kitchen light. 'They'll even take virgins these days.'

  'Are you?'

  'A virgin?'

  'A mother.'

  'Pop's an enlightened clergyman,' Cathy said, 'but not that enlightened.'

  Two young coppers helped Alf with the spadework, which was a good bit easier - just when you didn't bloody need it - than he'd have expected under normal circumstances.

  He was ashamed of this grave, the soil all piled in loose, big lumps, nothing tamped down. But he'd rushed the job, as rattled as anybody by that ugly scene between Ma Wagstaff and Joel Beard, and then Lottie Castle screaming at them to get her husband planted quick.

  Three feet into the grave, getting there faster than he wanted to, he could see Joel peering down at them. Unlikely the lad'd know yet about Ma Wagstaff's death, nobody rushing to tell him after the way he'd been carrying on.

  Thing was, Joel probably had no idea what he was up against. Just a bunch of cracked owd women.

  Which, Alf conceded, wasn't a bad thing for him to think just now; at least he didn't suspect Alf, and he wouldn't be watching him too closely.

  'The problem is,' Cathy said, 'that it's become more of a way of life than a religion.'

  'Is that no' a good thing?'

  'Well, yeah, it is for ordinary people, getting on with their lives. This sort of natural harmony, the feeling of belonging to something. It's great. Until things start to go wrong. And your brewery gets taken over and most of the workforce is fired. And your village shop shuts down. And your local celeb arrives to save your pub from almost certain closure and he's dead inside six months. And your placid, undemanding Rector develops quite a rapid worsening of his arthritis, which Ma's always been able to keep in check. Except Ma's losing it, and she doesn't know why.'

  Cathy looked at Moira's cigarettes on the chair-arm. 'How long's it take to learn to smoke?' She waved an exasperated hand. 'Forget it. Oh, this place is no fun any more. Atmosphere's not the same. People not as content. I've been home twice since the summer and it's struck me right away. Maybe that's the same all over Britain, with this Government and everything. But Bridelow was always ...'

  'Protected?'

  'Yeah. And now it's not. I mean, somebody like Joel would never have got away with what he's done - ripping down that kid's cross. And Our Sheila ... I mean, we've had these religious firebrands before, maybe even my old man was a bit that way when he first arrived, but... something calms them down. Ma Wagstaff used to say it was in the air. Shades. Pastel shades. You know what I mean?'

  The old Celtic air,' Moira said. 'Everything misty and nebulous. No extremes. Everything blending in. You can sense it on some of the Scottish islands. Scotch mist. Parts of Ireland too. Maybe it was preserved here, like the bogman, in the peat.'

  Cathy said, 'You're not going to rest until I tell you, are you?'

  'And I do need to get to bed, Cathy. I feel terrible.'

  Cathy sighed. 'OK. They stole the bogman back. They
buried him in Matt Castle's grave before Matt went in.'

  'Jesus,' said Moira. 'Who?'

  'We're not supposed to know. But ... everybody, I suppose. They're all in it. They've done it before. A few bits of bodies have turned up in the Moss over the years, and that's what they do with them. Save them up until somebody dies. And curiously, somebody always does - even if it's only an arm or a foot turns up - somebody conveniently snuffs it so the bits can have a Christian burial. Well ... inasmuch as anything round here is one hundred per cent Christian. But this body ... well, it's the first time there's been a whole one.'

  'And the council discovered it, didn't they? So no way they could keep this one to themselves.'

  'And then the scientific tests, revealing that this had been a very special sacrifice.'

  'The triple death.'

  'Mmm.'

  'So Ma Wagstaff and Milly Gill and co. and ... Willie? Is Willie in this?'

  'Willie used to be a carpenter.'

  'He did too.'

  'And he's good with doors and locks. And then there's that mate of his, the other chap in the band ...'

  'Eric.'

  'He works for a security firm now, in Manchester. The same firm, as it happens, that was hired to keep an eye on the Field Centre.'

  'Bloody hell.' Moira slumped back in her chair, it's beyond belief. It's like one of those old films, where everybody's conspiring. Whisky Galore or something. So the body's back home, in Bridelow soil.'

  'It didn't go completely right. Milly says that right at the last minute Ma started getting funny feelings about it going in Matt Castle's grave.'

  'I'm no' surprised.'

  You've got to purify yourself. Of course.

  'So she made up this witch bottle to go in Matt's coffin. It's got rowan berries in it, and red cotton and ... the person making up the bottle has to pee in it.'

  Moira said, 'Rowan tree, red thread / Holds the witches all in dread.'

  'What?'

  'It's a song,' Moira said.

  'Well, it's the wrong way round. Mostly it was the witches themselves who use the bottles, to keep bad spirits at bay. The spirits are supposed to go after the red berries or something and get entangled in the thread. It's all symbolic.'

  'So she wanted to save Man from evil spirits?'

  Or maybe she wanted to save the bogman from something in Matt.

  'I don't know,' Cathy said. 'I'm the Rector's daughter. I'm not supposed to know anything. We turn a blind eye.'

  'But the bottle never got in the coffin, did it?'

  'I don't know.'

  'The supposed contaminant remains.'

  'I don't know, Moira.'

  He stood at the edge of the grave looking down. Forcing himself to look down.

  Sometimes when he prayed he thought he heard a voice, and the voice said. You have a task, Joel. You must ... not ... turn ... away.

  Sometimes the voice called him Mr Beard, like the voice on the telephone, a calm, knowing voice, obviously someone inside the village disgusted by what went on here.

  One day, Joel hoped, he would meet his informant. When he encountered people in the street or in the Post Office, he would look into their eyes for a sign. But the women would smile kindly at him and the men would mumble something laconic, like 'All right, then, lad?' and continue on their way.

  He stepped back in distaste as a shovelful of grave-soil was heaved out of the hole and over his shoes. Surely they had to be six feet down by now. He wondered whether, if they kept on digging, they would reach peat - the Moss slowly sliding in, underneath the village.

  Insidious.

  He looked over his shoulder and up, above the heads and umbrellas of the silent circle of watchers, at the frosty disc of the church clock, the Beacon of the Moss.

  The false light. The devil's moon.

  Perhaps that had to go too, like the pagan well and the cross and the monstrosity above the church door, before the village could be cleansed.

  'More light, please.'

  One of the policemen in the grave.

  'You there yet?' The Inspector, Ashton. 'Swing that light 'round a bit. Ken, let's have a look.'

  'Deeper than we expected, sir. Maybe it's sunk.'

  'That likely, Mr Beckett?' The light swept across the verger's face.

  'Aye. Happen that's what ... happened.' Alfred Beckett's voice like crushed eggshell.

  Ashton said, 'Right, let's have this one out, see what's underneath.'

  Ernie Dawber had returned after dark from his weekly mission to the supermarket in Macclesfield, bringing back with him a copy of the Manchester Evening News, a paper that rarely made it Across the Moss until the following day.

  The front-page lead headline said.

  MASSIVE HUNT FOR BOGMAN

  A major police hunt was underway today for the Bridelow bog body - snatched in a daring raid on a university lab. And a prominent archaeological trust has offered a £5000 reward for information leading to the safe recovery of The Man in the Moss.

  'We are taking this very seriously indeed,' said ...

  'Oh, dear me,' Ernie Dawber said to himself, the paper spread out on the table where he was finishing his tea - toasted Lancashire cheese. 'What a tangled web, eh?'

  Trying to keep his mind off what the doctor'd had to say. Well, what right had he to complain about that? Least he'd got a doctor of the old school who didn't bugger about - while there's life there's hope, medical science moving ahead at a tremendous rate; none of that old nonsense, thank the Lord.

  Might just drop in and see Ma Wagstaff about it. Nowt lost in that, is there?

  The doorbell rang.

  Ernie didn't rush. He folded up the Manchester Evening News very neatly, preserving its crease. If it was Dr Hall, he didn't know what he'd say. As an historian he was glad the experts had got their hands on this particular body, been able, with their modern scientific tests, to clarify a few points. But equally Ma Wagstaff, with her instincts and her natural wisdom, had been right about putting the thing back.

  Thank God, he thought, pulling at his front door, for instinct. All too aware that this was not something he himself possessed. Bit of psychological insight perhaps, now and then, but that wasn't the same thing.

  So it had to be done, putting the bogman back in Bridelow earth. Commitment fulfilled.

  All's well that ends well.

  Except it hasn't, Ernie thought, getting the door open. It hasn't ended and it's not well. Lord knows why.

  'By 'eck,' he said, surprised. 'And to what do I owe this honour?'

  On his doorstep, in the rain, stood four women in dark clothing - old-fashioned, ankle-length, navy duffle coats with the hoods up or dark woollen shawls over their heads. A posse from the Bridelow Mothers' Union, in full ritual dress. Could be quite disconcerting when you saw them trooping across the churchyard against a wintry sunset. But always a bit, well, comical, at close range.

  'Can we talk to you, Mr Dawber?' Milly Gill said from somewhere inside whatever she had on.

  Ernie identified the others in a second: Frank's wife, Ethel, Young Frank's wife, Susan. And Old Sarah Winstanley, with no teeth in. Probably the only remaining members of the Union fit enough to go out after dark this time of year.

  He felt a warm wave of affection for the curious quartet.

  'Now, then,' he said cheerfully. 'Where's Ma?'

  No instinct, that was his problem.

  'Thought you knew everything,' Milly Gill said in a voice as cold and dispiriting as the rain.

  'I've been out,' Ernie said, on edge now.

  Milly said quietly, 'Ma's died on us, and the churchyard's full of policemen digging up Matt's grave. Can we come in, Mr Dawber?'

  Matt Castle's coffin came up hard.

  It was like a big old decaying barge stuck in a sandbank; it didn't want to come, it wanted to stay in the dark and rot and feed the worms. They had to tear it out of the earth, with a slurping and a squelching of sodden soil and clay.

  'H
ell fire, you'd think it'd been in here years,' one of the coppers muttered, sliding a rope under one end, groping for one of the coffin handles.

  Alf Beckett stayed on top, hands flat on the lid, knowing it hadn't been nailed down, knowing that if it slipped they could drop the corpse into the mud. Thinking, get it over, get it over...get the bloody thing found and have done with it.

  And wondering then if by any chance he was standing on the squashed brown face of the bog body. Oh, what a mess, what a bloody mess.

  'All right,' the Inspector said as two men on the surface took the strain. 'Take it easy. Come out now, please, and keep to the sides.'

  Alf scrambled out after the coffin. He was covered in mud.

  'Lay it over there, please, don't damage it. Now, Roger ... Dr Hall... time for you to take over, I reckon.'

  'Right!' Dr Roger Hall strode into the lights, beads of water glinting in his beard. 'Now we'll see.'

  Without ceremony, they dumped the coffin behind the piles of excavated earth, up against the canvas screen, well out of the light. Matt Castle: just something to be got out of the way, while everybody crowded round to gaze into the grave.

  Except for Alf Beckett who shuffled behind the others, squatted down on the wet grass by the coffin, put a muddy hand inside his donkey jacket and brought out the witch bottle.

  Whispering, 'Forgive this intrusion, lad,' as he felt along the muddy rim of the oil-slimy casket, hands moving up to its shoulders, thumbs prising at the lid, bracing himself for the stench, a sickening blast of gasses.

  Some bloke barking, 'No ... no. Not like that. Look, let me come down.'

  Alf breathing hard, snatching at the lid as it suddenly sprang away. 'God help us.' Could he do this? Could he put his hands in there?

  'Mind yourself, Dr Hall, bloody slippy down there.'

  '...'s all right. Get that bloody lamp out of my eyes. Give me a light, give me a torch. Thanks.'

  Alf thought it was worse that there was no light. He might not be able to see the body, but he'd have to touch it. Feel for the cold, rubbery hands ... would they be rubbery or would they be slippery or flaking with decay? He didn't know, but he'd find out, prising the fingers apart to get them to hold the bottle.