The Man in the Moss (26 page)

           
The streetlamps were black and iron, old gaslamps. Maybe
a man would come around at night with a pole to light them.
           
Well, it was conceivable. Much
was conceivable here.
           
Moira saw an old woman in a
doorway; she wore a fraying grey cardigan and a beret: she was as much a part
of that doorway as the grey lintel stones.

           
Peat preserves, Matt had said.
           
Peat preserves.

From
Dawber's Book of Bridelow:
RELIGION (ii)

That Bridelow was a place
of pre-Christian worship is beyond doubt. As has already been noted in this
book, there are a number of small stone circles dating back to Neolithic times
on the moor less than a mile from the village. The original purpose of these
monuments remains a matter for conjecture, although there have been suggestions
that some are astronomically-oriented.

                       
As for the village itself, the siting of the
church on a presumed prehistoric burial mound is not the only evidence of
earlier forms of worship. Indeed ...

CHAPTER
II

'Steady Pop, just take it
ve
... ry steady.'

           
'No, leave me, please, I'll be fine, if I can just ...'

           
'God, I never realised. How could you let it get to this
and say nothing? How
could
you?'

           
Hans hissed,
'Shut
up
!' with a savagery that shocked her. He pulled away and ducked into the
church porch, and Cathy was left staring at Our Sheila who was grinning
vacuously, both thumbs jammed into her gaping vagina.

           
Cathy turned away and saw why her father had been so
abrupt: a large man was bearing down on them, weaving skilfully between the
gravestones like a seasoned skier on a slalom.

           
'Catherine!' he roared. 'How wonderful!'
           
'Joel,' Cathy said wanly.

           
'So. You've come all this way for Matt Castle's burial.
And you're looking well. You're looking ...
terrific
.
Now.' He stepped back, beamed. 'Did I spot your esteemed father ... ?'

           
'In here, Joel.'

           
He was slumped on the oak bench inside the porch looking,
Cathy thought, absolutely awful, the pain now permanently chiselled into his
forehead. Joel Beard didn't appear to notice.

           
'Hans, I've been approached by two young chaps with
guitars who apparently were among Matt Castle's many protégés in Manchester.
They say they'd like to do an appropriate song during the service, a tribute. I
didn't see any problem about that, but how would the relatives feel, do you
think?'

           
Cathy's father looked up at his curate and managed to
nod.
           
'I'll ... Yes, we must consult
Lottie, obviously. Perhaps, Cathy ...'

           
Cathy said, 'Of course. I'll ring her now. And I'll come
and tell you, Joel, OK?' Why couldn't the big jerk just clear off?
           
But, no, he had to stand
around in the porch like some sort of ecclesiastical bouncer, smiling in a
useful sort of way, his head almost scraping the door frame.

           
'Can we expect any Press, do you think? Television?'

           
Cathy said, 'With all respect to the dead, Joel, I don't
think Matt Castle was as famous as all that. Folkies, no matter how
distinguished, tend to be little known outside what they call Roots Music
circles.'

           
'Ah.' Joel nodded. 'I see.' With those tight blond curls,
Cathy thought, he resembled a kind of macho cherub.

           
'Staying the night, Catherine?'

           
'Probably. The roads are going to be quite nasty, I
gather. Black ice forecast. In fact,' she added hopefully, 'I wouldn't hang
around too long after the funeral if I were you.'

           
'Not a problem,' Joel said. 'I have accommodation.'

           
'Oh?' Damn. 'Where?'

           
'Why ...' Joel Beard spread his long arms expansively.
'Here, of course.'

           
Hans sat up on the oak bench, eyes burning. 'Joel, I do
wish you wouldn't. It's disused. It's filthy. It's ... it's damp.'

           
'Won't be by tonight. I've asked the good Mr Beckett to
supply me with an electric heater.'

           
'Hell,' Cathy said. 'Not the wine-cellar.' It was a
small, square, stone room below the vestry where they stored the communion wine
and a few of the church valuables. It was always kept locked.

           
'Ah, now, Catherine, this is a latter-day misnomer. The
records show that it was specifically constructed as emergency overnight
accommodation for priests. Did you know, for instance, that in 1835 the snow was
so thick that the Bishop himself, on a pastoral visit, was stranded in Bridelow
for over two weeks? When he was offered accommodation at the inn he insisted he
should remain here because, he said, he might never have a better chance to be
as close to God.'

           
'Sort of thing a bishop
would
say,' said Cathy.
           
'Ah, yes, but...'

           
'And then he'd lock himself in and get quietly pissed on
the communion wine.'

           
Avoiding her father's pain-soaked eyes, but happy to
stare blandly into Joel Beard's disapproving ones, Cathy thought, I really
don't know why 1 say things like that. It must be you, Joel, God's yobbo; you
bring out the sacrilegious in us all.

The digital wall-clock in
the admin office at the Field Centre said 14.46.

           
'Er ...' Alice murmured casually into the filing cabinet
'as it's Friday and Dr Hall's not likely to be back from that funeral and
there's not much happening,
 
I thought I
might ...'

           
'No chance,' Chrissie snapped. 'Forget it.'
           
Alice's head rose ostrich-like
from the files. 'Well... !' she said, deeply huffed.

           
Done it now, Chrissie thought. Well, bollocks, she's had
it coming for a long time. 'I'm sorry, Alice,' she said formally, 'but I don't
think, for security reasons, that I should be left alone here after dark.'

           
Alice sniffed. 'Never said that before.'
           
'All right, I
know
the college is only a hundred yards
away and someone could probably hear me scream, but that's not really the
point. There are important papers here and ... and
 
petty cash, too.'

           
She'd caught one of the research students in here when
she returned from lunch. The youth had been messing about in one of the
cupboards and was unpleasantly cocky when she
informed him that he was supposed to have permission.

           
'Nothing to do with
him
,
of course.' Alice smirked. 'Because you're not silly like that, are you?'
           
'I
beg
your pardon?'

           
'Him! In there. The one with no ... personal bits.'

           
'Don't be ridiculous,' Chrissie mumbled, head down so
that Alice would not see her blush. How stupid she'd been the other night,
thinking ...

           
'It was just a thought,' Alice said. She opened the
bottom drawer of the smallest filing cabinet and brought out her make-up bag.

           
... when obviously it couldn't have been ... what you
thought. You were just more frightened than you cared to admit, going in there
on your own ...

           
'Going anywhere tonight?'

           
... it was just the way the thing was lying, and the
projecting ... item was just some sort of probe or peg to hold it together ...

           
'What? Sorry, Alice ...'

           
'I said, are you going anywhere tonight?'

           
'Oh, I thought I'd have a night in,' Chrissie said.
'Watch a bit of telly.'

           
She didn't move. She was still aching from last night.
Roger had taken her to dinner at a small, dark restaurant she'd never noticed
before, in Buxton. And then, because his wife was on nights, had accompanied
her back to her bungalow.

           
Roger's eyes had been crinkly - and glittering.

           
His 'stress', as experienced at the motel, had obviously
not been a long-term problem. Gosh, no ...

           
'I wonder,' Alice said, 'if
Mrs
Hall will be with him at the funeral.'

           
'I think he likes to keep different areas of his life
separate,' Chrissie said carefully.

Lottie said, shaking out
her black gloves, 'To be quite honest, I wish he was being cremated.'

           
Dic didn't say anything. He'd been looking uncomfortable
since the undertakers had arrived with Matt's coffin. For some reason, they'd
turned up a clear hour and a quarter before the funeral.

           
'I don't like graves,' Lottie said, talking for the sake
of talking. 'I don't like everybody standing around a hole in the ground, and
you all walk away and they discreetly fill in the earth when you've gone. I'd
rather close my eyes in a crematorium and when I open them again, it's
vanished. And I don't like all the flowers lying out there until they shrivel
up and die too or you take them away, and what do you do with them?'
           
Dic, black-suited, glaring
moodily out of the window, his hands in his hip-pockets. Lottie just carried on
talking, far too quickly.

           
'And also, you see, in a normal situation, what happens
is the funeral cars arrive, and they all park outside the house, with the
hearse in front, and all the relatives pile in and the
procession moves off to the church.'

           
'Would've been daft,' Dic said, 'when it's not even two
minutes' walk.'

           
'Which means... I mean, in the normal way, it means the
coffin doesn't leave the back of the hearse until it reaches the church door.
Not like this ... it's quite ridiculous in this day and age.'

           
The two of them standing alone in the pub's lofty back kitchen.

           
Alone except for Matt's coffin, dark pine, occupying the
full length of the refectory table.

           
'But I mean, what on earth was I supposed to say to
them?' Lottie said. 'You're early - go and drive him around the reservoirs for
an hour?'

           
The relatives would be here soon, some from quite a
distance, some with young children.

           
'I keep thinking,' Dic said, his voice all dried up,
'that I ought to have a last look at him. Pay my respects.'

           
'You had your chance,' Lottie said, more severely than
she meant to. 'When he was in the funeral home. You didn't want to go.'

           
'I couldn't.'

           
Her voice softened. 'Well, now's not the time. Don't
worry. That's not your dad, that poor shell of a thing in there. That's not how
he'd want you to remember him.'

           
God, she thought, with a bitter smile, but I'm coping
well with this.

           
Of course, half the Mothers' Union had been round,
offering to help with the preparations and the tea and the buffet. And she'd
said, very politely, No. No, thank you. It's very kind of you, but I can look
after my own. And the old dears had shaken their heads. Well, what else could
they expect of somebody who'd turn down Ma Wagstaff's patent herbal sedative
...

           
Yes. She was coping.

           
Then Dic shattered everything. He said, 'Mum, I've got to
know. What happened with that nurse?

           
Lottie dropped a glove.

           
'At the hospital. The night he died.'
           
'Who told you about that?'
Picking up the glove, pulling it on, and the other one.