The Man in the Moss (34 page)

           
'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

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(unpublished):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 ...'