The Man in the Moss (59 page)

           
I have been burgled.

           
She stood in the street and looked from window to window,
up and down, in search of life, and did not find it. But then, what the hell
business was it of hers if the people of Bridelow wanted to lie low and boycott
St Bride's and its unsympathetic new minister?

           
And turning on her heel, summoning energy from God knew
where, she walked crisply, with determination, clop, clop, bloody clop on the
cobbles, back up to the lych-gate and
the car.

           
Almost falling into the arms of the Angel bloody Gabriel
in white as he strode through the gate, his desperate solo service abandoned.

           
'I'm sorry,' he snapped. And then, with his hands still
on her shoulders to separate their bodies, he began to stare at her.
           
Seeing what she figured must
be this sad, sluttish face, no make-up, hair awry, maybe a low and useless
anger burning fitfully in the eyes.

           
His hands dropped away from her. His fists clenched. He
began to tremble. He said, 'Who are you?' Golden curls tight to his head, Van
Helsing-size cross looming out at her as his white linen chest swelled.

           
'Who are you?'

           
'Doesn't matter,' Moira said tonelessly. 'I'm leaving
now.'

           
He blocked her path to the car, legs apart, this real big
bastard in full Sunday vestments, humiliated in the sight of his God. Profile
like Michelangelo's 'David' or something, a good head taller than she was and
bellowing out, 'In the name of God ... WHO ARE YOU, WOMAN?'

           
'Look, would you please get outa my way,' she said
tiredly.
           
Like she didn't have enough
problems of her own.

           
'It's Sunday morning.' He was snarling now, through
gritted teeth, rage choking him. 'And my church is empty. There is no
congregation. No sidesmen. No organist.'

           
'Maybe it's just your sermons are crap,' Moira said.
'Look ...'

           
He said, in a kind of wonder, backing off, his surplice
billowing like a sail, 'You're
taunting
me'

           
'Please ...'

           
'I know who you are.' He was screaming it at the village,
'I know
what
you are!'

           
'Yeah, I'm sure you do, but would you please just get the
hell out of my way?'

           
And knew, as she was saying it, that she shouldn't have
used the word hell.

           
His face glowed red, bulging with blood.

           
She saw it corning but she didn't move. She took it from
his massive open hand across the side of her face, from forehead to lower jaw.
It would have hurt her less if she'd fallen, but she wouldn't do that. She
stayed on her feet and she stared into his incandescent eyes.

           
Abruptly he spun away and strode back through the gate;
she heard his footsteps crunching the gravel and then, hitting the path.
Finally she heard the church door crashing into place with an echo that didn't
seem to fade but went on smashing from one side of her skull to the other as
she moved unsteadily to her car.

CHAPTER
V

Being Sunday, he could park
in the street right outside and wait for some movement.
           
It was a dull, cold day in
Glasgow, and a light gleamed out of the second floor of Kaufmann's scuffed
tenement, which indicated Fiona had got it right. 'See, he often works on a
Sunday, catching up with his VAT and stuff. But, Mungo, you tell him where you
got this from I'm out the door; long as you realise that...'

           
Lucky he'd kept Fiona's home number. He owed the kid
another dinner.

           
This Sunday morning convinced Macbeth that being a
private investigator had to be about the most tedious occupation you could have
outside of accountancy. The first hour, the car radio kept him amused with some
bizarre soap-style drama about country folks in which nobody got killed, nobody
seemed to be balling anyone else's spouse but two guys nearly came to blows in
an argument about milk quotas. Only in Britain.

           
The second hour Macbeth fell to contemplating the
futility of his life so far, the hopelessness of his quest, etc.

           
And then, just after 1 p.m., Malcolm Kaufmann came out of
the building and spent some time locking the door behind him.

           
Kaufmann bad on a long black overcoat over a pink polo
shirt. Macbeth followed him to a crowded, chromium pub where Kaufmann ordered
chicken sandwiches and, to Macbeth's dismay, sat down to eat them with two
other guys he obviously knew.

           
Macbeth said shit a few times under his breath, ordered
up a sandwich and a beer, sat as far away from Kaufmann as he could while still
keeping him in view, and began to eat very slowly.

           
There were many women in the bar. Macbeth passed some
time debating which one he'd make a move on if he hadn't been an investigator
on a case. There was one in a dark blue velvet top who had to be wasted on the
guy she was with; he was drinking too much and talking to other guys, she was
on Diet Coke and probably only here to drive him home.

           
She had long, dark hair. Which, of course, was nothing at
all to do with Macbeth picking her out, no way.

           
He was getting to thinking he
would
make a move, if only to make the woman's lunchtime more
memorable, when Malcolm Kaufmann came swiftly to his feet, said a rapid goodbye
to his pals and made an exit, weaving through the crowd with such practised
agility that Macbeth almost lost him.

           
Couldn't be sure Kaufmann wouldn't get into a car or taxi
and head off home, so he called after him in the street, and Kaufmann turned at
the edge of the sidewalk and raised an
eyebrow.

           
'Mr Macbeth. How very strange to see you.'
           
'We have to talk, Malcolm,'
Macbeth said, trying to sound tough.

           
'Of course. We must arrange a time.'

           
'Like, now.'

           
'Oh, dear,' said Kaufmann. 'This sounds serious. What can
the fair Moira have been up to?'

           
Macbeth walked right up to him. There was a cab idling
not ten yards away, and he was taking no chances. 'We need to talk about a
man,' he said, 'name of John Peveril Stanage.'

Ashton thought he should
tell her himself, maybe test the water a bit. Also, he liked a pint around
Sunday lunch when he got the time - unable, despite his divorce, to shake
himself out of the feeling that Sunday lunchtime was special.

           
And he couldn't deny he was becoming quite fascinated by
this place, a bit of old England only twenty miles from factories and
warehouses, muck and grime and petty crime.

           
He drove Across the Moss in his own vehicle, the Japanese
sports car which was his first independent purchase with the bit of money left
over after paying off his wife. A gesture.
           
Ashton realised now that
Gillian was probably right, it was bloody pathetic to buy a car like this at
his age. Lump of flash tat, and he could never even remember what bloody make
it was.

           
'Oh,' she said, looking up to serve him. it's you.'

           
No curiosity, he noticed But then, if they
had
recovered anything from that grave,
be all over the village, wouldn't it?

           
'Just thought I should officially inform you, Mrs
Castle,' he said confidentially, across the bar, 'that we didn't find what we
were looking for. I'm sorry we had to put you through this.'

           
There were no more than a dozen customers in The Man.
Some had looked up when he came in. Made a change; most pubs, they could smell
a copper the same way he could scent illegal odours amidst tobacco smoke.
Always somebody in a pub with something to hide, whether they'd been flogging
nicked videos or their MOT was overdue.

           
'You have your job to do,' Lottie Castle said. She seemed
weary, strained, nervy. Still looking good, though, he'd not been wrong about
that. Tragedy suited some women. Something about recent widows, murder victims'
wives especially; stripped of all need for pretend-glamour, they acquired this
harsh unadorned quality, the real woman showing through.
           
Sometimes this excited him.

           
Must be getting warped, price of thirty years in the job.

           
'I had the feeling yesterday,' he said, 'that you thought
we
might
have found something.'

           
She said, 'Wouldn't have surprised me either way. The bog
body, wasn't it?'

           
'Somebody told you.' He wondered why she should make him
think of murder victims' wives.

           
'Call it intuition,' Lottie said. 'What you having?'
           
'Pint of Black?'

           
'You'll be the only one,' she said.

           
When he raised an inquiring eyebrow she told him another
bunch of jobs had gone, working men replaced by men in white coats brought in
from Across the Moss. Rumours that Gannons might even close the brewery altogether,
transferring all production of Bridelow Black to their new plant outside
Matlock.

           
'Never,' said Ashton. 'How can you brew Bridelow Black in
Matlock?'

           
'How can you brew German lager in Bradford?' said Lottie.
           
'People don't care any more.
They've got the name, that's all that matters.'

           
'Thought the lads here were looking a bit cheesed.'
Ashton nodded at the customers.

           
Lottie said, 'Gannons have apparently got tests showing
the local spring water doesn't meet European standards of purity. Cost a substantial
amount to decontaminate it. Added to which the equipment's antiquated. Where's
the business sense in preserving some scruffy little dead-end village brewery
on the wrong side of a bog?'

           
'Bloody tragic,' Ashton said, and meant it. 'Just about finish
Bridelow, I reckon.'

           
'People've got to have work,' Lottie said. They'll move
out. School'll shut. Church'll be operating every fourth Sunday. Still want
this?

           
'Better make it a bottle of Newcastle,' Ashton said. 'I
wouldn't like to cause an incident.'

           
'The rot's already set in, I'm afraid,' Lottie said,
pulling a bottle from under the bar. 'General store closed last week. Chip
shop's on its last legs. How long the Post Office'll keep a sub-office here is
anybody's guess.'

           
'Not good for you either. Dozen customers on a Sunday?
           
'Be a few hikers in later,'
Lottie said listlessly.
           
'I was told,' Ashton said
smoothly, raising his voice a little, that some folk reckon all the bad luck
that's befallen this village is due to that bogman being removed from the bog.'
           
Behind him, conversation
slowed to a trickle.
           
'That's stupid,' Lottie said.

           
'You see, that's why we thought somebody might've had the
idea of bringing it back to Bridelow. And where better to put it than at the
bottom of an existing grave? Done it before, apparently, according to my
source.'

           
'And who might that be?' asked Frank Manifold Snr from
behind his half of draught Bass.

           
Ashton didn't turn round. 'Surprising as it may seem, Mrs
Castle, I can understand it, the way people might be feeling. Problem is, we're
talking about a prize specimen here. Experts from all over the world made plans
to come and see it. It's almost unique. Invaluable. And so, you see, the police
are under quite enormous pressure to get it back.'

           
There was no reaction from Lottie Castle. He was pretty
sure now that she knew nothing.

           
'Well ...' Ashton sucked some of the creamy froth from
his Brown Ale. 'I suspect we're going to have to disrupt people's lives
something terrible if we don't find it soon.'