The Man in the Moss (61 page)

           
Oh...

           
... Christ...

           
... Get it into first gear ... !

           
She was starting to scream out loud, plunging the clutch
down, grinding the gearstick. But there was nowhere to go, the windscreen full
of black, the truck's engine bellowing then scornfully clearing its throat as,
with no great effort, it prodded the little car and Moira Cairns through the
disintegrating drystone wall and the shimmering curtain of rain and over the
road's edge into the endless mist beyond.

CHAPTER
VI

The old clergyman across
the lounge was deeply asleep in his chair, head back, mouth open,
           
'Lifetime of begging, you
see,' Hans Gruber explained to his daughter. 'He's turned into an offertory
box. You go over there, drop a pound coin in his trap and it'll suddenly snap
shut. Clack! Another quid for the steeple fund.'
           
Hans smiled.

           
Cathy said, 'You're feeling better, then.'

           
'Until I stand up. And a stroll to the loo is like the
London marathon. But it's always better when you get out of hospital. Even
coming here.'

           
The Poplars was a Georgian house with a modern,
single-storey extension set amid flat, tidy, rain-daubed fields where Cheshire
turned imperceptibly into Shropshire. There were all kinds of trees in the
grounds except, Cathy had noted, actual poplars.

           
'Nearly as exciting as Leighton Buzzard,' Hans said.
'Makes me realise how much I love Bridelow. Its hardness, its drama.'

           
Cathy said nothing. Right now Bridelow had more drama
than Beirut could handle.

           
Hans leaned forward in the chair, lowered his voice -
even though, apart from the Rev. Offertory Box, they were alone in the lounge.
'I'm finished, aren't I, Cathy? I'm out.'

           
'Bollocks,' Cathy said, with less conviction than the
choice of word implied.

           
Hans shook his head. 'Really wouldn't mind so much if it
was going to be anybody but Joel. Thinks he's a New Christian, but he's
actually more set in his ways than that poor old sod.'

           
Cathy squeezed his hand. 'You'll be back in no time.'

           
'No. I won't. Joel, you see ... he's like one of those
chaps in the old Westerns. Come to clean up Bridelow. Vocation. And Simon
Fleming sees Joel as
his
vocation,
and as long as he's archdeacon ...'

           
'Joel might have bitten off more than he can chew, Pop.
He put on his first Sunday service this morning, and nobody came.'

           
'You're not serious.' Cathy watched her father's mouth
briefly wrestling with a most unchristian, spontaneous delight.

           
'Honest to God, Pop. A totally unorganised boycott. You
know what Bridelow's like. Sort of communal consciousness. Apparently a few
people started to drift along, got as far as the churchyard, realised the usual
merry throng was not gathering as usual - and toddled off home. Does your heart
good, doesn't it?'

           
'Certainly not,' said Hans, recovering his gravitas.
'It's actually quite stupid. Just get his back up, and then he'll do something
silly. I don't mean go crying to Simon or the bishop or anyone, he's too
arrogant. He'll want to sort it out himself. Damn.' Hans looked gloomy. 'That
was really quite stupid of them. I can't believe Ma Wagstaff allowed it.'

           
'Ah.' Cathy lowered her eyes. Hans was wearing tartan
bedroom slippers; somebody must have had a battle to get him into those.

           
'What's wrong?'

           
'I'm sorry, Pop,' Cathy swallowed. 'Something I haven't
told you.'

           
Hans went very still.

The customers didn't stay
long after Lottie had her flare-up. Led by tactful Frank Manifold Snr, they
drank up smartish.

           
'What about you, pal?' Frank said to Inspector Ashton as
he deposited his empty glass on the bar top. 'Haven't you got some traffic to
direct or summat?'

           
Lottie said, it's OK, Frank. It's me. I'm overwrought.'
           
She turned to Ashton. 'Have
another. On the house.'

           
'No, this chap's right,' Ashton said. 'You've enough
problems without me.'

           
'No,' Lottie said, 'I want your advice. I've had ...
intruders.'

Then Joel arrived to take
up residence at Bridelow Rectory, and found Alfred Beckett replacing a broken
window in the pantry.

           
He stood over the little man. Perhaps, he ventured
sarcastically, some explanation was due.

           
'Well.' Mr Beckett thumbed a line of putty into the
window-frame. 'I
would
have been
theer, like. Never missed a morning service in thirty year. Except in an
emergency.'

           
Like this problem here. Which, as Mr Beard could see, he
was at this moment putting right before it started raining again causing
everything in the pantry to be soaked through and ruined.

           
'Mr Beckett,' Joel snarled. 'You are the organist.'

           
'Aye,' said Mr Beckett uncomfortably. 'That's true, like,
but ...'

           
'But nothing! You
knew
there would be no congregation. You knew no one would come.'

           
'Nay,' said Mr Beckett. 'Nobody come? Well, bugger me.'

           
Joel felt a red haze developing behind his eyes. He
wondered briefly if the hypocritical little rat hadn't smashed the Rectory
window himself as a lame excuse for his non-appearance.

           
'Bloody vandals,' Mr Beckett said, expertly sliding in
the new pane of glass. 'Never used to get no vandalism in this village, and
that's a fact, Mr Beard.'

           
Joel stared at him.

           
You're nobbut a
thick bloody vandal wi' no more brains than pig shit.

           
Joel snatched the ball of putty from the window-ledge and
sent it with a splat to the pantry floor.

           
'Mrs Wagstaff,' he said icily. 'Mrs Wagstaff is behind
all this.'

           
'Nay,' said Mr Beckett.

           
'Why can't
any
of you people tell the truth?' This devious little man was the only villager
who derived a small income from the Church and doubtless could not afford to
lose it. 'When I came past her cottage not half an hour ago, Mrs Wagstaff had
not yet deigned to draw back her curtains. What, pray, is your interpretation
of that?'

           
Mr Beckett scraped up his ball of putty.

           
'Cause she's bloody dead,' he said. 'Why d'you think?'

Feeling his holy rage
congealing into a hideous mess, Joel walked numbly through the kitchen, down
the hall and into Hans Gruber's study.

           
Had the old woman spoken to neighbours of her encounter
yesterday by the pagan shrine? He remembered, with no pleasure now, the
gratification he'd allowed himself to feel as he left her in the churchyard and
watched her stumping angrily away. The feeling that he finally had her on the
run.

           
Had she run hard enough to bring on a stroke? To give her
a heart attack?

           
Was there a general feeling that he, Joel, was
responsible for her death? And for Hans's collapse at the graveside? Was that
what this was all about?

           
Joel sat bowed across Hans's desk, his fingers splayed
over his eyes. Was this to be his reward for following his Christian instincts,
reacting fiercely and publicly as God's blunt instrument?
           
Was
it?

           
Joel lowered his hands and saw a tower of books before
him on the desk. Amidst the acceptable, routine theology, he saw inflammatory
titles as
The Celtic Way ... The Virgin
and
the Goddess ... Pagan Celtic Britain ... The Celtic Creed ... The Tenets of
Witchcraft
. Evidence of Hans's attempts to rationalise this evil, the way
one might seek to explain crime in era of social deprivation.

           
When it came to basics, Joel had no great illusions about
himself. He was not a scholarly man. His strength was ... well, literally that.
His strength.

           
He wasn't going to be able to work in this study. He'd
lock the door on Hans's collection of pornography, just as he'd locked the
dungeon door behind him. Ante-rooms to hell, both of them.

           
With a sweep of his arm which sent the books in the pile
spinning to the four corners of the room, he experienced again the sublime
grace of movement he'd felt as he leaned from the ladder and slashed the cord
which bound the Autumn Cross.

           
Bound to be casualties. But he would go on. He must.

She led him out of the back
door to an old barn of a place only a few yards from the main building.
Unlocked the door.
           
'How did they get in?' Ashton
asked,
           
'I don't know.'
           
'No windows forced?'
           
Lottie shook her head,
bewildered.
           
'What's been taken?'

           
Lottie still shaking her head. 'Nothing. Nothing I can
see.'

           
Ashton looked hard at her and let her see that he was
looking. Was this a wind-up? Or was there a mental problem?

           
He didn't think so. She was standing in the middle of the
barn, hands on hips, the sleeves of a bulky Scandinavian-type cardigan pushed
up to the elbows.

           
She had firm, strong arms.

           
'Mrs Castle ...'

           
'I know. You think I'm off my head.'
           
'I didn't say anything

           
'Well, me too, Mr Ashton. I think I must be cracking up.'

           
'Gary,' he said. 'And I'd like to help. If I can.'

           
'You not got better things to do? One of the lads was
saying there's a big police hunt up on the moors.'

           
'That's South Yorkshire's,' Ashton said. 'Our manor
finishes just this side of the Moss. We'll help if we're asked, but we've not
been asked. I'm off-duty anyroad.'

           
'Who're they looking for?'

           
'Farmer. Don't ask me his name. Went off after some
trespassers last night and didn't come back. Had his shotgun with him, that's
the worry. Why? You think it might be the same hooligans broke in here?'

           
Lottie shook her head again. It wasn't so much a denial,
Ashton thought, as an attempt to shake something out.

           
'But then,' he said gently, 'there wasn't a break-in
here, was there, Mrs Castle?'

           
'There had to've been,' Lottie said, quietly insistent.
'There's no other explanation.'

           
Ashton sat down on the edge of a dusty old couch next to
a black thing that made him think of a dead animal, all skin and bones. He saw
Mrs Castle glance at it briefly and recoil slightly.

           
'What's this?' Ashton was curious. There was a flute bit
sticking out of it, with airholes.

           
'That?' Lottie said. 'That's the Pennine Pipes, Mr
Ashton. Primitive kind of bagpipe. My husband's instrument. Woke me ...' She
hesitated. 'Woke me up, Mr Ashton. About two o'clock this morning.'

           
'What did?'

           
'Them. The pipes. Somebody down here playing the pipe'.
You think I could mistake that noise after living with it twenty-odd years?'

           
Ashton experienced a sensation like the tip of a brittle
fingernail stroking the nape of his neck.
           
He said, 'What did you do?'