The Man in the Moss (66 page)

           
'And what happened?' Ernie said after a while. He thought
of himself as one of the dried-out roots hanging in bundles from the
cross-beam. Shrivelled, easy to snap, but possessed of certain condensed
pungency. Put him in the soup and he could still restore the flavour. He looked
closely at Milly and saw she was weeping silently.

           
'Well?' he said softly.

           
'If she was telling me anything,' Milly said, 'I couldn't
hear it. Couldn't hear for the rain.'

Shaw said, 'What have you
got on under that cloak?'

           
'Not a thing.' Sitting at Shaw's mother's dressing table,
Therese had rubbed some sort of foundation stuff into her face, to darken her
complexion, and painted around her eyes. 'But it's not for you tonight. You can
get excited though, if you like - make him jealous.'

           
Shaw touched her shoulder through the black wool.
           
She turned and looked at him,
her eyes very dark. The look said, Get away from me.
           
Shaw winced.

           
He looked over at the bed, at his mother's well-worn
dressing gown thrown across it. He was surprised she hadn't taken it with her.

           
'Therese,' he said, 'how was she really? When she left.'

           
'Your mother? Fine. She'll be enjoying the change.'

           
'I'm not
over
-happy
about it. She's a dismal old cow, but ...'

           
'Relax. Or rather, don't relax. Look, she didn't
want
to be here. She's really not very
sociable these days, is she? Especially where the brewery's concerned.'

           
He watched Therese's eyes in the mirror. She could
always, in any circumstances, make things happen. Yesterday, his mother had
been almost hysterical when he said he'd be bringing the Gannons chairman over
for drinks. This morning the old girl was missing but Therese - miraculously,
shockingly - was in Shaw's bed, and Therese said, 'Oh, I popped in last night,
and we had a terrific heart-to-heart, Liz and I. She's become far too insular,
you know, losing all her confidence. Anyway, I persuaded her to go to the
Palace in Buxton for a couple of days. Packed her case, ordered her a taxi
before she could change her mind. Wasn't that clever of me?'

           
Yes, yes, he'd been so relieved. The old girl would have
been suspicious as anything if he'd suggested it. He remembered the Malta idea.
Hopeless. But trust Therese to win her confidence.

           
Trust Therese. Drifting around the house rearranging
things; how the house had changed in just a few hours, a museum coming alive.

           
'What've you got there?'

           
She'd picked up a black cloth bag from the dressing
table, tightened its drawstrings and set it down again.

           
'Hair.' She turned the word into a long, satisfied breath
'Beautiful, long black hair.'

           
'Hair?'

           
'With a single gorgeous strand of white. I had to use a
wig for so long. But there's no substitute for the real thing.'
           
'Can I look?'

           
'Of course not. Don't you learn
anything
? If it's taken out now, it loses half its energy. That was
why it was important to leave her as long as possible. And it's nicely matted
with blood, too, now, which is a bonus.'

           
'It's all moving too fast for me,' said Shaw. 'That comb
... does that tie in?'

           
'Well, the comb was a problem at first, actually. It's
had to be sort of reconsecrated. We're not touching that either until the
moment comes.'

           
She stretched. Her slim arms - leanly, tautly muscular -
emerging from the folds of the black cloak. 'Then I shall uncover the hair and
run the comb through it. You know how combing your hair can generate
electricity? If you comb it in the dark, looking into a mirror, you can
sometimes see blue sparks. Ever done that?'

           
'With
my
hair?'

           
Therese laughed. 'Poor Shaw. One day, perhaps.'
           
Shaw said, 'I'm sure it must
have grown another quarter of an inch since I ... you know, since Ma Wagstaff.'

           
'There you are, you see. First you simply felt better.
Now you even
look
better. And after
tonight ...'

           
Shaw said, 'I'm not sure I really want to be there. I'll
be so scared, I'll probably screw up or something.'

           
'Nonsense.' Therese lifted the hood of the cloak. 'How do
I look?'

           
Her voice had a husky, slightly Scottish edge.
           
Shaw shuddered.

CHAPTER
III

Mungo Macbeth figured at
first, irrationally, that he must have reached the coast.
           
Came over the hill through
rain which was almost equatorial in its intensity, and there was this sensation
of bulk water below and beyond his headlights. Too wide for a river - assuming
Britain didn't have anything on the scale of the Mississippi in flood.

           
And there was a lighthouse across the bay. The light was
a radiant blue-white and sent a shallow beam over black waves he couldn't see.
Only, unlike a lighthouse, it wasn't rotating, which was strange.

           
Macbeth stopped the car and lit a cigarette. He'd pulled
in for gas near Macclesfield, looked up into the hard rain and the lightless
hills and abruptly decided, after six years, to take up smoking again. Thus far
it was not a decision he'd had cause to repent.

           
He turned off the wipers and the headlights; the rain
spread molecules of blue light all over the windshield.
           
The sign had said Bridelow, so
this had to be it.
           
Or rather,
that
had to be it.

           
The road carried on straight ahead and from here it
looked likely to vanish after a few yards under the black water. Which was no
way to die.

           
Macbeth finished his cigarette, slid the car into gear -
still not used to gears - and then set off very slowly, headlights full on,
thinking of Moira, how mad she was going to be when he showed up. Wondering
what her hair would look like in the rain.

           
Moira Cairns: the One Big Thing.

The later it got, the
harder it rained, the more frightened Lottie became of the night and what it
might hold.

           
Not that she was inclined to show this fear. Not to the
customers and especially not to herself. Every time she caught sight of her
face in the mirror behind the bar, she tightened her lips and pulled them into
what was supposed to be a wry smile. In the ghostly light from Matt's lovingly
reconstructed gas-mantle, it looked, to her, gaunt and dreadful, corpselike.
           
Lottie shivered, longed for
the meagre comfort of the kitchen stove and its hot-plate covers.

           
'All right, luv?' Stan Burrows said. 'Want a rest? Want
me to take over?'

           
Big, bluff Stan, who'd been the brewery foreman - first
to lose his job under the Gannons regime. If she could afford it, it would be
nice to keep the pub, install Sun as full-time manager.

           
And
then
clear
off.

           
Lottie shook her head. He must have noticed her
agitation. She thought of a rational explanation to satisfy him.

           
'Stan, it isn't ...
dangerous,
is it? You know, with all this rain getting absorbed into the Moss. Doesn't
flood or anything?'

           
'Well, I wouldn't go out theer for a midnight stroll.'
Stan made a diving motion with stiffened fingers. 'Eight or nine foot deep in
places. You might not drown but you'll get mucky. Still, I'm saying that -
people
have
died out theer, but not
for a long time. Don't think about it, best way.'

           
'Hard not to,' Lottie said. 'Living here.'

           
'Used to be folk,' said a retired farmer called Harold
Halsall, 'as could take you across that Moss by night in any conditions. Follow
the light, they used say. Beacon of the Moss. All dead now.'

           
'Fell in, most likely,' said Young Frank Manifold.
'Bloody place this is, eh? Moss on one side, moors on t'other, wi' owd quarries
and such. Why do we bloody stay?'

           
Frank and his mates had spent the afternoon helping in
the search for Sam Davis, found dead in a disused quarry just before dusk.

           
'Bad do, that, Frank.' Harold Halsall had picked up the
reference. 'Used to be me brother's farm, that. Never did well out of it, our
George - salesman now, cattle feed. Is it right that when they found yon lad's
shotgun he'd loosed off both barrels?'

           
'Leave it, Harold,' said Stan Burrows, nicking a quick
glance at Lottie. They'd spent nearly an hour discussing the Sam Davis incident
before Harold had come in. Stan probably imagined that was adding to Lottie's
nerves: the thought of being all alone here while whoever Sam had been chasing
when he went over the quarry was still on the loose.

           
If it was only that ... Lottie turned away.

           
'Tell you what.' Young Frank'd had a bit too much to
drink again. More than one person had been saying it was time he went out and
found himself another job. 'I wish I had a bloody shotgun. Fire a few off
outside t'church, I would.'

           
Lottie groaned. Tonight's
other
topic of conversation.

           
'Soon bring that bastard out,' said Frank. 'Him and his
children of God. Then I'd fill him in, good.'

           
'Don't think you would, Frank,' Stan Burrows said. 'He's
a big lad, that curate. Once had trials for Castleford, somebody said. Nay,
he'll quieten down. Let him get it out of his system. All he's doing's making
what you might call a statement.'

           
'Twat,' said Frank.

           
'Don't rise to it,' Stan said. 'Best way. Mothers'll not
...' Stan realised he'd uttered a word Lottie preferred not to hear in her bar.
'Aye,' he said. 'Well.'

           
It went quiet. Not sure what they were allowed to talk
about. Be better for everyone, Lottie thought, when I've gone.

           
She heard running feet on the cobbles outside and the
gaslight sputtered as the door was thrown open. The porch lamp showed up rain
like six-inch nails.

           
All the lads looking up from their drinks.

           
'Jeez.'

           
He wore a sweater and jeans. He shook raindrops out of
black, wavy hair. Lottie didn't recognise him.

           
'Wet enough for you?' she said. Nobody drove out for a
casual pint at The Man I'th Moss on dark autumn nights, and he certainly wasn't
dressed like a rambler.

           
'Wet enough for Jacques Cousteau,' he said and grinned,
brushing droplets from his sweater. It was, Lottie noticed, a very expensive
soft-knit sweater. Cashmere, probably.
           
Lottie laughed. 'What would
you like?'
           
'Scotch,' he said. 'Please.
Any kind. No ice.'
           
'Oh,' she said, surprised.
'You're American. Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that.'

           
'Bloody hell,' Young Frank Manifold called over, 'I know
visibility's bad out there, mate, but I think tha's missed the turn-off for
Highway 61.'

It began just like any
normal hymn - well, normal for them.

           
Sort of hymn Barry Manilow might have written, Willie
thought. Slow and strong, with a rolling rhythm and a big, soaring chorus,
undeniably catchy. One of the Angels of the New Advent was playing the organ,
backed up by a portable drum machine with an amplifier set up under the
lectern. Willie couldn't prevent his fingers going into action on his blue
serge knees.

           
Didn't reckon much to the words. Modern language, but
humourless. No style.