The Man in the Moss (68 page)

           
The old chap said, 'Difficult times, lass. The outside's
invading us. The White. The Black. Joel Beard. Gannons.'

           
'Yes,' Milly let go of his hand, 'it
is
an invasion. The worst kind. The kind you don't notice until
it's on you.'

           
'You see, I don't quite know how it's done,' Mr Dawber
said, matter-of-factly. 'I thought you might.'

           
'How what's done, Mr Dawber?'

           
'Why, the Triple Death, of course.'

           
'I don't like the way you're talking, Mr Dawber.'

           
'You see, I wouldn't like to cause any trouble for anybody.
That is, I wouldn't like it to look like
murder
.
So what I'll do is happen retire to the seaside. Health reasons. The owd
chest's never been good. Got relatives in Bournemouth, you know.'

           
'Bournemouth,' Milly repeated.

           
'Aye, and nobody'll be interested enough to prove
otherwise. I've packaged up the deeds and stuff, of the house, and I've left
them with the manuscript, to go to Hans when he returns. With instructions that
the house should be let, peppercorn rent, to somebody as needs one. Happen a
new historian. Won't be called Dawber, but that wasn't much of a tradition, was
it? Anyroad, I've tied things up very nicely, actually. I'll've gone. To the
seaside.'

           
'Aye,' Willie said. 'You sound like you could use a
holiday, Mr Dawber. Good long rest, eh?'

           
'I'll have that all right. In the Moss.'

           
Wearing a chilling half-smile, he carried on talking as
if he couldn't see the pair of them staring at him, frozen.

           
'You know, when I first read the British Museum report it
sounded quite horrific, but the more I thought about it ... Well, the
garrotting bit and the cutting of the throat - that was mostly symbolic. He
wouldn't have felt any of that because they'd have tapped him on the head
first, you see.'

           
'Mr Dawber ...' Milly stood up. 'I can't believe what I'm
hearing and I'll not have you talking like this in my house any more.'

           
I'm an owd man, Millicent. I've done me bit, had some
good times.'

           
'And you'll have some more.'

           
'No.' He shook his head. 'There'll be no more good times
for any of us, unless we do summat drastic. They've taken the Man in the Moss.
This is far worse than the University or the British Museum taking him. He's
gone to the dark. And it's All-Hallows. The Celtic New Year's Eve.'

           
'I know what day it is,' Milly snapped. 'I'm supposed to
be a bloody witch. '

           
Time of change. Time to look back, store what's useful
and important, discard the old stuff as isn't. Time when worlds overlap. Time
to
act.
Sit down, Millicent.'

           
'Act?' Willie came aware of the power of the sheeting
rain, could hear it smashing at the roof slates. A power surge brought a quiver
to Milly's tulip-shaded standard lamp.

The lady bartender said,
'Stan, would you take over, I'm sorry,' and steered Mungo Macbeth into a back
room, a big, chilly-looking kitchen.

           
'Who
are
you?'
she demanded.

           
He told her his name again. He insisted he was a friend
of Moira's. He repeated what he'd said in the bar, that he needed to talk to
her. Urgently.

           
'She's not here. Why did you think she would be?'
           
The woman was good-looking
with a strong face, but she also looked like she was carrying a lot of trouble,
her eyes vibrant with anxiety. She crossed the flagged floor to a big iron
stove and laid her hands on it.

           
Macbeth said, 'I didn't think she'd be
here
, specially. Not this inn. This was
the first place I came to, is all. With lights on. After I crossed the bridge.'
           
'What bridge?'
           
'Over the water.'

           
'It's a bog,' she said, it's not water.'

           
'I'm a stranger. Never came this way before. I'm sorry if
I seem ignorant, Mrs ...'
           
'Castle,' she said.

           
'Oh, Jesus,' Macbeth said, 'I guess that means you're
Matt Castle's ...'

           
'Widow.'
           
'I'm sorry.'

           
'Why should you be?' she said sharply. 'You didn't know
him, did you?'

           
All you could hear in the kitchen was the sound of rain
splashing on the yard outside with the force of a broken fire-hydrant.

           
'No,' he said, 'I knew that Moira ... thought a lot about
him.' Shit. What'd I walk into here?

           
'Yes.' She bit her lip. 'Look, the last I heard, Moira
was staying at the Rectory.'

           
'I called the Rectory. There were quite a few people
there. They said she was, uh, no longer around.'

           
'The Born Agains, that would be. What would they know?
How far've you come?'

           
'From Glasgow.'

           
'
Glasgow
? You
drove all the way down from Glasgow? In this? Well, Mr ... I'm sorry ...'
           
'Macbeth.'

           
'Yes. Well, I suppose it isn't too surprising. Quite a
few blokes have done crazy things for Moira Cairns.' A faint smile penetrated
the anxiety. 'Look, we'll make some phone calls, shall we? See if we can find
out where she is. There's a chap called Willie Wagstaff who might just know.
It's funny he's not in tonight, actually. I'll give him a ring.'

           
'You're very kind. I'm sorry. I just had no idea who you
were.'

           
'That's all right.'

           
'Is this your inn? What I mean is, you, uh ...'
           
'Do you need somewhere to stay
tonight, Mr Macbeth?'
           
She gave him a look that was
almost a plea.
           
'I guess I do,' he said. 'You
have a room?'
           
'Yes,' she said gratefully, 'I
have a room.'

'I've spent the last couple
of days studying and thinking,' Mr Dawber said. 'In the end, you see, I'm a man
of logic.'
           
Christ, Willie thought,
preserve us from logic

           
'Bridelow's is a peculiar logic, but logic it is. But our
grasp of it has been gradually weakened.'

           
'Can't build a wall,' Willie said. 'Can't keep the modern
world out for ever.'

           
'We did have a wall,' Milly said despondently. 'But I
don't think I was cut out to be a brickie.'

           
Willie longed to give her a cuddle. For his benefit as
much as hers. Longed to build up the fire, with crackling logs to block out the
rain. His kind of wall. He thought about Joel Beard and his born-again mob,
exulting and singing in tongues in the dying church:
their
kind of wall.

           
Mr Dawber picked up Milly's chubby hand and held it.
'Tonight, lass. If this wall finally comes down, it'll most likely be tonight,
because somebody has the Man and they'll use him for evil. And that'll finish
it.'

           
Old bugger's spent more than a couple of days on this,
Willie thought. Ma's been schooling him.
They're
looking for openings. Looking for cracks in the wall. Been gathering out there
for years, hundreds of years.

           
Mr Dawber looked steadily at Milly. 'You've got to
replace the Man, my dear.'

           
'
Her
?' Willie
spluttered. '
She
has?'

           
'Ma would have taken charge, but sadly, she's not here.
Which puts you in the firing line, Millicent, I'm afraid, and you've got to be
strong. You're a big girl, if you don't mind me saying so. Big enough to wield
the knife.'

           
Milly screamed and dragged her hand away.

           
Mr Dawber said, 'I know it'll hurt you more than it hurts
me, and I'm sorry, I really am, lass.'

           
He stood up and straightened out the skirts of his mac.
'When I said I didn't go out on the Moss any more, I wasn't being strictly
truthful. I spent a lot of time out there last summer after the Man was found,
working out where he lay in relation to the village and also in relation to the
path marked out by the Beacon of the Moss. Result is, I know just the place to
do it.'

           
'Nay,' Willie said. 'Moss'll have shifted. Besides, there
were no beacon in them days.'

           
'You mean there was no church clock. The beacon was a
real beacon on the hill where the church now stands. And the Moss was more like
a lake. Water to reflect the light.'

           
Willie stood up. 'Look, Mr Dawber, we'll forget you ever
sad all this if you will.'

           
Mr Dawber put on his hat. 'I'll leave you two for a bit.
Perhaps you might summon the Mothers, what's left of them as are well enough to
come out on a night like this, and have a chat about it.'

           
"Hey, come on,' Willie said. 'Get some sleep, Mr Dawber.
We'll see you tomorrow, have a proper chat. All right?'
           
'No, I'll not sleep. I've a
few things to sort out. Few private things to burn. Letters and such.' He
looked at his watch, it's ten to nine now. I'll be back for you soon after
eleven.'

           
Milly shrank away from him. 'Mr Dawber, you don't
seriously ...'

           
'I
do
,' he said
sternly. 'And it's got to be tonight. Tonight has the power. The word is
Samhain, Millicent, although I realise the Mothers have gradually dropped the
old terminology. And on a practical level, the Moss is swollen with rain; when
it goes down, things will be absorbed again, taken in.'

           
'Mr Dawber,' Milly Gill whispered, 'don't do this to me.
Please.'

           
'Perhaps, before I return, something'll have happened
this night to make you see the sense of it. Ma dead? That young lad up on the
moors? How many do you want? Where, for instance, is ... ?' He pulled down his
hat. 'Never mind.'

           
He turned round at the door, and a broad smile was
channelled through the wrinkles, from the corners of his mouth to his eyes, and
his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
           
'I'm not unhappy, tha knows.
Be a lovely thing.'
           
Mr Dawber turned the key in
the double lock and unbolted the front door to the fierce rain and the night.

CHAPTER
V

'You been there before? The
house?'
           
'Mmmm.'
           
' I suppose,' Chrissie said,
'I should be flattered. It's possibly our first official date.'

           
'What did you say?' His eyes flicking over to her then
back to the road, quick as the windscreen wipers.

           
'You haven't been listening to anything I've been saying,
have you?'

           
'Of course I have.'

           
'Doesn't matter. You're obviously preoccupied.'

           
She hadn't wanted to come with him anyway, being actually
in the process of trying to lose his attentions without losing her job. Even if
he
had
been comparatively spectacular
in bed of late.

           
'Did you say something about a date?'
           
'I said it was possibly our
first official one. Where we're actually seen together without a collapsible
coffin between us. I was being flippant, Roger.'

           
'You're here as my assistant,' he said coldly.
           
'Oh, thanks very much. You'll
be paying me, then.'
           
Actually, there was no real
need to be especially nice to him. No way he could get her fired, knowing what
she knew about him and his dealings behind the scenes with the man they were
going to meet.