The Man in the Moss (76 page)

           
'Who are you?' Joel said. 'Why are you doing this?'

           
'My name,' said the man, extending a long, slender, white
hand, 'is John. And I was born here.'

           
Joel took the hand firmly. He had developed a manly
handshake which some recipients apparently found crushing.
           
This hand, he found when his
fingers closed on it, was not crushable; it was like high-tensile steel.

           
He recognized strength.

           
'May I come in?' he asked politely.

           
'M' dear boy ...' The man called John stepped to one
side. 'Interesting weather, have to say that. Washes away the murk of the past,
perhaps.'

           
'Did you find it was ... murky ... when you lived here?'

           
'Mr Beard, it was layer upon layer. Tell me - small point
- what are your views on the ordination of women?'

           
'I deplore it,' said Joel from the heart. 'I shall always
deplore it.'

           
'Well said. Probably hasn't escaped your notice that the
so-called spirituality of this place has been steered for generations by
women.'

           
'They call this spirituality?' Joel gestured towards the
space where the pagan abomination had spread her legs.

           
John lifted his hands. 'My point entirely. Expressed, in
various ways, many years ago. Before I was made to leave. Not much more than a
boy at the time. Excluded. And then sent away. Do what they like, these
close-knit communities.'

           
'Made to leave? Because you stood out against their
witchery?'

           
John shrugged.

           
'It's barely credible,' said Joel.

           
'I'll be quite frank with you, Joel - may I call you
Joel, I feel we've known each other so long now - I'll be quite honest, I
promised myself that one day, I'd see them and their way of life destroyed. Can
you understand that?'

'"Vengeance is mine
sayeth the "Lord." However, in certain circumstances, we're all
tools, are we not? I've always seen myself as a tool.'

           
'Quite.' John pulled open the inner door into the church
itself and stepped through into the amber-lit interior. He moved like a
partially blind man, feeling his way. He kept touching things, placing his
hands on the walls, the pillars, the pew-ends, as if surprised that he was not
receiving electric shocks.

           
'It's been cleansed,' Joel said. 'But it's still
vulnerable. Was Hans Gruber here in your time?'

           
'Who? Oh, the collaborating minister. No, I left many
years before he arrived. Fellow called Boston in my day. But much the same, y'
know. Much the same.'

           
'A quisling?'

           
'They're all tamed within a remarkably short space of
time. Which is why I thought
you
should
be alerted.'
           
'How did you know I'd come
here?'

           
'Dear boy, could you have
resisted
it? Besides which, there
was
Archdeacon Flemming.'

           
'Oh.'

           
'Friends of friends, y' know.'

           
Joel was vaguely disappointed. He'd seen his mission to
Bridelow in terms of divine orchestration rather than human machination. And
yet, could not the two be interlinked?

           
'Gone mostly unchallenged for centuries y' know,' John
said. 'And so when local papers were passed to me, relating your adventures in
Sheffield, it was clear you were The Man

for The Job, as it were.
All the namby-pamby clerics around. All the airy-fairy, New Age nancy-boys. No.
Anybody could rattle them, Joel, it was going to be you.'

           
John walked slowly up the nave. Even the amber lights
failed to colour the pallor of his skin or the snow-white hair receding in
ridges from his grey-freckled forehead.

           
'Used to have crosses here, made of twigs and things,
dangling down. Kiddies would be sent out to collect the entrails.'

           
'Gone. I dealt with it. And their nasty little shrine at
the edge of the moor.'

           
'But your friends have chickened out. Why was that?'

           
'There was . . Joel shook water from his curls, '... a
manifestation of evil. Some of them couldn't... cope. John, I have to know ...
are you a priest?'

           
John's yellow teeth reappeared. 'Joel,' he said. 'I've
told you as much as I can about me and more than I should.'

           
'I thought so,' said Joel. He paused. 'It isn't over, is
it? If it were, you wouldn't be here.'

           
'Well deduced, Joel, m' boy. Have you ever been up to the
lamp?'

           
Joel stared at him. He felt an almost chemical excitement
in his stomach. 'The so-called Beacon?'

           
'I said we'd put it out, didn't I? I said between us we'd
put out the Devil's Light. So. After you, m' boy.'

           
'Where?'

           
'To the stairs. Do you have a hammer?'
           
'I believe there's one in the
shed, bottom of the churchyard.'

           
John looked at his watch. 'No time, old lad. Witching
hour approaches. Have to make do with what we've got.'

           
He grinned, affable, relaxed and not quite like any
priest Joel had ever encountered.

'Stanage fixed it,' Macbeth
said, 'so Moira would be performing at the Celtic convention. He also requested
that she play a certain song, called "The Comb Song", which was of,
uh, personal significance to her.'

           
'I know.' Willie Wagstaff started to pour out more
whisky, then changed his mind and capped the bottle. 'I was there, must be ten
years ago, when that song was recorded. My contribution seems to have been
chopped in the final mix, but she wanted friends around her during the session.
She invited Matt and me, but Matt couldn't come, I think probably Lottie
wouldn't let him.'

           
Macbeth was a mite dismayed. 'Said she hadn't told anyone
the background to that song before.'

           
'She didn't, lad, far as I know. She just wanted us to be
there. She never told us what it were about and I didn't ask.'

           
Macbeth felt a small pinprick of tears. Quickly, to cover
up, he began to tell them about the deer-head incident.

           
'See, just before it happened, it grew real cold in that
room and real tense, like a thunderstorm's on the way. Afterwards, this guy —
who I now know to be Stanage - is close up to Moira, and he's bleeding from one
eye. Probably got hit by a shaft of bone. Looking back, I get the feeling there
was some kind of contest - that's too mild a word, some kind of struggle,
battle of wills ... and that's what caused it. I started thinking of two stags
locking horns. But there was so much ...'

           
'Energy.' Milly Gill was nodding. 'So much energy that it
exploded in the atmosphere and brought down all these ... things '

           
'See, another thing, Moira felt pretty negative about the
deer heads, the idea of guys like the Earl blasting off at defenceless animals
for kicks and then hanging the heads on their walls. Not the old Celtic way,
she said, to boast about, I dunno, the superiority of one species over another.
Or maybe I heard that someplace.'

           
Ernie Dawber chuckled. 'The Celts were more likely to display
human
heads. But even then, as you
say, not gratuitously.'

           
'It does sound, doesn't it,' Milly said, 'if what you say
about him bleeding is correct, that if there was a contest, then Moira won it.'

           
'He wouldn't like that,' Willy said. Macbeth sensed that
beneath the table the little guy's fingers were beating bruises into his knees.
He found his own fists were clenching.

           
'But why'd he target Moira, that's the question? What'd
he want with her?'

           
Willie said, 'Well, it's no coincidence, is it?'

           
Ernie Dawber looked up at the wall-clock, hand-painted
with spring flowers. 'I don't want to hurry you, but I'm not sure where this is
getting us.'

           
Willie stood up suddenly. His nose twitched in disgust.
'Getting us a damn sight further than talk of sacrifice, Mr Dawber.'

           
Macbeth said, 'Sac ... ?' and Ernie Dawber put a finger
to his lips.

           
'Don't you think, for his own good, it would be better if
Mr Macbeth were to leave us?'

           
'Bollocks to that.' Willie's eyes flashed and he thumped
a hand down on the table.

           
Milly Gill said, 'Willie ...'

           
'And bollocks to your daft ideas, Mr Dawber. We might
have taken some bullshit off you when you was headmaster, but not any more. If
Jack's behind this, least we know what we're up against.'

           
'And you think that makes it any better, Willie?' Ernie
Dawber shook his head. 'No, this is a man who was a danger to us all at the age
of sixteen. Now he's rich and powerful, he's had half a lifetime of indulgence
in esoteric studies of what you might call the most dubious kind. He's got a
hatred for Bridelow inside him that's been fermenting for about half a century.
And you're saying we don't need drastic action to protect us?'

           
'If John Peveril Stanage is in some way responsible for
the death of Moira Cairns,' Macbeth said grimly, 'please, just point me in the
right direction and I will go bust this bastard's ass.'

           
Willie and his woman looked at each other,
stark
hopelessness in their
eyes.

           
'I hope you're not trying to tell me,' said Ernie Dawber,
with dignity, 'that our American friend is in some respect
less
irrational than I am?'

           
'I wouldn't try to tell you anything, Mr Dawber, you're
the schoolmaster and I know my place.'

           
'Willie!'

           
'I've had it, lass. I've had enough of this crap. If you
want to go out on the Moss and kill Mr Dawber, just do it.'

           
He stopped because the door had opened. Macbeth saw there
was another woman in the room, standing quite still, watching them.

           
She was young, maybe mid-twenties. Rain sparkled in her
thin, blonde hair and there were big globules of it like tiny winking lights
against the dark blue of her duffel coat.

           
'You left the Post Office door unlocked again, Milly.
You'll have armed robbers in.'

           
'Cathy.' Ernie Dawber stood up, his hat in one hand, the
cup and saucer balanced on the other. 'I thought you'd gone back to college.'

           
'You really think I could leave at a time like this, Mr
Dawber? Sit down. Please.'

           
The girl walked into the room, glanced at Macbeth and
thought for a moment, then apparently decided to go ahead anyhow.

           
'Am I right in concluding, Mr Dawber, you've been
offering yourself as a replacement for the Man in the Moss?'

           
Macbeth closed his eyes, wondering briefly what the
prospects were of him awakening in his hotel bedroom in Glasgow with a real
lulu of a hangover and Moira Cairns still alive
someplace. When, with a sigh, he opened them again into the slightly tawdry
light of Milly Gill's many-petalled parlour, Milly was saying, 'How long have
you been on the other side of that door, Cathy?'

           
'Long enough.' The girl turned back to the old man. 'Mr
Dawber, let's get one thing cleared up. The Man in the Moss was in what, in his
day, would have been considered the prime of life. To us, he'd be a young lad.'

           
Ernie Dawber placed his cup and saucer on the table and
took his hat in both hands.