The Man in the Moss (83 page)

           
Ghost in the mirror? Pipes in the night?

           
Strange atmosphere? Aye, there was. There was a strange
atmosphere all over this whole village tonight, it hit you soon as you crossed
the Moss. Too much rain, for a start, as if it was nature's attempt to cool
something down, to put out a fire somebody was busy stoking under this place.

           
Put that in a bloody police report. Show that to the Superintendent.
Strange atmosphere.
'There was a very
strange atmosphere, boss.'

           
And then Chrissie White said what he'd been faintly
hoping she might.

           
'What if I knew who'd stolen the bogman?'

           
'Ah. Then I'd have a lot more leverage, wouldn't I,
Chrissie?'

           
Chrissie said, 'Have you heard of a writer called John
Peveril Stanage?'

           
'My kids used to read him avidly.' He glanced at Lottie.
'One grown up, now. The other still lives with his mother and her new feller.
Aye, John Peveril Stanage. What about him?'

           
'He's got plans to fund a permanent museum for the
bogman. As you know, Roger would run it. Stanage would have permanent access to
the bogman.'

           
'So why would he nick it? I presume you are saying he
nicked it. Or had it nicked.'

           
'I don't know,' Chrissie said. 'I just think he has.'

           
'Why?' Ashton began to feel less hopeful.

           
'Cause he's invited Roger to some sort of gathering at
Bridelow Hall and he's told him he might be able to find out where it is.'

           
'That's not the same thing, Chrissie. Also, it's presumably
only what Dr Hall's told you.'

           
'Well, that's right. I suspect there's a lot more to it
than that. Can't you get some of your blokes and, raid it or something?'

           
'Oh, aye,' Ashton said. 'The police are always raiding
private parties at the homes of the rich and influential. Matter of course, Mrs
White. Normal procedure. Happen the Chief Constable'll be one of the guests. Or
the MP?'

           
'What if they're doing -I don't know what to call it -
black magic, or something?'

           
'Well, it's not basically against the law, luv. Matter of
religious preference, in the eyes of the British legal system. Unless it
involves children or animals, of course. You think it does?'

           
Chrissie said, 'Roger's been messing about with the
bogman.'

           
Ashton tried not to laugh. 'I really don't think that'd
have them cancelling leave at the Vice Squad. Mrs White ... Chrissie. And Mrs
Castle ... I sympathize, you know I do, or I wouldn't be here. If you want me
to do anything as a policeman, I've got to have something hard, solid and preferably
nothing at all to do with the supernatural.'
           
Lottie said angrily, 'You
think I ...'
           
Ashton held up a hand. 'No, I
don't. That's why I came. You're a nice woman, and things are happening to you
that you don't understand and don't particularly want to understand. I admire
you, Mrs Castle.'

           
'But I'm wasting your time. All right, I'm sorry. You'd
better get off home to your ...'

           
'Flat,' said Ashton. 'What I said was, there was nothing
I could do as a copper. As things stand. However, I also attempt be a bit of a
human being, on the side. Anything I can do in that capacity, I'll be happy to
do it, just as long as it's not illegal and doesn't mean saying ta-ra to me
pension. How's that?'

           
'Thanks,' Chrissie said despondently. 'But we're all of
us semi-qualified human ...'
           
Breaking
off at a hammering on the door. Lottie looked up sharply. Initial alarm, Ashton
noted, soon subsiding into weariness.

           
'Oh, hell, I'd forgotten about him. I've not even made up
his bed.'

           
'Who's this?'

           
'An American chap. Moira's boyfriend. Better let him in
before he sets soaked.

           
'I'll go,' Ashton said. Never know what else it might be
this time of night, do you? Moira's your daughter, is she?'

Milly had given up on
security. The Post Office door was on the latch. Cathy burst through it,
throwing off her coat.

           
'Where is she?'

           
'I'm here. Just don't look at me.'

           
Milly had built up the fire with great cobs of coal.
Moira was hunched over it, feet on the red-tiled hearth, a glass of Guinness
between them. Her jeans and sweater hung from a wire line under the wooden
mantelpiece. She wore a dressing gown of Milly's with a design of giant
daisies. There was a pink towel around her head.

           
Cathy grinned helplessly.

           
Moira said, 'Take more than death to kill me, huh?'

Is that it? Ernie Dawber
wondered. Determined not to see tomorrow's sun? And will anyone? Will we ever
even see the sky again?

           
Getting a bit
whimsy, Ernest?

           
Aye, I am that, Ma. Been whimsy all night. Offered meself
as a sacrifice, Ma. Wanted to go out on the Moss and not come back. Bit
pathetic, eh?

           
He walked with a measured pace towards Bridelow Hall,
shining his torch, making no attempt to conceal his approach.

           
Well, what would you have done, Ma? Doctor tells you it
could be two years, could be six months. Or less. You start to think, where am
I going to be when it happens? Where would I like to be more than Bridelow?
Bridelow as it is now. With the shades of things and the balance. Where else
could I go and actually be any bloody
use?

           
His saturated hat was moulded to his head, the sodden
brim as heavy as a loaded tea tray.

           
Little problem in the brain, Ma. That's why I was thrown
a bit when your Willie lost his rag and raised the issue of my mental state.

           
Ernie chuckled. I suppose you'd have seen the black glow
on me too, eh, owd lass? And said nowt.
           
But did you see it around
yourself?
           
Happen not.

           
Ernie became thoughtful.

           
He didn't need his torch lit when the Hall came into
view. For the Hall was all lights, upstairs and down, and brought back with a
momentary thrill, a picture of the old days when Arthur and Liz held open house
for the brewery workers and their relatives and friends. Which amounted to the
whole village in those days. Liz in a glittery gown, Arthur permitting his
stern eyes a twinkle behind those forbidding horn-rims.

           
And Shaw.

           
Shaw was never there on such occasions. Shaw, they said,
was shy. Shaw could never say the headmaster's name. Mr Der-der . . .

           
'Mr Dawber
,'
Shaw said easily.

           
He stepped out from the brewery entrance gate, the stem
of a stylish golf umbrella propped elegantly across his left shoulder. His dark
suit was perfectly dry.

           
'Good evening, lad,' Ernie said heavily. 'I've come to
see your mother.'

           
'Small problem there, Mr D. Mother's spending the weekend
at a hotel in Buxton. Autumn break.'

           
'Brave of her, lad. Conquered the agoraphobia, then, has
she?'

           
'She hasn't got agoraphobia, Mr Dawber. She's simply
rather a retiring person. Shy, even.'

           
'As you were yourself, Shaw. Perhaps it's an hereditary
problem. Dealt with yours, though, didn't you , lad?'

           
'One alters. As one gets older.'

           
Shaw Horridge, sheltered from the downpour, was smirking.
It brought out the headmaster in Ernie.

           
'Perhaps heredity says it all.' Standing his ground,
dripping. 'I'd like a chat, Shaw Horridge, and I'd like it now.'

           
He'd almost said, 'My office. At once.'

           
For a second, Shaw looked disconcerted.

           
Ernie pocketed his torch. 'I won't go away.'
           
'Won't you?' Shaw's smirk
vanished and was replaced by an expression Ernie didn't recognize but which he found
surprisingly menacing.

           
'Come up to the house, then,' Shaw said.

Two phone calls was all it
took. One to Headquarters, one to the doctor's house. At least this was
something Ashton could do - they'd given him a name in connection with an
incident under investigation; he could check it out.

           
'Thanks very much, Doc,' Ashton said. 'Owe you one.'

           
Lottie was over by the stove again, deep lines in her
face, the permanent frown. Years of Matt Castle in the making, Ashton reckoned,
but not irreversible.

           
The American, Macbeth, was sitting at the kitchen table,
watching him in silence, black hair stuck to his forehead, tension coming off
him like vapour. Chrissie White was watching the American; what was coming off
her wasn't quite seemly under the circumstances.

           
'Well, then,' Ashton said, putting down the phone. They
were all staring at him now. 'Your Miss Cairns. I suppose I'm right in assuming
she was nowhere near her middle-fifties?'

           
Macbeth breathed out in a rush. 'God damn.'

           
'Grey hair?' said Ashton. 'Somewhat overweight?'

           
'But ...' Macbeth sat down next to Chrissie. 'But it was
her car?'

           
'Clearly. With another woman's body in it. What's that
say to you? Mrs Castle? Any other women missing?'

           
'God!' Macbeth had his head in his hands. His body
sagged.
           
Relief. No way you could fake
that.

           
Chrissie smiled thinly. 'Well,' she said, '
that's
all right, then.'

           
Lottie said, 'What did she look like?'

           
'She was badly burned, apparently. As I say, mid-to-late
fifties. Plumpish. Grey hair, quite short. So who is she? And what was she
doing in Miss Cairns's car?'

           
Macbeth looked up. There were tears in his eyes.

           
Ashton let his gaze rest on the American. 'There is, of
course, another question. Two, perhaps. Where is Miss Cairns? And what does she
know about this woman's death?'

           
'Hey,' Macbeth said. 'Come on ...'

           
'Has to be asked, sir.' And other questions. Like, what's
brought this American all the way from Glasgow in the worst driving conditions
of the year so far, and what's he doing in this country anyway?

           
Macbeth said, 'How official is this?'

           
'Well, now,' Ashton said, 'that depends, doesn't it?'

           
Macbeth said nothing for nearly half a minute, then he
spread his hands. 'OK. How much you know about a guy name of John Peveril
Stanage?'

           
Chrissie gasped, and Ashton allowed himself a sigh of
manifest satisfaction.

Moira was choking.

           
'Jesus, what the hell is this stuff?'
           
'Shurrup and get it down,'
Milly said.
           
'Yeah, but what….?'

           
'Ma Wagstaff's Crisis Mixture,' said Milly. 'Last
bottle.'

           
'Tastes like something scraped off the floor at a foot
clinic.'

           
Cathy said seriously, 'Drink it, Moira. We need you.'

           
She drank it. She drank it all, every last nauseating
mushroom-coloured drop. All the time watching Cathy over the glass, the girl's
narrow face taut with concentration.