Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

"Yes."

"Another letter?"

"No, a phone call."

"When?"

"Just now."

"Ok, Mr. Dewhurst, now please tell me exactly what the message was."

"He said it was a man he said: "Go to Little John's Well. There'll be a note for you. Don't tell the police."

"And that's all?"

"Yes."

"I take it you are at home?"

"That's right."

"Well, stay put and I'll be with you in about ten minutes. We'll go together."

"No, he might be watching. I'm going now."

And he hung up.

"Bugger!" I exclaimed, and repeated the bits that Gilbert hadn't heard. After a few moments' thought I said: "How's this sound, Gilbert? I'll try to beat him to the note. If you radio Traffic they might be able to hold him up while allowing me a few liberties with the speed limit."

"Yes, no problem. Then I'll raise Sparky and Nigel and have them standing by. Once you find the note we can take it from there."

I grabbed my book of numbers and wrote out a couple for Gilbert. After stuffing a few plastic bags into my pockets I was down the stairs faster than a lighthouse keeper with diarrhoea and an outside toilet.

Twenty minutes later, cruising at a cool hundred and ten near the Castleford turn-off of the M62"I passed a Traffic BMW and a white Toyota Supra parked on the hard shoulder. So far, so good.

There were five assorted drinks cans in the well, but only one had an end cut off with a tin opener. I didn't pick it up immediately. No tyre marks or imprints of obscure trainers announced themselves. Only crisp packets, fast food containers and a disposable nappy. I put my usual curse on my fellow men and their habits and retrieved the Coke can. The note, printed by computer, said:

Al NORTH. 69 MILES. LAY-BY BEFORE B6275.

I had a book of maps in the car but I happened to know the B6275. It starts just past Scotch Comerand was an interesting route to Scotland before the motor ways were built. On the map it looks as straight as a centurion's backbone, but the map is flat. The B6275 is the biggest switchback in the country.

Nigel was in the office when I rang on the mobile, and he said Sparky was hovering by the phone at home. I relayed the contents of the note and told them to follow me. "And fetch the Almanac, please. We might need it."

Traffic was heavy, so it took me well over an hour to find the lay-by, and the light was fading fast. An elderly couple were having a picnic in a Maestro. They watched me walk to and fro as they masticated their ham sandwiches, faces devoid of expression. A miniature television was perched on the dashboard of their car they were having a night out.

Maybe they have obnoxious neighbours, I decided, struggling to justify their behaviour.

The Coke can was wedged in the branches of a hawthorn bush, five yards in front of the Maestro. I pulled an exhibit bag over my hand and retrieved it. The couple's jaws moved up and down in unison, as implacable as a steam engine. I wrote down their registration number.

The note in the can read:

CAP STICK COLLIERY. BLACKSMITHS. 35 MILES

Now I had to consult the book of maps. There'd been a big fuss about a pit closing somewhere about six months ago. Last coal mine in the area. They'd held marches and meetings, and a couple of MPs had staged an underground sit-in; but it had closed just the same. I had a feeling it had been Capstick.

I needed longer arms. Either that or a pair of spectacles. The thought dismayed me soon it'd be the teeth. By holding the book directly under the light and squinting I could just read the index.

Then I found Capstick on the map. I made a note of the road numbers, rang the other two and set off. It was right where the map said it should be. A sign at the entrance to the town told me they were twinned with a place that sounded like a bad hand at Scrabble.

The weekend starts on Thursday amongst the young. The narrow main street was alive with youths dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in spite of the drizzle, and girls in the shortest minis I'd seen in years. They were in single-sex groups of three or four. Presumably some sort of pairing-off process would be enacted throughout the evening, after the ritualistic consumption of large quantities of lager. Ah, those were the days.

I drove slowly past the curry houses and the taxi drivers dozing in their Ladas, waiting for the evening's trade to begin. Many businesses were boarded up and there was the usual smattering of charity shops.

Prosperity was reluctant to come back to the area. A level crossing marked the end of downtown Capstick. I paused in the middle and looked both ways. The rails didn't exactly shine like silver threads in the gloom. Probably disused. Must have run near the pit, though, once upon a time. Quarter of a mile further on I found the sign.

I turned right down a concrete road for another half a mile. The night was blacker than a mole's armpit, the only illumination coming from the car's headlights. Eventually they shone on a British Coal notice board at the entrance, with the manager's name proudly displayed. Someone had scrawled an obscenity next to it. I crawled along in first gear, the tyres squelching in the thin mud that covered the road.

I reached a cluster of buildings. Away to the right a glow in the sky marked the town centre, where people would be drinking and swearing and lusting for each other's bodies. For a lucky few their dreams would come true. The rest would find consolation in a skinful of booze, until tomorrow night brought another chance.

I wished I was with them. A feeling had come over me that I didn't immediately recognise. I did my deep breathing exercises; always a good stopgap when you're lost for ideas. It was fear. Not for myself, but for what I might find.

At the side of the road was a big board, listing the various facilities at the mine, with arrows pointing in the appropriate directions.

Lorries dashing backwards and forwards had showered it with mud, but now the rain was washing it clean again, revealing enough for me to understand. I silently read them off: Manager's Office, No. 1 Winder, No. 2 Winder, Stores, Stockyard, Surveyors, Weighbridge, Pithead Baths, Canteen, Electricians, Fitters, and, right at the bottom, barely visible through the streaming mud, Blacksmiths.

The arrow was still covered. I got out and wiped the mud away with my hand. It pointed straight ahead.

Most of the buildings had been reduced to piles of rubble. There was no sign of the once-proud head gears but half of one of the giant wheels was propped against a wall. It would have been as tall as a house when it was whole. No more would its spinning be an indicator of the prosperity of the community. It had been cut down to size.

The headlights shone on a long, low building with three big sliding doors evenly spaced along the front. It was red brick, dark with age, with a slate roof and small windows, all broken. I swung the wheel slightly to the left and crept towards the first door. Outside were piles of discarded cables, some as thick as a man's arm, heaped up like writhing serpents. As if to confirm my deduction a sign on the door read: Electricians.

The middle door was the fitters' workshop. Pieces of rusting machinery stood outside, like dinosaurs bristling with teeth and chains and cogs.

I swung the lights across until they illuminated the third door. There was no painted notice on this one, but the language was universal. In the middle of the door, nailed to it, was a single horseshoe. The ends were pointing upwards; the way, they say, that provides a seat for the devil.

I switched off the engine and headlights and the darkness enveloped me like a magician's cloak. It would have been easy to sit waiting for the others to catch up with me, but I didn't. The rain had almost stopped, and the car made soft clicking and hissing noises as I found my flashlight in the boot. Picking my way through the mud and the puddles, I approached the blacksmiths' workshop. There was a small door let into the large one, fastened with a sneck one of those old-fashioned catches operated by your thumb. I pressed and pushed, and the door swung inwards.