Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

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.

'He was fresh meat, Mr Dawber,' said Cathy. 'Whereas you – and I trust you won't take offence – are dried-up, wizened and probably as tough as old boots. What I'm saying is, you wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, Mr Dawber.'

Ernie Dawber cleared his throat. 'In the last War, Catherine, when Hitler was planning an invasion of these shores from occupied France, the, er, pagans of southern England…'

'… held a ritual on the beach at Hastings or somewhere in cold weather, and an old man went naked and allowed himself to die of exposure, thus setting up a barrier against the Nazi hordes. I don't believe that old story either, Mr Dawber.'

Macbeth could tell by the way Ernie Dawber was turning his hat around in his hands that the poor old guy was close to tears.

Cathy said, 'I know you love Bridelow more than any man alive…'

'Anyone alive, young lady.'

'Sorry. But throwing your life away isn't going to help anyone, least of all the poor devil who's got to do the deed. You won't accept this, I know you won't, but you're like a number of people who got too close to the Man in the Moss, you're drawn almost into another world. You contemplate things that under normal circumstances…'

'Cathy, lass, these are not normal circumstances.'

'Yes, but why are they not? Why's everything been allowed to go haywire? You've got to ask yourself when all this started and how. I've spent a long time talking to Pop, and…' Cathy pulled damp, pale hair out of an eye. 'Look, you know they've been seeing Matt Castle in the village.'

Willie Wagstaff jerked and stiffened and went white. Macbeth couldn't take any more. He got up, walked over to the window and listened hard to the rain until it turned the girl's steady voice into white noise, crazy disconnected phrases seeping out, like when you drove into a new state and your car radio was catching some stray police waveband.

'… and when she looked into the fryer, the fat had all congealed and gone black. Black. Like peat.'