Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'What's in there, do you know?'

'Let's see, shall we?' John moved lightly across the boarded floor, pushed and twisted at a handle. 'No… 'fraid it's locked.'

Joel closed his eyes and listened to the singing. The hymn was trailing into a drone of tongues, male and female voices flowing into a bright river of praise. He tried to let it flow into him.

On all sides of them, up here in the tower, the night sky was roaring with rain.

'How long?'

'Little under ten minutes. Impatient, are we, Joel? Excited?'

'Why can't we just switch it off and go?'

'You see a switch anywhere, m' boy? Be on a circuit. Time switch. Anyway, what good would that do? No. Have to smash it. Violence, I'm afraid. Strength. What you're about, isn't it Joel? Strength. Might. No room for namby-pamby, nancy-boy clerics on the Front Line, mmmm?'

'Yes,' Joel said. 'You're right. I'm ready for that. Midnight, then.' Back at the Rectory, Macbeth said, 'What could happen to those people? Spell this thing out.'

Reaching the front door, he'd heard Cathy, on the hall phone extension, saying, 'I don't know, I'll call you back ' Putting down the phone to let him in.

Now, in the study, sitting on the edge of the piano stool, she said, 'How can I say what could happen? You're nowhere in this game until you accept that nobody can ever say for certain what's going to happen and anyone who thinks he can, or that he can manipulate it, is due for a hell of a shock one day.'

Macbeth said, 'What game?'

'Game?'

'You just said "in this game".'

Cathy shrugged. 'Life, I suppose.'

But he wasn't aiming to back off. 'OK, so what's the bottom line? What's the worst thing could happen? Before you answer, bear in mind what I saw in Scotland and that Moira is dead and that I don't believe I have a great deal I care about left to lose.'

Cathy said calmly, 'I've lived in Bridelow all my life. I've acquired knowledge of certain things, OK? And most of today I've been talking very seriously to my father who's had to deal with things most clergymen don't even read about.'

'Sure,' Macbeth said impatiently. 'What's your point?'

'Put it this way, if it was Pop in there, I'd be less worried.'

'So what you're saying is, in the great metaphysical ballpark, these guys are strictly little-league.'

'Let's say they're hardly ready for what they're up against. They create their own universe, you see, these people. In this little universe everything is down to the Will of God and all evil can be defeated fast as a prayer. When real evil shows its hand, it can be so traumatic they'll…'

'Flip?'

'Flip is right,' Cathy said. 'Flip is the least of it.'

'Real evil?'

'Stanage is the man no one here ever talks about. Stanage is evil beyond what ordinary people care to envisage.'

'OK,' Macbeth said. 'First thing, you can't stay here alone, in case these people come back with some even more screwball ideas than they had when they left.'

She looked kind of suspicious. 'What's the alternative?'

'I reserved a room at the inn. You take that. I'll stay here.'

'Oh,' said Cathy. 'I see. The big macho bit. Mungo, how can I say this? You're the one who shouldn't be here on his own.'

'What you want me to do, drive outa here? Things didn't work out with Moira, let's draw a line under all of this? OK, we'll both stay here. I'll take the sofa. I'll call Mrs Castle.'

'Mungo, I'm not going to stay here. I'm going to Milly's. We have things to discuss and it's women only, I'm afraid. My advice is, take your room at The Man, get some sleep. You look all-in. If there's anything you can do, we'll ring you.'

'Oh,' Macbeth said.

'I promise.'

'Sure.'

This was Moira all over again. Macbeth, just go away, huh? 'I dint recognize you.' Willie was almost in tears. 'God help me, I didn't know who you were.'

'I think there was a similar problem,' Mr Dawber said drily, 'in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Third Day.'

Willie could tell Mr Dawber was almost as pleased as he was, but there was a shadow across it.

Mr Dawber said, 'Seeing somebody you thought was dead, there's bound to be an element of shock. Take her home, Willie. Take her to Millicent.'

'Cathy,' Moira said, unsteadily on her feet, Willie's donkey jacket around her shoulders. Willie reckoned she also was in shock. 'Whatever you like,' he said. 'I can't believe this. I just can't believe it. It's a miracle. It were on t'news. They found your car, bottom of a bank.'

'I'll tell you about it,' Moira said.

'It was your car?'

'Oh, aye.'

Willie said, his voice rising, 'There were a body in it. Police found a woman's body!' He stared hard at her in the torchlight.

He wondered if she knew where she was. He wondered if she knew what had happened to her beautiful hair.

He was glad that when he'd touched her, putting his jacket around her, she'd been stone-cold and damp, but solid.

Mr Dawber was silent. If he had any curiosity about the body in the BMW he was keeping it to himself.

'Let's not hang about,' Willie said. 'Mr Dawber?'

'You go,' the old man said quietly. 'I'll carry on.'

'You're never going up there on your own, Mr Dawber, no way.'

'I'll go if I want to,' Mr Dawber said, and there was a distance in his voice. 'Nobody tells the headmaster what to do. Remember?'

'Aye, and if I arrive back there without you, Milly'll kill me, you know that much, Mr Headmaster, sir.'

Mr Dawber said mildly, 'This lass'll be catching her death if you don't be on your way.'

'Please, Mr Dawber.'

'Dic' Moira's body pulsed. 'Either of you seen Dic Castle?'

'Not since the funeral,' Willie said. 'Gone off teaching, Lottie said, in Stockport or somewhere. You seen him, Mr Dawber?'

There was no reply. Willie swung his torch round.

'Mr Dawber!'

Mr Dawber had gone. Roger Hall asked, 'Is he mad?' The effects were wearing off; he didn't feel so elated, he did feel quite relaxed. He did not feel there was anything bizarre about this, why on earth should he?

Therese arched an eyebrow. She was not beautiful, but she was compelling. He wouldn't kick her out of bed.

'Well, of course he's mad,' she said. 'Didn't that occur to you?'

'He knows so much. How can you know so much, be so learned, and be insane?'

The candles around the circle were half burned down. The other people squatting cross-legged – the people Therese was 'helping', the people who did what they were told – gazed dull-eyed into the candle flames and never spoke.

'Look at it this way, Roger,' Therese said. 'You're quite a learned man yourself. Would you say you were insane?' Matt Castle slumped in his chair. He wore a white T-shirt and was quite obviously and horribly dead, but he didn't offend Roger Hall any more.

Roger laughed, 'But Stanage… I mean, he does know what he's doing?'

Dic Castle, something as primitive as chloroform administered to him on a rag, was bound and taped into a metal-framed chair with his wrists upturned. This did not offend Roger either. Nor did the hypodermic on the table.

'He's done it before,' Therese said. 'Many years ago he dug up a corpse, dead no more than a week, to tap her knowledge. It is, as you've gathered yourself, all about knowledge. I thought that was just wonderful – he went into Bridelow churchyard at night and dug the old girl up with the sexton's spade. He was about nineteen at the time. He just, you know, has absolutely no fear. That's half the battle, when you think about it.'

'Yes.' She was right. Conquering fear was the vital first step. Fear of being caught out. Fear of the law. Fear of humiliation.

'Look at Shaw,' Therese said. 'Shaw was a fantastically good subject because he was so utterly screwed up, so socially backward to begin with. Six months ago, Shaw was scared to walk into a pub by himself; now he's killed two people and he's never been happier. He's out there now, and if anybody tries to disturb us, he'll… you know… without a second thought.'