Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'And you're telling me all this.' He wanted to pinch himself; he wanted to find the smell of Matt Castle nauseating. And he couldn't.

'You're one of us,' Therese said generously. 'You've been one of us for months. We'd never have got the Man out of the British Museum without your help, and you'd never have had the balls to get him out without ours. Come on, it's time. Have another drink.'

'I mustn't,' Roger said coyly, accepting a glass. 'One final question. Therese… what would have happened to Chrissie if she'd come to the house with me?'

'Who…? Oh, the secretary. The divorced secretary with no immediate family in the area. That Chrissie. Don't ask, Roger. Don't ask and you won't be told the truth.'

Therese poured them all a drink from an unlabelled brown wine bottle. 'Cheers,' said a dull, empty-looking woman called Andrea. Therese moved to a bench in the corner of the room opposite Matt and slipped a cassette into a black ghetto-blaster.

From the largest of several black bags, she withdrew the Pennine Pipes and laid them at Matt's feet.

From the portable ghetto-blaster seeped the weeping, far-away, opening notes of 'Lament for the Man'.

Dic squirmed.

From one of the bags, Therese took a pencil-slim plastic- handled craftsman's knife, which she handed to Owen, a weedy, expressionless man.

'I'll give you the signal,' Therese said. 'If it disturbs you, you may tape his mouth.'

Refusing a whisky, Gary Ashton said, 'I'm not saying I don't believe this, ladies. I've seen too many weird things, put away too many weird people, we all do. Sometimes, you're face-to-face with real evil, and you're laughing it off. You laugh off criminals – blaggers, toe-rags. You don't think too hard about it, you're a copper. Not a shrink. Not a priest. You nick the buggers, put them away, that's where it ends.'

'Meaning you can't help us,' Lottie said.

'Far as the law's concerned, Mrs Castle, there's one crime been committed here. Somebody's pinched an archaeological relic.'

He'd sat there and he'd drunk coffee and he'd sympathized. He'd trusted them, too, both of them. They were frightened, more than if they'd been robbed. Although he knew bugger-all about wiring and such, he'd been and examined the electrified gas-mantle and fitted a new bulb, and, sure enough, it didn't come on. Fuse probably, he'd said. Where's the fuse-box?

And Lottie had said, never mind.

Truth was, the bloody thing had fused at the wrong time and put the shits up two women who were already mentally stressed.

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.