Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

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.

'Dic.' Moira let Milly take the glass away. 'Thank you. Cathy, what are we going to do about Dic?'

'I told you, didn't I?' Cathy said. 'I said it wasn't Dic who took the comb.'

'Aye, you did. I'm sorry. But why's he with Stanage? How'd he get into this? And the girl. The woman.'

'Therese. Pure poison. Lady Strychnine.'

'But Dic was helping them.'

'Dic was helping us,' Cathy snapped.

'Us?'

'The Mothers.'

'You told me… Hang on, I'm confused, you said you weren't one. You said your father wouldn't…'

'I didn't know you well enough. I lied. It's OK to lie sometimes. Except to yourself.'

'Sure.' Moira sighed.

'Dic lied to himself a lot. He lied about his father. He lied about not hating his father.'

'I know. Maybe we all lied to ourselves about Matt.'

'Aye.' Willie Wagstaff was sitting on the arm of the sofa. I never wanted him to come back to Bridelow, me. He were too… disruptive, you know?' He paused. 'Like our Jack.'

'How it happened,' Cathy said, 'Dic read Stanage as a kid. His dad was all for it. Imaginative stuff, full of Celtic reverberations. ' She looked up at Willie in appeal. 'They didn't know, you see. Matt had been away too long. He didn't know Stanage was Jack Lucas. Not at first.'

'Makes sense,' Willie said. 'It were a long time before any of us found out. Peveril. Stanage. Derbyshire place-names. Peveril of the Peak. Nothing too local. How should we know? He were never on telly, never give interviews to t'papers.'

'So, like a lot of kids,' Cathy said, 'Dic wrote him a fan letter, but unlike a lot of kids, he got a reply inviting him to visit the great man. Beginning of a beautiful friendship. It was Stanage who persuaded Dic to learn the Pennine Pipes. Matt was delighted, as you'd imagine. Dic having always rejected traditional stuff.'

'Why would Stanage be so interested in Dic?' Moira asked.

'He wasn't. He was interested in Matt. They'd known each other as kids, obviously, and Stanage was looking for ways into Bridelow. That was his ruling obsession, to get back at them.'

'At…?'

'At Bridelow. Specifically at the Mothers. The Bridelow establishment. The keepers of the Bridelow tradition. The keepers of… I don't know.'

'The balance,' Milly said. 'The keepers of the balance.'

'God knows,' said Willie, 'they tried to sort him out. They tried everything. He were just… just bloody bad, what can you say? And when he like… finally overstepped the mark, he had to go. He were halfway gone by then, anyroad, gone off to university, smartest lad ever come out of Bridelow. Can say that again.'

Moira said slowly, 'How do you mean, overstepped the mark?'

Willie looked at the others. Milly nodded. Willie said bitterly, 'He desecrated a grave.'

'Spell it out, little man,' Milly said softly.

'He dug up Owd Ma. That were me granny. Ma's ma. Been dead a week.'

'He had it all timed,' Milly said. 'The right day, the right hour. the right position of the moon, all this. He had to know, you see. He had to know what was being denied to him because he was a man.'