Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

A gout of rain came down the chimney. On the fire, a red coal cracked in two with a chip-pan hiss.

Moira said, 'He did this? Necromancy? He tried to get information out of a dead woman?'

Willie reached for Milly's hand. She said, 'I was only a youngster. I only know what I was told later, by Ma. She said there were things he knew, things he threw in her face… that he couldn't possibly have learned from anyone else. So either Old Ma told him stuff on her deathbed, which is so unlikely as to be…'

Moira started to feel sick, and it wasn't Ma Wagstaff's crisis Mixture. 'Willie, sooner or later Matt would know about this guy. What he was.'

'We never talked about it, lass. But, aye, sooner or later. but he'd be too far in, maybe, by then. To be charitable. In the end, though, it's two of a kind. Exiles wanting in.'

'Men,' said Milly. 'Men wanting knowledge.'

'And now he's doing it to Matt. What he did to your gran. Dic told me, he said, "He's got my dad." How can…?'

'We know,' Milly said. 'Matt's coffin's full of soil.'

Cathy said, 'Listen, the night Dic brought you to the rectory, afterwards he had a few drinks, got a bit… mixed up? He was approached. There was a sexual approach. He thought it was you.'

'What a compliment.'

Cathy frowned. 'Next day he told me about it He's always told me things. He was in a hell of a state. He needed… calming down. You can tell how easily they get people.'

Moira nodded. She knew well enough.

'I said you were with me the whole time,' Cathy said, 'so it couldn't have been you.'

'Thank you.'

'And then we talked about it for ages. It was our only way in. For Dic to go along with it, see what happened. I think he saw it as a way of getting out of the influence of his dad and Stanage and the whole thing.'

Moira started shaking her head. Lamb to the slaughter.

'He's been through hell.' Cathy's eyes looking hot with sorrow. 'Yes, they've got Matt's body. Yes, they've been… arousing him.'

Moira covered her face with her hands.

'There's Stanage and this Therese. Calls herself Therese Beaufort. He claims, apparently, that she's his niece. That's crap. All kinds of people've been attracted to him over the years. He's, you know, he's… magnetic'

'I know.' Moira rubbed her eyes. 'I know his kind. Who else?'

'Detritus. There's a Satanic-type cult based in Sheffield that's been holding rituals on the moors, in the old Bronze Age circles. Been going on for years. They move as close as they can to Bridelow – it's got a reputation in the occult world, you can imagine. Place of power.'

Moira felt herself back in the churchyard, deformed stone across the moor, hopping like a toad, a quick splash of blood…

'Therese,' Cathy said. 'Tess – she's Tessa-something, Dic says, she came up from the Welsh border – Tess brings them along. They're revolting. That farmer – there was a farmer killed on the moor, Sam Davis – he came to see Pop last week. Lights in the night, rams killed. His wife reckoned they were even sacrificing babies.'

'It's not unknown,' Moira said. 'I believe some of these cults are actually breeding babies for sacrifice. How did that guy die?'

'Fell down a quarry at night. How do you know that, about the babies?'

'Read it in the News of the World,' Moira said quickly.

'Look, you say they get as close as they can to Bridelow. But they can't get in, right!' You told me the other night there were defences. The kind you can't see.'

Milly said, 'Jack could let them in. Down in Cambridge, Jack was mixing with all kinds of people. Jack was learning all the time. We had to do something or else Bridelow'd be… just like everywhere else. Soiled. Only more so, because…'

'… because it was a place of power. Right?'

'We had to do something,' Milly said. 'Or Ma did. Ma was the only one could do it.'

'Why?' Moira hunched forward, hands clasped. 'I mean, what? What could Ma do?'

Milly looked down into her lap where Willie's hand lay.

'Come on, Milly,' Moira said almost angrily. 'What is it you're not telling me? Cathy, do you know?'

Yes,' Cathy said. 'I think so.'

Ernie had taken off his hat, placed it on the hallstand, where it was still dripping five minutes later when Shaw Horridge shouted, 'Get out. Get out, Mr Dawber. Get out before I kill you!'

Six months ago Ernie would have had a regretful laugh at that. Six months ago, Shaw wouldn't have been able to say it without a hell of a struggle. Now it was quite apparent that Shaw would indeed like to kill him and certainly could. And it wouldn't be his first time.

Feelings. Ernie had ignored his feelings, his whimsy. They were never specific enough, never quite accurate. He was a man and also a scholar in his own small way, and feelings, in Bridelow, were what women had.

And now, when it was probably too late, he was finding out what feelings were for.

He stood by the hallstand. Over his head hung a leaded lantern in a wrought-iron frame. Tasteful; one of Liz's earliest purchases.

'Your mother's no more in Buxton, lad, than we are now.'

'She is!' Shaw seemed about to stamp his foot. With his folded umbrella he prodded the air an inch or two from Ernie's eyes.

Ernie didn't move. 'Nearest she got to Buxton is a BMW motorcar at the bottom of a bank. She's in a police mortuary lad. That's where your mother is.'

Known it as soon as he and Willie had found the Cairns lass. Known it, really, for most of the day. That she was dead..

'You're off your head, Mr Dawber.'

'Not yet, lad. Soon, happen. But not yet.'

'I've told you once to get out. I won't tell you again.' Shaw's eyes glittered like broken glass.

'Kill me, eh?'

'You think I won't?'

'No, I know you would.' Ernie picked up his wet hat, held it in front of his chest like a breast plate. Took a big, long breath. Saw before him the little lad in Class I of the infants. Fair-haired, fair-complexioned, tall but slightly built. Brought to school that first morning by stocky, swarthy Arthur Horridge, Arthur's dark brown hair already greying at the temples.

Ernie looked into Shaw's pale, malevolent eyes. 'Just like you killed your granny, eh, lad?'

Shaw drew back across the hall. His mouth twisted up and opened on one side, his face alternating between a sneer and a stare of more than slightly crazed, vacant incomprehension.

'What's this? What's this nonsense? What are you babbling about? You're an old fool, Mr Dawber.'

'Haven't they told you, Shaw? Hasn't your father told you?'

'My father's dead.'

'I only wish he were, lad.'

'I… You…'

'Your father's Jack Lucas. John Peveril Stanage.'

'That's… that's absolute crap.'

'You want to hear about this, Shaw?'

Shaw had backed up against the flock-papered far wall, his mouth twisting noiselessly from side to side, both hands over his head, hovering half an inch above his baldness.

'When I was a little lad' Ernie leaned his back against the hallstand, relaxed – 'there was a bit of a kerfuffle in Bridelow. Minor scandal, soon hushed up, years before I learned the details. Anyroad… Ma Wagstaff… Iris Morris in those days, young lass, bit of all right, too. But wild. Nowt anybody could tell her. Wasn't going to stay in little Bridelow, was she? Off to the city, our Iris, most weekends. Met a feller, as you'd expect. Educated smooth-talker, name of Lucas.'

Shaw Horridge was standing with his legs apart, panting a little.

'Came back pregnant. Wouldn't be the first one. Prospective father buggered off soon as he found out. The old story, and folks in Bridelow's always been liberal enough about that sort of thing. Except Iris was a bit special. Direct line, see. Presented to the Mother same week she was christened, expected, somehow, to have a daughter.'