Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'This is nonsense,' Shaw said. 'I'm going to kill you.'

'Hear me out first, eh?' . 'I killed someone else tonight. I killed Manifold. Young Frank. I killed him… just moments ago.'

'I don't think so,' Ernie said uncertainly. The idea of Shaw Horridge coping with Young Frank with a few drinks inside him was still a bit laughable. Wasn't it?

'I did- I'll show you.'

'Let me finish, lad, eh? Where was I? A daughter, yes. They expected she'd have a daughter first, that's the way it is usually. But no, it was a boy, and a most peculiar child. White. All over.'

'No!'

'Yes! Folks said, it's retribution. She sinned. Sinned not so much against God but against her heritage. And the child? A changeling, they said. Know what that is, Shaw? Child of another… species, shall we say. A cuckoo. That was the word they used, changeling's my word, as a folklorist – all nonsense, of course, happen just a genetic throwback. But "cuckoo" was what they said. Not out loud, of course. Whispered it, though, when Iris wasn't about. But then she got married to Len Wagstaff and had three more, and the family closed ranks a bit and the things John did later were covered up. At first. Until it wasn't possible to cover them up any more.'

'What things?'

Pranks, at first. Not the worst you say about them, but if you were being charitable you'd call them pranks. Cruel pranks.'

'Perhaps they made him feel better,' Shaw said.

'Eh?'

'You do something brave, you push yourself. And you start to feel better.'

'Do you?'

'Yes. You can do anything if you push yourself into places you wouldn't normally go.'

'Oh, aye?'

'Look at this, for instance. How do you think I got this?'

He was doing it again, letting his hands hover half an inch from the bald part of his head.

'I don't understand,' Ernie said.

'Can't you see?' Shaw leapt about flinging switches until the hall was blazing with lights. Wall lights, ceiling lights, lights over five mirrors reflecting his bounding figure. 'Look. Look! I was completely bald at the front. Even two weeks ago, I was bald.'

'Aye?'

'Well?' Shaw bent his head towards Ernie. It threw off light like a steel helmet. 'Well?'

'Well, what?'

Shaw straightened up. 'Know when it began to grow again? When I agreed to get rid of the old lady.'

'Your grandmother.'

'That's crap. You come here, you give me all this bullshit. How stupid do you really think I am, Mr Dawber?'

Ernie thought very carefully before he spoke.

'Stupid enough,' he said, stepping away from the hallstand, bracing himself, 'to think your hair is growing again. The fire hissed again. There was a visible bubbling among the coals.

'Have to get Alf Beckett to fit you a cowl on t'chimney,' Willie Wagstaff said prosaically to Milly.

Moira moved her legs closer to the fire, feeling she might never be truly warm again.

'Your brother? He's your brother?'

'Half-brother,' said Willie. 'But it counted for nowt. Once he'd gone he were never spoke of again. And after that, Ma never looked back.'

'And there was a new respect for Ma,' Milly Gill said. That she was able to do it.'

'Do what? What did she do?'

'Personal banishing rite,' Milly said. 'She walked around the village boundary three times within a day and a night. She walked barefoot, placing stones. Calling on… elements not usually invoked. But he was a strong presence, even then.'

'Be July of that year when he come back,' Willie recalled. 'End of his second year at Cambridge. Arrived in a fancy sports car.'

'Wherever he went,' Milly said, 'he could make money or get people to give him things.'

'There's an owd tree,' Willie said, 'just this side of t'Moss, 'fore you get to t'pub. Jack piled his car into that. Broke both arms. Elsie Ball, as were landlady of The Man in them days, she dint recognize Jack at first. Went out to help him, but he wouldn't come out of his car, couldn't come out. Just sat there until the ambulance come. Ma were standing at top of street, she knew who it were. Too far apart to see each other's faces, but I remember Elsie saying clouds were hanging down, hanging low, like a thunderstorm were about to burst.'

'And then Jack went away,' Milly said, 'and we never saw him again. He knew he'd never get back in, long as Ma were…'

'Alive,' said Willie, and Moira saw the fingers of his left hand beginning to crawl up the side of his knee.

'So,' Moira said, 'if he wanted to get back…'

'Why should he? He were rich. He were becoming famous. He had everything he could wish for.'

'Except his heritage,' Moira said.

'He tried to destroy his heritage,' Milly insisted.

'No. He tried to restructure it, surely. He tried to rebuild it around himself. It was a placid, earth-related, female religion, and he wanted to harden it into something he could use.'

Milly looked at her with suspicion.

'I've encountered it before,' Moira said. 'No. He was never going to walk away from that. All the time he'd be building up his armoury of contacts inside Bridelow. Matt and Dic we know about. There are probably others.'

'Shaw Horridge.' Willie's fingers were drumming hard. 'The brewery. He'd bought into Gannons. He must've done that purely to get hold of Bridelow Brewery.'

Who took the comb?

… bloke coiled Shaw Horridge, but that's not important right now…

'Yes,' Moira said.

Willie's fingers going like hell, both hands now. 'The bloody scale of the thing! Too big for us to see. Maybe we never wanted to see it. He'd gone. Right, Ma says, that's it. Never mention him again and you'll never see him again. And we never have.'

'Except,' said Milly, 'in Shaw.'

Willie looked at her. Moira watched his eyes widen.

'It was a Mothers' thing,' Milly said. 'Never talked about. I think Mr Dawber knew, but that's all. Probably not many people remember now, and I was just a child, but when Eliza McCarthy first arrived in Bridelow it was as Jack's girlfriend. All Jack's girlfriends were from wealthy backgrounds. Liz didn't last long, I don't suppose she was beautiful enough. It was probably just the family link with the Duke of Westminster that interested him.'

Milly pulled one of the cats on to her lap, began to stroke it from neck to tail. 'What happened, I believe, is that they had a row and Jack just drove away and left her in tears in the street. Which was where Ma found her. This was before the banishing.'

'Aye,' Willie said, something dawning. 'She spent the night with us. It were the year before me Dad died. He'd gone to The Man, he were in t'darts team, and I remember lying in bed and hearing Ma and this lass talking for hours.'

'Probably what you heard was Ma warning her off Jack. Next day, when Jack didn't come back, Ma introduced Liz to Arthur Horridge and two months later they were engaged. Well… four days before the wedding, Liz is hammering on Ma's door in a terrible state. She's pregnant.'

Milly hauled the second cat on to her lap as if she needed reinforcement. 'Jack. Jack on the outside. He can't get into Bridelow but he can still get to his ex-fiancee.'

'Bastard.' Both of Willie's hands fell away from his knees.

Cathy shook her head in distaste. 'How could she?'

'You didn't know him,' Milly said. 'When I was nine years old he took me and two other little girls for a walk on… Oh, you don't want to hear, it was nothing by comparison with what else he's done. But he could walk in and even if you didn't really like him he'd get what he came for. Liz – it wasn't rape- as such, you could learn to live with that. Anyway… Ma had a long chat with Arthur Horridge and Shaw was born, and he was Arthur's son and nothing more was ever said.'

'I can't believe all this,' Willie said. 'Can't believe we never thought. We didn't think of the bugger any more – better not to. Wrote his books under the name John Peveril Stanage, we knew that, so it was as if the Jack Lucas we knew had gone for good.'