Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

Oh, please… The Archdeacon saw beneath the cassock to the tensed stomach and the awesome golden chest.

'… before each rugby lesson, there'd be the same pathetic collection of little notes. "Dear Sir, Please excuse my son from games, he has a minor chest infection." This sort of nonsense. Same ones every other week The wimps. Well I'm afraid that's what we look like sometimes. "Dear People, Please excuse me from confronting Satan this week, but my steeple's developed stone-fatigue and I have to organize a garden party." This is what we've come to. We've reached the point where we're ashamed to wield the weapons forged for us by God.'

The Archdeacon refused to allow himself to contemplate the weapon God had forged for Joel Beard. He took a mouthful of cognac and held it there while Joel talked of the Church's manifest obligation to confront the Ancient Enemy again. Lord, but he was a magnificent sight when fired-up – that profile, hard as bronze, those rigid golden curls…

Upstairs, in his files', the Archdeacon kept seven photocopies of the famous picture of Joel in the Sheffield Star – the one of him brandishing his outsize pectoral cross. At the time this dramatic pose had only reinforced the Diocesan consternation expressed when Joel, still at college, had been on local radio threatening physical disruption of certain Hallowe'en festivities planned by the university students' union.

The Archdeacon had managed to placate the Bishop, who'd been suggesting immediate efforts ought to be made to interest this turbulent mature student in a period of foreign missionary work – the Colombian jungles or somewhere equally dangerous.

Known his type before, the Bishop fumed. More trouble than they're worth, these self-publicists. Nonsense, said the Archdeacon. With respect, men like Beard must be considered the Church's Future… if the Church is to have one.

During these discussions about his future, Joel had apparently received a series of telephone calls alerting him to inbred evil in a small village in the Southern Pennines. Anonymous, of course. But weren't they always? And wasn't the Archdeacon himself becoming just a little tired of Hans Gruber, the old-fashioned rural priest treading his own sheep-tracks, totally immersed in his parish, oblivious to the Diocese?

'… mustn't be afraid to get physical.' Joel thumped the back of the Chesterfield, and the Archdeacon almost fainted.

Or, indeed, metaphysical…'

'Well, then…' The Archdeacon's hand was shaking so much he had to put down his glass. 'If you're determined to face this thing head-on, we'll delay no longer. There's just this question of accommodation in Bridelow. Not had a curate for so long we let the house go.'

'I understand,' said Joel, 'that there's accommodation in the church itself.'

'In the ch…? You don't mean this… priest's hole sort of place under the floor? You're not serious.'

'Well,' said Joel. 'Short-term, I see no reason why not. It was originally intended as emergency accommodation for visiting clergy, I gather. And how often does a priest get the opportunity to experience a night in the House of God?'

'Quite,' said the Archdeacon. 'Quite.' He was remembering the old story about an itinerant Bishop of Sheffield a century or so ago, who'd spent a night under the church at Bridelow and was supposed to have gone potty. Silly story. But still, was it wise for Joel to sleep down there? Alone?

The Archdeacon tingled. Finally Chrissie said, 'Admit it, you're getting a bit obsessed.'

'That's ridiculous.' Not much conviction there. 'I'm just… stressed, that's all. I'm not good at deception.'

'No, you're not.'

'I meant with Janet. Look, would you mind putting that thing out.' He reached over her, took the cigarette from between her fingers and dropped it in an ashtray on the bedside ledge.

Well!

'Honestly, it's not an obsession,' he said. 'Not the way you think. Look, I'll tell you, OK. But you've got to keep it to yourself. Not a word, OK? Thing is, I've… I've had approaches.'

'Lucky you.' When, a few minutes ago, he'd put a hand experimentally on her thigh, it had felt like a lukewarm, wet sponge.

He said, 'When you were young…'

'Thank you very much, Roger.'

'No, no… I mean, when you were a child… Did you ever read Stanage's books?'

'Sta… Oh, John Peveril Stanage.' She felt a mild stirring of interest; not his usual type of stultifying archaeological tome.

'Well, who didn't?'

'He wanted to see me,' Roger said. 'Or rather he wanted me to go and see him.'

'Good God, is he still alive?'

'Very much so. Not yet sixty, I'd guess. 'Course, he's been a published writer since his early twenties, which makes him…'

'Very rich, I suppose,' Chrissie said.

'You wouldn't know it to see where he lives – end of one of those run-down Georgian terraces in Buxton. Sort of seedy – palatial inside, but I'm assured he's loaded. You remember much about his stuff?'

'I wasn't much of a reader,' Chrissie admitted. 'But you didn't need to be much of a reader to get into his books. Really exciting… and interesting, you know? Because they were usually about places we knew. King Arthur in Manchester, I remember that one – Castle Fields, it was called. I think. That right?'

'That's right.'

'And The Bridestones'.' Chrissie sat up in bed. 'Gosh, yes. And Blue John… Blue John's Way? God, I remember when I was…'

'Yes, thank you, Chrissie. Anyway, turns out Stanage is quite a serious antiquarian, in an amateur sort of way. Obsessed for a long time with the Celtic history of the North-West – albeit in a fanciful, mystical fashion.' Roger sniffed. 'So naturally he's quite excited about our friend from the peat.'

God, Chrissie thought. Another one. What is it with this corpse?

'… and he's talking about establishing some son of foundation… through the University… to set up an official Celtic museum… Keep this under your hat, won't you, Chrissie?'

I'm not wearing a bloody hat, she thought. I'm not wearing anything, in case you haven't noticed.

'… with the bog body as a centrepiece.'

'Oh.' She was starting to see. 'Money?'

'Big money,' said Roger. 'And Stanage's foundation would also support continued research, which would…'

'Keep us all in work.'

'To say the least. So, naturally, I'm keeping him to myself. We're going to work out the logistics of it between us and then present a complete package, an arrangement nobody – not the University, nor the British Museum – can afford to turn down.'

'And what does he get out of it? Stanage? I mean, what does the great man get out of dealing exclusively with you and keeping it all under wraps until you're ready to turn it to your advantage?

'Er… He just likes being in on it, I think,' Roger said, trying to look as if this aspect hadn't occurred to him before. 'He gets access to the bogman pretty much whenever he wants.'

Which explained why Roger had been so keen to bring the body back to the Field Centre. Chrissie gave him a wry look he didn't appear to notice.

'So I'm having to keep all these balls in the air… juggle Stanage, the University, the British Museum… and now those sodding Bridelow people, who want the bloody thing put back.'

'Sorry?' Chrissie had been thinking ruefully about balls in the air. 'Who wants it back?'

Roger snorted. 'They're superstitious. We know that our friend… him…that he was sacrificed for some reason. Maybe to persuade the gods to keep the Romans at bay, after the Celts were driven out of the fertile lowlands of Cheshire and Clwyd and into the hills.'

'Barbaric times,' Chrissie said, thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger in skins and a headband.

'So, incredible as it may seem that serious archaeological research in this day and age should still be complicated by this kind of crap – it appears some people in Bridelow feel that by taking the thing away we'll bring bad luck down on the village. As simple and as primitive as that.'