Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'I'm a very professional kind of guy. However, I've long been a fan. Of the music. But also… Malcolm, this is kind of sensitive…'

'Which, as you pointed out to me a few moments ago, you are not.'

'Yeah, well, when I, uh, encountered the lady that night, I was a mite overwhelmed, I guess, by the essential, uh, Celtishness, if that's the word, of the occasion and, if I'm being honest, by the experience of Moira herself, and so… well, I believe I said a few things left her thinking – as you doubtless are thinking right now – what a Grade A dork this person is.'

'Oh, yes,' said Kaufmann. He paused. 'She can certainly be quite disconcerting.'

'Thank you for that. So I'd like to meet with her informally and maybe convince her that, in less inhibiting circumstances…'

'I see. Well, sadly, Moira is not working tonight. Or in the city at present. She has a personal matter to attend to. And though, as her agent, I am obviously aware at all times of her whereabouts, no, I'm afraid I can't tell you where she is. That really would be irregular.'

'Ah… right," Macbeth said.

'Perhaps you could leave a number with Fiona, where we can contact you.' The agent's face was blank.

'Right,' Macbeth said gloomily.

Joel Beard had been standing there for a couple of minutes, over by the window in the Rector's study, his mouth slightly open.

Hans,' he said urgently, as if the church was on fire, 'Hans, quickly, who on earth is that?'

The Rector couldn't manage anything quickly any more, but, yes, he too had seen the hooded figure. It had vanished now behind the church tower.

'I'm sorry, Joel?'

'Over there. Didn't you see it?'

'No, I mean… all kinds of women pass through that gate.'

Joel turned to him, a 'Got you' smile on his large, unlined face. 'I don't think I mentioned the gate, did I, Hans? And I don't think I mentioned a woman.'

'Well, obviously I assumed…' Hans grimaced and bent to his worse knee, feigning pain for once. Bloody man. Joel had spent three half-days with Hans, being shown around, shaking a few hands. Big, cheerful, amiable character, anxious to learn.

But suddenly…

'I wouldn't be surprised,' Joel said in his flat, calm Yorkshire voice, 'if there weren't quite a lot of things you haven't noticed, Things that go on, hereabouts.'

'… the hell are you talking about?'

'Hell?' said Joel. 'Yes I think I am talking about hell. For instance, Sam Davis, the young chap who was here morning…'

Hans stared at him. 'How do you know about that?'

'When he came out, his Land Rover wouldn't start.' Joel flashed his teeth. 'I was around. I fixed it. We had a chat.'

'Mechanic too, eh?' the Rector said. 'You're obviously an endlessly useful man to have about the place.'

Joel, deaf to all sarcasm, said, 'I told Sam I'd go along to the farm, talk to his wife. And perhaps… perhaps do what I can to protect them.'

'Joel, if there's any protecting to be done in this parish…'

God in heaven, this was the man's first full day in Bridelow, and he was taking over!

'Oh, I realised, of course, that you'd be along there yourself if it wasn't for your, er, leg. I explained all this to Sam, of course I did.'

'Made my excuses, did you?'

'Hans…' Joel Beard wore a hefty gold-plated crucifix on his chest. Joel, the avenging angel. For the first time, Hans was getting an inkling of how disruptive this man could turn out to be.

'Hans, I'm only trying to help,' Joel said, like a social worker addressing some uppity pensioner.

'The problem is, Hans, people sometimes don't realise the amount of sheer legwork involved in ministering to a rural parish. Admit it, now, you've needed help for quite some while, and been too proud to ask for it. Well, naturally, we all admire you for that, but there's a job of work to be done here, you know that.'

The Rector said coldly, 'I really don't know what you're talking about.'

'Perhaps,' Joel said gently, 'that's because you're too close to it. You know what I think? I think these filthy rites on the moors are only the tip of the iceberg.'

He glanced back out of the window to the place where the hooded woman had disappeared. Stay away, Hans pleaded inside his head. Stay out of sight…for God's sake… whoever you are.

'There's been talk, you know,' Joel said into the glass pane. 'I have to be frank, it's the only way I can be. And I think it's only fair you should know. A good deal of talk. At diocese level.'

Hans sat down suddenly, carelessly, in his armchair – and felt the pain might hurl him at the ceiling. 'Listen,' he gasped, gripping the chair arms, holding himself down. 'Has it ever occurred to you for one blessed moment that perhaps there are things you don't understand? I know you were at St Oswald's. I know the sort of bull-at-a-gate Christianity they go in for…'

'I only know what's in my heart.' Joel almost chanting, his eyes squeezed to slits, Joel the seer, Joel the prophet. 'I know that God is living in my heart, and therefore what I feel to be right and good must be right and good because it is His Word.'

God save us, Hans thought, from Born Again Christians cunning enough to get into the business proper. And God help me to restrain this man's excesses. Leave him alone! Can't you see what you're doing to him?

Cathy, in the hall, ear to the study door. Dressed for the funeral, black jumper and skirt, coat over her arm.

Half an hour ago she'd sneaked down to the wine-cellar to discover that Joel had set up a camp bed on the stone flags and a card-table with candles, like a makeshift altar.

A bit eerie. A lot disturbing.

What the hell was this bloke trying to achieve, digging himself in, like a big mole, under the very heart of Bridelow? 'Talk,' Hans said. 'You say there's been talk. What kind of talk?'

Joel walked back to the centre of the room, stood in front of the piano, his hands behind his back, the polished cross flashing from the black of his cassock. Like a cheap medallion, Hans thought from the sour darkness of his pain.

'I'm not a humble man,' Joel said.

Hans, coughing, nearly choked.

'I know this,' Joel said. 'And I pray one day Almighty God will let me come to humility in my own way. But not…yet.'

His hands whipped round from behind his back. One was an open palm and the other a fist. They came together with a small explosion in the still, fusty air of the Rector's study.

'Not yet.' Joel Beard said softly, turning back to the window. Still, presumably, no sign of the woman in black.

Whichever of them it was, Hans thought, she would do well to depart quickly and discreetly, the way they could when they wanted to.

'It's not the time, you see, for humility.' Joel standing behind Hans's chair now, blocking his light. 'The clergy's been humble and self-effacing for so long that it amounts to downright indolence. It's time, I believe, to remember the other Christ. The one who ejected the traders and the money lenders from the temple. There's worse than that here. Isn't there?'

'Look…'

Joel spat out, 'It's the Devil's lair!'

'It's…' Hans tried to get out of his chair, felt suddenly dizzy.

'That's what the talk's about.' Joel's eyes burning in the afternoon gloom. 'Satan walking openly in the street. Satan walking, bold as brass, to the very door of this church, where that filthy whore parades her… her parts.'

'No.' Hans felt old and ineffectual. 'It's not true.'

'Yes! There's a cult of Satan, making blood sacrifices on the moors, and this is where it's emanating from. God only knows how long it's flourished here.' Cathy breathed in, hard.

Half an hour ago, Joel had caught her spying. Stood and watched her coming up the steps from the cellar, smiling at her from the vestry doorway. Cathy, red-faced, mumbling, 'Just seeing if there was anything I could do. To, er, to make you a bit more comfortable down there.'