Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'Or the anti-Christ, huh?'

Moira thought of the black, snaking branches of the tree on the Moss. Her head throbbed, as if the thing were lashing at her brain.

'OK,' she said hurriedly. 'Let's leave that be for a while. When they built the first Christian church here, they put it on the old sacred site and it's dedicated to Brigid, or Brigantia, now known as St Bride. And the ministers here have always had a kind of agreement with the priestess and her attendants who, in time, become known as the Mothers' Union, right?'

'All the Anglican Churches have Mothers' Unions. Young Wives' groups too.'

'Yeah, but most of them, presumably, don't recognize the symbolism: the mothers and the hags. The hags being the ones over the menopause.'

'When you're over the Change,' Cathy said, 'you go on to a new level of responsibility. Well… so I'm told. How do you know all this?'

'I read a lot of books. Now, OK, the bogman turns up again. The willing sacrifice. The pagan Jesus-figure who supposedly went to his death to save his people. That's one powerful symbol, Cathy. Regardless of what else it might be, it's a heavy symbol. It churns things up.'

'I've told you, he's all right.'

'What d'you mean he's all right? Somebody's stolen him. I'm telling you there are people around who will do things with a relic as powerful as that.'

'Look, it's OK, that's sorted out.'

'Sorted out?' She had to stand up, walk away from the fire, although she was shivering and it hurt when she swallowed.

'Moira, come on, sit down. I promise you, it's OK.'

'Why?' Moira demanded. 'Why is it OK, Cathy?'

'Because,' said Cathy simply, 'the bogman's had a full Christian burial.'

By now the sky was the colour of police trousers, Ashton thought prosaically, and damn near as thick. 'Tent would've been better,' he said as the rain started up again, steel needles in the arc lamp. 'Does it matter if he gets wet?'

'Depends what state he's in.' Roger Hall was struggling with his umbrella.

'Glad to see you're still sure he's down there.'

'Count on it,' Hall said.

Ashton's lads had erected a grey canvas screen, about seven feet high, around the grave; still just a mound of soil, no headstone yet, that saved a bit of hassle.

'Anyway, you've brought your own coffin, have you?'

'I wouldn't call it that,' Hall said. 'My assistant has it, over there.' Pointing at Chrissie White, shivering in fake fur, a plywood box at her feet.

'What's that white stuff inside then, Dr Hall?'

'Polystyrene chips. Shut that lid properly, Chrissie, we don't want them wet. We've also brought a few rolls of Clingfilm, Inspector. We wrap him in that first, so we don't lose anything.'

'Like a frozen turkey,' Ashton said. 'Anyway, it's good to see we haven't pulled a crowd. Yet. Let's just hope we can get this sorted before anybody knows we're here. Now, where's that gravedigger bloke?'

The big, curly-haired clergyman came over. Wearing his full funeral kit, Ashton noticed. Long cassock and a short cape like coppers used to have on point-duty in the good old days.

He looked nervous. Might he know something?

'This is Mr Beckett, Inspector. Our verger.'

Little pensioner with a big, stainless-steel spade.

'You dig this grave first time around, Mr Beckett?'

'Aye, what about it?'

'Usual depth?'

'Six feet, give or take a few inches. No need to measure it, sithee, when tha's done t'job a few score times.'

'And when Mr Castle was buried, did you notice if the earth had been disturbed?'

'It were bloody dark by then,' said Mr Beckett uncompromisingly, patting his chest, as if he'd got indigestion. But actually smoothing the bulge in his donkey jacket.

For, in its inside pocket, shrouded in household tissue, lay a little brown bottle.

Be his job, this time, to get the bloody bottle into Matt Castle's coffin, which they'd have to get out of the way before they could get at the bogman.

This was a new bottle. Alf had gone with Milly Gill to Ma Wagstaff's house, and he'd stood guard while Milly made it up, all of a dither, poor lass, "I'm not doing it right, Alf, I'm sure I'm not doing it right.'

'It's thought as counts,' Alf had said, not knowing what the hell he was on about. 'Ma always said that.' Standing at the parlour door, watching Milly messing about with red thread and stuff by candlelight.

'Alf.'

'What?'

'Go in t'kitchen, fetch us a mixing bowl.'

'What sort?'

'Any sort. Big un, I'm nervous. Come on, hurry up.'

Alf handing her a white Pyrex bowl, standing around in the doorway as Milly put the bowl on the parlour floor, feeling about under her skirts. 'Well, don't just stand there, Alf. Bugger off.'

The door closed, only streetlight washing in through the landing window, ugly shadows thrown into the little hall, the bannisters dancing. Milly's muffled muttering. And then the unavoidable sound of her peeing into the Pyrex.

Alf, trying not to listen, standing where Ma's body must have landed. Looking up the stairs into a strange, forbidding coldness. Him, who'd patrolled the empty church on wild and windy nights and never felt other than welcome.

'Hurry up, lass. Giving me t'creeps.'

'This is Ma's house.' The sound slowing to a trickle. 'There's not a nicer atmosphere anywhere.'

Alf deliberately turning his back on the stairs.

'Aye. But that were when Ma were alive.' This time Moira went off to make the tea. Gave her time to think.

She'd asked Cathy who was left in the Mothers' Union, apart from Milly Gill. Cathy had looked gloomy and said, don't ask.

Moira lifted the teapot lid and watched the leaves settle. Seemed the Mothers' Union wasn't what it used to be. Ma Wagstaff used to say they'd let things slide a bit, Cathy said.

Moira put the teapot on a tray with a couple of mugs. Some dead leaves hit the window. From the doorway behind her, Cathy said, 'Ma thought there was something out there trying to get in. She said the air was different.'

'How do you know all this, Cathy? Do you have to be a mother to be in the Mothers' Union?'

Cathy grinned. There were bags under her eyes and her hair looked dull in the hard kitchen light. 'They'll even take virgins these days.'

'Are you?'

'A virgin?'

'A mother.'

'Pop's an enlightened clergyman,' Cathy said, 'but not that enlightened.' Two young coppers helped Alf with the spadework, which was a good bit easier – just when you didn't bloody need it – than he'd have expected under normal circumstances.

He was ashamed of this grave, the soil all piled in loose, big lumps, nothing tamped down. But he'd rushed the job, as rattled as anybody by that ugly scene between Ma Wagstaff and Joel Beard, and then Lottie Castle screaming at them to get her husband planted quick.

Three feet into the grave, getting there faster than he wanted to, he could see Joel peering down at them. Unlikely the lad'd know yet about Ma Wagstaff's death, nobody rushing to tell him after the way he'd been carrying on.

Thing was, Joel probably had no idea what he was up against. Just a bunch of cracked owd women.

Which, Alf conceded, wasn't a bad thing for him to think just now; at least he didn't suspect Alf, and he wouldn't be watching him too closely. 'The problem is,' Cathy said, 'that it's become more of a way of life than a religion.'

'Is that no' a good thing?'

'Well, yeah, it is for ordinary people, getting on with their lives. This sort of natural harmony, the feeling of belonging to something. It's great. Until things start to go wrong. And your brewery gets taken over and most of the workforce is fired. And your village shop shuts down. And your local celeb arrives to save your pub from almost certain closure and he's dead inside six months. And your placid, undemanding Rector develops quite a rapid worsening of his arthritis, which Ma's always been able to keep in check. Except Ma's losing it, and she doesn't know why.'