Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'Eh?'

'Like I said, things go in waves, Mr Dawber. Good times, bad times. We're used to that.'

'Aye…'

Ma had said, What this is… it's a balancing act.

'But this is an attack,' Milly said.

Ernie had been flummoxed for a minute. 'You mean the curate? Joel Beard?'

'Well, he's part of it. We let them disturb the Man in the Moss. We didn't do right by him. Now we've no protection. All sorts are coming in. Unsuitable people. Aye – people like him.'

'All my sources tell me,' Ernie said, 'that Joel's ambitions are being fuelled by the new Archdeacon, who fancies him summat rotten.'

'Joel Beard's gay?'

'Not as I know of, but the Archdeacon certainly is.' Ernie noticed old Sarah looking mystified. 'No, Joel Beard's incorruptible, I'm afraid. Whatever he's doing, he thinks he's doing it for the good of mankind.'

'They'll all be coming in soon,' Milly said despondently. 'Look at all them strangers at the brewery. Three of ours sacked, one of theirs brought in. Rationalization, they call it. We don't see it till it's happened. Sometimes I think all we see is…'

'Shades of things. Aye.' Then Ernie had fallen silent, thinking of a woman in a black cloak at Matt's funeral. Moira Cairns, former singer with Matt Castle's Band.

Alf said, 'That bloke, Hall, he wouldn't accept it at first. Said he were convinced it were theer and if he had to dig all night he'd get it out.'

'Aye,' Milly said grimly. 'Happen somebody told him. Somebody wanted that grave dug up so we'd know there was nowt down there, apart from Matt. Oh, Christ. Oh, Mother, I don't like this.'

Alf sat down on the footstool Ernie would rest his feet on while thinking. 'This Hall, he even wanted to open Matt's coffin. Thought happen bogman were in theer.'

'God in heaven,' said Ernie.

'Joel Beard – he started kickin' up then. Wouldn't let um go near. Said they 'ad no permission except for t'take coffin out, like.'

'Quite right too,' Ernie said.

'Alf,' Milly said anxiously. 'The bottle. You did get the bottle in?'

'No.'

Milly Gill closed her eyes and clasped her hands together in anguish.

'Couldn't do it,' Alf said. 'Seemed no point.'

Milly said angrily, 'Did you even try?'

'Oh, aye.' Alf's hands had been dangling between his legs as he squatted on the stool. Ernie saw that both hands were shaking. 'I got lid off, no problem. Nobody were watching, thank Christ.'

They were all looking at him now. Alf Beckett, soaked to the skin, moustache gone limp, eyes so far back in his head that they weren't catching any light from Ernie's green-shaded desk lamp.

'Weren't theer!' Alf suddenly squealed. 'Matt weren't theer! Nowt in t'coffin but bloody soil!'

There'd been a silence you could've shovelled into buckets.

Ernie could still hear it now, as he stood looking over the graveyard, glittering with rain and the blue light of the Beacon of the Moss.

'And worms,' Alf had said finally, shaking on the little wooden footstool, staring at the floor. 'Handfuls of big, long worms.'

At the window, Ernie Dawber sighed very deeply. Moira awoke with this awful sense of doom set around her like a block of ice.

She was hot and she was cold. She was sweating.

And she was whimpering, 'Mammy. Oh, mammy, please… don't let them.'

She'd dreamed a version of the truth. She was a little girl again, living with her daddy and her gran in the almost posh Glasgow suburb, catching the bus to school. Gran's warning shrilling in her ears, '… and you just be sure and keep away from the old railway, you hear?'

On account of the gypsies were back. The gypsies who still came every autumn to the old railway, caravans in a circle like covered wagons in a Western when the Indians were hostile.

Corning home from school, getting off the bus, the two dark skinned gypsy boys hanging round. 'Hey, you… Moira, is it? The Duchess wants tae see ye…'

'You leave me alone… Get lost, huh.'

'We're no gonny hurt ye..

'You deaf? I said get lost.'

'Ye gonny come quietly, ye wee besom, or…'

Dissolve to interior. A treasure cave, with china and brass and gold. And the most beautiful, exotic woman you ever saw.

'My, you're quite a pretty child… Now, I have something… Think of it as a family heirloom… Tell no one until you're grown… Guard it with your life now!' This rich, glowing thing (which would be dull and grey to most people) heavy in your hand.

'You must remember this day, always. You will remember it, for you'll never be a wee girl again.'

And that night she had her first period.

Guard it with your life.

Moira sprang from her bed, snapped on the light. The guitar case stood where she'd left it, propped between a mahogany wardrobe and the wall. She dragged it out, lay it flat on the worn carpet, the strings making wild discordant protest as she threw back the lid, feeling for the felt-lined pocket, where might be stored such things as spare strings, plectrums, harmonicas.

And combs.

The door was tentatively opened, and Cathy appeared in rumpled pyjamas. 'What's wrong?'

Moira was shivering in a long T-shirt with Sylvester the Cat down the front.

'Moira, what's wrong?'

Moira's voice low and catarrhal, growly-rough, 'The broken window. Wasny just vandals.'

'You're cold.'

'Damn right I'm cold.'

'Come downstairs. I'll make some tea.'

Thrusting her hand again and again into the harmonica pocket. Nothing. She pulled out the guitar, laid it on the bed.

Turned the case upside down. Picked up the guitar and shook it violently, and listened to nothing rattling inside.

When, slowly, she straightened up, her back was hurting.

She felt arid, derelict. She felt old but inexperienced, incompetent. She felt like an old child.

Numbly, she reached behind the bedroom door for her cloak, to cover her thin, goosebumpy arms.

The cloak was not there. They'd taken that too. Sam stumbled no more than twice. He knew his ground. Didn't need no fight, although he had the powerful police torch wedged in his jacket pocket, case he needed to blind anybody.

It was pissing down. Sam wore his old fishing hat, pulled down, head into the rain.

Never been raining when these buggers'd been up here before. They wouldn't like that. Be an advantage for him, two years windblasted, rained on, snowed on.

There was a moon up there, somewhere buried in clouds, so the sky wasn't all that black. When his eyes had adjusted he could see the outline of the hill, and when he got halfway up it he could make out a couple of faint lights down on the edge of Bridelow.

But no lights above him now.

Moving round so he'd come to the circle from the bit of a hump behind it, he climbed higher, a lone blue-white disc floating into view, vague through the rain and mist. Beacon of the Moss.

Bloody church. Bugger all use they'd been, pair of um.

When he came to the bracken, Sam stopped, stayed very still, listening. Thought by now he'd have seen their lights, heard some of the chanting, whatever they did.

Sam went down on his haunches, the rain spattering the bracken. Quietly as he could, he snapped shut the breech of the gun, jammed the butt under his elbow and crouched there, waiting.

The rain corning down hard and cold, muffling the moor, seeping through his jacket. Might've brought his waterproof, except the thing would have squeaked when he moved. Have a hot bath when he got in, slug or two of whisky.

Sam hefted the twelve-bore. His mouth felt dry.

They were here. He could feel it. They were close.

Bastards. Stay aggressive. Aggression generated heat and aggression was better than fear.

Right. Sam moved in closer. He reckoned he was no more than twenty yards from the circle; couldn't see it yet. Just over this rise.