Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'But then,' he said gently, 'there wasn't a break-in here, was there, Mrs Castle?'

'There had to've been,' Lottie said, quietly insistent. 'There's no other explanation.'

Ashton sat down on the edge of a dusty old couch next to a black thing that made him think of a dead animal, all skin and bones. He saw Mrs Castle glance at it briefly and recoil slightly.

'What's this?' Ashton was curious. There was a flute bit sticking out of it, with airholes.

'That?' Lottie said. 'That's the Pennine Pipes, Mr Ashton. Primitive kind of bagpipe. My husband's instrument. Woke me…' She hesitated. 'Woke me up, Mr Ashton. About two o'clock this morning.'

'What did?'

'Them. The pipes. Somebody down here playing the pipe'. You think I could mistake that noise after living with it twenty-odd years?'

Ashton experienced a sensation like the tip of a brittle fingernail stroking the nape of his neck.

He said, 'What did you do?'

'Well, I didn't go down,' said Lottie. 'That's for sure.'

'Perhaps somebody wanted to frighten you, Mrs Castle.'

She said, 'When you got Matt's coffin out, did you…?'

'No,' Ashton said. 'We had no reason and no right to disturb your husband.'

She said, 'Do you mind if we go outside?'

'After you,' Ashton said. He pulled the wooden door into place behind them, quite thankful to be out of there himself. Place was like a mausoleum without a tomb.

Lottie Castle sniffed and one side of her mouth twitched in latent self-contempt. 'You know what it's like when you're alone – Or maybe you don't.'

'Yes,' he said, 'I do.'

'Things that would otherwise seem totally crazy go through your head.'

'True.'

'And with you lot digging up his grave, I thought… Well, it was as if he was…'

Lottie Castle thrust open the kitchen door. Ashton followed her in, quietly shut the door behind them and stood with his back to it.

'I didn't catch that,' he said. 'As if he was what?'

'As if you'd let him out,' Lottie Castle said in a parched monotone, looking down at the flags. 'And he'd come back. For his pipes.'

She turned her back on Gary Ashton and walked over to the stove.

'Listen,' Ashton said, wondering if he was cracking up. This piping. Was it, like – I'm sorry – any particular tune?'

'No,' she said. 'No particular tune.' She was silent a moment, then she said, 'When Matt used to get the pipes out, he'd flex the bag a bit, get the air circulating, make all these puffing, wheezing noises and then a few trills up and down the scale. Warming up, you know? Getting started.'

Lottie placed both palms on the hot-plate covers. 'Matt Castle getting warmed up,' she said. 'That was what I thought heard.' Hans moistened his lips with his tongue. Cathy got up. 'I'll fetch you a cup of tea.'

'No…' Her father moved in his chair, winced. 'No, it's all right. I…' He looked quietly down at his knees for a while. Then he said, 'They were talking about a plastic one. Back at the hospital, you know. I said to leave it a while. I said I was seeing a very experienced private therapist.'

Cathy smiled. 'Wasn't working though, was it?'

'No.' Hans sighed. 'She was talking, the last time I saw her, about something getting in and sapping her powers. Perhaps it was intimations of mortality. That was her way of expressing it – that she was corning to the end of her useful life. And maybe she could see the end, as well, of over a thousand years of tradition. And I'm wondering, too, if this is going to be the end of it.'

Cathy said nothing.

Hans said, 'Bit of a rag bag, the Mothers, aren't they? Now? Nobody to really take over. Nobody with Ma's authority. Milly Gill? I don't think so, do you? Nice woman, but too soft – in the nicest way, of course. And the rest of the village – well, modern times, modern attitudes. General loss of spirituality. I blame the eighties, Mrs Thatcher, all that greed, all that materialism. Some of it had to find its way across the Moss sooner or later.'

'It's still a good place, Pop, in essence.'

'Yes… as long as that essence remains. I'm very much afraid the essence has gone.'

Cathy thought they'd never come as close as this to discussing it. He'd always been too busy organising things, fudging the issue. The issue being that the parish priest in Bridelow must become partially blind and partially deaf. This also was a tradition. In the old days – which, in this instance, meant as recently as last year – it wasn't possible to get to Bridelow Brewery without passing the Hall.

The Hall was built on a slight incline, with heathery rock gardens. Ernie Dawber could remember when the old horse-drawn beer drays used to follow the semi-circular route which took them under the drawing-room window for the children admire. The Horridges were always proud of their shire horses; the stable block had been a very fine building indeed, with a Victorian pagoda roof.

Now it was decaying amid twisted trees grown from hedges long untrimmed. No horses any more; it was heavy trucks and different entrances, no obvious link between the brewery and the Hall. Liz Horridge, Ernie thought, must be feeling a bit bereft. He shouldn't have left it so long. There was no excuse.

The Hall itself, to be honest, wasn't looking too good either. Big holes in the rendering, gardens a mess. Arthur Horridge would have a fit. Ernie was merely saddened at another symptom of the Change.

Gettin' a bit whimsy, Ernie?

Leave me alone, Ma. Give me a break, eh?

Fifty yards below the house, the drive went into a fork, the other road leading to the brewery.

'By 'eck,' Ernie Dawber said, stopping to look.

For suddenly the brewery was more impressive than the Hall.

In the past it had always been discreet, concealed by big old trees. But now some of the biggest had been felled to give the Victorian industrial tower block more prominence.

Gannons's doing? Had they made out a case for the brewery as an historic building and got a Government grant to tart it up?

Bloody ironic, eh? They sack half the workforce, talk about shifting the operation to Matlock, but if there's any money going for restoration they'll have it. Happen turn it into a museum.

They'd even finished off repairing the old pulley system for the malt store, briefly abandoned last… May, was it? How soon we forget… when a rope had snapped and Andy Hodgson had fallen to his death. Accidental death – official coroner's verdict. No blame attached.

Don't want to put a damper on things, Ernest, but summat's not right.

Go away, Ma.

He had to stop this. Snatches of Ma Wagstaff had been bobbing up and down in his brain ever since he'd awakened, like an old tune that'd come from nowhere but you couldn't get rid of it. Reminding him of his commitment. Get him back.

And if I don't? If I fail? What then?

He could only think of one answer to that. One he'd thought of before, and it had made him laugh, and now it didn't.

Well. Nagged from beyond the grave. You wouldn't credit it. Ernie straightened his hat, girded up his gaberdine, turned his back on the brewery, which suddenly offended him, and hurried up to the Hall.

He pressed the bell-push and heard the chimes echo, as if from room to room within the house.

Even as he pressed again, he knew there was nobody inside.

So she doesn't come down to the village any more… Well, she's always been a bit aloof. Not a local woman. Only to be expected with this bad feeling about the brewery. She supposed to subject herself to that when it wasn't her fault?

But you, Ernest… Nowt to stop you going to see her.

Ma…

… She were in a shocking state, banging her fists on Ma's door – 'please, please', like this…

'Please, Liz.' Ernie, sheltering under the overhanging porch as the rain came harder. 'Answer the door, eh?'