Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

'John Peveril Stanage,' Macbeth repeated in a stronger voice, because the name'd had the same effect as throwing three aces into a poker game.

Doing this for the Duchess.

Willie said, 'Never heard of him,' about a second too late to be convincing, and Macbeth, suddenly furious, was halfway out of his chair when there were four hollow knocks at the front door, all the more audible for being way out of synch with Willie's fingers and the rain.

'Mr Dawber,' Milly Gill said tonelessly, but made no move to answer the door.

Milly Gill half rose and then sat down again and looked at Willie and then at Mungo Macbeth.

'I'm sorry, Mr Macbeth. Sorry to've given you such awful news. But…' Spreading her hands: what else can I do?

Telling him to get the hell out in other words.

Macbeth stood up but made no move toward the door. 'I don't think so,' he said.

The hollow knocking came again, a little faster this time, a little closer to the tempo of Wagstaff's restless fingers.

'Why d'you do that?' Macbeth said, in no mood for tact. 'With your fingers.'

Willie looked non-plussed, like nobody ever asked him that before.

'He has a problem with his nerves,' Milly Gill said hastily. 'If you don't mind, Mr Macbeth, there's a gentleman come to see us.'

So they know who it is. Knocking comes at the door, latish, and they know what it's about before they open up.

'Sure,' Macbeth said. 'Thanks for your time.' Maybe he should go. Cancel his room at the inn, drive out of here, head back north. Maybe organise a flight home. And call on the Duchess? Could he ever face the Duchess again?

He nodded at Willie Wagstaff, followed Milly Gill to the door.

'Good luck,' he said, not sure why he said that.

And then something told him to turn around, and he found Willie on his feet, a whole series of expressions chasing each other across the little guy's face like videotape on fast-forward.

'Look.' Willie was clasping both hands between his legs like a man who badly needed to use the John. 'It's not nerves. It's…'

'Hey.' The big woman pulled back her hand from the door catch. 'A few minutes ago you were telling me to shut up.'

'I know, lass, but happen we've kept quiet too bloody long. This… Moira. Dead. Finished me, that has. Too many accidents. Going right back to that lad who fell off top of the brewery. Too much bad luck. And when I hear Jack's name… Hang on a minute, lad. Milly, let Ernie Dawber in.'

Milly said, 'If it's Jack – which I…' She swallowed. 'If it is, we've got to sort it out for ourselves.'

'Oh, aye. Like we've sorted everything else out. Let him in.' This Ernie Dawber was a short, stout, dignified-looking elderly guy in a long raincoat and a hat. He didn't look pleased at being kept wailing in the rain. He looked even less pleased to see Macbeth.

'This bloke's a friend of Moira's,' Willie Wagstaff explained.

'Mungo Macbeth.'

Old guy's handshake was firm. Eyes pretty damn shrewd. 'My condolences,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Mr Dawber,' Willie said, 'I'll not mess about. This lad – Mungo – reckons Moira…' He took a breath. 'He reckons there's a connection with Jack. With… John Peveril Stanage.'

Willie's voice was so thick with loathing that Macbeth had to step back.

'Not possible,' Ernie Dawber said. 'I know what you're saving, but it's not possible.'

'No?' said Willie.

'He was banished, Willie. In the fullest sense. Forty-odd years ago. In all that time he's never once tried to come back. And if your ma was here now she'd go mad at you for even saying his name.

'Aye. But she's not. She's dead.' Willie's voice hardened. 'Suddenly. Under very questionable circumstances.'

Ernie Dawber shook his head. 'You're clutching at straws.'

Milly Gill said, 'Leave it, Willie. We've problems enough. Jack couldn't set foot in this village…'

'While Ma was alive!' Willie shouted.

'He's a rich man now, Willie, he's got everything he needs. And like Mr Dawber says, he's never once tried to get back in. Why should he?'

'Aye,' said Willie. 'Why should anybody want owt to do wi' Bridelow? Why's Bridelow suddenly important? Why's it on everybody's lips when things here've never been so depressed? Why? – Mr Dawber'll tell you, he's got the same disease.'

'Willie, stop it off!'

Willie brought a hand down on the gateleg table with a crack. 'Bogman fever! That little bastard's contagious. Look at Matt, he got too close for his own sanity. How close did you get, Mr Dawber, that you want to die for it as well? Did you ever think it'd got at your mind… staid, cautious old Ernie Dawber, man of letters?' He turned away. 'Ernie Dawber, human sacrifice. Don't make me laugh!'

'Stop it!' Milly Gill advanced on Willie like she was figuring to pull him apart. 'How dare you, little man? There's things we never can laugh at. Maybe something's turned your mind.'

'Jesus.' Macbeth stepped between them. 'Bogman fever? Human sacrifice? What kinda shit is this? Guy in the bar said everybody was on edge tonight, I figured he was making small talk. Back off, huh?'

Removing his hat, Ernie Dawber stepped further into the room, leaving the door ajar behind him. No visible ease-up in the rain. 'Could I ask you, Mr…'

'Macbeth. Like the evil Scottish King, had all his buddies iced.'

'That's as maybe,' Ernie Dawber said. 'But could I ask you, sir, what precisely is your interest here?'

'I got nothing to hide.' Macbeth let his arms fall to his sides. 'I fell in love with a woman.'

The noise from outside was like Niagara.

'And now she's dead,' Macbeth said. 'Some bastard's keeping secrets about that, maybe it's time for me to research a few ancestral vices, yeah?'

He shifted uncomfortably. Starting to sound like some steep-jawed asshole out of one of his own TV shows.

'Perhaps,' said Ernie Dawber, 'we should all calm down and discuss this. And for what it's worth – history being my subject – despite the Bard's best efforts to convince us otherwise, Macbeth was actually quite a stable monarch.'

'Ernie…' Macbeth pulled out a chair. 'I wasn't so pissed about this whole thing, I could maybe get to like you.' He sat. 'Now. Somebody gonna tell me about John Peveril Stanage?'

Only Milly Gill still looked defiant. She folded her arms, pushed the door shut with her ass.

'Oh, hell, tell him, Willie,' Ernie Dawber said. It had been novelty value, and now it was wearing off.

Chris wasn't stupid; he wasn't blind, being born-again to God didn't blind you to common sense.

Most of them were young. They sought, Chris conceded, a vibrancy and an excitement in religion which the Church had failed to give them. They found it at outdoor rallies, in marquees and packed rooms that were more like dancehalls. And now they were back where, for many of them, it had begun first time around in the stone clad starkness of an old-fashioned church. To defend it, Joel had told them. Against evil. But an evil they could not see, nor comprehend.

And Chris, an elder of the Church of the Angels of the New Advent, was asking himself: is this man, this figure of almost prophet-like glamour, this embodiment of the biblically angelic, is this man entirely sane?

'Joel.' Chris shambled over to the lectern, a lean, bearded man in a lumberjack shirt. 'Er, how many hours has it been exactly?'

'Are you counting, Chris?'

'No, but… I know the heat's on in here, but it's still pretty cold. Bit of an ordeal for some of these kids.'

'You're saying their faith isn't strong enough?'

Like the PE teacher he used to be, Chris thought. Loftily disdainful of youngsters shivering on a wintry playing field.

'Of course not,' Chris said. 'But don't you think… don't you think this church is clean now?'