The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  '... perhaps it wasn't you, after all,' he said.

  She could even hear their voices when the wind was in the right direction. And yes, it was a lot like the television - a thick glass screen between them, and she was very much alone, and the screen was growing darker.

  'Or perhaps it was you as you used to be. Those chestnut curls of yore.'

  Her hand went automatically to her hair, as coarse and dry now as the moorland grasses. She grabbed a handful of it to stop the hand shaking.

  'One wonders,' he mused. 'Your hair grey now, Liz? Put on weight or angular and gaunt? I'd so much like to see.'

  'What do you want?' Liz croaked.

  'If you were with me, I suppose you'd keep in trim, dye your hair, have your skin surgically stretched. Probably wouldn't work, but you'd try. If you were with me.'

  'How dare you?' Stung at last into anger. 'Where did you get this number?'

  He laughed.

  She felt alone and cold, terribly exposed, almost ill with it. 'What are you trying to do?'

  He said, 'How's dear old Ma these days? Is she well?'

  She said nothing.

  'Perhaps you don't see her. Or any of them. The word is you've become something of a recluse. All alone in your rotting mansion.'

  'What nonsense,' she said breathlessly.

  'Also, one hears the Mothers' Union isn't as well supported as it was. Sad, secular times, Liz. What's it all coming to? Silly old bats, eh?'

  'They had your measure,' Liz said, with a spurt of spirit. 'They saw you off.'

  'Oh, long time ago. Things change. Barriers weaken, old sweetheart, I've been thinking, why don't we meet up?'

  'Certainly not!'

  'Love to be able to come to Buxton, wouldn't you? Love to be smart and sprightly and well-dressed. Give anything to have those chestnut curls back. Perhaps it was you after all, sitting in your emotional prison and day-dreaming of Buxton. Perhaps that's what I saw. Perhaps you projected yourself. Ever try that, Liz? Should do. Could be a way out - send the spirit, give the body the bottle to go for it. Perhaps I'll drop in on you. Like that, would you?'

  'You can't! They won't let you!'

  'Times change, m'girl, times change.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Will you tell dearest Ma I called?'

  She said nothing.

  'Of course you won't. Don't see her any more, do you? You don't see any of them. Do you ... Liiiiiiz?'

  'Leave me ... !'

  She crashed the phone down, and she and the phone sat and trembled.

  'Alone,' she said, and began to weep.

  'I thought perhaps I might leave early,' Alice said. 'I've got a check-up at the dentist's in Buxton at six and I've got some stuff to pick up at Boots, and I don't like the look of the weather. Is that all right?'

  'Suppose so,' Chrissie said, bending over the filing cabinet. Roger had arrived mid-morning, seeming preoccupied, and had not even mentioned their lunch-date, just sloped off to some appointment. Now Chrissie would have to check everything, switch off the lights and lock up.

  'You don't mind being alone with ...' Alice giggled. '... him?'

  'Couldn't be safer,' Chrissie said. 'Rog ... Dr Hall was telling me he hasn't got one.'

  'Hasn't he?' Alice was putting her stuff away in her calfskin sandbag. She flicked a card across the desk at Chrissie. 'See, there's my appointment.'

  'What for?'

  'The dentist's. Just to show you I'm not making it up.'

  'I never thought you were making it up, Alice, OK?'

  'Why hasn't he got one?' asked Alice without much interest. She was a good ten years older than Chrissie, had grown-up kids and a big house. Didn't need the job but Chrissie supposed that in Alice's circle it was nice to say you worked for the University, even if it was only as a number two secretary in an overgrown Portacabin outside Congleton.

  Chrissie said, 'Part of the ritual, apparently, when he was sacrificed.'

  'I suppose that would be quite a sacrifice for a man,' said Alice, pretending to shudder.

  'Actually, it's possible they just cut it off after he was dead.'

  'I see.' Alice shrugged into her sheepskin coat. Hard luck, Chrissie thought. Now you'll never know how big they were in pre-Christian times.

  Alice took her car keys out of her bag, stuck the bag under an arm. 'So it's all right then, if I leave now?'

  'Yes,' Chrissie said. Yes, yes, yes! she screamed to herself.

  But when Alice had gone, she decided it wasn't all right. Bloody fat-arsed cow got away with too much. Spends most of the day experimenting with this disgusting sea-green nail varnish, then pisses off to sprawl on the sofa and moan to her husband about how overworked she is.

  Chrissie picked up the dentist's appointment card which Alice had left behind. It looked authentic enough, if you didn't happen to know Alice's eldest daughter was a dental receptionist.

  It was 4.30. A dim grey afternoon, with all the lights on. She couldn't herself go in case somebody (Roger) rang, or one of the research students came in to raid the files.

  She stared across the office at a double-locked metal door.

  Just me and you, chum, and you've got no dick.' Chrissie laughed.

  Under the laughter, there was a soft noise from behind the metal door.

  Chrissie breathed in hard. 'Who's that?'

  There was silence.

  Yes, that was it - just a soft noise. Not a thump, not a clang. She looked around and over her shoulder. The room had three desks, seven filing cabinets and two big metal-framed bookcases. It was garishly lit by fluorescent tubes and the windows had Venetian blinds. Between the blinds she could see the deserted college playing-fields and, beyond, the tops of container-lorries on the motorway.

  She was alone in the Field Centre and there was nobody apparent outside. 'Now, look,' Chrissie said, 'this is not on. This is not bloody on.'

  It was going dark out there.

  The soft noise came again, like a heavy cushion - an old-fashioned one, with brocade - being tossed on to a sofa.

  Bravely, Chrissie slipped off her shoes and moved quietly to the metal door.

  Should she check this out? Dare she?

  Although she'd never been in there alone, she knew where there was a key.

  She put her ear to the door.

  There was silence.

  Shaw's Porsche was coming up the drive, black as a funeral - did it have to be a black one? She could tell by the speed that it wouldn't be stopping at the house but continuing up to the brewery. There was a new link road for the brewery lorries, so they never grumbled past the Hall these days, and no local vehicles, except for Shaw's Mercedes and his Porsche, ever laboured up from Bridelow any more.

  So the Hall, sealed off from both the brewery and village, irrelevant now to both, might as well not exist.

  'Nor me,' Liz Horridge whispered into the empty, high-ceilinged room with its bland Regency-striped wallpaper and its cold, crystal chandelier. 'I've become irrelevant to everybody.'

  Even Shaw - famous mother's boy - had quite casually replaced her in his life. Always away at meetings, in Matlock, Buxton, Sheffield, London even. Or with his girlfriend, the mysterious Therese.

  With whom Shaw appeared obsessed. As well he might. The girl was far too beautiful for him - at thirty-one, he was at least ten years older, losing his hair, conspicuously lacking in style despite his costly education. But being seen with Therese (Therese Beaufort, no less) had done wonders for his confidence, and his lifelong stutter had virtually disappeared.

  Her delight had turned to a damp dismay. Years of speech therapy, of love and patient coaxing at the fireside. And what was it that finally killed Shaw's stutter?

  Sex.

  She could weep. Had wept.

  And wept and wept.

  Last week he'd made her position quite appallingly clear. If I were you, Mother,' he'd said in passing - everything Shaw said to her these days appeared to be in passing - 'If I were you, I'd be
off. Out of here. Somewhere warm. The Channel Islands. Malta.'

  She clung to the sofa. 'But I don't want a holiday, Shaw.'

  'No, not a holiday. I mean, for good. To live. Why not? It's warm, it's civilized. And absolutely everyone would want to come and stay with you.'

  'What are you saying?

  Shaw had smiled affably and dashed off to his 'meeting'.

  Every day since, she'd sat here, by this bay window, and listened to his voice in her head saying so smoothly, without a hint of impediment, Somewhere warm. The Channel Islands, Malta ...

  And envisaged Therese Beaufort, in some slinky designer costume, drink in hand, languid in this window, gazing out on her property.

  Liz Horridge thought she could see old Mrs Wagstaff waddling up the main street of Bridelow towards the church. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe she just needed to see the old girl.

  How's dear old Ma these days? Is she well?

  Three decades ago, in the crowded parlour full of bottles, two cats on the hearth, Ma Wagstaff cradling Liz's head. Sleeping in the little bedroom. If he comes to you ... scream. Don't matter what time.

  And now, Perhaps I'll drop in. Wouldn't you like that?

  You can't. She'll stop you.

  Things change. Barriers weaken.

  She looked out at the village, willing it closer. She'd give anything to be able to shatter that damned glass screen before it all went black.

  Well, look at it this way - there was no way anyone could have got in there without her or Alice knowing about it. Therefore there was no one in there, except for ... well, yes.

  The spare key was filed in the third filing cabinet. Under K, for key.

  The problem was, suppose something was amiss in there? Suppose a rat or something had got in? Suppose something electrical had malfunctioned, threatening the bogman's welfare? And therefore Roger's. And hers.

  Tentatively, she unlocked the third filing cabinet and located the key. It was smoky-coloured steel, about four inches long.

  Who would Roger blame if something had gone wrong with the bogman, his future? Who was in charge of the office in Roger's absence?

  Filed under B was a second and longer key for the double lock to the inner room, the specimen room, the bogman's bedroom.

  She just rather wished, as she pushed in the first key, that she hadn't acquiesced so readily to Alice's 'request' to leave early.

  Chrissie slipped on her cardigan. It would be cold in there, wouldn't it? Mustn't get the shivers, that would never do.

  The metal door opened with a soft vacuum belch.

  'Sorry to intrude,' Chrissie said softly.

  Behind the door was a small hallway where two new Portacabins had been pushed together. This was where the white coats were kept, and there were a couple of lavatory cubicles and a washbasin. Then there was another, unlocked door leading to an anteroom with a desk. And then the innermost metal door- with a double lock through which minions like her and Alice were not supposed to venture.

  So there couldn't possibly be anybody in there.

  Anybody else.

  She'd been in there a couple of times, but only with Roger and not for very long. So she knew what he looked like, no problem about that.

  The second key turned easily, twice, and Chrissie walked into an almost complete but alarmingly pleasant darkness which hummed faintly.

  She didn't move. Apart from the hum, it was very, very quiet. Nothing scurried away. She'd left the door open behind her to allow a little light in there, but the velvety darkness absorbed it all within a yard or two of the opening and she had to fumble about for switches.

  It was not cold. This was it. Well, of course, this was why it seemed so pleasant. The temperature was controlled to body heat. Bog body heat. He'd apparently been freeze-dried and then maintained in a controlled environment. She rather hoped he was packed away or at least covered up with something.

  ... do you touch him much?

  Chrissie's hand found a switch, and the lights came on, flickering blue laboratory light, white on white tiles.

  Mortuary light. Chrissie tensed, breathed in sharply.

  But, of course, she was right. There was absolutely nobody here.

  Nobody else.

  ... of course I touch him. He feels like a big leather cricket bag. You should pop in sometime, be an experience for you.

  Actually he was rather smaller than the cricket bags Chrissie had seen when her ex-husband used to play.

  He was lying on his table in his heat-regulated bubble, looking like somebody who'd spent far too long in a solarium.

  Yes, he had a lovely tan.

  Still hard to think of him as an actual corpse. He was too old. But still, ancient as he was, when you thought about it, he was probably in a better state of preservation than Chrissie's late grandad was by now.

  Chrissie laughed at her stupid self.

  She leaned over the bogman, curled up under his plastic bubble.

  'All right then, chuck?'

  She wondered what he'd sound like if he could reply, what language he spoke. Welsh, probably. She looked around. There were a couple of wires, naked rubber, emerging from the bottom of the container. Pretty primitive. The British Museum boffins would probably have a fit.

  But nothing seemed amiss.

  'I'll leave you, then,' Chrissie said. She tried to see his face. His nose was squashed, like a boxer's. There were whiskers around his contorted lips, which were half open, revealing the brown stumps of his teeth.

  There was a fold in the side of his neck, a flap, like another lip. She thought, God, that's where they cut his throat, poor little devil.

  Beaten over the head, garrotted, throat cut and then they chopped his dick off.

  Oh, yuck.

  Automatically, she glanced down to where his groin ought to be, where the body was bent.

  And then Chrissie made a little involuntary noise at the back of her throat.

  She glanced back at his face.

  His twisted lips ... leering at her now.

  Her eyes flicked rapidly back to his groin, back to his face, back to his groin. She felt her own lips contorting, and she made the little noise again, a high-pitched strangled yelp, and she began to back off towards the door.

  But she couldn't stop looking at him.

  ... what, no ...

  ... penis ... must have chopped it off. Part of the ritual.

  Chrissie's hands began to tingle as they scrabbled frantically behind her back for the door-handle.

  Get me out of here.

  Far from being emasculated, the bogman, under his bubble, had the most enormous erection she had ever seen.

  From Dawber's Book of Bridelow:

  NATURAL HISTORY

  Bridelow Moss is believed to be over four thousand years old, but there has been considerable erosion over the past two centuries and the bog appears to have been affected by pollution from industry twenty or more miles away, with much of the vegetation being destroyed and the surface becoming even darker due to soot-deposits.

  Erosion is gradually exposing the hills and valleys submerged under the blanket bog, and many fragments of long-dead trees, commonly known as 'bog oak', have been discovered.

  Because of the preservative qualities of peat, wood recovered from the Moss is usually immensely strong and was once considered virtually indestructible ...

  CHAPTER IX

  There was frost on the morning of the day Matt Castle was to be buried, and the heaped soil beside the prepared grave looked like rock.

  The grave was in the highest corner of the churchyard, and the Rector could see it from the window of his study. A shovel was set in the soil, a stiff, scarecrow shape against the white morning.

  Hans turned back to the room and to the kind of problem he didn't need, today of all days.

  'I didn't know who else to come to,' the young farmer said, the empty teacup like a thimble in his massive hands. 'I've got kids.'

  'Have you told the poli
ce?'

  'What's the point?' The fanner wore black jeans and a tan leather jacket. He wasn't a churchgoer but Hans had christened his second child.

  'If you've been losing stock ...'

  'Aye, one ram. But that were months ago. I told t'coppers about that. What could they do? Couldn't stake out the whole moor, could they? Anyway, like they said, it's not a crime any more, witchcraft.'

  'Devil worship,' Hans said gently. 'There's a difference. Usually.'

  'All bloody same to me. With respect. Like I say, it's not summat they warn you about at agricultural college, Vicar. Sheep scab's one thing, Satanism's summat else.'

  'Yes.' Hans didn't know what to do about this. The man wasn't interested in counselling, sympathy, platitudes; he wanted practical help.

  'So I've come to you, like.' His name was Sam Davis. This was his first farm. A challenge - seventy acres, and more than half of it basically unfarmable moorland, with marsh and heather, great stone outcrops ... and the remains of two prehistoric stone circles half a mile apart.

  'Cause it's your job, really, int it?' said Sam Davis, thrusting out his ample jaw. A lad with responsibilities. Two kids, a nervy wife and no neighbours. 'T'Devil. An' all his works, like.'

  And there he really had put his finger on it, this lad. If this was not a minister's job, what was? Hans tried to straighten his leg. Some minister he was, took him half an hour to climb into the pulpit.

  'Tell me again,' he said. "There was the remains of a fire. In the centre of the circle. Now ... on the previous occasion, you actually found blood. And, er, the ram's head, of course. On the stone.'

  'Just like they wanted me to find it,' Sam Davis said. 'Only it weren't me as found it, it were t'little girl.' He set his cup down in the hearth, as if afraid he was going to crush it in his anger.

  'Yes. Obviously very distressing. For all of you. But you know ... It's easy for me to say this, obviously, I'm not living in quite such an exposed ...'

  'Hang on now, Vicar, I'm not ...'

  'I know ... you're a big lad and well capable of taking care of your family. The actual point I was trying to make is that it's easy to get this kind of thing out of proportion. Quite often it's youngsters. They read books and see films about Satanism, they hear of these ritual places, the stone circles ... not in Transylvania or somewhere but right here within twenty miles of Manchester and Sheffield ...'