The Man in the Moss

by Phil Rickman

  'What about a doctor?'

  'She wouldn't thank you for a doctor. Just get Milly. Milly Gill.'

  Moira didn't need to say a word. Milly Gill looked at her and lost her smile, shooed out two customers and shut up the post office. Ran ahead of Moira across the street, big floral bosom heaving.

  When they got to the house, Willie had the front door wide open and tears of horror in his eyes. Milly Gill moved past him to where the old woman lay in a small, neat bundle at the bottom of the stairs, eyes like glass buttons, open mouth a breathless void, one leg crooked under her brown woollen skirt.

  The body looked as weightless as a sparrow. Moira doubted she'd ever seen anything from which life was so conspicuously absent. A life which, obviously, had been so much more than the usual random mesh of electrical impulses. Even when it was moving, the little body had been the least of Ma Wagstaff.

  This was a big death.

  Willie Wagstaff stood in the front garden looking at his shoes, drawing long breaths. His hands hung by his sides, fingers motionless. The kettle's wild whistling ended with a gasp, and then Milly Gill came out and joined them. 'You'll need a doctor, Willie, luv.'

  His head came up, eyes briefly bright, but the spark of hope fading in an instant.

  'Death certificate,' Milly said softly. She took his arm. 'Come on. Post Office. I'll make us some tea.'

  The street was silent, but doors were being opened, curtains tweaked aside. Shadowed faces; nobody came out - everybody sensing the death mood in the dusky air.

  Moira thought bleakly, They don't die like this, people like Ma Wagstaff. Not at a time of crisis. They don't have accidents and sudden heart attacks. They know when it's over, and they go quietly and usually in their own time.

  At the Post Office doorway, Milly Gill called out to the street at large, 'it's Ma Wagstaff. Nothing anybody can do.' She turned to Willie, 'No point in keeping it a secret, is there, luv?'

  Moira heard Willie saying, 'I was only with her this morning.' The way people talked, facing the mindless robbery of a sudden death.

  And I saw her less than an hour ago, and she was in some state, Willie ... she was in some state.

  'I'd guess it couldn't have been quicker,' Milly Gill said unconvincingly, leading them through the Post Office into a flowery little sitting room behind. 'She's still warm, poor old luv. Maybe she had a seizure or something, going downstairs. Sit yourselves down, I'll put kettle on and phone for t'doctor.'

  'This is Moira Cairns,' said Willie.

  'How d'you do. Plug that fire in, Willie, it's freezing.'

  Scrabbling down by the hearth, Willie looked up at Moira through his mousy fringe, fishing out a weak smile that was almost apologetic.

  'I should go,' Moira said. 'Last thing you need is me.'

  Willie got to his feet, nervously straightening his pullover, 'I wouldn't say that. No.'

  She thought, Poor Willie. Who's he got left? No mother, no Matt, no job maybe, no direction. Only fingers drumming at the air.

  'Is there only you ... No brothers, sisters ... ?'

  'Two sisters,' Willie said. 'There's always more girls. By tradition, like.'

  Moira sat on the end of a settee with bright, floral loose-covers. The carpet had a bluebell design and there were paintings and sketches of wild flowers on the walls.

  'Ah,' Willie said, 'she had to go sometime. She were eighty ... I forget. Getting on, though. Least she dint suffer, that's the main thing '

  Oh, but she did, Willie ... She couldn't look at him, her worried eyes following a single black beam across the ceiling.

  Two bunches of sage were hanging from it, the soft, musty scent favouring the atmosphere. Homely.

  'No hurry,' Milly Gill was saying in another room, on the phone to the doctor. 'If there's sick people in t'surgery, you see to them first. See to the living.'

  When she came back into the sitting room, there were two cats around her ankles.

  'Bob and Jim.' Willie's eyes were damp. 'Little buggers. Didn't see um come.'

  Moira said, 'Your ma's cats?'

  Willie smiled. 'Not any more. Cats'll always find a home. These buggers knew where to come. They'll not be the only ones.'

  'This lady's with the Mothers' Union, right?'

  Willie said, 'You know about that, eh?'

  'I knew about this one when she first come in,' said Milly Gill. 'We'll have to have a talk sometime, luv.'

  Her watchful, grey eyes said she also knew that women like Ma Wagstaff did not fall downstairs after having unexpected strokes or heart attacks. Willie's fingers had known that too, had felt it coming, whatever it was.

  'Soon, huh?' Moira said.

  Joel Beard said, 'Here? In my ... in the churchyard?'

  He and the policeman were standing in the church porch, the wet afternoon draining into an early dusk.

  'It's a possibility, vicar,' Ashton said, it's something we have to check out, and the sooner we do it the less likely we are to attract attention. You haven't had any Press here, I take it?'

  Joel Beard shook his curls. 'Why would they come here?'

  'They would if they knew what we were proposing to do, sir, and these things have a habit of leaking out. So ... I don't know if you've had experience of an exhumation before, but what it involves is screening off the immediate area and confining it to as few people as are absolutely necessary. You can be there yourself if you like, but I assure you we'll be very tidy. Now, the lights ...'

  'Lights? You mean you want to do it tonight? I thought these things took ...'

  'Not much more than a phone call involved these days, sir. We're under quite a lot of pressure to find this thing, as you can imagine.'

  Joel said, 'It all seems so unlikely.'

  It didn't, though. It connected all too plausibly. 'Inspector, how do you suppose that this was actually done? Without anything being seen?'

  'This was what I was planning to ask you. Country churchyard, even at night somebody sees something, don't they? Perhaps they saw and they kept quiet, mmm? When was the grave dug?'

  'I don't know,' Joel said, 'I imagine the day before. The Rector was in charge then, but he ... he's in hospital. He's had a heart attack.'

  'That's unfortunate,' Ashton said. 'No, you see, what's been suggested to us is that the grave was dug deeper than is normal and then the body was brought here and covered with earth and then the funeral went ahead as normal, with Mr Castle's coffin laid on top of the bog body.'

  'That's preposterous,' Joel said.

  It wasn't, though. Somehow there was a link here with the old woman and the bottle she'd been attempting to secrete into Castle's coffin.

  'You see, our information is that there was a request from some people here for the body to be returned to the bog. And when it seemed unlikely that was going to happen, somebody decided to pinch it. Would you know anything about that, Mr Beard?'

  'Good Lord,' Joel said. 'No, I certainly wouldn't. You know, I think, on the whole, that I should like to be there when you ... do it.'

  'I thought you might,' said Ashton.

  Moira felt weary and ineffectual, and she had a headache. Walking, head down, into the Rectory drive, she was speared by lights.

  Cathy parked her father's VW Golf crookedly in front of the garage.

  'How is he?'

  'He's OK,' Cathy said quickly, unlocking the front door. 'I'm sorry, I didn't leave you a key, did I? I'm hopelessly inefficient.'

  About her father - Moira saw she was playing this down.

  Cathy unloaded plastic carrier bags and her long university scarf on to the kitchen worktops, all stark, white butcher's-shop tiling. 'I went into Manchester afterwards. Had to get away somewhere crowded, to think. Got loads of cold things from Marks and Sparks. You don't mind, do you? Pop sees to the cooking as a rule. I'm a disaster in the kitchen. Did you get to see Ma Wagstaff?'

  'Yes,' said Moira.

  'Did she talk to you?'

  'No,' Moira said. 'I'm afraid not.'r />
  Then Cathy discovered the sugar bowl was empty and went into the pantry, the little room under the stairs, for a new bag.

  'Oh,' she said. "The little scumbags.'

  'Huh?'

  Moira peered over her shoulder. Cathy was holding a brick. There was a small window in the pantry and the brick had clearly been used to smash it.

  'Little bastards,' Cathy said. 'You know, this never used to happen. I know people say that all the time ... "Oh, things were different when I was a kid and you could get in the cinema for sixpence. None of this vandalism in those days, kids had respect." But it's true. Even - what? - six months ago it was true in Bridelow. They did have respect.'

  Cathy put the brick down on the floor. Now there's graffiti in the toilets at the parish hall. A week or two ago somebody had a ... defecated on the seat inside the lych-gate. Can you believe that? In Bridelow?'

  'You better check the house,' Moira said.

  Cathy had a cursory look around the downstairs rooms. Everything seemed to be in order. 'Little sods. Everybody knows Pop's in hospital.' She looked at Moira. 'Oh. Yes. That's another thing. They're sending him to a convalescent home.'

  'I thought it wasn't too serious.'

  'Coronary,' Cathy said despondently. 'That's serious. They're sending him - committing him is how he sees it - to this Church nursing home down in Shropshire. At least a month. Which means Joel's got to move in here.'

  'With you?'

  'You're joking,' Cathy said. 'Even if I could bear to have him in the house, he's much too proper to countenance it. No, I'll go back to Oxford. Come up at weekends and see Pop. I mean, I expect you'll be wanting to be off, won't you?'

  Moira said. 'Look, you got any cardboard in the garage or somewhere? We can block up this window.'

  'Never mind, Alf Becket'll fix it tomorrow.'

  Moira said, 'Cathy ... um ... something bad's happened.'

  Because of the Post Office's strict security regulations, Milly Gill's front door had two steel bolts and a fancy double lock, which she'd always thought was damn stupid in a place like Bridelow. Tonight, though, first time ever, Milly was glad to turn the key twice over and slide the big bolts. Even though she knew there were some things no locks could keep out.

  The urgent banging on the door shook her. Willie Wagstaff never used the knocker. Willie would beat out his own personal tattoo with his fingers.

  'Oh, Mother,' Milly Gill said, clutching her arms over her breast. 'I'm not going to be up to this.'

  It was an hour since the doctor'd had Ma taken away, Across the Moss. He'd said there might have to be a post-mortem, probably no more than a formality, it was most likely natural causes. But if there was reason to think she might have fallen accidentally, there'd have to be a public inquest.

  Pity Bridelow didn't have a resident doctor any more; this was an Asian gentleman from Across the Moss who couldn't be expected to understand. Milly had pleaded with him not to let them cut Ma up if there was any way it could be avoided. It was important that all of Ma's bits should be returned to Bridelow for burial, not tissue and stuff left in some hospital waste bin.

  More crashing at the from door.

  'Who is it?' Milly shouted. Didn't recognize her own voice, it sounded that feeble.

  'It's me. Alf.'

  Milly tut-tutted at her cowardice. Why she should think there might be something abroad because something that happened to hundreds of pensioners every week had happened to Ma Wagstaff ...

  She undid the bolts and turned the key twice. 'I'm sorry, Alf. Not like me to be nervy.'

  But, if anything, Alf Beckett looked worse than she felt. There was a streetlamp outside the door, a converted gas lamp with an ice-blue bulb. Its light made Alf look quite ill, eyes like keyholes.

  'Milly,' he said. 'We're in t'shit.'

  'Come in, luv,' Milly said. Her responsibility now, this sort of problem, keeping up community morale. She sat Alf down on the floral settee. He was ashen.

  'Now then, come on,' Milly said, it's all right. We'll get over this. We've had bad patches before.'

  'No ...' Alf shook his head. 'Listen ...'

  'It's my fault,' Milly said. 'We always left too much to poor old Ma. We thought she were immortal. Thought we could sit back, everybody getting on with their lives, foreign holidays, videos. Didn't seem to matter like it used to. And then when Ma started getting gloomy, we all thought it were just her age. Even me, daft cow. And now everything's happened at once, and it's shaken us. But we'll be all right, honest, luv.'

  She got up to put the kettle on. 'I've sent Willie to t'Man for a pint. Life's got to go on, Alf. Just means we'll have to have a bit of a get-together. Soon as possible. Sort this lad Joel Beard out for a start. Then we'll see what else we've got to tackle. Mrs Horridge, that's another thing ...'

  'Milly!' Alf Beckett's hearth brush moustache looked bent and spiky. 'Police've come.'

  'Eh? Because of Ma? Have they found summat?'

  'No, no listen to me, woman, for Christ's sake.' Alf sat up on the couch, hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles were whiter than his cheeks, it's t'grave. They're coming to dig Matt's grave up.'

  In the narrow doorway to the back kitchen, Milly froze, filling it.

  Alf said, 'Some bugger's told t'coppers as t'bogman's in theer.'

  Milly felt sick. All churned up inside. Ma gone, the Rector in hospital. And her at the wrong time of life to cope with it all. She covered up her face with her hands and looked at him through her fingers.

  'Lord,' she whispered. 'What've we done, Alf? What've we done in Brid'lo to deserve this?'

  Cathy said to Moira, 'If Pop hears about this, he's going to do something stupid.'

  She'd told Cathy only about Ma's death. Not about seeing the old woman out on the Moss fighting a dead tree.

  She said, 'Like what?'

  'Like discharge himself,' Cathy said glumly. 'Moira, I don't know what to do. They ran this place between them, Pop and Ma Wagstaff. They hardly ever met, but they had an understanding, you know?'

  They were in the sitting room. Cathy had lit the fire. She was sitting on the sofa where Dic Castle had sprawled. She'd taken off her shoes and her thick woollen socks were planted on an old rag hearthrug dark with scorchmarks from stray coals.

  'He doesn't talk much about it, but it was obviously really tough for Pop when he first came here. He was pretty young - younger than Joel. And a Southerner. With a funny German name. Hell of a culture shock. Series of shocks, I suppose.'

  'Like, when he finds out they're all heathens?'

  'Is that what we are?'

  Moira smiled, 'It's no' that simple, is it? I was up on the moor with Willie Wagstaff earlier. We saw the holy well. Who's that dedicated to? The goddess Brigid? St Bride? The Mother Goddess? Or the Holy Mother of God?'

  'Gets confusing, doesn't it?' Cathy said.

  'And the cross that was in the church, made out of twigs and stuff.'

  'The Autumn Cross.'

  'And there's a Winter Cross - yeh? - made of holly and mistletoe and stuff, and then a Spring Cross, made of ...'

  'You've got it.'

  Moira said, putting it all together finally, 'They can't make up their minds what they are, can they?'

  Cathy folded her legs on to the sofa. 'Like I said, you need to talk to Mr Dawber, he can put it into an historical context. But the first Church in Britain was the Celtic Church, and by the time they came along I like to think Celtic paganism was pretty refined, with this give-and-take attitude to nature and animals and things.'

  'In parts of Scotland,' said Moira, 'particularly some of the Western Isles, it's not been so much a takeover as a merger. Like, nobody could say the teachings of Christ were anything less than a hell of a good framework for, say, human behaviour, the way we treat each other. But ...'

  '... in isolated areas, there were aspects of life it didn't quite cover,' said Cathy. 'Maybe still doesn't. And this area was always very isolated. Cut off. Self-sufficie
nt. Immune from outside influences. We got electricity later than everybody else. Piped water was a long time coming. Television signals are still so lousy that most people haven't got one yet.'

  'Yeh, but look ...'

  '... now it's a brick through your window and "Sheffield United are shit" on the walls, and somebody has one on a public seat - that's outside influences for you. Be a rape next.'

  'Cathy, this bogman ...'

  'Oh, he's all right.'

  'No, he's not. Matt Castle was besotted with him. The Man in the Moss. Matt was seeing him in Biblical terms - sacrificial saviour of the English Celts.'

  'He died to save us all,' Cathy said. 'Gosh. Isn't that a terrible piece of blasphemy? Can you imagine the sleepless nights Pop had over this? The bogman: was he some sort of Pennine Jesus?'

  '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.'