by Phil Rickman
'Who can say owt like that? Who the hell knows how long they've got?'
'Ma knew.'
'Aye. But she were bloody wrong, though, weren't she?'
Milly squeezed her lips tight.
'Makes you wonder,' Willie said bitterly, 'if it's not a load of old garbage, all of it, the whole caboodle. Makes you bloody wonder.'
'I'll not have that from you, Little Man,' Milly chided, 'even if you are in grief. That's part of the problem. That sort of talk's like decay.'
'Realism, more like,' Willie said, his fingers waking up, stretching themselves, then batting the side of his teacup in a soft chinking rhythm.
'Drink your tea. You're upset. We all are. I just wish I could get some insight about the Man.'
'Aye,' Willie said. 'And where's bloody Matt? Don't bear thinking about, this lot. Makes me think I'll happen have Ma cremated.'
'You never will!' Milly sat up so suddenly she actually spilled some tea.
'Nowt as goes in yon churchyard ever bloody stays down,' Willie protested. 'Aye, all right. I mean, no, I'll not have her cremated, settle down. Will you talk to Moira?'
'I don't know,' Milly said. 'Wasn't there talk of her getting into bad magic some while back?'
'Aye, and she got out again,' Willie said. 'You met her last night. How did she seem to you?'
'All right, I suppose,' Milly said grudgingly. 'But you can't tell. I should be able to tell, I know, but ... Oh, Willie ...'
Her shoulders started to shake and she collapsed against him.
'I'm out of mc depth. Why did she have to die like that? Why did she leave us?'
'Because she had no choice,' said Willie, almost managing to get his arm all the way around her. 'It's no good us keep getting worked up about it. What's done is done.'
But his fingers didn't accept it; they set up a wild, uncontrollable rhythm on Milly's arm, just below the shoulder. Ma was killed... Ma was killed... Ma was... .
'Stop it!' Milly sobbed, 'I know. I bloody know! But what can we do?'
'Talk to Moira,' Willie said.
The church clock chimed, for 10 a.m.
'Be late for church,' Willie said.
'Not going,' Milly said. 'Means nowt to me now, that place. He's destroyed it. In one day.'
'Aye,' Willie said. 'And the well.'
'You what?
'Him or somebody. I never told you, did I? I forgot - what with Ma and everything. Me and Moira went up there looking for Ma, and the well had been wrecked. Statue smashed, right bloody mess.'
Milly rolled away from him, mashing her face into her pillow in anguish.
'I'm sorry, lass,' Willie said, 'I just forgot.'
Sunday morning and the whole village was unaccountably silent. Moira walked to the church car park and loaded everything into the BMW.
It was coming up to 10.45, which probably explained the silence. This would be the time of the Sunday morning worship.
She walked across to the public notice board next to the lych-gate.
SUNDAY:
HOLY COMMUNION 9.0.
MORNING SERVICE 10.30
UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTIFIED
Life will go on. Unless otherwise notified.
She no longer felt observed. She wasn't worth it any more: a thin, bewildered Scottish woman coming up to middle age and her hair turning white.
Everything was unreal. The clouds were like stone. Her head felt as if it was set in concrete. She needed to get away, to sleep and think and sleep.
And then, maybe, to find Dic, track the little shit down, deal with this thing.
She'd see Willie and then leave. She didn't feel like talking to him - or to anybody. But Willie was the other link; there were things Willie could tell her.
And he was a churchgoer, or always used to be. She was probably going to have to wait until they all came out.
She slipped through the lych-gate. It began to rain, quite powerfully. The gargoyles glared down at her. She moved quietly into the church porch, but there was no feeling of sanctuary here now. The sense of walking into the womb had gone with the Sheelagh na gig. It was merely shelter now, from the rain and nothing else.
Moira stopped, hearing a voice, a preacher's lilt, from the body of the church.
'... Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moves us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of Almighty God...'
It was cold in the porch, colder than outside. She hugged herself.
And there was something wrong with that voice.
… Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me ...'
The door to the church was closed. She would wait for a hymn and then go in.
'Almighty and most merciful father, we have erred and strayed
from thy ways like lost sheep ...
'We have offended against thy holy laws . ..
... and there is no health in us. .
Cathy had been right. She was coming down with something, a cold, flu. Wasn't just shock. She was shivering again.
Should go back to the car, turn up the heater.
And then it came to her, what was wrong.
There should be responses. All these lines the minister was intoning were supposed to be repeated by the congregation. He was leaving the spaces.
'To the glory of thy holy name … '
But nobody was filling them. Not one person in this congregation was participating.
'Amen.'
Nobody repeated amen. He might have been talking to himself.
Holy Jesus.
'We shall sing ... Hymn number six hundred and three. "Round The Sacred City Gather."'
She waited for the organ or the harmonium or whatever.
That sound they always made, like they were drawing breath for the first chord.
There was silence. Only that hollow gasping ambience these places had. And then the singing began.
'Round the sacred city gather
Egypt, Edam, Babylon.
All the warring hosts of error.
Sworn against her, move as one.'
A strong and strident tenor. One voice.
This guy was singing on his own.
And that was very seriously eerie. Moira began to feel scared.
'Get thee, watchman, to thy rampart,
Gird thee, warrior, with thy sword … '
Trembling, she pushed gently at the swing-door, opening it just an inch, just enough to peer in ... and let out the voice, louder.
'Watch to prayer lest while ye slumber.
Stealthy foemen enter in …'
She almost screamed. Let go of the door, letting it swing back into place with an audible thunk that seemed to echo from the rafters.
I'm away. I'm out of here.
As she ran out of the porch, into the bleakly battering rain, she could still see him, fully robed, statuesque but crazy-eyed, arms filing out, balanced there on the steps before the altar place, singing to all those empty pews. All those completely empty pews.
She walked back along the cobbles, to where she could see down the street as far as The Man I'th Moss.
Not a soul.
But the silence was more sorrowful than sinister, hung down like her confidence, somewhere around the soles of her shoes.
She looked along the blank windows of the cottages. The only sign of presence was some chimney smoking cheerlessly.
Maybe all this had something to do with the sudden death of Ma Wagstaff. A big death.
And the stealing of the Sheelagh, the removal of the candles, the toppling of the Autumn Cross. Like they didn't feel welcome in the church any more, these bewildered people who no longer knew where they stood in relation to their God or their Goddess.
She turned into the alley which led to Willie's house and she hammered on his door, her body flattened
against it. Come on, Willie, come on.
Deserted. She tried, a little nervously, a couple of raps on the front door of the curtained cottage at the top of the street where Ma Wagstaff had lived and died. Finally, she found an old envelope in the car and wrote a careful note, walking back down the hill to push it into Willie's letter-box.
Willie, I suppose we need to talk sometime about what we're going to do about Mao's music on the bog body. I don't suppose you feel any more like it than me at the moment, so I'll get in touch in a few weeks' time. I have to go home now ...
Home. Where the hell was home?
Home is where the heart is, and I haven't got a heart, I haven't got a soul.
I have been burgled.
She stood in the street and looked from window to window, up and down, in search of life, and did not find it. But then, what the hell business was it of hers if the people of Bridelow wanted to lie low and boycott St Bride's and its unsympathetic new minister?
And turning on her heel, summoning energy from God knew where, she walked crisply, with determination, clop, clop, bloody clop on the cobbles, back up to the lych-gate and
the car.
Almost falling into the arms of the Angel bloody Gabriel in white as he strode through the gate, his desperate solo service abandoned.
'I'm sorry,' he snapped. And then, with his hands still on her shoulders to separate their bodies, he began to stare at her.
Seeing what she figured must be this sad, sluttish face, no make-up, hair awry, maybe a low and useless anger burning fitfully in the eyes.
His hands dropped away from her. His fists clenched. He began to tremble. He said, 'Who are you?' Golden curls tight to his head, Van Helsing-size cross looming out at her as his white linen chest swelled.
'Who are you?'
'Doesn't matter,' Moira said tonelessly. 'I'm leaving now.'
He blocked her path to the car, legs apart, this real big bastard in full Sunday vestments, humiliated in the sight of his God. Profile like Michelangelo's 'David' or something, a good head taller than she was and bellowing out, 'In the name of God ... WHO ARE YOU, WOMAN?'
'Look, would you please get outa my way,' she said tiredly.
Like she didn't have enough problems of her own.
'It's Sunday morning.' He was snarling now, through gritted teeth, rage choking him. 'And my church is empty. There is no congregation. No sidesmen. No organist.'
'Maybe it's just your sermons are crap,' Moira said. 'Look ...'
He said, in a kind of wonder, backing off, his surplice billowing like a sail, 'You're taunting me'
'Please ...'
'I know who you are.' He was screaming it at the village, 'I know what you are!'
'Yeah, I'm sure you do, but would you please just get the hell out of my way?'
And knew, as she was saying it, that she shouldn't have used the word hell.
His face glowed red, bulging with blood.
She saw it corning but she didn't move. She took it from his massive open hand across the side of her face, from forehead to lower jaw. It would have hurt her less if she'd fallen, but she wouldn't do that. She stayed on her feet and she stared into his incandescent eyes.
Abruptly he spun away and strode back through the gate; she heard his footsteps crunching the gravel and then, hitting the path. Finally she heard the church door crashing into place with an echo that didn't seem to fade but went on smashing from one side of her skull to the other as she moved unsteadily to her car.
CHAPTER V
Being Sunday, he could park in the street right outside and wait for some movement.
It was a dull, cold day in Glasgow, and a light gleamed out of the second floor of Kaufmann's scuffed tenement, which indicated Fiona had got it right. 'See, he often works on a Sunday, catching up with his VAT and stuff. But, Mungo, you tell him where you got this from I'm out the door; long as you realise that...'
Lucky he'd kept Fiona's home number. He owed the kid another dinner.
This Sunday morning convinced Macbeth that being a private investigator had to be about the most tedious occupation you could have outside of accountancy. The first hour, the car radio kept him amused with some bizarre soap-style drama about country folks in which nobody got killed, nobody seemed to be balling anyone else's spouse but two guys nearly came to blows in an argument about milk quotas. Only in Britain.
The second hour Macbeth fell to contemplating the futility of his life so far, the hopelessness of his quest, etc.
And then, just after 1 p.m., Malcolm Kaufmann came out of the building and spent some time locking the door behind him.
Kaufmann bad on a long black overcoat over a pink polo shirt. Macbeth followed him to a crowded, chromium pub where Kaufmann ordered chicken sandwiches and, to Macbeth's dismay, sat down to eat them with two other guys he obviously knew.
Macbeth said shit a few times under his breath, ordered up a sandwich and a beer, sat as far away from Kaufmann as he could while still keeping him in view, and began to eat very slowly.
There were many women in the bar. Macbeth passed some time debating which one he'd make a move on if he hadn't been an investigator on a case. There was one in a dark blue velvet top who had to be wasted on the guy she was with; he was drinking too much and talking to other guys, she was on Diet Coke and probably only here to drive him home.
She had long, dark hair. Which, of course, was nothing at all to do with Macbeth picking her out, no way.
He was getting to thinking he would make a move, if only to make the woman's lunchtime more memorable, when Malcolm Kaufmann came swiftly to his feet, said a rapid goodbye to his pals and made an exit, weaving through the crowd with such practised agility that Macbeth almost lost him.
Couldn't be sure Kaufmann wouldn't get into a car or taxi and head off home, so he called after him in the street, and Kaufmann turned at the edge of the sidewalk and raised an
eyebrow.
'Mr Macbeth. How very strange to see you.'
'We have to talk, Malcolm,' Macbeth said, trying to sound tough.
'Of course. We must arrange a time.'
'Like, now.'
'Oh, dear,' said Kaufmann. 'This sounds serious. What can the fair Moira have been up to?'
Macbeth walked right up to him. There was a cab idling not ten yards away, and he was taking no chances. 'We need to talk about a man,' he said, 'name of John Peveril Stanage.'
Ashton thought he should tell her himself, maybe test the water a bit. Also, he liked a pint around Sunday lunch when he got the time - unable, despite his divorce, to shake himself out of the feeling that Sunday lunchtime was special.
And he couldn't deny he was becoming quite fascinated by this place, a bit of old England only twenty miles from factories and warehouses, muck and grime and petty crime.
He drove Across the Moss in his own vehicle, the Japanese sports car which was his first independent purchase with the bit of money left over after paying off his wife. A gesture.
Ashton realised now that Gillian was probably right, it was bloody pathetic to buy a car like this at his age. Lump of flash tat, and he could never even remember what bloody make it was.
'Oh,' she said, looking up to serve him. it's you.'
No curiosity, he noticed But then, if they had recovered anything from that grave, be all over the village, wouldn't it?
'Just thought I should officially inform you, Mrs Castle,' he said confidentially, across the bar, 'that we didn't find what we were looking for. I'm sorry we had to put you through this.'
There were no more than a dozen customers in The Man. Some had looked up when he came in. Made a change; most pubs, they could smell a copper the same way he could scent illegal odours amidst tobacco smoke. Always somebody in a pub with something to hide, whether they'd been flogging nicked videos or their MOT was overdue.
'You have your job to do,' Lottie Castle said. She seemed weary, strained, nervy. Still looking good, though, he'd not been wrong about that. T
ragedy suited some women. Something about recent widows, murder victims' wives especially; stripped of all need for pretend-glamour, they acquired this harsh unadorned quality, the real woman showing through.
Sometimes this excited him.
Must be getting warped, price of thirty years in the job.
'I had the feeling yesterday,' he said, 'that you thought we might have found something.'
She said, 'Wouldn't have surprised me either way. The bog body, wasn't it?'
'Somebody told you.' He wondered why she should make him think of murder victims' wives.
'Call it intuition,' Lottie said. 'What you having?'
'Pint of Black?'
'You'll be the only one,' she said.
When he raised an inquiring eyebrow she told him another bunch of jobs had gone, working men replaced by men in white coats brought in from Across the Moss. Rumours that Gannons might even close the brewery altogether, transferring all production of Bridelow Black to their new plant outside Matlock.
'Never,' said Ashton. 'How can you brew Bridelow Black in Matlock?'
'How can you brew German lager in Bradford?' said Lottie.
'People don't care any more. They've got the name, that's all that matters.'
'Thought the lads here were looking a bit cheesed.' Ashton nodded at the customers.
Lottie said, 'Gannons have apparently got tests showing the local spring water doesn't meet European standards of purity. Cost a substantial amount to decontaminate it. Added to which the equipment's antiquated. Where's the business sense in preserving some scruffy little dead-end village brewery on the wrong side of a bog?'
'Bloody tragic,' Ashton said, and meant it. 'Just about finish Bridelow, I reckon.'
'People've got to have work,' Lottie said. They'll move out. School'll shut. Church'll be operating every fourth Sunday. Still want this?
'Better make it a bottle of Newcastle,' Ashton said. 'I wouldn't like to cause an incident.'
'The rot's already set in, I'm afraid,' Lottie said, pulling a bottle from under the bar. 'General store closed last week. Chip shop's on its last legs. How long the Post Office'll keep a sub-office here is anybody's guess.'
