The Man in the Moss (48 page)

CHAPTER
IV

For the first time since
all this had begun, Lottie's hands began to shake, and she pressed them against
the hot-plate covers on the stove so that if the policeman had seen it he'd
think she was simply cold.

           
It was a bad dream, switching from one dreadful scene to
another until the horror was spinning about her like a merry-go-round of black
shadow-horses, and whichever way she turned ...

           
She turned back to the policeman, who, to give him his
due, looked no happier about this than she felt. Steadying her voice, she said,
'You want to dig up my husband.'

           
'This is ...' Inspector Ashton exhaled down his nose.
'Look, Mrs Castle, if there was any other way ... It's not your husband we want
to ... see. It's the grave itself. Normally when there's an exhumation it's at
the request of the coroner or the pathologist, to enable further examination of
a body. In this case we don't want to touch the body, we don't even want to
open the coffin. We ... have reason to believe the grave may have been
disturbed before your husband was placed in it.'

           
Lottie felt her face muscles harden. Somebody had blown
the gaff on Ma Wagstaff and her primitive rituals. What the hell
else
had the old hag been up to?

           
'We have reason to believe,' Ashton said, 'that certain
... stolen goods may be buried under your husband's coffin.'

           
'What goods?'

           
'I'd rather not say at the present time, if you don't
mind, Mrs Castle.'

           
He'd turned up in the bar not long after Moira had left.
On his own. Asked if he might have a word. All very casual and quiet.

           
Lottie thought about the implications. 'And what if I
don't agree?'

           
Ashton sighed, 'it'll just take longer for us to get
permission.'

           
'But you'll get it anyway.'

           
Ashton nodded. 'Between ourselves, what does bother me is
that the person who's made the allegations about this ... these stolen goods
... has intimated that if we don't act on them quickly, he'll make his
suspicions known to the media. I don't need to tell you what that would mean in
terms of invasion of privacy, unwarranted intrusion into private grief,
reporters all over your doorstep ...'

           
'You mean,' said Lottie, 'that this man's blackmailing
you?'
           
Ashton laughed. 'If only it
was that simple. No, I was inclined to disbelieve him at first, but now I agree
there's a strong basis for thinking something's down there as shouldn't be. And
if we can handle our excavations discreetly, after dark, inconspicuous, no fuss
...'

           
'Have you spoken to anyone else in the village?'

           
'No, I certainly haven't, and I'd be very much obliged if
you'd keep this to yourself as well. Last thing we want is an audience.
'Course, we'll have to consult with the minister, but that won't be a problem,
I shouldn't think.'

           
Lottie thought about Ma Wagstaff and her Old Ways and
Matt's apparent acceptance of all this rubbish as part of the unique West
Pennine tradition. Acknowledging, with much bitterness, Matt's part in all
this.

           
'Right.' She pulled her hands from the stove. 'Go ahead.
I'll sign whatever you want me to sign.'

           
'Thank you,' said Ashton ',That's very brave of you, Mrs
Castle.'
           
'Just one thing.'

           
He'd begun to button his trenchcoat; he stopped.
           
'Keep me out of it, Inspector.
I don't want to know when you do it or what you find. I don't want to be
involved.'

           
Ashton nodded, relieved. 'And you'll keep this to
yourself?'

           
'Oh, I wouldn't want to alert anybody who might have
cause to be ... embarrassed.' Lottie smiled grimly, 'I certainly wouldn't.'

Suspicious, at first, as he
came up the street. Fingers going on his thighs, nose twitching as if he had
whiskers. Then he saw who it was, and she watched the sun come up in his cheeks
and knew it was all right.
           
'Moira!'

           
More than ten years dissolved in the Pennine air.
           
'Willie, hey, I was looking
for you the whole morning.'
           
'I were down me workshop.
Doin' a bit o' bodgin' an' fettlin'.' He stepped back, put his hands on her
shoulders like a dog on its hind legs. 'Eee, lass, I can't tell you ... you're looking
bloody grand.' ,

           
She thought he was going to lick her ears, but he backed
off and they stood a couple of yards apart, inspecting each other. He hadn't
changed at all: small and wiry, brown hair down to his quick eyes. She didn't
know what to say. So damn much to talk about, and none of it superficial.

           
It started to rain again. 'Once it starts,' Willie said,
twitching his nose at the sky, 'it gets to be a bloody habit in Brid'lo.'

           
He smiled. 'Got time for a cup o' tea, lass?'

           
Did he think she was just passing through? 'Jesus,
Willie,' Moira said, feeling close to collapse. 'I've got time for a whole damn
pot.'

She would come in by the
back door.

           
Same way he'd come in. It hadn't been locked, didn't even
have a lock on it. He remembered how, as a child, he'd been dared to go in by
other kids. Into the witch's den. He'd refused. He was afraid.

           
This time last year he'd still have been afraid. Even a
couple of months ago he would.

           
He came to his feet and stood behind the balustrade, his
hands around the wooden ball on top. It was sticky with layers of brown
varnish. The paper on the walls was brown with age. There'd been flowers on it;
they just looked like grease patches now.

           
Late afternoon dimness enclosing him. He'd have been
afraid of that too, once. Afraid to open the bedroom doors, afraid of the
ghosts within. Afraid of what he might disturb.

           
Afraid not to be afraid.

           
But not any more.

Willie had a teapot in a
woollen tea-cosy made out of an outsize bobble hat.

           
'You make it yourself?'

           
'I have a friend,' Willie said, looking embarrassed about
it, the way Willie had always looked embarrassed about women, although it never
seemed to get in his way.

           
'You've a girlfriend here? In Bridelow?'

           
'More of an arrangement,' said Willie. 'Been on and off
for years. What about you?'

           
'Oh. You know. Livin' alone, as the song says, is all
I've ever done well.'

           
'Your song? Sorry, luv, I've not been keeping track.'

           
'Nana Griffith. Found an echo. Sometimes other people
take the songs right out of your head.'

           
'Aye,' Willie said. He took a long, assessing look at her
as she sprawled in a fat easy-chair with a loud pattern of big yellow
marigolds. 'You look good,' Willie said. 'But you look tired.'

           
'I don't know why. All I've done is wandered around and
talked to people. Yeah, I'm knackered. Must be the air.'

           
'Air's not what it was,' said Willie. 'Fancy a biscuit?
Cheese butty?'

           
'No, thanks.' She closed her eyes, it's nice in here. I
could go to sleep in this chair.'
           
'Feel free:

           
'No.' She forced her eyes open. 'You've got trouble here,
Willie. Your ma. Like, I realise it's not my business, but I think she's got
some private war on, you know?'
           
'Oh, aye, I know that all
right. I ...' He hesitated, refilling her teacup. 'How long you been here? I
were looking out for you at Matt's funeral.'

           
'I was being low-profile,' Moira said. 'But I saw the
business with the witch bottle, if that's ...'

           
'Oh ...' Willie sat down and crossed his legs, started up
a staccato finger-rhythm on the side of a knee, 'I don't know. Sometimes I
think we're living inside a bloody folk museum.'

           
'It's no' a museum,' Moira said, 'I just watched her out
on the Moss. There's kind of a dead tree out there.'
           
'Bog oak,' Willie said.
'That's what it is.'
           
'Then why're your fingers
drumming up a storm?'
           
'Shit,' Willie said. 'Shit,
shit, shit.'
           
'Come on.' Moira dragged
herself out of the chair. 'Let's go and talk to her.'

Moira's left foot was
feeling cold and wet. She stamped it on the cobbles. 'Went out on the Moss with
no wellies. Stupid, huh?'

           
Rainy afternoon in a small village, nobody else about, no
distractions, and they were both on edge. The hush before the thunder.

           
It's in the air. A damp tension.

           
So quiet.

           
'Catch my death.' Moira smiled feebly.

           
Both of Willie's hands drumming. It happened to Willie
through his fingers. People said it was nerves. But what were nerves for if not
to respond to things you couldn't see?

           
'Hey, come on,' Moira said softly, 'what's wrong here,
Willie?'

           
'I don't know.' He sounded confused. 'Nowt I can put me
finger on.'

           
They'd hammered on Ma's door. Waited and waited. All dark
inside.

           
Willie started blinking. The only noise in the street was
the rapid rhythmic chinking of his fingers on the coins in one hip pocket and
something else, maybe keys, in the other. It echoed from the cobbles and the
stone walls of the cottages. Willie's fingers knew something that Willie
didn't.

           
'Willie, quick, come on, think, where would she be? Where
would she go if she was scared?'

           
He looked swiftly from side to side, up and down the
street.

           
'Willie ... ?'

Hands wet with the
once-holy spring water, white with powdered plaster. Wind blowing through her
head. Mind a-crackle with shredded leaves and lashing boughs. No thoughts, only
shifting sensations, everything shaken up like medicine gone sour in the
bottle. Air full of evil sediment.

           
Sky white, trees black, church tower black.

           
Twisted legs and malformed feet crabbing it through the
bracken and the headier.

           
Broken owd woman going back to her useless bottles.

           
'Let me help you, Mrs Wagstaff, for God's sake.' Long,
striding legs, head in the clouds. Wanted to help for appearances' sake;
wouldn't look good if he buggered off and owd Ma fell and broke a leg.

           
'Gerroff me
!'
she shrieked.

           
'You've got to turn away from all this! Make your peace
with Almighty God. It's not too late ...'

           
Screeching through the gale in her brain, 'What would you
know? It's long too late!'

           
Wretched gargoyles screaming along with her from the
church's blackened walls.

           
At the churchyard gate, relief for both of them, him
going one way, to
his
church, not
looking back; Ma the other, down towards the street. Sky like lead crushing her
into the brown ground.

           
Top of the street, Ma stopped and squinted. Two people.
Willie and a woman. The woman from the funeral, the woman from the Moss, the
woman with the Gift.

           
Bugger!

           
Couldn't be doing with it. Questions. Concern. Sit down,
Ma. have a cuppa, put thi' feet up, tell us all about it. Tell me how I can
help
.
           
Pah!