The Man in the Moss (28 page)

           
'Mr Macbeth,' M. W. Kaufmann said. 'I am Malcolm Kaufmann.'

           
They shook hands, and, waving him to a chair, Kaufmann
said, 'This all seems rather, er, irregular.'

           
'I'm an irregular kind of guy,' Macbeth said winningly.

           
Malcolm Kaufmann looked less than won. He was a small,
foxy-eyed person with stiff hair the unnatural colour of light-tan shoes.

           
The secretary was hanging around, eyeing up Macbeth
without visible embarrassment.
    
'Thank
you, Fiona.' Kaufmann waved her out, eyeing up Macbeth himself but in a more
discriminating fashion.

           
'So,' he said. 'You're in television, I understand.'

           
Macbeth confessed he was, planning to build up the image
a little. Then he changed his mind and built it up a lot. How he was over here
for the international Celtic conference, but also on account of his company was
tossing around an idea for a major mini-series ... piece of shlock about this
American guy, doesn't know his ass from his sporran, comes over to Scotland to
look up his Celtic roots and before he knows it he's besotted with this, uh,
mysterious Scottish lady.
           
'I see,' Kaufmann said.

           
Yeah, I guess you do at that, Macbeth was thinking.
Besotted with a beautiful, mysterious lady who sings like a fallen angel and
has wild, black hair all down her back with just one single, long-established
strand of grey. Under the spell of an enchantress who can make the earth move,
and the walls and the ceiling, and after you meet her you don't sleep too good
any more.

           
He said, 'Did Moira ever act?'

           
'Ah.' Kaufmann leaned back in his chair, tilting it
against the wall, tapping his rather prominent front teeth with a ballpoint
pen. 'Well, her first love, naturally, is her music, but I do believe ...'
Clearly searching his memory for the time she'd done a walk-on for some local
soap.

           
Macbeth helped him out. 'Certainly has the charisma,
don't you think?'

           
'Indeed, indeed. The same, er, quality, perhaps, as that
apparent in ... who shall I ... ? Cher ... ? Does that comparison do her
justice, would you say?'

           
'Spoken like a good agent, Malcolm.'

           
Kaufmann's eyes narrowed. 'Don't be deceived by the
surroundings, Mr Macbeth. I
am
a good
agent. You say ... that you encountered Moira at the Earl's recent Celtic
gathering. That would be on the evening when her performance was unaccountably
disrupted.'

           
'Right,' Macbeth said. 'Unaccountably disrupted.'

           
'By what appears to have been an earth tremor...'

           
'Which, when it happened, I don't recall having felt.'
           
'Really.'

           
'Maybe I'm insensitive that way,' Macbeth said.
           
'But you don't really think
so.'
           
Macbeth shrugged. 'Like you
say, she has charisma.'
           
They both nodded.

           
'Of course,' Macbeth said, 'this is early days. See,
first off, what I'd really like is to meet with Moira over lunch before I leave
here ... discuss things informally.'

           
'And how long will you be here?'

           
'Two weeks, at the outside.'

           
'Well, I shall no doubt be in touch with her very
shortly.' Kaufmann smoothed down his unconvincing hair. 'And I shall naturally
inform her of your interest. Then perhaps the three of us might ...'

           
'Yeah, that'd be, uh, that'd be just ... She in town
right now?'

           
'I fear not.'

           
'See, I thought if she was doing a gig someplace, I'd
kind of like to be in the audience.'

           
Kaufmann smiled. 'This sudden interest in Moira ... this
is entirely professional, of course.'

           
'I'm a very professional kind of guy. However, I've long
been a fan. Of the music. But also ... Malcolm, this is kind of sensitive...'

           
'Which, as you pointed out to me a few moments ago, you
are not.'

           
'Yeah, well, when I, uh, encountered the lady that night,
I was a mite overwhelmed, I guess, by the essential, uh, Celtishness, if that's
the word, of the occasion and, if I'm being honest, by the experience of Moira
herself, and so ... well, I believe I said a few things left her thinking - as
you doubtless are thinking right now - what a Grade A dork this person is.'

           
'Oh, yes,' said Kaufmann. He paused. 'She can certainly
be quite disconcerting.'

           
'Thank you for that. So I'd like to meet with her
informally and maybe convince her that, in less inhibiting circumstances ...'

           
'I see. Well, sadly, Moira is not working tonight. Or in
the city at present. She has a personal matter to attend to. And though, as her
agent, I am obviously aware at all times of her whereabouts, no, I'm afraid I
can't tell you where she is. That really
would
be irregular.'

           
'Ah ... right," Macbeth said.

           
'Perhaps you could leave a number with Fiona, where we
can contact you.' The agent's face was blank.
           
'Right,' Macbeth said
gloomily.

CHAPTER
IV

Joel Beard had been
standing there for a couple of minutes, over by the window in the Rector's
study, his mouth slightly open.
           
Hans,' he said urgently, as if
the church was on fire, 'Hans, quickly, who on earth is that?'

           
The Rector couldn't manage anything quickly any more,
but, yes, he too had seen the hooded figure. It had vanished now behind the
church tower.
           
'I'm sorry, Joel?'
           
'Over there. Didn't you see
it?'

           
'No, I mean ... all kinds of women pass through that
gate.'

           
Joel turned to him, a 'Got you' smile on his large,
unlined face. 'I don't think I mentioned the gate, did I, Hans? And I don't
think I mentioned a woman.'

           
'Well, obviously I assumed ...' Hans grimaced and bent to
his worse knee, feigning pain for once. Bloody man. Joel had spent three
half-days with Hans, being shown around, shaking a few hands. Big, cheerful,
amiable character, anxious to learn.
           
But suddenly ...

           
'I wouldn't be surprised,' Joel said in his flat, calm
Yorkshire voice, 'if there weren't quite a lot of things you haven't noticed,
Things that go on, hereabouts.'
           
'... the hell are you talking
about?'

           
'Hell?' said Joel. 'Yes I think I
am
talking about hell. For instance, Sam Davis, the young chap who
was here morning...'

           
Hans stared at him. 'How do you know about that?'

           
'When he came out, his Land Rover wouldn't start.' Joel
flashed his teeth. 'I was around. I fixed it. We had a chat.'

           
'Mechanic too, eh?' the Rector said. 'You're obviously an
endlessly useful man to have about the place.'

           
Joel, deaf to all sarcasm, said, 'I told Sam I'd go along
to the farm, talk to his wife. And perhaps... perhaps do what I can to protect
them.'

           
'Joel, if there's any protecting to be done in this
parish ...'
           
God in heaven, this was the
man's first full day in Bridelow, and he was taking over!

           
'Oh, I realised, of course, that you'd be along there
yourself if it wasn't for your, er, leg. I explained all this to Sam, of course
I did.'

           
'Made my excuses, did you?'

           
'Hans ...' Joel Beard wore a hefty gold-plated crucifix
on his chest. Joel, the avenging angel. For the first time, Hans was getting an
inkling of how disruptive this man could turn out to be.

           
'Hans, I'm only trying to help,' Joel said, like a social
worker addressing some uppity pensioner.

           
'The problem is, Hans, people sometimes don't realise the
amount of sheer legwork involved in ministering to a rural parish. Admit it,
now, you've needed help for quite some while, and been too proud to ask for it.
Well, naturally, we all admire you for that, but there's a job of work to be
done here, you know that.'

           
The Rector said coldly, 'I really don't know
what
you're talking about.'

           
'Perhaps,' Joel said gently, 'that's because you're too
close to it. You know what I think? I think these filthy rites on the moors are
only the tip of the iceberg.'

           
He glanced back out of the window to the place where the
hooded woman had disappeared. Stay away, Hans pleaded inside his head.
Stay out of sight ...for God's sake...
whoever you are.

           
'There's been talk, you know,' Joel said into the glass
pane. 'I have to be frank, it's the only way I can be. And I think it's only
fair you should know. A good deal of talk. At diocese level.'

           
Hans sat down suddenly, carelessly, in his armchair - and
felt the pain might hurl him at the ceiling. 'Listen,' he gasped, gripping the
chair arms, holding himself down. 'Has it ever occurred to you for one blessed
moment that perhaps there are things you don't understand? I know you were at
St Oswald's. I know the sort of bull-at-a-gate Christianity they go in for ...'

           
'I only know what's in my heart.' Joel almost chanting,
his eyes squeezed to slits, Joel the seer, Joel the prophet. 'I know that God
is living in my heart, and therefore what I feel to be right and good must
be
right and good because it is His
Word.'

           
God save us, Hans thought, from Born Again Christians
cunning enough to get into the business proper. And God help me to restrain
this man's excesses.

Leave
him alone! Can't you see what you're doing to him?

           
Cathy, in the hall, ear to the study door. Dressed for
the funeral, black jumper and skirt, coat over her arm.

           
Half an hour ago she'd sneaked down to the wine-cellar to
discover that Joel had set up a camp bed on the stone flags and a card-table
with candles, like a makeshift altar.

           
A bit eerie. A lot disturbing.

           
What the hell was this bloke trying to achieve, digging
himself in, like a big mole, under the very heart of Bridelow?

'Talk,' Hans said. 'You say
there's been talk. What kind of talk?'

           
Joel walked back to the centre of the room, stood in
front of the piano, his hands behind his back, the polished cross flashing from
the black of his cassock. Like a cheap medallion, Hans thought from the sour
darkness of his pain.
           
'I'm not a humble man,' Joel
said.
           
Hans, coughing, nearly choked.

           
'I know this,' Joel said. 'And I pray one day Almighty
God will let me come to humility in my own way. But not ...
yet.'

           
His hands whipped round from behind his back. One was an
open palm and the other a fist. They came together with a small explosion in
the still, fusty air of the Rector's study.

           
'Not yet.' Joel Beard said softly, turning back to the
window. Still, presumably, no sign of the woman in black.
           
Whichever of them it was, Hans
thought, she would do well to depart quickly and discreetly, the way they could
when they wanted to.

           
'It's not the time, you see, for humility.' Joel standing
behind Hans's chair now, blocking his light. 'The clergy's been humble and
self-effacing for so long that it amounts to downright indolence. It's time, I
believe, to remember the other Christ. The one who ejected the traders and the money
lenders from the temple. There's worse than that here. Isn't there?'