The Man in the Moss (7 page)

           
'A sacrifice?' It was growing dark.

           
'Not just any sacrifice, We're in trouble, Ernest.'

Sometimes Shaw wanted to
say, I feel like just
being
with you
is illegal.

           
Some
mornings
he'd be thinking, I've got to get out of this. I'll be arrested. I'll be
ruined.

           
But then, all through the day, the longing would be
growing. And as he changed to go out, as he looked in the mirror at his thin,
pale face, his receding hairline and his equally receding jawline, he saw why
he could never get out ... not as long as there was anything she wanted from
him. Not as long as he continued to change.

           
They drove to a country pub and parked the Saab very
noticeably under a window at the front, being careful to lock it and check the
doors. He wondered how exactly she'd stolen it and obtained the keys, but he
knew that if he asked her she would simply laugh at him.
           
In the pub, as usual, he
couldn't prise his hungry eyes from her. She sat opposite him, wearing an old
fox fur coat, demurely fastened to the neck. Shaw wondered if, underneath the
coat, above (and inside) her black tights, she was naked.

           
With that thought, he felt his desire could lift their
heavy, glass-topped, cast-iron table a good two inches from the floor.
           
'You could arouse the dead,'
he said, almost without breath.
           
'Would you like to?' Therese's
lips smiled around her glass of port.
           
'Pardon?'
           
'Arouse the dead?'

           
He laughed uncomfortably. Quite often she would say
things, the meaning of which, in due course, would become devastatingly
apparent.

Later, two miles out of
Macclesfield town, Shaw driving again, she said, 'All right, let's deal with
this, shall we?'
           
'What?'

           
But she was already unzipping his trousers, nuzzling her
head into his lap. He braked hard, in shock, panic and uncontainable
excitement. 'Yes, Shaw,' she said, voice muffled, 'you
can
stop the car.'

           
'Somebody ... somebody might see us ... you know,
somebody walking past.'

           
'Well,' Therese said, burrowing, 'I suppose somebody
might see
you
...'

           
Five minutes later, while he was still shivering, she
said, 'Now let's get rid of the car.' She had the interior light on,
re-applying lipstick, using the vanity mirror. Her fur coat was still fastened.
He would never know if she was naked underneath it.

           
'How are we going to get home?'

           
'Taxi. There's a phone box across the road. I'll ring up
for one while you're dispensing with the car.'

           
A shaft of fear punctured his moment of relief. 'Disp ...
? How?'

           
'I seem to remember there's a bus shelter along here.
What ... about a quarter of a mile ... ? Just take it and ram it into that.'

           
He just stared at her. Through the windscreen he could
see high, evergreen, suburban hedges, sitting-room lights glimmering here and
there through the foliage.

           
Shaw said weakly, 'Why don't we just leave it somewhere?
           
'Parked, you know ...'

           
'Discreetly,' Therese said. 'Under a tree. With the keys
in.'
           
'Yes,' he said inadequately.

           
She opened her door to the pavement, looked scornfully
back at him. 'Because it wouldn't do anything for you. Your whole life's been
tidy and discreet. I'm trying to help you, Shaw.'

           
His fingers felt numb as he turned the key in the
ignition.
           
A car slowed behind them.

           
'What if there's somebody in the bus shelter?'

           
Therese shrugged, got out, slammed the car door. Shaw dug
into his jacket pocket, pulled out a handful of tissues and began feverishly to
scrub at the steering-wheel and the gear-lever and the door-handle and anything
else he might have touched.

           
He'd been doing this for a couple of minutes when a
wetness oozing between his fingers told him he was now using the tissue he'd
employed to clean himself up after Therese had finished with him. And they
could trace you through your semen now, couldn't they, DNA tests... genetic
fingerprinting ... oh, no ...
 
Banging
his forehead against the steering-wheel... . no ...no ...
no ...

           
The passenger door clicked gently open.
           
The police. The police had
been surreptitiously following them for miles. That car going slowly, creeping
up ... He'd be destroyed.

           
Shaw reacted instinctively. He flung open his door, threw
his weight against it, hurling himself out into the middle of the road, a heavy
lorry grinding past less than a couple of feet away.

           
Across the roof of the Saab he looked not into a police
uniform but into Therese's dark, calm eyes.

           
'I'll be listening out,' she whispered, 'for the sound of
breaking glass.'

CHAPTER
III

Matt Castle was standing on
the pub steps with an arm around the shoulders of Lottie, his wife. Looked a
bit awkward, Ernie noticed, on account of Lottie was very nearly as tall as
Matt.

           
Lottie Castle. Long time since he'd seen her. By 'eck,
still a stunner, hair strikingly red, although some of that probably came out
of a bottle nowadays. Aye, that's it, lad, Ernie encouraged himself. Think
about sex, what you can remember. Nowt like it for refocusing the mind after a
shock.

           
How had she known? Was the bogman part of the Bridelow
tradition? Was that it? By 'eck, it needed some thinking about, did this.

           
But not now.

           
'I'll stand here.' Matt Castle was smiling so hard he
could hardly get the words between his teeth. 'So's you can all hear me, inside
and out.
Can
you all hear me?'

           
'What's he say?' somebody bleated, to merry laughter,
from about three yards in front of Matt. Ernie noted, rather disapprovingly,
that some of this lot were half-pissed already.

           
'Yes, we can,' Ernie called helpfully from the edge of
the forecourt.

           
'Thank you, Mr Dawber.'

           
Ernie smiled. All his ex-pupils, from no matter how far
back, insisted on calling him Mr Dawber. When they'd first met, he was a
baby-faced twenty-one and Matt Castle was eleven, in the top class. So he'd be
fifty-six or seven now. Talk about time flying ...

           
'I just want to say,' said the new licensee, shock-haired
and stocky, 'that... well... it's bloody great to be back!'

           
And of course a huge cheer went up on both sides of the
door. Matt Castle, Bridelow-born, had returned in triumph, like the home team
bringing back the cup.

           
Except this was more important to the community than a
bit of local glory. 'Looks well, doesn't he?' Ernie whispered to Ma Wagstaff,
who didn't reply.

           
'Always wanted a pub of me own,' Matt told everybody.
'Never dared to dream it'd be this pub.'

           
The Man I'th Moss hung around him like a great black
overcoat many sizes too big. Ernie hoped to God it was all going to work out.
Draughty old pile, too many rooms ... cellars, attics ... take a bit of upkeep,
absorb all the contents of your bank account by osmosis.

           
'To me, like to everybody else, I suppose, this was
always Bridelow Brewery's pub.' Matt was dressed up tonight, suit and tie. 'We
thought it always would be.'

           
At which point, quite a few people turned to look for
Shaw Horridge, who'd long gone.

           
'But everything changes,' Matt said. 'Fortunes rise and
fall, and this village owes the Horridge family too much not to make the effort
to understand why, in the end, they were forced to part with the pub ...and, of
course, the brewery.'

           
We've all made the effort, Ernie thought, as others
murmured. And we still don't understand why.

           
'Eeeh,' Matt said, his accent getting broader the more he
spoke. 'Eeeh, I wish I were rich. Rich enough to buy the bloody lot. But at
least I could put together enough for this place. Couldn't stand seeing it
turned into a Berni Inn or summat.'

           
No, lad, Ernie thought. Left to rot.

           
'But ... we got ourselves a bit of a bank loan. And we
managed it.' Lottie Castle's fixed smile never wavering, Ernie noted, when Matt
switched from 'I' to 'we' covering the money aspect.

           
Matt went on about how he didn't know much about running
a pub, but what he did know was music. They could expect plenty of that in The
Man I'th Moss.

           
Matt grinned. 'I know there's a few of you out there can
sing a bit. And I remember, when I was a lad, there used to be a troupe of
morris dancers. Where'd they go to?'

           
'Orthopaedic hospital,' somebody said.

           
'Bugger off,' said Matt. There's to be no more cynicism
in this pub, all right? Anyroad, this is open house from now on for dancers and
singers and instrumentalists. If there aren't enough in Bridelow, we'll ship
them in from outside ... big names too. And we'll build up a following, a
regular audience from the towns ... and, brewery or no brewery, we'll make The
Man I'th Moss into a going concern again.'

           
At which point, somebody asked, as somebody was bound to,
whether Matt and his old band would get together in Bridelow.

           
'Good point,' Matt accepted. 'Well, me old mucker
Willie's here, Eric's not far off. And I'm working on a bit of a project which
might just interest... well, somebody we used to work with ... eeeh, must be
fifteen years ago. Late 'seventies.'

           
Everybody listening now, not a chink of bottle on glass
or the striking of a match. Outside, the sun was just a rosy memory.

           
Matt broke off. 'Hey up. For them as can't see, Lottie's
giving me a warning look, she thinks I should shut up about this until we know
one way or t'other ...'

           
Lottie smiled wryly. Ernie Dawber was thinking, What the
'eck was her name, the girl who used to sing with Matt's band and then went off
on her own?
Very
popular, she used to
be, or so he'd heard.

           
'But, what the hell,' Matt said. 'If I'm going to do this
right, I'll need your help. Fact is ... it was this business of the bogman got
me going. Lottie reckons I've become a bit obsessed.
       
He laughed self-consciously. 'But the thing is ... here we
are, literally face to face with one of our forefathers. And it's my belief
there's a lot he can teach us ...'

           
Ernie Dawber felt Ma Wagstaff go still and watchful by
his side.

           
'I mean about ourselves. About this village. How we
relate to it and each other, and how we've progressed. There's summat special
about this place, I've always known that.'

           
Moira Cairns
, Ernie remembered. That
was her name. Scottish. Very beautiful. Long, black hair.

           
'Right.' Matt bawled back over his shoulder, into the
bar. 'Let's have a few lights on. Like a flamin' mausoleum in there.'

           
Ma Wagstaff stiffened and plucked at Ernie's jacket.

The sun wasn't ever going
to get out of that low cloud, he thought. Won't know till tomorrow if it's made
it to the hills or if the Moss has got it.

           
'By 'eck,' he said ruefully, as if his fanciful thoughts
were printed on the misting, mackerel sky where Ma Wagstaff could read them,
'I'm ...'

           
'Getting a bit whimsy?'