The Man in the Moss (87 page)

           
And when Joel had telephoned them this morning with a
dramatic plea which said, more or less, Bring in the troops, the war has begun,
Chris's blood had begun to race.

           
It was not a recreation. It was not a hobby. It was not
just
an unusual and
stimulating way of sp
ending Sunday, hiring a coach and everyone piling
in, prepared to fast through the night (bar the odd cup of coffee) to bring
light where once was darkness

           
It
was a war.

           
When the initial joyous element had been rather dispelled
of mental stress by, first, Joel and then (perhaps influenced by Joel's rather
overheated display) Chantal, Chris, the Lord's accountant, had decided that a
more precise and ordered approach was required if they were to avoid further
humiliation.

           
When they'd returned, a little shamefaced, he'd taken it
upon himself to bar the church doors and state that there was to be no more
wandering in and out for coffee and anyone experiencing anything irregular
should simply clasp the hand of his or her brother or sister and pray for it to
pass.
           
And there had been hymns and
prayers (without hand-clapping, since they had learned that some faiths
considered there to be a demonic element in this), and the familiar flow of
exultation had once more been attained.
           
Until Chris himself had heard
a distant crash from somewhere above and foolishly disregarded it until the
reality of their struggle became distressingly (at first) evident.

He heard and felt it begin.

           
It began with a cooling of the air and a creeping change
in the vibe of the chant.

           
Hoooolyamallaaagloriagloriamalalaglorytogodglorytogod

           
The girl next to him had been singing melodiously, her
voice high and pure and sweet.

           
And then too sweet.

           
Cloying in fact, with an acrid saccharine aftertaste,
which he was actually beginning to taste in his own throat. And then becoming
simpering and childish. Peevish and playground- rhythmical.

                                   
holygod
holygod holyholyholygod
                                   
goldyhod
goldyhod golyhold holygold
                                   
godlyhole
godlyhole godlyhole...

           
And then it happened very quickly ... sort of
whooooosh,
like a small hurricane of bad
breath. There was a wafting sugary smell which soon became sweetly putrid, like
the bad orange at the bottom of the bowl, as the chant, the pure song of
Tongues, suddenly was sounding raucous and guttural, women cackling hideously
(enticingly) and men making grunting, retching, foul pig noises.

           
We're doing it,
Chris thought, in a kind
of euphoric dismay, as a slimy earth taste arose in his throat. We are
exorcizing the Evil
.

           
Just that nobody had told him it would be quite so
unpleasant (and stimulating).

           
When Paul, their musician - who had, admittedly, never
been all that proficient - began to force a vicious, grinding discordance
through the organ pipes, Chris stepped out into the aisle and ran up the steps
of the pulpit from where he observed that at least five Angels of the New
Advent had begun hurriedly to divest themselves of their apparel.

           
He also saw three men, one a kind of albino with a
cherub's mouth, emerge from the vestry and calmly let themselves of the church
by the main door.

           
They were laughing.

           
There was still no sign of Joel.

           
Joel?

           
Who
was
this
Joel?

           
Chris saw no more, for he was attacked by one of his
squealing sisters and his face clawed and he enjoyed it
immensely.

Mungo Macbeth had specialized
for over ten years in the downmarket kind of TV-movie in which people fell
wildly in love and moved heaven and earth to find fulfilment in someone's arms.

           
Between times he'd done cop movies, about hard-bitten,
cynical cops who, underneath it all, had feelings same as anyone else.

           
However, apart from the ones who'd given him parking and
speeding tickets, Macbeth had never before met a cop who was not being played,
at unreasonable expense, by some asshole with a beach house and security gates.

           
Love stories did not end, before they had even begun,
with the death of the love object. And cop movies were never about cops who sat
in your car in an endless monsoon, which, by the way, was becoming seriously
frightening, and said, 'Well, I'm buggered if I know how to handle this, mate.'

           
They were parked up by the church in Macbeth's car on
account of the grey-haired, weary-looking cop wasn't even sure his would stand
up to the conditions.

           
Macbeth, also pretty tired, said, 'How about you just
call up the precinct house and have a bunch of uniforms directed this way?'

           
Ashton said, 'How about you get sensible, pal?'

           
'I apologise.'

           
'Look,' Ashton said, 'it seems very likely a crime has
been committed. But what scares the living shit out of me is that the possible
criminal element in all this does not seem to be the worst aspect, if you get
my meaning.'

           
'Yeah.'

           
'And if I were to contact my headquarters and somebody
there did actually take me
seriously
,
their first instruction - I know this much - would be: do nothing.'

           
Ashton scrubbed at the misted windshield. 'I'm not in the
mood for some shiny-arsed politician telling me to do nowt. There's summat
nasty here. I don't know how to react, but I
have
to. Right?'

           
'I dunno, Macbeth said. 'It was different, somehow, when
I thought Moira was dead.'
           
'How do you know she's not?'
Ashton demanded, blunt as a sledgehammer.
           
'What are you saying?'

           
'Christ, I'm saying,
help
me
. I'm saying I'm not playing this by the book because there's no book I
know of covers it. I'm saying that normally, as a copper, I'd want nothing at
all to do with you because I don't know you from Adam. But at least you look a
bit too soft and innocent to be a villain, and if I'm not playing it as a
copper I need some help and you're all I'm bloody got.'

           
'OK.' Macbeth said reluctantly, 'First question: you
equipped with a piece?'
           
'Eh?'

           
'Are you armed?'

           
'Are you thick?' Ashton said. 'Or just American?'

           
Macbeth shrugged and started up the car. 'OK,' he said.
'Let's crash the party.'

           
Hoping Moira would be there but not...

           
... not
involved
.

           
'OK, Lottie said fifty yards from the church, make a
right, so if I reverse ...'

           
He never got to do it. The hire-car was surrounded by
people; they were banging on the windows and the roof.

Shortly after Shaw Horridge
stopped screaming, Ernie Dawber tried to get past him to the front door, and
this proved to be a bad mistake. His second bad mistake.

           
For a long time, Shaw had been tearing around the hall
clutching at his head. He'd have been tearing his hair if there'd been enough
to get a grip on.

           
It was a squarish hall with a high ceiling and these five
mirrors, three of them full-length, put there by Liz to spread the light.

           
It had not been the place to break the spell.

           
How could the lad
ever
have convinced himself that his hair was growing again, when the opposite was
true? Hadn't he looked in a mirror recently? And if he had, what had he seen?

           
Certainly not what all five mirrors had reflected tonight
before Shaw's tenuous self-control had snapped and he'd picked up a chair of
Victorian mahogany and swung it above his head around the walls, and his
shining baldness was reflected a thousandfold in the hail of flying glass, as
Ernie cowered on his knees by the hallstand, protecting his face with his hat.

           
When he made a dash for the door, Shaw was on him in one
bound, his sharp, pale face aglitter with blood and glass bright as jewellery.
'How did you do it? How did you do it, old

 
man?'

           
It was some minutes before Ernie came to understand that
the poor, crazed boy was holding him responsible for the disappearance of his
hair.

           
'Listen to me,' Ernie said gently. 'They lied to you,
lad. They lied about everything. Your hair, the brewery, your poor mother. They
...'

           
Bewitched him? Twisted his mind? Before Ernie could
choose the least inflammatory words, Shaw's face convulsed.
           
He snatched up the chair again
and smashed it down on the hallstand an inch from Ernie's ear, snapping off two
legs.

           
'Get it back!' Shaw shrieked.
'Get my hair back!'

And if this was a dream it
didn't matter. There'd be no awakening anyway. Dic thought about his mother,
all she'd had to put up with from the bastard. She should have married a
secondary-school head or a bank manager in Wilmslow, or an airline pilot
working out of Ringway. All that grit gone to waste on a two-bit musical
maverick committed to a primitive instrument you could barely get a proper tune
out of.
           
Made him want to weep.

           
The candles were burning low. Either this or his vision
was going.

           
... blood to blood.

           
He tried to catch the eyes of the bitch, Therese, as she
cried, 'I conjure
thee
, Matthew!
Empowered by the Highest Strength, I
conjure
thee!'

           
The candles guttered. The Pennine Pipes, lying like a
dead cormorant in his father's rotting lap, began to throb and to squirm as
though they were full of maggots.

           
'I
conjure
thee, Matthew, under penalty of being burned and tortured in the fires for ever
and ever, I
conjure
thee to appear
before me and to answer my questions ...'

           
Air farting through the Pennine Pipes until they squeaked
and heaved, In their wrapping of black hair with a single white streak.

           
'I
conjure
thee, Matthew, by the power of thine own base desires, to appear before me in a
pleasant and human form and to present to me the spirit of thy father of the
Moss ...'

           
Slipping in and out of dream. Samhain, and they said the
walls were thin as paper. He thought he saw a quiver on the yellow, peeling
lips of his father's corpse.

           
'… I
conjure
thee.'

           
A man with a knife.

           
Nothing ornate or ceremonial. Just a cheap craft worker's
knife with a red plastic handle.

           
One of the untouchables bending over Dic and huffing and
panting.

           
'By the Highest Power and by the Angels of the Firmament
...'

           
The numbing power of the drug fell away from Dic like an
old raincoat, leaving him naked, all his nerves singing, his cheeks bulging
like a trumpeter's with a vast scream taped into his face for ever.

           
'Mmmmmmm!' he screamed into the adhesive tape.

           
'... and by the Angels of the Deep and with the blood
that was
thy
blood and shall be
again
, Matthew ...'