The bloody media.
Over twenty cars parked outside the Field Centre, and men and women pacing the concrete forecourt, most of them turning round when Roger Hall's car pulled in – where the hell was he supposed to park with all these bastards clogging the place? Three cameramen, all swinging round, shooting his Volvo Estate as it manoeuvred about seeking space, as if he might have the bogman himself laid out in the back.
'No… no, I'm sorry…' Ramming his way through jabbing hands holding pocket tape recorders.
'Dr Hall, have you any idea yet…?'
'Dr Hall, do you know when…?'
'Can you just tell us, Dr Hall, how…?'
'No!' He held up both hands. 'There'll be an official Press statement later.'
Bastards. Leeches. One of the double doors opened a few inches and he was hauled in. Chrissie and the other woman, Alice, got the door closed and bolted behind him.
Inspector Gary Ashton was sitting on Roger's desk. 'Any luck, sir?'
'Blank wall.' Roger was brushing at his jacket, as if the reporters had left bits of themselves on him. 'However…'
'I must say,' Ashton said, 'it seemed a bit of a long shot to me, that a bunch of villagers from Bridelow would go to all this trouble.' He smiled hesitantly. 'Look, I've had a thought. I hardly like to suggest this, sir, but I don't suppose there's a University rag week in the offing?'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Roger said.
'Well, I don't honestly think,' Ashton said tautly, 'that it's any more ridiculous than your idea about superstitious villagers. Which sounds a bit like one those old Ealing comedies, if I may say so, sir.'
Roger said, 'I think you should listen to me without prejudice. I think I know how they've done it.' Liz Horridge stood frozen with terror at the edge of the pavement.
She was sweating hard; there seemed to be a film of it over her eyes, and a blur on the stone buildings around her turning the cottages into squat muscular beasts and the lych-gate into a predatory bird, its wings spread as if it were about to hop and scuttle down the street and overwhelm her, pinning her down and piercing her breast with its cold, stone beak. She was leaning, panting, against the back of a van parked on the corner where the main street joined the old brewery road.
Oh, and by the way, Mother, the Chairman's hoping to drop by tonight.
Who?
The Chairman, Gannon's. Been planning to come for ages, apparently, but, you know, appointments, commitments…
Will he come here?
We'll receive him in the main office, show him around the brewery. Then, yes, I expect I'll bring him back for a drink. A proper drink. Ha!
Go. Get out. Got to.
She'd thought that when she got so far the fear would evaporate in the remembered warmth of the village, but the village was cold and empty, and a blind like a black eyelid was down in the window of Gus Bibby's general stores' which always kept long hours and would always be lit by paraffin lamps on gloomy days.
But it was Saturday afternoon, Gus Bibby did not close on a Saturday afternoon. Saturday had always been firewood day, and there'd be sacks of kindling outside. Always. Always on a Saturday.
Liz felt panic gushing into her breast. Maybe it wasn't Saturday. Maybe it wasn't afternoon. Maybe it was early morning. Maybe the whole place had closed down, been evacuated, and nobody had told her. Maybe the brewery itself had been shut down for weeks and the village had been abandoned.
… Chairman's hoping to drop by tonight…
No!
How could I not have seen it? How could I have sat there, pretending to examine Gannon's proposals and estimates and balance sheets, and not see his name?
Because it wasn't there… I swear…
Liz Horridge pumped panicky breath into the still, white air. Not far now. Not fifty yards. She could take it step by step, not looking at houses, not looking at windows.
Someone's door creaked, opened.
'Ta-ra then, luv, look after yourself… You what…?'
Liz scuttled back into a short alleyway, squeezed herself into the wall. Mustn't let anyone see her.
'Yeh, don't worry, our Kenneth'll be up to see to it in t'morning. Yeh, you too. Ta-ra.'
Door closing.
Footsteps.
Liz clung to the wall. She wore an old waxed jacket and a headscarf over the matted moorgrass that used to be chestnut curls.
She emerged from the entry into the empty street, like a rabbit from a hole. Wanting. Needing. Aching.
To sit again at Ma Wagstaff's fireside, a warm, dry old hand on her sweating brow. If he comes… scream. Don't matter what time.
Can't turn back now. If you turn back now you'll surely die. Believe this. 'How are you, Pop?'
He was out of bed, that was a good sign, wasn't it? Cathy found him wearing a dull and worthy hospital dressing gown, sitting at his own bedside in a shabby, vinyl-backed hospital chair. He was in the bottom corner of a ward full of old men.
'Bit tired,' he said. 'They've had me walking about. Physiotherapy. Got to keep moving when you've had a coronary.'
Cathy clutched at the bed rails. 'They never told me that!'
'Had to drag it out of them myself. Soon as they get you in hospital you're officially labelled 'moron'.' His features subsided into that lugubrious boxer-dog expression.
'What's it mean, Pop?'
'Coronary thrombosis? Means a clot in the coronary artery. Means I was lucky not to christen Matt Castle's grave for him. Means I have to rest: Putting on a pompous doctor-voice. '"We have to get ourselves together, as they say, Mr Gruber." Tell me about Joel. Please tell me he didn't sleep under the church.'
Cathy said carefully that she hadn't seen him today. Not a word of what she'd heard about him rampaging around the place in his post-funeral fury, ripping down anything that hinted of paganism. Just that she hadn't actually seen him. And that she didn't know where he'd slept.
'Storm gathering inside that chap,' Hans said. 'Hurricane Joel. Wanted to make sure he was somewhere else when it blew.'
'Don't you think about it, Pop. Get some rest. Let them do their tests, try and endure the hospital food and don't refuse the sleeping pill at night.'
'Cathy…'
'I know, but it's not your problem.'
Hans's head lolled back into the hard vinyl chair. 'I keep the peace. It's taken me years to strike the right balance.'
'Don't worry, they'll sort him out, Ma and the Union. They'll deal with him.'
'But…'
'They sorted you out, didn't they?'
Cathy smiled for him. Trying to look more optimistic than she felt.
Hans said bleakly, 'Cathy, Simon Fleming came to see me. They want me to go to the Poplars "for a few weeks" convalescence'.'
'Where?'
The Church's nursing home in Shropshire. Ghastly dump. Full of played-out parsons mumbling in the shrubbery. Nobody gets out alive.'
Cathy felt desperately sorry for him but couldn't help thinking it might be the best answer, for a while. Let the Mothers handle it. Whatever there was to be handled.
He didn't seem to have heard about the disappearance of the bog body, and she didn't tell him. He had enough to worry about already. 'Look, all you need,' Roger Hall said, 'is an exhumation order. That's not a problem, is it?'
Backs to the doors, the Press people assembled on the other side, Chrissie and Alice looked at each other. Roger playing detective. Didn't suit him. Chrissie wondered idly if Inspector Garry Ashton was married or attached. She thought this business was rather showing up Roger for what he was: pompous, arrogant, humourless – despite the nice crinkles around his eyes.
Ashton said, a little impatiently, 'You were convinced earlier that the body was hidden in Bridelow.'
'Still am,' Roger said smugly.
'Go on,' Ashton said, no longer at all polite. 'Let's hear it.'
Chrissie liked his style. Also the set of his mouth and the way his hair was razor-cut at the sides.
Roger said, 'I attended a funeral in Bridelow yesterday. Matt Castle, the folk musician.'
'So I understand,' Ashton said. 'Mr Castle a friend of yours, was he?'
With a tingle of excitement, Chrissie suddenly knew what Ashton was wondering: did Roger himself have anything to do with the theft? The police must have spoken to the British Museum by now, learned all about Roger's battle to bring the bogman back up North. And why was he so keen to keep pointing the police in other directions?
Gosh, Chrissie thought… And Roger's obsessive attitude! The bogman intruding everywhere. And when the bogman was in a state of, er, emasculation, Roger himself was… unable to function. And complaining of clamminess and peat in the bed and everything. And then suddenly Roger could… with a vengeance! And the bog body had acquired what appeared to be an appendage of its own.
Chrissie felt a kind of hysteria welling up. Stop it! I'm going bloody bonkers. Or somebody is.
Suddenly she didn't want him touching her again.
'Castle?' Roger said. 'Not what you'd call a friend, no. But he was always very interested in the bog body, as many people were. Kept ringing me up, asking what we'd learned so far. And actually turned up here twice, wanting to see the body, which, of course, was not available for public viewing. Although I did allow it the second time.'
'Why'd you do that?'
'Because… because he was with someone I judged to be more reliable.'
He didn't elaborate; Ashton didn't push the point either. Chrissie thought of the writer, Stanage.
'So, anyway,' Roger said, 'it was Castle's funeral yesterday, and I thought I ought to show my face. I only went to the church service. Left before they actually put him into the ground. But I very much wish I'd stayed with it now, seen him buried.'
'I might be thick,' said Ashton, 'but I'm not following this.'
'All right, let's approach it from another angle. We've all been assuming that the break-in took place last night, right?'
'Have we, Dr Hall?'
'Ashton, look – can we stop this fencing? I know you're an experienced policeman and all that, but I've been doing my job for over twenty-five years too.' Angrily, Roger drew his chair from under the desk, scraping the Inspector's legs.
'Look. Because of the funeral and one or two other things, I didn't come in here at all yesterday. And you only found out – about the burglary before me because our normally lazy caretaker just happened to try the doors for a change. Correct?'
Ashton came slowly down from the desk, stood looking down at Roger. Interested.
'But if he'd bothered,' Roger said, 'to check the doors the night before – and if he says he did he's probably lying, I know that man – he'd probably have found them forced then. My strong suspicion is the break-in happened the previous night. And that the body wasn't here at all yesterday.'
'And what does that say to you?'
'What it says to me, Inspector – and I might have to spend a bit of time explaining this to you – but what it says to me is that my bog body is buried in St Bride's churchyard.'
'I see,' Ashton said thoughtfully. 'Or do I?'
'The funeral!' Roger raised his hands. 'The grave – it's a double grave! What I'm saying is, dig up Castle's coffin, you'll find our body lying underneath. Trust me.'
… and there it was.
Oh, Lord. Oh, Mother.
Ma Wagstaff could see the thing from the top of the churchyard, the highest vantage-point in Bridelow.
It hadn't been there a week ago, had it? There was a time when she knew this Moss better than anybody. Couldn't claim that now. Getting owd now. Letting it slide.
Ma leaned on her stick and wondered if she could make it all the way out there without some help. She'd have been able to yesterday, but yesterday was a long time ago. Yesterday, though she hadn't realised it at the time, she still had some strength.
She'd thought that sooner or later it would come to her, but instead it had sent her an invitation. Brought by a little lad who for no good reason had decided the dragon – because the dragon was there – was responsible for breaking up his Autumn Cross.
And in a way he was right.
Right about that thing out there; Ma could feel its black challenge. And looking across at it, she could tell why he thought it was a dragon – those little knobbly horns you could make out even from this distance.
Only an owd dead tree, as sometimes came out of the Moss when there was storms and flooding.
Bog oak.
Except there hadn't been a storm.
So it was black growth, like the blackness that grew in Matt Castle, and she had to gauge its strength.
Ma hesitated.
Not one to hesitate, wasn't Ma, but if she went out there she'd be on her own. As well as which, somebody needed her help this side of the Moss; she'd known this for days. Well, aye, people was always needing owd Ma's help, but this was somebody as didn't want to ask, hadn't for some reason been able to overcome a barrier, and until this barrier was overcome there was nowt Ma could do. Now she could feel the struggle going on, and when the plea came she must be there to answer it.
Pulled this way and that, between the flames and the torrent. Oh, Lord. Oh, Mother, which way do I turn? Let it slide for so long, losing me grip.
I'll walk out then.
Walk out there following the river, staying near the water, gathering what power I can. Happen I can deal wi' this quick, nip it in t'bud. Stare it down, give it the hard eye, reshape it, turn it back into wood and only wood.
Leaning heavily on her stick, Ma Wagstaff followed the old, steep narrow path down from the churchyard, meeting the thin river at the bottom of the hill where it went under the path – a little bridge, no more than a culvert – and there was a scrubby field to cross before they reached the Moss.
I can make it. I can. Can I lean on you, Mother? The last few steps were going to be the hardest, by far.
From two yards away, Ma Wagstaff's front door looked like the golden gates of heaven: unattainable.
Liz Horridge was aware of her mouth being wide open, gulping, a fish out of water, metabolism malfunctioning
Agoraphobia.
Say it!
AGOR… A… PHOBIA!!! Common-enough condition, always so hard to imagine, until it came upon you in panic-attacks, convulsions, stomach-cramps.
Yet this… more like claustrophobia… not enough air… lungs bursting.
She'd tried to do it in planned stages, like an invalid learning to walk again. The first stage had been waiting for the postman, whom she hadn't seen face-to-face for months. When the van drew up, she'd be watching from the dining-room window, and if the postman was carrying a parcel she would run to open the front door, leaving it slightly ajar, and by the time he was tossing the parcel on to the mat, Liz had taken cover.
Yesterday, almost sick with apprehension, she'd waited for the post van down by the main gate, rehearsing how she'd handle it. Just taking a walk. Normally go the other way. Yes, it is cold. Bright, though. Bright, yes. Thank you. Good morning.
When the postman didn't come, she was so relieved. It had been foolish. Trembling, she'd returned to the house to make Shaw's breakfast. But Shaw had gone. To be with her. Whenever he went out without saying even vaguely where he was going, it would always be to be with her.
Therese Beaufort had come into the house only once, had been polite but dismissive, had shown a vague interest in everything, except Liz, at whom she'd looked once, with a chilly smile before reappraising the drawing room, as if sizing it up for new furniture. Now she merely parked outside and waited, expressionless, not looking at the house (yes, I've seen your mother now, thank you).
And now there was…
Look, Liz, why don't we meet up?
And
Chairman's hoping to drop by tonight.
Fear. Despair. She'd walked away, down the drive, down the road, into terror, knowing she could not go home tonight. To the village, to Ma Wagstaff, to plead for sanctuary.
Liz Horridge fell down, tearing her skirt, feeling the small, jutting stones of Ma Wagstaff's front path gashing her knees. She began to crawl towards the door, feeling the emanations of the stone buildings heavy on her back as if they would push her into the little pointed stones beneath her.
The whitened donkeystoned step gleamed like an altar.
Liz rose on her knees, tried to reach the knocker but managed only the letter-box which snapped at her fingers like a gin-trap.
'Mrs Wagstaff: she managed to wail. 'Please, Mrs Wagstaff… let me in…'
But nobody came to the door.
'I'm sorry! I couldn't stop it! It wasn't my fault about the brewery. Please… He's coming back. Please let me in.'
And then the stones came down on her. The weight of the village descended on her shoulders, taking all the breath from her and she couldn't even scream.