Refusing a whisky, Gary Ashton said, 'I'm not saying I don't believe this, ladies. I've seen too many weird things, put away too many weird people, we all do. Sometimes, you're face-to-face with real evil, and you're laughing it off. You laugh off criminals – blaggers, toe-rags. You don't think too hard about it, you're a copper. Not a shrink. Not a priest. You nick the buggers, put them away, that's where it ends.'
'Meaning you can't help us,' Lottie said.
'Far as the law's concerned, Mrs Castle, there's one crime been committed here. Somebody's pinched an archaeological relic.'
He'd sat there and he'd drunk coffee and he'd sympathized. He'd trusted them, too, both of them. They were frightened, more than if they'd been robbed. Although he knew bugger-all about wiring and such, he'd been and examined the electrified gas-mantle and fitted a new bulb, and, sure enough, it didn't come on. Fuse probably, he'd said. Where's the fuse-box?
And Lottie had said, never mind.
Truth was, the bloody thing had fused at the wrong time and put the shits up two women who were already mentally stressed.
Ghost in the mirror? Pipes in the night?
Strange atmosphere? Aye, there was. There was a strange atmosphere all over this whole village tonight, it hit you soon as you crossed the Moss. Too much rain, for a start, as if it was nature's attempt to cool something down, to put out a fire somebody was busy stoking under this place.
Put that in a bloody police report. Show that to the Superintendent. Strange atmosphere. 'There was a very strange atmosphere, boss.'
And then Chrissie White said what he'd been faintly hoping she might.
'What if I knew who'd stolen the bogman?'
'Ah. Then I'd have a lot more leverage, wouldn't I, Chrissie?'
Chrissie said, 'Have you heard of a writer called John Peveril Stanage?'
'My kids used to read him avidly.' He glanced at Lottie. 'One grown up, now. The other still lives with his mother and her new feller. Aye, John Peveril Stanage. What about him?'
'He's got plans to fund a permanent museum for the bogman. As you know, Roger would run it. Stanage would have permanent access to the bogman.'
'So why would he nick it? I presume you are saying he nicked it. Or had it nicked.'
'I don't know,' Chrissie said. 'I just think he has.'
'Why?' Ashton began to feel less hopeful.
'Cause he's invited Roger to some sort of gathering at Bridelow Hall and he's told him he might be able to find out where it is.'
'That's not the same thing, Chrissie. Also, it's presumably only what Dr Hall's told you.'
'Well, that's right. I suspect there's a lot more to it than that. Can't you get some of your blokes and, raid it or something?'
'Oh, aye,' Ashton said. 'The police are always raiding private parties at the homes of the rich and influential. Matter of course, Mrs White. Normal procedure. Happen the Chief Constable'll be one of the guests. Or the MP?'
'What if they're doing -I don't know what to call it – black magic, or something?'
'Well, it's not basically against the law, luv. Matter of religious preference, in the eyes of the British legal system. Unless it involves children or animals, of course. You think it does?'
Chrissie said, 'Roger's been messing about with the bogman.'
Ashton tried not to laugh. 'I really don't think that'd have them cancelling leave at the Vice Squad. Mrs White… Chrissie. And Mrs Castle… I sympathize, you know I do, or I wouldn't be here. If you want me to do anything as a policeman, I've got to have something hard, solid and preferably nothing at all to do with the supernatural.'
Lottie said angrily, 'You think I…'
Ashton held up a hand. 'No, I don't. That's why I came. You're a nice woman, and things are happening to you that you don't understand and don't particularly want to understand. I admire you, Mrs Castle.'
'But I'm wasting your time. All right, I'm sorry. You'd better get off home to your…'
'Flat,' said Ashton. 'What I said was, there was nothing I could do as a copper. As things stand. However, I also attempt be a bit of a human being, on the side. Anything I can do in that capacity, I'll be happy to do it, just as long as it's not illegal and doesn't mean saying ta-ra to me pension. How's that?'
'Thanks,' Chrissie said despondently. 'But we're all of us semi-qualified human…' Breaking off at a hammering on the door. Lottie looked up sharply. Initial alarm, Ashton noted, soon subsiding into weariness.
'Oh, hell, I'd forgotten about him. I've not even made up his bed.'
'Who's this?'
'An American chap. Moira's boyfriend. Better let him in before he sets soaked.
'I'll go,' Ashton said. Never know what else it might be this time of night, do you? Moira's your daughter, is she?' Milly had given up on security. The Post Office door was on the latch. Cathy burst through it, throwing off her coat.
'Where is she?'
'I'm here. Just don't look at me.'
Milly had built up the fire with great cobs of coal. Moira was hunched over it, feet on the red-tiled hearth, a glass of Guinness between them. Her jeans and sweater hung from a wire line under the wooden mantelpiece. She wore a dressing gown of Milly's with a design of giant daisies. There was a pink towel around her head.
Cathy grinned helplessly.
Moira said, 'Take more than death to kill me, huh?' Is that it? Ernie Dawber wondered. Determined not to see tomorrow's sun? And will anyone? Will we ever even see the sky again?
Getting a bit whimsy, Ernest?
Aye, I am that, Ma. Been whimsy all night. Offered meself as a sacrifice, Ma. Wanted to go out on the Moss and not come back. Bit pathetic, eh?
He walked with a measured pace towards Bridelow Hall, shining his torch, making no attempt to conceal his approach.
Well, what would you have done, Ma? Doctor tells you it could be two years, could be six months. Or less. You start to think, where am I going to be when it happens? Where would I like to be more than Bridelow? Bridelow as it is now. With the shades of things and the balance. Where else could I go and actually be any bloody use?
His saturated hat was moulded to his head, the sodden brim as heavy as a loaded tea tray.
Little problem in the brain, Ma. That's why I was thrown a bit when your Willie lost his rag and raised the issue of my mental state.
Ernie chuckled. I suppose you'd have seen the black glow on me too, eh, owd lass? And said nowt.
But did you see it around yourself?
Happen not.
Ernie became thoughtful.
He didn't need his torch lit when the Hall came into view. For the Hall was all lights, upstairs and down, and brought back with a momentary thrill, a picture of the old days when Arthur and Liz held open house for the brewery workers and their relatives and friends. Which amounted to the whole village in those days. Liz in a glittery gown, Arthur permitting his stern eyes a twinkle behind those forbidding horn-rims.
And Shaw.
Shaw was never there on such occasions. Shaw, they said, was shy. Shaw could never say the headmaster's name. Mr Der-der…
'Mr Dawber,' Shaw said easily.
He stepped out from the brewery entrance gate, the stem of a stylish golf umbrella propped elegantly across his left shoulder. His dark suit was perfectly dry.
'Good evening, lad,' Ernie said heavily. 'I've come to see your mother.'
'Small problem there, Mr D. Mother's spending the weekend at a hotel in Buxton. Autumn break.'
'Brave of her, lad. Conquered the agoraphobia, then, has she?'
'She hasn't got agoraphobia, Mr Dawber. She's simply rather a retiring person. Shy, even.'
'As you were yourself, Shaw. Perhaps it's an hereditary problem. Dealt with yours, though, didn't you, lad?'
'One alters. As one gets older.'
Shaw Horridge, sheltered from the downpour, was smirking. It brought out the headmaster in Ernie.
'Perhaps heredity says it all.' Standing his ground, dripping. 'I'd like a chat, Shaw Horridge, and I'd like it now.'
He'd almost said, 'My office. At once.'
For a second, Shaw looked disconcerted.
Ernie pocketed his torch. 'I won't go away.'
'Won't you?' Shaw's smirk vanished and was replaced by an expression Ernie didn't recognize but which he found surprisingly menacing.
'Come up to the house, then,' Shaw said. Two phone calls was all it took. One to Headquarters, one to the doctor's house. At least this was something Ashton could do – they'd given him a name in connection with an incident under investigation; he could check it out.
'Thanks very much, Doc,' Ashton said. 'Owe you one.'
Lottie was over by the stove again, deep lines in her face, the permanent frown. Years of Matt Castle in the making, Ashton reckoned, but not irreversible.
The American, Macbeth, was sitting at the kitchen table, watching him in silence, black hair stuck to his forehead, tension coming off him like vapour. Chrissie White was watching the American; what was coming off her wasn't quite seemly under the circumstances.
'Well, then,' Ashton said, putting down the phone. They were all staring at him now. 'Your Miss Cairns. I suppose I'm right in assuming she was nowhere near her middle-fifties?'
Macbeth breathed out in a rush. 'God damn.'
'Grey hair?' said Ashton. 'Somewhat overweight?'
'But…' Macbeth sat down next to Chrissie. 'But it was her car?'
'Clearly. With another woman's body in it. What's that say to you? Mrs Castle? Any other women missing?'
'God!' Macbeth had his head in his hands. His body sagged.
Relief. No way you could fake that.
Chrissie smiled thinly. 'Well,' she said, 'that's all right, then.'
Lottie said, 'What did she look like?'
'She was badly burned, apparently. As I say, mid-to-late fifties. Plumpish. Grey hair, quite short. So who is she? And what was she doing in Miss Cairns's car?'
Macbeth looked up. There were tears in his eyes.
Ashton let his gaze rest on the American. 'There is, of course, another question. Two, perhaps. Where is Miss Cairns? And what does she know about this woman's death?'
'Hey,' Macbeth said. 'Come on…'
'Has to be asked, sir.' And other questions. Like, what's brought this American all the way from Glasgow in the worst driving conditions of the year so far, and what's he doing in this country anyway?
Macbeth said, 'How official is this?'
'Well, now,' Ashton said, 'that depends, doesn't it?'
Macbeth said nothing for nearly half a minute, then he spread his hands. 'OK. How much you know about a guy name of John Peveril Stanage?'
Chrissie gasped, and Ashton allowed himself a sigh of manifest satisfaction. Moira was choking.
'Jesus, what the hell is this stuff?'
'Shurrup and get it down,' Milly said.
'Yeah, but what…?'
'Ma Wagstaff's Crisis Mixture,' said Milly. 'Last bottle.'
'Tastes like something scraped off the floor at a foot clinic.'
Cathy said seriously, 'Drink it, Moira. We need you.'
She drank it. She drank it all, every last nauseating mushroom-coloured drop. All the time watching Cathy over the glass, the girl's narrow face taut with concentration.
'Dic.' Moira let Milly take the glass away. 'Thank you. Cathy, what are we going to do about Dic?'
'I told you, didn't I?' Cathy said. 'I said it wasn't Dic who took the comb.'
'Aye, you did. I'm sorry. But why's he with Stanage? How'd he get into this? And the girl. The woman.'
'Therese. Pure poison. Lady Strychnine.'
'But Dic was helping them.'
'Dic was helping us,' Cathy snapped.
'Us?'
'The Mothers.'
'You told me… Hang on, I'm confused, you said you weren't one. You said your father wouldn't…'
'I didn't know you well enough. I lied. It's OK to lie sometimes. Except to yourself.'
'Sure.' Moira sighed.
'Dic lied to himself a lot. He lied about his father. He lied about not hating his father.'
'I know. Maybe we all lied to ourselves about Matt.'
'Aye.' Willie Wagstaff was sitting on the arm of the sofa. I never wanted him to come back to Bridelow, me. He were too… disruptive, you know?' He paused. 'Like our Jack.'
'How it happened,' Cathy said, 'Dic read Stanage as a kid. His dad was all for it. Imaginative stuff, full of Celtic reverberations. ' She looked up at Willie in appeal. 'They didn't know, you see. Matt had been away too long. He didn't know Stanage was Jack Lucas. Not at first.'
'Makes sense,' Willie said. 'It were a long time before any of us found out. Peveril. Stanage. Derbyshire place-names. Peveril of the Peak. Nothing too local. How should we know? He were never on telly, never give interviews to t'papers.'
'So, like a lot of kids,' Cathy said, 'Dic wrote him a fan letter, but unlike a lot of kids, he got a reply inviting him to visit the great man. Beginning of a beautiful friendship. It was Stanage who persuaded Dic to learn the Pennine Pipes. Matt was delighted, as you'd imagine. Dic having always rejected traditional stuff.'
'Why would Stanage be so interested in Dic?' Moira asked.
'He wasn't. He was interested in Matt. They'd known each other as kids, obviously, and Stanage was looking for ways into Bridelow. That was his ruling obsession, to get back at them.'
'At…?'
'At Bridelow. Specifically at the Mothers. The Bridelow establishment. The keepers of the Bridelow tradition. The keepers of… I don't know.'
'The balance,' Milly said. 'The keepers of the balance.'
'God knows,' said Willie, 'they tried to sort him out. They tried everything. He were just… just bloody bad, what can you say? And when he like… finally overstepped the mark, he had to go. He were halfway gone by then, anyroad, gone off to university, smartest lad ever come out of Bridelow. Can say that again.'
Moira said slowly, 'How do you mean, overstepped the mark?'
Willie looked at the others. Milly nodded. Willie said bitterly, 'He desecrated a grave.'
'Spell it out, little man,' Milly said softly.
'He dug up Owd Ma. That were me granny. Ma's ma. Been dead a week.'
'He had it all timed,' Milly said. 'The right day, the right hour. the right position of the moon, all this. He had to know, you see. He had to know what was being denied to him because he was a man.'
A gout of rain came down the chimney. On the fire, a red coal cracked in two with a chip-pan hiss.
Moira said, 'He did this? Necromancy? He tried to get information out of a dead woman?'
Willie reached for Milly's hand. She said, 'I was only a youngster. I only know what I was told later, by Ma. She said there were things he knew, things he threw in her face… that he couldn't possibly have learned from anyone else. So either Old Ma told him stuff on her deathbed, which is so unlikely as to be…'
Moira started to feel sick, and it wasn't Ma Wagstaff's crisis Mixture. 'Willie, sooner or later Matt would know about this guy. What he was.'
'We never talked about it, lass. But, aye, sooner or later. but he'd be too far in, maybe, by then. To be charitable. In the end, though, it's two of a kind. Exiles wanting in.'
'Men,' said Milly. 'Men wanting knowledge.'
'And now he's doing it to Matt. What he did to your gran. Dic told me, he said, "He's got my dad." How can…?'
'We know,' Milly said. 'Matt's coffin's full of soil.'
Cathy said, 'Listen, the night Dic brought you to the rectory, afterwards he had a few drinks, got a bit… mixed up? He was approached. There was a sexual approach. He thought it was you.'
'What a compliment.'
Cathy frowned. 'Next day he told me about it He's always told me things. He was in a hell of a state. He needed… calming down. You can tell how easily they get people.'
Moira nodded. She knew well enough.
'I said you were with me the whole time,' Cathy said, 'so it couldn't have been you.'
'Thank you.'
'And then we talked about it for ages. It was our only way in. For Dic to go along with it, see what happened. I think he saw it as a way of getting out of the influence of his dad and Stanage and the whole thing.'
Moira started shaking her head. Lamb to the slaughter.
'He's been through hell.' Cathy's eyes looking hot with sorrow. 'Yes, they've got Matt's body. Yes, they've been… arousing him.'
Moira covered her face with her hands.
'There's Stanage and this Therese. Calls herself Therese Beaufort. He claims, apparently, that she's his niece. That's crap. All kinds of people've been attracted to him over the years. He's, you know, he's… magnetic'
'I know.' Moira rubbed her eyes. 'I know his kind. Who else?'
'Detritus. There's a Satanic-type cult based in Sheffield that's been holding rituals on the moors, in the old Bronze Age circles. Been going on for years. They move as close as they can to Bridelow – it's got a reputation in the occult world, you can imagine. Place of power.'
Moira felt herself back in the churchyard, deformed stone across the moor, hopping like a toad, a quick splash of blood…
'Therese,' Cathy said. 'Tess – she's Tessa-something, Dic says, she came up from the Welsh border – Tess brings them along. They're revolting. That farmer – there was a farmer killed on the moor, Sam Davis – he came to see Pop last week. Lights in the night, rams killed. His wife reckoned they were even sacrificing babies.'
'It's not unknown,' Moira said. 'I believe some of these cults are actually breeding babies for sacrifice. How did that guy die?'
'Fell down a quarry at night. How do you know that, about the babies?'
'Read it in the News of the World,' Moira said quickly.
'Look, you say they get as close as they can to Bridelow. But they can't get in, right!' You told me the other night there were defences. The kind you can't see.'
Milly said, 'Jack could let them in. Down in Cambridge, Jack was mixing with all kinds of people. Jack was learning all the time. We had to do something or else Bridelow'd be… just like everywhere else. Soiled. Only more so, because…'
'… because it was a place of power. Right?'
'We had to do something,' Milly said. 'Or Ma did. Ma was the only one could do it.'
'Why?' Moira hunched forward, hands clasped. 'I mean, what? What could Ma do?'
Milly looked down into her lap where Willie's hand lay.
'Come on, Milly,' Moira said almost angrily. 'What is it you're not telling me? Cathy, do you know?'
Yes,' Cathy said. 'I think so.'