Eventually, Benjie had persuaded his mam to let him take The Chief to his bedroom, where the German Shepherd squeezed himself into the gap between the wardrobe and the wall, sat there with his ears down and panted a lot.
'Come on, lad,' Benjie whispered, sitting up in bed in old ninja turtle pyjamas. But The Chief wouldn't move. He kept himself in this dark corner and there was pleading in his sad, brown eyes.
Above the noise of rain, Benjie could hear other village dogs howling in the distance. When he lay down and shut his eyes he realised that the way The Chief was panting meant he was really howling too, but The Chief was smart, the last thing he wanted was to have himself taken out to the shed.
When Benjie opened his eyes again, he saw light-beams flitting across the curtains, like car headlights.
Which would have been all right, only the back of the house overlooked the Moss and there were no cars on the Moss, except months ago when the lorries and JCBs had been out building up the road and they'd found the bogman.
Benjie scrambled to the end of his bed, leaned over and stuck his head through the gap in the curtains.
He gasped.
It were like Fireworks Night out there.
Lights all over the Moss, like smouldery bonfires. Lights swooshing like rockets, through the rain, from one side to another, sometimes going across each other.
But no noise except for the howling dogs and the rain.
The lights lasted no more than ten seconds and then it was all gone and Benjie couldn't see anything apart from the water rolling down the glass.
But when he lay in bed, the light showed up in the space between his eyes and his closed eyelids. He saw the Moss lit up greenish now, all green and glowing, except for the Dragon Tree.
And that was twice as big now, its branches, all gnarled and knotted and black among whirling, spinning lights, two of them spiking up into the sky… arms like giant horns with groping claws on the end. And the whole thing was breathing, dragging up big, soggy lungfuls of peat, and soon it was going to burst and its arms would gather up the whole village.
Benjie felt a scream coming on and chewed the bedclothes instead, not wanting to be put out in the shed with The Chief and get gobbled up first. Macbeth watched Chris and Chantal sink side by side into the sofa at the Rectory. They didn't seem like the same people. 'I really am tired,' Chris said. 'I'm shagged out.'
And then, clearly shocked at himself, he looked up at Cathy. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. Catherine, has something got inside me? Am I possessed?'
Cathy waved it away. 'Chris, you've got to tell me very quickly, no evasion. What happened in there?'
Chris tugged at his beard. 'I just don't know. First of all, it was fine, we felt… how we used to feel. Holy. Special. And then it all went wrong… really quickly. It went… dirty.'
'It was like baptism,' Chantal said, hugging herself with goosebumpy arms. 'Only in reverse. In our baptism… our re-baptism, we throw off some of our outer clothes – symbolically – and we're submerged in water. It could be a river, or we'll hire a public pool for an afternoon, and you come up cleansed and purified.'
'That's it,' Chris said, eyes full of agony. 'That's right. Only this was like being submerged and some of us threw off our Christian clothes and we came up not so much dirty… well, yes, dirty – but worse, really. Like it was before.'
'People smoking,' Chantal recalled. 'In church. But it didn't feel like church, it didn't feel like anywhere.'
'Yeah, and blaspheming in an everyday sort of throwaway fashion. And we drank… God forgive us, we drank the Communion wine, like it was any old pop. It didn't matter. We were like the mass of godless people out there, we didn't need religion any more, we had no use for it. Catherine, I'm confused. We'll burn in hell for this, I think we've started to burn.'
'It's OK,' Cathy said soothingly. 'The fire's out, now.' She turned to Moira and Macbeth. 'It's obvious, isn't it? It was the final sterilization.'
'Well…' Moira said. 'You can't just drain the power of centuries out of stone, you can only take it out of people, you let them absorb it through their mindless, passive ritual and then you snuff out the light, blow their shaky faith up their faces and leave them empty and when they walk out totally knackered like this guy here, they've drained out everything that was left in the church.'
'Forgive me,' Macbeth said, 'Why'd they wanna do that?'
'Because the church is the sacred centre of the village,' Cathy said. 'It's got to be neutralized before you can…' She stopped for breath and couldn't go on.
'Replace it with something black and horrible,' Moira said.
'What… what can we do to help?' Chris asked, rather feebly..
Cathy rounded on him. 'You can keep your bums on that settee, call in all your friends and don't move until your coach comes for you. And then you can go away for ever."
'Steady, Cathy.' Moira took her arm.
'Wants to know if he's possessed?' Cathy said with a sharp laugh. 'Well, of course he's possessed. Possessed of a very slow brain. Moira, look, there's a copper out there who wants to go up the Hall with Stan Burrows and a bunch of his mates and do some sorting out, as they put it.'
'So stop him,' Moira said.
'You try and stop him!'
'Look, they go up there mob-handed, God knows what could happen. It's pretty damned obvious – and we're looking at something planned months ago – that Stanage has shut down the church to deflect a lot of energy towards the second natural focus, the second-highest building in Bridelow. The brewery, right? And what's at the very top of the brewery building?'
'Th'owd malt-store,' Willie Wagstaff said impatiently. Disused. Moira, happen this is over me head, but why don't we go up there mob-handed and flush the buggers out?'
'Because you can't fight this thing with primitive violence. I swear to you, Willie, those guys go up there they'll wind up killing each other. It's like, how come you can put a bunch of ardent, Bible-punching born-again Christians in a church and they come drifting out an hour or so later with this amazing born-again apathy?'
'He's right, though, Moira,' Cathy said. 'We can't just stand around doing nothing. Somebody ought to go up there.'
It's what I've been trying to tell you!' Willie cried, all eight fingers beating at his thighs. 'Somebody has. Mr Dawber's up there. And Mr Dawber's been in a mind to do summat daft.'
'OK,' Moira said. 'Come on, Willie.'
'We'll go in my car,' Macbeth offered, moving to the door.
'Ah… not you, Mungo.'
'What…!' Macbeth counted three seconds of silence before he tore off his black slicker and slammed it to the Rectory lino with a noise like a gunshot. Willie jumped back. On the sofa Chris and Chantal gripped hands.
'Now listen up!' Macbeth snarled. 'Everybody just fucking listen up! I have had it. I have had it up to here with getting told to butt out. I am sick to my gut with being treated like some goddamn halfwit with a stupid name who had the misfortune to be born five generations too late to be part of any viable heritage. Either I'm in, or I start figuring a few things out for myself, and maybe I'll kick the wrong asses and maybe I won't, but that's your problem not mine.'
It all went quiet. Shit, Macbeth thought. Which reject script did that come out of? He picked up his slicker and put it on.
'OK,' said Moira carelessly. 'You drive, Mungo. Cathy, I don't know what to say, except please keep that cop off our backs for as long as you can. And maybe if you can get the Mothers together in one place, that might be best. Would everybody fit into Ma Wagstaff's parlour?'
Some of what happened next Macbeth did not follow. Several times he wished he'd never left Glasgow.
Once, he wished he'd never seen Moira Cairns. Twice Ernie Dawber had said his throat was very dry and would it be possible to get a drink of water?
He was sprawled in a corner between the hallstand and the front door. There was broken glass all around him. He thought he'd sprained his ankle when he fell.
'When you ter-tell me.' Shaw Horridge was still standing, feet apart, amidst the wreckage of the mirrors. His mouth looked permanently twisted because of a cut which extended his lower lip. There were stripes of blood down both cheeks. Freckles of glass still glittered either side of his thin nose.
'What can I tell you?' Ernie croaked. 'He planted his seed in Bridelow and that seed turned out to be you. Was Ma going to have your mother turned away, same as they did with your father, and leave Arthur Horridge humiliated three days from the altar? 'Course she wasn't, she'd been in the same situation.'
'I cer-cer… I cer-cer-can't accept it, Mr Der-Der… Aaargh!' With both fists, Shaw began to beat his own head.
Ernie felt his agony, the way he used to experience the lad's frustration all those years ago, when Shaw was the best reader in the class and couldn't prove it.
'They never told you, because not many outside the Mothers' Union knew about it. Me, I put two and two together after a bit, but I said nowt. It was none of my business. Ma kept an eye on you but she'd never go too close. She never wanted you to be tempted or to get too close to the shadow side. For your own good. Please, lad… a cup of water?'
'If I ter-turn my ber-back on you, you'll be… out.'
'I don't think I can even walk, lad.'
'How der-der-do I know that? Ker-ker-keep talking.'
Ernie swallowed. 'I… remember once, Arthur came to see me. Arthur knew, of course. Arthur was inclined to link your stammer directly to the circumstances of your conception, and he said, Ernie, he said, why doesn't she do something? Ha? Why doesn't she cure the poor lad's stutter? Arthur, I said, if you knew how much pain that causes Ma, her own grandson…'
'Ger-grandson!' Angry tears joined the blood on Shaw's cheeks. 'I used to stand outside wer-with the other ker-ker-kids der-daring each other to look into the wer-windows. She'd cher-chase us all off. Wer-wer-witch. Owd witch!'
She was frightened, Shaw. Frightened for you. Scared that one day she might have to banish you as well because of what might be in your blood. Didn't want you exposed to the shadow side. That's why after your… after Arthur died, she'd never come up to see your mother, even when Liz became agoraphobic and wouldn't come down to the village. She didn't want to go near you. She didn't want you ever to know who you were or to become drawn to the shadow side.'
Which, in the end, he thought, you were. You were a sitting duck.
Wanted to ask, What happened to your mother? What happened after she forced herself to come down to the village and scream tor sanctuary outside Ma's door? While you were inside, presumably. For who else would it be? Who else could destroy Ma's defences so surely? Who else would Ma allow to push her downstairs?
'I didn't ker-kill her, you know,' Shaw said suddenly. 'She said she was der-der-dead already. Dead already!'
And at that moment, directly above Ernie's head, the door chimes played their daft little tune and there was a banging on the glass panels and, 'Mr Dawber! Ernie!'
Shaw jerked from the waist, as if the electric doorbell had been connected to his testicles. 'Ger-go away!'
Ernie grabbed a breath and raised his voice. 'It's Willie Wagstaff, Shaw. Let him in, eh?'
'Mr Dawber!'
'Come on, Shaw!' Ernie shouted. 'You know Willie!'
Across the hall, the front door shuddered as a boot went into it, flat, under the lock. Shaw leapt across the hall and threw himself against the back of the door as the foot went in again, and then he sprang back, lurched towards Ernie, face full of blood and glass, terror, confusion and fury. He turned, tore open a white-panelled door on the other side of the room and flung himself into the passage beyond as the front door heaved and splintered open.
Willie was alone. His eyes flickered under his mousy fringe in the bright lights. 'Ernie.'
'Give us a hand, Willie. Done me ankle, I think.'
'Where's the lad?'
'Let him go, eh? He's got a lot to think about. We need to get to the brewery, if it's not too late.'
'Never mind that.' Willie got a hand under Ernie's arm 'Can you… that's fine. That's excellent, Mr Dawber. Hang on to me. The brewery… Moira's seeing to that.'
'That lass? By 'eck, Willie, you're…'
'She's not just "that lass", Mr Dawber, take my word. Anyroad, Mungo's with her, the Yank. He give me his car keys; we need to get you back. You're our last hope, Mr Dawber. Come on. I'll tell you.' The body was up against a huge metal tub. There was the smell of beer, the smell of vomit and a smell Macbeth would soon recognise again as the smell of blood.
'I don't know him,' Moira said. 'I've never seen him before.'
Macbeth covered his mouth with his hand. This was it. The final proof he'd half-imagined he was never going to get, that this affair was real, life and death. Bad death.
'This is crazy, Moira." He grabbed hold of the iron railing, for the coldness of it. Only it was slick with something and he jerked his hand away. 'I never saw a stiff before. Never saw a dead relative. Never went to a funeral with an open coffin.'
Moira had nothing to say to this. She turned her lamp on man's face. His whole head was a weird shape, like it had been remoulded. Violently. There was blood over the face and down from the rim of the big tank. Macbeth felt his gut lurch. He leaned over the side of the huge beer vat and he threw up, shamed by the way it echoed around the scrubbed metal.
He turned back to Moira, wiped his mouth. She was kind enough to direct the beam of her lamp away from him. Real macho stuff, huh? Either I'm in this with the rest of you or I'll go solo, start kicking asses.
Or maybe I'll just throw up the shitburger I had near Carlisle.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'That was unavoidable. Thing is, I do recognise him. His name is Frank. He was in the pub earlier, was pretty smashed.'
He certainly looks pretty smashed now,' Moira said, sounding harder than he liked to hear. He was shocked.
'He fell?' Looking up the steps, all slimy with something that stank.
'You could convince yourself of anything, Macbeth. OK, after you.'
'Up there?'
'Well, we're no' going back now.'
Oh, shit. Please. Get me outa here.
'OK. You stay down here, then. Wait for me.'
'No! Jesus. But, like, I mean, what if they're waiting for us?'
'There's nobody here, Macbeth.'
'How'd you know that?'
'I was… listening. And watching. And… you know.'
No, he didn't fucking know. But he wasn't going to make an issue of it. He went slowly up the metal steps. She stayed at the bottom, lighting his way, until he reached a blank wooden door.
He hesitated, looked back down the stairs at where the beam bounced off the white walls and cast a soft light on her. She looked smaller than he remembered inside this bulky duffel coat, too big for her by a couple of sizes. And yet she seemed strangely younger, without most of her hair.
Well, shit, of course he'd seen that, soon as he'd walked in out of the rain. It was the most awful mutilation, like slashing the Mona Lisa, taking the legs off of the Venus de Milo. It was a goddamn offence against civilization.
But was it self-mutilation? Was it like a novice nun cuts off, all her hair to give herself to Christ?
And this was why he'd never even mentioned it. This was why, Willie being in the car too, all he'd said to her by way of explanation for him being here was, 'The Duchess asked me to lookout for you.'
To which she'd made no reply.
Moira's face creased sympathetically now in the white light. 'Look, Mungo… fact is, if the sight of this poor guy made you chuck your lunch, you're not gonny find it too pleasant in there. There's no shame in that. Willie's pretty squeamish, too, which is why he was glad to go off in search the old schoolmaster guy. So… if you… what I'm saying is, this isn't your problem. You really don't have to put yourself through this.'
'And you do?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'I'm afraid I do. Me more than anybody."
He just stared down at her.
'Goes back nearly twenty years. This is the consequences of getting involved with Matt Castle.'
'He's dead.'
'Yeah,' Moira said.
Macbeth said, 'People here keep seeing his ghost. That's what they say. You believe that?'
'Yeah,' Moira said.
'What am I gonna find behind that door?'
'You don't ever have to know, Mungo. That's what I'm trying to tell you.'
'Aw, shit,' Macbeth said. 'The hell with this.' He scraped the hair out of his eyes, opened them wide and pushed open the door with his right foot.