The Man in the Moss (22 page)

           
'What for?'

           
'The dentist's. Just to show you I'm not making it up.'

           
'I never thought you were making it up, Alice, OK?'

           
'Why hasn't he got one?' asked Alice without much
interest. She was a good ten years older than Chrissie, had grown-up kids and a
big house. Didn't need the job but Chrissie supposed that in Alice's circle it
was nice to say you worked for the University, even if it was only as a number
two secretary in an overgrown Portacabin outside Congleton.

           
Chrissie said, 'Part of the ritual, apparently, when he
was sacrificed.'

           
'I suppose that would be
quite
a sacrifice for a man,' said Alice, pretending to shudder.

           
'Actually, it's possible they just cut it off after he
was dead.'

           
'I see.' Alice shrugged into her sheepskin coat. Hard
luck, Chrissie thought. Now you'll never know how big they were in
pre-Christian times.

           
Alice took her car keys out of her bag, stuck the bag
under an arm. 'So it's all right then, if I leave now?'

           
'Yes,' Chrissie said. Yes, yes,
yes!
she screamed to herself.

           
But when Alice had gone, she decided it
wasn't
all right. Bloody fat-arsed cow
got away with too much. Spends most of the day experimenting with this disgusting
sea-green nail varnish, then pisses off to sprawl on the sofa and moan to her
husband about how overworked she is.

           
Chrissie picked up the dentist's appointment card which
Alice had left behind. It looked authentic enough, if you didn't happen to know
Alice's eldest daughter was a dental receptionist.

           
It was 4.30. A dim grey afternoon, with all the lights
on. She couldn't herself go in case somebody (Roger) rang, or one of the
research students came in to raid the files.

           
She stared across the office at a double-locked metal
door.

           
Just me and you, chum, and you've got no dick.' Chrissie
laughed.

           
Under the laughter, there was a soft noise from behind
the metal door.

           
Chrissie breathed in hard. 'Who's that?'
           
There was silence.

           
Yes, that was it - just a
soft noise.
Not a thump, not a clang. She looked around and over
her shoulder. The room had three desks, seven filing cabinets and two big
metal-framed bookcases. It was garishly lit by fluorescent tubes and the
windows had Venetian blinds. Between the blinds she could see the deserted
college playing-fields and, beyond, the tops of container-lorries on the
motorway.

           
She was alone in the Field Centre and there was nobody
apparent outside. 'Now, look,' Chrissie said, 'this is not on. This is not
bloody
on.'

           
It was going dark out there.

           
The soft noise came again, like a heavy cushion - an
old-fashioned one, with brocade - being tossed on to a sofa.

           
Bravely, Chrissie slipped off her shoes and moved quietly
to the metal door.

           
Should she check this out?
Dare
she?

           
Although she'd never been in there alone, she knew where
there was a key.

           
She put her ear to the door.

           
There was silence.

Shaw's Porsche was coming
up the drive, black as a funeral - did it have to be a black one? She could
tell by the speed that it wouldn't be stopping at the house but continuing up
to the brewery. There was a new link road for the brewery lorries, so they
never grumbled past the Hall these days, and no local vehicles, except for
Shaw's Mercedes and his Porsche, ever laboured up from Bridelow any more.

           
So the Hall, sealed off from both the brewery and
village, irrelevant now to both, might as well not exist.

           
'Nor me,' Liz Horridge whispered into the empty,
high-ceilinged room with its bland Regency-striped wallpaper and its cold,
crystal chandelier. 'I've become irrelevant to everybody.'

           
Even Shaw - famous mother's boy - had quite casually
replaced her in his life. Always away at meetings, in Matlock, Buxton,
Sheffield, London even. Or with his girlfriend, the mysterious Therese.

           
With whom Shaw appeared obsessed. As well he might. The
girl was far too beautiful for him - at thirty-one, he was at least ten years
older, losing his hair, conspicuously lacking in style despite his costly
education. But being seen with Therese (Therese
Beaufort,
no less) had done wonders for his confidence, and his
lifelong stutter had virtually disappeared.

           
Her delight had turned to a damp dismay. Years of speech
therapy, of love and patient coaxing at the fireside. And what was it that
finally killed Shaw's stutter?

           
Sex.

           
She could weep.
Had
wept.
           
And wept and wept.

           
Last week he'd made her position quite appallingly clear.
If I were you, Mother,' he'd said in passing - everything Shaw said to her
these days appeared to be in passing - 'If I were you, I'd be off. Out of here.
Somewhere warm. The Channel Islands. Malta.'

           
She clung to the sofa. 'But I don't
want
a holiday, Shaw.'

           
'No, not a holiday. I mean, for good. To live. Why not?
It's warm, it's civilized. And absolutely everyone would want to come and stay
with you.'

           
'What are you
saying
?

           
Shaw had smiled affably and dashed off to his 'meeting'.

           
Every day since, she'd sat here, by this bay window, and
listened to his voice in her head saying so smoothly, without a hint of
impediment,
Somewhere warm. The Channel
Islands, Malta ...

           
And envisaged Therese Beaufort, in some slinky designer
costume, drink in hand, languid in this window, gazing out on
her
property.

           
Liz Horridge thought she could see old Mrs Wagstaff
waddling up the main street of Bridelow towards the church. Or maybe it wasn't.
Maybe she just needed to see the old girl.

               
How's
dear old Ma these days? Is she well?
           
Three decades ago, in the
crowded parlour full of bottles, two cats on the hearth, Ma Wagstaff cradling
Liz's head. Sleeping in the little bedroom.
If
he comes to you ... scream. Don't matter what time.

           
And now, Perhaps I'll drop in. Wouldn't you like that?
           
You can't. She'll stop you.
           
Things change.
Barriers weaken.

           
She looked out at the village, willing it closer. She'd
give anything to be able to shatter that damned glass screen before it all went
black.

Well, look at it this way -
there was no way anyone could have got in there without her or Alice knowing
about it. Therefore there was no one in there, except for ... well, yes.

           
The spare key was filed in the third filing cabinet.
Under K, for key.

           
The problem was, suppose something was amiss in there?
Suppose a rat or something had got in? Suppose something electrical had
malfunctioned, threatening the bogman's welfare? And therefore Roger's. And
hers.

           
Tentatively, she unlocked the third filing cabinet and
located the key. It was smoky-coloured steel, about four inches long.

           
Who would Roger blame if something had gone wrong with
the bogman, his future? Who was in charge of the office in Roger's absence?

           
Filed under B was a second and longer key for the double
lock to the inner room, the specimen room, the bogman's bedroom.

           
She just rather wished, as she pushed in the first key,
that she hadn't acquiesced so readily to Alice's 'request' to leave early.

           
Chrissie slipped on her cardigan. It would be cold in
there, wouldn't it? Mustn't get the shivers, that would never do.
           
The metal door opened with a
soft vacuum belch.
           
'Sorry to intrude,' Chrissie
said softly.
           
Behind the door was a small
hallway where two new Portacabins had been pushed together. This was where the
white coats were kept, and there were a couple of lavatory cubicles and a
washbasin. Then there was another, unlocked door leading to an anteroom with a
desk. And then the innermost metal door- with a double lock through which
minions like her and Alice were not supposed to venture.

           
So there couldn't possibly be anybody in there.

           
Anybody
else.

           
She'd been in there a couple of times, but only with
Roger and not for very long. So she knew what
he
looked like, no problem about that.

           
The second key turned easily, twice, and Chrissie walked
into an almost complete but alarmingly pleasant darkness which hummed faintly.

           
She didn't move. Apart from the hum, it was very, very
quiet. Nothing scurried away. She'd left the door open behind her to allow a
little light in there, but the velvety darkness absorbed it all within a yard
or two of the opening and she had to fumble about for switches.

           
It was not cold. This was it. Well, of course, this was
why it seemed so pleasant. The temperature was controlled to body heat.
Bog
body heat. He'd apparently been
freeze-dried and then maintained in a controlled environment. She rather hoped
he was packed away or at least covered up with something.
           
...
do you touch him much?

           
Chrissie's hand found a switch, and the lights came on,
flickering blue laboratory light, white on white tiles.
           
Mortuary light. Chrissie
tensed, breathed in sharply.
           
But, of course, she was right.
There was absolutely nobody here.

           
Nobody
else.

           
... of course I
touch him. He feels like a big leather cricket bag. You should pop in sometime,
be an experience for you.

           
Actually he was rather smaller than the cricket bags
Chrissie had seen when her ex-husband used to play.

           
He was lying on his table in his heat-regulated bubble,
looking like somebody who'd spent far too long in a solarium.

           
Yes, he had a lovely tan.

           
Still hard to think of him as an actual corpse. He was
too old. But still, ancient as he was, when you thought about it, he was
probably in a better state of preservation than Chrissie's late grandad was by
now.

           
Chrissie laughed at her stupid self.

           
She leaned over the bogman, curled up under his plastic
bubble.
           
'All right then, chuck?'

           
She wondered what he'd sound like if he could reply, what
language he spoke. Welsh, probably. She looked around. There were a couple of
wires, naked rubber, emerging from the bottom of the container. Pretty
primitive. The British Museum boffins would probably have a fit.

           
But nothing seemed amiss.

           
'I'll leave you, then,' Chrissie said. She tried to see
his face. His nose was squashed, like a boxer's. There were whiskers around his
contorted lips, which were half open, revealing the brown stumps of his teeth.

           
There was a fold in the side of his neck, a flap, like
another lip. She thought, God, that's where they cut his throat, poor little
devil.

           
Beaten over the head, garrotted, throat cut and then they
chopped his dick off.
           
Oh, yuck.