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Authors: Phil Rickman

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BOOK: The Man in the Moss
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It's all around
you, Mr Beard ... once you know what you're looking for. Look at the church,
look at the pub, look at the people ... you'll see the signs everywhere.

           
Beneath him, the bike lurched into life, his strong,
gauntleted hands making the engine roar and crackle, spitting holy fire.

           
He rode away from the village, back into the hills.

 

'Shades,' Ma Wagstaff would
say later that night. 'Them's what's kept this place the way it is. Shades of
things.'

           
Of all Ma's famous sayings, these were the words that
would keep coming back at Ernie Dawber during the short, anxious days and the
long, chill nights of the declining year.

           
And when, as local historian, he tried to find the
beginning (as in, What exactly started the First World War? What caused the
first spark that set off the Great Fire of London?), he'd keep coming back to
this particular evening. A vivid evening at the end of May. The evening he'd
blithely and thoughtlessly told Ma Wagstaff what he'd learned about the death
of the bogman ... and Ma had made a fateful prediction.

           
But it started well enough, with a big turn-out for the
official reopening of The Man, under its new proprietor. The two bars couldn't
hold all those come to welcome him home. So several dozen folk, including Ernie
Dawber - best suit, waistcoat, watch-chain - were out on the cobbled forecourt,
having a pint or two and watching the sun go down over the big hills beyond the
Moss.

           
A vivid evening at the end of May. Laughter in the
streets. Hope for the future. Most enmities sheathed and worries left at home
under the settee cushions.

           
A real old Bridelow night That was how it ought to have
been enshrined in his memory. All those familiar faces.

 

A schoolteacher all his
working life, Ernie Dawber had known at least three-quarters of this lot since
they were five-year-olds at the front of the school hall: eager little faces,
timid little faces ... few belligerent ones too - always reckoned he could spot
a future troublemaker in its pram.

           
He remembered Young Frank Manifold in the pram,
throttling his panda.

           
'Well, well...' Twenty-odd years on. Young Frank
strolling up to his boss, all jutting chin and pint mug clenched like a big
glass knuckle-duster. 'It's
Mr Horridge
.'

           
Shaw said nothing.

           
'What's that you're drinking,
Mr Horridge
?' Sneering down at Shaw's slim glass.

           
Shaw's smile faltered. But he won't reply, Ernie thought,
because if he does he'll start stuttering and he knows it.

           
There'd been a half-smile on Shaw's face as he stood
alone on the cobbles. A nervous, forced-looking smile but a smile none the
less. Ernie had to admire the lad, summoning the nerve to show himself tonight,
not a month since Andy Hodgson died.

           
Especially with more than a few resentful brewery
employees about.

           
'Looks like vodka.' Frank observed 'That what it is,
Mr Horridge
? Vodka?' A few people
starting to look warily at Frank and Shaw, a couple of men guiding their wives
away.
           
''Course, I forgot. Bloody
Gannons make vodka on t'side. Gannons will make owt as'll sell. That
Gannons
vodka? That what it is ...
Mr Horridge
?'

           
Shaw
sipped his drink, not
looking at Frank. This could be nerves. Or it could
be an insult, Shaw pointedly pretending
that Young Frank was not there.

Whichever, Ernie decided he ought to break this up
before it started to spoil the atmosphere.
But somebody better
equipped than him got there first.

           
'Where's your dad, Frank?' Milly Gill demanded, putting
herself firmly between him and Shaw, like a thick, flowery bush sprouting
between two trees.

           
'Be around somewhere.' Frank staring over the
postmistress's head at Shaw, who was staring back now. Frank's knuckles
whitening around the handle of his beer mug.

           
'I think you'd better find him, Frank,' Milly said
briskly. 'See he doesn't drink too much with that diabetes.'

           
Frank ignored her, too tanked-up to know his place.
'Fancy new car.
 
I see ...
 
Mr
Horridge
. Porsche, int it? Andy Hodgson just got 'isself a new car, day
before he fell. Well,
 
I'm saying
"new" - Austin Maestro, don't even make um no more. He were chuffed
wi' it. Easily pleased, Andy, weren't he, Milly?'

           
'It was an accident,' Milly said tightly. 'As you well
know.'

           
'Aye, sure it were, I'm not accusing Mr Horridge of
murder
.
           
Only, why don't you ask him
why Andy were suddenly ordered to reconnect a bloody old clapped-out pulley
system for winching malt-sacks up to a storeroom right at top of t'building as
isn't even used no more except by owls. You ask this bastard that, Milly.'

           
'We've had the inquest,' Milly said. 'Go and see to your
dad.'

           
'Inquest? Fucking whitewash. I'll tell you why Andy were
sent up. On account of place were being tarted up to look all quaint and
old-fashioned
for a visit from t'Gannons
directors. Right, Mr
Horridge
?'

           
'Wasn't c ... Not quite like that,' said Shaw quietly.
           
'Oh aye. How were it
different? Lad dies for a bit of fucking
cosmetic
.
You're all shit, you. Shit.'

           
The air between them fizzed. Shaw was silent. He'd been
an expert at being silent during the three years Ernie had taught him before
the lad was sent to prep school. And still an expert when he came back from
University, poor bugger.

           
'And this Porsche.' Young Frank popped out the word with
a few beery bubbles. 'How many jobs Gannons gonna axe to buy you that, eh?'

           
'Frank,' Milly Gill told him very firmly, big floral
bosom swelling, 'I'll not tell you again!'

           
Careful, lass, Ernie thought. Don't do owt.
           
'You're a jammy little twat,'
Frank spat. 'Don't give a shit. You never was a proper Horridge.'

           
A widening circle around them, conversations trailing
off.
           
'Right.' Milly's eyes went
still. 'That's enough. I'll not have this occasion spoiled. Am I getting
through?'

           
'Now, Millicent,' Ernie said, knowing from experience
what might happen if she got riled. But Shaw Horridge startled them all. 'It's
quite all right, Miss Gill.'

           
He smiled icily at Young Frank. 'Yes, it is a
per-Porsche.' Held up his glass. 'Yes, it is vodka. Yes, it's mer-made in
Sheffield by a s-subsidiary of Gannons Ales.'

           
He straightened up, taller than Frank now, his voice
gaining in strength. 'Gannons Ales. Without whom, yes, I wouldn't have a
Porsche."

           
And, stepping around Millie, he poked Young Frank in the
chest with a thin but rigid forefinger. 'And without whom
you
wouldn't have a job ...
Mr
Manifold
.'

           
Ernie saw several men tense, ready to hold Young Frank
back, but Frank didn't move. His eyes widened and his grip on the tankard
slackened. Lad's as astonished as me, Ernie thought, at Shaw Horridge coming
out with half a dozen almost fully coherent sentences one after the other.

           
The red sun shone into Shaw's eyes; he didn't blink.

           
The selling of the brewery was probably the worst thing
that had happened to Bridelow this century. But not, apparently, the worst
thing that had happened to Shaw Horridge.

           
He lowered his forefinger. 'Just remember that, please,'
he said.

           
Looking rather commanding, where he used to look shyly
hunched. And this remarkable confidence, as though somebody had turned his
lights on. Letting them all see him - smiling and relaxed - after perpetrating
the sale of the brewery, Bridelow's crime of the century. And indirectly
causing a death.

           
Took some nerve, this did, from stuttering Shaw.

           
Arthur's lad at last. Maybe.

           
'Excuse me,' Shaw said dismissively. 'I have to meet
someone.'

           
He turned his back on Young Frank Manifold and walked
away, no quicker than he needed to, the sun turning the bald spot on the crown
of his head into a bright golden coin.

           
'By 'eck,' Ernie Dawber said, but he noticed that Milly
Gill was looking worried.

           
And she wasn't alone.

 

'Now then, Ernest. Wha's
tha make of that, then?'

           
He hadn't noticed her edging up behind him, although he'd
known she must be here somewhere. She was a Presence.

           
Just a little old woman in a pale blue woollen beret, an
old grey cardigan and a lumpy brown woollen skirt.

           
'Well,' Ernie Dawber said, 'Arthur might have been
mortified at what he's done with the brewery, but I think he'd be quite
gratified at the way he stood up for himself there. Don't you?'

           
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff grimly. 'I'm sure his father'd be
right pleased.'

           
Ernie looked curiously into the rubbery old features.
Anybody who thought this was just a little old woman hadn't been long in
Bridelow. He took a modest swallow from his half of Black. 'What's wrong then,
Ma?'

           
'Everything.' Ma sighed. 'All coming apart.'
           
'Oh?' said Ernie. 'Nice night,
though. Look at that sun.'
           
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff
pessimistically. 'Going down, int it?'

           
'Well, yes.' Ernie straightened his glasses. 'It usually
does this time of night.'

           
Ma Wagstaff nodded at his glass. 'What's that ale like
now it's Gannons?'

           
'Nowt wrong with it as I can taste.' This wasn't true; it
didn't seem to have quite the same brackish bite - or was that his imagination?

           
Ma looked up and speared him with her fierce little eyes.
'Got summat to tell me, Ernest Dawber?'

           
Ernie coughed. 'Not as I can think of.' She was making
him uneasy.

           
'Anythin' in the post today?'

           
'This and that, Ma, this and that.'

           
'Like one of them big squashy envelopes, for instance?'

           
'A jiffy-bag, you mean?'

           
'Aye,' said Ma Wagstaff. 'Wi'
British Museum
stamped on it.'

           
Ernie fumed. You couldn't keep anything bloody private in
this place. 'Time that Millicent kept her damn nose out!'
           
'Never mind that, lad, what's
it say?'

           
'Now, look ...' Ernie backed away, pulling at his
waistcoat. 'In my capacity as local historian, I was able to provide Dr Hall
and the British Museum with a considerable amount
 
of information relating to the Moss, and
as a result, following their examination of the body, they've kindly given me a
preview of their findings, which ...'

           
'Thought that'd be it.' Ma Wagstaff nodded, satisfied.

           
'... which will be published in due course. Until which
time, I'm not allowed ...'

           
'If
you
know,
why shouldn't
we
know?'

           
'It's not
allowed,
Ma. It's what's called an embargo.'

           
'Oh.' Ma's eyes narrowed. 'That's what it's called, is
it?' Means educated fellers like you get to know what's what and us common folk
...'

BOOK: The Man in the Moss
11.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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