'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…'
Common folk? Ma Wagstaff? Ernie kept backing off, looking around for friendly faces. 'Please, Ma… don't push me on this. You'll find out soon enough.'
But the nearest person was a good ten yards away, and when his back hit the wall of the pub's outside lavatory block, he realised she'd got him into a corner in more ways than one.
'Now then,' Ma said kindly. 'How's that prostate of yours these days?'
'Nowt wrong with my prostate,' Ernie replied huffily.
Ma Wagstaff's eyes glinted. 'Not yet there int.'
CHAPTER II
'This is mer-madness,' Shaw said.
'No,' said Therese, 'it's exciting.'
'You're exciting,' he mumbled. That's all.' He pushed a hand through her sleek hair, and she smiled at him, tongue gliding out between her small, ice-white teeth. He was almost crying; she had him on the edge again. He pushed his back into the car's unfamiliar upholstery and clenched both hands on the wheel.
'Shall we go, then?'
'I can't.'
'I promise you,' Therese said, 'you'll feel so much better afterwards.'
And he would, he knew this from experience. Once, not long after they'd met, she'd made him go into a chemist and steal a bottle of Chanel perfume for her. I'll buy it for you, he'd almost shrieked. But that wasn't good enough. He was rich… buying her perfume – what would that demonstrate?
So he'd done it. Stolen it. Slipped it into the pocket of his sheepskin jacket and then bought himself two bottles of the shop's most expensive aftershave as an awkward sort of atonement.
But the awkwardness had just been a phase. He remembered lying awake all that night, convinced someone had seen him and the police would be at the door. Don't worry, she'd said, it'll get easier.
Jewellery next. Antique jewellery from a showcase, while Therese had distracted the manager.
You'll feel better, she'd say.
She was right. For the first time ever he was getting whole sentences out without stammering. Although his mother hadn't said anything, it was obvious she'd noticed. And been impressed. He'd felt quite wonderful, couldn't wait to see Therese again to tell her.
His confidence had increased daily. Soon he'd found he could speak openly to groups of men in the brewery like his father used to do, instead of slinking into his office and only communicating with the workers through the manager.
And when Gannons had made their approach, he'd found it surprisingly easy to make his decision – with a little help from Therese.
'Do you want really to stay in Bridelow all your life? Couldn't bear it, myself. Couldn't live here for a week.'
And he knew it was true. She wouldn't spend any time here. If they went for a walk, it had to be up on the moors. If they went for a drink, it had to be at some pub or club in Manchester or somewhere.
He wanted desperately to show her off, to show that stuttering Shaw Horridge could get himself a really beautiful girlfriend. But she seemed to find Bridelow beneath her.
'Dismal little place,' she said. 'Don't you think? I like lights and noise and people.'
So it hadn't been difficult, the decision to let Gannons have the brewery. Biggest thing he'd ever done and all over in a couple of weeks. All over before anyone in the village knew about it. Fait accompli.
'You'll feel better,' she said. And he had. He always did.
Sometimes the terror of what was happening would still flare and, for a moment, it would blind him. He'd freeze, become quite rigid. Like tonight, facing the oaf Manifold, who'd wanted to fight, wanted to take on stuttering Shaw, beat him publicly to the ground. Make a point in front of all his mates.
And Shaw had thought of Therese and felt his eyes grow hard, watched the effect of this on the thug Manifold.
'Start the car, Shaw,' Therese said softly.
Shaw laughed nervously, started the engine.
'Good,' she said. 'Now pull away gently. We don't want any screeching of tyres.'
It was a Saab Turbo. A black one. She'd blown the horn once and he'd known it was her.
It was a different car, but he wasn't unduly surprised; she'd often turn up in quite expensive ones. Her brother's, she'd say.
Or her father's. Tonight she'd stopped the Saab in a lay-by the other side of the Moss, saying, 'I feel tired; you drive.'
'Would I be insured?'
Therese laughed a lot at that.
'Who owns it exactly?'
'How should I know? I stole it.' 'Interferin' devils.' Be unfair, perhaps, to say the old girl was xenophobic about Southerners, but… No, on second thoughts, it wouldn't be unfair; Ma was suspicious of everybody south of Matlock.
'Aye,' Ernie said, 'I know you don't think he should have been taken to London, but this was a find of enormous national, nay, international significance, and they are the experts after all.'
He chuckled, 'By 'eck, they've had him – or bits of him, anyroad – all over the place for examination… Wembley, Harwell. And this report… well, it really is rather sensational, if you ask me. Going to cause quite a stir. You see, what they did…'
Putting on his precise, headmasterly tone, Ernie explained how the boffins had conducted a complete post- mortem examination, submitting the corpse to the kind of specialized forensic tests normally carried out only in cases of suspicious death.
'So they now know, for example, what he had for dinner on the day he died. Some sort of black bread, as it happened.'
Ma Wagstaff sniffed, obviously disapproving of this invasion of the bogman's intestinal privacy.
'Fascinating, though, isn't it,' Ernie said, 'that they've managed to conduct a proper autopsy on a chap who probably was killed back when Christ was a lad…?'
He stopped. 'What's up, owd lass?'
Ma Wagstaff had gone stiff as a pillar-box.
'Killed,' she said starkly.
'Aye. Ritual sacrifice, Ma. So they reckon. But it was all a long time ago.'
Ma Wagstaff came quite dramatically to life. Eyes urgently flicking from side to side, she grabbed hold of the bottom of Ernie's tweed jacket and dragged him well out of everybody's earshot, into a deserted corner of the forecourt. Into the deepest shadows.
'Tell us,' she urged.
The weakening sun had become snagged in tendrils of low cloud and looked for a minute as if it might not make it into the hills but plummet to the Moss. From where, Ernie thought, in sudden irrational panic, it might never rise again.
He took a few breaths, pulling himself together, straightening his jacket.
'This is not idle curiosity, Ernest.'
'I could tell that, Ma, when you were threatening to bugger up my prostate.' How much of a coincidence had it been that he'd shortly afterwards felt an urgent need to relieve himself which seemed to dissipate as soon as he stood at the urinal?
'Eh, that were just a joke, Ernest. Can't you take a joke any more?'
