Clingfilm, Inspector. We wrap him in that first, so we don't lose anything.'
'Like a frozen turkey,' Ashton said. 'Anyway, it's good to see we haven't pulled a crowd. Yet. Let's just hope we can get this sorted before anybody knows we're here. Now, where's that gravedigger bloke?'
The big, curly-haired clergyman came over. Wearing his full funeral kit, Ashton noticed. Long cassock and a short cape like coppers used to have on point-duty in the good old days.
He looked nervous. Might he know something?
'This is Mr Beckett, Inspector. Our verger.'
Little pensioner with a big, stainless-steel spade.
'You dig this grave first time around, Mr Beckett?'
'Aye, what about it?'
'Usual depth?'
'Six feet, give or take a few inches. No need to measure it, sithee, when tha's done t'job a few score times.'
'And when Mr Castle was buried, did you notice if the earth had been disturbed?'
'It were bloody dark by then,' said Mr Beckett uncompromisingly, patting his chest, as if he'd got indigestion. But actually smoothing the bulge in his donkey jacket.
For, in its inside pocket, shrouded in household tissue, lay a little brown bottle.
Be his job, this time, to get the bloody bottle into Matt Castle's coffin, which they'd have to get out of the way before they could get at the bogman.
This was a new bottle. Alf had gone with Milly Gill to Ma Wagstaff's house, and he'd stood guard while Milly made it up, all of a dither, poor lass, 'I'm not doing it right, Alf, I'm sure I'm not doing it right.'
'It's thought as counts,' Alf had said, not knowing what the hell he was on about. 'Ma always said that.' Standing at the parlour door, watching Milly messing about with red thread and stuff by candlelight.
'Alf.'
'What?'
'Go in t'kitchen, fetch us a mixing bowl.'
'What sort?'
'Any sort. Big un, I'm nervous. Come on, hurry up.'
Alf handing her a white Pyrex bowl, standing around in the doorway as Milly put the bowl on the parlour floor, feeling about under her skirts. 'Well, don't just stand there, Alf. Bugger off.'
The door closed, only streetlight washing in through the landing window, ugly shadows thrown into the little hall, the bannisters dancing. Milly's muffled muttering. And then the unavoidable sound of her peeing into the Pyrex.
Alf, trying not to listen, standing where Ma's body must have landed. Looking up the stairs into a strange, forbidding coldness. Him, who'd patrolled the empty church on wild and windy nights and never felt other than welcome.
'Hurry up, lass. Giving me t'creeps.'
'This is Ma's house.' The sound slowing to a trickle. 'There's not a nicer atmosphere anywhere.'
Alf deliberately turning his back on the stairs.
'Aye. But that were when Ma were alive.' This time Moira went off to make the tea. Gave her time to think.
She'd asked Cathy who was left in the Mothers' Union, apart from Milly Gill. Cathy had looked gloomy and said, don't ask.
Moira lifted the teapot lid and watched the leaves settle. Seemed the Mothers' Union wasn't what it used to be. Ma Wagstaff used to say they'd let things slide a bit, Cathy said.
Moira put the teapot on a tray with a couple of mugs. Some dead leaves hit the window. From the doorway behind her, Cathy said, 'Ma thought there was something out there trying to get in. She said the air was different.'
'How do you know all this, Cathy? Do you have to be a mother to be in the Mothers' Union?'
Cathy grinned. There were bags under her eyes and her hair looked dull in the hard kitchen light. 'They'll even take virgins these days.'
'Are you?'
'A virgin?'
'A mother.'
'Pop's an enlightened clergyman,' Cathy said, 'but not that enlightened.' Two young coppers helped Alf with the spadework, which was a good bit easier – just when you didn't bloody need it – than he'd have expected under normal circumstances.
He was ashamed of this grave, the soil all piled in loose, big lumps, nothing tamped down. But he'd rushed the job, as rattled as anybody by that ugly scene between Ma Wagstaff and Joel Beard, and then Lottie Castle screaming at them to get her husband planted quick.
Three feet into the grave, getting there faster than he wanted to, he could see Joel peering down at them. Unlikely the lad'd know yet about Ma Wagstaff's death, nobody rushing to tell him after the way he'd been carrying on.
Thing was, Joel probably had no idea what he was up against. Just a bunch of cracked owd women.
Which, Alf conceded, wasn't a bad thing for him to think just now; at least he didn't suspect Alf, and he wouldn't be watching him too closely. 'The problem is,' Cathy said, 'that it's become more of a way of life than a religion.'
'Is that no' a good thing?'
'Well, yeah, it is for ordinary people, getting on with their lives. This sort of natural harmony, the feeling of belonging to something. It's great. Until things start to go wrong. And your brewery gets taken over and most of the workforce is fired. And your village shop shuts down. And your local celeb arrives to save your pub from almost certain closure and he's dead inside six months. And your placid, undemanding Rector develops quite a rapid worsening of his arthritis, which Ma's always been able to keep in check. Except Ma's losing it, and she doesn't know why.'
Cathy looked at Moira's cigarettes on the chair-arm. 'How long's it take to learn to smoke?' She waved an exasperated hand. 'Forget it. Oh, this place is no fun any more. Atmosphere's not the same. People not as content. I've been home twice since the summer and it's struck me right away. Maybe that's the same all over Britain, with this Government and everything. But Bridelow was always…'
'Protected?'
'Yeah. And now it's not. I mean, somebody like Joel would never have got away with what he's done – ripping down that kid's cross. And Our Sheila… I mean, we've had these religious firebrands before, maybe even my old man was a bit that way when he first arrived, but… something calms them down. Ma Wagstaff used to say it was in the air. Shades. Pastel shades. You know what I mean?'
The old Celtic air,' Moira said. 'Everything misty and nebulous. No extremes. Everything blending in. You can sense it on some of the Scottish islands. Scotch mist. Parts of Ireland too. Maybe it was preserved here, like the bogman, in the peat.'
Cathy said, 'You're not going to rest until I tell you, are you?'
'And I do need to get to bed, Cathy. I feel terrible.'
Cathy sighed. 'OK. They stole the bogman back. They buried him in Matt Castle's grave before Matt went in.'
'Jesus,' said Moira. 'Who?'
'We're not supposed to know. But… everybody, I suppose. They're all in it. They've done it before. A few bits of bodies have turned up in the Moss over the years, and that's what they do with them. Save them up until somebody dies. And curiously, somebody always does – even if it's only an arm or a foot turns up – somebody conveniently snuffs it so the bits can have a Christian burial. Well… inasmuch as anything round here is one hundred per cent Christian. But this body… well, it's the first time there's been a whole one.'
'And the council discovered it, didn't they? So no way they could keep this one to themselves.'
'And then the scientific tests, revealing that this had been a very special sacrifice.'
'The triple death.'
