The Man in the Moss by Phil Rickman Read Free Book Online Page A

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 ?'
                'From you, Ma ...'
                'But this is deadly serious,' Ma said soberly.
                The sun had vanished. Ridiculously, Ernie thought he
heard the Moss burp. 'All right.' he said. From the inside pocket of his jacket
he brought out some papers bound with a rubber band and swapped his regular
specs for his reading glasses. Be public knowledge soon enough, anyroad.
     
    Ernie cleared his throat.
                'Seems our lad,' he said, 'was somewhere around his late
twenties. Quite tall too, for the time, 'bout five-five or six. Peat preserves
a body like vinegar preserves onions. The bones had gone soft, but the skin was
tanned to perfection. Even the hair, as we know, remained. Anyroad, medical
tests indicate no reason to think he wasn't in good shape. Generally speaking.'
                'Get to t'point,' Ma said irritably.
                'Well, he was killed. In no uncertain manner. That's to
say, they made sure of the job. Blunt instrument, first of all. Back of the
head. Then, er ... strangulation. Garotte.'
                'Eh?'
                'Garotte? Well . .    He wondered if she ever had nightmares. Probably wouldn't be the usual
kind if she did.
                Little Benjie, Ma's grandson, had wandered across the
forecourt with that big dog of his. 'Hey.' Ernie scooped a hand at him. 'Go
away.'
                He lowered his voice. 'They probably put a cord - leather
string, sinew - around his neck and ... inserted a stick in the back of the
cord and, as it were ... twisted it, the stick. Thus tightening the sinew
around his ... that is, fragments of the cord have been found actually
embedded. In his neck.'
                Ma Wagstaff didn't react like a normal old woman. Didn't
recoil or even wince. 'Well?' she said.
                'Well what?' said Ernie.
                'Anythin' else?'
                Ernie went cold. How could she know there was more to it?
He looked over her head at the bloodied sky. 'Well, seems they ... they'd have
pulled his head back ...'
                His throat was suddenly dry. He'd read this report four
times, quite dispassionately at first and then with a growing excitement. But
an academic excitement. Which was all
right. Emotionally he'd remained unmoved. It had, after all, happened a good two
thousand years ago - almost in prehistory.
                'So the head'd be sort of pulled back ... with the ...
the garotte.'
                When they'd brought the bogman out, a little crowd had
assembled on the edge of the Moss. Ernie had decided it would be all right to
take a few of the older children to witness this historic event. There'd been
no big ceremony about it; the archaeologists had simply cut out a big chunk of
peat with the body in the middle, quite small, half his legs missing and his
face all scrunched up like a big rubber doll that'd been run over. Not very
distressing; more like a fossil than a corpse.
            They'd wrapped him in
clingfilm and put him in a wooden box.
                Ernie was staring into Ma Wagstaff's eyes, those large
brown orbs glowing amber out of that prune of a face, and he was seeing it for
the first time, the real horror of it, the death of a young man two thousand
years ago.
                'He'd be helpless,' Ernie said. 'Semi-concussed by the
blow, and he couldn't move, couldn't draw breath because of the garotte ...'
                Ma nodded.
                'That was when they cut his throat,' Ernie