Witch Hunt. Syd Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ flicked over the darker black line of the bench. It was uninterrupted.

      A couple of feet from it the coastguard stopped. ‘Gone,’ he said and gestured to the empty space.

      ‘No. Can’t …’ I stammered and took another step into the darkness, running my hand up the cold wooden bench where she had been sitting. He was right. There was no one here. But that was impossible. The distance from the shelter to the coastguards was nothing. Twenty feet. Maybe less. I had only been away a matter of seconds. ‘There’s no way someone as frail as her could have disappeared so quickly,’ I told him.

      He got a torch out of his rucksack and shone it round the shelter. ‘No one here, love.’ Now he was getting irritated. I was wasting his drinking time. And mine.

      I stepped back and looked up to the path that ran along the beach. A couple were walking their dog. No one else was about. I looked left, up the high street of the Old Town. A couple of smokers clustered outside the Mayflower pub. A van reversed into the car park. Other than that, there was not a soul to be seen.

      ‘Maybe it was kids mucking around?’ he said when he could see I wasn’t buggering off. ‘We’re coming up to Halloween, unfortunately. They all get overexcited these days, don’t they? Dressing up like the Americans. Someone could have put on a costume to spook you or summat.’

      ‘No,’ I said firmly, putting my hands on my hips. ‘She was real enough.’

      ‘Well, she’s gone,’ he said, throwing his torch upright and catching it with the same hand. The gesture indicated he was finishing up, thank you very much. ‘I’ll inform the police. They can keep their eyes out.’

      ‘Okay,’ I said and nodded unsteadily. It made no sense. She’d made no sense.

      But I was a practical girl, not given to fancy. I selected the ‘Case Unsolved File’ in my brain and slotted it in there.

      Okay, I admit I was unnerved. But up ahead was a place that sold medicine that sorted out that particular ailment. I bid goodbye to the coastguard and marched onto the street, my pace unusually feisty.

      The Mercurial crew were sitting outside the Billet on a couple of trestle tables they had inelegantly wedged together. Half-empty foam punnets of cockles and prawns were interspersed across the table, along with several glasses. Most of them were just off empty so my arrival and inevitable offer of drinks produced an uproarious response and a multitude of orders. Maggie clumsily extricated herself from the squash of buttocks on the wooden bench and followed me into the pub to help carry the order.

      While we were waiting to be served I filled her in on my afternoon, omitting my recent experience with the old dear. I didn’t want to appear like a nut. I had a thing about that, you understand – what with Mum and everything. So I concentrated my narrative on the comely Felix.

      ‘Great. He sounds interesting,’ she said, steadying herself on the bar. ‘You’re doing well, Sadie.’

      I smiled at my reflection in the mirror behind the optics. ‘I think so too.’

      ‘Was he posh then? Portillion Publishing sounds it.’

      ‘Not really. Pretty down to earth. Wealthy.’

      ‘Do you think you can work with him?’

      ‘Well, obviously it’s not going to be like working with you, but I have to say – the pay’s a hell of a lot better. And, actually, there’s a few things I think I’d quite like to do with Mr Knight.’

      Maggie’s eyebrows moved up her forehead. ‘Oh, like that is it?’

      ‘He’s very charming.’

      ‘What does he look like?’

      ‘Tall, good body. Has a bit of an Irish look about him.’ I thought back to that broad smile.

      Maggie took in my face and punched my arm lightly. ‘Good for you, girl. You could do with a bit of luck.’

      ‘Well,’ I hesitated. ‘Just saying – he’s nice.’

      She looked pleased and wagged a teasing finger at me. ‘Just don’t let the Man from Del Monte distract you from my deadlines though. I want my Hopkins article. Make it nice and juicy please.’

      Minutes later I emerged with a tray of wine and glasses, whilst Mags followed, spilling a dozen millilitres of beer from the two pints she was carrying.

      The group were in fine spirits. Even Felicity, or Flick as she was usually referred to, their quiet, conservative art director was gabbling away at top speed to Lola, the part-time PR girl. I used to think Flick rather stuck up. She never made eye contact and spoke very little, taking in everything from underneath her dark, wispy hair. One night, at the launch of a significant issue, she confided to being painfully shy and hiding it with ‘attitude’. I liked her after that.

      Next to Flick, sat Rik, the sixty-something part-time ad exec who managed the advertising to supplement his pension and keep him golfing, and Françoise, the young speccy editorial assistant-cum-generally-put-upon-dogsbody. Rik was in the middle of telling a joke to Maggie’s husband, Jules, and her mini-me teenage-rebel daughter, Willow. I hoped he’d carry on but once he clocked me and Mags he insisted on starting all over again. The last navy streaks were disappearing from the sky as he began. It was black by the time he got to the punch line.

      I can’t remember what the joke was about but I have a distinct recollection of laughing till I cried.

      Which was good, as there was a hell of a darkness on its way.

       Chapter Eight

      I didn’t stay long at the pub. Usually I don’t work after I’ve had a drink but tonight, the excitement from my meeting with Felix was carrying me through.

      I spread out my file of notes. I wanted to go back over the first section of the book to check that I’d got everything I wanted in there.

      There was a hell of a lot to cover. The first few trials were pretty small fry, the convicted, either being fined or pardoned. Most of their crimes centred round causing livestock to fall ill, or in several pitiable cases, children. But then there was the Hatfield Peverel outbreak, with Agnes Waterhouse the first person to be put to death as a witch. Her daughter was also accused but turned witness against her mother and was found not guilty. Agnes allegedly confessed to being a witch. Her primary crime was owning a cat, who she talked to often. Its name was Sathan. Not the most sensible choice for an old woman living on her own in sixteenth-century rural Essex.

      The hanging of Agnes Waterhouse set a precedent, and soon more and more women were executed. Mostly for ‘bewitching’ people to death. In 1582 in St Osyth fourteen were indicted. Of these, ten were found guilty. Ursula Kempe was accused by her eight-year-old son, whose testimony led to her execution and Elizabeth Bennet’s. In 1921 two female skeletons were found in a St Osyth man’s back garden. They had been pinned into the ground with stakes and iron spikes had been driven through their elbows, wrists and ankles. They were thought to be the remains of the two women and were bought by collectors in the nineties, for exhibition in their private collections. Imagine that – your remains bought and sold, then put on display for the rich to gawp at. I couldn’t imagine the women rested in much peace.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ