She was as good as her word. That evening, John Downing phoned.
‘Obviously Judith has filled me in as far as she can,’ he said after he had introduced himself. ‘But I would like to hear the whole story from you.’
He listened without interruption and when Mike had finished there was a moment or two of silence.
‘You realise that most of these cases turn out to be anything but genuine hauntings,’ he said at last. ‘Some of them are hoaxes, of course, but more often they are imagination. Shadows. Spooky houses. The heightened awareness of primed expectation. Even hallucination. Forgive me for asking, but are you on any medication at the moment?’
This was not what Mike had expected and for a moment he saw red. ‘Are you implying that I am under the influence of drugs? Perhaps you think I’m a drunk?’
‘No, no, Mike.’ John Downing’s voice was professionally reassuring. ‘I have to check these things. It’s part of my brief. Just as I have to bring in a psychiatrist to interview you. He is part of the team.’
‘A psychiatrist!’ Mike’s fist almost crushed the phone. ‘Now you seem to be implying that I’m mad! What on earth has Judith said to you? I expected support, John, as from one professional to another. I expected you to come and look at this place. To pray with me, not to talk about psychiatrists!’
‘And we will come if we feel it is necessary.’ John Downing’s tone had inadvertently slipped from calming to patronising. ‘We are used to handling this kind of case, I assure you. We’ll look into it, Mike, and get back to you, OK? And in the mean time I’ll pop a few prayers for you in the post. And Mike, don’t go back there yourself, OK? Leave it to us.’
Mike slammed down the phone and took a deep breath. If this was Judith’s idea of helping, he could do without it. Whatever she had said seemed to have led Downing to assume Mike was an incompetent hysteric!
Angrily he paced up and down his study a few times.
So that was it. He was supposed to leave it to them. Forget it and submit to a psychiatrist’s report which would no doubt claim he had imagined the whole thing, or lock him up for being insane!
He threw himself into his chair, tapping his pen against his teeth and it was then the name came to him out of nowhere. Tony Gilchrist.
Mike had met the Gilchrists several years before at a conference before he had taken holy orders himself; he had liked them both enormously and Tony’s interest in the deliverance ministry had intrigued him. The man had seemed so genuine, so sane and so humane in his approach to the subject. They had kept in touch sporadically and Ruth had sent him a card with their address when Mike’s appointment to his first parish had been announced.
Mike was trying to recall what had happened to bring them to Suffolk. Tony had been involved in a high-profile exorcism up in Lancashire, the kind the church disliked intensely. It had attracted all kinds of media attention, and in the end the bishop had brought pressure to bear. Tony had retired and he and Ruth had moved six months later and disappeared from the news. Mike reached for his address book. Then he picked up the phone.
Tony was in. He too listened without comment to Mike’s story. At the end there was a long pause. When he spoke it was one word: ‘Fascinating.’
Mike gave a sigh of relief. ‘Am I right to be worried?’
‘Oh, yes. Don’t let anyone kid you these things don’t exist, Mike, or that it’s your imagination or the pills you took last night for a headache. Go with your instinct. If you’re worried, then there is probably something to worry about. Look,’ Tony paused at the other end of the line and Mike heard the rustle of pages turning. Obviously a diary. ‘Ruth and I are going away for a few days. New grandchild to view and baptise. I won’t be away long. When we get back I’ll come over. How’s that? Just as a friend. For your own sake don’t tell your deliverance chappie or let your bishop hear about it – he’ll probably have me expurgated before I get near you.’ He chuckled. ‘Mike, St Patrick’s Breastplate. You know the words, of course?’
Mike frowned. ‘“Christ be with me, Christ within me”?’
‘That’s the one. Good stuff. It’s recommended by the Christian deliverance study group. Make sure you can recite the whole thing – upside down, back to front, in your sleep. Any time. Any place. If you feel threatened, attacked, frightened, even mildly uneasy, surround yourself with those words. Hold the breastplate before your heart, OK? And Downing is right about one thing, keep away from that shop! It sounds as though it is a focal point. And if you can dissuade your TV friend from continuing with his programme, do so. You won’t be able to, of course, but try. And don’t be interviewed on camera, Mike. Believe me, it leads to all kinds of trouble. I’ll come over as soon as I get back and we’ll see what can be done. Chances are it will all fizzle out.’
Letting himself into the church later, Mike walked up the aisle. Outside it was growing dark. The building was deep in shadow and he flipped one of the light switches on the bank near the vestry door. The spotlight shone onto the altar, illuminating the cross. It was the wooden cross they left out during the week, the cross they hoped would not be stolen; during services it was replaced by one of engraved brass which looked like gold. The light cast its shadow on the wall and Mike found himself staring at it thoughtfully. He was profoundly relieved to have spoken to Tony, but there was still something there at the back of his mind which was worrying him. Something hidden in the shadows, lurking deep inside his own brain. With a sigh he knelt down on the step and fixed his eyes on the cross.
‘“Christ be with me. Christ within me …”’
Above his head, outside in the dark, the rain began to lash against the windows.
29
Tuesday October 13th
FULL MOON
Lyndsey leaned her bike into its usual place in the brambles and switched off the lamp. Staring round she held her breath, listening. It had stopped raining hours before, but the trees were still dripping – she could hear the sound all around her. It emphasised the silence. A cold, clammy mist was lurking in the hollows of the land and clinging to the water.
Across the lane Liza’s cottage was in darkness. The houses further up the road were invisible behind the black curtain of trees. Above them, high in the sky, clouds shrouded what witches call the Blood Moon.
Fumbling with the wet metal clip, she managed to remove the bicycle lamp and cautiously she switched it back on. She hadn’t expected the night to be so dark. Scrambling over the wall, she crept across the grass, following the narrow beam of light. Everything looked different by torchlight. The contours of the churchyard were more uneven, the trees more angular, the bushes thicker, disembodied in mist. For a minute she lost her bearings completely and she felt a wave of panic sweep over her. She stopped, forcing herself to breathe more slowly. She had to be calm. Centred. And strong.
Everything looked strange. The rectangle of greener grass she had convinced herself might be Hopkins’s grave was indistinguishable from the rest of the grass around it. She took a step forward, shining the lamp around wildly, unable suddenly to find the right place. She had been here so many times, cast the circle, murmured the binding spell, woven the trap to hold him down, to chain that vengeful sadistic spirit to the earth. It was here. Surely.
Hopkins was one of the reasons she had stayed in Mistley and not given in to her first intention of selling the cottage she had been left. Her careful, painstaking research into witchcraft as the old religion of the mother goddess would have brought him to her notice even if he had not been so infamous locally. But even more than that, this battle was personal, for he had persecuted her own ancestors. She shivered. And his spirit was still prowling the back lanes and fields in the mist. The mist which she feared so much. The mist which carried the scent of blood and the echoes of past evil.
Her toe touched a lump beneath the grass. It was part of the foundations of the demolished church. It was here she sometimes sat, going over the words she was about to recite, murmuring them under her breath, feeling t
heir resonance. Special words; words of power.
There was something about this site that terrified her. It wasn’t just that Hopkins might be buried here. It was more than that. It was as though this place was one of those where the evil on which he fed had its origin. There were several places in the neighbourhood like this; she didn’t know why, or where that original evil came from, but while the church was here the source of that evil was plugged. She had to admit it, the church had acted as an antidote. The evil was held down, sealed into the earth. The day the last piece of the church was pulled down that seal was broken. She swung her battered leather backsack off her shoulders and set it down in the wet grass. Inside were all the tools she needed: candles, salt, oil, water, in small bottles, a little bowl which stood as her cauldron, the athame, the robe she wore for special ceremonies, the wand she had cut and carved herself from the branch of a hazel tree.
Putting the lamp down, she turned it off. The moon behind the thinning cloud was a dull amber, a colour echoed in the heavens above the estuary where the ports of Harwich and Felixstowe reflected useless wasteful light all night endlessly up into the sky.
Slowly she walked around the spot, laying out her candles and the rest of her tools, preparing the ground. Then when all was ready, she cast the circle. Round she went, again and again, pointing wand and black-handled knife-tip, seeing the light streaming from them, building the wall to keep the spirit of a man locked deep in the ground.
The flames of the night-lights in their little jars flickered in the wind. One blew out and she paused, frowning. She had been conscious only of the sound of her own voice calling out the words of her spell, but now suddenly she was aware of the profound silence around her, broken only by the patter of the rain on the brown and golden leaves of the trees. She shivered and bent to the candle, fumbling with matches from her pocket. Her resolution was wavering. The wall of power was dissolving. She couldn’t hold it.
‘Help me!’ She stood up, her arms outstretched into the darkness. ‘Guardian spirits of the four corners, be here. Be strong. Help me hold the circle! Great goddess of the witches help your daughter keep this evil and this man imprisoned!’
She paused, her hands outstretched, her eyes fixed on the sky. The wind which had brought the sharp cold shower had whipped the cloud away from the face of the moon, so that the countryside was lit under its strange copper light.
‘Don’t let him out to haunt our houses and our roads! Don’t let him out to visit our women and bring terror to their lives again. Hold him firm. Bind him here to the earth!’ Her voice rang out over the sound of the rain. She stared down at the patch of grass contained in her circle. It was dark, barely lit by the tiny flickering night-lights. There was no sense of power there, no wall to hold him in and within the circle nothing but emptiness.
Her arms dropped to her sides in defeat. He wasn’t there. It had all been in vain. He had gone. Escaped. The spirit of the Witchfinder once more prowled the Earth. She had not been able to contain him. He was free.
A gust of wind whipped through the hawthorn trees near her and her candles blew out. She was left in sudden total darkness as the moon once more drew back behind a shroud of thick black cloud.
‘No!’
She turned round slowly.
‘No! You bastard! You can’t have me! You can’t have anyone! Not any more!’ Her voice had risen to a shriek.
She faced the wind, feeling the cold bite her face. It contained the smell of salt marsh and sea. The branches of the trees were beginning to thrash back and forth, leaves torn away, flying in her face.
She didn’t see the figure behind her in the darkness until it was nearly at her side.
30
Earlier the same night
Emma was profoundly asleep. Under her eyelids her eyes moved back and forth, staring into the past. In her dream she was Sarah Paxman again. She was standing outside the Thorn Inn in the centre of Mistley and she was surrounded by crowds. Nearby, at the quayside, a spritsail barge was loading a cargo of sacks of grain and wool. Sailors swarmed up from a flyboat which had just come alongside on the top of the tide. Wheels rattled over the cobbles and the stench of ale from the open door of the inn was overwhelming. She pulled her cloak around her more tightly and beckoned one of the men who had stumbled out of the taproom.
‘Master Hopkins, is he here?’
The man stared at her bleary-eyed. ‘I reckon.’
‘Where?’
‘Upstairs.’ He jerked his thumb behind him. ‘You don’t want to go in there, mistress.’
‘Oh, indeed I do.’ Sarah raised an imperious eyebrow. She turned and beckoned her maid. ‘Follow me, Agnes, and don’t say anything.’
Leaving John Pepper with the groom holding their horses, the two women entered the doorway and found the narrow staircase. It led up to a dark corridor. All the doors were closed.
‘Master Hopkins?’ she called. She managed to keep her voice firm. ‘A word, if you please!’
The first door when she flung it open led to a large communal bedroom. It was ill lit and the air was fetid. In the corner the single occupant lay flat on his back on the straw mattress, snoring loudly.
She shuddered and moved on to the next door. This room was a private bedroom, available at a price, for the more discerning customer. It was musty and empty.
‘Mistress?’ Agnes touched her sleeve. ‘See. There.’ The girl’s voice shook with nerves. She pointed towards one of the doors. A slim line of light showed underneath, clearly visible in the dark passage.
Sarah took a deep breath. She stepped towards it and flung the door open. ‘Master Hopkins? I would like a word with you, if you please.’
He was sitting at a wooden table with a goose feather quill in his hand, a young man in his early twenties. His narrow face, already marked by lines down either side of his mouth, was pale of complexion in contrast to the dark beard and hair. His eyes were very bright, his expression watchful. Opposite him sat a plump, fresh-faced, middle-aged woman dressed in black. Sarah bowed to her, unsmiling. ‘Mistress Phillips.’
The woman stared back at her, her eyes cold and unblinking. ‘Mistress Paxman.’
‘You have arrested Liza Clark, Master Hopkins.’ Sarah walked to the table and rested her hands on it, leaning towards the young man who had not risen to his feet when she walked in. The candles in the candelabra at his left hand flickered in the draught from the door.
‘Indeed we have taken her up.’ His voice was quiet; thoughtful. ‘What is your interest in the matter?’ His quill hovered over the notebook in which he had been writing, as though he were going to take down her words.
The gesture did not frighten her. Her eyes blazed. ‘My interest, Master Hopkins, is that she was my nurse as I am sure you know and she is still my friend. She has no dealings with the Devil, if that is what you claim, and you, mistress,’ she turned to Mary Phillips, ‘know that full well as you have worked together in delivering children all over this very parish!’
‘I should be careful of defending her too passionately, Mistress Paxman.’ Hopkins was indeed writing down her name. He dipped the nib in the ink pot and underlined the words twice. ‘We might be forced to suspect you of sharing her practices.’ He narrowed his eyes, his drawn, pale face perspiring slightly. ‘I suggest you go home.’
Sarah met his eyes steadily. ‘Not until I have your word that you will release her.’
‘Impossible.’ His mouth snapped shut on the word like a trap.
‘She must have taught you a great deal, Mistress Paxman,’ Mary Phillips put in quietly. ‘How long did she look after you when you were a child?’
Sarah’s mouth went dry. She had not taken her eyes from Hopkins’s face. ‘She taught me the value of love and loyalty and kindness,’ she said slowly.
‘But not, I would guess, any good Christian teaching.’ He scanned her face for a few more seconds, then he looked down at the notebook in front of him and wrote something next to her name. The
very simplicity of the gesture was loaded with threat. ‘I do not believe we have seen you in church here, Mistress Paxman.’
Sarah could feel the heat in her face. ‘I do not live here any longer, as you well know. My home is in Colchester.’
‘But while you visit your father I would expect you to attend service with him.’
‘I do not have to explain myself to you, sir,’ Sarah retorted hotly. ‘If you watch people closely then you will be aware that I have been here only since Monday at noon. And I am here to talk about Liza, not about me. Where is she?’
‘She is being held in Manningtree. For questioning.’ He paused. ‘Then she will be taken before the magistrates.’
‘I want to see her.’
‘Out of the question.’ He looked up. ‘Mary will search her for witch’s marks this afternoon. I do not doubt she will find them. If you do not want to find yourself put to the same test, I suggest you leave Mistley Thorn and go back to Colchester this very day. Do not meddle, mistress. I have a job to do, given me by Parliament. I do not brook any interference.’ He put down his pen and at last he stood up. He was not a tall man, shorter than she was by a hand’s breadth, but she could feel the strength of his gaze.
She looked from him to Mary Phillips, who had folded her arms, and then back. ‘I shall obtain legal representation for her, Master Hopkins.’
‘That would be a waste of money, mistress, and a foolish, sentimental act. My powers are total in this matter. I cannot be overruled. If the woman is innocent then God will exonerate her. If we find the marks this afternoon and Mary uses her pin to good effect, we shall swim her to make sure. Good morning, mistress.’ He bowed.
‘You can’t. You can’t swim her –’
He was walking past her, the notebook under his arm. Pausing, he gave her a final cold look. ‘After swimming her, if the Lord finds her guilty we will ask her for a confession which will complete the matter. I feel sure she will confess. In the end.’ He gave a thin smile, bowed, and without giving her another glance walked out of the door and down the corridor.