‘It?’ Mike felt the short hairs on the back of his neck stir.
‘It for now.’ Tony nodded thoughtfully. ‘It might be an energy, no more than that, or the unpleasant atmosphere itself. Or it might be a he, or a she, or possibly both.’
‘Great!’ Mike folded his arms across his chest. He shivered. ‘And did it follow me?’
Tony smiled. ‘On this occasion, no.’
‘Thank God for that!’
‘Amen.’ Tony nodded. ‘Now, tell me, who have you told about this, Mike? Have you discussed it with anyone?’
Mike shrugged. ‘One or two people, that’s all. Judith, of course. A chap called Mark Edmunds. He’s one of the TV people making the film. Emma Dickson.’ He hesitated. He needed to talk about Emma, but at the same time, for reasons he couldn’t quite work out, he was reluctant to do so, even with Tony. ‘I get the feeling she knows more about all this than she’s told me,’ he said cautiously. ‘And she knows Lyndsey Clark. She caught her in the act, as it were.’
‘Have you discussed all this with your spiritual adviser?’
Mike shook his head.
‘Or the bishop’s deliverance team?’
Mike grinned. ‘I spoke to John Downing and was told to leave it to them. It was also suggested that a psychiatrist might be useful! For me! That is why I came to you, Tony. I’m sure they are excellent chaps, but I want advice.’
Behind them the door opened. Ruth appeared, carrying a tray. She and Tony had called in at the deli on their way back to the rectory and brought with them a wonderful selection of cheeses and pasties plus some organic bread and a four-pack of lager.
‘Think of it as grounding,’ Tony grinned and reached for one of the cans. ‘You’ve got some hard work ahead of you, Mike. Spiritual work. I would like you to ask the owners of that shop permission to hold a requiem Eucharist up there. But I’m afraid that may just concentrate what is going on elsewhere.’ He glanced at Mike, who was licking pâté off his fingers and missed the look. ‘In the meantime we must try to defuse the situation. Can you get them to give up on the TV show?’
Mike shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I’ve already asked.’
Tony pursed his lips. ‘Right. Then we have a fight on our hands. Even without this extra dimension you must take witchcraft seriously, Mike. The church is very worried about its spread and its popularity. When I was training for the priesthood they used to warn us to be aware that in certain places, and Essex was one of them,’ he grinned wryly, ‘there might be people who would try to palm the host at Communion so they could sell it to a witch later. We may find we have a widespread problem.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Now, Ruthie and I have to go, I’m afraid.’ He drained his can of lager. ‘I’m going to think and pray and I want you to do the same, and arrange if you can a time for us to hold a service in the shop – ASAP. Pray hard, Mike. The Lord will protect you, you know that, but He will expect you to be strong for yourself as well!’
Mike found himself staring at the empty plates for a long time after they had gone. He picked at a sliver of cheese. The house suddenly felt deserted.
Think and pray, Tony had said.
The church was shady, lit only fitfully by the watery afternoon light filtering through the windows. Walking slowly up to the altar he stared up at the stained glass above his head.
‘Dear Lord, as always I need your help and advice. Give me strength and protection against the forces of darkness. Fill this town with your light and your love. Give your strength to those involved – Emma, Mark and his colleagues, Judith, Tony and Ruth, and particularly bless and save Lyndsey from her dalliance with the Devil. Make her understand the danger. Hold her in your love …’ Slowly he knelt down. Closing his eyes he whispered the Lord’s prayer.
Behind him the church slowly grew darker.
When the door opened with a clank of handle and squeak of hinges, Mike jumped. He paused a moment, realising that the window was now completely dark and, standing up, he turned as a light came on by the door.
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ It was Mark Edmunds. ‘I tried the rectory, so I thought I’d pop in here on the off chance and see if you were in the office, so to speak.’
Mike smiled. ‘And you were right. But I was about to go home. How are you?’
‘OK. I’ve been doing some more homework about the Witchfinder and his friends and I wondered if you would be interested in it.’
Mike glanced over his shoulder. Sometimes even he was astounded by the quick response from ‘Him upstairs’.
As they strode up the lane side by side through a freshening wind, Mike was considering how to broach the subject of cancelling the film once he got Mark into his study for a serious talk. He was counting without his parishioners, however. As they walked up the drive a figure stepped out from the porch. ‘Is that you, Rector?’
Mike recognised the hunched figure of Bill Standing. ‘What can I do for you, Bill?’
‘I’d like a word, if you please.’ Bill glanced at Mark without recognition.
Mark took the hint. ‘Why don’t I go for a walk, come back when you’re free, Mike?’
Bill refused a seat. He stood with his back to the empty fireplace, twisting his cap between his hands. ‘There’s sommat wrong, Rector.’
Mike frowned. ‘What’s happened, Bill?’
‘It’s more what’s happening. You seen the local paper?’
Mike glanced at a pile of newspapers on a chair nearby. ‘I haven’t had much time …’
‘There’s been another mugging. This one down by the sailing club.’
‘A mugging?’ Mike echoed. ‘Here?’ The crime rate. The violence. Just as Tony had predicted.
Bill nodded. ‘And vandals. Worse than usual. I bin watching the papers. Listening in the pub. The balance has gone. You know what the Ward was?’ He chuckled.
Mike shook his head.
‘Every town and village round these parts had a Ward in the old days. The spirits of the dead and the fairises – fairies, if you like – who protected the place from the evil. They patrolled the old trackways, the rivers and brooks, the crosses, all over the place. They kept watch at night, Rector. Kept the Devil away. Kept him out of the town. No one believes in them now, of course, and they’ve mostly gone.’
Mike found his mouth had dropped open. He closed it. ‘You don’t believe this, Bill?’ But of course Bill believed it. After everything Tony had said, he believed it himself!
The old man frowned. ‘All I know is that there is nothing protecting this place now. The dark is coming in off the sea. The town is going bad. And it’s up to you and me, Rector, to put it right. You’re going to have to help me after all.’
‘I see.’ Mike stared at the old man affectionately. Was this ‘Him upstairs’ again, sending him more help and advice in response to his prayer, or just a coincidence? But then what were coincidences but answers to prayer?
‘Young Lyndsey has felt it. She’s trying to fight it in her own way, I reckon, but she’s playing at it. She thinks it’s all to do with Hopkins.’
Oh God, you have sent him to me. Mike took a deep breath. ‘And isn’t it?’
‘Naa!’ Bill shook his head. ‘It goes back centuries before him. Back to the old days.’
‘And what do you think we should do?’
‘I don’t reckon I know. In the old days the church knew how to deal with these things. I don’t reckon your fancy colleges teach you about it any more.’
‘Not about the Ward, no.’ Tony knew. Perhaps he should bring these two wise old men together.
Bill chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. ‘I know about it from my dad, and his dad before him. Cunning folk. Heard of them?’
Mike nodded. ‘A bit, yes. Local wise women and men. Witches of sorts?’
‘Not witches. They helped people against witches.’ Bill was twisting his cap again. ‘I tell you one of the things that’s happened, Rector, which might have helped set all this off. You know old Spindles, down i
n Ferry Lane?’
‘The house that burned down in the spring?’
Bill nodded. ‘They left that ruin right there in the street. No one’s pulled it down.’
‘They can’t. It’s a listed building. Once all the insurance stuff is sorted out I expect they will rebuild it.’
‘Ah.’ Bill scratched his head. ‘Well, I reckon some of this bad stuff is coming from there. It was like Liza’s, that old place. A witch’s house once. On a site where I reckon something bad happened, back in the Dark Ages. Bad on bad, you see? It all built up and exploded into fire. That should have neutralised it. Calmed it down again. They should have finished the job. Pulled it down. Cleared the ground and blessed it. But they didn’t.’
Mike was astonished. Was this what should have happened at Barker’s? ‘You make me feel as though I haven’t been doing my job, Bill!’
‘Not your fault, Rector.’
‘What do you suggest I do?’
‘Say your prayers a bit harder, I reckon. Do you have any holy water, like they Romans?’
‘Holy water is ordinary water and salt that has been blessed, Bill.’
‘Well, chucking some of that around would probably do no harm.’
‘Down at Spindles?’
Bill nodded. ‘And all round the place while you’re at it. At Liza’s, there’s stuff going on there, and up at old St Mary’s – but you’ve been up there already.’ Bill cocked a shrewd eye at him. ‘Yes, of course you have. Then there’s Barker’s shop and one or two others in the High Street, and the Thorn.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve got the right idea but I reckon you need to work a bit harder, Rector.’
Closing the door after him, Mike walked thoughtfully back into his study. Outside the evening had brought in a misty darkness which had swallowed Bill’s shambling figure almost as soon as he’d stepped out of the range of the porch light. Of Mark there was no sign.
Closed curtains. Roaring fire. Safe. Mike shivered. When someone stood here in his study and started talking about fairies and demons and holy water, he knew things were indeed out of balance. At least he now knew why Bill never stepped over the threshold of the church. A cunning man. He had read somewhere that it was hereditary, hadn’t he, and Bill had admitted that was what his father and his father’s father called themselves. He had had no idea that such people still existed. But he had had no sense of evil. Whatever gods or spirits Bill served, they were all on the same side.
Sitting down, he leaned towards the fire holding out his hands, suddenly weary. He was remembering when Spindles had burned. It had been a lovely old house, a cottage in a lane running down to the river. The fire investigators had said that the cause had been an electrical fault. The family, luckily, had escaped, although, if he remembered right a family pet had died. A dog? A cat? Locked in one of the rooms. He sighed. Bill was right. Fire was a cleanser. And so was water. But now that they had allowed the evil to come back and gain a hold, they were going to have to work very hard to bring back the light.
Leaning back in his chair, he stared down at the flames licking the bricks at the back of the fireplace. A log split in half with a bang and sparks flew up the chimney into the dark, but as he fell asleep, exhausted, his dream was not of fire but of water.
57
One of the places they swam the witches was the mill pond. They brought her there that evening and he watched as they trussed the old lady, forcing her stiff, painful limbs into a cruel parody of a crouching position, hearing her whimpers – any strength for screams had long ago gone – seeing her head loll forward as they lifted her. The old lady was already half dead with fear and exhaustion and pain. He turned away. So many women. Aye, and men. A few. So much evil. So little time. The list was in the pocket of the jacket he wore beneath his cloak. The list of the Devil’s followers, and this woman, Liza, was on the list.
He turned to watch them lift her, aware that John Stearne had joined him. He glanced at the other man. ‘You have the names for tomorrow?’
Stearne nodded. They watched as two muscular men swung the bent, tied-up figure one – two – three – and tossed her out into the muddy water. A duck took off, quacking its indignation as it beat the water with flailing wings. The crowd at the edge of the pond watched in breathless silence as the ripples spread, the only sign of where the old woman had gone into the water the rope which had been attached to her waist.
Stearne yawned ostentatiously, a gloved hand over his mouth. ‘Any minute now. There!’ It was a hiss of triumph as the body bobbed to the surface, floating face down.
The shout from the men and women around them was unanimous as hand over hand, they dragged her towards the bank and up onto the grass. Water, the Lord’s servant, had rejected her. She belonged to the Devil.
Walking over to inspect her, Stearne nudged her with his foot. ‘Cut the ropes. Is she still alive?’ He did not sound particularly interested.
‘Aye, she’s alive.’ They had straightened her up and were dragging her to the cart which had brought her along the river’s edge from the village. The movement forced air back into the old woman’s lungs and she started to cough painfully. Stearne turned and smiled. ‘There you are, Matthew. She’ll live long enough to hang,’ he said. ‘That’s all that matters.’
Mike groaned. His head had fallen back against the chair and he woke with a start. He lay still, staring straight in front of him, trying to collect his wits. Jesus Christ! He had been asleep. He had witnessed them swimming a witch. He had stood and watched them do it! Levering himself out of the chair, he paced up and down the room, running his fingers through his hair. The bastard was still in his head! He took a deep breath. Tony was wrong. He was the focus. More than the focus. The host! Desperately he tried to steady the jumping of his heart beneath his ribs. He had to be strong. Prayer would see him through this, as it had seen him through every other crisis in his life. It always had.
So far.
But as he tried to concentrate his mind, he found the words would not come.
58
After the long drive from London Mark was far from upset at the chance for a walk. As he left the rectory he had glanced at his watch. He would give Mike an hour with that cantankerous-looking old man, then come back and perhaps drag him out to the pub, if you could drag vicars into pubs.
He wasn’t sure why he had changed his mind about coming up with Joe and Alice. Perhaps it was the thought of driving all that way with a heavy smoker, and Alice’s endless gossip; perhaps it was just impatience, but suddenly he had found it impossible to sit still at his desk. He had shuffled all his papers and books into a couple of cardboard boxes, rung the bed & breakfast to see if he could have his room a day early, and climbed into the car.
Setting off down the hill at a steady fast walk, heading for the river, he found he was shivering. It was a cold night. Reaching the strand of salt marsh which ran alongside the road, he stepped onto the grass and stood staring out across the water, watching the reflections of the streetlights. Behind, to the left, was the busy small town, blazing with lights, still full of traffic edging its way round its right-angle bends and pretty, narrow streets. In front of him was the head of the estuary. Only half a mile upstream it would turn into the leisurely winding river so beloved of John Constable. Here it was dramatically tidal, wild in spite of what looked like a factory site immediately opposite the spot where he was standing. East of that stretched the beautiful, gentle Suffolk shore, invisible in the dark behind the blackly sliding slick of the tide. It was strange but he had really grown to love this place.
Slowly he began to walk. There was purpose behind the choice of his route. At the far end of the road, just before it dived up into Mistley, there was a lake on the far side. Originally a mill pond, so he had read, then an ornamental lake in the grounds of Mistley Place, now part of an animal sanctuary, it was bounded at its northern end by half of the original Adam bridge. The other side of the bridge had gone now, widened out of existence by the road along which h
e was walking. According to some of the books he had been consulting, this lake might have been one of the places Hopkins swam his witches. It was even called the Hopping Bridge, though the majority of sources felt it was unlikely that it was called after him; after all, it had been built so much later.
A cold wind was blowing across the water into his face as he reached it. Thoughtfully he leaned on the stone balustrade, looking out across the lake. In the mellow light of the streetlamps behind him he could see the willows, the white shapes of swans on the still water. Somewhere out there in the dark someone had set up a ducking stool, according to his book on witchcraft. He shuddered. No doubt it gave an exciting frisson to those who saw it. But it was gossips who were ducked in ducking stools wasn’t it, not witches? Witches were thrown in to sink or swim, a primitive throw-back to the pagan belief that the water gods would reject the guilty and accept the good as sacrifice. He pulled up the collar of his jacket against the wind. Imagine the fear of those women, and men. Or were they angry? Did they call on their satanic masters to save them even to the last? He shuddered again. Could he feel that anger here? The fear? Or was it his imagination? He narrowed his eyes, staring out into the dark.
Abruptly he turned away. Whatever it was, he could feel he didn’t like it. What he would do was walk on into Mistley, have a pint at the Thorn – Hopkins’s own pub – and then go back to see Mike.
Mike and Mark talked until the early hours. Mark’s butterfly mind intrigued Mike. The TV man was used to researching subjects, sometimes in some depth and making himself an expert for as long as the research for the programme or the series lasted. He hoovered up facts, unerringly picking up on those which would be of use to him, discarding those which would not fit the scope of whatever it was he was working on at the moment, and at the moment his topic of choice was witches and ghosts. His reading on the subject had been extensive. ‘But it’s all theory, Mike. Sure, I can feel there is something there. In all the houses we’ve filmed I’ve felt something there. But I’m not a fool. I realise it could be my imagination. After all, if one has been told a house is haunted the spook factor goes into overdrive at once, but I’ve never actually ever seen anything.’