Hiding From the Light (50 page)

As the murky dawn broke across the wet fields and the newly risen sun vanished into the bank of clouds, Mike turned back to the church and made his way past the sleepy cows towards the yew trees still lost in the wet mist. It seemed like hours since he had forced his aching bones to run across the field to Tony’s car, climb in and drive up the lane to the nearest cottage to ring for help, but the doctor had come very quickly and arranged for Tony’s body to be removed. Then he and Mike had helped Ruth into the doctor’s car. By then the shock had kicked in and she was shaking violently, but her sobs were under control again as she turned to Mike by the car door.

‘Mike, my dear. I want you to have this.’ She groped at the back of her neck and unfastened the chain of her little silver cross. ‘I can’t believe you don’t wear one. Or the alb.’ She smiled. ‘You are a bit of an old Puritan at heart, yourself, aren’t you.’ She reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Stick it on, there’s a dear. Wear it for me.’ She paused and bit back a sob. ‘And for Tony.’

He smiled and bent down so she could reach, fastening the fine chain behind his neck.

‘There. Now keep that on, Mike, please. Remember the cross has huge symbolic power. Right across the board. Sometimes we don’t have time to pray.’

It was the sign of the cross that had driven Sarah away as she stood over the two fallen men. Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘Sometimes there is no time even to say the word Jesus.’ She looked very serious for a moment. ‘It saved Tony in the past. It saved his soul last night. He is with Our Lord, Mike.’

‘I know.’ Mike bent and kissed her on the top of the head.

‘And be strong, Mike. There is still a fight ahead of you.’

He nodded, very conscious of the lonely mist-shrouded church behind them, tempted to change his mind and go with them. But there were things he had to do in the church before he locked up. And a final prayer to say.

He watched the car pull away and then turned back towards the yew trees.

The candles had long ago burned down and the church smelled only of wood, old mustiness and the faint echo of incense.

Slowly he walked up the aisle and began to gather up their scattered belongings. Ruth’s thermos. The small Communion set. Tony’s crucifix lying on the ground before the altar. His stole. As Mike folded it up he stared round. There was no sign that a man had died there. No trace of the blood which had poured from his own nose and mouth. His clothes were unsullied. It was as if it had never happened. As if it had all been a dream.

But it was not a dream. Tony had thought they would be safe in a church; had thought they could strengthen their spiritual muscles here in this peaceful place. And instead it had turned into an arena for their battle.

‘But an arena where we won!’

Was that Tony’s voice in his head? He shrugged. It was true. In a church he was on his own ground, surrounded by the light. But his greatest battle was still before him, he was under no illusion about that. Quietly, he began to pray.

Somehow he had to rid himself permanently of the restless dark soul of Matthew Hopkins, and then he had to deal once and for all with Sarah.

And Emma.

And now he was alone.

Mark flicked the windscreen wipers onto fast speed as he turned the car onto the A137 and headed for Colchester. They had loaded the last of the equipment up by four o’clock and Joe and Alice had driven on ahead in the van.

‘So, what next?’ Colin rested his head against the seat and closed his eyes.

‘After filling in the insurance claim?’ Mark shrugged. ‘At least we got a bit of film.’

The cameras were all consistent. Nothing happened for the first three hours or so, then suddenly at eleven fifty-eight, according to the time marker on the film, things had begun to fly round the room. Within thirty seconds everything had stopped working. There were no ghosts on the surviving film. Most of it had been trashed. What there was showed clearly the first event out of the ordinary – a box of dusters had lifted as far as could be seen, unaided, floated in the air about two feet off the ground, for several seconds, then tipped over and tossed itself against the wall. There was no one to be seen in the room; the action was clear, in the centre of the camera field. Several seconds later they saw first one, then two, then three small round balls of light seemingly dancing in mid-air. Two audio tapes seemed to be intact. When they played them several groans were clearly audible and then some loud crashes. There were other noises that only Alice could hear, the others could make nothing out. They too would be taken back to the AVID editing suite. They would be listening for extremely low-frequency sounds.

It took a long time to remove all the equipment and clear up and restack the room. Their landlady’s husband, Ron Prescott, came up trumps with enough paint to remove the paranormal graffiti, once it had been photographed in great detail with a stills camera and shot from every angle with the little hand-held camera which Alice had left in the car. ‘They’ll never know.’ Mark checked the room before they left.

Stan Barker had been adamant when they reported to him what had happened. Move every trace or he would sue. Mark had pleaded and cajoled to no avail. Stan’s original enthusiasm for the film had all but gone. If he lost his tenants as a result of Mark’s messing around, there would be trouble.

‘I’d like to have had that writing tested. Seen if it was blood, and if so, whose.’ Colin had been silent for some time as they drove.

Mark gave a grim smile. ‘I had the same thought. I scraped off some plaster. It’s in a polythene bag in my briefcase.’

Colin glanced across at him. ‘Well done.’

‘I couldn’t be any firmer with him, Col. I didn’t want him to pull the rug on the whole project and forbid us to use the film.’

Colin nodded. ‘No, you handled him well. It’s a pity we’ve got to be at this meeting tomorrow. I feel there’s a lot more to happen down here.’

Mark nodded. He dipped his lights as another car hurtled towards them through the dark, throwing up curtains of water off the road. ‘We need the editing suite, though, Col. I want to hear those tapes and see what we’ve got.’ He cursed as his mobile rang.

‘Mark? It’s Mike Sinclair.’ Mike’s voice was broadcast round the car from the hands-free phone. He sounded exhausted.

There was a moment’s stunned silence. ‘Mike?’ Mark gripped the steering wheel. ‘Are you all right? Where the hell have you been?’

There was a pause the other end of the phone. ‘I know. I should have been there to talk to you about the shop. I’m sorry. I had to go away for the weekend. Didn’t Judith tell you where I was?’

Mark frowned. ‘No, Mike. No one knew where you were.’ He paused. ‘Where are you now?’

‘At the rectory. Someone’s been fiddling with my answer phone. Yours is the only message on it. Judith seems to have re-recorded my outgoing message and then turned it off.’

Mark glanced into the mirror and indicated left. He pulled into a gateway at the side of the road and switched off the engine. ‘Is there anyone there, Mike?’

‘No. It’s all shut up. Judith seems to have gone out. Your message sounded so urgent I thought I’d better ring you at once and explain.’

Mark glanced at Colin and raised an eyebrow. ‘Mike, you do know what happened to Judith?’ he said cautiously.

There was a short pause as Mike registered the tone of his voice. ‘No, should I?’ His reply was guarded. ‘What’s been going on?’

Mark was looking at Colin in the dark. Colin shrugged. ‘Mike, I’m sure there should be someone there to tell you. Something awful happened. Judith died last night. At first they thought she had been murdered and Lyndsey Clark was claiming to have had something to do with it. We contacted a CID mate of Colin’s and it turned out that it was natural causes – or at least a reaction to some drug she was on – so the police lost interest. I gather she had some kind of brain haemorrhage or something. I’m so sorry.’

Mike didn’t reply for several seconds. When he spoke his voice was husky with shock. ‘I can’t quite take this in. Judith is dead? When did this happen?’

‘I don’t know a whole lot about it. Some time on Saturday night, I think. But listen, Mike, it gets worse. That woman Lyndsey is a complete nutcase. She was telling everyone she had killed Judith and you, too! She said the whole thing was our fault because we had stirred up Hopkins with our interest in the shop. Once your friendly neighbourhood doctor started looking for natural causes for Judith’s death, it didn’t occur to him to think about black magic, of course. I don’t suppose it would have done anyway.’ He was speaking very fast. ‘It couldn’t have been that. Could it? No one knew where you were, Mike. People were wondering if you were dead! We didn’t know what to think, and no one had heard from you.’

Mike sighed. ‘Judith knew where I had gone. It was her idea that I went away. I assumed she would tell anyone who needed me where I could be reached.’ There was a pause. ‘This is awful.’

‘I know.’ Mark was staring through the windscreen into the dark. Beside them a five-barred gate blocked the entrance to a field. Rain was drumming on the windscreen. ‘I think Lyndsey has lost it, Mike. She was claiming all sorts of shit. She didn’t seem to know who she was. Or who Judith was. And she was ranting on about someone called Sarah.’

‘Sarah?’ Mike’s voice sharpened.

‘Yes, Sarah. Lyndsey’s bonkers, Mike!’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Did she mention Emma?’ Mike’s voice was suddenly tight with anxiety. ‘No, don’t worry, I’ve got to go, Mark. I’m sorry.’

‘Mike?’ Mark leaned towards the phone. ‘Mike, are you there?’

‘He’s gone.’ Colin whistled. ‘The plot thickens, and you didn’t even get the chance to tell him about our ghostly visitors.’ He paused. ‘We’re driving in the wrong direction, aren’t we?’

Mark nodded. Starting up the engine he engaged first gear and began to turn the car. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about all this. Mike’s on his own down there and no one else knows he’s back.’

Sarah was staring at John Pepper. ‘Matthew Hopkins can’t be dead!’ she said. ‘He can’t be!’

John shrugged. He was standing in front of the fireplace in Sarah’s Colchester house. ‘John Stearne claims he died five days ago of a consumption and is already buried up at Mistley in the churchyard there. Master Stearne came back from Suffolk specially to watch him put in the soil.’

Sarah sat down abruptly. She was white with shock.

‘It’s good news, mistress.’ John eyed her cautiously. ‘There’s none to hunt you down now.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘Nor me, for that matter. No one hunts for witches any more. There is more than that to worry about with the war coming closer all the time.’

‘But we are not avenged, John. He has escaped me!’ She paced up and down the floor a couple of times, the heels of her shoes clicking on the polished boards. ‘I don’t believe it! He was to have been hunted down and swum. I needed to see him suffer as I suffered. As Liza suffered.’ She was growing more and more agitated. ‘The people of Manningtree were going to swim him, John. They were going to see him punished! I know it. I was going to go back to my father’s house and we were going to find him. I was going to lead them after him.’

She walked over to the window, turned and walked back again. ‘He has escaped! It is all pretence. He is not dead! He has fled. He has gone away. We will find him. He can’t have gone far.’

‘He is dead, mistress.’ John was frowning. ‘It is time to let him go.’

‘I’m not going to let him go!’ She turned on him furiously. ‘Do you think he has taken ship from Mistley or Harwich? Where would he have gone? To the Low Countries? To the Americas? He has a brother in the Americas. Agnes told me so. Perhaps he has gone there.’ Her agitation was growing every second.

John shook his head. ‘Let be, mistress. Just be glad you are safe. No one will dare impugn your honour now. No one will suggest that you were involved with Liza. Let be. Please, for your father’s sake. Don’t worry him more. He has enough to think about with the king a prisoner in Scotland and the country all to pieces. Liza is at rest. Let her lie in peace.’

‘She is not at peace, John!’ She turned on him angrily. ‘How could you think it?’

Once more she paced back and forth across the room. John stepped back. He could feel her wrath and it frightened him. It was coming off her in waves. Suddenly she stopped. She swung to face him. ‘I shall find him, John. If not in this world, then the next. I will find him if I have to follow him through hell and back!’

Mike sat staring at his desk for several minutes after he had spoken to Mark, then wearily he rose to his feet. ‘God bless you, Judith.’ A quick whispered prayer would have to do for now. There were other things he had to deal with and quickly. Picking up his car keys, he headed back for the door. He wished, not for the first time, that Bill had a telephone. But there was no time to fetch him now. Perhaps the old man would sense that he was needed now more than ever.

Lyndsey’s house on the quay was in darkness. He stood on the doorstep and knocked loudly, but it was no more than a gesture. He could see – could feel – that she was not there.

Turning his back on the door, he stood still for a moment and watched the dark water, hearing the hiss of rain as the tide inched along the edge of the quay. Then he turned and pulling the collar of his jacket up around his ears, he headed back for the car.

As he drew up outside Liza’s, he saw the black outline of a bicycle leaning into the hedge. He climbed out of the car slowly, staring at it, guessing it belonged to Lyndsey. Emma’s MG was there too.

He could see some lights on in the cottage behind closed curtains but there was an eerie silence about the place as he opened the gate and walked up the path. The doorbell rang loudly inside the house and he waited, sheltering under the wooden porch as the rain thundered onto the leaves of the trees behind him. He allowed several minutes to pass, strangely reluctant to try again, then he pressed his finger on the bell once more, leaving it there for several seconds. There was still no sound from indoors.

Sighing, he stepped back into the rain and glanced up at the upstairs windows. Emma and Lyndsey were there all right, so why weren’t they answering?

His shoes squelching on the soaking grass, he made his way down the side of the house towards the back and stepping onto the terrace, found he could look straight into the kitchen. There was no one there, not even one of her cats. Making his way over the wet moss-covered flagstones, he reached for the doorhandle and turned it. The door opened.

‘Emma?’ He stepped inside and stood dripping rainwater just inside the kitchen door. There was no answer. He paused for a moment in the middle of the kitchen, listening intently. The house was silent. Frowning, he walked over to the door and pulled it open. The hall was in darkness. Then he heard it – the muffled sound of a voice.

‘Emma? Are you there? It’s Mike!’ He moved towards the door which led into her sitting room and pushed it open.

Emma was sitting on the sofa, and Lyndsey – he presumed it was Lyndsey – was sitting on the floor in front of her, her hands gripping Emma’s wrists. The room was in darkness, lit only by a candle standing on the low coffee table.

‘Emma?’ Mike stepped into the room.

Both women turned to stare at him. Even in the dim candlelight, Mike could see the total blankness on Emma’s face. She did not appear to recognise him for a moment, then suddenly she stood up, pushing Lyndsey away from her so hard that Lyndsey fell backwards onto the floor.

‘You!’ She pointed straight at Mike, her eyes narrowed, her features twisted with fury. ‘You killed her. You killed my Liza. After all I said; after I begged you! After I told you what I would do – ’

‘Emma!’ Stepping towards her, Mike caught her by the shoulders. ‘Emma, listen to me!’

‘You tortured her and you watched her hang!’

‘Emma!’ He held her away from him with difficulty and glanced at the other woman. ‘What’s happened to her?’

Lyndsey smiled. She had picked herself up off the floor and was now seated in the chair opposite them, watching. ‘I think you know what’s happened!’ She leaned back almost casually. ‘You are not speaking to Emma.’ Lyndsey appeared to be mildly amused. ‘You are speaking to Sarah Paxman. Once, a long time ago, she vowed to kill Matthew Hopkins, and now it looks as though, although somehow he seems to have escaped her up to now, finally you are going to give her the chance to do it!’

As Mike transferred his attention to Lyndsey for a fraction of a second, he let his grip on Emma’s shoulder slacken and she took the opportunity to wriggle away from him. In seconds she had renewed her attack, her clawed fingers within inches of his eyes. He seized her wrists. ‘Emma, listen to me! You are not Sarah Pax-man, do you hear me? Sarah is dead!’ He pushed her down onto the sofa. ‘And I am not Matthew Hopkins! I am not his descendant. I am not the man reborn. He tried to possess me – no –’ He pushed her back as she tried to stand up. ‘No, listen, Emma. I am not him. He did not succeed. Hopkins is dead. Do you hear me? He’s dead! Leave his punishment to God!’

‘She can’t hear you,’ Lyndsey put in calmly.

‘What have you done to her?’ Mike shouted at her over his shoulder. ‘What has happened here? How can I get her back?’

‘The past has caught up with you.’ Lyndsey folded her arms.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, get real, Lyndsey!’ he snapped. ‘Have you hypnotised her? Is she drugged? What has happened to her?’

Emma was trying to stand up again and he shoved her back hard with the flat of his hand. ‘Emma, listen to me!’ He snapped his fingers loudly in front of her nose. Emma did not react.

Lyndsey snorted. ‘No, she’s not hypnotised. This is not some magic show. You told me to get real. I suggest that is what you should be doing. This is not pretend. This is not a game of trick or treat. This is revenge time. This is when women fight back and you pay for all the blood and the burnings.’

‘Which shows how much you know about it!’ Mike snapped at her. ‘Hopkins didn’t burn women. That is rubbish!’

‘Rubbish?’ Lyndsey leaped to her feet. ‘You ignorant, stupid man! Don’t you know anything? Millions of women were burned. By men!’

Mike was panting now as he struggled to hold Emma at arm’s length. ‘Judith was right. I’m beginning to realise where all the trouble is coming from. It’s you.’

‘Ah. Yes. Judith.’ Lyndsey smiled again. ‘The witchpricker. I hear she died a thousand deaths and drowned in her own blood. Sarah did that. Sarah, not me. Sarah is a very powerful woman, Mike.’ She emphasised his name sarcastically. ‘And now it’s your turn for her exclusive attention.’

Mike heard a car drive up outside. The reflections of its headlights were bright for a moment against the curtains, then they died. The engine was cut. Mike breathed a prayer of thanks as he heard the car door bang. When the doorbell rang he shouted as loudly as he could. ‘Round the back! Quickly! The kitchen door is open. I need some help here!’

Lyndsey laughed. ‘So, your God needs a bit of backup, does he? Sarah, can you hear me?’ Her voice sharpened. ‘This man needs to die.’

Out of the corner of his eye Mike saw her dive for a bag lying on the rug near the chair where she had been sitting. When she straightened up there was a knife in her hand. The blade caught the candlelight. ‘Here, take it, Sarah!’ She thrust it at Emma, who with a superhuman wriggle managed to wrench herself away from Mike’s grip and reach out to grasp it.

Mike lunged forward and grabbed at her again, knocking her off balance so they fell together against the bookcase. As they wrestled together grimly the doctor’s voice cut through the sudden rattle of falling books. ‘Hello? What’s going on in here?’ The figure in the doorway reached for the lightswitch. Suddenly the room was starkly lit.

Mike blinked. ‘James, thank God! Help me. These women are insane!’

He stepped away from Emma who, dazzled, had suddenly stopped fighting him. She stood trembling, the knife still in her hand, staring round the room in bewilderment. ‘He’s a murderer,’ she said slowly. She was frowning. ‘Hopkins killed Liza.’ Her strength was failing rapidly and suddenly she was crying. The knife fell to the carpet and she threw herself back onto the sofa, snatching up a cushion and burying her face in it. Drawing up her legs, she curled up defensively, her back to them.

Lyndsey glanced at Mike and shrugged. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Who’s gone?’ James Good stooped and picked up the knife. ‘Are you OK, Mike?’

‘I’m fine.’ Mike was out of breath and badly shaken. ‘This is your fault!’ He turned to Lyndsey. ‘Entirely your fault. You have done this.’

Lyndsey was watching silently as James Good sat down on the sofa next to Emma. Gently he reached for her wrist and began to count the pulse.

‘I have done nothing,’ she said quietly. ‘I watch from the sidelines when Sarah comes. I watch and I wait.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Emma is a natural. A hereditary witch. Did you know that, Mr Priest? And now she has been initiated. She is one of us. But she barely needed even that. She was ready.’

Mike could feel his anger rising. He wanted to put his hands around Lyndsey’s neck and throttle her. ‘That is evil nonsense, Lyndsey.’

‘No. Not nonsense. Is it, Em? You serve the goddess now, don’t you? You tell him.’

Emma shrank back into the sofa. Her pulse beneath the doctor’s questioning fingers was faint and much too rapid as she looked up at Mike, and he was horrified to see the terror in her eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. Go away, Mike, please. Don’t come near me.’ She had begun to shake. ‘There’s something terribly wrong with me. I can’t control Sarah. I can’t fight her off. I will kill you.’ Her words were slurred. She sounded almost drunk.

‘Sarah has gone, Emma. Whoever she was.’ The doctor put a professionally cool hand on her forehead. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. It was one of your bad dreams. You’re OK now.’

‘But I killed Judith. I wanted to kill Mike. I had to – ’

‘And you know that is nonsense.’ James Good smiled at her sternly. ‘Mike, I think it might be a good thing if you left this to me.’

‘But I can’t leave her like this.’ Mike was watching Emma in anguish.

‘She’ll be fine when she’s had a good night’s sleep.’ The doctor gave Mike a quick nod. ‘We’re all a bit stressed and upset, and I think some calm on our own is what we need.’

Mike bit his lip, then he shrugged. ‘OK. I’ll be at the rectory if you need me.’ He glanced at Lyndsey. ‘I think you should leave, too.’

Lyndsey nodded. ‘Sure. I’m going. Just as soon as Em is settled. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.’ She smiled at him sweetly.

It was fifteen minutes before the doctor climbed back into his car, satisfied that Emma was calm and that Lyndsey was looking after her. Both women had relaxed once Mike had gone and Lyndsey was warming some milk in a pan in the kitchen as Emma went upstairs to have a bath.

He sat in the car for a while, watching for lights. The one in the sitting room went off. First one then another went on in the two upstairs front bedrooms. Nodding, satisfied that the little bout of hysteria was over, he reached for the ignition key. Then he sat back thoughtfully. He had remembered Paula and her bewitched child. Bewitched by Lyndsey Clark. He frowned. It was all nonsense of course, more hysteria inspired by Judith Sadler’s unfortunate death, but still. Was it safe to leave them like this? On the other hand, both women were clearly on their way to bed and Lyndsey had seemed, in the flesh, so sensible.

He had found it hard to understand what all the fuss was about in there. Of course, Lyndsey was an exceptionally attractive young woman. So was Emma. That was probably at the root of Paula’s problem. Jealousy. He sighed. He was so, so, tired. It had been an extremely long day. He’d look in on Emma again in the morning and make sure all was well, and then maybe have a word with Mike about the witch mania which seemed to be building in the town.

He had completely forgotten the small ebony-handled knife he had left lying on the coffee table.

Inside the house, Lyndsey was watching from behind the curtains. She saw the doctor climb into his car. She saw him close the door and reach for his seatbelt. But for several minutes nothing happened. The lights did not come on; the engine remained silent. She frowned. He was wondering if he had done the right thing leaving them. She read his mind accurately, but why had he come? What – or who – had called him out? Emma? No, not Emma. Mike, then. The nosy preaching priest who was soft on Emma. Well, she’d fixed that. Now he knew what he was dealing with he wouldn’t be back in a hurry.

Outside the headlights suddenly flared and she saw the car back out onto the road. It was still pouring with rain, the deepening puddles splashing up around the wheels as the doctor disappeared back in the direction of his home.

Lyndsey smiled. She turned towards the door.

Emma, wrapped in a bathrobe, was sitting on the edge of the bed. She glanced up wanly as Lyndsey appeared. ‘Have you got the milk? I’d better take his tablets.’

‘You can have the milk later,’ Lyndsey said firmly. ‘I’ve taken it off the hob. And I’ve put the trancs down the loo. You don’t need stuff like that. You have a job to do first, Emma. Once you’ve done that, you can sleep till kingdom come if you want to.’

‘You’ve flushed my tablets?’ Emma was furious. ‘You have no right to do that.’

‘I have every right.’ Lyndsey grabbed her arms. ‘Stand up and pull yourself together. Now, where is Sarah?’