Shepherd's Cross (5 page)

Their car pulled up alongside the curb
in front of the Police Station. Jennings turned the key and switched off the
engine. ‘And?’ asked Cara. ‘What happened to the boy?’

‘Nobody knows,’ replied Jennings. ‘There
wasn’t another sound all night, but the servants were too frightened to knock
in case they incurred Edmond’s wrath, should the silence be part of his
mysterious activities. Eventually, when morning came and with it no further
sound, the head butler and a couple of his staff decided to force the door
open.

‘What did they find?’ urged Cara, her
curiosity needing to be satisfied more than her grumbling stomach, which was
making her acutely aware that it was approaching lunchtime.

‘They found Edmond hanging from a beam
above the fire, his neck snapped and his head lying flat against his shoulder.
The poker had been forced up his backside and protruded from his chest, having
passed straight through his heart.’

‘Bloody hell! It’s hard to have sympathy
for him but even so…What about the others? The boy?’

‘That’s the strange thing. They found no
trace of anybody else in the room. The dome had been smashed, but there was no
way anyone could have climbed up that high. Everything else was there; robes,
various implements and books, the five pointed star, goats’ skulls…everything.
But no sign of any of the others, or the boy. And apparently they were never
seen again. Bizarre, isn’t it?’

Cara looked straight at Jennings and
shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I’ve spent the last half hour listening to
that cock and bull story. You can’t half spin a yarn, Sarge!’

Jennings smiled. ‘Believe what you want,
my most able deputy. And you’re right, I bet there’s been some bending of the
facts down the years. But you speak with anyone who has lived here for a long
time and they’ll tell you more or less the same story. And whatever you choose
to believe, there’s no denying that Fellside Hall has been empty and rotting
away ever since that day. The mines closed, the workers tried their luck
elsewhere, and every one of Byrne’s staff left the Hall within a month. Records
document Edmond as having died from hanging – suicide. There was no heir; the
remaining dregs of his possessions were bound up in a set of deeds that are
held at Ted Wilson’s land agency. Which is why I think we need to see him to
find out what the hell is going on up there?’

‘Understood, Sarge. But can we have some
lunch first? I’m starving.’

‘Of course, we need to make sure our
priorities are right,’ laughed Jennings. ‘Let’s go inside and put the kettle
on.’ His smile quickly faded as he followed Cara along the path to the Station
entrance. The precise details surrounding the story of Fellside Hall may have
been embellished down the generations, but the final horrific scene met by the
servants who broke down the door of the Round Room was always the same no matter
who was telling the tale.

Knowing the people around here as well
as he did, Jennings was prepared to bet his pension that the relighting of the
Hall’s fires after all this time would come as a major concern to anyone who’d
grown up listening to the macabre story of Fellside Hall.

12.00pm:
Reverend Jackson reached into the left pocket of his jacket and pulled out the
large black key that opened the door to All Saints’ Church. Inserting it into
the lock, he cursed to himself as he struggled to force it to turn, pressing
his shoulder up against the door to weaken the lock’s resistance as it
eventually gave way. Six months earlier, there had been no need to bolt the
door; parishioners had been free to enter and worship as they pleased. In an
ideal world, there would not have been any requirement to keep people out; especially
considering how difficult it was to entice people to come in at all these days.

Unfortunately, a recent night of
mindless vandalism had broken the trust that had allowed for an open-door
policy since the church’s construction over eight hundred years ago. Nobody
knew for sure who had done it - there’d been no convictions due to lack of
evidence - but several locals, including Reverend Jackson, were inclined to
point the finger towards the Carter boys up at Moorland Farm. There were three
of them, Jed, Aidan and Lee; a feral, unruly mob who wreaked more havoc around
the area than the rest of The Cross’s kids put together. The apple rarely falls
far from the tree; a saying never truer than in the case of the Carters, whose
poor excuse for a father, Mick, was undeniably rotten to the core. A long
record of minor convictions only seemed to encourage worse behaviour, as if
each crime was a new badge of honour to celebrate. Top of the list were
fighting and drunken behaviour, closely followed by petty theft. But the list
went on and included some weird and wonderful activities; Fred Watson, the
area’s postman, had been out on his rounds one day and had caught Jed holding
down a litter of kittens in a bucket of water, his boot crushing them as they
drowned. When Fred had confronted Jed’s father about his son’s cruelty, Mick
had laughed in his face before chasing him off his farm. ‘The lad’s only making
sailors out of them,’ he’d joked. ‘Now piss off before I take my stick to you!’
It was a while before the Carters received any more post.

Whether or not the Carters were
responsible for the vandalism of All Saints’ Church, the damage had
nevertheless been serious. It was the warden, Bill Thompson, who had been first
at the scene. As with every Sunday morning, he’d walked into the church around
nine o’clock to give the place a quick spruce up before morning service.
Instead of being greeted by the usual serene, orderly atmosphere, he’d been
confronted by upturned pews and chairs, broken flower vases and candelabra, and
general chaos. Worst of all, however, was the red graffiti that had been
sprayed across the stone altar in the chancel - BURN IN HELL FUCKERS, it had
read. This had infuriated Jackson; after all, the altar had survived Scottish
Raids and the ravages of the Black Death all those centuries ago. During the
Reformation, when an edict had been announced in 1571 stating that all stone
altars must be destroyed, the people of Shepherd’s Cross had hidden their altar
under the floor of the chancel.
Not that the culprits would have known this
,
Jackson thought.
And even if they had, I doubt they would have given a damn.
Still, if evil did not exist, what need would there be to follow God? There
have always been those who lean to the good and those who lean to the bad - a
fact my world relies on to exist at all.

Jackson entered the church and walked
down the central aisle, passing under the single Norman arch that divided the
chancel from the nave. He knelt before the altar and crucifix to which an
effigy of Christ was pinned, and said a brief prayer. When he’d finished
praying, he returned to his feet, the arthritis in his left knee causing him to
groan as he stood up. He slowly turned around to face the twenty wooden pews.
Come ten o’clock on Sunday morning, he’d be lucky if half of them would be
filled; more likely there’d still be a dozen or so remaining empty. Twenty
years ago when he’d arrived here, he would have been preaching to a full house,
with standing room only on key dates in the calendar like Easter or Christmas.
Of the regulars who did still attend, the vast majority were at least sixty
years old. The children of the choir, who had traditionally filled the room
with singing, had all grown up and had families of their own; their own
children rarely deciding to following in their parents’ footsteps. And one by
one, those who did remain were marching irreversibly closer towards meeting
their maker. Of the thirteen families who had moved into Rowan Lane, only two
or three had ever set foot in his church, apart from maybe at Easter, and that
was only because of the chocolate egg hunt around the churchyard.

Jackson sighed again. He knew it was
wrong to dwell on happier times. Busier times, when people had flocked to
church, not as a result of some misplaced sense of duty, but because of their
faith and love of God. They’d come together to laugh and be with each other, to
smile at each other and give thanks for friendship and enduring support in good
and bad times; to celebrate the importance of community and helping your fellow
man. Whichever way he approached it, he couldn’t help feel that Shepherd’s
Cross was slowly but surely losing its soul to the outside world; a modern
world that worked day and night to invade even the remotest communities with
its never ending drive for consumption and individualism. He’d noticed it with
some of the newcomers; they’d leave for work first thing in the morning and
return late in the evening, always looking tired and unhappy in spite of their
expensive homes and fancy cars. The numerous trappings of success on display
appeared indeed to be nothing more than traps. No time to stop and talk, no
time to care about anyone else except themselves.

Jackson walked to a small table in a
recess beside the altar. He opened the drawer underneath and removed a notepad
and pen, and sat down to write his sermon for the coming Sunday. He looked up
and stared out of the small, round window on the east wall. Tradition had it
that the window represented the eye of the church, warning off evil spirits that
dared venture too near to the house of God. He suddenly felt very old and
tired. His gaze shifted away from the window to the scene of the crucifixion on
the wall, the statue of Christ’s eyes returning his stare but failing to
provide him with the assurances he was increasingly seeking. His fingers went
to pick up the pen, but it was no use. He could think of nothing worth writing
today.

12.30pm:
Emily Mitford pulled back the Post Office blinds and looked outside. After
ensuring that there were no further customers making their way up the footpath,
she locked the door and turned the ‘CLOSED’ sign towards the outside world. She
now regretted her earlier decision to invite Charlotte and Olivia over for a
cup of tea. It wasn’t that she no longer wished to talk to them, but rather
that it had been an unusually busy morning that had left her feeling tired and
in need of putting her feet up for an hour. The sudden chiming of the doorbell
informed her that there was little chance of that, however.

She opened the door, smiling at the two
ladies and beckoning them inside before closing it again behind them. ‘Cup of
tea?’ she asked, showing them the way through to the cosy kitchen behind the
Post Office counter.

‘That would be lovely,’ replied Olivia. ‘It’s
so kind of you to invite us over during your lunch hour.’ She sat down next to
Charlotte and looked around the room. Small and humble, the kitchen was full of
trinkets and handmade items, from patchwork cushion covers to wicker baskets. A
far cry from the designer accessories that adorned the expensive, modern
furniture of the houses along Rowan Lane. ‘I love your kitchen,’ Olivia said. ‘So
very…traditional.’

‘Thank you dear,’ replied Emily, setting
down a tray carrying a pot of tea, some cups and an assortment of biscuits. ‘It’s
a little on the small side when you have guests around, but ideal for most of
the other times when it’s just old Harvey and I.’ Charlotte and Olivia’s eyes
followed Emily’s as she looked across to the far corner of the room and smiled
at her Border Terrier lying curled up asleep in his basket. ‘Although I fear
poor Harvey isn’t much longer for this world. He hardly ever leaves his basket
these days, but I suppose he is almost sixteen years old.’

The doorbell rang again and Emily got up
to answer it. ‘That will be Bronwyn. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve asked her
to join us. She’s a keen local historian; she’s only lived here a few years but
she already knows this place better than I do!’ She returned moments later with
her friend, the pair of them laughing together like the good friends they were.
Charlotte and Olivia glared at each other, the jealousy evident on their faces;
not because Bronwyn was joining them, but because she was without question the
most attractive woman for miles around. Naturally beautiful, she had no need
for the over-priced skin products that lined the bathroom cabinets of Charlotte
and Olivia, or the increasingly frequent Botox injections that helped solidify
their already hardened faces.

Bronwyn Hess was the manager of
Shepherd’s Cross Youth Hostel. Originally from New Zealand, she had travelled
to England as a backpacker when she was only twenty. Being the daughter of a
South Island sheep farmer, she’d managed to secure some seasonal work at one of
the nearby farms. Staying at the Youth Hostel, she’d earned a few extra pounds
by helping out with breakfasts and cleaning. Nancy Beckford, the manager at the
time, had taken ill with breast cancer, so Bronwyn had covered her duties in
her absence. When Nancy didn’t respond as well as hoped to the treatment and
died six months later, Bronwyn reluctantly accepted the manager’s position on
an interim basis until someone more permanent could be found. That was five
years ago, and she’d held the post ever since. At only twenty-six years of age,
she didn’t intend to stay forever, but something about The Cross pulled hard at
her. She wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

Once the formalities were over, Emily
sat back in her chair and began to speak. ‘Before you moved to Shepherd’s
Cross, did you conduct any research into its past, its history? Anything at
all?’

‘Not really,’ replied Olivia. ‘Well,
that’s not quite true - we did look at schools, and whether or not Waitrose
delivered this far out, which annoyingly it doesn’t. Little things like that.
But history - why would we be bothered about that? Is there something we should
be worried about?’

‘Oh, there’s no need for you to worry, not
these days anyway. It’s The Cross’s past that I think you’ll find interesting.
Even then, most of what I’m about to say is nothing more than folklore and
fireside superstition.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest idea
what you are talking about,’ said Charlotte, her manner direct as ever.

‘I’m talking, my dear, about witchcraft.
About black magic and evil. And about the Devil himself.’

The room was smothered by silence, the
only sound being the wooden tick-tock of the pendulum clock that hung above the
fireplace. Charlotte and Olivia said nothing as Emily continued. ‘Have you ever
noticed how the smell of wild garlic fills the air in the springtime? Or how a
good number of houses around here have a rowan tree planted in their front
garden? And if you look at some of the outhouses and barns, you will likely see
a horseshoe nailed to the door. Even the church – centuries of harsh weather may
have worn them down somewhat - but have you seen the human faces carved into
the corbels that hold up the roof? And the iron door knocker in the shape of a
fiendish ghoul’s face? Little things, I know, but all symbols of a world very
different to the one we live in today.’

‘Symbols?’ asked Charlotte. ‘Of what,
exactly?’

‘Like many neighbouring villages and
hamlets in the North Pennines, Shepherd’s Cross is very old. I believe it may
even date back to Saxon times, but there are certainly records stretching back
to 1146. All Saints’ Church is believed to have been constructed around 1150
AD, although it probably looks very different now to its original form. Apart
from a few scuffles with our Scottish neighbours, it’s likely that Shepherd’s
Cross continued its quiet course for hundreds of years, right up until around
the seventeenth century. Bronwyn, would you like to continue while I pour the
tea?’

Bronwyn rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘Alright,
but you were doing such a good job…’ She turned to face Charlotte and Olivia. ‘Emily’s
right; there is nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary happened around
here until the early 1600s, when a great change occurred in the religious
attitudes of society towards anything thought to be against the teachings of
Christianity. Up until that point, there was an almost universal belief in the
supernatural – the screams of ghosts would be heard on a windy night, witches
would ride through the sheltered valleys on their broomsticks; and flesh eating
ghouls would hide in caves and hollows, waiting for some unfortunate child to
veer off the beaten track on their way home through the woods. Scary stuff, eh?’

‘Nonsense!’ said Olivia. ‘Who could be
so simple to believe in all that? Everyone in their right mind knows that it’s
all a load of hocus-pocus claptrap.’

‘Not back then, they didn’t,’ Bronwyn said.
‘The symbols that Emily mentioned – the purpose of every one of them was to
ward off evil spirits, to prevent them from entering the village to bewitch the
local people and steal their livestock. Satan was believed to be just as
prevalent as God; using his trickery and magic to lure ordinary people into his
fold. The Bible is full of such tales, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a
surprise that people back then were susceptible to all manner of superstitions.’

‘And is it really so out of the ordinary
to believe in magic?’ Emily added. ‘I dare say we all know of at least one
person who swears blind to have seen a ghost or witnessed abnormal goings-on in
their house. When we were children, didn’t we all creep to the bottom of the
garden in the hope of catching a glimpse of fairies playing underneath the
bluebells? And Charlotte, when you tuck little Henry in his bed at night, does
he not insist on a nightlight or at least a story or two to see him off to
sleep?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose he does. And as a
child, I do remember how I used to love fairies. But we tend to grow out of all
that nonsense as we get older,’ replied Charlotte.

‘Do we really grow out of it? Even as
adults, are we not all guilty of mistaking an unfamiliar sound in the middle of
the night for something far worse than it actually is?’ said Bronwyn. ‘I’m
certainly not embarrassed to admit to occasionally sleeping with the light on
if I’ve watched a scary film, and following an evening at The Fallen Angel, I’m
more likely than not to look over my shoulder a couple of times on the way back
to the Youth Hostel - just in case. Our modern cynicism tells us that there
must be a rational explanation for everything, but there is a little part in
all of us that remains fearful of the bogeyman in the wardrobe.’

‘I see what you mean, when you put it
like that,’ said Olivia. ‘I must admit, I hate it when John is away on a
business trip. It can get very quiet here at night. But I wouldn’t go so far as
to nail a horseshoe to my door and sleep with a string of garlic around my
neck!’

The four ladies laughed together,
enjoying the conversation and each other’s company by the warmth of an open
fire on a cold, January day. ‘More tea, anyone?’ asked Emily, getting up to
refill the kettle and top up the milk jug.

‘There’s no denying that times have
moved on,’ Bronwyn continued, ‘but three hundred years ago there was no outside
world to tell us differently. People’s only source of expertise would come from
the vicar or the occasional visiting soothsayer, their advice lapped up by
locals who had no way of knowing any better. Sure enough, however, attitudes
did gradually shift, when bigotry and religious zeal swept throughout the land
and changed things forever.

‘Prior to around the seventeenth
century, if somebody needed medical help they would usually consult a ‘wise
woman’ from the village, in the hope of her being able to cure whatever ailment
happened to be causing them discomfort. But by the early 1600s, there was a
nationwide outcry against witchcraft that spread across Britain like an
uncontrollable forest fire. Shepherd’s Cross was no exception, and it didn’t
take long for the despicable forms of punishment famously handed out by the
witchfinder generals of southern England to reach these parts. Mass hysteria,
unflinchingly backed up by the confidence that it was God’s will, led to the
horrific torture and execution of many an innocent woman. Many of the
unfortunate victims were no more than demented old women; too ill and confused
to understand the accusations being made against them. The ‘wise woman’ was
relabelled a devil-worshipping witch, and following several excruciating and
impossible ‘tests of faith,’ which were designed with nothing more in mind than
to prove their guilt, they would be murdered right in front of the whole
village. Indeed, many of the villagers took no greater pleasure than witnessing
such acts being carried out. One might call it the ultimate sadistic form of
theatrical entertainment.’

‘You mean to say that innocent women,
well known to everyone in the village, were killed right before their eyes?’
asked Charlotte. ‘Why didn’t anyone try to stop them?’

‘And how were they killed?’ asked
Olivia, more keen on the grisly details than the questionable morality of the
subject.

‘Who would dare try to stop them?’ asked
Bronwyn. ‘For one thing, there was a good chance that anyone who tried to
defend the wretched victim would be branded as being in league with the Devil;
most likely suffering the same fate as a consequence. And secondly; as difficult
as this may be to understand, you need to appreciate that most people actually
believed in the expertise and righteousness of the accusers, who went about
their day-to-day business backed up by the unchallengeable authority of the
Almighty. Who were they to know better and to argue otherwise?

‘As for the manner of their execution,
Olivia, it tended to be either burning at the stake, or more commonly, death at
the hangman’s noose. It all depended on who was in charge; there wasn’t any
particular rationale for the method in which justice was handed out. However,
on a good number of occasions, the accused would have been tortured to death
before it reached that stage. Either by drowning or bleeding to death due to
the insertion of thick needles aimed at drawing out a confession of guilt.’

‘Oh my God, how absolutely barbaric!’
said Charlotte. ‘I’ve seen some of those old horror films where things like
that happened, but not for the life of me did I actually believe it happened in
real life. Are you serious – people here were actually burned alive?’

‘Deadly serious,’ replied Bronwyn. ‘And
if you look outside of Emily’s kitchen window, you can see the spot where most
of the executions took place.’

Charlotte and Olivia simultaneously
jumped to their feet and rushed over to the window. The kitchen backed onto the
village green; a small field marking the centre of Shepherd’s Cross. At the
southwest corner of the green stood All Saints’ Church, surrounded by a long
and unkempt graveyard; ancient headstones leaning at various angles and casting
disorderly midday shadows over the graves of the souls whose names they tried
in vain to immortalise. The Fallen Angel was situated at the opposite corner of
the green to the church; an old, stone tavern that had played its part in
inebriating locals and passing trade for almost three hundred years. While both
the church and the pub occupied equally favourable positions in the centre of
the village, over recent years it was fair to say that the pub had won the
battle to become the social hub of the community: a fact that Reverend Jackson
did not seem overly upset about; at least not publically. On the contrary, it
was widely observed that even the Reverend recently seemed to be spending more
time sitting at the bar these days than standing at the altar.