The Forgotten Cottage (17 page)

They walked towards the exit and down towards the steps where Kav was standing next to Will’s car with Debs the Crime Scene Investigator already suited and booted and getting ready to start processing it for any evidence. Kav took one look at Annie’s face and knew something was wrong; Jake began relaying it all to him then turned to catch Annie just in time before she passed out and hit the tarmac.

She woke up in the front seat of the CSI van being fanned with a crime scene logbook by Jake. He whispered, ‘Kav’s having a shit fit, wants you back in hospital and me and him to go to Will’s parents along with someone from Kendal CID.’

‘I’m okay; I haven’t eaten for God knows how many days. Please don’t let him send me back in there; I’ll only do one when his back’s turned and you know I will. Then I’ll probably fall out of the toilet window while I’m trying to escape and break my neck and it will all be your fault when you’re crying over me at my funeral. Just think of the guilt you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.’

‘Fuck me, that’s emotional blackmail and a half. I’ll tell him but he’s not happy. He wanted me to carry you up there.’

She began to laugh. ‘Then you’d have been in the bed next door, having a heart attack. Seriously, tell him I’m fine; I just need chocolate and Will.’ She felt her eyes brim with tears but blinked them back. Now was not the time to turn into a blubbering wreck. Kav would definitely send her back into the hospital.

Kav walked across to them both. ‘Right, plan of action is to take Annie home and get her dressed; we can’t have her upsetting the upstanding citizens of Barrow looking like that, and then Annie can direct us both to Will’s parents’ house so we can speak to them, see what the hell is going on. Is that okay with you both? Annie, are you well enough for this because, quite frankly, I don’t want you collapsing or, worse, dying on us; I need you to be able to keep it together.’

‘I’m fine. I just need something to eat and some clothes; it will take me five minutes.’

Kav nodded, satisfied for now. He knew that she would only be a complete pain in the arse if he left her behind.

Jake handed his keys to Debs. ‘Give them to whoever comes to get the car and tell them I abandoned it outside A & E. Thanks.’

She nodded, pocketed them and continued dusting for prints.

1782

Betsy opened one eye then tried to open the other and winced. Her head was throbbing, she couldn’t see clearly and for a moment she had no idea where she was or what was happening. A shadow fell across her as a man leant over her and then she remembered that she had been running away from them. He poked her in the chest with a stick and she flinched.

‘She’s alive, bit dazed but still breathing, unfortunately.’

She blinked to make her eyes focus. There were at least seven or eight men standing around her in a circle, looking down at her, and for the first time in her life she felt pure panic fill her lungs and steal all the air from inside, making it hard to breathe. Rough arms came down, gripping hers, and then she was lifted to her feet. She felt sick as the pain made her head feel as if it was on fire.

‘Well, then, what have you got to say for yourself, you murdering whore?’

Another voice spoke to the left of her. ‘Now, then, you all know what it says in the Holy Bible. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. I say we take her back to the house and hang her high from the beams. That will chase the devil from her. Satan won’t want anything to do with her once her body is left to rot. Let the birds peck her eyes out and the animals scavenge her flesh. It will be a lesson for everyone to see.’

Betsy felt bile rise in her throat and her stomach felt soured. It was all over. She knew that her life was going to end very soon and there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to cry and beg Joss’s forgiveness but she would not show these men such a sign of weakness so instead she began to laugh.

She let out a loud chuckle. ‘You foolish men, I am no witch. I tell you now; it is not the devil inside of me, as you may have yourselves believe. But if it makes you feel better then go on and believe your rubbish.’

A hand slapped her across the face, leaving red fingerprints across her cheek. She lifted her head to see Joss standing in front of her and knew it was him who had hit her.

‘Why, Betsy? Why would you want to kill my sons, my mother and father? Was I next? I loved you and this is how you repay me, by killing the people that mean the most to me.’

Before she could answer, he turned his back on her and walked away and she felt her stomach roll and a tear fell from her eye. She had wanted him all to herself; was that such a bad thing?

Another voice began to chant. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live; thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’

Over and over again, it was getting louder as more voices joined in and she shut her eyes. She felt herself being dragged forward and knew they were taking her to the house that she had longed to be her home, but there was nothing she could do. She wasn’t strong enough to overcome seven grown men and she had nothing left now that Joss had turned his back on her.

It didn’t take very long before they reached her beloved house that had started all of this. Her vegetable garden was still a mess from when the boys had thrown the soil and seedlings everywhere and there was the big hole that she had frantically dug in the middle of the other. She wondered if dying would hurt. There was a lot of chanting, pushing and shoving. A rough rope was hooked around her neck, the strands so coarse they were cutting into her flesh even before it tightened. She opened her eyes to look at them, the men who were going to kill her and take her away from her beloved Joss.

‘I’m no witch, you fools; I just wanted to be on my own with Joss. I’ll tell you one thing, though—I do like to kill people… I very much enjoyed killing my mother, listening to her groans of agony. Don’t think that I won’t come back for you all once I’m dead, because I will haunt each and every one of you until the day you all die and then you can meet me face to face once more. This time it will be one on one and we will see how brave you are then.’

Betsy felt them pause; her words had struck fear into some of them. She knew every single one of them because they all drank in the pub she had worked at; she knew where they lived and hoped they would spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. She looked at Marcus then nodded for them to get on with it.

The rope went taut and she gasped, her fingers automatically reaching up to try to loosen it. She felt her feet lift from the ground. She looked around to see where Joss was and saw him standing at the back of the crowd, a shovel in his hand ready to bury her, but what made her eyes pop open and her heart stop beating was the sight of her mother standing next to him, with rotting flesh hanging from her bones, her arms stretched open wide and a huge grin spread across her mottled green face that had black sockets for eyes. Betsy began to frantically kick her legs and pull at the rope around her neck, wanting to be free, not wanting to have to meet her mother again, but there was nothing she could do and she began to lose consciousness…

***

As Betsy took her last breath the men around her began to panic, and the two holding the rope bent their heads.

‘What have we done?’

The words broke the silence. Joss looked around. He didn’t know who had spoken them but he felt as if his whole world had crashed down onto his shoulders. He didn’t look at the woman who had once held his heart in her hands and at the same time taken it and ripped it in two. He turned and walked across to the vegetable beds he had spent a full day digging and preparing for her to grow her own vegetables in. She had been so sweet and funny when he’d met her.

He went to the hole that she had begun—one big enough to put her body in. Two of the others joined him and they began to dig, and before long the hole was deep enough. Joss didn’t want to touch her; he didn’t want her corpse in his garden either but if the law got hold of this they would all surely hang as well for were they not just as bad as she was? He wiped his brow with his sleeve; it was warm work digging.

He turned to Marcus, who had been the ringleader in all of this. ‘Cut her down and put her in that hole.’

‘I thought you might want to leave the witch there for a few days, let the locals see what happens when you dare to mess with us.’

‘Are you serious? We have just killed her in cold blood, hung her like a pig about to be slaughtered and you want to leave her there hanging, dead and rotting, from my front doorstep for the whole village to see? Just bloody cut her down, Marcus, and be done with it and may God forgive us for our sins.’

Joss stood with his back to them; he couldn’t watch. There was some grunting and a loud thud as Betsy’s body hit the ground. He didn’t watch them carry her over to the hole and put her in it. Instead, he passed his spade to the man nearest to him so he could begin to cover her. They worked fast and before long the only sign of what had happened was a mound of fresh soil.

Joss nodded at the men who had buried her. ‘I have no desire to talk about this to anyone and neither should any of you. Let us all hope that no one cares enough to wonder what happened today or to ask the whereabouts of Betsy Baker. If anyone should ask, you should tell them that you don’t know and the last you heard was she was leaving and going to the next village.’

Seth, who was the youngest of them all, looked across at Joss. ‘Do you think she meant what she said? Was she a witch, Joss? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life terrified she’s coming to get me.’

‘No, Seth, I do not believe that she was a witch and I do not believe that she can come and haunt us or scare us to death. I believe she was trying to scare us into letting her go and maybe we should have.’

The men all turned and looked at Joss and shook their heads.

‘How can you say that? Are your family not lying dead because of her and, judging by the gash on your head, you would have been too. We did the right thing, Joss.’

Joss nodded then walked out of his gate and up the road towards the village and Dr Johnson’s house. He was numb inside, his heart felt as if it was made of stone but he forced himself to move one leg after the other and keep on walking away from his home and the bodies of his children. He prayed to God the whole time for his forgiveness and for the souls of his family. He hoped that his wife, Elizabeth, who had died so suddenly, had been waiting for their boys when they passed over and had been able to comfort them in their hour of need. Joss didn’t really care what happened to him now; in fact he did not know if he wanted to live or die. He would bury his family and then decide whether or not to join them.

He finally reached the large house which was Dr Johnson’s home and surgery. The doctor’s housekeeper, who was a cousin of his, stepped out of the front door to greet Joss, running down the steps to hug him.

‘I’m so sorry Joss, I really am. Come inside and get your head looked at…it needs cleaning up.’

He followed her inside, weary and far too afraid to go home.

Chapter Thirteen

It took Annie five minutes to get dressed, clean her teeth and put her hair in a ponytail. It took her ten minutes to stop herself from crying as she lay on Will’s side of the bed, holding his pillow close to her face. She knew she was being overly dramatic but there was no way she could live without him; he was her life. She also knew that Will was just as competent at fighting as she was; they all learnt the hard way as new recruits fighting with the drunks on a Saturday night. They all did intense self-defence refreshers every single year so technically Will should be able to hold his own against a woman. It bothered Annie that Amelia must have an accomplice; she wouldn’t be strong enough to do this on her own. What if she had a gun…what if?

‘Annie, are you okay? Still breathing up there?’ Jake’s voice snapped her out of the vision she had been about to see.

‘I’m fine, thanks; coming now.’

She got off the bed and kissed Will’s pillow, pulled a tissue from the box and blew her nose and then went downstairs and out of the front door, slamming it shut behind her. Jake and Kav were sitting in the front of the panda and she opened the door and climbed in the back. She opened a multi pack of chocolate bars and offered one to each of them. Kav shook his head but Jake took one. Neither of them spoke to her; she looked like shit and for once Jake didn’t blurt it out and embarrass her. In fact she felt like shit; her head was pounding and she felt sick and her chest was so sore it hurt every time she took a deep breath.

With hands that were trembling, she ripped open a chocolate bar and bit it in half. There was something so soothing about it and as she slowly chewed on it she felt a little bit better. Finishing the first and starting on the second, she knew she needed the energy and the comfort that it brought. Kav was busy on the radio, speaking to someone from Kendal CID, and Jake was driving. Annie tried to blank everything out and just concentrate on staring at the road through the gap in the seats, otherwise she would end up being sick all over the car and then Kav would go mental. Jake had the blues on but no sirens and they got through the standing traffic at Ulverston and Greenodd in no time. Pretty soon, they were turning off on the road to Bowness.

‘Just keep going; it’s one of the houses just past the big hotel on the left hand side. I think it’s Storrs Hall. I’ll tell you when to slow down.’

Jake drove fast but cautiously, which made her feel a little better as she hated his driving with a passion. The road was quiet, no traffic jams or coaches, and for once luck seemed to be on her side.

‘Slow down now and it’s the next one along,; once you pull in there’s a narrow drive which opens up.’

Jake followed her orders and indicated he was turning left; as the drive opened up so did Jake and Kav’s mouths.

‘Bloody hell! I never knew his parents were this rich. All these years we’ve known him and he’s never said a word—no wonder you can’t wait to marry him.’