The Witch Maker (10 page)

‘You've lost me,' Woodend admitted.

Tyndale laughed, self-deprecatingly. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘When you know as much about the history of this village as I do, you're bound to make the occasional leap in your mind which leaves your listener behind. What I meant to say was that Meg's childlessness – either as a result of being barren or because she deliberately chose not to have children – was probably a very significant factor in her later decision to devote much of her considerable energy to ...'

But Woodend was no longer listening. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight had suddenly penetrated one of the small windows, illuminating a portrait which had previously been in semi-darkness. And it was this portrait which Woodend was now staring at – wide-eyed and awestruck.

The picture was, as far as Woodend could tell, at least three hundred and fifty years old. It was painted in oils, after the style of the Flemish School. Van Dyck or possibly Rubens. He wasn't sure which.

The background was dark – as was the fashion of the day – and the subject of the portrait was wearing a black dress with white lace at the collar and cuffs. The woman's hands rested demurely on her lap, but there was nothing demure in her expression. Rather there was a sexuality about it which most portraits of the time tended to suppress – a sexuality which seemed to have overpowered the artist and forced him to discard all the rules and conventions.

Woodend let his eyes dwell for a moment on the long blonde hair, then let them travel to the deep blue eyes, the slim nose and the sensuous mouth. Behind him, he heard the other man laugh.

‘Most people react like that to Meg's portrait,' Tyndale said, misreading – understandably – what was going on in Woodend's mind. ‘I suppose it's natural enough. When they're told they're going to see the picture of a witch, they expect to see a crone with a twisted nose and a face covered by warts. It comes as a real shock to them to realize just how beautiful she was.'

‘She
was
beautiful!' Woodend gasped.

‘And she knew it. She was so well aware of it, in fact, that she wanted her beauty celebrated. The artist she commissioned came all the way from York to paint her picture – which was several days' journey in those times. And, as you can see, he was a
real
artist. What Meg paid him for his work would have kept a whole family in this village alive for a year. I sometimes wonder if she knew that by having it painted, she was contributing to the resentment which eventually lead to her death. And then I wonder if she would really have cared if she
had
known. Vanity can sometimes blind even the wisest woman, don't you think?'

But Woodend had stopped listening again, and was off in a world of his own. He had never believed in ghosts, and in the picture of Meg Ramsden he saw nothing to change his mind. Yet what he was seeing still came as a shock. The portrait had been painted three hundred and fifty years earlier. The artist who had created it had long since turned to dust. Yet the face was still alive.

And not just on canvas! Woodend had seen it for himself – in the flesh – not more than a couple of hours earlier. It was the face of Mary Dimdyke!

T
he barn door swung open, and Mary Dimdyke entered, carrying a large mug of tea in each hand.

‘By the cringe, but you're a sight for my sore old eyes, Mary, lass,' her father said.

Mary smiled. ‘You're n ... not
old
, Dad.'

Tom Dimdyke returned the smile. ‘There's days when I feel a hundred an' fifty,' he said. ‘I'm not like this young lad here – our Witch Maker. Just gettin' out of bed is enough to bugger me these days.'

There was more banter behind the words than there was truth, Mary thought. Her dad was as vigorous as he'd ever been. And what pride he'd put into those three words – ‘our Witch Maker'.

‘I've b ... brought you some tea,' she said, holding out one of the mugs to her father.

Tom Dimdyke looked at it longingly, but shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, thank you, lass.'

‘S ... somethin' the matter with it, Dad?' Mary asked. ‘I m ... made it the w ... way you like it – so st ... strong you could st ... stand your spoon up in it.'

‘I'm sure it's just right, Mary, love, but I think I'll hold off on it a while,' her father told her, all the while making a frantic sideways gesture with his eyes.

And suddenly Mary understood what he meant, and why he looked so uncomfortable.

‘Here's your t ... tea, Wilf,' she said, holding out the other mug to her older brother.

Wilf took the mug with the barest nod of his head, and turned his mind back to the problem of Meg's left foot.

‘I think I'll have my mug now,' Tom said, and when Mary gave it to him, he slurped it down greedily.

‘Will you be w ... wantin' me to bring you anythin' else?' Mary asked.

Tom looked uncertain. ‘I'm not sure,' he said. ‘Will we be wantin' anythin' else, Wilf?'

The young man made no reply.

‘I was askin' if you thought we'd be wantin' anythin' else,' Tom Dimdyke said, louder this time.

‘A few ginger biscuits would be nice,' his son replied, not looking up from his work.

‘Aye, a few ginger biscuits would be grand,' Tom agreed gratefully. He ran his eyes quickly up and down his daughter's slim frame. ‘You look a proper picture, lass,' he said.

Mary glowed with pleasure. ‘Th ... thanks, Dad.'

‘Move into the doorway, where I can get a better look at you.'

Mary stepped back. ‘Is th ... this all right?'

‘Perfect,' Tom said. ‘The way the sunlight catches your hair is lovely. It'll look perfect on Sunday.'

The glow disappeared, and Mary rocked on her heels as if she'd been hit by a hammer. ‘But I th ... thought ...' she gasped.

‘You thought what?'

‘I th ... thought that after everythin' that's h ... happened ...'

‘Everythin' that's happened?'

‘Uncle H ... Harry ...'

‘Your Uncle Harry's death was a terrible, terrible thing, but it changes
nothin
',' Tom told her firmly.

Mary felt hot tears start to trickle down her soft cheeks. ‘W ... Wilf!' she sobbed.

Her anguish was so obvious that it managed even to permeate her brother's Witch-absorbed mind.

‘What's the matter?' he asked.

‘D ... Dad says that even though Uncle H ... Harry's dead, I'll still have to go th ... through with it.'

‘There's no point in appealin' to your brother, because he can't do anythin' about it,' Tom said, his voice suddenly harsh and unyielding.

Wilf's body stiffened. ‘What was that, Dad?' he asked.

‘I said there's no point in your sister appealin' to you.'

‘Is there not?'

‘No, there bloody isn't.'

For a moment it seemed as if Wilf would accept his father's judgement on the matter. Then Mary sobbed again.

Wilf straightened up. ‘She's my sister,' he said.

‘An' she's a child of this village,' his father told him. ‘She has Meg Ramsden's blood runnin' through her veins.'

‘That doesn't mean—'

‘Yes, it does. You
know
it does.'

The two men – father and son – faced each other across the effigy. Their fists were bunched, their eyes locked, and their noses almost touching.

A panic swept over Mary, so intense she felt that she could almost drown in it.

She
had caused this, she told herself. She alone had set the two men she cared most about in the world at each other's throats. If it came to blows, their father would win, despite the fact that Wilf was younger and stronger – because her brother, for all his rough talk, was gentle and kind, and simply did not have Tom's determination.

‘D ... Dad! W ... Wilf!' she pleaded. ‘There's n ... no need for this! We d ... don't want any trouble!'

‘Stay out of this, Mary,' Wilf said, his gaze still fixed on his father's. ‘So you think you can overrule me, do you, Dad?'

‘It's not me,' Tom said.

‘Isn't it?' Wilf looked around the barn. ‘Well, I certainly don't see anybody else here.'

‘You're the Witch Maker now,' Tom said. ‘I honour you for that. You have my respect, an' – whenever it's necessary – you have my total obedience an' all.'

‘So if I say that I don't want our Mary to have to go through the ordeal of havin' her—'

‘But even though you are the Witch Maker, there are some things you don't have any choice about,' Tom interrupted.

His father's eyes had begun to moisten over, Wilf noticed with astonishment.

His big, strong dad – the man who carried him for miles on his back when he was a kid – was almost on the point of tears which were every bit as deep and bitter as Mary's. It wrenched at his heart to see his father in such distress. But there was still Mary to consider – still Mary to protect.

‘If my position means anythin' at all—' he began.

‘Bein' the Witch Maker doesn't give you freedom,' Tom told him. ‘I thought you'd have realized that by now.'

‘Then what does it do?'

‘It's a burden. It's a responsibility. It binds you to what
has
to be done – even more tightly than it binds the rest of us.'

T
hrockston was only four miles from Hallerton. Yet it would have been impossible to confuse the two, Woodend thought as he parked the Wolseley outside the Wheatsheaf Inn.

It wasn't just that the outward signs of the twentieth century seemed to have reached this village in a way they had never managed to reach its neighbour. It wasn't even that the locals watched the two police officers' arrival with frank curiosity, but without any sign of hostility. Put simply, it was obvious from the moment he and Paniatowski stepped out of the car that even the air in Throckston seemed lighter and easier to breathe – as if, unlike the air in Hallerton, it was not forced to carry on it the heavy weight of three hundred and fifty years of history.

They took their luggage out of the boot of the Wolseley, and walked across the car park to the pub. A man sitting on the wall nodded to them, and they nodded back. The dog sitting at the man's feet looked up and wagged its tail.

‘It feels good to have got away from darkest Hallerton,' Woodend said.

‘Yes, it does,' Paniatowski agreed heartily.

Not that there'd been any choice in the matter. The landlord at the Black Bull had been adamant that he had no rooms available for them – or for anybody else, for that matter.

But every pub in this part of Lancashire let out rooms, Paniatowski had protested.

Maybe all the rest did, the landlord had replied. He wouldn't know about that. But he did know that this one didn't.

How about bed and breakfast places? Paniatowski had asked. Were there any widow ladies in the village who would welcome the chance to supplement their pensions by providing accommodation for a couple of police officers?

If there were any, the landlord told her, he didn't know about them. And neither, it seemed, did Constable Thwaites.

Thus, they had been forced to come to Throckston.

And thank God they had, Woodend thought, as he pushed open the public bar door and heard the happy buzz of conversation which had been wholly absent from the public bar of the Black Bull.

The landlord of the Wheatsheaf was a jolly, red-faced, balding man, wearing a bright check waistcoat which strained against his ample beer paunch.

As he slid the register across the counter for Woodend to sign, he said, ‘So you're investigatin' that murder of the Witch Maker, are you?'

‘That's right,' the Chief Inspector agreed.

‘Well, you'll have your work cut out for you, there's no doubt about that,' the landlord assured him. ‘They're funny folk over in Hallerton. Always were, an' always will be.'

‘You seem be talkin' from personal experience,' Woodend said.

‘
Bitter
experience,' the landlord replied. He chuckled. ‘An' I'm not talkin' about the kind of bitter that comes out of my pumps.'

‘Tell me about it,' Woodend suggested.

The landlord needed no further urging. ‘Well, when I was younger – an' didn't know any better – I tried to get off with a girl from Hallerton myself,' he said. ‘A lovely lass, she was, by the name of Bessie Potts.' He sighed, and a faraway look came into his eyes. ‘But it never came to anythin'.'

‘Why was that?' Woodend asked. ‘Didn't she fancy you back?'

‘Oh, she fancied me, all right.' The landlord paused and patted his stomach. ‘I wasn't born with this, you know. When I was young, I had a belly as flat as a washboard, an' an arse so tight you could have cracked walnuts in it. So as you can imagine, I never had any difficulty pullin' women.'

‘Except for this Bessie Potts,' Woodend prompted.

‘Like I said, she wasn't the problem. She'd have gone for a ramble on the moors with me at the drop of a hat. But she never had the chance, did she? I went to pick her up for what I suppose these days you might call “our first date” – an' she wasn't there.'

‘But someone else was?' Woodend guessed.

‘You're so smart you should be a detective,' the landlord said, laughing heartily at his own joke. ‘Yes, you're right, somebody else was there – half a dozen somebody elses, as a matter of fact.'

‘Local lads?'

‘That's what you'd have thought, isn't it? But it wasn't
lads
at all. These fellers were all old enough to have been my dad.' He chuckled again. ‘Nasty enough to have been that dad of mine, an' all.'

‘Did they hurt you?'

‘No, though I suppose it would have made a better story if they had've given me a beltin'.'