The Witch Maker (28 page)

Woodend shook his head, amazed at how easy it had become for him to tune his brain into the villagers' way of seeing things. He had learned a great deal during his time in Hallerton, he thought, but perhaps the biggest step was to finally accept that the villagers didn't
mind
making sacrifices and undergoing discomfort.

Didn't
mind
? he repeated mentally.

No, it was worse that that – and far more frightening. They
welcomed
the opportunity to suffer!

‘What is you want?' Tom Dimdyke demanded.

‘To talk,' Woodend said.

‘Now?'

‘Now!' Woodend turned to the landlord. ‘Have you got a room where we can have a bit of privacy?'

The landlord glanced in Tom Dimdyke's direction for guidance, but it was Wilf who nodded his assent.

‘There's a little parlour at the back,' the landlord said. ‘You'll be private enough there.'

‘I'm sure we will,' Woodend agreed. ‘Well then, let's get it over with, shall we?'

And though he could have been addressing anybody at all in the bar, it was only Tom and Wilf who rose to their feet.

‘There's some good comes out of the way you lot take the law into your own hands in this village, an' I won't deny it,' Woodend said, once they had adjourned to the back parlour. ‘Take that old feller I was talkin' to yesterday, as an example.'

‘What about him?' Tom Dimdyke asked suspiciously.

‘The Great War was a terrible thing,' Woodend said. ‘Whole villages just stood by, while their young men were led away to be slaughtered like cattle on the battlefields of Flanders. But that didn't happen here, did it? Your young men deserted before they got to France, an' the village hid them. In fact, fifty years later, the village is
still
hidin' them.'

‘I don't know what you're talkin' about,' Tom Dimdyke protested.

‘Of course you do,' Woodend said dismissively. ‘The old feller I had a drink with said his name was Oswald Warburton. But that was a lie. The real Oswald Warburton died in 1912. I know, because I've seen his grave. This Oswald Warburton borrowed his name – because he didn't dare use his own.'

Tom Dimdyke suddenly looked frightened. But he was not frightened for himself, Woodend thought. He was frightened that he had failed in his responsibility to others.

‘You'll ... you'll not tell the Army, will you?' he asked.

‘No,' Woodend replied. ‘I assured old Oswald – or whatever his real name is – that he had nothin' to fear from me. An' I meant it. As a policeman, I can't condone what the village did in 1914, but I like to think that if I'd been here at the time, I'd have done the same myself. So I'll overlook it. But there are other things I can't overlook – other things which
nobody
should overlook. Do you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr Dimdyke?'

Tom Dimdyke shook his head forcefully.

‘All right, if you won't come clean, I'll just have to spell it all out,' Woodend said. ‘An' that could be a long process, because we have to go a fair way back in history to start makin' any sense of this whole bloody mess, don't we?'

Dimdyke said nothing.

‘How far back, I'm not sure,' Woodend continued. ‘Maybe you can help me there, Tom. When
was
it that the Witch Maker was given licence to have his pick of the women in this village?'

Tom Dimdyke glanced briefly at his son, and then turned his attention back to Woodend.

‘Does Wilf have to be here?' he asked, in a tone which was as close to a plea as the Chief Inspector had ever heard him come.

‘Why
shouldn't
Wilf be here?' Woodend countered. ‘He
is
the Witch Maker, when all's said an' done. What we're goin' to talk about surely can't come as any news to him.'

‘The new Witch Maker isn't told of his ... of his rights ... until after the Witch Burnin' is over,' Tom Dimdyke said. ‘I would have had a word with him about it tonight.'

But he already knew, Woodend thought, looking at Wilf's face. Somebody had
already
told him.

‘So it wasn't to be until tonight that you revealed the fact that he could get his end away whenever he felt like it?' he said to Tom Dimdyke.

Dimdyke shook his head in disgust. ‘It isn't like that. You don't understand,' he said.

‘Then explain it so I will.'

‘The Witch Maker has needs like any other man. But he
isn't
like the rest of us. He must dedicate his life to the Witch. He must abandon all thoughts, from the very beginnin', of a normal childhood and a normal young manhood. He must give up any hope of havin' a family of his own – for that can only deflect him from his true purpose.'

‘I'm not sure you're bein' strictly honest with me there, Tom,' Woodend told him.

‘I don't know what you're—'

‘Still, I suppose we can leave the subtleties for later discussion. As far as the point I was about to make goes, the simple truth of the matter is that every woman in the village – except, of course, for the Dimdyke women, who are excluded on the grounds of bein' immediate family – is expected to offer herself as fodder for the Witch Maker's bed whenever he feels the urge. Isn't that right?'

‘No.'

Woodend sighed. ‘You're playin' games with me, Mr Dimdyke. You know as well as I do that what I meant when I said
every
woman was every
married
woman. Because that's the way it is, isn't it? The Witch Maker gets all of the fun out of it – an' none of the responsibility.'

‘The women are expected to give him relief, yes,' Tom Dimdyke said. ‘It is a service they perform for him, just as others perform the service of workin' to keep him clothed an' fed.'

‘It can't be as simple as that. Human relationships never are.'

‘It
is
that simple,' Tom Dimdyke insisted. ‘It is duty, not lust, which drives them. They are not being unfaithful to their husbands – because the husbands both know and approve.'

Woodend nodded. ‘Yes, I can almost see that workin' out,' he said. ‘At least, I can see it workin' out
some
of the time. But what happens when the man who becomes Witch Maker is an evil bastard – like your brother was?'

‘For a man to be either good or evil, he must have choices,' Tom Dimdyke said. ‘And the Witch Maker has
no
choice. His path is set for him, an' all he can do is to follow it.'

He believed in the words he was speaking, Woodend thought, but they were not his own. He was quoting – reciting an article of faith which had been passed down from generation to generation.

The minds of the people in this village were chained to a rock of belief almost from birth – and if a chief inspector from the outside was going to produce a solution to this case which would stand up in court, he would first have to break that chain.

Woodend turned his head towards Wilf Dimdyke. ‘The path is set,' he said. ‘Is that what you think, an' all?'

‘You heard what my father told you,' Wilf replied.

‘Aye, but I was askin' you, not him,' Woodend said. ‘An' you're the one who should really know what you're talkin' about – because you're the Witch Maker now.'

‘The path is set,' Wilf said firmly.

‘You're sure about that, are you?'

‘There was a time when I thought it might not be – but I was mistaken.'

‘Now that
is
interestin',' Woodend said. ‘So you're willin' to admit that you've had your doubts.'

‘Leave the boy alone!' Tom Dimdyke said angrily.

‘He's
not
a boy,' Woodend replied harshly. ‘He's the Witch Maker. If he can't defend himself, how the bloody hell can he be expected to defend the rest of you?'

Tom Dimdyke bowed his head, but said nothing.

‘However, I
am
prepared to leave Wilf out of it for the moment,' Woodend conceded.

‘Thank you,' Tom Dimdyke said humbly.

‘So shall we get back to talkin' about choices, Tom?'

‘If that is what you wish,' Dimdyke answered, his expression saying more clearly than words ever could that he was very willing to put himself in the firing line if, by doing so, he could take the pressure off his son.

‘You're wrong when you say the Witch Maker doesn't have choices,' Woodend said. ‘The path may be set, but there are many different ways a man can walk along it. For instance, when he takes another man's wife to his bed he can treat her like a human bein'. Or he can be so brutal with her – treat her so much like an object – that she ends up killin' herself. Am I ringin' any bells for you here, Tom? Would it help if I came out with a few names of women who've been brutalized in that way?'

‘If the women truly believe in the nobility of their purpose, then there is no shame nor humiliation in whatever they have to endure,' Tom Dimdyke replied.

‘The problem is, some of them didn't,' Woodend reminded him. ‘An' neither did Zelda Todd. Why
should
she have? She wasn't from the village. She wasn't devoted to any sacred mission.'

‘You're mocking us now,' Tom Dimdyke said accusingly.

Woodend shook his head gravely. ‘No, I'm not. I'd have to think somethin' was ridiculous before I mocked it, an' I've learned to take very seriously what's been goin' on in this village for the last three hundred an' fifty years. But what about Zelda Todd, Tom? She was an innocent young girl. A virgin. An' then she met your brother, who had just burnt his Witch, just been told he could have any woman he fancied, an' thought he was God Almighty. An' he raped her. How's that for stickin' to the path?'

‘He did wrong,' Tom admitted. ‘Very great wrong.'

‘Shut up, Dad!' Wilf said. ‘Don't admit anythin'.'

‘Why not?' his father asked, with a shrug. ‘What's the point in denyin' somethin' to him that he clearly already knows.'

‘Your brother Harry wasn't worthy to be the Witch Maker, was he?' Woodend demanded.

‘No,' Tom Dimdyke said reluctantly. ‘He wasn't.'

‘It should have been you there in his place, shouldn't it?'

‘That we will never know. Perhaps I would have been as unworthy as my brother.'

‘You might say that, but you don't really believe it. Not deep down inside yourself,' Woodend told him. ‘Anyway, we're gettin' side-tracked again. After Harry had raped the girl, even
he
saw that he'd gone too far. He came back to the village in a complete panic, didn't he?'

Tom Dimdyke nodded.

‘He needed somebody to get him out of the mess, an' that somebody was you. You gave him a ten bob note, an' told him to go back to the funfair to try to buy the girl off. But at the same time, you prepared yourself for any trouble there might be as a result of what he'd done. An' there was trouble – in the form of a young lad called Stan Dawkins.'

‘Please shut up, Dad!' Wilf begged.

‘Why should you
want
him to shut up?' Woodend asked, sounding puzzled. ‘What's he got to hide? Isn't the whole life of this village built on doin' what you see as the right thing?'

‘Yes.'

‘An' isn't part of that bein' prepared to stand up afterwards an'
admit
what you've done?'

‘Yes, but ...'

‘Ah, I see your problem,' Woodend told the young Witch Maker. ‘You think your dad killed Stan Dawkins for an
unworthy
reason – that he only did it to protect his no-good brother. But that wasn't the case at all, was it, Tom?'

‘No,' Tom Dimdyke said.

‘Dad ...!'

‘When he killed Dawkins, it wasn't his brother he was protectin' – it was the office of the Witch Maker. He did it for the village. An' for you!'

‘For me?' Wilf Dimdyke asked.

‘Of course.'

‘I was a baby!'

‘But you were destined to grow up to be the Witch Maker. An' who could teach you the necessary skills if your uncle was servin' a long prison sentence for rape?'

‘Is this true, Dad?' Wilf Dimdyke demanded.

‘Even if the girl had been willin' to keep quiet about what had happened, Dawkins would never have let it rest,' Tom Dimdyke said regretfully. ‘He'd have gone to the police, whatever I said.'

‘So it
was
you!' Wilf gasped. ‘You really did kill him!'

‘I only wanted the best for you.'

‘But I never asked ... I never wanted ...'

‘There was so little else I could do for you. The Witch Maker was all, and I was nothing. This one thing, at least, was within my power.'

‘Let me get this straight, Mr Dimdyke,' Woodend said. ‘You're confessin' to the murder of Stan Dawkins now, are you?'

‘Yes, I'm confessin'. I did it. I knew he didn't deserve to die, but I couldn't see any other way out.'

‘I've no real evidence against you, you know. Even now, if you retracted your confession, I'd probably be hard put to get a conviction.'

‘I know.'

‘So why confess at all? Is it that it doesn't really matter whether or not you confess to this murder, since you're just about to confess to another one?'

‘That's right,' Tom Dimdyke agreed. ‘I not only killed Stan Dawkins, I also killed my own brother.'

‘Why? Because you resented the fact that he'd become Witch Maker instead of you? Because, over the years, your resentment grew into hatred?'

‘Yes.'

‘It'd be a very neat an' tidy endin' to the case if that was the truth,' Woodend said. ‘The only problem is, it's a load of bollocks.'

‘I swear—'

‘Oh, I don't doubt for a second that you killed Stan Dawkins – that you beat him to death. But your brother Harry wasn't beaten, was he? He was garrotted.'