Scarlet Widow

by Graham Masterton

  At last the brown-cloaked man pushed Jonathan Shooks up against the open kitchen door. Very gradually he levered Jonathan Shooks’s arm upwards until the point of the boning knife was only a half-inch away from his right eyeball.

  There was a long quivering moment when both men were straining their utmost. Jonathan Shooks was already wearing a beard of blood and whenever he grunted he sprayed blood into the brown-cloaked man’s beard.

  Beatrice wanted to shout out, ‘No!’ but she could only watch them in horror. She didn’t even know who the brown-cloaked man was. He could be a madman. If he were to kill Jonathan Shooks, he might very well come for her next.

  The moment of impasse seemed to go on and on. But Jonathan Shooks was losing so much blood that his knees were starting to sag and his head was dropping forward. With a last grunt the brown-cloaked man pushed the point of the boning knife deep into his eye. His eyeball popped, but the brown-cloaked man didn’t stop pushing. The blade slid in at least four inches and must have pierced his brain.

  Now, however, the brown-cloaked man released his grip. He took two steps back, his chest rising and falling with exhaustion. Jonathan Shooks feebly raised his left hand, pawing at the air, but he was too weak now to reach the knife handle that was protruding from his eye socket. He slid sideways on to the floor, leaving a semicircular smear of blood on the pinewood door. He twitched once, and then again, but then he lay still and his left eye misted over.

  The brown-cloaked man turned to Beatrice, showing her his bloodstained hands.

  ‘I should wash this off,’ he told her, in a voice that was little more than a croak.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’

  ‘Hurt you?’ said the brown-cloaked man. ‘I thought I had just saved your life.’

  He limped to the sink, holding his side. He stared at the pump but he didn’t seem to have the strength to draw himself any water.

  Beatrice approached him cautiously. ‘I have seen you again and again, among the trees,’ she told him.

  ‘Among the trees, yes. That’s where I’ve been living most of the time.’

  ‘But who are you? What have you been doing here? Was it you who left me that perfume, and those wild flowers, and that message?’

  The brown-cloaked man nodded.

  ‘You’re hurt,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’d best take a look at it. Take off your cloak.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll live.’

  ‘No, I insist. Take off your cloak.’

  Wincing, the brown-cloaked man lifted his cloak over his head. Beatrice helped him to pull it over his head and then she dropped it on the floor. Underneath, the man was thin and white-skinned, and he smelled as if he hadn’t washed in a very long time. All he was wearing beneath his cloak was a pair of stained white cotton britches and sandals.

  The knife wound between his ribs was oozing blood. Beatrice wiped it and then handed him the rag and said, ‘Keep that pressed against it. I’m going to go upstairs and fetch a sheet to bind it with. Also, I have to rescue my son. He must think that I have deserted him forever.’

  She dragged out a kitchen chair for him and said, ‘There. Sit down. The less you exert yourself the better.’

  She stepped past the body of Jonathan Shooks and then hurried upstairs. Noah had been crying so much that his face was red and smothered in tears. Beatrice picked him up and then went to the linen chest at the end of her bed and took out one of her older sheets. She carried Noah back down to the kitchen. The man was still sitting at the kitchen table but he was looking glassy-eyed now and leaning on his elbow as if he were close to collapse.

  Beatrice put Noah in his high-chair and gave him a biscuit to keep him quiet for a few minutes. Noah turned his head and looked in bewilderment at the bloodied body of Jonathan Shooks lying sideways on the floor, and then at the skinny, grubby, half-naked man with his long brown hair and his big brown beard. Beatrice tore strips off the sheet and bandaged the man’s chest as tightly as she could. While she did so, he stared at her but said nothing.

  At last, when she had pinned the bandage together, she stood back and said, ‘There. Once the bleeding has stopped, I’ll apply some goldenseal tincture to it and that will guard against any infection.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I knew that you would know how to treat me.’

  ‘You know me?’

  He nodded and then squeezed his eyes tight shut as he felt a stab of pain in his side.

  ‘So how is it that you know me? Who are you? Do I know you?’

  ‘It was all a long time ago, Beatrice. You probably never thought that I was worthy of being remembered.’

  ‘Should I remember you? From where?’

  ‘ I was very foolish then, and reckless, but in my own way I fell in love with you the moment I first saw you, and I have always loved you, ever since.’

  ‘You know my name,’ said Beatrice. She sat down in the chair next to him and stared intently at his face. It was then that he looked up and sideways and she recognized who he was.

  ‘Jeremy! Dear Lord, you’re Jeremy!’

  He tried to laugh, but all he could do was cough and nod his head again.

  ‘But I don’t understand! What are you doing here in New Hampshire? I thought you were in Manchester, working with your brothers! Why are you dressed like that? Why didn’t you come to the house sooner? Have you been living in the woods? You’re so thin!’

  Jeremy gave her a regretful smile. ‘You know what I used to be like. Always drunk, always thieving, never caring for anything or anybody. The only person I ever really cared for was you, and what a mess I made of that. Francis was much your better choice for a husband.’

  ‘But what happened, Jeremy? How did you get here, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘I fell out with my brothers because I was always drunk and never did any work. In the end I decided to follow your example and come to the colonies to make a fresh start. I used my inheritance to start up a trading company in Ipswich with a fellow I knew from Birmingham. We didn’t do too badly until my partner skipped off with all of my money and left me high and dry.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come and ask us for help? We would have helped you!’

  ‘I love you, Bea! But look at me! Look at my condition! This cloak is all I have in the world. How could I approach you like this, like some cadge-gloak? I nearly came to your door but each time I lost my nerve, and in any case Francis wouldn’t have been happy about it, would he?’

  ‘You could afford to give me perfume.’

  ‘I stole it, what do you think? That’s how low I am.’

  ‘But you came here today and you saved my life, and little Noah’s life, too.’

  Jeremy looked across at Noah playing with the crumbs of his broken biscuit. ‘Is that his name? Noah? That’s a good name. Noah, who saved whatever he could when his whole world was drowned.’

  Beatrice stood up. ‘I’m going to call my labourers and have them take away this – this—’ she nodded her head towards Jonathan Shooks, but she couldn’t bring herself to say his name. ‘I’ll send to the village, too, to the magistrate, and let him know what’s happened. I will testify that you saved my life, Jeremy, don’t worry. In any event, he was wanted for murder and extortion and they will thank you rather than condemn you.’

  ‘Thank you, Bea.’

  ‘Our first priority must be for your wound to heal. We must feed you properly and make sure that you rest, and clothe you properly, too. I am sure that Francis would not have begrudged you some of his shirts and britches, even if he were still alive.’

  ‘Bea, you owe me nothing. Everything that has happened to me has been of my own making. I was a drunk and a fool. Had I not been so blind I would have seen that my partner was cheating me, right left and centre. I am simply glad that I was close by when I saw that man approaching your house. Ever since Francis passed away, I have been keeping a watch on you. I know – that sounds as if I am obsessed with you, does
n’t it? Perhaps I am. But I will not be a burden to you, nor an embarrassment. I love you too much for that.’

  Beatrice said, ‘Jeremy, you are my cousin and you are going to stay here and get well, and only after that will we decide what you can do next.’

  She lifted Noah out of his high-chair and said, ‘Noah, I want you to meet your Uncle Jeremy. Can you say “Uncle Jeremy”?’

  Thirty-five

  Three days later, when Beatrice was weeding the garden, Major General Holyoke came around the side of the house.

  ‘Beatrice!’ he called out. ‘Good morning to you!’

  Jeremy was sitting on a kitchen chair by the side of the vegetable patch, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat that used to belong to Francis, and one of Francis’s shirts and a pair of his pale blue britches. He had shaved off his beard and Beatrice had cut his hair, and although he was still pale he looked at least human, not like the wild beast in the brown cloak who had rescued Beatrice from Jonathan Shooks.

  Beatrice had been applying goldenseal tincture and garlic to his wound and had dressed it freshly twice a day, and it seemed to be healing well, although he still complained of a pain in his chest.

  ‘Major General Holyoke,’ Beatrice greeted him. ‘You haven’t met my cousin Jeremy. He was the hero who saved us when Jonathan Shooks came here to murder us.’

  Major General Holyoke shook Jeremy’s hand. ‘You did this community a great service, sir. I thank you. How are you, Beatrice? Are you well?’

  Beatrice laid down her hoe. ‘I am quite well, thank you. Can I offer you tea, or cider?’

  ‘I thank you, but no. This is not really a social visit. I have come to show you two things. If you would be kind enough to follow me back to my carriage?’

  Beatrice wiped her hands on her apron and followed Major General Holyoke around to the front of the house. His shiny maroon chaise was standing there, with his coachman standing beside it talking to Mary. Sitting in the chaise, wrapped in a shawl, was the Widow Belknap. When she saw Beatrice she smiled and weakly raised her hand.

  ‘Widow Belknap!’ said Beatrice. ‘I am so delighted they found you! How are you?’

  ‘My mind is still full of fancies,’ said the Widow Belknap hoarsely. ‘I still believe that I can see people who are not really there, and hear voices in my head. I still believe sometimes that I can fly, or walk on water. But Doctor Merrydew says that will pass in time.’

  ‘Where did they find her?’ Beatrice asked Major General Holyoke.

  ‘Not far from the lake where you said that you had seen her. She was quite naked and chewing tree bark. I doubt if she would have survived very much longer. Thank the Lord you sent us out looking for her.’

  ‘There is no way that I can thank you, Goody Scarlet,’ said the Widow Belknap.

  ‘I am a relict now, as you are,’ said Beatrice. ‘You should call me Widow Scarlet.’

  The Widow Belknap nodded. ‘Yes... yes, they told me that the Reverend Scarlet had passed away. I am very sad for you. I know what grief is like. It is a kind of madness. In some ways it is even worse than the madness that I am suffering now. At least I know that my sanity will soon return to me, but not my dear dead husband.’

  She paused, and then she said, ‘I have to confess to poisoning your horse, Goody Scarlet. I fed him with yew leaves even as you and the Reverend Scarlet spoke to me. I was angry with you for suggesting that I would cast such wicked spells on my neighbours. I meant only to make the animal sick and cause you to have to walk home. I did not think for a moment that it would die. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart.’

  ‘It’s forgotten,’ said Beatrice. ‘Just as so much else should be forgotten, and forgiven, too.’

  She turned to Major General Holyoke. ‘Did you not say that you had two things to show me?’

  ‘Aha!’ said Major General Holyoke. He went round to the trunk at the rear of his chaise and opened it up. ‘This contraption we discovered in Mr Shooks’s calash. I would say that this is all the evidence we require for a posthumous conviction, wouldn’t you?’

  He lifted out a two long rods made of oak, which were joined together by a short crossbar, like a pair of legs. On the end of each rod was a cloven hoof, which looked as if it had been cut from a goat. Each hoof was stained with a dark, sticky-looking substance. Beatrice didn’t have to smell it to recognize what it was.

  ‘The Devil’s hoof prints,’ said Major General Holyoke. ‘A very simple device indeed, but one that very successfully played on our fears.’

  Beatrice heard Noah calling out. She looked around and saw Jeremy walking around the house, holding Noah’s hand.

  We came here to make a new life, she thought. We wanted to leave behind all the myths and superstitions of the Old World. But we brought our fears of devils and demons along with us.

  She promised herself then that she would bring Noah up to fear nobody and nothing.

  *

  Six weeks passed. Jeremy grew stronger every day and was soon able to help in the garden, and with feeding the pigs, and with painting the parsonage ready for winter. Beatrice, on the other hand, began to feel increasingly tired, and her breasts and her ankles were swollen. She hadn’t had a period since the week before Francis was killed.

  She had no way of proving it, but she was sure that she was pregnant. She stood looking at herself in the mirror in the parlour and because of the distortion in the glass she was unsure if she was expressionless or if she was secretly smiling to herself.

  If she was pregnant, she couldn’t be sure whose child she was carrying. With Francis, she hadn’t conceived since Noah, and Jonathan Shooks had taken her in such a way that conception seemed remote.

  She looked out of the parlour window and she could see that the leaves of the oaks along the driveway were already turning yellow. Even with Noah and Jeremy and all her friends in the congregation, she had never felt so alone in her life.

  ~

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  The next gripping instalment in The Scarlet Widow series will be released in autumn 2017

  To read an exclusive preview of the first thrilling book in the Katie Maguire series, read on or click the image

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  About Graham Masterton

  About the Scarlet Widow series

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  Read on for a preview of

  One wet, windswept November morning, a field on Meagher’s farm gives up the dismembered bones of eleven women...

  Their skeletons bear the marks of a meticulous butcher. The bodies date back to 1915. All were likely skinned alive.

  But then a young woman goes missing, and her remains, the bones carefully stripped and arranged in an arcane pattern, are discovered on the same farm.

  With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, D.S. Katie Maguire must solve a decades-old murder steeped in ancient legend... before this terrifying killer strikes again.

  Can’t wait? Buy it here now!

  1

  John had never seen so many hooded crows circling around the farm as he did that wet November morning. His father always used to say that whenever you saw more than seven hooded crows gathered together, they had come to gloat over a human tragedy.

  It was tragedy weather, too. Curtains of rain had been trailing across the Nagle Mountains since well before dawn, and the north-west field was so heavy that it had taken him more than three hours to plow it. He was turning the tractor around by the top corner, close to the copse called Iollan’s Wood, when he saw Gabriel frantically waving from the gate.

  John waved back. Jesus, what did the idiot want now? If you gave Gabriel a job to do, you might just as well do it yourself, because he was always asking what to do next, and was it screws or nails you wanted, and what sort of wood were you after having this made from? John kept on steadily plowin
g, with big lumps of sticky mud pattering off the wheels, but Gabriel came struggling up the field toward him, still waving, with crows irritably flapping all around him. He was obviously shouting, too, although John couldn’t hear him.

  As Gabriel came puffing up to him in his raggedy old brown tweeds and gumboots, John switched off the tractor’s engine and took off his ear-protectors.

  “What’s wrong now, Gabe? Did you forget which end of the shovel you’re supposed to be digging with?”

  “There’s bones, John! Bones! So many fecking bones you can’t even count them!”

  John wiped the rain off his face with the back of his hand. “Bones? Where? What kind of bones?”

  “Under the floor, John! People’s bones! Come and see for yourself! The whole place looks like a fecking graveyard!”

  John climbed down from the tractor and ankle-deep into the mud. Close up, Gabriel smelled strongly of stale beer, but John was quite aware that he drank while he worked, even though he went to considerable pains to conceal his cans of Murphy’s under a heap of sacking at the back of the barn.

  “We was digging the foundations close to the house when the boy says there’s something in the ground here, and he digs away with his fingers and out comes this human skull with its eyes full of dirt. Then we were after digging some more and there was four more skulls and bones like you never seen the like of, leg-bones and arm-bones and finger-bones and rib-bones.”

  John strode long-legged down toward the gate. He was tall and dark, with thick black hair and almost Spanish good looks. He had only been back in Ireland for just over a year, and he was still finding it difficult to cope with running a farm. One sunny May morning he had been just about to close the door of his apartment on Jones Street in San Francisco when the telephone had rung, and it had been his mother, telling him that his father had suffered a massive stroke. And then, two days later, that his father was dead.