That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  “The way you made it the other day was perfect,” said Spooner.

  Judith nodded, measuring tea leaves. “I’ve learned to be quite an expert,” she said.

  Spooner understood in that moment that for Judith, Anna hadn’t just been someone to save. She had been a friend who had taken her out of an existence of drudgery, someone to talk to, rather than take orders from.

  “She’s not rung or anything,” Judith went on, wiping her eye with the back of her hand. “God knows what they’ve done to her, those so-called friends of hers.” She looked ready to crumple. “I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.”

  “Why don’t you sit down and let me make the tea for a change?” Spooner offered, getting to his feet. “You need to put your feet up a minute, hen. My grandma taught me well enough, I know what to do. Come on now.”

  “D’you know,” she replied, “I didn’t realise how tired I was until now.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Spooner said. “You’ve been too busy putting everyone else first. What happened yesterday was quite a shock.”

  Judith nodded, her gaze drifting out of the window. There were a few moments’ silence, during which time, her expression subtly altered to one of resolve. “I did manage to save something for her,” she said.

  Spooner frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Judith put her cup down. Looking him square in the eye, she raised her right index finger to her lips. “Stay there,” she said and left the room. He had scarcely had time to scratch his head before she was back. In her hands was Anna’s book of songs.

  “She’d left this in her luggage, hadn’t she?” Judith’s voice was a whisper. “That bag he gave back to me before he took you off to the hospital. I knew I had to keep it safe for her; I couldn’t let him take it. It was the closest thing to her heart, besides that violin.”

  She put it down on the table between them.

  “What did you do with it?” asked Spooner, his admiration for Judith rising.

  “Put it under a cushion on mother’s bath chair. She didn’t know it was there either, but she was sitting on it the whole time he was searching the house. Oh, you have got a nice smile, Mr Spooner.”

  “My hat off to you, Judith, that was exceptionally cunning,” he said. “You’re going to keep it for her until she comes back?”

  “Well…” Judith frowned. “I’m not sure. I think it might be better if you were to take it. See, it’s Ma. If anyone else were to come looking for it, any of those undesirables we were warned about yesterday…” She shivered, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her. “I wouldn’t want to risk exposing her to anything like that. And I wouldn’t want them to take it either. I think it’ll be safer coming with you to London. And, if she does come back, then all she has to do is find you there. Like she was going to anyway.”

  Following the directions given to him by the Chief, Spooner drove the Rover east, away from the chimneys and cooling towers, through the suburbs and into a landscape of rolling fields and wooded ridges that grew flatter and wider by the mile, until he was deep in the farmlands of the fens.

  Rauceby hospital was an imposing Victorian structure of towers and turrets, the former county lunatic asylum. Its sinister exterior was partially obscured by the elms and lime trees that formed an avenue down to the iron gates, now manned by sentries. Spooner wondered if the trees had been planted originally to give the inmates something peaceful to look at, or to hide them away from the world.

  He showed the man on the gate his warrant card as ordered, but otherwise Spooner had decided to maintain his aesthete’s appearance. Though he had allowed time enough to change along the way, when he had pulled in at a roadhouse and examined himself in the mirror, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to plaster his hair back the way he used to. He had chosen a more sober green shirt and tie beneath his tweeds, but he was now so much more at home in this get-up he felt that to go back to his old habits would undermine his ability to carry out the next part of the operation properly. He had become a different person on his journey to and from Birmingham, one who was no longer content to lurk in the shadows, on the fringe of things. And perhaps he needed a bit of his grandma’s old Shetland magic woven into the tweeds to help with all that.

  He drove up the avenue of trees towards the hospital.

  10

  THE MOON GOT IN MY EYES

  Wednesday, 19 February 1941

  “I’ve had a few patients who’ve been driven out of their mind by what they’ve seen up there,” Dr Bishop sat across his office table from Spooner. Like the chairs on which they rested, it was made from whitewashed steel and had its legs screwed into the floorboards, reminding Spooner of his former office in Wormwood Scrubs. “Pilots and air crew, who’ve been caught in heavy flak and forced to bail or had their planes come down in the sea and been cast adrift for days. We’ve also got plenty of men here with serious burns and other such injuries that will prevent them from ever living the sort of lives they had before the war. But I have seldom before seen anything like that which possesses Nicholas Ralphe.”

  “Possesses him?” Spooner echoed, taking stock of the man doing the talking. He was of medium height, with angular features, penetrating brown eyes and dark hair receding away from his furrowed forehead. Strong, capable hands gripped a clipboard on which rested the patient’s notes. He didn’t seem the fanciful type.

  “Exactly so.” Dr Bishop nodded. “Ralphe believes himself to be under psychic attack from the Devil. Your CO asked me to investigate one such case with him before, some years ago, and since it was he who sent you to see me, I was led to believe you understood the situation.”

  “Forgive me,” said Spooner. “Perhaps I wasn’t expecting you to speak so freely.”

  “I do so because of your CO,” the psychiatrist stated. “So there’s no need to pussyfoot around. I gather you know most of the facts, but I’ll briefly run through the story he’s been telling me. Ralphe tried to kill himself because he had been lured into handing over sensitive material to an enemy agent, which he believes enabled the Luftwaffe to pinpoint crucial munitions targets in Birmingham on several bombing raids last year. He believes that this agent is a witch, who enchanted him using magical rites over several meetings he had with her at the house of a man whom he says is a Magister Templi – a high-ranking Black magician, intent on assisting the Nazis to take power in Britain. Ralphe was supposed to be investigating this man, but it seems that he and his associates turned the tables on him. After a ceremony that he was obliged to take part in on Hallowe’en last year, they had him in their power and from then on, he was the permanent consort of this woman. Only when she was called away for two weeks between December and January did he manage to pull himself out of their control, and set a trap for her upon her return.”

  “He managed to catch her?” this much of the story was news to Spooner.

  Dr Bishop’s nod was slower this time. “So he says. But what he refuses to divulge is what he did with her subsequently. You had better come and see him for yourself and I’ll attempt to get him to speak to you. Perhaps the fact that you are working to the same ends as he was supposed to be will prompt him to tell you. But you must be very gentle with him. In his current state of mind, he supposes that anyone who comes to see him could be a demon in disguise, sent to trick him by the infernal master he was made to pledge his unfortunate allegiance to.”

  “Do you believe what he says about the witch and the Magister Templi?” Spooner asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do,” Dr Bishop said. “Ralphe was entrusted to my care because he is a high-ranking officer of impeccable background. I don’t doubt that these people have managed to destroy what was once a very fine mind. There is a logic to everything he says that is not present in the usual delusions of the patients I see and I do not, therefore, consider him insane. Though all I can do for him in his current state is help him attempt to ease his distress. Come, see for yourself.”

  Dr Bis
hop led Spooner to the upper floor of the hospital where he had been able to make special accommodation for Ralphe, as far away from the rest of the population as possible, in a secure cell that, barring a small spyhole on the submarine-style metal door, had no windows through which the entities that troubled his mind could find easier access to him. The psychiatrist took out a heavy chain of keys, unlocking the door while calling out to reassure his patient of who he was. He told Spooner to wait outside while he attempted to grant him an audience.

  It took ten unnerving minutes, during which time Spooner tried to tune out the sounds that permeated the corridor in strange clanks, echoes and cries, the overriding smell of disinfectant doing battle with bodily fluids. Tried not to let the residual fears and torments of so many patients over so many years seep into his own consciousness. Whatever its original intention, he felt this was a place to inspire, rather than recover from, a nervous breakdown.

  Eventually Dr Bishop opened the door and stepped into the corridor beside him.

  “I’ve managed to convince him of your corporeal status,” he said, “and who it is you are working for. But please be careful when you go in. Don’t cross into his pentagram or upset any of the special arrangements I’ve allowed him to have in there. Just sit down on the floor in front of the door and show him your open palms. He won’t be any danger to you, it’s what he could do to himself I’m worried about. I’ll be watching through the spyhole here, so if I see anything that concerns me, I’ll come straight in.”

  “Right you are,” said Spooner, hoping he looked more prepared than he actually felt.

  Stepping through the doorway, he could see at once the “special arrangements”. It was hardly standard hospital treatment. Though the room was spotlessly clean, the patient was not reclining in a bed or chair, but instead sitting cross-legged, wrapped in white pyjamas and a blue dressing gown, in the centre of a pentagram that had been drawn out across the floor in lines of salt. At every point of the star was placed a white candle, a sprig of sage and a phial of what Spooner took to be holy water. The smell of the herbs hung heavily on the air.

  The “Original Mr Tall Dark and Handsome”, as Anna had put it, looked up at Spooner through hollow, ravaged eyes. Thick streaks of his formerly black hair, from the centre of his crown outwards, had turned completely white and his complexion was the sallow grey of ashes. He looked at least ten years older than the thirty written on his medical form.

  Spooner lowered himself into the position he had been instructed to adopt, resting both his hands on his knees so his empty palms lay uppermost.

  “Mr Spooner,” said Ralphe, his voice crackling like an off-station radio, “you have come to hear my confession?” His eyes were searching, but devoid of the gleam of madness. As he leaned forward, Spooner could see he wore rosary beads around his neck.

  “Thank you for seeing me, sir,” Spooner said. “I hope it’s not too much of an imposition. But I’d like to know what happened to Clara Bauer, or Clara Brown as she was known.”

  “You mean the Witch?” Ralphe said. “That’s what she really is. Not just any old storybook hag either. She is the Queen of her kind.”

  “Aye,” Spooner nodded. “I believe you. We have another of her order in custody back in London. A German agent, caught not far from here, carrying a map with two air bases ringed on it and a radio transmitter hidden in an attaché case, the same as the one she had. It was a mission she herself had planned, he told us; only he went and broke his ankle on the way down, so he never got the chance to carry it out. Now he’s trying to plead his way out of the firing squad by claiming he can get her to work for us. Only trouble is, he doesn’t know where to find her.”

  Ralphe’s pupils widened. “This is precisely why I did what I had to do,” he said. “There are always going to be more of them, using their tricks and devilry the way they used me. It will never end until it is cut off at the source.” He shook his head. “Please be assured, I have put her in a place from where she can never again exert this evil. The Queen of the Witches is powerless now. But, of course, there will be many others who seek to carry on her work. The Prince of Darkness never tires.”

  Spooner felt cold chills run down his spine as the man spoke. There was fervour in Ralphe’s voice, but it was only, he felt, the overwhelming desire to be taken seriously.

  “Believe me, I’m very thankful to you,” Spooner said. “But can you not tell me what it was you did to assure our safety? Once I can be certain there is no point in me continuing to search for her, then I can report back to London and make sure that this associate of hers is rendered equally as harmless.”

  Ralphe raised his left hand and then made a chopping motion against the wrist with the side of his right hand.

  “The Hand of Glory, have you never heard of it?”

  Spooner shook his head.

  “It’s an ancient white ritual, practised for centuries in Britain and I learned of it from an adept. It is the only thing that can keep the country truly safe from her. Because of that, I cannot tell you where she is. If she is disturbed, then the spell of protection I have placed around her will be broken and her spirit may again be able to roam free. You must believe me, Spooner, I know what I am talking about. Why else do you think that you find me here, in this pitiful state?”

  “Why else?” Spooner shook his head. “Is there someone else in Birmingham that you’re still frightened of? Is that why you’ve had to make all these defences here? I can help you with that too, if you let me. We’re both working for the same objective, after all.”

  Ralphe closed his eyes. His body was trembling, and a line of sweat had broken out across his forehead. “It is Lucifer himself I am afraid of,” he said, so softly as to be barely audible. “Can you imagine what that’s like? He can see me anywhere, get to me anyhow he pleases. These puny defences are laughable compared to his power, but they are the only recourse I have. Listen to me, Spooner,” he leaned forward from the waist, the rosary swinging out of the neck of his dressing gown. “You don’t have to search for the Witch any more. I have trapped her for you, somewhere that, God willing, she will never get away from. So go back to London and make sure that follower of hers is dealt with. If you want to help me, if you want to protect our country, then that’s the best thing you can do. The only thing. Don’t get drawn in any further, don’t get mixed up with these people to the point that I did. Otherwise you’ll be putting your very soul in peril.”

  “You really don’t believe there is anything else I can do?” asked Spooner.

  Ralphe shook his head. “Isn’t that enough? I know I have done a terrible thing but please, don’t ask any more of me.” He bowed his head, closing his eyes and reaching for the crucifix on the end of his beads.

  “What about Simon De Vere?” asked Spooner, his mind flashing temples and obelisks, hidden within the swells and trees of the Clent Hills. “What does he have to do with it? That was who you were originally sent to investigate, wasn’t it?”

  Ralphe’s eyes flashed open. “I know no one of that name,” he said. “Now, kindly leave me alone. I have said all that I can say to you.” He made the sign of the cross and started to pray: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son…”

  The door behind Spooner opened. “I think that’s enough,” said Dr Bishop, putting his hand beneath Spooner’s elbow, propelling him upwards to his feet and out into the corridor. “Kindly wait outside for me.” He closed the door between them before Spooner could offer a word of protest.

  Back in the corridor, he put his hand up to the point between his shoulders where Anders had hit him with the cosh. It was still sore and Dr Bishop’s sudden method of eviction had reignited a stabbing pain there. But he knew trying to rub it away would do no good. Instead, he lifted the catch over the spyhole and peered in.

  The psychiatrist had entered the pentagram to be with his patient and was kneeling beside him, his hand on the distressed
man’s shoulder. Ralphe was clutching the crucifix on his rosary beads, mouthing the words of prayer. Then his face creased and his mouth opened in a silent scream. His hand reached for the top of his left arm, with a strength that broke the chain of beads and sent them scattering over the floor. Dr Bishop sprang to his feet, hitting a switch on the wall that activated an alarm, then crouched down to where Ralphe had fallen, face-first, rolling him over and pulling his dressing gown away from his chest.

  Spooner could only watch in horror as the doctor tried to revive his patient, before the sound of running feet and voices echoed down the corridor behind him. He was swept out of the way by white-coated medics racing a trolley towards Ralphe’s cell and shouting at him to get out of the way. He stood aside; sweat trickling in a clammy trail down his back.

  The last he saw of the officer was of a man being carted away, eyes closed, Dr Bishop by his side. He shouted over his shoulder, “You had better leave now, Spooner. I will keep your CO informed.”

  The sun was sinking down towards the flat horizon when he drove back down the avenue of trees, a fireball of red making silhouettes of the turrets and towers reflected in the wing mirror so it appeared the whole hospital was being consumed by flames. Whether the man would survive or not, there was only one conclusion Spooner could draw from his interview. Ralphe must have killed Clara Bauer.

  11

  I’M LOST

  Friday, 15 August 1941

  Since his court martial, Karl’s dream had altered again. Perhaps it was the ordeal of reliving his painful descent and capture, to see again the faces of those farmers who had found him, the detective sergeant who had driven him to London. Having to relive every step of his failure, knowing there was only one outcome.