That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  He waited until they had enjoyed their tomato soup and roast beef and had moved on to the port and cheese before he began to discuss the day’s events. “The patterns we observed in the temple today, those marks left on the floor in wax, to what would you attribute them?”

  Spooner’s knife hung in mid-air, a sliver of Cheddar on the side of it. There had been the option of trying Gorgonzola on the hotel’s rarefied menu, but somehow, he wasn’t keen.

  “It looked like a Black Mass to me,” he said. “Thirteen candles burned around a circle, at the centre of which would have been a pentagram. The wax smelled quite strongly of sulphur, I expect the lab will find that was an element in their making…”

  The Chief frowned. “I only counted twelve,” he said.

  “The thirteenth would have been the one found in the pot with the hand.” Spooner put his knife down, no longer so keen on the Cheddar. He lit a cigarette instead. “See what the chaps at the lab come up with, but I’m sure there’ll be a match. Also, they burned a lot of herbs in there, you could still smell that too. Rue leaves the strongest trace, it smells disgusting.”

  “What would be the aim of that?” the Chief enquired.

  “To dull the senses while at the same time stimulating the imagination, triggering hallucinations. The sort of thing that made people in the seventeenth century believe that witches could fly. Your actual belladonna would be another one they’d use.”

  “All of which would be compatible with one of the spells from Price’s grimoire?”

  “Aye,” Spooner took a sip of his port, “I would think so.”

  “I wonder,” the Chief’s expression darkened, “what Hannen Swaffer might make of this news of a body in the tree when he hears it. Whether he might want to call upon Helen Duncan for another séance, in order to try and contact the dead woman?”

  Spooner raised his eyebrows, “From what Daphne Maitland told me, that’s a possibility. I’ll let you know if I hear anything to that effect.”

  The Chief nodded. “I think it might be prudent for me to reawaken some official interest in her. And you’ve just given me an idea. To have people start believing in seventeenth-century witchcraft again…”

  The concert on the radio came to an end, with the sound of German voices. Spooner realised that the Chief had tuned into long wave, summoning forth the nightly broadcast from the scion of Hagley Hall. His clipped tones carried over the remains of their dinner.

  “Germany calling, this is Germany calling…”

  23

  THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED (BY THE ECHO OF YOUR LAST GOODBYE)

  Saturday, 18 December 1943

  It didn’t take Naval Intelligence Agent Forshaw long to catch up with Lieutenant Stanley Worthington in the Portsmouth Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve mess. His target’s appearance was distinctive: thin and lanky, his hair nearly gone at the age of twenty-five and, at the end of his nose, the spectacles that had barred his way to the career of admiral he had dreamt of as a boy. It was Stanley’s skill at navigation that had instead earned him a place as a reservist, serving at the shore-leave establishment in his home city.

  The pair was already acquainted from regular night patrols on the little gunboats that stalked the enemy along the Channel, looking for submerged U-boats and mine-laying E-boats lurking in the dark. Forshaw was able to fall in beside Stanley with a few amiable words of greeting and join him in the eating of lunch, over which he made a casual enquiry as to the lieutenant’s mother’s health.

  “Oh, she’s been much better lately,” Stanley was delighted that his colleague had asked. His mother was one of his favourite subjects, as Forshaw had discovered over long nights in the Channel, “since she started going out with Mrs Dowson from next door. There’s a social club she belongs to, something to do with the church.” Stanley and his mother were Methodists whose allegiance to the Pledge had largely been inspired by his late drunkard of a father. “I expect they spend most of their time playing rummy and talking about the best way to set jam. But it’s really taken her out of herself. There’s a woman there called Gladys who plays the piano, Mother says she’s marvellous.”

  Forshaw raised an eyebrow. “Gladys Shadwell?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Stanley said. “Do you know her?”

  Forshaw frowned. “Not personally,” he said, lowering his voice, “but a friend of mine had a funny experience with her. Is it the Master Temple your mother’s been going to?”

  Stanley nodded, the smile fading from his face.

  “Then, well, I don’t mean to worry you,” said Forshaw, “but they don’t go there to swap recipes and play cards of a Friday night. They go there to contact the dead.”

  “Contact the dead?” Stanley echoed.

  “They call themselves spiritualists,” Forshaw informed him. “They hire mediums and charge women like your mother a pretty penny to sit in a darkened room listening for messages from the Great Beyond. My friend was there when they had this Scottish woman in called Helen Duncan… Have you ever heard of her?”

  Stanley shook his head, his expression now completely grave. “No,” he said. “Tell me…”

  So it was that two weeks later Forshaw returned to the Temple with Stanley, for the first time since the Barham séance. The lieutenant had already escorted his mother on the previous weekend, to see for himself what the Shadwells got up to and purchase tickets for Helen’s next appearance, which Gladys was selling for a premium of 20s each. The experience had galvanised him. Forbidding his crestfallen mater to ever step foot in the place again, he formed a further plan of action to keep her out of the Shadwells’ clutches should she think of disobeying him while he was at sea. Grateful to have been alerted to the danger she was in, he asked if Forshaw could help. Forshaw was happy to oblige.

  Like the last time the Naval Intelligence officer had set foot in the place, the room above the chemist’s was packed to capacity. As well as displaying his certification from Councillor Roberts on the door, Granville was asking everybody to leave their blackout torches with him before they crossed the threshold and found the seat they had been allocated. There could be no changes made to these seating arrangements.

  “I’m pretty sure I know what this means,” Forshaw whispered to Stanley as they took their chairs. An hour later they were at the police station, reporting on what they had just witnessed to DI Freddie Fraser.

  “I’ve worked out how they do it,” Forshaw expounded. “Duncan gets her information about the people in her audience from the Shadwells, who have made it their business to find out what there is to know. She’ll have been informed of all the recently bereaved, those who lost someone young and even—” he shot a glance at his companion, “those who are still missing their pet budgerigars. The Shadwells work out the seating plan so that Duncan can learn her lines accordingly. Nothing is left to chance.”

  DI Fraser cracked his knuckles, a sound like anti-aircraft fire. “And how d’you reckon they work the spirits?” he enquired.

  “Well,” said Stanley, “for a start, Mr Shadwell takes away everyone’s torches at the door and the lights are so dim in there you can barely make out your hand in front of your face.”

  “That cabinet they use is their prop cupboard,” added Forshaw. “They’ve got a length of material, something like cheesecloth, and a couple of puppets that act as her spirit guides. Henry Duncan works them while she provides the distraction with all her moaning…”

  “And singing,” Stanley recalled the version of “Loch Lomond” that had closed the night’s proceedings with a shudder.

  “All you need to do,” said Forshaw, “is smuggle a torch in there and shine it into the cabinet as soon as all the nonsense starts. Then you’ll have her bang to rights.”

  Fraser lifted a heavy black eyebrow. “When does she make her next appearance?” he asked.

  “January,” said Stanley. “Wednesday the nineteenth.”

  Fraser nodded. “I’ll put it in my diary. If you don’t mind, give us a
bell the day before, so we can discuss tactics.” He passed over his card. “I think I know how we should handle Mrs Duncan.”

  Once he had closed the door behind them, Fraser reached for the phone. “Get me the Home Office,” he said. “Cecil Forbes-Dixon.”

  An hour later, DI Fraser met with reporter Richard Lexy in his usual spot – the saloon bar of the Star and Garter. Lexy got special treatment from the barmaid there, who believed she was his steady girlfriend. In fact, Lexy had set his sights a little higher, on the daughter of the retired major he cultivated at the golf club. DI Fraser prided himself on this knowledge, which he intended to use as a future bargaining chip in the information exchange the pair of them shared.

  Fraser didn’t order anything at the bar, just made his way over to the nook in the corner which Lexy had made his second office. The barmaid, Betty, was leaning over him, clearing away his supper plates.

  “A word in your shell-like, Dickie.” Fraser pulled out the chair opposite the journalist. “Get us a pint of mild, will you, Betty?” he directed at her, enjoying the way her face flushed to almost the exact same colour as her dress. Lexy seemed to find it charming too, pressing change into her hand and then patting her behind as she went on her way, saying: “Thanks, love, put one in there for me too.”

  “Freddie,” Lexy reluctantly turned his attention to the detective. “What can I do you for?”

  “That slightly less attractive woman you’re keen on,” said Fraser, “the fat old Scottish one. She’s been back over the chemist’s and I’ve just had two naval officers come in to my office to make a complaint about her.”

  He took the cigarette Lexy proffered and allowed him to light them both up. “They’re not stupid, neither. They worked out how they pull the con exactly like you told me. I was quite impressed. Now the thing is, I don’t think this pair’s going to go away any time soon, nor be satisfied with the usual old flannel about keeping an eye on things until the time is right. They’ve asked me to accompany them the next time the old boot makes an appearance.”

  Lexy exhaled smoke rings. “I see. And when’s that going to be?”

  “The nineteenth of January,” replied Fraser. “Reckon you’ll have your scoop ready by then?”

  “Looks like I’ll have to,” said Lexy, raising his eyebrows as Betty plonked their drinks down in front of them with a wink in his direction and wiggled her way back to the bar.

  “Things are changing all round,” Fraser continued, once she was out of earshot. “This time, I fully intend to do the lot of them. Cheers.” He lifted his pint and drained half of it, studying the expression on Lexy’s face while he did so. As usual, the reporter’s countenance radiated nothing but nonchalant bonhomie, made all the more plausible by his round schoolboy’s face and wide eyes.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, old man,” Lexy said, blowing more smoke rings towards the ceiling. “Not for me. Though I don’t envy your task, bringing that rabble in quietly.”

  It was Fraser’s turn to wink. “That’s my speciality,” he said. “And you’re welcome to come and report on me in action.” He finished his ale in one further gulp. “D’you ever hear back from that bloke you met?” he asked, getting to his feet. “The reporter from the Psychic Times who was digging around?”

  “Two Worlds,” corrected Lexy. “Ross Spooner. No I haven’t, as a matter of fact. Not a peep from him. He never wrote his article up either, although I did look out for it.” He almost looked surprised by this.

  “Well,” said Fraser, putting his trilby on his head, “once he gets a sniff of this you might hear from him again. Be a good chap and let me know if you do.”

  Spooner had been expecting to be halfway back to Aberdeen by now, en route to a long overdue Christmas reunion with his family. Instead, he found himself standing halfway up a hill, on a farm track that led from Wollescote towards the road that marked the boundary of the De Vere estate. Spooner didn’t realise it, as he framed his first photograph, but the barn he was aiming his lens towards stood beside the same pathway that Terry Jenkins and his friends had traversed on that fateful day in April.

  Ernest Oaten had seen the bare bones of the story when it had come in on a Reuters newswire yesterday evening, before Spooner had a chance to get home to his nightly perusal of the papers. He thought it looked interesting, he said, as he placed it on Spooner’s desk, something to look into after he came back from his holidays, perhaps?

  Spooner had to agree that it did.

  There were more details in the Birmingham Evening Post, where an enterprising reporter speculated about the as-yet-unsolved murder of a woman found inside a tree in Hagley Woods nine months before. As well as providing a recap of the case, his copy noted that all the efforts made by the police to identify the victim had so far been in vain.

  After investigation in his laboratory, Professor Willis had been able to say that the woman had been five feet tall and was aged around thirty. She had reddish-brown hair and irregular teeth on her lower jaw, one molar having been removed some years since. She had not been suffering from any kind of disease at the time of her death, which the professor ascertained had been caused by asphyxiation, due to the portion of material stuffed down her throat. He judged that she was pushed into the hollow of the tree immediately after her death, as rigor mortis would have prevented her body from fitting inside the entrance to the hollow, which was barely twenty inches in diameter. She had remained interred for nearly two years.

  At the inquest, in Stourbridge on 28th April, the coroner had accepted a verdict of Murder by Person or Persons Unknown.

  Professor Willis was able to provide a pictorial reconstruction of the woman for the police to use, with which Spooner was already familiar. But for the absence of that knowing smile, it was similar to the photograph once owned by Karl Kohl. For months, detectives had been contacting every dentist in the land to try to find a match for the distinctive teeth in her lower jaw, had trawled through every Missing Persons report to eliminate matches, and even traced the identity of the buyers of all but six pairs of shoes identical to those found with the body, sold from a market stall in Dudley. Still, the woman in the tree continued to be neither known nor missed. Until now.

  Spooner had had to make some rapid readjustments to his schedule to get here, but he had managed to arrive at midday. Luckily, there had been no rain overnight and the spectacle he had come to record was still intact and in situ.

  The words had been written in chalk, in letters three feet high. They had first been spotted by a dog walker on his usual circuit around the fields at eight o’clock on Friday morning. The farmer who the land belonged to had told the intrepid reporter from the Post that the barn had been clean as he passed by it the evening before.

  WHO PUT BELLA DOWN THE WYCH ELM?

  Spooner’s finger pressed down on the button and the shutter clicked. He wound the film on and walked a few steps back down the hill to take a second shot that revealed more of the setting that this stark question has been posed on – the old, red brick barn, the hard, furrowed earth of the field surrounding it and the pale, cloudy sky behind, through which weak shafts of sunlight were trying to break.

  The journalist from the Post ended his piece by positing a theory. Was there somebody who had known the woman in the tree by this name? And, if so, had they left these words as a clue for the police, or to taunt them for their inability to solve the case?

  To Spooner, the communication meant only one thing: Anna wasn’t dead. She was out here somewhere and she wanted him to know it.

  24

  MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU

  Wednesday, 19 January 1944

  “Professor Melvin,” Spooner said, “thank you for seeing me.”

  The dainty hand that took his might easily have belonged to a sprite, an impression enhanced by the silk scarves swathed around the head and neck of its owner and the tinkling of silver bells suspended from her necklace. A tiny woman, Margot Melvin made real the image he had constructed f
or Anna’s fortune-telling grandma and was just the sort of lady who used to come to tea with his own.

  She was actually one of the country’s most renowned historians, having assisted the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie on his greatest digs in Egypt and Petra and held positions at the British Museum and Cambridge as an authority on antiquity. Then, in the 1920s, she had joined the Folklore Society and developed an interest in a different kind of ancient world – one inhabited by witches, fairies and Horned Gods.

  It was in her 1921 treatise, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, which laid out her theory that witchcraft was the ancient native religion of the continent, where Spooner had first read about the Hand of Glory, a protection spell made from the eponymous severed limb of a murderer. This work had proved controversial on publication, damaging Melvin’s academic reputation, though it had nonetheless been seized upon by less high-minded readers eager to believe. She had responded with the further, still more populist tome The God of the Witches a decade later, in which she had described the pagan worship of a Horned God that had been mistaken for Devil-worship and led to the persecution of witches. In this book, Professor Melvin stated her belief that a coven had laid a curse on the Earl of Bothwell, the source of Spooner’s favourite “Witches Reel”. He had come to seek her expertise on behalf of his editor, in an attempt to explain the most perplexing part of the story that had gripped the Two Worlds’ readers since December.

  The day after Spooner had taken his photographs in the fields around Wollescote, another message appeared on the surviving wall of a bombed-out terrace in West Bromwich, apparently penned by the same hand and using the same material. Perhaps in response to the article in the Post, this time it had been more specific: HAGLEY WOODS BELLA it had said. There were more to come over Christmas, appearing by nightfall in locations across Birmingham and the surrounding countryside, usually on bombed-out buildings where, it was to be presumed, their mysterious author would not be disturbed during composition. The next variation was the one that would go on being repeated, bestowing the mystery woman with a name that, by the New Year of 1944, even the police were using: WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?