“Were there dolls? Effigies?”
Marion’s eyes told her what she needed to know.
“So it is happening again.”
Marion continued to stare. “You knew about it. So that’s why you always warned us not to go? But I scoured those woods when we were children. I knew every single inch of it.”
“It wasn’t time.”
“I don’t understand. Mum, what are you trying to tell me?”
“They…The Four…have to be–”
Again Marion shook her head and Ellen summoned all her strength. “Summoned. Somehow…You go to Annie’s. Should have stopped you… But she’s not there anymore… I’m lost… I can’t see… a veil drawn–”
Iron clamps gripped her lungs and she fought for breath, lunging for air with great gasps.
Marion’s glance darted to the door then back again. “How did you know? Mum, how did you know I went to Annie’s?”
Motioning to be lifted up, Ellen felt strong hands haul her up the bed as if she weighed little more than a bag of feathers, Pillows were packed behind her back. “Do you need water? Honey? Linctus?”
She shook her head, frantically fluttering her hands at her daughter. She had to speak, had to say this. “And Snow? You took her as well… but it’s too dangerous… to use such as her–”
Marion’s eyes swam with tears and she flung herself onto her mother’s chest. “Oh God, I didn’t know, I swear. They said we should use our gifts. I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know—”
“Who?”
“Agnes.”
Ellen’s mind cut to black then resurged in a jarring, sickly swirl. No breath would come. Her lungs were a casket of stone and anguish plunged into her heart.
“Mum?”
A full minute passed before her chest moved again and she gulped at the air, clutching at her daughter’s hand. All the things she should have said, should have noticed, could have stopped. Time was running out… But what…what warning to give? What was it? Every word would matter and she must choose wisely.
“Try not to talk for a minute.” Marion’s cool hand pressed her forehead, smoothing the hair back from her clammy skin. “I only went up there a couple of times. I took Snow but she hasn’t gone there alone, I’m sure of it.”
Ellen’s eyes were closing again, her words murmurs. “They used your energy, your medium…Annie’s too weak now but I thought…I thought it was over—”
Marion suddenly gripped both her hands and shook her. “Oh God, Oh my God…They used black witchcraft on Dad, didn’t they? And on Grandad Bailey? Oh, my good God, it’s real—”
“Don’t ever, ever say anything, Marion.”
“How can I with no proof?”
“Mad… They’ll say… you’re mad. And it’s happening again, you know it.”
“But who? Why?”
“You saw—”
“I thought it was a séance. I blanked out…I don’t remember, it’s all a blur…Oh God, to think I helped them do something terrible. I had a bad feeling….something’s come to fruition…Mum, I didn’t know.”
Ellen drifted along on a tide of dreams… Bill Holland, that young fit man with jet hair who liked to dance rock and roll at the miners club; how he’d been carried out of the pit one day shouting like a madman that he’d seen demons jumping out of the rock face; snakes slithering down the mine shaft; and great squelching black creatures materialising from the earth. They said it could happen to miners after long periods underground, and that was what had caused his heart attack. Digitalis more like… Annie… Agnes… Why, for God’s sake, though? Why?
Downstairs the grandfather clock resounded around the house with the hour of four o’clock and Ellen’s breathing became that of painful, rasping Cheyne Stokes – the gaps between each lunge for air lengthening ever further - her passing now near. Clustered around her bed, all three of her daughters sat helpless and miserable, knowing Ellen would not see the dawn of another day. It seemed to them that after every long, drawn-out inhalation there would not be another, their mother’s body too frail and weak to fight a moment longer.
A full three minutes passed before another wrenching gasp arched Ellen’s body in painful contortion. All bowed their heads and prayed for a gentle release.
Four full minutes passed before Marion leaned over to feel her carotid pulse, expecting to say she’d gone. But just as she bent towards her Ellen suddenly reared up. Staring wide-eyed at the open bedroom door she was pointing at the white-haired girl hovering on the threshold.
“You! You brought them!”
All three women swung round to see Snow suddenly rush across the room with inhuman speed.
Although Rosa was quick enough to grab hold of the girl before she reached the old lady, the other two were staring open-mouthed at what had followed her in
Behind Snow, a line of black shadowy figures had glided into the room. One, two, three, four…
Ellen slumped back on the pillows. Turning to Marion, her gnarled hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “She brought them back…The Four…”
***
Chapter Twenty-Four
Louise
The police came knocking time and time again. Normally my mother got out the best china and served cakes on doilies for visitors, but Puffer Judd seemed to annoy her.
A red-faced man with bristles down the sides of his face and three or maybe four chins, he sat at the table eating biscuits while the aunties stared at him through a fug of cigarette smoke. Within minutes of his arrival my mother began scrubbing pans in the kitchen. And after that, when he still hadn’t gone, she ran a bucket of soapy water and started cleaning the hearth, while he talked and slurped and spat crumbs.
Had we, he wanted to know, seen anything unusual three weeks ago on the night Grace Holland sang in Chapel? No matter how insignificant it might be, what we remembered could be very helpful. He dunked another biscuit and we looked at him blankly: three curious children and two middle-aged women in headscarves and rollers.
His mouth resembled a small bushfire in the middle of a thicket. Red-lipped and busy, it gnawed and nibbled, chewed and puckered.
Had there been a car parked outside then? He looked at Arthur – at the boy’s eyes, which seemed to have sunk into bruised pockets of tiredness. Arthur shrugged.
Okay, well were there any strangers in the congregation? Or maybe there was someone missing who would normally have been there? He stared at the aunties. They tapped ash into a saucer, shrugged and stared back.
Alright then, when we were walking home that night, did we see or hear anyone acting suspiciously? He looked at me and I shifted on my hands, wriggling.
“What’s suspiciously mean?”
Another time we were all questioned individually – even us children – taken into the front parlour and spoken to in turn. But none of us had seen a thing untoward and everyone had been in Chapel who should have been.
The last time he clomped round to our house my mother had been making pastry in the scullery and stood barring the door, rolling pin in hand. “I don’t know what you keep coming round ’ere for. You want to try asking that husband of ’ers. It’s always the husband,” she said, taking care to pronounce the, ‘h’. “You mark my words.”
“I can assure you, Mrs—”
“And her neighbours? I mean, where did Hazel Quinn intend to go exactly when she left that night? Have you followed that line of enquiry, Officer Judd?”
Peering round her at the crackling fire and teapot on the table, he said, “Ah, now that I can tell you.” He waited for her to invite him in.
My mother had her arms folded.
“If I could come in a minute I could enlighten you?”
She stood back, brushing her hands off on her apron and followed him to the table with a cup and saucer.
“Very kind, Mrs Whistler. Very kind.”
She banged the cup down and poured him what was left of a tepid, stewed brew so crossly it splashed. “Go on t
hen.”
“Thank you. Ooh, a biscuit. May I?”
She grabbed the remaining few Rich Teas and twisted the end of the packet. Holding onto it, she said, “You said you had more information?”
“Patience, Mrs Whistler. Dear me, we are in a hurry.”
He laughed and I can tell you that was a big mistake because my mother’s nuts and bolts were tightening incrementally, the sinews of her facial strings taut with the strain of not slapping him.
But social awareness was not Officer Judd’s strong point and he bided his time. Took a long slurp of tea. “Ah, that’s better. Yes, well, and this should interest you, Mrs Whistler, because it now transpires that Mrs Quinn met your cousin, Grace Holland, in a local hotel on the night in question.” He slurped his tea noisily, eyeing her over the brim of the cup, as the uncomfortable atmosphere cranked up another notch. “The Plug and Feather, it was, yes… for a chat.” He flipped a page of his notebook, looking for the entry he’d made.
My mother stood over him with her arms folded. “Oh, I see. So that’s as ’ow you think we’re involved, is it? She met our Grace and so you think we know summat about it – me with three kids and a house to run and two full-time jobs and a sick mother?”
“This is a very small place,” said Officer Judd. “And gossip stops here by all accounts, Mrs Whistler. Now what would Grace Holland be doing meeting a lady from Danby on a night like that - during one of the worst snowstorms in living memory?”
My mother shook her head.
“Have you ever met Hazel Quinn?”
My mother eyeballed him right back. “No.”
I remember I was sitting by the fire, supposedly knitting. But when he asked that question I was glad he hadn’t got me alone again in the parlour, because her lie thumped into my head. With picture-clear recollection I could see her - Auntie Grace dressed in white at a restaurant and a lady at the far end of the table with blonde hair. That same lady we saw again at Wish Lane Cottage because all the way home it had been, ‘Hazel this and Hazel that…’ Right there and then though, I knew not to so much as flinch because my mother’s entire body was rigid.
Puffer Judd eventually nodded, slurped the last of his tea and stood up. “Well, if any of you think of anything, you know where I am. I should, however, remind you that this is a murder investigation and something happened to that poor woman between meeting your cousin, Grace, Mrs Whistler, and ending up at Castle Draus dead in the boot of a car.”
That was it. My mother snapped.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re insinuating, Officer Judd, but me and my family all attended Chapel that night and we had the devil’s own job walking ’ome an’ all because a ruddy great blizzard was blowing up and we’ve been trapped ’ere ever since. Now I don’t know ’ow the bleeding hell she got ’er car up there and I don’t know how she ended up in the boot either – that’s your job. But I do know it’s nowt to do with us.” Behind the horn-rimmed glasses my mother’s eyes had turned to flint, and her face was crimson.
“And don’t you,” she continued, now pointing at him, “don’t you, ‘Mrs Whistler’ me! I’ve known you all my life and it was my Harry who found that poor woman for you or she’d still be there. So think on.”
By that time he was backing out of the door with my mother in pursuit. She picked up a spatula from the sink. “Coming round ’ere accusing me of being the village gossip, an’ all! You’ve a bloody great cheek. I’ll ’ave you, I really will.”
Watching my mother lose her temper was like watching a match put to a paraffin-doused rag. Everyone jumped back. I’d seen her blow up like that a few times but honestly we thought she’d take his head off.
He had both his hands up in the air, half tripping into the yard.
“How do, Judders?” My dad said, letting himself in through the back gate.
I’ve never seen a grown man look so relieved. The great bear that was Puffer Judd had been cornered against the drainpipes by a woman in hair rollers who stood all of five foot one and weighed seven and a half stone.
“Oh, ah, yes, very good,” he said, nervously eyeing my mother as she stomped back inside and slammed the door so hard it rocked in the frame.
None of us children dared speak. My mother’s fists were balled up and only after she’d thundered her way upstairs did we look at each other and motion towards the window. Dad and Puffer were talking and we needed to know what was being said.
The net curtains started half way down the sash window, so we huddled as close as possible to listen-in without being seen. Puffer was telling Dad that Grace Holland had gone back to Alders Farm after meeting Hazel Quinn at The Feathers in Danby. The two women had a couple of drinks together, according to the landlord, before leaving the establishment separately and peaceably.
Dad must have guessed we were eavesdropping because he moved away from the house and motioned Puffer Judd to do the same. So we heard no more.
Later that night Iddy and I lay in bed speculating.
“He murdered her,” I said.
“Who murdered her?” Iddy said.
“Do you remember that night we went to see Auntie Grace sing in that big music hall and there was that woman who had a bad cold and fell asleep at the table in the restaurant? She had blonde hair all frizzy in a nest on top of her head? Well, that was the woman in the boot. We saw her another time at great-grandma Annie’s, don’t you remember? Anyway, it was her husband who killed her.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s always the husband, Mum said.”
“They’ve got to get evidence.”
“What’s evidence?”
“Don’t you know anything? It means they have to collect her belongings.”
“Oh. But why did Mum tell Puffer Judd as we hadn’t seen that lady before when we had? Why would she lie?”
“Shush!” Iddy hissed. “Don’t let ’er hear you. You’ve got a really loud voice, our Louise.”
“But why, though?”
“What I don’t understand is how he could’ve got away from up there. He must’ve got a sledge. Maybe it’s not him but a vampire ghost on a sledge that haunts the moors at night?”
“That chops people into pieces?”
“Into pieces? What do you mean, into pieces?”
I didn’t want to tell him I’d heard Arthur screaming through the walls. “Oh everyone’s talking about it,” I said. “It’s what they do to witches, apparently. They chop women’s heads off if they think they’re a witch, so then they can’t rise from the dead and walk again.”
Iddy went quiet.
“Oh yes,” I added. “There are lots of them buried under the chapel, too. In bits. In bags I expect. Or boxes.”
“And hearts stuck with pins in?” said Iddy.
“What?”
“That’s what was in the bin the other night. And a dead dog all split open. Mum said it ’ad been run over. I shouldn’t have telled anybody…she said not to. Don’t tell ’er I said owt, will you? Promise!”
We lay quietly for a long time after that. Listening to the hissed voices that rose and fell from downstairs. And Arthur moaning and crying in the room next door.
***
Chapter Twenty-Five
1908
Annie
On the day Aaron Danby posed for the camera when the first chapel stones were laid, the look that passed between him and Ellen Bailey did not pass her mother by.
The whole village was out in force. Saturday morning and trestle tables had been set up for kegs of ale, sandwiches and home-made cakes. Broad-beamed matrons, rose-bud girls and harassed-looking mothers all busied themselves with plates of ham, sausage rolls and jugs of squash. Every able-bodied man was now helping to get the chapel built on time and they’d be here until sundown day after day, week upon week until the job was done. Children ran along the common with brown-paper kites streaming behind them – the day remembered by all as heavenly, bright with quivering daffodils and the hope of spr
ing.
Annie had been hovering on the perimeter of the scene, her stare fixed on Aaron as he stood chatting. Oh, didn’t he know how to work it? Back-slapping and glad-handing with an easy smile that spread like melted butter. Every now and again he’d flick back the pony flop of a fringe falling into his eyes and run a hand through his flaxen hair – a disarming, boyish habit on a mature man. He was so like his father in the bullish breadth of his shoulders, and those stormy-sea eyes that occasionally flashed with silver like a break in the clouds
She narrowed her eyes, focusing all her intent. The moment the photograph had been taken Agnes would walk towards him – a vision straight out of every romantic and erotic dream he could ever imagine – and he would be paralysed, struck dumb with a desire he could not contain. The blacks of her eyes dilated, distant chatter fading; every nerve cocked and loaded. Time stilled…
What happened next, however, happened fast. The photographer ducked beneath the dark cloth surrounding his camera box. There was a brief flash. Polite applause. The photograph was done. But Aaron, who had been poised to walk towards the cameraman and shake his hand, suddenly jumped and swirled around as if bitten on the nape of his neck. Puzzled, he looked all about him, no doubt expecting to see an early wasp. Alas, there was no wasp or indeed any insect causing the arrest in his attention. Instead, with one hand still clutching his neck he was staring into the middle distance as if hypnotised.
Annie followed the line of his vision. Oh, no…no, no. This could not be.
Aaron Danby was gawping slack-jawed at the insipid, simpering face of her youngest daughter. And Ellen was gazing straight back in what could only be described as a cherry-flush of rapture.
Sharply Annie averted her head.
The struggle to regain composure was immense. She focused on the morning mist rising from the moors. How had this gone so badly wrong? He was sick with love and erotic emotion all right, but not with the right daughter. In a flash of needle-piercing clarity the future was shown to her: the virginal bride throwing back her veil, smiling into the loving eyes of her groom. There, it was going to happen and she had seen it. Not with Agnes but with Ellen. And Ellen, sure as the fires of hell, could not be trusted to carry out her wishes. Ellen would let her down, would be loyal to this man. A vision was laid before her of three healthy girls for her youngest daughter and a whole-hearted passion for this man who would ride home on his horse several times a day just to see her face. Every part of him, and only she knew how much this was true, was now bound to Ellen for the rest of his life or he would sicken and die.
The Soprano Page 17