by Syd Moore
Then I went downstairs with a new clarity. Two dominant threads in my life were converging.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next day before I set off for Ashbolten I got a call from Maggie. She asked how the Hopkins piece was and I told her, truthfully, that it had gone up a gear and that I was just about to head off to check out a lead. She sounded pretty excited by it and made me promise to keep her up to speed. I could have told her about Mum. I could have told her about Dad. But I didn’t want to slow down. That conversation would merit a good half hour and perhaps another follow-up meeting in the flesh. There was too much to do. I said goodbye and agreed to pop in soon.
Then I checked in on Dan.
He was okay. Not terribly bad, not terribly good. Just okay.
I asked him how he was doing. He said, ‘I must be on the mend – I’m starting to feel embarrassed.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I don’t know whether to encourage you or sympathise.’
‘Former is probably best,’ he said. ‘Let’s get together soon. I have some things I need to talk through with you.’
‘Whenever you’re ready.’
‘Maybe next week?’
‘It’s a deal.’ I hung up with the promise that I’d phone him to arrange it, though at the back of my mind I was wondering if I shouldn’t put it off for a little longer – there was a hell of a lot I wanted to ask him about Mum and what he knew. But I didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise his recovery.
I decided to have a chat with Doctor Franklin, as unpleasant as that might be, and get his advice on how/if I should approach the subject with his patient. But I’d have to think about that next week. I was anxious to get on my way.
A thick mist was coming off the sea, crawling inland, pasting itself over cars and sparkling windows. The dashboard clock blinked twelve noon as I was cruising out of south-east Essex and onto the main route that would connect me to the M25.
A wind had got up and the trees either side of the road were beginning to bend. The watery sun that had tried to shine about an hour ago had now given up completely and dissolved into a drizzling greyness, the blandness of which encouraged my mind to wander away from the road a couple of times and into the realms of contemplation. What was Mum doing going to Ashbolten, if indeed she had? And why write it on the back of my original birth certificate? What was there? Had she trodden the path I was going down? Then why not tell me; why keep all of this a secret? And if she wanted it to remain so, why retain the damning evidence, with the reference on the back? Why not destroy it? Because, I thought, she must have wanted me to find it at some point.
And what of the convergence of the two threads currently most important in my life – the witches and Mum? Had Rebecca appeared to her, as Dan hinted? Had she appeared to him? Was he mad? Had she really texted?
I mean, it sounded totally insane. If I actually articulated these questions to anyone else I’d be carted off to Dan’s place. Joe would undoubtedly be very concerned. But then again – things like this did not happen all the time. Ghosts did not private message people. Spirits did not text. I did not have visions.
Though I reflected, for some people all this stuff was a way of life. I recalled Beryl Bennett. She’d seen something in my hand. Hadn’t she wondered if I’d been ill? Or was adopted? Jesus, she knew. It was unreal.
Or was I was just beginning to see the world for what it was – a gossamer cat’s cradle of different threads and connections, half-sights and shadows, cracks and hints, that had been completely invisible only weeks before?
Before Mum died, if I’d caught myself thinking this kind of stuff I would have checked straight into a psychotherapist then and there. Of course I would have been terrified I’d inherited Mum’s … Here my thought stream paused. I was thinking the word ‘illness’. But another voice had whispered a memory to me and I substituted ‘illness’ for ‘gift’. Was that what she was trying to tell me? Is this what Joe meant? The ability to see other layers, to pass through time?
It wasn’t possible was it? Time was set. It was a fixed thing. You couldn’t look back and you couldn’t look forwards. You could only be in the present. Well, that was certainly the conventional consensus. But then, Mum had always said time was a concept, not a rule, no more reliable than the stories we told.
Was it all coming together? Were there clues in everything she told me?
I sighed and wished I’d listened more carefully to everything she’d said. Soon my concentration was required at the driving wheel: a splatter of rain descended over the motorway.
My plan was to drive to Ashbolten, find Treetops. If it was a business I’d be able to talk to the staff immediately. If it was a domestic dwelling then I’d knock on the door, and probably be required to arrange an appointment for the following day. That would mean returning to the town centre, to investigate the place, have a bit of a gander. Maybe a leisurely coffee. Locate a pub or a restaurant to have dinner in. An early evening in the hotel would allow me to not only sleep in peace, but give me some time alone to try and sort my head out.
As it turned out, Ashbolten was a sleepy village nestled in a valley, surrounded on the south side by woods and copses and to the west by several large farms. I drove in from the north, climbing over the hump of a hill romantically called Tinkers Thrift, and then down into woodland.
As I came off the main road the route became twisting and arduous. I stopped thinking about anything else, killed the radio and concentrated on the bends and blind corners.
Coming through a forest-like part of the road, complete with overhanging branches and brambles reaching several feet high, Ashbolten opened up before me. It was damp and a white mist was curling up from the village, mingling, on its way skywards, with a couple of smoking chimneys. Approaching the cluster of buildings I could see that the place was chocolate-box pretty, verging on sickly; traditional thatched cottages edged round a tiny semi-circular village green, then meandered off into what was called the High Road but was more of a narrow close, ending in a t-junction with the Hen and Chickens pub. No way was there going to be a hotel here.
It was gone three-thirty and the sky was sullen. Daylight was fading, which meant I would have to review my plans significantly. If I had to return to the motorway and come off at the larger town I had passed earlier in order to secure accommodation I’d be put back a good couple of hours. I’d have to find Treetops as well. That might take me into the evening. People, even generous urbanites, resented uninvited guests turning up late and unannounced. At that time of evening it was either dinnertime or soap opera hour. Intrusions upon that ‘quality’ period, I had found in my early career, were greeted with barely restrained hostility.
Country folk, I imagined, might have a more extreme reaction. After all, they had shotguns and things didn’t they?
The pub would be the best place to start, provided it was open. So many of them were shutting up shop these days. Unless they had a thriving lunchtime service most closed during the day and opened in the evening with a skeleton staff.
The Hen and Chickens however, was a pub quite unlike any other. A peek at the small bar, left of the entrance hall, revealed a large inglenook fireplace, with a roaring fire in the grate, around which were spread a few tables and chairs. By the window at the front a counter displayed a spread of groceries and a large range of fruit and veg. I popped my head round to see if there were any staff behind the bar.
A couple of old men were playing chess by the fireside. One glanced over. I must have looked out of place because he didn’t eye me for more than a second. ‘If you’re after Bob,’ he said, ‘he’ll most like be in the saloon or upstairs.’
‘Oh right,’ I said, assuming Bob to be the landlord. ‘Thanks.’
The other man had turned round to view the interruption. ‘Ring the bell on the bar top.’
I dipped back into the hallway and went through the door opposite into a larger saloon. A middle-aged man over by the window was doing th
e crossword while cradling a pint of ale. He looked up briefly in a friendly manner, before returning to his paper. Three women were clustered round a circular table with a half-empty bottle of wine in their midst. Over at the bar another couple of men, just edging out of middle age but not yet elderly, were nursing their pints in companionable silence. But for the whirring squeaks of the fruit machine and some crooning country and western in the background, there was little noise.
The two men at the bar nodded. One of them shouted towards a door between the optics. ‘Bob! Customer!’
Within a few minutes a large man appeared. Bob was in his early sixties, wearing a woollen tank top that stretched over a true publican’s belly. He had a booming voice and eyes that looked like they’d seen a fair chunk of life but liked it. You could see why the pub managed to attract and keep a loyal clientele.
He grinned broadly when I asked if they did bed and breakfast.
‘There’s not another pub or shop for miles. We’re everything here – hotel, function room, social club, corner shop. You name it, we do it. We’ve got a double with an ensuite, one without, two singles and a family room.’
I asked if I could look at them first.
‘Watch the bar will ya, Ray, while I show this young lady to the rooms. If Linda’s ladies need a top up while I’m away, take it from the fridge. They’re on the Pinot.’
And with that he ushered me behind the bar into a narrow hallway leading to the back of the building, where a single storey extension spread along the yard. Bob opened the doors and let me view the rooms.
Although basic and slightly eighties in design, the floral duvets and pine furniture were clean, and the rooms were bright and warm. The ensuite was small but functional so I took the double, chucked my case on the bed and spent a couple of minutes replying to a text from Joe asking how I was. I kept my reply short and brief saying there had been some developments on my story and that I was looking forward to telling him when he got back. There was no point going into detail now. I signed off with a couple of ‘x’s and went back to sign in the visitor’s book.
As I filled in the relevant forms Bob asked me what I was doing down in his neck of the woods. When I told him I was looking for Treetops, he nodded wisely.
‘Nice couple. He’s a card.’ He looked over to the two men at the bar. ‘Isn’t he, Ray?’
‘What’s that?’ said the bloke who was Ray, finishing his pint and straightening himself up at the bar.
‘I was just saying to this young lady, er,’ he looked at the register, ‘Sadie – Harry Phelps, Treetops. He’s a card, isn’t he?’
Ray arched his eyebrows. ‘Oh aye, he’s a card all right.’
The man next to him gave a nod. ‘He’s got high hopes, that one,’ he said and the three of them chuckled.
‘Well,’ said Bob. ‘We’ve all had high hopes at some time haven’t we?’ They all laughed a little louder.
‘Oh right,’ I said vaguely. This was obviously some in-joke. ‘So where do they live?’
‘Down off Dalby Lane,’ said Bob and then supplied me with very detailed directions.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Situated at the end of a narrow lane that petered out into nothing more than a muddy track, I came across a driveway. It swept past two leafless weeping willows, went round a corner beside what would have been flowerbeds of roses, to a very dark house. Only a couple of windows had light behind them.
The porch was a glass extension – the kind that was popular in the eighties: large, double-glazed and square. However beyond it a depressed arch, that must have been Tudor at least, covered the entrance. Above and around that stood the oldest part of the house; a grey stone-carved frontage, with large rectangular leaded bay windows. This had been added on to later in the nineteenth century with an impressive castellated tower on the corner.
I grabbed my handbag and brought out my phone, checking the photo of the map. This had to be it. I let the engine splutter and die at the end of the drive and made out across the gravel, tucking my head down into my collar against the bitter oncoming wind. It picked up my hair and blew it around, and a spattering of raindrops mixed into the elemental battering. Above the rooftop, storm clouds were gathering and the sky had an angry look. Somewhere above me an owl hooted a warning. I felt it was best not be here long. As basic as the accommodation at the Hen and Chickens was, it was at least friendly and full of human beings; this house was foreboding and gloomy. The lit-up windows on the second floor gave it the appearance of a cross-eyed old duchess that scowled at my parka and jeans.
Inside the porch, and out of the wind, I picked my hair from my lipstick and tried to make myself presentable before pressing the bell. The sound of barking dogs broke out behind the front door. A female voice chided the animals, then I heard several bolts being scraped back. The door opened a crack and a woman in her sixties peered through.
‘Hello,’ I said brightly in my most posh voice. ‘I’m very sorry to disturb you. My name is Mercedes Asquith and I’m a writer researching the Essex witch hunts. I came across this article which mentioned a diary of Nathaniel Braybrook.’ I handed over the clipping. ‘Is it here? I’m not sure if I have the right address?’
The woman said nothing. Her eyes hovered over the scrap in my hand then fluttered back to my face. Perturbed by her silence, I went on. ‘I’m happy to come back at another time if this isn’t convenient?’
Through the vertical slit her eyes glistened.
Still no verbal response.
I blathered on. ‘The book I’m writing is due to be published next October and I’d very much like to have a look at the diaries, if that’s at all possible. Are they still here?’
Nothing.
I stalled, wondering if I was dealing with a low IQ and went on to outline the angle of my book. Best to leave any family connection out at this stage. Didn’t want to come across as nuts.
The woman interrupted me before I’d even got a quarter of the way through my spiel. ‘Yes, all right, I see. Do you mind waiting a moment please?’
It was a little abrupt but I told her ‘No, not at all,’ and the door closed. Two bolts were drawn across, then the patter of dainty footsteps disappeared into the house.
One of the dogs came back to the door and growled.
‘It’s all right mate,’ I told it. ‘I’m a friend not foe.’ But it didn’t believe me and started barking. A couple of the others joined it.
I stepped back into the porch. A little black moth skittered around the light. It looked virtually identical to the one that had landed on my wall. I thought back to that night. I was certain that moth had chosen a spot on the map that was pretty damn close to where I was actually standing now.
‘Is this where you were leading me then?’ I asked it. In response it spread its wings and took off, landing on a large spiky cactus in the corner. The place was, in fact, crammed with pot plants: on one side a rectangular wicker planter held a dozen spider plants and beside it stood a large ceramic tub from which sprouted a large money tree. To each side of the solid wood door were hanging baskets, containing an assortment of tropical plants. I was admiring them when I heard heavy footsteps coming down the passage.
Bolts slid back. The door opened, wider this time, but still only to six inches across.
A man with long white hair, a grey beard and black-rimmed spectacles poked his head round and had a good look at me.
‘So,’ he said. ‘My wife says you’re a writer. That true?’
I nodded.
‘Can you prove it?’
No one had ever asked me that before. ‘Um, how?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said a little sarcastically. ‘You’re the writer, aren’t you? What have you written?’
I remembered I had some old issues of Mercurial in the back of my car. One of them had a photo of me beside my piece, I was sure.
‘Can you wait for a moment while I fetch something?’
‘Of course,’ the man said and
shut the door. Two bolts scraped across.
I fetched the mags. The rain was pelting down now so I shoved them under my jacket to keep them dry and ran back to the house.
The door opened and a hand came out. I put the magazines in it and watched it slam shut again. This, I had to admit, was very odd.
I think I must have waited outside for a good ten minutes before the dogs went off and the heavy footsteps came back down the passage. The door opened fully and the man, who introduced himself as Harry Phelps, greeted me, very cordially.
Like his house, Harry was also eccentric: his long white hair cascaded down over a ‘Free the Weed’ t-shirt which featured a humanised marijuana plant looking dolefully through prison windows.
I remembered Bob’s comment about ‘high hopes’.
This could explain the paranoid security ritual.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Harry, quite cheerful now. ‘We have to be careful these days. Can’t have any Tom, Dick or me, turning up unannounced can we?’
Not if you’re caning it, I thought. ‘Very wise,’ I said.
‘Come in, into the kitchen. Anne’s already put a pot of coffee on. She thought you’d be all right. She’s got a nose for it,’ he beamed.
‘Right,’ I said noncommittally.
The entrance hall was grand and lofty, probably as big
as my entire living room, with a wooden staircase that
went up the centre then split into separate staircases to either side.
Harry bobbed down under a doorframe only five foot high that led into a room of normal proportions, which had a couple of tatty sofas positioned in front of a huge old fireplace. This he told me absently, was the ‘snug’ and then opened a taller door opposite the fireplace, leaving me to follow him out into a bright modern kitchen/diner-cum-family room.
This side of the room was exposed red-brick, with a range cooker and a butcher’s block spread out in front of it. The rest of the room, however, showed no signs of age or whimsy.