The Witch Maker

by Sally Spencer

  Woodend thought about it for a moment. ‘Oh aye,’ he said finally. ‘I was wonderin’ whatever possessed you to scratch the word “prostitute” across the front of my sergeant’s car.’

  ‘It wasn’t “prostitute”. It was ...’

  ‘“Harlot”,’ Woodend completed, when it was plain that Calhoun was not about to. ‘I know. A quaint, old-fashioned term, isn’t it? Do they still use it down in County Cork?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Calhoun said, doing his best to stage a recovery, but not making a very good job of it.

  ‘I’ll just bet you wouldn’t,’ Woodend replied. ‘An’ incidentally, Mr Calhoun, it wasn’t me who first mentioned the fact that the car in question belonged to my sergeant.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. I was very careful when I was talkin’ about the owner. All I said was “she”. Yet you knew I was talkin’ about Monika Paniatowski. Now where would an innocent man – who’d never set foot in the village until he was arrested – have got that particular piece of information from?’

  Thirty-Four

  Monika Paniatowski was walking round and round the edge of the Green. There was no particular reason for it. She wasn’t there to observe the way in which the crime scene was being destroyed in order that the festival could take place – though that process was well under way, with uniformed constables removing the official barriers and villagers replacing them with barriers of their own. Nor was she there in the hope that her proximity to the spot on which the murder took place would stimulate her mind towards new lines of investigation. She was walking because she could think of nothing else to do – because since those words had appeared on her car, her mind had been in complete turmoil and she had begun to question the whole purpose of her life.

  Under normal circumstances, she would almost immediately have spotted that she was being followed. Under these circumstances, it was little short of a miracle that she noticed it even on her third perambulation around the Green. But spot it she did, and when she did, her brain shifted a gear and she became DS Paniatowski again.

  She stopped and turned around. The woman who was on her tail was in her late-thirties to early-forties, she guessed. She was no longer the slim creature she might once have been, yet, from the way she carried herself, it was plain she had no bitter regrets about the passing of her youth. Her face, though incredibly strained at that moment, looked both kind and understanding. Paniatowski caught herself starting to think that if she were in the market for a mother, this woman would be a very good choice.

  The woman stopped when Paniatowski did. For a moment she hovered uncertainly, then she took a deep breath and closed the gap between them.

  ‘Why were you following me?’ Paniatowski demanded.

  ‘I suppose I was getting up the nerve to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  The woman hesitated again, then blurted out, ‘Could Pat Calhoun go to prison?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Paniatowski replied, noncommittally.

  ‘Just for damaging a car.’

  Not a car, Paniatowski though. Not just a car. My car. My precious little MGA.

  ‘You can go to prison for stealing a sandwich, if your attitude’s wrong,’ she said. ‘And his attitude is definitely wrong.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We need to know why he did it, and he won’t tell us.’

  ‘No,’ the other woman agreed. ‘He wouldn’t.’ She paused for a moment. ‘You’re the injured party here, aren’t you? What would happen if you dropped the charges?’

  ‘He’d be released.’

  ‘Then couldn’t you do that? Couldn’t you go to your boss and say you’re dropping the charges?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I ... Does it really matter?’

  Paniatowski nodded. ‘You want a favour. I need to know who’s asking for it.’

  ‘I’m ... I’m Zelda Todd. I work on the fairground. I’m in charge of the coconut shy.’

  ‘And what’s Pat Calhoun to you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I mean ... I like him a great deal. And I’d be very happy if he and my daughter ... if they ...’

  ‘Is that why you want me to drop the charges? Because you think he’d make you a good son-in-law?’ Paniatowski asked, noting, as she spoke, that she almost sounded bitter.

  ‘Pat didn’t mean any harm,’ Zelda Todd said.

  ‘You try telling that to my poor little car,’ Paniatowski responded.

  The remark seemed to take the other woman genuinely by surprise. ‘You talk about it as if you were in love with it,’ she said.

  Yes, I do, don’t I? Monika thought. Maria Rutter has Bob, Zelda’s daughter will probably eventually have Pat Calhoun, and I have a red MGA I can scarcely afford to run.

  ‘Why did he do it?’ she asked.

  Zelda Todd thought for a moment. ‘Have you ever seen a magic act in one of the fairground sideshows?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think I have.’

  ‘You’re probably too young. They don’t do much of that kind of thing nowadays. But twenty years ago, there were almost as many magicians working the fairgrounds as there were in the music halls.’

  ‘I don’t see where you’re going with this.’

  ‘The magician usually had a girl with him. She would be young, reasonably pretty, and would wear a costume so skimpy that most girls wouldn’t even think of wearing it on the beach.’

  ‘The beautiful assistant,’ Paniatowski said, thinking of the fairground manager’s words.

  ‘That’s right,’ Zelda Todd agreed. ‘The beautiful assistant. Why do you think she was there?’

  ‘To help the magician with his tricks?’ Paniatowski guessed. ‘To add a bit of glamour to the show?’

  ‘To distract!’ Zelda Todd said. ‘I was a beautiful assistant once – and that was my downfall.’

  Zelda, only nineteen years old, and pretty as a picture, is standing on the rickety stage next to the Magnificent Antonio. Antonio – real name, Archibald Hicks – is fifty-three years old. He is long past his best as a magician, and – even more damaging – he has been drinking quite heavily before the show. He is going to fumble his tricks – she is sure of that – and if they are not to get booed off, she will have to work extra-hard tonight.

  They are reaching the crucial point in the trick, the moment when Archibald-Antonio must accomplish a very complex sleight of hand, and the chances are that he’ll mess it up. Zelda counts slowly to three, then takes a step forward. It is only a slight step, yet she manages to imbue it with a sexuality made all the more potent by the fact that she is still so obviously a teenage virgin. The eyes of the men in the audience are all on her, as she’d known they would be, and the eyes of the women are all fixed, resentfully, on the men. Perhaps the kids will see Archibald-Antonio fumble the trick, but kids don’t matter, because nobody will listen to them anyway.

  Archibald-Antonio has got through the difficult moment. Zelda gives one more little shimmer – her young breasts wobbling invitingly – then steps back to her original position. The magician bows, the hayseed audience applauds – and Zelda begins to feel a pair of eyes burning into her.

  The next trick is so simple that even a drunk like Archibald can perform it without a hitch. Zelda lets her eyes wander, and locates the man who has been looking at her so intently. He is older than she is – but not that much older. He is stocky and not particularly handsome, yet there is a power emanating from him which quite overwhelms her. She already has a boyfriend – Stan Dawkins – and though they have not yet progressed beyond the slap and tickle stage, she knows that she loves him and will eventually allow him to go further. So she has no interest in any other man. No interest at all. And yet ... and yet she still feels herself irresistibly drawn to this stranger.

  Archibald-Antonio produces a scabby pigeon, masquer­­ading as a pure white dove, from inside his
top hat. The unsophisticated audience claps furiously.

  The man looks down at his watch, flashes the fingers of his right hand three times, and then points to the area beyond the roundabout. The message is clear. She is to meet him in fifteen minutes at the edge of the fairground. She doesn’t want to – she knows she shouldn’t – but she finds herself nodding her head anyway.

  ‘Your downfall?’ Paniatowski repeated. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘We’re not here to talk about me,’ Zelda tells her. ‘Pat is the one who matters now.’

  ‘Then tell me about Pat,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Tell me about the distraction he hoped to create by attacking my car. What was he trying to distract us from?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ Zelda said, still hoping that she could find a way to keep the past buried.

  ‘Why can’t you?’ Paniatowski demanded.

  ‘Because – don’t you see – if I tell you, then Pat might as well not have done it at all.’

  ‘If you won’t talk, then I can’t help you,’ Paniatowski said. ‘But perhaps Pat will talk – when he’s been in gaol for a few days. Of course, by then we might not need the information, so it won’t do his case any good anyway.’

  A feeling of unworthiness began to fill her even as she was speaking the words. She was using a trick of the trade which was perfectly legitimate with hardened criminals, she told herself. But what possible justification could she have for employing it with this obviously well-meaning middle-aged woman?

  ‘Please!’ Zelda Todd said.

  Paniatowski steeled herself. She was dealing with a murder case here – possibly even two murder cases. There was no room for sentiment. No room for understanding.

  ‘I have to know,’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ Zelda Todd agreed reluctantly. ‘But you must promise me you won’t draw the wrong conclusions.’

  ‘I won’t draw the wrong conclusions,’ Paniatowski promised, adding a mental note to herself that Zelda might well find the right conclusions just as unpalatable.

  Thirty-Five

  Zelda meets the man at the edge of the fairground, just beyond the reach of the lights. She can’t see him very clearly, but he has made such a big impression on her already that she can picture him even in the dark.

  ‘I was watchin’ you up on that stage,’ he says.

  She giggles. ‘I know you were.’

  ‘I can have any woman in the village I want, you know. But the one I want is you.’

  He obviously means it as a compliment, but she is not flattered. Stan may be uneducated but he is not crude like this man is, and she is starting to feel sorry that she came.

  ‘I have to be getting back,’ she says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asks, obviously puzzled.

  ‘You asked me to come and see you, and I have,’ she says, noting the tremble in her voice. ‘Now I have to be getting back.’

  ‘You think I wanted you to come here just to talk?’ he asks.

  ‘I didn’t know what you wanted,’ she says.

  She’s lying. She knew what he wanted and thought she didn’t mind. But now she does. Now she minds very much.

  ‘Come here!’ he says.

  It is the voice of a man used to being obeyed, and despite herself, she takes a step closer to him. She has been expecting him to try and kiss her, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and grabs her breasts. And twists them! As if they were not attached to her at all! As if they are there only for his pleasure, and he doesn’t care how she feels.

  ‘You’re hurting me!’ she gasps.

  ‘You know you like it.’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘All women like it – however much they shout an’ squeal.’

  He has a firm grasp of her now, and is pulling her down to the ground. She doesn’t scream at first – because she doesn’t want the other people from the fairground to know what she has done – but when she feels her back press against the grass, a scream does begin to form in her throat.

  It never gets out. It is never allowed to get out. The man clamps his left hand over her mouth, while his right hand is exploring under her skirt. She wants to get away, but his body is pressing down on her, his knees forcing her legs apart.

  She tries to struggle free, but the hand which has been under her skirt reaches up and slaps her. Once, twice, three times. She is crying, but she knows he doesn’t care. She wishes she was dead.

  He enters her roughly, tearing her hymen, bruising her insides. It does not last long – though to her it seems to last for ever. He grunts, rolls off her, stands up, and buttons his trousers.

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve never had a seein’ to like that before,’ he says.

  And then he disappears into the night, leaving her lying there, sobbing softly to herself.

  ‘Who was this man?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Zelda said, sobbing again as she had sobbed on that night all those years ago. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  A lie!

  He had told her his name, right enough. Had not just told her, but actually boasted about who he was.

  As if he thought she should have known it already!

  As if he had failed to understand that however celebrated he might be in his own village, the name meant nothing to those people who came from outside it.

  So she knew who he was. But Pat was in enough trouble already, without her passing the information on to this policewoman.

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Do you know if he came from this village?’

  ‘Stan thought he did.’

  ‘Stan? Stan Dawkins? You told him about it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t hide it from him.’

  She has no idea how long she has been lying there, but she can see the funfair is closing down and knows she must get back to her caravan. It hurts to stand up, but she forces herself. She finds walking painful, too, and despite the need to get cleaned up before her mother sees her, she has to stop and rest at several points in her journey.

  It is during the last stop before her caravan that Stan finds her. He doesn’t ask her what has happened. He doesn’t need to. All he wants is the name, and she – so weak she cannot think ahead, so weak she cannot even imagine the consequences – gives it to him.

  ‘So Stan didn’t come into the village to look for girls, as people at the time thought,’ Paniatowski said. ‘In fact, he had quite the opposite purpose – he wanted to avenge you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And got himself killed in the process.’

  ‘I didn’t know that would happen. I never thought it would happen.’

  ‘But after it did happen, you didn’t even bother to tell the police about it! Why?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. We didn’t matter. We were all just no-good gypsies as far as the police back then were concerned. They’d never have arrested anybody “respectable” for killing one of us.’

  ‘That’s not true at all!’ Paniatowski said. ‘If you’d told them what you’ve told me, they’d have taken you into the village and asked you to point out the killer for them.’

  ‘And how could I have done that – when I didn’t even know who he was myself?’

  ‘But of course you knew! The man who killed Stan must have been the same man who raped you.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘And how can you possibly be so sure of that?’

  ‘Because, just after Stan had set off for the village, he came back.’

  She is still standing where Stan left her when she sees the man has returned. She wants to scream, but he puts his finger to his mouth to silence her, and somehow she cannot bring herself to disobey him.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he says.

  ‘You’ve already hurt me,’ she tells him.

  He looks down at the ground. ‘I know,’ he mumbles. ‘It’s been pointed out to me
.’

  She can’t believe what she’s hearing. It’s been pointed out to him. It shouldn’t have needed to be pointed out to him. What kind of a man was he? What kind of world did he live in where he didn’t know he’d done wrong until it had been pointed out to him?

  ‘Who told you you’d done wrong?’ she asks. ‘Your dad?’

  ‘No, not my dad.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He takes a step closer to her, and when she instinctively shrinks away, he says, ‘I told you, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m here to give you somethin’.’

  He holds out his hand. There is just enough light for her to see the small piece of brown paper which it contains.

  ‘A ten bob note,’ she says, hardly able to believe it.

  ‘It’s a lot of dosh, is ten bob,’ he answers. ‘It’d take you a while to earn ten bob, an’ now it’s yours after only ten minutes’ work.’

  So that is the price of her humiliation, she thinks. Ten shillings.

  ‘I don’t want your money,’ she tells him.

  ‘He said I should make sure you took it.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘My ... Look, I don’t want it.’

  ‘And I don’t want it either.’

  She makes a dash for her caravan, and he doesn’t try to stop her.

  But he does not go away, either. Not then – and not later.

  He stays standing in the shadows, watching her caravan. Nobody else notices, because if you’re not looking for him, you can’t see him. But she is looking. Several times during the night, she peers through the window and sees the dark form standing there. It is only just before dawn breaks that he finally disappears.

  Why did he stay so long? she wonders to herself, when he has finally gone. Not because he was sorry. Not because he wanted to apologize for what he had done. He’d made it quite plain he had no regrets.

  So why then?

  Because somebody – perhaps the man who gave him the money – had told him to stay away from the village in case there was any trouble. In case someone from the funfair came looking for him.