Witch Hunt

Mum always said she thought we were distantly related to one. And there was this song, an old Essex folk ballad, The Weeping Willow, which Mum thought was connected to an ancestor. And there was a game in the playground: the kids would form a circle around one blindfolded child, the ‘witch’, and then you’d all dance around. When the verse ended the blindfolded child would try to catch one of the circle dancers. Whoever they caught was out. I can’t remember all of it but there are a couple of verses that stick:

They kicked them off and laid them down

And put them in the cold hard ground

The summer wind blew long and chill

The Divil bade her do his will

Pale and wild pale and wild

The witch did down the child

She picked her up and put her down

The willow’s leaves wrapped round and round

Her evil cries filled the air

And so did end the bad affair

Pale and wild pale and wild

The witch did up end the child

I think it was the song that got me interested, even as a child. That, my mother’s proud connection to it, and the fact that Essex had so many witches. There was folklore and myths about them everywhere I turned. And, if I’m honest, I did seek them out. I was always a bit of a spooky girl, fascinated by rather macabre stories and shrunken heads. My dad tried to get me interested in Roald Dahl, but to his great disappointment I quickly cast off Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in favour of Tales of the Unexpected. As I got older, I started delving into the witch hunts. It turned out to be rather sobering. In fact I soon became both horrified and hooked. The statistics were phenomenal: between 1580 to 1690 the combined total of indictments for witchcraft in Hertford, Kent, Surrey and Sussex was 222. In Essex alone over the same amount of time it was 492 – although recent studies put the number at 503. More than most other counties in the UK, by a long stretch. All those poor souls put to death by superstition. And did we know their names? No. We knew about the Witchfinders: James I, Matthew Hopkins, John Stearne. But if you were asked to name one of their many victims you’d be lost.

When I read about their stories I was revolted. They stayed with me. I just couldn’t get them out of my head.

I’d been a freelance writer for several years and I guess a book is always floating somewhere in the back of your mind. But it seemed almost like the idea just sprang into my mind, fully formed, like it had been nestling in the shadows all the time. I spent some time on a synopsis and had pitched it to a fair few publishers. I knew Mum was proud of me – she had wanted to write herself and even considered going into publishing when she was a teenager. She once told me she did work experience but had been put off. She wouldn’t say why. But she was pleased, I think, in that way that parents are, that I was doing what she had failed to. Anyway, the book was not met with the unbridled enthusiasm I had expected. In fact, I had had a series of rejection letters and was just about to go back to the drawing board, when I got a call from Emma of Portillion Books. She loved my sample chapter, and what she called my ‘fresh new unstuffy voice’. The proposal, she said, had been presented in an acquisitions meeting and got a rapturous reception. Consequently, I had been given a contract.

I was elated.

But there was a fly in the ointment: Portillion Books were the literary part of the Robert Cutt empire. The owner of a fleet of fast food restaurants, a football club, a few social networking sites, several magazines and two new private academies in London, Cutt was a powerful tycoon and a generous donor to the Conservative Party. The current rumour was that he was hoping to be made a Lord with a view to fast-tracking to a cabinet position. Political commentators were speculating that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport had already reserved him a parking space.

In our house Cutt’s name was a swear word. He wasn’t known for his great pay and conditions and cracked, as in broke, most of the unions his workers had been affiliated to. Plus, he was generally a bit of a git. Ruthless, you know the sort – did well out of the banking crisis. You could see corruption all over his face whenever his mug was in the papers.

I came from a firmly socialist background. Mum, a History teacher, and Dad, with his background in trade unions, constantly railed against continued control and acquisition of British media till Dad departed when I was sixteen. Dan had been less vehement when he came on the scene in my early twenties, but only fractionally. Unsurprisingly, Cutt was our antichrist.

But I was desperate to get my book published and I kind of felt that I’d have to swallow down my righteous outrage to get the witches’ stories out. It was a compromise, true, but I was prepared to make it. A whole chunk of me didn’t like or approve of that, but I was weak. And okay, okay, if I’m honest, there was the ego thing going on. It was, I justified to myself, only the book wing of Cutt’s empire, after all.

Mum, on the other hand … When I’d sprung it on her she’d had a mixed reaction. At first she was over the moon to hear I’d at long last got a book deal, but then, when I told her who it was with, her expression dimmed. She’d started trying to say something about jewellery. I don’t know if she was making some point about wealth or something but whatever it was she’d got so distressed that the nurse, Sally, had to come in and sedate her. It was horrible. I didn’t ever want to see that again.

So you can see why, on that particular day, when she was really not looking very well at all, I was trying really hard to sound upbeat and positive about it all.

‘I’m due to meet Emma next week.’ My voice sounded purposefully cheery. ‘I’m so excited. I’ll get the contract, then as soon as I sign it they’ll give me part of my advance. Isn’t that great? I mean it’s so tough being freelance. A lump sum will really help out. And it’s my chance to get the stories of the witches out there. Maybe I can find our ancestral witch. And if we are related, then surely it’s a kind of duty too?’

Mum was frowning and doing her best to say something, but I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I wanted her just to listen and be proud of me and to say it was okay.

And it wasn’t only that which made me fill up every inch of breathing and conversation space in her room in the hospice that afternoon. No. At the back of my mind there was the notion that what she truly wanted to tell me was that she loved me and I couldn’t let her. Don’t get me wrong – we did tell each other quite often, but there was something in the atmosphere that afternoon that made me desperately not want to hear it. Almost as if I did then there would be finality in the words. For if she told me she loved me and I told her I loved her too everything would be harmonious, and she would be able to slip off away into the everworld, her work here done.

And I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to lose her just yet. So I didn’t let her speak.

God, if only I had. I should have. I should have let her tell me.

She so wanted to. In fact, she was struggling with all her might to tell me.

And now, I know what it was, I am ashamed.

She was seriously worried – rightly so.

If I’d let her speak she would have told me the truth. Then maybe I would have been forewarned. And forewarned is, as they say, forearmed.

But I didn’t, did I?

I gabbled on and on until the nurse came in and had to administer the drugs. And then Mum was tired. When I came back in, she had fallen asleep. So I went home.

And it was that night, as the moon sailed upwards, my mother, along with her unspoken words, finally let go.

But I couldn’t.

And now I was haunted by my stupid stupid actions. Hearing the word ‘sorry’ in my dreams, waking up to unknown sobs.

I moved my legs off the bed and crept into the shower.

Unfortunately there are some stains that just won’t wash away.

Chapter Three

I thought grief would be the worst thing.

Though Mum’s health had been on a steep decline, and I more or less expected it, when death actually came it still shocked me.

During the first few days after she went, there had been pain. Then the sharpness of it eroded, and I was left with this sense of great guilt. Which was worse. Though this guilt was an energiser. It could have made me go round the bend it was so great. But I found a way of handling it – as soon as it came upon me in the mornings, I went into action, hoping that physical exertion might knock regret from its number one spot at the forefront of my mind. It kind of felt that if I didn’t do that, then it would engulf me entirely. Then I could see myself just sitting in the flat, crying and crying on my own. I didn’t want that. Mum wouldn’t have wanted that. So I went with the extreme activity option.

That morning, after I had rinsed as much shame as I could out of my hair, I combed it out in front of the living room mirror. In my twenties I’d earned the nickname ‘Lois Lane’ amongst my friends and peers, partly because I shared a terrier-like commitment to my cub reporter’s role on the local rag. It wasn’t quite the Daily Planet, but I was proud of what I did and used to talk about it non-stop. But there was also a physical resemblance to the actress in the TV series of Superman, Teri Hatcher. We were both dark, had well-defined eyebrows and had short, sassy bobs. I didn’t mind the comparison.

In the mirror today, a pale reflection stared back. I looked worse than I’d expected: my eyes, though grey, had a purple darkness about them – the surrounding skin was dry and blotchy and pink from bouts of unscheduled weeping. My hair, black like Mum’s, was broken up with russet lowlights though there was a good inch of regrowth that needed attention. And I was thinner. Maybe half a stone less than I was two weeks ago. Most people wouldn’t mind that, but it made me look gaunt: although Dad was unusually tall (six foot three), my slight frame had come from the maternal line.

Jeez. In the harsh daylight I looked like I could have been in a car crash. In fact, I thought, as I went into the bedroom and dried myself, that was far too generous. In this light, I could pass for a junkie who had been in a car crash. I made a mental note to buy some decent food, and get a haircut. Then I threw on my ‘uniform’: black jeans, black shirt, suit jacket (to lend it formality) and trainers (comfy).

Once dried and dressed I returned to the living room and got my laptop out. As I powered it up, I could hear scratching above me in the loft. It had been going on for a few days now. I needed to call out pest control; I added it to my list of things to do. It was probably rats but didn’t help at all with my state of mind – it sounded like my conscience itching.

I had enough time to go through some emails before I needed to set out for the offices of Mercurial for an appointment with Maggie.

I padded round my flat, cooking up a strong coffee and installing myself in the living room. Despite its modest dimensions, I did love the place. Tucked under the eaves of a 1970s purpose-built block, I had a smallish bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, and a very spacious living room that doubled as a dining room and study. It was sparsely furnished. I’d not taken much with me when I split up with Christopher, my last long-term boyfriend. Just the high quality stereo, a very comfy leather armchair and this gorgeous antique mirror he bought me from Camden Lock market. I knew the ornate rococo decoration and black stains on the bevelled plate were at odds with the modern minimal interiors he admired, so it was a kind of testament to his initial affection. He made no effort to keep it when we were divvying up our joint goods so I’d kept it in storage until I got this flat, then hung it in pride of place over the mantelpiece, where I gazed at it from my writing desk. This was an old glass dining table, which I had shoved towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that led out onto my balcony.

Our block had a particularly glorious vista – looking over the railway station to the beach, yacht club and tidal plains of the estuary. Chalkwell was a good location. I’d chosen it for its transport links to London. My relocation didn’t happen overnight as I still had a lot of work in London and had to make the trip into town at least two or three times a week. But it was only a forty-five-minute journey from here and I’d always liked the place; mostly populated by elderly couples and families, it felt safe and as a newly single young woman, that was a primary concern. When I first saw the flat, it was the view that got me. Sunny mornings would see the front room filled with the unimpeded honey rays that crept up over Southend’s pier (the longest pleasure pier in the world, don’t you know). And, if you were lucky in the evenings you’d get a front seat view of Mother Nature’s chosen sunset, framed lovingly by the tops of the oaks in the front garden.

That morning’s clouds, however, were wearing the same dark grey shroud they had done since the funeral. It seemed everything had muted itself in respect.

I took a look at the incoming tide and sat down at the desk, ready to click on the internet icon.

The big life stuff, the events that change your life – the births, the deaths, the crises, always start in a small way, I’ve found, with a twinge or a rumble or blip. And that’s more or less how this story began. In a very ordinary, mundane manner.

I ignored the strong pull of my guilt trip and went straight into email. There was a message from one of my local news contacts asking me if I could interview a couple about a fundraising effort. I replied that I could fit it in within the next two days, noted the address and then scrolled down past the offers of Viagra to an email from someone called Felix Knight at Portillion Publishing. The Felix guy was introducing himself ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. My editor Emma, he explained, had been promoted into another division and he had been handed responsibility for my book. He was extremely excited about it, looking forward to meeting me and suggested that, after a formal introduction in the office, we have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

I liked the sound of Felix but, to be frank, I was happy to work with anyone who was happy to work with me. I replied that that would be ‘fantastic’ and I was very much looking forward to meeting him too.

My next email was an old friend expressing condolences. I clicked on the link and went through to Facebook. Then I did the standard reply: ‘Thank you. Yes, it’s been crap, but I’m getting on with life.’ I had to deal with it this way – if I went into detail I was worried that I’d unleash a torrent of real grief that might wash me away. I was about to shut down, when a message box popped up on the screen.

Unusually, it had no name attached. There was still the regular green dot in the top left-hand corner and the other function symbols across the toolbar. But no name. I looked down at the message.

‘Are you there?’ It read.

Of course I bloody am, I thought. But I simply wrote, ‘Yes.’ Then I waited, curious to see who it was.

Nothing happened for a few seconds then the words ‘Where are you?’ appeared.

What did that mean? Most of my Facebook friends knew I had moved out of the Smoke eighteen months ago.

A little irritated by the stupidity of the question, I chucked it back at the unknown messenger. ‘Where are you?’ and sat back to see the response.

There was a bit of a time delay. I glanced at my watch. I couldn’t spend long on this joker as I should be getting my stuff together to leave fairly soon.

Then the words popped up on the screen, ‘I can hear you but I can’t see you.’

Mmm. Weird. I regarded the screen for a moment then retyped: ‘Where are you?’

A breeze outside nudged the oak leaves against the window. They sounded like little metallic fingertips on the panes.

The reply came up: ‘I do not know. Everything is dark here.’

Okay, this was getting creepy. What to do? Coming up with no good reply, I sat still and contemplated the screen.

My correspondent was typing. ‘There is only blackness,’ they wrote.

Then underneath that, ‘I am scared.’

That stopped me.

Was this a joke? An inappropriate friend trying to freak me out? Some random viral marketing ploy? I tried to think of a way to respond without looking stupid if it was a prank. Though, at the back of my mind, I was wondering about what to do if it wasn’t.

‘Who are you?’ I tapped out on the keys and hit enter.

‘I’m sorry,’ they replied.

I stopped and looked at it. Then I swallowed. The words had been on my lips just an hour ago.

Then another line of text: ‘Hush.’

Hush? That was an odd choice of word.

Quickly, more text appeared. ‘He may come back.’

Now cynicism was overruled by a more concerning impulse.

‘Who might?’ I wrote. ‘Who might be coming back?’

The screen was still for a moment, then the words ‘Oh God’ tapped out on the screen.

Without letting my head intervene in my now more emotional response, I wrote ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’ But when I hit enter this time my screen died and turned to black.

I cursed and looked down at the on button. My battery had run out.

I hastily reached for the power cable and plugged it in. The computer took several frustrating seconds to reboot and when I returned to the site there was nothing there. No box. No evidence of our conversation. I scrolled down my list of online friends. There was no one I didn’t recognise.

I could have left it alone, but a part of me felt responsible. After all, this hadn’t been a chat room – it had been a dialogue with one other person. A private communication sent only to me. I was troubled but not yet scared. Just worried that I hadn’t stepped up to my civic duty if indeed, this was a genuine message. Crap. This had to be the last thing I needed right now – more guilt.

I bit my lip then made a decision, pulled out my mobile and dialled the one person who I could possibly pass this on to. I was in no fit state to get involved with anyone else’s business right now.

He answered pretty quickly. ‘Hello, Sadie. How are you feeling?’

So thoughtful, always concerned about others. You could see why he’d entered the police force. He was a nice bloke. And he’d been a good friend. In fact, before I met Christopher, he’d been more than just a friend. I’d met Joe six years ago, whilst covering some high-ranking officer’s retirement. It was lucky I had taken the job. I’d hooked it on impulse as Mum was on a bit of a low and I wanted to spend more time with her. As soon as I met him, there was an instant connection: we ended up drunkenly eating chips on the seafront and watching the moon set over Canvey Island. He had a really lovely smile (those dimples were just gorgeous) and a kooky sense of humour that chimed with mine. One thing had led to another and another. We were both due some time off so I didn’t leave his flat for two days and nights. We followed it up with the usual sort of thing – trips to the cinema, dinner, a fabulous weekend break in the country. It was great. But I knew I had to go back to London, and somehow, despite the fact it wasn’t that far away, I think I had it in my mind that it was only a holiday romance, something casual. Not that we ever discussed it, but he was four years younger than me. It doesn’t seem much now, but at the time I was twenty-seven, and twenty-three seemed way too young to be serious. When he went off to Carlisle for training and Mum felt better I returned to my life in the metropolis. We texted each other a few times, but he backed off completely when I started seeing Christopher. Yet he still had a physical effect on me. I’d bumped into him a couple of times since I’d moved back and could never stop myself stealing furtive glances at his sinewy frame. Even now I had to do my best to sound together and competent, instead of breathy and slightly chaotic.

‘Hi Joe, I’m okay.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘You must have had a bad hangover after the other night.’ I could tell he was smiling as he spoke. Voices sound more distinct when mouths are pulled wide. Then, remembering the specific occasion of my last major bender, he took his voice down a note and hastily added, ‘Understandable of course.’

I took it in my stride. ‘I’m okay, honestly. Thanks for, er, helping out. I’m sorry if I, er, embarrassed you …’ Oh God, there was that image – me catching his lapel, pulling him down, slobbering all over him. I pushed the mortifying grope from my mind and concentrated on the present issue.

Joe was generous. ‘Think nothing of it.’ It was a full stop on the matter.

Gallant too. You absolute gem, I thought.

‘Listen,’ I said, changing the subject super quick. ‘I’ve just had a weird thing happen.’ And I explained about the messaging.

I hadn’t expected him to laugh, but that’s what he did. It left me feeling stupid and gauche.

‘Someone’s having you on, Sadie,’ was his conclusion. ‘You wouldn’t believe the number of calls we get about this sort of stuff. Texts, emails. It’s all part of new generation cyber-crime.’

Now I was cross, bordering on outraged. Not at him. At the unknown idiot who had virtually freaked me. ‘Well, who would do that to me? Especially now. When, you know, I’m a little more fragile than …’

Joe’s voice piped up, the perfect example of good victim support training, ‘Don’t take it personally. You’re probably a random selection. There’s some bored teenager chuckling away in his bedroom right now. In future, don’t respond. If you don’t engage them, they’ll get bored and move on to something else.’

It seemed like sensible advice, so I agreed not to.

‘Is there anything else I can do you for, Ms Asquith?’ Was it me or was there a teensy bit of hope in his voice?

The question was open-ended, leaving it up to me to pick up the ball and run. I told him, ‘Right this minute, no, just the dodgy internet business. But I’ll call you soon. For a drink maybe?’ He said that would be nice and I thanked him for his advice.

‘Glad to be of service to the public, madam.’ He was very jovial. ‘Now take care of yourself and feel free to phone me if this sort of thing happens again.’

I told him I definitely would and hung up, a little thrill rippling through me.

Now I was fifteen minutes behind schedule.

I had stuff to get on with so slammed the laptop shut, got my things together then whizzed out the door.

The gloomy October morning had bled into a gloomy October afternoon. The light breeze had notched up into a strong south-easterly wind and was whipping rubbish into tiny twisters, screeching through the bare branches of the sycamores that bordered the wide Georgian avenues of Southend’s conservation area. Everybody on the street was buttoned up, faces down, slanting diagonally into its oncoming draughts.

The offices of Mercurial, a quarterly arts magazine, were nestled between an ancient accountancy firm and a design agency. I liked working for them. They were cool: as a freelance writer who specialised in Essex affairs, kudos was rather thin on the ground, and the mag’s cachet rubbed off on me.

It was now eighteen months that I’d been living in the borough of Southend. Initially, my move had been born out of an urge to be closer to Mum. Her health was going downhill and although Dan was around, I wanted to be there for her too. Then after I split up with Christopher, London quickly lost some of its shine and I accelerated the relocation.

It had been good for me. Though I kept my hand in with my old bosses in London, I had enjoyed rediscovering my old patch. Southend had grown and changed. Lots of things were going on and Mercurial reflected that. They were good to know – always had an ear to the ground – and I had actually grown very fond of the staff at the office. For a bunch of artistic individuals they were all pretty down to earth.