Witch Hunt

Chapter Fifteen




I’m not sure at what point I finally went to bed, but when I woke up I had a serious hangover. It was nine o’clock. Dad and Janet must have risen early but let me sleep on, because when I came down into the kitchen they were sitting round the table with Lettice and Lucy.

For a minute I watched them from the doorway. Dad was pouring Lucy a juice. Lettice must have just said something funny to Janet, because she was looking over smiling. If you didn’t know better you would assume that they were the perfect family. Maybe they were. The thing is, I saw very clearly that morning that they were happy and self-contained.

They didn’t need me.

They never had.

And I knew they would be just fine if I weren’t there at all. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I was full of self-pity. I could see that they worked. Later I would remember the scene. It would clarify a hard decision I was going to have to make.

It wasn’t long before Lucy spied me and called out my name. ‘You were drunk last night,’ she said, full of childish satisfaction.

‘I was tired,’ I told her, sloping into the kitchen and ruffling her hair. ‘You are way too perceptive for your years, young lady.’

After many cups of coffee and a full English breakfast I finally extricated myself from the household and was on my way by eleven.

Halfway home I had to pull in for petrol. I was close to Manningtree and considered for a minute whether I should detour and scout the town. But at the back of my mind there was a notion that if I mentioned the visit to Felix, he might wish to accompany me – and that was far too tempting to jeopardise. I was seeing him tomorrow in Colchester. I might drop it into conversation.

Instead I filled up the car, bought some mineral water and a damp sandwich and was just about to leave the shop when a glance at the magazine shelf stopped me. A local journal was running a feature on witches. I took it to the till, was offered a bag, said I didn’t need one and headed towards the exit, arms full – and promptly bashed into a large man clad in a black leather jacket. Everything spilled onto the floor.

The big guy dropped to his knees, full of yanky sounding apologies, and helped me scoop them up. It was only when I righted myself that I looked into his face. It was familiar, tanned. He smiled, revealing a set of immaculate white teeth. I couldn’t place him.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It was my fault.’ He didn’t offer a verbal response, just nodded and looked away. I felt a little bit of an idiot knowing I probably reeked of last night’s fizz so I quickly shuffled out to the car.

Depositing my goods on the back seat, I took out the mineral water. Still not fully compos mentis I opened it and released a fizzy shower of water all over the dash and driving seat. Bugger. I had cleaning stuff in the boot so hopped round and fetched it. As I slammed the boot I saw the man in the leather jacket get into a black BMW on the other side of the forecourt. He settled into his seat, pulled his seatbelt across his chest and then just watched me.

I smiled.

He smiled.

I turned away and dried the car, inwardly cringing, the clumsiest oaf in town.

Within minutes I was on my way again not thinking any more of the encounter, drawn in to the meditative hum of the road. The smooth Essex landscape opened up either side of me – flat green-brown squares of land, fringed with shady spinach-coloured thickets.

Beyond the sunshine autumn was clearly on her way, shading the hedgerows with her amber paint, fleecing the copses of their frayed leaves. The air outside smelt smoky and ripe; the earth was ready for harvest.

An uneventful hour later I pulled into my drive. My back had been aching a little so I stretched my arms up and rubbed my neck. I don’t know what made me look but just as I was about to get out of the car I clocked a black BMW pulling in across the road.

No one got out. The side windows were tinted.

I adjusted my rear mirror to get a better view. Then, I shivered. I didn’t know why at the time.

An older man in a light-coloured suit got out of the back. He had a trilby pulled over down over his ears so I couldn’t see his face. He sauntered a couple of yards to the post box and posted something through the slot.

I thought it might have been the big man with the leather jacket, but was glad it wasn’t. Silly of me to assume that. Let’s face it, there were thousands of black BMWs on the road these days.

I locked my car, took my stuff up to the flat and got on with the rest of my day.

Before I went to bed I fixed myself another sandwich, tuned into the news channel and half-stifled a groan. Robert Cutt had been at it again. This time there were allegations of bribery; something to do with access to a list of potential mayoral candidates. Cutt was coming out of it all right though – there was a fall guy, Gerald Harp, some executive way way down in the Cutt hierarchy, testifying that Cutt had known nothing about the alleged misdemeanour. Yeah right.

Photos showed Harp was on the puny side: very fair with see-through eyelashes and matching hair. The last photo on the TV coverage had him in a geeky white blazer, at some sporting event.

After a few minutes of commentary outside the House of Commons they went to a shot of Cutt leaving a meeting. Reporters jostled with each other to get into a prime position. His bodyguards managed to whack a few out of the way, but one determined newshound got their mic right under his nose.

‘Do you have any comment to make on this latest allegation, Mr Cutt?’

A bodyguard shoved the camera, which tilted to the floor, showing Cutt’s strangely effeminate pale blue suede shoes. The reporter herself was undeterred. ‘Mr Cutt, do you have anything to say about this revelation?’ The camera was back up, trained on Cutt’s face. He stopped and offered his good side to the camera. He didn’t give a toss about the fall guy, you could tell. The operator clumsily zoomed in and Cutt’s broad high-cheeked visage filled the screen: ‘My family and I have always lived a moral and correct life. Despite these slurs, that will continue.’ The light American accent still lingered in his voice.

‘Amen,’ said a bystander and a couple of nearby nutters applauded. Why? He wasn’t an out and out Christian but he did have that American thing about brandishing his genealogy. The more he did it, the more popular he got.

God, he was smug.

He gave the camera one last devilish smile, then left the frame. The crew attempted to follow him but were hemmed in by men in suits.

Some of us could see what Cutt was doing – using every possible media opportunity to promote his wholesome credentials in order to get that power seat in the cabinet. That wholesome image was a well-thought-out strategy. Right on the money, if you forgive the pun. I could almost applaud its engineer: we were up to our ears in secular unrest right now – what with the riots, the Eurozone, the bankers, foreign mafia infiltrating our shores. Never before had a return to some kind of thinly couched Christian ‘Back to Basics’ ethic been so well received by the press. People wanted a quick fix and Cutt was positioning himself as the answer to it all.

It made me seethe.

Arrogant git.

Not all of his family could have lived a good life. There must be someone somewhere who had been a bastard and spawned this crook.

‘Well, let’s just see about that, shall we,’ I said to myself, ramming the last piece of sandwich into my mouth. I fetched my laptop, put his name into Google and sat back. The search brought up hundreds of hits.

A quick tour through the labyrinth led me to Cutt’s own website where his family tree was displayed proudly for all to see.

It was true – though his parents were working-class people from Wyoming, their roots, through his father, went back to Jediah Curwen-Dunmow of Massachusetts who died in the late seventeenth century.

Curwen-Dunmow was, according to a mini biog, a fine upright elder. He fathered a son, Certain (who dropped the ‘Curwen’ and kept only ‘Dunmow’), very late in life. Although Curwen-Dunmow himself had no certificates to substantiate a lineage before him, the line from Certain Dunmow to Robert Cutt was strong and unwavering. It stopped at his name. There was nothing else on the bottom of the screen, just his pompous flashing moniker.

He was right, then. No dirt there.

I sighed and pushed back my laptop. My fingertips were tingling. That usually meant something: my intellect often managed to converse with my body way before my conscious mind got wind of it. But mindful of the fact I was online, and wanting to avoid any communication with Hackerman, I closed down the PC and retired to bed. It was just gone ten o’clock but I had to get my beauty sleep.

I would be seeing Felix tomorrow. I wanted to look my best.