Witch Hunt

Chapter Eighteen




The encounter with the tramp had reignited my earlier anxiety from the cells.

‘Leave us,’ he had said. It only dawned on me when I had got the car started and left the car park that it was the same phrase I heard in the dungeon.

Coincidence.

But the words kept coming back as I navigated through the outer ring road onto the motorway. The ‘Leave us’ in the dungeon. What was that about? A man’s voice. The gaoler’s? The Witchfinder’s? Why? What was it suggesting? The end of the documentary, in all probability. A cue to leave the prison and progress on to the other parts of the exhibition. An inbuilt traffic system to keep the flow of visitors moving.

And the tramp? Well, he was probably speaking in the plural but referring to himself. Wasn’t uncommon. And it had that country flavour to the phrase. Anyway he wasn’t all there, so there was no point dwelling on what he had to say.

And after all of that I had left them now. Colchester was miles away.

So why then did I feel a building sense of guilt and betrayal as I drove from the place?

Once I got onto the A12 to Chelmsford I pumped up the volume on the car stereo and thrashed around to some old eighties tunes.

My mood lightened. When that compilation ended I kept the retro mood and chose an R.E.M. album. There was something so upbeat about their early stuff. It was good driving music. Yet as I got into a cruise, coming out of Chelmsford, the CD screwed up: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Michael Stipe’s emotional warble was caught on repeat. I tried to forward it on to the next track, but it wouldn’t go.

‘I’m sorry.’ Argh. It was getting very irritating. I kept one hand on the wheel and felt around for another CD, any CD. I pressed eject and took the disc out, swapped it for some classical and pressed play. ‘I’m sorry.’ R.E.M. continued to crank out of the speakers. I looked down at the disc in my hand and wrinkled my brow.

I slowed down and hit the stop button. The track went on.

Damn. I ejected the classical disc. The jarring music continued on like a broken record.

And then, over the top of Stipe’s vocals I heard a sobbing.

I started swearing at the player, thumping it with my hand but it kept on playing out that bloody awful line.

The soprano got louder. ‘I’m sorry.’

The memory of the dungeon hit me full in the face: the girl in the cell. The weeping. The despair. The pleading. It all descended on me like a cloud, or rather, the opposite of a cloud. Instead of getting foggy and obscured I felt like something was bringing down illumination, clarity.

I recognised her voice.

And then it was as if everything became connected: the castle, the mirror, the messaging. A linear pattern was emerging. And I suddenly saw it was all one and the same. A woman. One who had been kept in the dungeon. A woman who had been hugely wronged.

A witch.

But even as I thought that word, part of me still couldn’t suspend scepticism. Why think that? I mulled it over. And yet, and yet, simultaneously I could feel it, there, at the base of my stomach, that the word was right. It struck a chord of harmony deep within. Or maybe harmony was not quite the right word. It was more like it struck a chord that wasn’t dissonant – like it was chiming with something I already knew, something that I had repressed thus far; an intuition or forgotten understanding. I don’t know. But, whatever, it was as if, in the micro-moment that it hit me, nothing was the same again. As if defences were coming down in my head and I was opening up to another world.

I lost concentration and swerved into the next lane. A car horn blared at me. This was barmy. Dangerous. My head was all over the place, reeling, gasping, seeing.

I pulled over to the hard shoulder and killed my speed, the ghastly voice sobbing and Michael Stipe apologising over and over again. Then the music stopped and the woman said, ‘Forgive me.’

And I was gone.

Crawling up onto my feet I stagger up, but I am not steady and knock the girl in front. She shouts for me to mind myself. Her father watches on. He puts a hand on my arm to aid me but when I look up he sees who I am and recoils. I push past him unheeding of the jeers and taunts from the others around because at the front of the scaffold I see the woman with the knife is upon Mother’s body. I cannot see what she is busy with, only the arch of her back, muddy feet sticking from the bottom of her dress. I call out for her to leave her alone. But then HE is there. He blocks my path and grabs my arms, fastening them behind my back.

‘You’ll not help her now,’ he says and pulls me roughly to him. ‘Master Ranking. Take her,’ he shouts into the crowd. A man comes forwards dressed in a blue livery I don’t recognise. ‘Keep her with you and take her back.’ Then he turns to me. I am struggling hard to twist my wrists from his grip. ‘They will take care of you, till your time comes.’

I manage to unloose one arm and lurch forwards. HE is shouting instructions to the liveried man who picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

‘More gentle,’ HE barks. ‘She is with child.’

The man hoists me up slower. When he turns around my body is swung to face the killing stage where I see the knifewoman holding something up for the crowd. Her face is full of pleasure and victory. She stands up and waves it and I realise what it is – blood still drips from Mother’s scalp.