Witch Hunt

Chapter Twenty-Six




Away from the buzz of Basildon, the fake tan and stilettos, under the grass and soil, the twisting roots, loam, chalk and clay, beneath the minerals transported from the north by the majestic glaciers that thawed eons ago, the ancient soul of Essex was waiting for me.

Mistley, allegedly ‘the pasture of the Mistletoe’, was situated on the south bank of the River Stour, with views over the mud flats and creeks to Suffolk and the village of Brantham.

The main road wound round the riverside and past the front window of my hotel room. If I twisted my neck I could glimpse a couple of cranes on the quay by the old malt house. Numbers of elegant white swans glided along the Stour. They didn’t make a sound and lent a mute eeriness to the atmosphere.

Apart from the occasional car it was very quiet.

Directly outside the Inn was a fountain-like structure, described as the ‘Swan Basin’, which looked like a giant

ornamental flower bowl with a painted statue of a swan in the middle. The guidebooks referenced it as the work of eighteenth-century neoclassical architect Robert Adam and described it variously as ‘elegant’ and ‘picturesque’. But it reminded me of something you might find in a fairground. You can take the girl out of Southend …

I could never work out why Essex got the flack that it did. The county wasn’t flat and uninteresting. It was simply full of sky, usually of the pale blue and white kind. Today it was bruised and wounded-looking, hanging low over the horizon.

It matched my mood.

I was sitting in my room in the Thorn Inn, on the site where Hopkins had his quarters. I could feel a pregnant tension in the air; if I reach back to that afternoon, it was like I knew something was going to happen.

I imagined the pub to be a historic Tudor dwelling, but it was quite ordinary. Built in 1723, it was a simple construction: unimposing and Georgian in its rectangular structure with four windows on the first floor, two on the ground. The entrance to the ground floor was on the left-hand side. The owners had obviously tried to camouflage any residual evil with coat upon coat of buttermilk paint. But I could smell its malevolence. It stank the place out, crawling up from cracks in the bricks and mortar.

Once a coach house for Mistley Hall, it was now an upmarket gastro-pub that offered cookery courses. It, along with the surrounding property prices, had gone up in the world since the dark days of the witch hunts.

The price of the room covered dinner and I was told the by the bar staff that I could expect breakfast too. I noted the rural lilt to their accent that the tramp in Colchester had spoken with. In the heightened state I was in, it seemed to combine wholesome hints of apples with superstition and ancient custom.

Despite its antique origins, my room was furnished in a contemporary style that complimented the old wooden rafters: the bed was comfy and covered in Egyptian cotton, the carpet thick and luxurious and neutral, the colour scheme blues, greys and mulberry with a floral patterned wallpaper on one ‘feature’ wall.

I sat on the bed feeling the mood, and looked out the window. Above the river the sky mottled like grey-white marble, darker cloud lines drooping over the shores of Suffolk on its further shore.

Once he’d achieved his kill at the Chelmsford Assize in July, Hopkins headed over to there. I thought of Rebecca, carried off in the arms of some servant to who knows where … What had happened after that? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Her life was like a horror film. Awful.

Not so for Hopkins.

He netted a huge haul of witches in Suffolk and made a small fortune. Some say there were at least 150 overcrowding the prisons in Bury St Edmunds. Their gaoler was able to make a pretty profit by charging the curious a penny to gape at the unfortunates. For an extra sum they could beat them. One of them was the preacher, John Lowes, who had come into my mind in my strange exchange with Dan. It was his death that had some positive impact, if you can call it that, turning the tide against Hopkins. But only because it was so very shameful.

Lowes had given shelter to a local woman accused of witchcraft and had scolded the mob at his door, telling them that she was no more a witch than he. Hopkins took this as a confession and Lowes was swum in the moat at Framlingham Castle. Afterwards he was ‘walked’ till he lost his senses and finally confessed to sending imps to wreck ships at sea. At court he retracted his confession. But it didn’t matter. He was convicted anyway, along with one other man and sixteen women. At the gallows his last act before execution was to read the office and commit his body to the ground and Christian resurrection.

The hanging of a vicar for witchcraft was so shocking it forced influential figures to take a look at what was going on in the east of England.

But not soon enough to prevent Hopkins and Stearne entering Northamptonshire and pointing fingers at Anne Goodfellow, and a ‘young man of Denford’. The Witchfinder was rewarded generously for detecting those witches and paid to give testimony during the trials.

Hopkins was an impossible man to understand. He repelled and fascinated me, as much as the witches had him. But I was going to bring some semblance of justice to the alleged witches he’d killed. Flick had sent a text earlier. She had put out feelers to form a legal team and was hoping to meet up next week to come up with a proposition for the pardon. She’d added that she’d already got a lot of interest locally by starting a Facebook group. I sent her a message congratulating her and confirming I would attend the meet.

I opened the window to get some fresh air in the room.

The thought that I could, perhaps, be sleeping in the room where much of the witch hunt had taken place was pretty unnerving. But I knew I had to do it. I wanted Rebecca to manifest. I needed to communicate to her somehow that mercy was on its way.

But that would be later. Right now I had stuff to research. Felix had texted me that morning, asking how I was going, and I’d responded that I was making progress and informed him that I was going to Mistley. He’d replied that he was disappointed he couldn’t come too and asked me if I was free next week. I sent him a text saying that I could always make myself available for him. And he’d returned my open-ended answer with a ‘Good,’ and an emoticon of a smiley face doing a wink.

I was pleased that he’d contacted me. It was like a line of normality that took me back to my other purpose – the book. So, with that in mind, I left the Inn and headed into Manningtree along the riverside road.

I wasn’t meeting Amelia till eight o’clock so I had time to explore Manningtree and started with a visit to the small museum in the town’s library.

The display on the witch hunt was small but it mentioned two significant sites: The Causeway at the bottom of Cox’s Hill where it was thought the guilty were hanged, and Hopping Bridge, perhaps named after Hopkins, where local legend had it the witches and Hopkins himself were ‘swum’.

I jotted them down on my map of Manningtree and asked the curator if I could take a photograph of the display. He was polite when I explained why and we engaged in conversation. Phillip was a congenial chap in his fifties with an academic manner. Though he didn’t want to be drawn into the more sordid aspects of the witches, he did comment on the period.

‘I’m more interested in that part of our story from a social history perspective,’ he said. ‘This period of civil war, when the institutions responsible for law and order break down. The idea that without them you can do basically what you like. That’s why Hopkins is of interest. One only needed a powerful personality to rise up and take control. Let’s face it – it was disgraceful. The prosecutors were rich. The accused were poor. They were a burden on the town. This was probably a good way of getting rid of a serious drain on the financial purse of the parish. Everyone colluded.’

Phillip clasped his hands together. ‘True, Hopkins was a man of his time. Having said that, I’m aware that although we like to think we’ve put it all behind us, witch hunts are still alive and kicking up the twenty-first century … Look at Africa – there’s a resurgence of belief in Ghana. Old women are being targeted there and burned alive. Kenya’s still burning witches too. Child abuse related to witchcraft is on the rise in Nigeria. Children get slashed, burned, starved, drowned and buried alive because their villages believe them to be witches. There are “baby farms” in some parts, where young girls are paid for their newborns. Some are adopted illegally, others are bought for their body parts as their innocence is thought to make charms stronger.’

I shook my head to convey frustration not disbelief – it was all true. I’d kept an eye on this sort of stuff in the papers. Only last week, there’d been an article on the murder of albinos in Tanzania. The locals believed their organs and blood would bring good luck. ‘You’re very knowledgeable on the subject.’

He nodded sadly. ‘An organisation called Stepping Stones is my church’s chosen charity for the year. They highlight this sort of thing. You couldn’t make it up, could you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘And,’ he continued, ‘it’s not confined to Africa. Only two Christmases ago there was the case of that fifteen-year-old boy, Kristy Bamu, murdered in Newham. He and his siblings were kept without food, sleep and water till they confessed to sorcery and being a witch. Then he was beaten with a hammer, cut and finally drowned. Ring any bells?’

I nodded bleakly. They were virtually the same methods that Hopkins used.

Phillip shook his head. ‘And look at that poor boy – Adam. The “torso in the Thames”. He’d only been in the UK a few days before he was murdered and he had ingested a potion containing herbs and ingredients used in African ritual magic. People must have known about it. Why didn’t they come forward? Fear? Cowardice? Or more likely they thought some bad luck would befall them. We haven’t moved on much.’

I sighed. ‘That’s why I’m writing this book. To get across the fact that the witches weren’t witches. Same as today. They were, are, scapegoats onto whom fantastical fantasies were, are projected.’

‘Same as today,’ he repeated sadly. ‘Well, good luck with it. Let me know if I can be of any help.’

Our conversation had come to a natural end so I paid for a couple of local interest books and bid him goodbye.

I had been alert to, but not put off by, a slight drop in Phillip’s features when I had first mentioned Hopkins’ name. I could understand it. Manningtree was so much more than just a magnet for ghouls with an interest in the Witchfinder – it must be irritating for the locals to have their home characterised by the malevolent blip in the town’s history. Not much predated the Tudor period but Manningtree’s architectural legacy was extensive. Its buildings ranged from the cutting edge in modern construction techniques to sixteenth-century idylls. And there was the river too – so picturesque and pretty. The honk of geese carried to me on the breeze and the overpowering scent of malt filled the air. To the innocent eye it was a gorgeously placid rural scene.

The site of the gallows proved disappointing. In fact, it was located in the most built-up part of town – a small industrial park. There wasn’t anything to mark the significance of the spot, so I scrambled up the riverbank. This must have been the last view the victims saw: the flattened landscape spreading outwards, the river heading off to the east, the outskirts of the little town cascading down the hill. It would have been cold and windy and HE would have been there. Watching them. They would have seen him, in the crowd, doing what? Gloating? Looking smug? While their friends and neighbours stood about them to witness the hangman put on the noose.

Contemporary accounts talked of the ‘hangers on’. Though the term today implies sycophants and toadies, in its original context it referred to the friends and family of the convicted who would jump on the legs of those twitching and jerking through their last moments of life, to hasten their death and end their excruciating suffering. A hanging could often take over twenty minutes.

A cold north-easterly wind had come up, bringing dark clouds. Across the river I saw a figure on the bank. Clad in grey, I watched it as she, in turn, watched me. Tatters of fabric swam out from her side caught in the drift of the wind. She waved at me. Or maybe someone else.

I shivered, keeping my hands in my pockets.

She gave up and turned away and so did I.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the place Phillip had told me the witches were swum. The Hopping Bridge was a redbrick humpbacked bridge on the north side of a pond.

It was approaching dusk now and the bridge felt quite lonely. I remembered reading something about a ghost sighted here one dark night in the sixties. A local man, Herbert Bird, claimed that he had seen ‘an apparition’ which ran across the road as he was approaching. As he walked up to the bridge it vanished. Passing by again the next night he studied the grass where the thing had disappeared and saw a patch of thicker dark grass, about six foot by three, which gave him the notion that there might be a grave of some kind underneath.

The info in the museum hinted that this was where Hopkins had been swum, lynched and buried after the ordeal. Many historians had dismissed it as fancy but there was no denying it had a strange atmosphere.

I craned my neck over the red bricks of the wall into the muddy brown pool beneath. It was impossible to get a good look but it seemed important that I should.

A sign to my left indicated the presence of tearooms the other side of the pond so I ambled up the side road.

The rooms were situated in a mini farm. I paid the entrance fee, walked over a crunchy gravel path and, spying a small wooden gate towards the bottom of the slight incline, deduced that this must lead to the pond.

I was right.

The track led out alongside ‘the lake’. The shady woodland area that circumvented the water was crowded with majestic weeping willows, gnarled and knotty oaks. Ducks gathered around the water’s edge.

A darting, scampering thing scurried across my path. I was just quick enough to glimpse the sleek glossy back of a water vole racing for the haven of the nooks and crannies in the roots of the trees. Holly and brambles bunched about my sides, wafting their cuddy fragrance about me.

A small island nestled in the middle of the lake. Two nimble blackbirds skipped across to it. The place must be some kind of bird sanctuary. It was a stunning, pastoral scene. The tragedy of the pool, however, was there in my head, constantly sending ripples through my subconscious. I was becoming aware of a dark pricking feeling rising up about me.

As I progressed along the path, kicking up white feathers and leaf skeletons, the foliage became denser, shutting out the daylight. The trunks of trees, so appealing a few minutes ago, had now taken on an imprisoned look. The ivy that wound about them seemed as it was binding, almost strangling their life out. Decaying smudges of yellowing-brown dead leaves thickened. It dawned on me now that I was a good way away from the farm and was completely alone. If something was to happen, if I was to fall no one would know or find me for hours. I put the thought aside and continued on, the darkness about me growing, the tension in my belly reaching up to quicken my heart.

At last, through the gloom, I caught a glimpse of the Hopping Bridge. From this side of the river, it appeared faded and grey; the brickwork neglected and crumbling. The arch underneath had a grid fastened over it, which reminded me instantly of a prison cell. As I came out onto a curved clearing before it, the wind blew hard against me, blasting my hair up over my ears.

There was an uncanny darkness here that was not caused by the fading light and pendulous clouds. It was like the very trees and creepers that hung about the place had witnessed such horror it had affected their organic development: they grew twisted and bent, trailing their branches in the water listlessly. ‘Look at what they do to each other,’ I imagined them whispering.

I felt sure this was where they had swum the accused. When I looked up to the bridge it was almost as if I could see them there – the witches, freezing and shivering as the shrill wind roared over the river right through their threadbare clothes. The men from the parish would have bound them with ropes, trussing them up like lambs for slaughter. Perched on the bridge and then pushed off with a thud on the back, they would be sent into the ominous yawn of black water below.

And then I felt it.

Oh God no. The shock of the ice cold water on my bones forces my mouth open wide. Breath comes out and bubbles float past my eyes. Sticks and barbs catch at my hair, scratching, ripping at my face, arms, and legs. I plummet through the depths.

I am so afeared.

Almighty God have pity on thy devoted servant. Do not desert me I beseech thee.

No breath left and cannot see the surface. I put out my free arm to turn my body round. I am afeared.

I am afeared. Oh Lord have mercy.

Someone help me please. Desire to breathe in is powerful strong. Yet to give in will be to welcome death. My heart bangs wildly, too loud in my head, like a wild galloping mare. Am I bursting? Heaviness comes onto my chest and I can hold good no more. I must take in breath and so my mouth opens and sucks in, in, in wet mud, cold, oily. No, no. Cannot stop the thickness flooding up my throat. Choking, juddering, thrashing my head from side to side, twisting against my bonds. Such violent resistance cannot last and, as my face tears against the sharp root of an oak, the dart of pain finishes me. I am ready to surrender to this death.

Take me Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of light … and I see it, coming forwards now, a circle of silver presenting to me – light, air, my salvation.

My Father is sending me back to the world.

I am to live … To the sky. I am there briefly, my face lifts up to take gulps of air, but I am under again. Twisting up once more I break through the surface and cough up dark mire. The air comes into me like a blow.

Arms gather me up and throw me to the bank. I am convulsed by a sickness and spew forth sticky blackness. Panting between spasms and the racks of my breath.

The heaviness comes on me. I open my eyes and the world spins.

The men walk over and cut the ropes. Another kicks my sides and shouts for me to stand. One announces my guilt and a satisfied shudder ripples through the crowd. I roll to my knees but have life in me no more. I can only breathe in, hard, short gasps. When his next kick does not rouse me, he hooks a hand under my knees and another round my back and bears me to the cart where the men are gathered. One calls me ‘Satan’s bride’ asking if I can call down the Divil to save me now.

I cannot answer. I have nothing left to give. And HE sees this too. They throw me in the cart and my head splits on the side. But I do not flinch, nor cry out. There is nothing left for fight.

Old Mother Clarke is in there, facedown on the floor. They have not cut her ropes: her arm is still bound to her one good leg. A rheumy eye rolls and beholds me. ‘They say we will hang,’ she wheezes. ‘We will not, dear sweeting. They will have mercy.’ Her ancient mind has gone.

Before Master Hopkins walks to the front I catch his eyes upon me. A pink tongue like that of a cat wets his thin bottom lip. ‘Take them to the Inn,’ he says. Then slaps the mare. ‘Be gone.’

Something snapped wood in the forest behind me, shocking me out of my thoughts.

It was dark. I was chilled to the bone. And breathless. Oh God. What was that? Another scene from Rebecca’s tragedy. Why?

A crack in the wood behind me had me jumping. I swung round but couldn’t see more than a few feet into the foliage.

The wind whistled through the leaves of the trees. ‘Shh. Sedes,’ it whispered shrilly to me.

Another footfall broke the twigs close behind. Ducks took off from the overhanging undergrowth and quacked in alarm, scattering in Vs, propelling away as quick as they possibly could.

If I had hackles they would undoubtedly have risen.

‘Rebecca?’

Another crack right behind flooded adrenalin through my nervous system.

Was it my imagination, or could I hear a long phlegmy sigh from someone nearby? This wasn’t Rebecca, I felt sure. This presence was vengeful, dark, fearsome.

‘Hello?’ I called out to the trees.

Something in them grunted.

I wasn’t going to wait for a response. Instead I jumped sideways away from the bridge, my trembling legs carrying me back towards the path.

Though I couldn’t see behind me I had the sense I was being followed. I doubled my speed, running headlong through the trees, and didn’t stop until I had reached the gate and the sight of twenty-first-century day trippers. I raced to the toilets for sanctuary. There was something out there, I was sure. Something that didn’t like me.

When I saw my reflection in the mirror I gasped. I must have brushed past some thorns or holly, for across my cheeks were little nicks. Like someone had scratched me and drawn blood.

Jesus – what was that all about? Why had Rebecca shown me that? I wiped myself down and put some lipstick on though my hands were still shaking.

What had I seen? Part of her life? Why that? What was she telling me?

I wasn’t sure, but I knew I wasn’t likely to reach an understanding here in the toilet. I splashed my face and tried to assume a less stricken expression then I crept out, keeping my head down, avoiding eye contact with the few tourists that were looking at the birds. I couldn’t talk to anyone now. I pulled the hood up on my parka and thrust my hands into my pockets, walking quickly through the clearing.

As I came to the exit I found a cockerel in my path. It was standing by a white Fiesta staring at me. For a moment I was caught in its gaze. It crowed and fluffed out its feathers. The hens behind him backed away.

My stare challenged him.

The cockerel held my gaze for a second more, then surrendered. Ducking down, shivering, it hid itself under the car.

Shrugging off the experience, I crept away through the car park in the direction of the hotel.

I see now that the birds, dumb but instinctive, were aware of the shadow behind me.