Witch Hunt

Chapter Thirty-Three




It was my second day at the National Archives.

Though interesting, the first had not been at all rewarding. The phone call with Felix and then embellishments to the chapter had set me back a couple of hours, and when I finally reached Kew Gardens it was getting on for half past three. I knew I was pushing it.

The girl on the reception desk was pleasant and told me that I’d need to register on the second floor. This took longer than I’d predicted as I had to trawl through an instructive tutorial regarding the handling of ancient documents. That completed, I had a mug shot taken, then popped down the stairs to the first floor where I went straight in and plonked myself on the enquiries desk.

A young guy in a purple t-shirt and jeans was very obliging when told him I needed to see passenger lists from between 1646 to 1650.

He was unsure at first as to whether passenger lists were held there but when I mentioned the fact I’d seen the document registration online, he searched the catalogue. An entry came up confirming a couple of fragments of passenger lists, but only from 1634 to 1677. That seemed to cover what I wanted so I asked him how I went about ordering up the documents.

‘Mmm.’ He glanced at his watch, peeping out between reams of raggedy festival bands. ‘You’ve missed the last call, I’m afraid. You have to get requests in before four. It’ll have to be tomorrow now. Sorry.’

I sat back into my chair. ‘Shit. I’ve come up from Essex.’

‘Sorry,’ he repeated and shrugged.

Then a thought crossed my mind. ‘Do you know why there are only fragments? Where were they kept back then?’

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Now you’re talking. You’d have to delve into the history of the public records office itself to find that out.’ He slipped a piece of paper under his hand and wrote down a reference. ‘If you take this upstairs they’ll sort you out with the volumes.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, rather grudgingly.

He picked up on my tone. ‘You have to remember that not everything survives. Things get lost, water damaged, burnt or just disintegrate with age. Look, here’s the reference number for your enquiry. Just log on to the computers tomorrow and order it. It’ll probably take forty minutes to come up.’

I thanked him and went upstairs.

An older guy in a smart white shirt with strange facial hair (full iron-grey moustache), a burgundy tie and tank top, dealt with me. He appeared a little bewildered when I gave him the paper. His gaze skimmed over my jeans and leather jacket. I didn’t know what people with an interest in the records office looked like but I obviously didn’t cut the mustard. Nonetheless he rubbed the whiskers on his chin and sorted me out with two large red volumes.

I’d always thought the bureaucracy in our country was a little extreme but reading through these books confirmed my prejudice. The departments that our governments had instituted to deal with the day-to-day machinations of the country were mind-boggling. I found myself almost laughing at the mention of the Kafkaesque ‘Ministry of Power’, tutted at the ‘Statistical Department of Departmental Statistics’, frowned at the ‘Standards Department’ and shuddered over the ‘Lunacy Commissioners and Board of Control’.

The path that I trod through the narrative was uneasy and chaotic and I was just about to abandon all hope when someone touched me on the shoulder. It was the moustache man from the desk.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We’ll be closing shortly. I’ll have to get those volumes off you.’

I looked round the reading room. There were only another two researchers left.

‘That’s okay,’ I told him and handed them over. ‘I think I’ve given up on that lead anyway.’

‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Not helpful?’

‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘I was looking for some passenger lists that might not exist. Was just trying to find where they might have been kept, that’s all.’ I yawned.

‘Oh right,’ he nodded and smoothed down his moustache. ‘Family tree is it?’

‘No, actually,’ I said and grabbed my bag to get up. ‘I’m interested in Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General.’

‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘I remember the film. Hammer wasn’t it? Quite disturbed me at the time. But that was back in the sixties. I don’t watch that sort of thing any more. I thought he died in Essex?’

‘Yep,’ I said, letting a small sigh escape my lips. ‘That’s what they say.’

‘But you think differently?’ He hugged the books to his chest and made no move to return to his desk.

‘Possibly,’ I said getting up from the chair. ‘It’s alleged that he died in the summer of 1647. A few months later a spate of similar killings broke out in New England. Same MO. I mean, they look like the witches were detected through similar methodologies.’

‘And you think they might have been carried out by him?’ he said, moving his body towards the exit. I took the cue and fell into step beside him.

‘I’m following a hunch, I guess.’

‘My wife’s a bit like you. Loves a mystery. Can’t get her off the detective stories.’

‘Well, I’m not sure I’ll detect anything. But I’m going to come back tomorrow to have a look at the fragments of the passenger lists. That’s all they are, though – fragments. He might not even be registered on them. And anyway, I don’t think he would have travelled under his own name. But there may be something similar.’

‘Well, good luck. Be sure to tell me if you turn anything up. My wife would like to hear about it.’

I promised him I would.

As it transpired, when the documents came up the following day, I was to be disappointed.

Although I’d arrived much earlier, I still had to wait an hour and a quarter before I was able to collect my parcel and get it out on the reading desk. I was full of anticipation as I unwrapped the brown paper packaging that the file came in.

Opposite me a man in his sixties was going over a long scroll with a magnifying glass. He had white gloves on to handle the paper and kept cooing as he worked his way down.

I think I’d been expecting some kind of scroll too or a large book, but when I pulled back the wooden boards that secured the ancient papers what I saw was something like a pocket book. Not more than five inches long and about three inches wide, the number of sheets barely made double figures. I turned them over carefully with the tip of my finger. According to the tutorial I’d had to read through the day before, one should avoid as much contact as possible with the delicate paper. And this was fragile. The slanted brown ink was quite difficult to read but the thrill of such an ancient document under my fingertips forced me on. Eventually I made out most of the passengers’ names from the list of 1634.

That ship had sailed from Devon to New England and carried an assortment of passengers with trades – ‘seafaring’ men, ‘saylemakers’; even a buttonhole maker – out to the New World to start afresh. The next list dated from 1645. Only a couple of pages had made it through to the twenty-first century.

Then the entries jumped to 1677. I knew these were ‘fragments’ but the gaps were huge.

I sat for a moment going back through the pages, then wrapped the document up. There was no point wasting any more time.

I took it back to the counter and was on my way out when the security guard at the door stopped me.

‘I think Gerald wants a word with you,’ he said and pointed through the glass wall the desk. The man with the moustache was waving a piece of paper in his hand.

I scooted round to his desk.

‘Oh good,’ he said, whiskers slightly less erect than yesterday and framing a wide beam. ‘I’m glad I’ve caught you,’ he said and thrust the paper at me. ‘I happened to mention your research to my wife yesterday. She said she thought it rang a bell and this morning she came down and gave me this. I don’t know how authentic it is but I thought you might be interested.’

‘Oh right,’ I said, touched but simultaneously unimpressed as I took what looked like a cutting from a glossy magazine.

‘Sorry, there’s a bit missing. Hilda thought it might have been a coupon. Very thrifty, my wife.’

I thanked him and took it over to a nearby desk. The top line had been cut away so it read ‘ps, Ashbolten, are said to be three of the diaries of Nathaniel Braybrook, seventeenth century writer. Braybrook wrote passages detailing his daily life and documented some of the extraordinary events and violence of the seventeenth century, including several of the battles of the Civil War and the deeds of the notorious Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General.’

The remainder of the paragraph went on to outline the usual spiel about Hopkins and the witch trials and ended with a sentence that suggested the books were soon to be analysed by the University of Hampshire.

Could be a lead, I supposed. But there was nothing new there. I went back over to the desk and thanked Gerald.

‘Any good?’

‘Well, I haven’t come across his name before. It’s worth pursuing as the passenger lists are a dead end. Please thank your wife, Hilda. Do you mind if I keep it?’

‘Of course.’

‘You don’t happen to know when it was published, do you?’ There hadn’t been a date on the scrap of paper.

He shook his head. ‘No, asked the same thing myself. She can’t be sure but she thinks it’s about ten years old. She’s quite good with dates. Thought it was around the birth of our first grandson.’ He clucked his teeth fondly at the thought of his wife. ‘She’s a terrible hoarder.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That’s a start. And,’ I added as an afterthought, ‘where’s Ashbolten? I’ve never heard of it.

Gerald waved his finger at me. ‘That I do know, funnily enough. Had a friend who lived there for a few years. It’s quite a small village. Pretty. Used to be bigger, but there aren’t many jobs and the young people tend to leave for London. It’s not far from here in fact. About twenty miles south-west.’

‘I’ll have to look into it,’ I said.

‘Let us know how you get on,’ he grinned.

‘Will do.’

Minutes later I was about to board the underground when my phone buzzed. It was Felix wanting to congratulate me on my chapter.

‘Look, I’ve only read the first few pages but I wanted to let you know what an interesting read I found it to be,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing where you take it.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised you’ve had the time to have a look with everything going on. I’m flattered.’

‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘Very hard hitting. Brings out the injustice of it all. But I think you could do more with your personal reaction. That works particularly well.’

‘Really? I thought I was pushing it a bit?’

‘No, not at all. There’s nothing else like it out there. It would make it unique – a history of the time, tinged with a contemporary journey through the nightmare.’

‘Okay, cool,’ I said. ‘When you read on, you’ll find it gets more personal.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing next week, but there’s a possibility that I might be able to organise an interview with a Hopkins expert.’

‘Really?’ I was surprised. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Won’t say yet. Don’t want to get your hopes up, only to dash them. Are you free Wednesday?’

‘Yes, at the moment. Where are they? Manningtree?’

‘Oh, yes. I think so. I’ll let you know.’ A female voice called to him from nearby. A lower one, gruff, male, hushed her. ‘Look. I’ve gotta go but I’ll give you a call, okay? Keep it free.’ He paused then said quietly, ‘I’ll accompany you, of course. It would be lovely to see you again.’

I agreed and hung up, then gulped. He was looking forward to seeing me. That was a definite hint. I imagined him reclining in his chair, frowning as he read through my manuscript. Those little lines darting across his forehead as my words, my values, chimed with him. Stop it, I thought. Concentrate on the book.

I was really delighted that he liked the chapter. I had stuck my neck out a bit, and Joe’s words were still swimming in my head; however I’d done the right thing and Felix’s reaction vindicated me. Here was someone who could appreciate the vivid qualities that my research and ‘connection’ were bringing to the writing.

As twilight descended, I dived into the rush hour underground, and let myself relish all the affirmations my editor had delivered.

By the time I connected onto the overland train to Essex it was dark.

Unfortunately we were at the tail end of the rush hour commute, which meant standing room only until Basildon. Not that I minded, particularly. I was still buzzing. In fact, I found, as we left the station, I was literally trembling. Strangely. And not synchronously with the movement of the train.

Nor with my own bodily functioning.

This peculiar sensation was like a strange super-vibration that thrummed through my body. It must have started slowly and increased little by little without my paying attention to it. Or maybe my subconscious had written it off as an incidental movement, an eccentricity of that particular train. It was only as I sat down in a newly vacated seat that I realised the buzz continued. I scanned the faces of my fellow travellers to see if any appeared to have picked up on it but they were all calm, if not rather bored.

Perhaps, I wondered, there was something on the rails – a coating or a film – that routinely produced this phenomenon? Maybe it happened all the time. Though, I reflected, I had never been aware of it before.

But it wasn’t going away. Instead, it was strengthening and now producing a little worried rush of adrenalin. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I thought sensibly. ‘It’ll go soon and you’ll forget it ever happened.’

I breathed in deeply, attempting to restore order to my senses. But as I did so, I detected a change in the air. A kind of invisible coagulating closeness was filling the carriage. For a moment, as I exhaled, it lurked in the background. Then as I breathed in again, it expanded and congealed the air, filling up my lungs, almost overpowering me, rendering the atmosphere intolerable, forcing me to cough loudly.

My neighbour shifted uncomfortably as I spluttered. Reaching down into her handbag she handed me a tissue. I inhaled through it. Despite the papery barrier the thickness filled me up once more sending paroxysms of nausea through my body. My throat burned like I was breathing in chilli smoke. Starting to panic, as we came in to Pitsea station, I lurched to my feet, clutching at my neck and forced myself through the bodies clustered at the door, off the train onto the platform.

Outside the air was clean, cold and damp yet the nauseating odour remained, clinging to my coat like seaweed. I collapsed onto a bench and attempted to regain my breath, looking off at the departing train as I did so.

It chuffed along the curve of the rails and disappeared out of sight into the grey mist that must have come down only minutes ago.

My eyes swept across the platform. A moth fluttered about one of the fluorescent lights.

I was alone now, the departing passengers scurrying away home to their dinners as fast as their suited legs could carry them.

The smell was dissipating. I bent down and took down a large gulp of air, then checked the display board to see when the next train was due – only another quarter of an hour to wait.

The back of the metal bench felt solid against my neck.

I relaxed a little and took out the article again, fingering the thin paper carefully as I re-read it. What had happened after the piece had been published? Had the diaries been removed? Donated to a museum, perhaps? I would have to find out and track down their location as soon as I got home.

My fingers were starting to feel cold and the paper was absorbing the moisture that hung around me. I folded it up, replaced it in my bag and sat back on the bench.

The station was empty. A bored stillness saturated the atmosphere, the kind only ever noticeable on platforms between arrivals and departures. The brambles and undergrowth that framed the small station stirred as a gust of cold air blew in from the south, where the grey river widened and bent towards London.

The fog had grown denser: clouds of it were billowing down around the orange glow of the street lamps. The light had taken on a veiled quality, making it difficult to see clearly but I was able to make out a woman at the end of the platform, dressed from head to toe in grey. She was bent over slightly. Old. As I watched her she made a swooping movement with her arm, surprisingly nimble for her age. For a second I thought she was waving at me, and leant forwards to scrutinise her face. She was too far away but I saw that, what I had mistaken for waving, was actually a looping pointing gesture, directing me to the rafters a few feet away.

Instinctively I followed her signal and looked up.

She was pointing at a banner hanging there. One of the fastenings had come away and it was hanging down vertically. Water must have got into its structure because it had warped in the middle. A moth hovered around it, buzzing in and out, as the fabric spiralled round in the mist.

The sight of it was commanding. I felt the urge to move towards it.

With a lumbering gait I gave in to the pull.

A few feet away I saw it twist round and stop.

I blinked and glimpsed, at head height, a small pair of bare feet dangling. The flesh was rubbery. A deep gash across the ankle showed up vivid purple against the grey of the skin. The toenails were broken and bruised. Then, as the breeze twirled the weight round again I moved my gaze upwards. Dressed only in soiled, filthy trousers there hung a little boy. No more than ten. Suspended by rope, there was something terribly wrong about the angle of his neck.

On impulse I reached and felt the damp skin of his toes.

As I touched him his face wrenched up. His mouth, fixed into the agonised moment of death, opened. The eyes followed suit, and though I didn’t hear it with my ears, the word ‘Mercy’ rasped through me.

I took a step back and moaned, this time hearing but not feeling my voice call out for help. I turned in the direction of the woman in grey, expecting her to come to my aid.

The end of the platform was empty.

But a young man in a tracksuit had registered my call.

‘What’s up?’ He took in my pained expression.

‘The boy,’ I pointed up at … the banner circling in the wind.

‘Where?’ he asked, looking past it and to the wall beyond.

‘There was a boy there.’

He scratched his chin and regarded me. ‘Bit too much to drink, eh love?’

‘No,’ I stammered. ‘There was a boy. Hanging.’

His pity was instantly replaced by distaste. ‘Nothing there now, is there?’

There wasn’t.

I took in a deep breath. Then I raced over to a bin and threw up.

The man in the tracksuit tutted and shook his head.

They did that back then, you know – went for children. The age of criminal responsibility varied but, at times, it went as low as seven. Didn’t always hang them. Though there were instances when they did. No, usually, they threw them in gaol to be starved. In Rattlesden they found a boy of eight. His mother was accused of witchcraft and hanged at Bury. Her son was then cast out by the village to live rough in a field. The Witchfinders found him and asked if he had an imp. He told them that he loved a brown mare in the field next to where he slept. That she loved him and came to him when he called her. So they found him a witch and threw him in the gaol where he rotted and died. Like they did with Dorcas Good in Salem. She was four when they locked her up.

In Salem.

In Essex County.

New England.

I didn’t get the next train. I didn’t get the one after either. I stared out over the platform above the navy clouds to the watching stars. Some were dead, some dying, some wiped clean from the universe as if they had never existed at all. But there they were – blinking, pulsing as real as the very blood that passed through my veins.

When I was finally ready, I stood on the spot beneath the hanging thing and sent those stars a prayer.