Hallowdene Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by George Mann and available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  HALLOWDENE

  Also by George Mann and available from Titan Books

  WYCHWOOD

  Wychwood

  THE GHOST

  Ghosts of Manhattan

  Ghosts of War

  Ghosts of Karnak

  Ghosts of Empire

  NEWBURY & HOBBES

  The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead

  Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box

  Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

  Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

  Associates of Sherlock Holmes

  Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes

  HALLOWDENE

  GEORGE MANN

  TITAN BOOKS

  Hallowdene

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783294114

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783294121

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: September 2018

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 George Mann

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  FOR MUM

  CHAPTER ONE

  Overhead, the crows were circling.

  Jenny Wren watched them turn in concentric wheels, stark against the pale sky. Their crowing had grown impatient, expectant – as if they knew what was about to happen. As if they were calling out a warning. If she’d been disposed to such things, Jenny might have considered it an ill omen, but she knew it for what it was: the natural instinct of the birds, accustomed to the turning of the earth in the nearby graveyard and expecting a feast of newly exposed earthworms.

  Well, today they were going to be disappointed. It wasn’t worms they were about to unearth. She glanced at the jagged hunk of granite beside her. It was huge and misshapen, slick with moss – a pagan marker that hadn’t been moved in centuries. It must have taken scores of villagers to drag it all the way up here – it weighed at least a ton, and standing beside it, it was almost as tall as her hip. Even the crane operator had sucked his teeth dubiously when he’d seen it.

  “So, could you provide our viewers with a little insight into what you’re expecting to find beneath the stone, Jennifer?”

  Jenny sighed. It was only half past twelve in the afternoon, but she was already beginning to feel weary. Why she’d ever agreed to this foolish invasion of her dig, she didn’t know. A few seconds of madness, perhaps… or more likely the thought of seeing her face up there on the TV screen, running about enthusiastically like some latter-day Tony Robinson, pointing at stratified layers of mud and pretending to be positive about the lack of finds. Now, she was regretting ever entertaining the idea.

  Too late now, she supposed.

  Painting on her best winning smile, she turned to face the lens, almost recoiling at the proximity of the camera. Behind the cameraman, Steve Marley, she could see the young presenter who’d asked her the question, looking preened despite the waxed jacket and wellington boots.

  Jenny wondered if she should have made more of an effort for the camera. She’d grown accustomed to thinking about comfort, rather than appearance, while she was out on a dig. Her hair was coming loose, and while she’d made an attempt at doing her make-up before leaving the house that morning, it was nothing compared to the pristine elegance of Robyn Baxter. And then there was the fact that the woman was almost twenty years her junior. Jenny was dowdy and parochial by comparison.

  Still, what were people expecting? She was an archaeologist, not a TV presenter. Archaeologists were never glamorous, were they? Everyone had seen the endless re-runs of Time Team on the telly. She was just living up to the stereotype – even if she did look more like Phil than Carenza.

  She told herself off. She was being too harsh on herself again. Her cheeks were burning. The truth was, being around these people made her feel old. She supposed that was only to be expected. She’d been at this for years, and needed to remember that her experience counted for something: she was the expert here, this was her dig, and they were her guests. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It’s all going to be fine. It’ll be over in a couple of hours, and you’ll be sat in the Rowan Tree, sinking a pint and congratulating yourself on a job well done.

  She glanced at Robyn, who offered her an encouraging smile, and then looked straight to camera, just as she’d been taught in her briefing that morning.

  “Well, Robyn, it’s long been believed that this stone–” she patted the huge, moss-covered rock beside her “–is a ‘witch stone’, relating to a form of superstitious burial that, on rare occasions, was given to women who’d been denounced as witches. The practice is thought to originate from the seventeenth century, but has its roots in much earlier mythology.” She cleared her throat. “The stone was placed upon the witch’s grave as a means of containing her spirit, to prevent her from returning in the afterlife to seek revenge upon those who had judged her.” She smiled, and looked to Robyn. The camera was still pointing squarely in her face.

  “And legend has it that this particular stone,” said Robyn, “marks the grave of the notorious witch Agnes Levett, who’s a figure of some fame, locally, isn’t she?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jenny, nodding. “Survi
ving records suggest that Agnes Levett was discovered by local villagers performing a ritual with the body of Lady Grace Abbott, wife of the then Lord Cuthbert Abbott, upon whose grounds we’re now standing. She was hanged for her crimes, and buried here, beneath this stone. Or so we believe.”

  “And… cut.”

  Jenny looked to Robyn, who was wearing an easy, practised smile. “Perfect. We’ll get out of your hair so you can carry on with your dig.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Jenny heaved a sigh of relief to be out of the frame once again. She watched as the cameraman set up in a new position, taking the opportunity to grab a brief insert from Robyn.

  Jenny listened for a moment as the presenter reeled off a practised speech about how Agnes Levett had become something of a tourist attraction in the local area, and was now the centrepiece of the Hallowdene Summer Fayre, during which the villagers all dressed up in bizarre costumes and paraded an effigy of the witch through the streets, much to the delight of the local children.

  That was why the TV crew were really here – to film a piece on the festival for their rural affairs programme, an example of how the British, in the wake of Brexit, were returning to their old traditions and pagan roots. It was nonsense, of course, but Jenny had jumped at the chance to have them along at the dig, to capture her moment of triumph when they lifted the stone to reveal the remains of Agnes the so-called ‘Hallowdene witch’.

  She only hoped that she was right, and the local legends hadn’t led her astray. If they lifted the stone and there was no grave to be found… well, she’d look like a prize fool, and no matter what positive spin she managed to put on it, people would see her failure writ large on screens all across the nation.

  She glanced around, catching sight of the crane driver, leaning against his machine and sucking surreptitiously on an e-cigarette. She couldn’t help grinning at the sight – progress was all well and good, but people rarely changed. Nevertheless, she felt a brief pang of envy. She’d given up smoking years ago, and even though they now made her feel nauseated – she’d learned this to her regret – she still craved the occasional cigarette.

  Around her, the bustle of the television crew continued. She hoped they’d be done soon so she could press on.

  In the distance, Hallowdene Manor was a jagged silhouette, jutting brazenly from the hillside; a bleak, man-made interloper that didn’t belong in such an otherwise unspoiled landscape. Beyond that, the trees of Raisonby Wood – once a part of the former Wychwood, which had formed a leafy mantle over this area for centuries – stood sentry-like on the horizon. To her right, the crumbling old church of St Mary erupted from the loam like a crooked finger, its lopsided spire pointing warily to the heavens. To Jenny, it looked somehow unsure of itself, as if the building itself were questioning its faith. The graveyard around the church was crowded with listing headstones – a silent audience, presiding in judgement over the events unfolding in the next field.

  She’d explored that graveyard, more out of curiosity than professional interest, wandering around late one evening with a torch and checking off the names of the dead. Centuries’ worth of villagers had been laid to rest here, including Lord and Lady Cuthbert Abbott, interred in a rather ostentatious tomb inside the church itself. Agnes, on the other hand, had been buried out here, in the mud, away from hallowed ground – moved from her first grave after superstition got the better of people, and they believed her to be enacting a curse from beyond the grave. She’d been carried out here, into a field, and re-interred beneath the heavy stone. It seemed a particularly cruel fate to Jenny, a final insult for a terribly misunderstood woman.

  Jenny had no time for talk of witchcraft and curses – no one did, in this day and age. She’d spoken to a number of the villagers down at the pub, and they’d all said the same thing: that the village obsession with their historical ‘witch’ was just a bit of fun, and that the truth of the matter was really rather sad – that a woman had been lynched by her fellow villagers for crimes that everyone knew to be impossible now. There seemed to be some disagreement as to whether the woman had committed murder – she’d been accused of killing Lady Grace Abbott during a ‘ritual’ – but there was no surviving evidence, and no way of settling the matter either way. That the woman had been persecuted on grounds of witchcraft, though, like so many other poor souls of her age, was, as far as most people were concerned, something of an embarrassment. Jenny found the whole thing fascinating.

  She heard a polite cough and turned to see Avi Dhiri, the show’s producer, standing by her shoulder. He was a smartly dressed, tidy man, but practical, lacking Robyn’s sophisticated glamour. A bit more down to earth. He’d dressed for the occasion, opting for a stiff pair of brown leather boots, jeans, a jumper – the cuffs of which she could just see, poking inquisitively out of the ends of his sleeves – and a navy waxed jacket.

  “You did great,” he said. He’d known she’d been nervous, and he’d been a great encouragement throughout the process. “Just what we needed.”

  She fought the urge to correct his grammar. He was being nice, after all. “Thanks. It’s all a bit unfamiliar, that’s all.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been doing this for years, but the few times I’ve had to face the camera myself I’ve gone to pieces. Something about having that big lens looming in your face.”

  She laughed at his awkward expression. Maybe this wasn’t going so badly, after all.

  “Are you ready for the big event?” he said.

  “We’re ready,” said Jenny. “We’ve already recorded everything we need, at least until the stone is lifted. That’s when the real work starts.” She lowered her voice. “Although I fear it’s not as climactic as you might expect. We’ve no dramatic music or anything.” She grinned. “The crane will come in and lift the stone, and we’ll get our first view of what’s lurking beneath.”

  Dhiri laughed. “Don’t worry, we can add the dramatic music in post-production.” He offered her a wicked grin. “Particularly if the curse is true, and the witch comes crawling out to get us all.”

  Jenny shook her head, finding herself charmed by the young man, despite herself. “You’ve been watching too many late-night movies,” she said.

  “Still, it’s all a bit creepy, isn’t it? I mean, she must have done something to warrant all of this. I know they were a superstitious lot, but to bury the woman beneath a rock like this…”

  Jenny shrugged. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever really know the truth. Most women accused of witchcraft were victims of jealousy, panic and misunderstanding. Like you say, people were terribly superstitious. People paid for it with their lives. I suspect her death simply coincided with some other phenomena that couldn’t be readily explained by the people of the time – a bout of a particularly virulent disease, or what have you – and as a result, the poor woman was blamed for that, too, despite already being dead. That’s why they shifted her body and placed this rock on top of her grave – to keep her unquiet spirit from enacting its revenge.”

  “Thank God people have changed,” said Dhiri.

  Jenny had to force herself not to laugh out loud at the irony. “All right, let’s see about getting this thing moved,” she said.

  Her assistant, John, was chatting to the two young students they’d brought along to help with the digging and recording of the finds. Dhiri had already turned his attention back to Robyn and Steve, the cameraman, so she made a beeline for John, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked somewhat disappointed at having to break off from trying to impress the two young women, who in turn seemed somewhat relieved.

  “We about ready?” said John. His accent was broad West Country, and always made her smile.

  “Yes. I think our friends are getting anxious for some excitement,” she said. “You’d better move everyone back to a safe distance. I’m not taking any risks with that rock.”

  “Worried about the curse?” said John.

  “Yeah,”
said Jenny, “the curse of the Health and Safety Executive.”

  John grunted, amused, and then set about shepherding people back to a safe distance. Jenny noted that a reasonable crowd had begun to gather around the edge of the field: a mix of folk from the village, she presumed, and people from the manor house, come to watch the excitement unfolding in the grounds. Or else hoping to catch sight of themselves later on TV. There’d be a lot of that in the coming days, she suspected, as the preparations for the Summer Fayre began to unfold and the film crew went about cataloguing everyone’s lives. There seemed to be something of a party atmosphere amongst those who’d gathered to spectate; they formed a loose perimeter, chatting and laughing with one another. A woman in a blue raincoat was pouring people cups of tea from a large, silver flask. Jenny could have killed for a cuppa. Right after she’d finished that non-existent cigarette.

  Sam, the crane operator, blew a nonchalant stream of vapour from the corner of his mouth when he noticed her approaching, unaware of the torture he was putting her through. Then she caught a whiff of what he’d been smoking, sweet and sickly and tinged with a hint of berries. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Is this what the world had come to?

  Sam prised himself away from the filthy yellow machine he’d been leaning against. He scratched absently at his nose with one gloved hand. “All right, boss?”

  “I will be when this dog and pony show is over and done with and I can get on with the real work,” she said. Sam had worked with her before, on numerous digs throughout Oxfordshire, and was well adjusted to her temperament and humour. He always laughed at her jokes. It was one of the reasons she liked to keep him around.

  He grinned, one foot already up on the footplate of the crane. “This won’t take a minute. Just give me a thumbs-up when you’re all clear.”

  Steel chains had been carefully looped around the edges of the stone for ease of lifting by the crane. Jenny had supervised the process earlier that morning, monitoring how Sam had carefully dug out around the base of the rock, allowing him to work the chains in and around it, to secure a tight grip.