Wychwood--Hallowdene Read online

  Theoretically, lifting the stone should be a simple matter – but Jenny knew from bitter experience how theory and reality were rarely comfortable bedfellows. Too many times, she’d been proved wrong by the data, or something had gone awry when they’d brought in the machines and the finds had been churned or damaged, or they’d dug a hole in completely the wrong spot.

  She backed away, ensuring that everyone was clear. “Okay, Sam. Let’s get on with it.” She motioned to him to raise the arm of the crane.

  With a mechanical chug, the crane arm began to rise, clanking and hissing like some ancient beast angry at being disturbed from its slumber. Jenny watched as the chains slowly lifted, pulling taut, catching on the underside of the jagged stone.

  For a moment the arm stopped and the crane seemed to rock forward slightly as it took the weight of the enormous stone. Then the gears made a deep grinding sound, and the stone pulled free of the clinging earth with a wet sucking sound; a laborious sigh, as if whatever lay beneath had been holding its breath all of these years and could now, finally, exhale.

  Sam pivoted the crane to the left, swinging the rock aside, revealing the damp soil beneath. Jenny fought the urge to rush forward. Aside from the fact that she was intent on remaining composed on camera, she had to follow procedure and wait until the stone had been secured.

  Sam slowly lowered his payload, accompanied by a cacophony of more clanking and beeping. And then it was done, and the witch stone was sitting, rude and proud, about five feet to the left of the grave.

  Slowly, Jenny walked forward. John, the students and the TV crew fell in, too, remaining one step behind, allowing her to be the first at the graveside. Whether this was out of respect for her position, or fear of what they might find, she didn’t know.

  Her stomach churned. She felt a rising sense of unease. She peered down at the grave. She realised she was holding her breath and let it out. Her heart was thudding.

  John was standing beside her, arm extended, proffering a trowel. For a moment she hesitated, but then she took it, glanced back at the camera, and then lowered herself to her knees and began to dig.

  The grave was shallow, and within minutes the edge of her trowel had struck something solid. She scraped carefully at the soil, drawing it back in layers, as if peeling back time itself. Slowly, the ground divested itself of its macabre bounty.

  There, as she’d predicted, were the remains of a human being. She’d found the edge of the collarbone. She followed the line of the bone with the tip of her trowel, scraping at the damp earth, until she exposed the vertebrae, and then finally the jawbone and the lower part of the skull. She worked carefully around it, clearing away the clinging mud, ignoring the sudden gasps of the others behind her.

  When she had finished, she straightened her back, peering down at the eerie visage before her. There was something unnerving about the skull – the way it was turned to face her in the soil, as if the dead woman were peering up at her and grinning, right across the centuries.

  Jenny felt a shiver pass along her spine. “Right, everyone, keep back. Let’s get the boring stuff over with. John, get on and notify the coroner, and let’s get the paperwork signed off so we can take a proper look at her.”

  Around her, the crew began to disperse, none of them having said a word. No triumphant cries, no high-fives. Nothing. There was a strange, melancholy atmosphere about the place, as if no one wanted to acknowledge what they’d just found, to give voice to their fears.

  Jenny looked back at the dead woman’s grinning skull, and then turned away. It was time for that cigarette.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The café – Elspeth supposed it was a café, despite the odd appearance – was buzzing with the clatter of mugs, the hiss of steam and the chatter of at least a dozen other patrons. It was at once comforting, and maddeningly distracting. At least they weren’t playing any thumping music. Small mercies, and all that. Still, there was no way Elspeth could concentrate on her book. She tucked a serviette inside to mark her place, and sat back in her chair, sipping at her coffee, annoyed at herself for allowing it to go cold.

  The café – known as Richmond’s Tearooms – was an odd sort of place that seemed to have one foot in the past and another in the present. This was evident in the overall décor – the tables were laid with red gingham and lace doilies, and the waiting staff were dressed in old-fashioned black and white uniforms – as well as the menu, which featured an eclectic mix of traditional teas, cakes and scones, alongside an array of paninis, fancy lattes and chorizo stew.

  Even the place itself seemed unable to decide what it really was; while most of the old building had been given over to the café, the area behind Elspeth had been lined with racks of cheap trinkets and books; a gift shop, of sorts, in which most of the stock related to the local legend of the Hallowdene Witch. The figure leered at her off the shelves: a caricature of a crooked old woman with a hook nose, claw-like fingers and black robes, with a mane of ragged white hair. Her image was emblazoned on the front of the menu cards, too, and the tables were adorned with black candleholders in the shapes of cats and broomsticks – she’d clearly become something of a mascot for the village. Broomsticks hung from the roof on fishing wire, and the soup – Elspeth could see someone cautiously sipping the hot liquid from a spoon at a nearby table – was served in little cast-iron cauldrons.

  Presently, the witch was a hot topic of conversation amongst the tearoom’s patrons. Elspeth took another sip of her coffee, surreptitiously turning her ear to the table across from her. An elderly lady, fingers stained yellow from years of nicotine abuse, was chattering loudly about the archaeological dig going on up at the manor, and how they’d better all watch out because of old Agnes’s curse.

  “In my experience,” she said, “things that are buried should remain that way. No good ever comes from stirring up the past. These young ones would do well to remember that.”

  Her companion, whose fading glamour reminded Elspeth of a television or movie star whose time on the silver screen had long passed, nodded enthusiastically. “Aye. Leave well be, that’s what I say.”

  Others, clearly, had different ideas – as she’d arrived, Elspeth had overheard a man and a woman talking excitedly about how the dig might drive up attendance for the coming fayre. Most people, she’d gathered, seemed to see it all as a bit of fun, wilfully playing up the stories, tongues firmly planted in cheeks.

  Elspeth had vague memories of the Hallowdene Summer Fayre, of people parading through the streets dressed as Jack-in-the-Green, or wearing elaborate masks in the guise of birds or foxes. Her mum had taken her as a child, but she’d been scared, hiding behind Dorothy’s skirts, peeking out between her fingers as the villagers had marched the crooked effigy of the witch to the village cross. She’d been horrified by its twisted visage. The image had haunted her for weeks.

  She must have only been six or seven, and hadn’t understood the history and ritual behind the parade. The following year, when Dorothy had insisted they return, refusing to acknowledge her daughter’s complaints, Elspeth had hidden under her bed, amongst the boxes and the dust bunnies, and refused to come out until her mum had relented and agreed to take her shopping in Oxford instead.

  She hadn’t really thought about it since, and had never had cause to return to Hallowdene, at least until the previous week, when Meredith – her editor at the Heighton Observer – had asked if she’d be interested in covering the fayre for a local-interest article. This year, interest was particularly high because of the dig excavating the supposed resting place of the ‘witch’.

  Elspeth had jumped at the chance – her freelance instincts kicking in – and had come over this morning to be on hand when news from the excavation broke. She’d tried to get really close to the dig, to be there when the grave marker was moved, but the site manager had refused any close access to allow a national television crew to gain uninterrupted footage. The best she’d been able to do was arrange an appointment with t
he lead archaeologist, Jennifer Wren, once the stone had been moved. In the meantime, she’d camped out at Richmond’s, having purchased one of their local books on the origins of the myth. It was an interesting read – if in need of a good edit – detailing the known facts surrounding Agnes’s death, alongside the more lurid and fanciful tales of occult wrongdoing. Elspeth had been busily making notes in preparation for her story.

  Agnes, although clearly a beloved cult figure – if only for the local tourist industry – was portrayed as near demonic, a stooped and crooked spinster with a hideous visage, spindly fingers and wiry grey hair. It was claimed that, in 1643, she’d been caught performing a ritual with the body of Lady Grace Abbott in a copse in the Wychwood, close to her home. Her hands had been steeped in the dead woman’s blood, and Lord Cuthbert Abbott – desperately searching for his missing wife – had overheard her chanting some kind of wild incantation. Consequently, she’d been hanged by her neighbours in the village square, and then buried under the witch stone on un-consecrated grounds on the outskirts of the village.

  Elspeth couldn’t help but wonder what had really gone on. If the rumours were true, Agnes had apparently committed a terrible murder. But to what end? There had to be a human story behind the caricature that she’d become. Now, no one really believed that Agnes had been a witch – the so-called witch trials of the seventeenth century had long ago been debunked – but the question that Elspeth was interested in exploring was whether she’d really been a killer. That was the story here. Was a woman who was wrongly accused of witchcraft still rightly accused of murder?

  There were few surviving accounts from the time – according to the book, and a bit of digging around on the internet – so real evidence was scant. Nevertheless, she had to admit, the story had her intrigued, and she found herself wondering what Jennifer Wren would find beneath that crooked old stone, pictured there in the book in a faded black and white photograph.

  She checked her watch. There was an hour before she was due up at the dig site, and the skies outside were brooding, threatening rain. She downed the rest of her tepid coffee and caught the eye of the young waitress, who was buzzing about between nearby tables, balancing a near-impossible array of crockery on her arm.

  Elspeth pointed at her mug. “Can I get another coffee, please?”

  The waitress nodded, offering her a lopsided grin. She was young – in her early twenties – and despite the rather formal uniform had a rebellious twinkle in her eye, a flash of blue in her otherwise blonde hair, and a matching blue plaster on her eyebrow where she’d clearly covered a piercing. The hint of a tattoo poked out from beneath the sleeve of her uniform. Her black eyeliner and slash of pink lipstick all added to the overall impression. She blew a loose strand of hair out of her eye, and tottered past, carefully stepping around the blue-haired lady’s chair leg.

  “With you in a minute,” she said.

  It was more like five, but Elspeth wasn’t in a hurry, and she smiled when the woman made a beeline for her table, coffee pot in hand. “Right, here you go.” She sloshed coffee into Elspeth’s empty mug with a practised flourish. “New round these parts, are you?” She placed Elspeth’s bill on the table, tucking it under the sugar pot.

  “Yes, I suppose I am,” said Elspeth. “Recently moved back to the area from London.”

  The woman cocked her head, her expression wrinkling in confusion. “You moved back here, from London?” She sounded utterly incredulous, as if the very idea of it was simply outlandish.

  “Well, Heighton,” said Elspeth, sounding a little more defensive than she’d intended. “It’s not so bad…”

  The woman looked doubtful. “Well, I suppose not. Still, I’d prefer something a little more cosmopolitan. I’m Daisy, by the way.”

  “Elspeth.” She reached for her coffee. This time, it was too hot to drink. She blew on it. “You looking forward to the fayre?”

  Daisy laughed. “Not really. I mean, it’s a funny old thing, isn’t it, all these people getting dressed up and parading through the streets. Besides, I imagine I’ll be tied to this place by my apron strings. We always get busy around the fayre, and this time it’s only going to be worse because of the dig.”

  The café door opened with a tinkling bell, and Daisy glanced up. She issued a low groan. “Here we go,” she said, under her breath.

  Elspeth looked over to see a man bustle in, making a show of unbuttoning his coat and stamping his feet, as if he’d just wandered in from an Arctic wasteland. He was wearing wellington boots spattered with mud, and leaving a trail of it right over the floorboards.

  Daisy placed the coffee pot on Elspeth’s table and went to intercept him. “Lee, you know you’re not supposed to be in here with those muddy boots. If Sally gets hold of you…”

  “Sally?” said the man. He fixed Daisy with an intense glower. “Is she here?” He stretched up onto his tiptoes, trying to see over Daisy’s shoulder. The man looked to be in his fifties, with dark hair going to grey, a stubble-encrusted chin, and a greasy complexion. His eyebrows bobbed as he looked from table to table, as if searching for someone. “Sally?”

  “She’s busy, Lee,” said Daisy. She sounded exasperated. “Look, I’ll tell her you called.”

  “Sally!” called the man, this time loud enough to elicit a response from most of the café’s patrons, who noticeably paused their conversations and turned in their seats to see what was going on.

  The man was growing increasingly agitated. Elspeth wondered if she should try to intervene.

  “Sally!”

  “I’m here, Lee.” Elspeth turned to see a woman standing by the door to the kitchen. She looked flustered, red-cheeked, and had a tea towel tossed over one shoulder. She was of a similar age to Lee, with a frizz of blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She was wearing a thin-lipped smile. Behind her a younger man – who, aside from the badly healed broken nose, resembled her so closely he had to be related – was glaring over her shoulder, his face like thunder.

  “Right, good,” said the man, visibly calming. “I need to talk to you. About all of this.” He waved his hands at the witch-related produce on the shelves behind Elspeth.

  “We’ve had this conversation,” said Sally. “And it’s no use going over it all again. Let’s not bring it up in front of all the customers?” She edged forward, ushering him back. Daisy retreated, coming to stand by Elspeth’s table, hugging herself with obvious concern.

  “Look, it’s not right. Selling all of this. Turning it all into a tourist attraction. It’s dangerous,” said Lee.

  “Dangerous?” Sally sighed. “Don’t you think you’re taking this a little far? It’s just a bit of fun. No harm can come of it. We all know she’s not real. It’s just a few postcards and trinkets.”

  “She doesn’t like it, Sally. I’m telling you. And now they’re out there digging her up. You’re all messing with things you don’t understand.”

  “Right, that’s enough, you stupid old fool. Out, now.” This from the young man, who Elspeth assumed to be Sally’s son. He pushed past his mother and took the older man by the arm, causing Lee to wince and try to squirm free.

  “Get off me, you little thug. You can’t do this.”

  “You’d better be off, Lee. You’re disturbing the customers.” Sally sounded somewhat apologetic, but didn’t move to intercept her son as the young man forcibly dragged Lee towards the door.

  “All right! All right! I’m going.” He yanked his arm free, and turned in the doorway, glancing back at Sally. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The door shut behind him. Within seconds, a wave of quiet muttering passed amongst people sitting at the tables.

  “Thank God for small mercies. But you didn’t have to be so hard on him, Christian. He doesn’t mean any harm. Not really,” said Sally, her voice low.

  “He’s a mad old fool, and I’m tired of his bullshit,” retorted the young man. “Maybe this time he’ll get the message.” He stalked off into the kitchen
, leaving his mother looking weary and embarrassed. She forced a smile, apologised politely to the guests for the disturbance, and slipped away after Christian. Moments later, there were muffled voices in the kitchen. The general hubbub amongst the patrons returned, soon drowning out all sounds of the disagreement.

  Daisy retrieved her coffee pot from Elspeth’s table. “Well, that’s enough excitement for one day,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Waitress!”

  Elspeth turned to see a man in his late sixties beckoning rudely for attention. He was shabbily dressed, his shirt poorly ironed, his jacket – which had clearly once been expensively tailored – worn and frayed at the cuffs. He was grey and balding, clean-shaven, and might have been handsome, too, if it hadn’t been for the sour expression on his face.

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Nicholas Abbott,” she said, beneath her breath. “Still thinks he’s the lord of the manor.” She turned and approached his table, forcing a smile.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You’ve ignored me for long enough, prattling on with your stupid chitchat. I want more coffee, now.” Clearly, this was a man who didn’t believe in niceties.

  “Of course,” said Daisy. She leaned over the table to slosh coffee into his mug, and to Elspeth’s horror, she watched as the man reached out and cupped his hand around Daisy’s behind. “And I’d like a piece of that, too,” he said.

  Daisy slammed her coffee pot down onto the table, stepped back, and glowered at him. “Do that again and you’ll pay for it,” she growled.

  “I’d gladly pay for it,” said Abbott, slyly. “Just let me know how much.”

  “Get out!” barked Daisy. “Before I do something I regret. Go on. Get out, now!”

  The other customers had all turned around in their seats again to watch this new unfolding drama. Elspeth couldn’t help but wonder if it was always like this, in here.