SYD MOORE
Witch Hunt

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Syd Moore 2012

Syd Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9781847562692

Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007478484

Version: 2018-06-29

For those who were prevented from telling their story. And for Granddad York.

‘Besides, when any Errour is committed

Whereby wee may Incurre or losse or shame,

That wee ourselves thereof may be acquitted

Wee are too ready to transferre the blame

Upon some Witch: That made us does the same.

It is the vulgar Plea that weake ones use

I was bewitch’d: I could nor will: nor chuse.

But my affection was not caus’d by Art:

The witch that wrought on mee was in my brest.’

Sir Francis Hubert Quoted in Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England by Alan MacFarlane

‘The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children yet unborn.’

Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone and civil rights activist

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

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

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Note to the Reader

Q & A with Syd Moore

For discussion

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Prologue

They told me not to come.

He said ‘Twill do no good. Nay more.’ And he tried to touch my shoulder and bring me back into the court but I was too quick and ran pushing through the crowd. Some saw me and stepped aside, unwilling to be touched, as if they might catch my sin. Others shrieked.

I made off through the side lane.

And then I came here.

I have put on my cap and wrapped a shawl over too. So none may see me.

Though I see all.

And I see them: bound and tethered in a pen.

Like sheep.

Then there are the others, the eager spectators.

So many cluster before me, edging their way forward, craning to get a good view, that I can only catch glimpses through the space between my neighbours’ shoulders. On their faces some have smiles. The girl beside me, only two or three years younger than I, licks her lips and stands up on her toes. Her father, in starched lace and black, pulls her back down and, with a stare, admonishes her excitement. But the woman beside him, whom I saw at a stall selling nuts for the crowd, has a face full of glory. Her eyes are wide in anticipation. In her hands she has a knife and fingers it greedily. She will try to get some hair from the dead for keepsakes to sell on.

A hush falls over the crowd as the first is helped up to the scaffold. I can see from the way she stumbles it is Old Mother Clarke. Her ancient face is creased with lines of age and knots of confusion. Two of the men assisting the execution have taken an arm each to support her, for she cannot stand firm with but one leg. She staggers forward and clutches the man on her right to steady herself as the hangman puts the noose over her head.

A woman at the front of the crowd near the gallows hurls something rotten. It hits Mother Clarke on the chin and she looks about to throw some rebuke back but before she can open her mouth comes the push. Her wizened frame drops and cracks as the noose does its work. Quickly. Thank God. And she is turned off.

Next it is Anne Leech. Younger than Mother Clarke, she wrestles with the hangman as much as she can with her hands and feet bound. There is little way to fight. But she will not go without one. One of the throng of eager spectators, a man with a red beard and broad shoulders, goads her and calls ‘Witch. You will go to the Devil now.’ Anne always had more spirit than others and she spits at him and calls out a curse. The crowd starts to move, excited by the show, laughing as the hangman roughly slips over the noose. But Anne is angry and wild. She begins to bring down a curse on the hangman, but cannot finish: a shove from behind stops her words. But it does not stop her life and she twists and turns on the end of the line like a fish from the brook. The hangman speaks to the man at his side and points to the cross beam. The rope is coming apart. He calls for a ladder but not in time for the rope to unravel and Anne falls with it to the ground, catching the side of the scaffold as she goes down.

The crowd surges forward to watch. She is picked up and shown. To their delight they see she has dashed out an eye and is carried back up to the third noose and hanged once more. A deep red drip from her face darkens her dress yet still the twitching goes on. A girl at the front runs forward to pull on her legs but she is stopped by the broad-shouldered man.

Above Anne the hangman and his men throw up another rope. Elizabeth Clarke is being taken down. I cannot see where they take her corpse.

And there is another witch now on the platform. I do not know her name. She has soiled herself with fear. It is hot and her face is greasy with sweat. As she is brought to Elizabeth’s noose she falls down in a fainting fit and is dragged over to the side. The hangman calls for a pitcher of water to rouse her. She must be awake to see her end.

And then she is there on the scaffold. Her long black locks move gently as she turns to the noose. I gasp as I see her watch Anne’s feet jerking without rhythm to her side. But she says nothing. She is solemn. Silent. Unhearing of the jeers of the crowd come to witness her end. But I see her eyes searching over the faces.

For a moment I think perhaps our eyes meet and I see in them a movement, a quick darting, a widening of the whites. Does she see me? I raise up my face and move back my shawl, bolder now, unconcerned about what the spectators may do if they recognise me. My confidence is short-lived: I pull back suddenly and flinch as the noose comes down over her slender white neck. Her mouth opens and I think she is about to speak but I cannot be sure because she has been pushed from the stool. The noose has strung tight. Her neck snaps to an unnatural angle, the feet kick out and then are still.

And I fall to my knees and am sick across the cobbles.

Oh God have mercy, what have I done?

What have I done?

Chapter One

11th October, 2012

It was the night that I bumped into Joe. So I guess, you could say that it wasn’t ALL bad. I mean, it was terrible. There was no getting away from it: painful, gut-churning and all the rest. But at least something good came from it.

And when I say I bumped into Joe I mean exactly that. Literally. I was drunk, but in my defence I had had a seriously bad day. Anyway, there I was, coming down from the high giddy arc of a – even if I do say so myself – quite magnificent thrashing pirouette.

I know. At my age: thirty-three going on fifteen. Ridiculous.

Though to be fair, I had checked with the fount of all knowledge, Maggie Haines, beforehand.

‘Am I too old to slam in the moshpit?’ I had been swaying even then. Maggie, my dear friend, sometimes boss and celebrated editor of arts magazine, Mercurial, had peered at me and wriggled her button nose. Her face had a distinctly kittenish appearance, which was thoroughly misleading. The pretty feline exterior concealed a steely determination and unsettling intelligence that had notched up two degrees and an MA and which had far more in common with panthers than domestic cats. I knew Maggie would give it to me straight – no messing. She was sober and had a grim look about her. And she hadn’t wanted us to go to the club at all. In fact she’d been dead set on getting me straight home; I think I must have already been in a right old state when we’d left the pub. We were on the way to the local cab rank just a couple of blocks down when I heard the music coming from the basement of a venue and decided we should all go in. She’d said no. In fact she’d said ‘No way,’ and tried to wrap me up in her embrace and physically carry me down the road. But Jules, Maggie’s hubby, put a staying hand on her arm and said, ‘Let her.’ Then he’d turned to me and said, ‘Just for a bit, Sadie, okay?’

This time, though, Maggie looked like she was coming back with a firm ‘no’, but Jules convinced her (I think he’d had a few drinks and was starting to liven up a bit himself).

‘Look around you, Sadie,’ he said in answer to my question, with a grin that was only half-formed. There was sympathy in it and hints of condescension, but I didn’t care. I followed his lead and stole a wider glance at the club. Stifling and dimly lit, it was packed full of sweaty bodies in varying states of inebriation and spatial coordination. The outfit on stage was playing at full pelt and the throng of clubbers clustered at their feet were going for it.

‘Go on then,’ Jules said. ‘But we’ll go straight home afterwards. Pogo is de rigueur here. Don’t worry about your age. It’s a punk covers band. We’re surrounded by middle-aged spread. That bloke down the front with the red mohican looks past sixty.’

He was right. The place was jammed with bald heads and beer bellies. Not a pretty sight. The majority of blokes were in the full throes of midlife crisis, desperately trying to hold on to their proudly misspent youth. The band themselves would have averaged about fifty-five in a ‘10 Years Younger’ age poll. Though if you went on energy levels alone, you’d put them in their early twenties. They were setting the crowd on fire.

Saying that, you can’t go wrong with the Buzzcocks, can you?

So, once I’d been granted permission, I launched myself into the front of the crowd and for about three minutes and twenty seconds I was able to submerge myself in the thumped-up beat and drag my head away from the awful images reeling in my head. Ironically the only time my thoughts stilled that day were as my body whirled and whirled.

For that, I will always salute thee, Punk Rock.

So, what happened was this; the alcohol had interfered with my sense of perspective and, in addition, boosted my energy. The result was a grand overshooting of the moshpit. In fact, I think if Joe hadn’t been there with his mates, I probably would have landed flat on my arse amongst the broken glass at the edge of the dance floor.

That would not have been a great look.

But he was.

A six-foot-something, human monolith, standing there, very upright, radiating principle and that good old-fashioned honesty of his. You could suss his confidence from the way he owned his space. He was firm. Unfazed. And, luckily, ready to cushion my fall. I remember the way he propped me back up and looked at me, and, because he was out of his usual context, I had a split second of objectivity. I took in the regulation cropped brown hair, the round wholesome eyes and not-so-designer stubble, casual t-shirt, jeans, trainers. He could have been a manual labourer: a carpenter or a builder. He had a pint in his hand and a cheeky grin on his face that gave him dimples. I remember thinking ‘Not bad at all,’ and then doing some hurried shoe shuffle on the floor to correct my balance and retrieve what shreds were left of my dignity. And then he said, ‘Nice of you to drop in on me like this, Sadie.’

I recognised the voice and looked closer and said, ‘Oh. Joe?’

And he laughed and said, ‘One and the same.’

But after that, it’s just fragments.

I must have talked to him and his mates for a bit till I returned to the dance floor, pulling Joe greedily and then taking him with me. I don’t think he particularly wanted to dance. In fact, even though my perception was pretty clouded, I got the impression he was just going on bodyguard duty for me.

Then I rebounded back to Maggie and Jules and introduced him. I think they were saying that they wanted to go but I wanted to stay, and made some big dramatic thing of finding my drink and downing it in one. I bet that’s what pushed me over the edge, because the next moment I was in the toilets revisiting the dignified spread that had been supplied earlier at the pub.

When I came back Maggie and Jules had got my coat and Joe had got his.

Maggie said, ‘I dunno – he’s offered to drive us home. How many has he had?’

I laughed and said, ‘Not likely to have had any, Mags. He’s a copper.’ Then I got twisted up in my coat and Jules frowned.

I think Joe must have heard all that because he leant over and flashed his warrant card and said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not over the limit. She’s off her head and needs to go.’

And I put my arm round his shoulders and said, ‘But I haven’t been cunting at all Drinkstable.’ Then I hiccupped.

When I woke up in the back of Joe’s car we were outside my flat. Maggie and Jules had already been dropped off. Joe brought me up the stairs of my small flat. I think he even carried me into my bedroom, laid me on the bed and took my shoes off. And that was over and above the call of duty to be sure.

I remember trying to kiss him. And that he pulled away and said, ‘Not tonight, Sadie. I would but I can’t.’ Then he did that phone thing that people do with their hands – an L-shape like an old receiver – you call me or I’ll call you.

I think he was sympathetic.

But when he closed the door I started bawling. And I carried on doing that till I passed out.

What a mess.

To be expected I suppose.

After all, it’s not every day you bury your mum.

Chapter Two

Tuesday, 17th October

It began like a drip in a far off place. A vast echoing chamber. Or a faltering trickle into a dark yawning cave. First sibilance. Just off a hiss. Followed by a wheezy gasping sound. ‘Ssss – rhey.’

Was it drawing closer or becoming louder? It was certainly getting clearer, wafting to me on an unfelt breeze. ‘Sorr- rhey.’ Puffed out in tones of torment. Fleshed out with a sob.

Falling on my ears, with a cold snatch of breath I got it. The single word. And it was on my lips. ‘Sorry.’

Then I was sitting up in bed, awake. Fully alert. Despite the lightness of the cotton nightie sweat had pooled under my breasts. I was gulping down air as if I had only just reached the surface of some dark, subterranean lake. The bed sheet was twisted around my legs like a boa constrictor trying to eat me alive and my heart was banging like mad.

What was that?

Had I said that? Or was someone in the flat?

I strained to listen into its depths.

The hum of the fridge. The trees shushing in the breeze outside my window. The sound of roadworks further up the hill. A door slamming in the neighbour’s flat. The deceleration of a train pulling into Chalkwell station.

But nothing else. No one in the flat.

It must have been me.

Well, I knew I had just articulated the word – said it out loud as I was coming into consciousness. But I had a notion that I was merely repeating someone else’s plaintive cries.

Sorry.

It had happened several times since the funeral. Each time I had woken up from a nightmare I couldn’t remember, with the absolute conviction I was not on my own.

But then, the mind has a funny way of dealing with grief.

And of course, I was sorry.

Terribly.

The guilt was almost unbearable.

I knew Mum had been trying to talk to me. That last time we were alone at the hospice. I’d walked in to find her sleeping, so had kissed her on her forehead. Her hair was spread like a black fan across her pillow. She had been a young mum, and if you looked past the lines the illness had carved on her face, with her perfect semi-circles of long dark lashes and her thick black hair, she was still as serene and beautiful as a Renaissance Madonna.

But she’d woken at my touch and when she realised it was me she’d made a big thing of trying to meet my eyes. At first I thought she said, ‘Sadie – fit.’ It was difficult to tell. Her speech was much impaired since the last stroke. She’d been left with paralysis on the left side of her face and was unable to move her left arm.

‘You okay, Mum?’

She was frustrated. ‘Ift.’

I said nothing, waiting for her to try another attempt.

She struggled up a bit. I reached behind her and helped her sit up onto the pillows, plumping them carefully as she rested her neck.

She took a breath and looked at me. Her mouth opened, tongue lolling to the front. ‘Gift.’

‘A gift?’

She nodded.

‘Okay. Who for?’

She moved her good hand in my direction. ‘You.’

‘You have a gift for me?’ I looked at the bedside table. Glass, hand cream, anglepoise lamp.

‘No. Come.’ She paused for breath. ‘To … you.’

‘I have a gift coming?’

She expelled a lungful of air and shuddered. I could see the frustration scratching across her face. ‘Speak Dan.’

Dan was my mum’s boyfriend of about twelve years. A nice chap with a heart of gold. But he’d gone AWOL a couple of days before and Mum was in a real state about it, naturally. The poor woman was totally incapacitated, unable to do anything to find out where he was.

Thing was, Mum and Dan had a lot of things in common. They were both educators; both furious campaigners for human rights; and they both loved me. But, and this was a big but, they had both experienced long periods of depression. Mum’s strokes had been a result of high blood pressure, which, in turn, it was suggested, had been brought about by her often high state of anxiety. See, Mum didn’t have bouts of sadness, she had episodes of deep clinical depression, some of which developed into psychosis and paranoia. Just like Dan. In fact, that’s where they had met – in a private clinic. Therefore we were all concerned about his absence. I shook my head and said, ‘We still can’t find him, Mum. He’s not at work. He must have had to go somewhere urgently.’

Mum did a shrugging sort of action with her good side and said, ‘Sadie.’ She made a move that looked like she was trying to shake her head, making an effort to form her lips and shape the words. Though her dark eyes were alert I couldn’t understand her, so I took her good hand and placed a pencil in it. Mum’s elegant fingers groped for the pad of paper that never left her side. It took her a while.

Her writing was getting worse. When she finished I tried to decipher what she’d written. I could make out a ‘B’ then an ‘O’ but the figure after it could have either been an ‘X’ or a ‘K’.

I looked at Mum. ‘Box?’

Mum’s lips suckered in. She looked more fragile than ever. Then she let out a wail and started to judder, her head shaking back and forth. It was so frustrating for her.

With the functioning side of her face she tried to speak. ‘Earme.’ Working hard to take in a good breath of air, she swallowed and said, ‘Portent.’ She was really het up. I hated to see her like that but I just couldn’t understand her meaning.

‘Sorry, sorry.’ I focused on the writing. Perhaps it wasn’t an X but an O and a K? ‘Book?’

She made a sound like the air going out of a balloon. I leant in and smiled at her. She was sweating and her hair was messed up. I pushed a couple of black strands away from her eyes. Despite everything, she still had only a dusting of grey.

Stiff creases divided her forehead. Her good hand was clenched into a fist. She was working out how to say what she needed to tell me.

I cut in, trying to relieve her of the effort. ‘Okay, the book. I know you don’t like the idea but Mum …’

She made a strangled sort of sound, then slumped back into her pillows, giving up communicating. But her hand crept into mine. I squeezed it. Gently.

See, I finally got my book commissioned ten days previously. It wasn’t life-changing but it was definitely a good deal. In between the various loops and curves of my volatile career as a freelance journalist, I had been writing a book on the Essex witches.

Mum always said she thought we were distantly related to one. And there was this song, an old Essex folk ballad, The Weeping Willow, which Mum thought was connected to an ancestor. And there was a game in the playground: the kids would form a circle around one blindfolded child, the ‘witch’, and then you’d all dance around. When the verse ended the blindfolded child would try to catch one of the circle dancers. Whoever they caught was out. I can’t remember all of it but there are a couple of verses that stick:

They kicked them off and laid them down

And put them in the cold hard ground

The summer wind blew long and chill

The Divil bade her do his will

Pale and wild pale and wild

The witch did down the child

She picked her up and put her down

The willow’s leaves wrapped round and round

Her evil cries filled the air

And so did end the bad affair

Pale and wild pale and wild

The witch did up end the child

I think it was the song that got me interested, even as a child. That, my mother’s proud connection to it, and the fact that Essex had so many witches. There was folklore and myths about them everywhere I turned. And, if I’m honest, I did seek them out. I was always a bit of a spooky girl, fascinated by rather macabre stories and shrunken heads. My dad tried to get me interested in Roald Dahl, but to his great disappointment I quickly cast off Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in favour of Tales of the Unexpected. As I got older, I started delving into the witch hunts. It turned out to be rather sobering. In fact I soon became both horrified and hooked. The statistics were phenomenal: between 1580 to 1690 the combined total of indictments for witchcraft in Hertford, Kent, Surrey and Sussex was 222. In Essex alone over the same amount of time it was 492 – although recent studies put the number at 503. More than most other counties in the UK, by a long stretch. All those poor souls put to death by superstition. And did we know their names? No. We knew about the Witchfinders: James I, Matthew Hopkins, John Stearne. But if you were asked to name one of their many victims you’d be lost.

When I read about their stories I was revolted. They stayed with me. I just couldn’t get them out of my head.

I’d been a freelance writer for several years and I guess a book is always floating somewhere in the back of your mind. But it seemed almost like the idea just sprang into my mind, fully formed, like it had been nestling in the shadows all the time. I spent some time on a synopsis and had pitched it to a fair few publishers. I knew Mum was proud of me – she had wanted to write herself and even considered going into publishing when she was a teenager. She once told me she did work experience but had been put off. She wouldn’t say why. But she was pleased, I think, in that way that parents are, that I was doing what she had failed to. Anyway, the book was not met with the unbridled enthusiasm I had expected. In fact, I had had a series of rejection letters and was just about to go back to the drawing board, when I got a call from Emma of Portillion Books. She loved my sample chapter, and what she called my ‘fresh new unstuffy voice’. The proposal, she said, had been presented in an acquisitions meeting and got a rapturous reception. Consequently, I had been given a contract.

I was elated.

But there was a fly in the ointment: Portillion Books were the literary part of the Robert Cutt empire. The owner of a fleet of fast food restaurants, a football club, a few social networking sites, several magazines and two new private academies in London, Cutt was a powerful tycoon and a generous donor to the Conservative Party. The current rumour was that he was hoping to be made a Lord with a view to fast-tracking to a cabinet position. Political commentators were speculating that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport had already reserved him a parking space.

In our house Cutt’s name was a swear word. He wasn’t known for his great pay and conditions and cracked, as in broke, most of the unions his workers had been affiliated to. Plus, he was generally a bit of a git. Ruthless, you know the sort – did well out of the banking crisis. You could see corruption all over his face whenever his mug was in the papers.

I came from a firmly socialist background. Mum, a History teacher, and Dad, with his background in trade unions, constantly railed against continued control and acquisition of British media till Dad departed when I was sixteen. Dan had been less vehement when he came on the scene in my early twenties, but only fractionally. Unsurprisingly, Cutt was our antichrist.

But I was desperate to get my book published and I kind of felt that I’d have to swallow down my righteous outrage to get the witches’ stories out. It was a compromise, true, but I was prepared to make it. A whole chunk of me didn’t like or approve of that, but I was weak. And okay, okay, if I’m honest, there was the ego thing going on. It was, I justified to myself, only the book wing of Cutt’s empire, after all.

Mum, on the other hand … When I’d sprung it on her she’d had a mixed reaction. At first she was over the moon to hear I’d at long last got a book deal, but then, when I told her who it was with, her expression dimmed. She’d started trying to say something about jewellery. I don’t know if she was making some point about wealth or something but whatever it was she’d got so distressed that the nurse, Sally, had to come in and sedate her. It was horrible. I didn’t ever want to see that again.

So you can see why, on that particular day, when she was really not looking very well at all, I was trying really hard to sound upbeat and positive about it all.

‘I’m due to meet Emma next week.’ My voice sounded purposefully cheery. ‘I’m so excited. I’ll get the contract, then as soon as I sign it they’ll give me part of my advance. Isn’t that great? I mean it’s so tough being freelance. A lump sum will really help out. And it’s my chance to get the stories of the witches out there. Maybe I can find our ancestral witch. And if we are related, then surely it’s a kind of duty too?’

Mum was frowning and doing her best to say something, but I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I wanted her just to listen and be proud of me and to say it was okay.

And it wasn’t only that which made me fill up every inch of breathing and conversation space in her room in the hospice that afternoon. No. At the back of my mind there was the notion that what she truly wanted to tell me was that she loved me and I couldn’t let her. Don’t get me wrong – we did tell each other quite often, but there was something in the atmosphere that afternoon that made me desperately not want to hear it. Almost as if I did then there would be finality in the words. For if she told me she loved me and I told her I loved her too everything would be harmonious, and she would be able to slip off away into the everworld, her work here done.

And I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to lose her just yet. So I didn’t let her speak.

God, if only I had. I should have. I should have let her tell me.

She so wanted to. In fact, she was struggling with all her might to tell me.

And now, I know what it was, I am ashamed.

She was seriously worried – rightly so.

If I’d let her speak she would have told me the truth. Then maybe I would have been forewarned. And forewarned is, as they say, forearmed.

But I didn’t, did I?

I gabbled on and on until the nurse came in and had to administer the drugs. And then Mum was tired. When I came back in, she had fallen asleep. So I went home.

And it was that night, as the moon sailed upwards, my mother, along with her unspoken words, finally let go.

But I couldn’t.

And now I was haunted by my stupid stupid actions. Hearing the word ‘sorry’ in my dreams, waking up to unknown sobs.

I moved my legs off the bed and crept into the shower.

Unfortunately there are some stains that just won’t wash away.

Chapter Three

I thought grief would be the worst thing.

Though Mum’s health had been on a steep decline, and I more or less expected it, when death actually came it still shocked me.

During the first few days after she went, there had been pain. Then the sharpness of it eroded, and I was left with this sense of great guilt. Which was worse. Though this guilt was an energiser. It could have made me go round the bend it was so great. But I found a way of handling it – as soon as it came upon me in the mornings, I went into action, hoping that physical exertion might knock regret from its number one spot at the forefront of my mind. It kind of felt that if I didn’t do that, then it would engulf me entirely. Then I could see myself just sitting in the flat, crying and crying on my own. I didn’t want that. Mum wouldn’t have wanted that. So I went with the extreme activity option.

That morning, after I had rinsed as much shame as I could out of my hair, I combed it out in front of the living room mirror. In my twenties I’d earned the nickname ‘Lois Lane’ amongst my friends and peers, partly because I shared a terrier-like commitment to my cub reporter’s role on the local rag. It wasn’t quite the Daily Planet, but I was proud of what I did and used to talk about it non-stop. But there was also a physical resemblance to the actress in the TV series of Superman, Teri Hatcher. We were both dark, had well-defined eyebrows and had short, sassy bobs. I didn’t mind the comparison.

In the mirror today, a pale reflection stared back. I looked worse than I’d expected: my eyes, though grey, had a purple darkness about them – the surrounding skin was dry and blotchy and pink from bouts of unscheduled weeping. My hair, black like Mum’s, was broken up with russet lowlights though there was a good inch of regrowth that needed attention. And I was thinner. Maybe half a stone less than I was two weeks ago. Most people wouldn’t mind that, but it made me look gaunt: although Dad was unusually tall (six foot three), my slight frame had come from the maternal line.

Jeez. In the harsh daylight I looked like I could have been in a car crash. In fact, I thought, as I went into the bedroom and dried myself, that was far too generous. In this light, I could pass for a junkie who had been in a car crash. I made a mental note to buy some decent food, and get a haircut. Then I threw on my ‘uniform’: black jeans, black shirt, suit jacket (to lend it formality) and trainers (comfy).

Once dried and dressed I returned to the living room and got my laptop out. As I powered it up, I could hear scratching above me in the loft. It had been going on for a few days now. I needed to call out pest control; I added it to my list of things to do. It was probably rats but didn’t help at all with my state of mind – it sounded like my conscience itching.

I had enough time to go through some emails before I needed to set out for the offices of Mercurial for an appointment with Maggie.

I padded round my flat, cooking up a strong coffee and installing myself in the living room. Despite its modest dimensions, I did love the place. Tucked under the eaves of a 1970s purpose-built block, I had a smallish bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, and a very spacious living room that doubled as a dining room and study. It was sparsely furnished. I’d not taken much with me when I split up with Christopher, my last long-term boyfriend. Just the high quality stereo, a very comfy leather armchair and this gorgeous antique mirror he bought me from Camden Lock market. I knew the ornate rococo decoration and black stains on the bevelled plate were at odds with the modern minimal interiors he admired, so it was a kind of testament to his initial affection. He made no effort to keep it when we were divvying up our joint goods so I’d kept it in storage until I got this flat, then hung it in pride of place over the mantelpiece, where I gazed at it from my writing desk. This was an old glass dining table, which I had shoved towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that led out onto my balcony.

Our block had a particularly glorious vista – looking over the railway station to the beach, yacht club and tidal plains of the estuary. Chalkwell was a good location. I’d chosen it for its transport links to London. My relocation didn’t happen overnight as I still had a lot of work in London and had to make the trip into town at least two or three times a week. But it was only a forty-five-minute journey from here and I’d always liked the place; mostly populated by elderly couples and families, it felt safe and as a newly single young woman, that was a primary concern. When I first saw the flat, it was the view that got me. Sunny mornings would see the front room filled with the unimpeded honey rays that crept up over Southend’s pier (the longest pleasure pier in the world, don’t you know). And, if you were lucky in the evenings you’d get a front seat view of Mother Nature’s chosen sunset, framed lovingly by the tops of the oaks in the front garden.

That morning’s clouds, however, were wearing the same dark grey shroud they had done since the funeral. It seemed everything had muted itself in respect.

I took a look at the incoming tide and sat down at the desk, ready to click on the internet icon.

The big life stuff, the events that change your life – the births, the deaths, the crises, always start in a small way, I’ve found, with a twinge or a rumble or blip. And that’s more or less how this story began. In a very ordinary, mundane manner.

I ignored the strong pull of my guilt trip and went straight into email. There was a message from one of my local news contacts asking me if I could interview a couple about a fundraising effort. I replied that I could fit it in within the next two days, noted the address and then scrolled down past the offers of Viagra to an email from someone called Felix Knight at Portillion Publishing. The Felix guy was introducing himself ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. My editor Emma, he explained, had been promoted into another division and he had been handed responsibility for my book. He was extremely excited about it, looking forward to meeting me and suggested that, after a formal introduction in the office, we have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

I liked the sound of Felix but, to be frank, I was happy to work with anyone who was happy to work with me. I replied that that would be ‘fantastic’ and I was very much looking forward to meeting him too.

My next email was an old friend expressing condolences. I clicked on the link and went through to Facebook. Then I did the standard reply: ‘Thank you. Yes, it’s been crap, but I’m getting on with life.’ I had to deal with it this way – if I went into detail I was worried that I’d unleash a torrent of real grief that might wash me away. I was about to shut down, when a message box popped up on the screen.

Unusually, it had no name attached. There was still the regular green dot in the top left-hand corner and the other function symbols across the toolbar. But no name. I looked down at the message.

‘Are you there?’ It read.

Of course I bloody am, I thought. But I simply wrote, ‘Yes.’ Then I waited, curious to see who it was.

Nothing happened for a few seconds then the words ‘Where are you?’ appeared.

What did that mean? Most of my Facebook friends knew I had moved out of the Smoke eighteen months ago.

A little irritated by the stupidity of the question, I chucked it back at the unknown messenger. ‘Where are you?’ and sat back to see the response.

There was a bit of a time delay. I glanced at my watch. I couldn’t spend long on this joker as I should be getting my stuff together to leave fairly soon.

Then the words popped up on the screen, ‘I can hear you but I can’t see you.’

Mmm. Weird. I regarded the screen for a moment then retyped: ‘Where are you?’

A breeze outside nudged the oak leaves against the window. They sounded like little metallic fingertips on the panes.

The reply came up: ‘I do not know. Everything is dark here.’

Okay, this was getting creepy. What to do? Coming up with no good reply, I sat still and contemplated the screen.

My correspondent was typing. ‘There is only blackness,’ they wrote.

Then underneath that, ‘I am scared.’

That stopped me.

Was this a joke? An inappropriate friend trying to freak me out? Some random viral marketing ploy? I tried to think of a way to respond without looking stupid if it was a prank. Though, at the back of my mind, I was wondering about what to do if it wasn’t.

‘Who are you?’ I tapped out on the keys and hit enter.

‘I’m sorry,’ they replied.

I stopped and looked at it. Then I swallowed. The words had been on my lips just an hour ago.

Then another line of text: ‘Hush.’

Hush? That was an odd choice of word.

Quickly, more text appeared. ‘He may come back.’

Now cynicism was overruled by a more concerning impulse.

‘Who might?’ I wrote. ‘Who might be coming back?’

The screen was still for a moment, then the words ‘Oh God’ tapped out on the screen.

Without letting my head intervene in my now more emotional response, I wrote ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’ But when I hit enter this time my screen died and turned to black.

I cursed and looked down at the on button. My battery had run out.

I hastily reached for the power cable and plugged it in. The computer took several frustrating seconds to reboot and when I returned to the site there was nothing there. No box. No evidence of our conversation. I scrolled down my list of online friends. There was no one I didn’t recognise.

I could have left it alone, but a part of me felt responsible. After all, this hadn’t been a chat room – it had been a dialogue with one other person. A private communication sent only to me. I was troubled but not yet scared. Just worried that I hadn’t stepped up to my civic duty if indeed, this was a genuine message. Crap. This had to be the last thing I needed right now – more guilt.

I bit my lip then made a decision, pulled out my mobile and dialled the one person who I could possibly pass this on to. I was in no fit state to get involved with anyone else’s business right now.

He answered pretty quickly. ‘Hello, Sadie. How are you feeling?’

So thoughtful, always concerned about others. You could see why he’d entered the police force. He was a nice bloke. And he’d been a good friend. In fact, before I met Christopher, he’d been more than just a friend. I’d met Joe six years ago, whilst covering some high-ranking officer’s retirement. It was lucky I had taken the job. I’d hooked it on impulse as Mum was on a bit of a low and I wanted to spend more time with her. As soon as I met him, there was an instant connection: we ended up drunkenly eating chips on the seafront and watching the moon set over Canvey Island. He had a really lovely smile (those dimples were just gorgeous) and a kooky sense of humour that chimed with mine. One thing had led to another and another. We were both due some time off so I didn’t leave his flat for two days and nights. We followed it up with the usual sort of thing – trips to the cinema, dinner, a fabulous weekend break in the country. It was great. But I knew I had to go back to London, and somehow, despite the fact it wasn’t that far away, I think I had it in my mind that it was only a holiday romance, something casual. Not that we ever discussed it, but he was four years younger than me. It doesn’t seem much now, but at the time I was twenty-seven, and twenty-three seemed way too young to be serious. When he went off to Carlisle for training and Mum felt better I returned to my life in the metropolis. We texted each other a few times, but he backed off completely when I started seeing Christopher. Yet he still had a physical effect on me. I’d bumped into him a couple of times since I’d moved back and could never stop myself stealing furtive glances at his sinewy frame. Even now I had to do my best to sound together and competent, instead of breathy and slightly chaotic.

‘Hi Joe, I’m okay.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘You must have had a bad hangover after the other night.’ I could tell he was smiling as he spoke. Voices sound more distinct when mouths are pulled wide. Then, remembering the specific occasion of my last major bender, he took his voice down a note and hastily added, ‘Understandable of course.’

I took it in my stride. ‘I’m okay, honestly. Thanks for, er, helping out. I’m sorry if I, er, embarrassed you …’ Oh God, there was that image – me catching his lapel, pulling him down, slobbering all over him. I pushed the mortifying grope from my mind and concentrated on the present issue.

Joe was generous. ‘Think nothing of it.’ It was a full stop on the matter.

Gallant too. You absolute gem, I thought.

‘Listen,’ I said, changing the subject super quick. ‘I’ve just had a weird thing happen.’ And I explained about the messaging.

I hadn’t expected him to laugh, but that’s what he did. It left me feeling stupid and gauche.

‘Someone’s having you on, Sadie,’ was his conclusion. ‘You wouldn’t believe the number of calls we get about this sort of stuff. Texts, emails. It’s all part of new generation cyber-crime.’

Now I was cross, bordering on outraged. Not at him. At the unknown idiot who had virtually freaked me. ‘Well, who would do that to me? Especially now. When, you know, I’m a little more fragile than …’

Joe’s voice piped up, the perfect example of good victim support training, ‘Don’t take it personally. You’re probably a random selection. There’s some bored teenager chuckling away in his bedroom right now. In future, don’t respond. If you don’t engage them, they’ll get bored and move on to something else.’

It seemed like sensible advice, so I agreed not to.

‘Is there anything else I can do you for, Ms Asquith?’ Was it me or was there a teensy bit of hope in his voice?

The question was open-ended, leaving it up to me to pick up the ball and run. I told him, ‘Right this minute, no, just the dodgy internet business. But I’ll call you soon. For a drink maybe?’ He said that would be nice and I thanked him for his advice.

‘Glad to be of service to the public, madam.’ He was very jovial. ‘Now take care of yourself and feel free to phone me if this sort of thing happens again.’

I told him I definitely would and hung up, a little thrill rippling through me.

Now I was fifteen minutes behind schedule.

I had stuff to get on with so slammed the laptop shut, got my things together then whizzed out the door.

The gloomy October morning had bled into a gloomy October afternoon. The light breeze had notched up into a strong south-easterly wind and was whipping rubbish into tiny twisters, screeching through the bare branches of the sycamores that bordered the wide Georgian avenues of Southend’s conservation area. Everybody on the street was buttoned up, faces down, slanting diagonally into its oncoming draughts.

The offices of Mercurial, a quarterly arts magazine, were nestled between an ancient accountancy firm and a design agency. I liked working for them. They were cool: as a freelance writer who specialised in Essex affairs, kudos was rather thin on the ground, and the mag’s cachet rubbed off on me.

It was now eighteen months that I’d been living in the borough of Southend. Initially, my move had been born out of an urge to be closer to Mum. Her health was going downhill and although Dan was around, I wanted to be there for her too. Then after I split up with Christopher, London quickly lost some of its shine and I accelerated the relocation.

It had been good for me. Though I kept my hand in with my old bosses in London, I had enjoyed rediscovering my old patch. Southend had grown and changed. Lots of things were going on and Mercurial reflected that. They were good to know – always had an ear to the ground – and I had actually grown very fond of the staff at the office. For a bunch of artistic individuals they were all pretty down to earth.

I’d known Maggie for nigh on twenty-five years, as we’d attended the same high school. Though you’d never believe it to look at her now, she was actually far more rebellious than I in our youth: we shared clothes; a couple of boyfriends and several cigarettes down the bottom of the sports field, promptly losing touch when we left school and went on to different universities. When our paths crossed again, a couple of years ago, she invited me for lunch and we soon ping-ponged into regular friends again.

I think it was on our third or fourth lunch date, as we knocked back a few glasses of plonk, that Maggie suggested I wrote a small piece for her mag. I leapt at the chance and once the shrewd editor – rather than the friend – worked out that I was as good as I said I was, she began feeding me more assignments.

Mags was what my dad would call a good egg: helping

a lot over the past few months and especially kind when Mum died.

She was sucking on the end of a biro, squinting at a document several pages in length, in the small box room she called her office. The sash window was a couple of inches open. Still, the air was thick with the stink of cigarettes and Yves St Laurent’s Paris.

‘You’ll have to get an air freshener. You must be getting through bottles of perfume,’ I said as I sauntered in and threw my satchel on the floor. ‘And it’s against the law now, you know.’

Maggie’s tangle of pillar-box red hair jerked up. She dropped the pen on the mound of paper. ‘Shit, Sadie! Can’t you knock before you come in?’

She looked funny like that – all indignant eyes and open mouth. ‘Everyone else has to go outside for a fag,’ I chastised her half-heartedly.

She shrugged, relaxing now and held her hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’m giving up. Seriously. Did you know it’s bad for you?’

I said I hadn’t heard that.

‘Just got really into this submission,’ she was justifying herself. ‘New writer. Very good. All about the internet: Facebook, Twitter, blah blah, Generation Z’s youthful rebellion.’

I sauntered over to a filing cabinet that stood by the window. It was sprayed gold and decorated in what was probably a radical artwork but to my uninformed eye looked like bog-standard graffiti. It was very Mercurial. The gurgles from the coffee maker on top indicated it was ready to pour.

‘Interesting spin,’ I said and took two mugs from the shelf above. ‘I think I just experienced some of that, myself.’ Maggie didn’t answer so I coughed and nodded at the coffee. ‘I’m presuming this is for me? Mags, would you like one too?’

She grunted an affirmation and grudgingly gathered up the sheaf of paper, stapling the top right-hand corner and dumping it on an in-tray already several centimetres high.

‘Might as well close that window too,’ she shivered and pulled a fluffy purple cardigan tight over her shoulders. ‘I thought it’d be warmer this week.’

I placed the mugs on her desk, and brought the window down with more force than I intended resulting in a loud bang. Maggie tutted. I ignored her. ‘They say it might turn nice for the weekend.’

Maggie cast her eyes through the windowpane at the fluttering leaves of the sycamores. A plastic bag whipped up from the street and caught a branch directly outside. ‘If only the wind would drop.’ She grimaced and came back to me. ‘How are you going?’

I plucked out my standard response. ‘Coping with it,’ I told her.

She accepted that without further comment. ‘Have you been to the house yet?’

She was referring to my mum’s. ‘I thought I’d wait until I saw Dan.’

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. ‘He’s not turned up then?’

I shook my head. I was still livid that he hadn’t been at the funeral. That was another reason why I let off so much steam that night at the club. But beyond the anger there was concern. Or perhaps it was the other way round?

Yesterday I’d nipped into Mum’s hospice to fetch the last of her belongings and had seen one of the day shift nurses, Sally. Her husband, Michael, had once worked at Dan’s school and Mum had known Sally socially prior to her last illness. Not well, but enough to pass the time of day. We had wondered if that might make it awkward but her familiar face reassured Mum. We’d had a chat and she, too, asked about Dan, reminding me that Mum had a key to his flat on her keychain and suggesting that I pop into his place to check it out. We’d phoned endlessly and I’d knocked on his door with no joy, trying to find him before Mum … well, before things came to a head.

‘He’ll need your support more than ever now,’ Sally said. She was a homely woman, with an immense bosom, and an extraordinarily generous nature. I guess you have to be when you’re in that job.

‘I know,’ I had said and promised to go there.

‘And,’ she said. ‘Please do me a favour. I was talking to Doctor Jarvis about Dan going off like this. He said it’d be an idea to check his medication. Can you bring back a bottle, if there’s a spare somewhere, and he’ll have a look? Just to be sure.’

I had told her I would and was planning on swinging by his place after I’d finished up here at Mercurial.

‘Oh dear,’ Maggie was saying though her voice kept steady. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I could be upfront with Maggie. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to check his flat later. To be honest I’d rather talk work.’

‘Okay. Well, let me know if you need anything, yeah?’ Maggie straightened herself out and put on her professional head. The set of her jaw was firm and ready for business. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Fire.’

I tasted the coffee and removed my notebook from my bag. ‘You mentioned another Essex Girls’ piece?’

I’d been fascinated with our regional stereotype for a very long time. Firstly because, as a grey-eyed, raven-haired Essex chick, I adored the leggy, booby, blonde ideal. Surrounded by Barbies and Pippas from an early age I’d cottoned onto the fact that this was the generally accepted notion of beauty. I couldn’t believe it when, as I made more excursions beyond the county’s limits, I discovered it was considered vulgar and stupid and a lot lot worse. The realisation left me feeling cheated and rather annoyed.

Later, as I left the borough I’d lived in all my life to venture North for uni, I found that not only being a joke, mentioning my home county often resulted in humiliation and embarrassment. My surname, Asquith, which I thought sounded a little posh, however did little to temper the constant barrage of wisecracks that I faced, as an Essex Girl called Mercedes, and as a consequence I shortened it to Sadie. Most people called me by that name these days, apart from my dad who stubbornly stuck to my full moniker. Anyway, the whole Essex thing was as exasperating as it was formative and as a consequence of this battle I went on into journalism, ‘to get my voice heard without shouting’, as my mum used to put it.

Although I didn’t relate the writing to my county or my gender I kept an edgy, working-class feel to my tirades. Luckily, people liked them and I was able to make a living from my rants.

Returning to my roots, Maggie indulged me and published a series of articles in which I challenged the negative connotations attached to the stereotype of the Essex Girl.

‘Essex isn’t like other counties. Its daughter isn’t like those of Hertfordshire, Herefordshire or Surrey,’ I had written. ‘She isn’t demure, self-effacing or seeking a husband. She’s audacious, loud, drops her vowels and has fun. Like Essex itself, the Girl is unique. It’s about time we showed some filial pride.’

Got a good reception, that one. Circulation went up. Maggie commissioned another one, and another, then another.

In an attempt to trace the etymology of Essex Girl my last feature harked back to the dark days of the witch hunts and examined whether there was a link between Essex’s reputation as ‘Witch County’ and the genesis of Essex Girl. The two areas collided and, after further consideration, I concluded that there was and readers and commentators alike had not stopped filling up the web forum ever since.

Many comments spilt over into other sites, forums, newspapers and magazines. Positive or intensely outraged, Maggie didn’t care how they reacted, just that they did. ‘This is the kind of thing Mercurial needs. It’s getting our name out there into a broader market. We need more, and I’ll up your rate. Just give me something good and meaty,’ she’d said on the phone a couple of weeks back.

So here I was, with something perhaps a little on the sketchy side, but definitely spicy.

Maggie took a tentative swig of her coffee then blew on it. ‘Go on then – spill it. What you got for Mama?’

‘Okay.’ I flicked open my notepad and traced my notes to the relevant entry.

‘I’m delving deeper into the witch hunts. You know this book deal? Well, I’m churning up a lot of good stuff. I think I can funnel some articles over to you.’ I glanced up to catch a reaction. Maggie was nodding, her tongue licking her top lip, so I ploughed on.

‘Why did Essex lose so many women to the witch hunts?’

Maggie snorted. ‘Did we? It’s a long time ago. Some people might say “so what?”’

I leant in to her. ‘Yes, we did. Significantly more. It’s the sheer volume that warrants attention.’

Maggie picked up the biro and took a drag on the end. ‘You didn’t go into that in your last article did you?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it was more about the witches themselves and the qualities they shared with the contemporary Essex Girl …’

Maggie cut in. ‘Yep, yep. They “were poor, dumb and ‘loose’ as in not controlled by, or protected by men”.’ She was quoting my article. I got her point – she knew it back to front. ‘So why exactly did it happen then? To the extent it did here? I assumed that Essex and its inhabitants already had a reputation for being thick, flat and uninteresting?’

I coughed. ‘No, not at all. Up until the witch hunts, Essex was seen as the “English Goshen”.’

‘I last heard that word in Sunday School. Fertile land and Israelites. Now don’t go all religious on me, Sadie. We’re not the Church Times.’

I sighed. I hated having to explain things to her. She had such a high IQ and always made me feel like I was rambling. ‘Goshen also means place of plenty. And that’s a pretty fair description: Essex has an interesting geology. Sits at the southernmost point of the ice sheet that covered the rest of the island. Soil’s full of mineral deposits brought down from up north via the glacier.’

Maggie pulled a face then converted it into a smile. ‘Geology’s a bit of a turn off for our readership …’

I held my hand up. ‘Hang on. Let me get to the point – it was perfect for farming, for cattle, for livestock. It’s surrounded by rivers and the North Sea for fishing. Until the 1600s it was seen as a pretty cool place to be. But after that it changes a bit.’

Maggie’s eyes blinked. ‘Because?’

I cleared my throat. ‘Well, this is where I come in. I think a) because it was quite the revolutionary county in the Civil War. Backed parliament. Wanted reform. Was seen as the “radical” county. And b) because of the extent of the witch hunts.’

‘Which were because?’ She cocked her head to one side and sat back in her chair.

‘Lots of things, I think. One was class aggression – you look at the European witch hunts and they had it in for all different types of people: aristocrats got burnt at the stake and their lands neatly confiscated by the Church. But in the Essex witch hunts the victims are mostly poor. At the same time you’ve got a mini Ice Age, crop failures, Civil War, a general breakdown of law and order. Indictments in Essex were already higher than elsewhere in the country. Then suddenly in 1644 the numbers spike dramatically. It was down to Matthew Hopkins, whose dick must have fallen off or something.’

Maggie raised an eyebrow. ‘Language, darling.’

‘Well, he’s got serious issues with women. Killed more than any of the other Witchfinders put together. Decided to call himself the Witchfinder General and got rid of whole families of,’ I lifted my fingers to draw imaginary quotation marks, ‘“witches” in his brief career from 1644 to 1647. Some sources suggest that he was from Lancashire, others from Essex or Suffolk. That he worked in shipping as a clerk and spent some time in Amsterdam learning his official trade, where he witnessed several witch trials.’

I looked up to catch her expression. ‘And?’ she said, eyebrows furrowed, not giving anything away.

‘So he comes back and starts on Essex Girls in Manningtree. That’s where he was based. There and Mistley. The Thorn Inn is where he had his headquarters.’ I jerked my chair closer to the desk. ‘Killed a good hundred more people than Harold Shipman, who I might add, we can draw comparisons with – he also enjoyed murdering older women living on their own. But, like I said, it’s thought that Hopkins killed more. Possibly making him the number one serial killer of all time. Conservative estimates look to about 350-odd victims. And,’ I drew breath for emphasis, ‘he was only twenty-six or twenty-seven when he snuffed it. That was in 1647. In 1692 you get the Salem witch hunts – and guess where they were?’

Maggie drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘I’d put my money on Salem.’

‘Okay. I didn’t phrase that well. What county do you reckon Salem is in?’

‘It’s in Massachusetts, no?’

‘Yes, that’s the state though. Salem is in Essex County.’

‘That, I didn’t know,’ said Maggie thoughtfully. ‘You have my full attention. What are you thinking?’

‘Not sure yet. I have to do some digging. I’ve got a tingling feeling going on. I think I could come up with something strong. Perhaps, and this is just a perhaps at the moment, it could be part of a bigger series – The Essex Girls’ History of the World.’

Maggie’s eyes brightened – pound signs were presumably whizzing through her brain. ‘Now you’re talking. What are you saying – six, twelve articles?’

‘I don’t know yet. Let me see what I can come up with.’

‘I like it. I really like it. Sounds like you’re talking ahead of the next deadline. Can you come up with this in three weeks?’

I’d already thought about that and shook my head. ‘I’ll definitely need longer.’

Her eyes dipped and hardened. ‘You’ve got a current deadline. This is like an ongoing column. Readers will be expecting a piece in the next issue. Be a dear and sort something out for that please.’

I already had something up my sleeve. ‘What about little-known Essex Girls of import … ?’

Maggie picked up my line. ‘That go against the stereotype …’

I gave her a stony stare. ‘All Essex Girls go against the stereotype …’

She ignored my comment. ‘Yes, okay, you can have that. But I don’t want you trotting out the regulars: Helen Mirren; Sally Gunnell … yada yada. There was a piece like that in the Standard just the other week.’

‘I’ve got enough research to concoct a decent article pretty quickly. There’s Anne Knight who campaigned against slavery and for women’s suffrage …’

Maggie sniffed. ‘Not too political though please, Sadie. We need an arts or culture steer.’

‘Come on – she’s a notable woman. A lesser-known

notable …’

‘Oh dear. I’m going off the idea. Who else have you got?’

‘Okay,’ I said, reaching mentally for someone a little more exciting. ‘Maggie Smith?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Oh and also Mary Boleyn – the “other Boleyn Girl”. You could run a nice pic of Scarlett beside it.’

‘Was Mary from Essex?’

‘Lived in Rochford for about ten years.’

‘Born here?’

‘Not exactly …’

‘She’ll do. Stick in a couple more like that and think pictures.’

She wrote something down in the book on her desk. ‘Good, good,’ she said to herself and bit the end of her pen with gusto.

‘Then I can go into Hopkins?’

‘Darling,’ she said, replacing the pen and fixing me with one of her scary smiles. ‘After that you can do whatever you like – as long as you hit your deadline and make it contentious. We need debate. Especially on the website. The bigger the better.’

‘Great. Thank you.’ I said it in earnest. ‘I’m going to get something good out of it – got an instinct with this, believe me.’

Now she leant forwards. ‘Very topical Essex is right now.’

‘That, I know, dear Yoda.’

She grinned. ‘Do you think you could explore your contacts and get some coverage in the nationals? If you come up with anything biggish?’

‘I can’t promise anything but it’s always a possibility. I’m pretty sure there’s an angle I could work out that could pull in the wider population. Hopkins has more than a regional fascination.’

Maggie’s eyes were fixed on my face. ‘Excellent. I want more than an “And Finally” on Look East. God knows we need to boost circulation.’ She leant forwards and picked up her mug.

I mirrored her. The coffee was hot and delicious so I gulped it greedily, feeling the heat in my throat, then processing her last comment, I said, ‘I thought you were doing great.’

Maggie sighed. ‘We are, in terms of readership and profile. Best it’s ever been. But our landlord’s putting the rent up; the price of paper is going through the roof right now, and what with the recession or whatever this dire slump we’re passing through is called, a lot of our regular advertisers have had to pull. A fair few have gone bust still owing us. Marketing is always the first thing to go when times are hard.’

I stared up and caught a sagging around her eyes. ‘I had no idea.’

Maggie reached for a fag and projected her chair to the sash window. Lighting it, she pushed the bottom half up and craned her mouth to the opening.

‘Please don’t tell anyone, Sadie. I’m confiding in you as a friend, not an employee. I don’t want it to get out to the others.’ She blew a long sigh of smoke through the gap. ‘We’ll be lucky if we’re still trading this time next year.’

‘Ouch,’ I said.

She faced me. Her regular kittenish expression disappeared. There was more of a hungry alley cat look going on there. ‘Pull this “Essex Girls’ History of the World” article off and I’ll think about upping your rate to something bordering on decent and throw in your expenses.’

I sat back and looked her squarely in the face. ‘That’s a generous offer. Considering …’

‘I said I’d think about it. You know me, always one for a get-out clause.’ She laughed, and the kitten returned. ‘Let’s call it a calculated risk. I have faith in you.’

A strong blast of air came in through the crack, scattering several loose papers across the desk and blowing my notebook shut. I gathered them up, feeling a little less excited than I had been just moments before. ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m not sure that I deserve it. Not yet.’

‘Don’t be so down on yourself.’ She shot me another look and said more softly, ‘You sure you’re okay?’

It was an invitation to talk. But I didn’t want to open those particular floodgates so I sniffed, swallowed down all self-doubt and wobbliness, and smiled as brightly as I could. ‘Fine. Honest.’

‘Right then,’ her tone changed: she was wrapping up. Our transactions were like that. I’d got used to Maggie’s looping behaviour that swung from utter professionalism to friendly concern then promptly back again. ‘Can’t stay here chatting about books and whatnot. You get going. Crack on with your witches. When do you think you can give me an idea of where you’re going with your leads?’

I told her about two weeks should do it and stood up to go.

‘Great,’ she said as I made for the door. ‘Oh, and Sadie. Call me if you need any help sorting Rosamund’s house.’

I told her she’d be the first on my list and said goodbye.

She was second actually, but I appreciated the gesture.

Chapter Four

Okay, so the first on my list would be Dan. I wouldn’t ever say that he was like a father to me: he came onto the scene when I was hitting my twenties. Although Dad had upped sticks and remarried by then, we stayed in touch, and he did his paternal duties to the best of his ability. There was no gaping hole there and I had no desire for another father figure. Thankfully Dan didn’t attempt to patronise me by insinuating himself into my life. That’s not to suggest there was conflict there – although we enjoyed a good debate, holding opposing views on many issues, it rarely strayed towards heat. We gradually learnt that we shared several traits: an unfashionable respect for the Beckhams, a crossover in early punk CD compilations, a distrust of online shopping and, of course, we both loved my mum, Rosamund.

I couldn’t understand where he had disappeared off to?

It was so unlike him.

But I was going to sort it. I was determined. After I left Mercurial I drove over to Leigh.

Dan’s flat was on the third floor of a large 1920s block with stunning views over the Thames Estuary to Kent and beyond. It wasn’t massive: two large bedrooms, a contemporary kitchen/diner and a lounge with a balcony just big enough to squeeze on a round table and two small chairs, three at a push if I happened to pop in. The first time I visited I was impressed by the minimalist interior. Later I discovered his style was a product of divorce and OCD, rather than fashion statement.

Over the past few years he’d chosen his furniture carefully, with an eye on simple classic design, and as a consequence his flat had a groovy, contemporary vibe that was quite charming.

That afternoon though, I was surprised by what I found. Not that there was anything immediately concerning, well not anything I could put my finger on straight away. In the kitchen Dan’s laptop sat on the work surface half open. It wasn’t plugged in and the battery was flat. Next to it was a three-quarters full, stone-cold cup of coffee with a thick skin on the top.

It wasn’t like Dan not to clean up after himself.

I crossed the kitchen and entered the lounge. The TV was on, volume way down low. Perhaps he had returned and gone out?

Maybe he was here? Asleep in his room? The bedroom came off a central hallway. As I pushed it open, I tentatively called out his name.

I felt intrusive entering his bedroom, but once I was assured no sounds of life came from within, I opened the door wide.

His bedroom was in a state of mild disarray. But I mean, mild. In my place it would be considered tidy; the duvet was jumbled up loosely in a mound at the end of the bed. Some of the drawers from the large mahogany chest had been pulled out and not pushed back in.

So, although it was more chaotic than Dan liked, it didn’t resemble a robbery. The laptop was in full view and the plasma TV that hung on the wall hadn’t been touched.

Perhaps he’d been searching for something. Or packed in a hurry.

But it just didn’t feel right.

Like most recovering depressives, since Dan had learnt to control his moods, everything else under his rule was managed efficiently and tightly too. He was as likely to leave this mess as he was to miss an appointment with his doctor. Or with my mother, for that matter.

Could an old infirm relative have needed him? Family crisis?

Then why not let Mum know?

Why not send a message at least? It was selfish not to.

Anger tightened my brow.

Remembering Sally’s request, I stomped into the bathroom. A quick scan revealed an unusually tousled cabinet. At the back, on the bottom shelf, there were two bottles of Dan’s regular medication. I stuck one in my bag and closed the bathroom door.

I felt odd leaving the place all messed up like that, so I nipped into the kitchen, closed the laptop, stowed it away under the sink and washed up the mug.

As I was locking up on the landing the neighbour’s front door opened a few inches.

‘Who’s that?’ The voice belonged to an old, well-spoken woman. Through the crack I could vaguely make out sleek white hair, and elegantly bespectacled blue eyes.

‘I’m Sadie, Rosamund’s daughter.’

The door trembled then opened to the length of the

security chain.

The smell of grilling bacon wafted out into the hall.

Dan’s neighbour squinted through the gap. ‘Where’s your mother?’

I gave her a taut explanation and the blue eyes softened a little. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. Standard response.

The woman regarded me with what I assumed was pity, then she sniffed and lowered her head and said, ‘I’ve heard things, you know.’

Most of us tend to gloss over non sequiturs like this but as a journalist, when people come out with lines like that, I’m always straight in there, probing. You usually find they’re spoken in unguarded moments – when the conscious, or the conscience, is struggling with the subconscious mind, and not guarding the ‘truth lobe’.

‘What things? Do you know where Dan’s gone, Mrs … Sorry, I don’t know your name?’

I held out my hand and took a step towards her. It completely backfired. The woman took a step back and her door slammed shut.

I hung about for a couple of minutes, waiting to see if she was going to open it again, then shrugged mentally and put the neighbour’s words down to old age or battiness and left.

As I crossed the ground floor foyer I passed a tall man in a black leather jacket with a remarkably expensive-looking tan, not the kind you get from living in the UK. Or out of a bottle for that matter. And, believe me, I’m from Essex – I know.

He smiled as if he knew me. That kind of reaction wasn’t uncommon: Leigh was a small town, people tended to know of each other, even if they hadn’t yet met. I nodded back.

As I approached the large glass doors at the front, the tall man skipped in front of me. He smiled again, this time revealing perfect white teeth and a pair of intense blue eyes, then he held open the door for me. ‘Ladies first.’ There was an accent there, though the exchange was too brief to pinpoint it.

‘Thank you.’ I stepped through it and continued over to my car expecting him to follow me out.

He didn’t.

As I swung out of the car park I saw him behind the glass door.

I couldn’t swear to it, as I was a fair distance away, but I think he was watching me.

Back at the hospice, I found Sally.

‘I think it’s all right to take them,’ I told her and handed over the bottle. ‘There was another one there of the same. I know Dan usually has a lot of spares in case he mislays the meds. He’s not going to run out for a good while.’

Sally heaved a sigh. ‘It’s all been very stressful for poor Dan. You’re managing to cope, Sadie. You’re young and have friends and your dad. Dan’s pretty much on his own and I think he might not be handling this too well.’

I had been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself and Mum that it hadn’t occurred to me what Dan might be going through. Now I saw Sally could be right. I remembered a conversation I had once with him about his medication. He described the drugs as creating a ‘semi-porous wall’ which managed to keep out what he referred to as ‘the dark’. ‘Sometimes,’ he told me, ‘it’s just not strong enough.’

‘What do you do then?’ I asked him.

‘We go back to the doctors,’ Mum interjected.

What with everything that had been going on lately, I doubted very much that Dan had thought about making an appointment.

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘I never thought of that. It’s been a very difficult time. I’ve been completely self-obsessed.’

Sally’s eyes crinkled into deep lines around the corners of her eyes and across the top of her cheeks.

‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, love. You’ve had your own cross to bear.’ She smiled gently. You could tell she did that a hell of a lot. The pattern of lines was etched deeply into her face through years of usage.

She held the bottle up to inspect then said, ‘Dan might have taken some time out to get his head straight. Then again, he well might have relapsed. If you’re not acting rationally, then you don’t think things through logically. Stress makes people react in different ways.’

‘Yes,’ I nodded. Now Sally was putting it like that, it did seem like the reasonable conclusion – Dan was probably taking a break. Perhaps he was running away. Maybe he was being cowardly. But perhaps that was necessary in order to preserve his own sanity. If I knew Dan, and I thought I did, whatever he was doing, he would have seen it as imperative.

Sally grunted at the pill bottle. ‘Forty milligrams. Not sure about that. Doesn’t look like a forty mil dose. Never mind,’ she shook the bottle and popped it on the shelf behind her. ‘I’ll ask Doctor Jarvis to advise.’

With a sense of unease I said my goodbyes and hurried home.

Chapter Five

The landline answer phone was flashing when I finally got back to the flat. It was a message from my dad, checking in on me to see how I was going. Lots of people were doing that. I didn’t phone many back. It was weird – although I wanted to be able to talk about it, I didn’t want to talk about it. I guess I just needed to know I had the option.

However, I should return Dad’s call at least.

I picked up the phone, hit ringback and got my stepmum, Janet, who informed me Dad was putting the kids to bed and would probably be another fifteen minutes. I said I’d call back in the morning and that, no, it wasn’t urgent.

‘You’re still coming on Saturday though, aren’t you?’ Janet wanted to know.

Saturday, Saturday. What was on Saturday? I reached into my handbag and pulled out my diary. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ I told her, still unsure of what I’d committed to.

‘Good, good. I know it’s a fair way. Your dad will appreciate the effort.’

‘Right. Of course,’ I thumbed through to Saturday’s entry – Uncle Roger’s birthday. I groaned.

‘Mercedes?’ Like my father, Janet too had developed the annoying habit of calling me by my full name.

‘Sorry, Janet. I had forgotten. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss me if I didn’t come.’

‘Mercedes, honestly! Don’t say that. Your dad certainly would. You know you’re the apple of his eye.’

I managed to stifle a snort of contempt. This was pretty typical of lovely rosy Janet, but a blatant lie. Dad had always been a remote sort of parent, though not unloved or unloving. But the emotional and physical distance increased when he and Mum split and he moved out of our home back to his native Suffolk. I’m not being self-pitying when I say he never appeared particularly interested in me. True – he did the regular check-up and monthly phone call thing. And true – it didn’t bother me one iota. But then my half-sisters, Lettice and Lucy, came along.

Janet was a homely and family orientated woman. A fair-haired big old farmer’s wife type, who insisted that I got more involved with the family. When I did, I saw that Dad absolutely idolised his new daughters with an affection that was doting. It was different to the parenting style I’d known, for sure. But to be frank, I couldn’t blame him: Lettice and Lucy were cool. Fourteen and eight years old respectively, and completely feral. Borderline punk. I liked their attitude.

I think a lot of their wildness came from living in the country; after he left, Dad bought a row of dilapidated cottages in the middle of nowhere. He did the first one up and moved into it whilst renovating the rest, then sold them on, retaining three of them to rent.

It was a canny move. Over the past couple of decades the ‘middle of nowhere’ had transformed into ‘desirable rural location’, affording him a very comfortable early retirement.

‘Mercedes? Are you still there?’ Janet’s voice brought me into the present. Oh yeah, the birthday party.

I made a snuffling noise.

‘Oh come on, love. Uncle Roger might not be around for much longer. His kidneys aren’t looking good.’

Dad’s rather morose older brother was a permanent downer at any festive occasion.

A small sniff conveyed my cynicism. ‘He’s been saying that for years.’

‘Yes, well now it looks like he’s right.’ Janet made it sound like a final reflection, demanding of compassion.

I sighed audibly. She changed tack. ‘It’d do you good to get away. And everybody’s expecting you. The kids are looking forward to seeing you and you know how upset your Dad will be if you don’t …’

‘Okay, okay. I’ll be there. I’ll only stay for a couple of hours though.’

‘That’s perfect. Thank you. See you Sunday then. One p.m. Try to be prompt.’

I hung up.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like visiting Dad. It was just with everything going on at the moment …

Though I didn’t want to think about any of that. Instead I decided to distract myself with some brain candy so I dumped myself on the sofa and flicked on the TV. Out of habit I surfed through to my preferred twenty-four-hour news channel.

There was some kind of kerfuffle outside County Hall. I couldn’t get what was going on at first then, as the report built up the eyewitness accounts, I sussed that Robert Cutt had been visiting and got an egg in the face from a couple of bystanders protesting about media monopolies.

The mere image of him flashing up on the screen made my stomach tighten. Though he’d moved to England in his thirties, his white-blond hair accentuated a classic American face: fantastic cheekbones, wide jaw, good teeth and eyes that showed hyena-like cunning mixed with the blank dumbness of a circling shark. Sometimes in a certain light, it looked like there was nothing going on behind those startling peepers. Like the man had long said goodbye to his soul.

Yet none of this did anything to detract from the overall effect; even his most vociferous opponents had to admit that Robert Cutt was a very handsome devil indeed. Regrettably the well-groomed exterior and contrived panache concealed a business savvy that was ruthless and pretty unethical in its hunger for power.

I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched the sixty-something politician brushing away the cameras, that despite the egging he looked rather pleased with himself. It was gross: there was something about the man that really creeped me out. It wasn’t just the fact that, a few months ago, he’d been coaxed into revealing in a rather probing and frank interview that he believed that men were infinitely better adapted to leadership than the female of the species. Following on from that another documentary had revealed his friendship with TV evangelist, Pat Robertson.

I knew about Mr Robertson before I had ever heard of Cutt: a friend once bought me a joke present for my birthday. It was a mug that had one of Mr Robertson’s quotes printed on it. It read: ‘The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’

Bless his little cotton socks.

After that documentary Cutt did a fair bit of political manoeuvring to put a respectable distance between their camps. Even so, there were similarities; both advocated a stable family should have a mother and father (one of each sex). And there was an insidious suggestion that women should remain within the home, though it wasn’t stated explicitly. Nor was it their conviction that human nature was ever nurtured. It was more about genetics and nature. But that was easy for him to say, coming as he did, from a line of pilgrim Baptists back in the good old US of A. Mr Cutt made a big deal of those roots and set himself up as something of a paragon of ancestral virtue.

God knows how he came to be a political contender in the UK.

And yet, it was none of that that had me reflexing into gag response when I saw his nauseatingly beautiful face. No. It was something about his eyes. The hard grey circles reminded me of someone.

I’d just never been able to put my finger on who.

I almost convulsed with repulsion as the screen showed him ushered by bodyguards into a black BMW: just before he got in, he waved a two-fingered victory sign at reporters.

The scene had dulled my mood, leaving me with a restlessness that I couldn’t counter. I switched channels trying to find some comedy. Unfortunately the smarmy mogul had dampened me, so I cut my losses and retired to bed.

I was just sinking into a light slumber when I heard that noise again: a scratching followed by a creaking of sorts. When I strained my ears, I could tell it was right above me, in the loft.

I groaned and buried my head under the duvet, underlining my mental note to call pest control in the morning.

But it got louder.

I pulled the duvet down from my face and stared at the ceiling. ‘Shut up,’ I yelled at it.

Magically, the shuffling stopped.

Chapter Six

The offices of Portillion Publishing were on level six of the larger umbrella company’s head office. The sleek glassy building had won several architectural awards for innovation and was set in the financial heart of London. I use the term ‘heart’ loosely: it was at the centre of the complex of roads and warrens that calls itself the City of London. I’d never felt comfortable about being in that place, with all those bankers. The lack of vegetation, the inhuman scale of the buildings, the overriding predominance of grey, the uniform of suits, the set pace of walking, all combined to give the impression that when you got off the train at Fenchurch Street, you entered a mechanised world set up purely to produce money. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a problem with the individuals as such – some of my best friends worked in the City – but en masse, the whole set-up was overwhelming.

As I walked towards the river, I had the sense of being swallowed up or, perhaps, it was more like joining in. Whatever, I was almost relieved as I went through the revolving doors of Cutt’s castle.

Portillion Publishing was originally situated in Mayfair, but when the mogul acquired it, the outfit was ‘streamlined’. Accusations of asset stripping and general nastiness were flung around but faded once the concern was relocated to this nerve centre. It was enormous, shaped like a glimmering spire: a cathedral to Capitalism.

The offices came off an inner courtyard that had the full height of the thirty-five-storey structure. Large glass elevators reached skywards to the ceiling where a crystal pyramid capped the top. Chrome fittings and mirrored pillars amplified the light. The effect was dazzling.

A tall, willowy PA in a black designer suit collected me from the reception area. Her chic asymmetric bob and red lipstick were so impressive I felt immediately underdressed in my beloved vintage dress and boots. To cover up my nerves I tried to make small talk as we walked towards the lifts.

‘This is a fantastic building,’ I gestured upwards. ‘So much light.’

Delphine, as she introduced herself, sniffed. ‘Yes. It’s a great place to work.’ Her voice dragged with vague ennui.

‘Is Cutt based here?’ I asked, following the tap-tapping of her kitten heels across the marble floor.

‘Mr Cutt’s office is there,’ she indicated a large tinted glass window that covered the whole of one side of the first floor.

‘All of it?’

Delphine managed to crack a smile. ‘It’s an expansive concern.’

His office directly faced the entrance, security checks and reception. ‘He gets a good view of everybody coming in

and out that way, I suppose.’

‘Oh, Mr Cutt is an extremely energetic man. Not one to drop the ball. Robert likes to keep his eye on things.’

‘Quite literally,’ I said and stitched on a chuckle. ‘He can more or less see everyone from that vantage point.’

She didn’t reply.

The short journey upwards was uncomfortable. We stood either side of the lift doors staring out of the glass sheets. Delphine didn’t speak and I didn’t bother to try any more conversation. She was one tough nut to crack, I thought silently, tension creeping along my shoulders as I contemplated the kind of fella this Felix Knight might be. His email had an old-fashioned jauntiness to it that had me picturing a white-haired man in his fifties, in a sort of geography teacher get-up – leather-elbowed tweed jacket and cords. But after the intimidating pillar of reserve that was his secretary, I was beginning to think he was probably more of a reptilian guy. To command authority over Delphine, he’d surely have to be older, wiser and far, far colder.

Both my visions were wrong. Felix Knight turned out to be a phenomenally friendly sort. My age, or possibly younger. He had fantastically clear skin that gave the impression he was fresh out of the shower. Despite an impeccable tailor, the rest of him was a little unkempt; his hair was a mass of carefree brown curly waves, week-old stubble was spread across a firm jaw. I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t shaved – you could cut yourself on those cheekbones. He had a very very wide smile that wrinkled up the sides of his eyes. Out of the context of the publishing house and out of that suit, he could easily have been an actor or an academic, or, because his build was tall and fairly broad across the shoulders, maybe a young farmer. There was a slap-happy aura about him that immediately put me at ease.

And he was rather attractive too.

We shook hands. His was a firm super-confident grip, his eyes incredibly sparkly.

‘Do come in, Miss Asquith.’ He pulled a chair out and helped me into it. Well-spoken but not intimidating, his body language communicated both bonhomie and impeccable manners. He thanked Delphine and asked her to fetch some coffee, ‘if it is no trouble. Otherwise,’ he said, ‘I’ll hit the canteen.’ Delphine assented with a nod and so Felix slipped round to the other side of his desk and plopped into a high-backed chair. I saw him steal a glance that swept over me from the top of my head downwards, taking in bust size, hips, and legs. For a nanosecond he lost his self-possession, as if surprised by some aspect – I didn’t know what. Was it the vintage dress? Knee-high boots? Leather jacket? Perhaps he’d expected me to rock up in a suit. Well, tough, I thought, that ain’t ever gonna happen. Anyway, it was fleeting: Felix Knight mastered himself so quickly the blunder was barely perceptible.

‘Well,’ he said brightly. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you at

last.’

At last! He only introduced himself yesterday. But then again, the handover from Emma had probably occurred a couple of weeks ago. It was only I, the author, who had learned of Portillion’s plans twenty-four hours ago.

I told him I too was pleased to make his acquaintance and made myself comfortable in a jazzy chrome and leather chair.

The offices of Portillion Publishing were kitted out with an array of gizmos and screens, all carefully selected to compliment the vast oak bookshelves displaying some of Portillion’s top-selling authors.

‘I’m sorry that Emma had to take off so quickly,’ he said once he was seated back behind his desk. I watched him casually cross his legs, his large right hand smoothing over a wrinkle of fabric around the kneecap. He coughed and smiled. ‘These things tend to move rapidly once decided. However let me assure you I am very impressed by your proposal and can’t wait to read the first instalment.’ I liked the way his tongue lingered over the ‘r’s in a breathy maybe Irish, though more likely American style. Unlike other media types I’d encountered who aped the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the Super Power to evoke a cool cosmopolitan image, Felix’s accent sounded genuine. I guessed he was well travelled.

‘That’s great, thanks, Mr Knight.’ I nodded vigorously to match his level of enthusiasm.

He swung his chair and placed his hands on the desk. ‘Oh please,’ he said, lowering eyes and voice simultaneously. ‘It’s Felix.’

Bloody hell – was he flirting? No. Couldn’t be. Not on a first date. I noted my Freudian slip and corrected ‘date’ to ‘meeting’. It must just be that old public school charm offensive.

‘And actually, my friends call me Sadie,’ I said, and squeezed in a little self-conscious grin.

He stroked the skin behind his jaw and regarded me with a grin. ‘So, formalities over – how have you been, Sadie?’

It threw me a little. Was this publishing getting-to-know-you-speak? Or had he heard about my recent loss?

‘Well,’ I squigged myself forwards onto the edge of my seat, so that I could sit up straight and suck in my stomach. ‘I’m very pleased about the publishing deal. It’s come at a good time. You see, my mother passed away a couple of weeks ago …’

‘Oh I’m sorry,’ he said and assumed a concerned bearing; eyes down, head cocked to one side. I’d seen it before. It’s what people did. Felix went a step further and clasped his hands, his eyebrows pointed towards his nose. It was a sincere expression. ‘Was it sudden or … ?’

‘She’d been ill. But well, you’re never prepared for it, are you, no matter how expected?’

He glanced away and back again quickly. ‘Condolences to you and your family. That can’t have been easy …’

‘Thank you, I said and moved on. I wasn’t comfortable with this. I didn’t want to start my new career with negativity. ‘So, as you see, I’m ready to get on with the book right away.’

‘And I am certainly not going to stop you,’ he said, and his face began to shine again. ‘Shall we clear up the formalities and head off for a bite to eat? I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.’ He sat back and touched his stomach. It looked as hard as a board.

‘Starving Marvin, as they say in South Park,’ I said and immediately regretted the crass pop culture reference.

‘Quite,’ said Mr Knight. He reached for a document at the side of his desk. ‘We’re all quite enamoured of your colloquial style. You don’t come across writing like that very often. Wondered if you’d speak like it too. So often you get authors who write in one way and speak in quite a different manner. But you seem to be the genuine article.’

What was that meant to mean? Genuinely working-class? Genuinely Essex? I didn’t want to risk offence by asking for clarification so simply smiled. Felix did too – that wide gleaming grin (no overbite, white pearls verging on perfect), displaying zero visible dental work, evidence of good, strong, well-nourished stock.

He selected a pen and pushed the wad of papers towards me. ‘Let’s get your signature down here. Then we can release the funds.’

The restaurant was Spanish, full of little round tables. Across the walls hung strings of what I first thought were tacky plastic garlic bulbs and chillies, but then realised were the real McCoy.

After signing the contract Delphine popped in to let us know our taxi had arrived and since arriving at the restaurant our conversation had spun away from work into taste in food. It was only after we’d knocked back our first glass of wine that we got down to nitty-gritty book talk.

I explained that I’d already written an introduction about the factors that led up to the witch hunts, then, developing my original proposition, outlined the fact I was planning on setting the work out in three sections: the hunts up to 1644; the Hopkins campaign of terror; and then the decline of prosecutions up to the last known arrest of Helen Duncan, aka ‘Hellish Nell’, who went down for witchcraft in 1944, if you can believe that. Hers was an odd case. She was convicted of fraudulent ‘spiritual’ activity after one particularly informative séance in which she gave out classified information about military deaths. I had to include it. Felix was fascinated. Or at least, he gave the impression of being utterly absorbed; the eyes zoomed in on my face, his mouth set into a line. His expression was neutral, listening, but there was a shadow of a wrinkle across his forehead which betrayed intense concentration.

Enjoying the attention, I went on to explain I had pretty much sketched out the first section and was now focusing on Matthew Hopkins.

‘I don’t know a great deal about him other than what you’ve précised in your synopsis.’ Felix leant forwards across the table expectantly then reached out and refilled my glass. ‘Please do go on. You’ll have to excuse my ignorance on the subject.’

As it was fresh in my mind, I took him through an overview of that particularly nasty witch hunter who had made such an impact on my county.

‘What do you think his motive was? Power? Greed?’ Felix asked as the tapas arrived on the table. I took a modest forkful of meatballs, but didn’t start on them.

‘Of course: they’re your basic tools of capitalism at a time when that economic system was emerging.’ I took a breath. The final cadence of my sentence made me sound way too preachy. I moderated my voice and glanced at Felix.

He didn’t seem to mind and nodded me on, eyebrows higher, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips.

‘I mean,’ I went on, ‘yes, he gained financially from the deaths. And, yes, I’m sure that that was certainly a motivating factor. In one town alone he made about £23 from the executions, which works out to about £3.5k today. Some sources reckon, he netted the equivalent of about £100,000 for a year spent witch hunting. Quite an incentive.’

Felix swirled his wine glass, sniffed it, and took another swig. ‘Exceptional.’ I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the vintage or the witch hunter’s income. ‘But to kill in such quantities? To witness the last moments as the life was squeezed from them. And then to continue – he’s got to have been mad, surely?’ He tilted his face towards me, as if waiting for me to clear up that quandary.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I think he must have partly believed what he was doing. I mean, he had to believe in witchcraft and the Devil. Everyone did at that point in time. The country was one hundred per cent convinced not only of the existence of witchcraft but the idea that its practice could empower some people. Witchcraft was as real to them as, I dunno …’ I searched around for a contemporary angle, ‘… electricity is to us.’

‘That is a fact, however,’ he said. ‘Electricity is real.’

‘Yes, but we can’t see it. We see the results of manipulating or conducting it. We don’t see “it”. But we believe it.’

A slight droop of the eyelids told me the metaphor wasn’t working, so I moved on. ‘Well, anyway, my point is – he probably did believe that some of them were witches. I mean, in a few of the confessions you get the sense that some accused may have been convinced that they had caused their victim’s misfortune: you go begging, someone refuses you charity, you curse them, then they die or fall ill. That sequence of events might have happened fairly regularly – the psychological stress that people underwent when they were “hexed” probably did have a pretty negative effect on their health. Your average seventeenth-century villager hadn’t got a clue about strokes, heart attacks and fits. It was all the work of the Devil.’

‘So, by contrast, he was doing God’s work?’ Felix offered. ‘That’s how he saw it?’

‘Christ no,’ I said quickly. ‘Hopkins made stuff up to convict them. He fabricated stories and coached the accused so that they’d be convicted. I think he enjoyed it.’

‘He was a serial killer then,’ my editor spoke up once more. ‘He got a kick from seeing the cases through from hearsay to execution. Or else why do it?’ Felix shone his metallic eyes on me. ‘Where did he stand with God? How did he reconcile what he was doing?’

I reflected for a moment. ‘I don’t know. The rubbish that he came up with in his book, The Discovery of Witches, reads like he was on the back foot, defending himself, like he knew he’d done wrong. Some of the justifications for starting his campaign are insane.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like seeing an imp transform from a greyhound with the head of an ox into a child of four who ran around without a head!’

‘Ah, but you can’t put yourself in the shoes of those in the past. All these apparitions and manifestations seemed very real to those who lived amongst them.’

I took another sip of my wine. It was exceptional.

Felix looked into the mid-distance. ‘Wasn’t there some suggestion that hallucinogens were part of the witch craze?’ He returned to me.

‘Plants with potentially hallucinogenic effects were used in ointments and medicines during that period. Deadly Nightshade, mace, nutmeg, even saffron, contain essential oils that can have that effect. But you’re probably thinking of ergot fungi. It grows on grasses and cereals and can bring on hallucinations too. There was a book out in the seventies which suggested the Salem witch trials were due to young women eating ergot-infested rye.’

‘What do you think about that?’

‘Well, I’m no biologist but I imagine it’s doubtful. You’d have to consume a lot of it. You know I once read an article that talked about the impact of tobacco and pipe smoking in the seventeenth century and suggested that Hopkins was a stoner. As, like most gentlemen of the time, he was often seen with a little white pipe.’

‘Was he?’

‘I’ve not found any evidence myself yet, but you never know.’ I smiled. ‘The problem is, any explanations of that type just sound like an excuse: “I’m sorry, Your Honour, but I was drunk/stoned/smashed.” You know the kind of thing. That doesn’t cut it with me. Not if you look at the detail.

‘It’s clear, when you actually sit down and read about the trials, that there are instances when you can see his victims were just repeating what he’d told them to say.’

Felix leant back. ‘Give me an example.’

‘Right,’ I said, selecting an episode from my memory. I didn’t then know how or why I found it so easy to recall facts and figures from these particular witch hunts. Ask me the balance of my current account and I’d be umming and ahing but Hopkins’ crimes were burnt into my brain. ‘Well, in the Huntingdonshire trials you start seeing “witches” cite names of imps that have already been used in the Essex trials: Blackman; Grizzell; Greedigut for instance. Quite distinctive. Some of the witches forgot what they were alleged to have said and were prompted by Hopkins at the trial.’

‘Idiot,’ Felix said quietly. I was really starting to like him. That full mouth was definitely quite passionate, I could tell.

‘So he was greedy and power hungry without discipline or intellect,’ he said eventually. ‘It has to be handled firmly – power and money – if one is to succeed.’ He took a hand and smoothed it back through his hair. A little lock fell down over his forehead.

‘Well, you’ve obviously known power. I can’t say I have.’

‘No. I mean – look around you. Look at all the corruption and greed – business, politics …’ he sighed and took up his glass. ‘It’s a disgrace.’

‘I’m hearing you,’ I said.

He looked up into my face. ‘I guess you are too,’ he said and smiled appreciatively.

Of course, I thought. He can’t come across many like-minded individuals being stuck working for Cutt. I would have felt sorry for him had another strong emotion not started to simmer within.

I swallowed and pushed around some food on my plate. ‘I’m sure Hopkins was also a sadist,’ I said, getting back on safe ground. ‘But able to get away with it. Though now demanding of closer inspection, I believe.’

Felix joined my gaze and smiled.

‘Which brings us neatly to our purpose,’ he said. ‘Essex is certainly full of surprising little gems.’

I popped an olive into my mouth and looked at the table again.

‘Are you from Essex by the way, Sadie? I know you write about it, but an interest doesn’t necessarily make one a native?’

‘I am indeed lucky enough to have been born in that county, yes,’ I ventured so far as to send him a wink.

‘That’s grand,’ he said and pushed his plate into the centre of the table for the waiter. He folded his arms and regarded me. ‘So do you go back a long way? Both parents?’

‘Dad’s originally from Suffolk, just north of the border.’

‘And your mother?’

‘Yes. Born and bred.’

‘Grandparents?’

‘One left on my dad’s side.’

‘And on your mother’s?’

I paused. What was he fishing for? Enough credentials to validate my links to the county? ‘I never met them. They died before I was born.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ Felix nodded, that sympathetic wrinkle sewn back across his forehead.

‘Yes, well.’ I refocused the conversation. ‘Don’t worry. You don’t need old family connections to get the gen on Essex folk. We have a brilliant records office and don’t forget, I am a journalist. My press card opens doors. As does my winning smile.’ Cue cheesy grin.

Felix shifted then leant forwards, his eyes a little misty. Any remaining formality had vanished.

I glanced down at his hands. No wedding ring. He caught my gaze.

‘So,’ he said, cleared his throat and grinned. ‘What’s Manningtree like? Where Hopkins commenced his hunt? Is it very rural? I’ve never been.’

‘Oh,’ I said, a little shamefacedly. ‘I haven’t actually visited the place yet.’

Felix’s eyes widened in mock horror. ‘But the home of the beast himself! You must go. I say one can learn a lot about a man, or woman, from their home and surroundings. It might make interesting reading.’

He was right, of course. ‘I’ll stick it on my list of things to do,’ I added. ‘In fact I’ll schedule it after Colchester. I’m planning to go there next week. That’s where the witches were gaoled. Haven’t been since I was a school kid.’

‘Ah. Colchester. What day are you planning to visit?’

I shrugged. I liked to keep my diary flexible in case any local jobs came up.

‘If you make it next Monday,’ he was saying, ‘I might just be able to accompany you to the castle. I quite fancy the idea. One of my authors has moved down to that neck of the woods and she’s due a conversation about her last edit. Could kill two birds with one stone? Visit said writer, and combine a short tour of the city with another from the Portillion fold.’ His eyes arched expectantly. I saw, with a mild buzz of appreciation, that they glinted with splinters of quartz. For a second it looked like he was holding his breath.

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But remember – I haven’t been for a long time. I won’t be a very good guide I’m afraid.’

Felix wagged his hand playfully. ‘Then we shall be on an equal footing. And you can bring me a progress report on the book. Are you happy with your timescale?’

He wanted the first draft submitted within five months. A little bit of a push, but as I had the research and structural outline already, I thought I could make it. Plus the money would come in very handy indeed. ‘Yes. That’s fine.’

‘Excellent. Then shall we drink to the deadline?’

‘We shall,’ I said and raised my glass.

It’s a funny old phrase – the deadline. Comes from the American Civil War. Refers to a line drawn around prisoners. If they crossed it, they’d be shot.

Obviously it never struck me then, but on first meetings, why drink to a finishing point? Why not to a profitable association or ongoing success?

But Felix had elected to drink to the deadline. The line of the dead.

His choice was to be uncannily prophetic.

Chapter Seven

On the train home I realised I was a little tipsier than expected. Felix was such a genial host, and never let my glass go empty, so I had no idea how much I’d drunk. Now I was feeling rather drowsy and there was nothing for it but a little nap. I woke up to the sound of my mobile bleeping. A text from Maggie: it was the birthday of Mercurial’s art director, Felicity, and they were celebrating in Leigh Old Town. I was welcome to join them. Her mis-spellings suggested they’d been there a while, which suited me quite nicely. I made a mental note to get off the train a stop earlier.

The next call set my heart racing. It was from Sally. When I looked at the screen and saw the name of the hospice flash up I went into a reflexive panic. Then I remembered that the worst had happened and instantly my spirits, that had been so giddily high after lunch, plummeted back to the abyss of reality.

‘Hi Sadie. How are you going?’ Sally’s voice still conjured up sympathy and cups of tea.

I told her I was getting on.

She murmured heartening phrases about Mum wanting me to do exactly that, and not to dwell on things, then she asked me straight out. ‘Have you seen Dan yet?’

I told her that there was still no word on his whereabouts.

‘Oh dear,’ she said.

I asked what the matter was.

She seemed reluctant to tell me, but then I heard the sound of an inner door shutting and her voice reduced to a whisper. ‘Don’t repeat this. Promise?’

I swore I wouldn’t.

‘Doctor Jarvis looked at Dan’s medication yesterday. He’s rather concerned. It seemed that although the prescriptive label on the bottle was accurate the tablets inside were like nothing he’d seen for that drug before. He’s sent a couple off to the lab for analysis. But,’ said Sally, ‘if there’s been some kind of a mix-up, then it means that Dan may have unwittingly stopped taking his medication.’

‘Shit,’ I said, for want of anything better to express my alarm. ‘Which means?’

‘Possible onset of depression, psychosis, delusion … the list goes on. The main thing is he needs to see a doctor, pronto. Have you any idea where he is?’

I shook my head. ‘No, not at all. I tried everywhere I could think of before Mum …’

Sally huffed out a sigh. ‘Michael managed to speak to his department. They still haven’t seen him. All they’ve had is some message that he’s taken leave to sort out a personal matter. Any ideas?’

‘No,’ I said, though this news was somewhat positive. There’d been forethought at least. He hadn’t suddenly gone off the rails. ‘So, what can we do? For Dan? Should we call the police?’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to get them involved. Keep an eye out. If you see him or hear from him, tell him about the mix-up and get him to his doctor’s at once. He’ll understand the urgency.’

I thanked her and told her to phone me if she had any more news. She gave her word.

After all that I was a bit wired and completely forgot to get off at Leigh. Instead I disembarked at Chalkwell station, popped into the flat, changed my boots and swapped my dress for jeans and t-shirt.

Afternoon had become early evening. Though we were at the late onset of autumn it was not yet cold and I decided to stroll down to the Old Town via the cinder path, hoping the fresh ionised air would cleanse my aura of its Dan-centred worries.

It was a lovely walk, running the length of the shoreline from Chalkwell station to Leigh Beach. Peaceful too. Above me an aeroplane, flying its passengers to warmer climes, chalked its stubby vapour trail across the fading pinky-blue sky. On the horizon Kent warped in a cloudy mist. Twenty metres out in the estuary a solitary seagull arced high above a moored yacht, flapping its wings without cawing. Closer to land an old guy worked his way up the tidemark, swinging a metal detector back and forth in time to the slow lulling rhythm of the waves.

The evening sun hung low over the chimneys of Canvey Island. There was no wind that evening and everything felt very still.

I dawdled past the Wilton, a former navy warship, now used as a clubhouse by the Essex Yacht Club. The gentle tinkling of glasses and faint chat of the members drifted up across the water. It was an uplifting sound, full of conviviality and good humour, and for a moment I had the feeling that there was a change on its way.

Of course, at the time I assumed it would be for the better.

When I reached the corner of the beach that met Bell Wharf, I paused for a moment to take in the view. A fishing boat was returning from a day out in the North Sea. A man on the front deck wearing plastic orange waterproofs waved at someone out on the wharf.

‘Psst!’

I continued watching the boat chug along the creek, leaving a widening trail of froth.

‘Psst!’ Same voice. Behind me.

Assuming it was directed at someone else passing by, I didn’t move.

Then it went, ‘Psst. You there.’

I swivelled around, darting glances over the road and up into the Leigh Yacht Club. There was a shelter by the old railway station, now the LYC bar. In the dusky twilight I could only vaguely make out a darkness in the centre of the bench. I took a few steps forwards to get a better view but the interior was filled by murky shadows. Light from one of the street lamps threw a dim glow on what looked like the creases of a greyish stained skirt that dropped down to the floor. In the midst of its folds was a bony walking stick. Two wrinkled hands clasped the top. I saw the nails were dirty and gritty, the skin papery. The gnarled old fingers were tensed, their large white bony knuckles shining through the skin like phosphorous peach stones.

‘Hello?’ I couldn’t penetrate the gloom obscuring her face. ‘Do I … ?’

She started, hands fastening tighter on the stick. ‘No further. You’ll not want to see.’

The smell that was coming from the poor dear was grotesque. She couldn’t have bathed for a month. I took her advice and stood where I was.

‘Oh, tell her mercy.’ She was whining, her voice touching a chord of emotion: pity. I hated to see old people like this.

‘Are you okay?’ I said feebly and held a hand towards her. I heard a gasp. Then she snapped, ‘You can see. See.’ It was more of a command but it made no sense – she’d just asked me not to get any closer. Not that I was going to. How could I see, then? I sighed inwardly, realising the old dear was undoubtedly demented and most likely disorientated into the bargain. Maybe she’d wandered out of a residential home. There were a few up on the hill. Mind you, with that stench they can’t have been taking care of her at all well. More probably she came from a cottage in the Old Town.

‘Where do you live?’ I asked gently. ‘Is it nearby?’

She spat and banged her stick on the floor. ‘End it, mercy.’

Charming, I thought. The jangle of keys on metal attracted my attention. Aha, it was the coastguard locking up his hut for the night. Perfect. I couldn’t be so heartless as to abandon the poor love; if she stayed here any later she’d be swamped with teenagers and roving drunks. However, if I alerted the coastguard I would certainly be doing my civic duty …

‘Excuse me!’ I called out as I ran across the cobbles, waving my arms. He uprighted himself and smiled, but when I explained about the woman, he glanced at his watch and grimaced.

‘She’s just over here.’ I pointed to the shelter.

He screwed up his face. ‘Can’t see nothing,’ he said doubtfully.

‘No, I know,’ I told him, holding my arm out in a kind of ‘You first’ gesture. ‘It’s dark in there. She’s sitting in the middle of the bench. Someone should get her home. The kids will be out soon.’

He was obviously well aware of that.

We fell into step and crossed the road. As we approached the shelter my eyes flicked over the darker black line of the bench. It was uninterrupted.

A couple of feet from it the coastguard stopped. ‘Gone,’ he said and gestured to the empty space.

‘No. Can’t …’ I stammered and took another step into the darkness, running my hand up the cold wooden bench where she had been sitting. He was right. There was no one here. But that was impossible. The distance from the shelter to the coastguards was nothing. Twenty feet. Maybe less. I had only been away a matter of seconds. ‘There’s no way someone as frail as her could have disappeared so quickly,’ I told him.

He got a torch out of his rucksack and shone it round the shelter. ‘No one here, love.’ Now he was getting irritated. I was wasting his drinking time. And mine.

I stepped back and looked up to the path that ran along the beach. A couple were walking their dog. No one else was about. I looked left, up the high street of the Old Town. A couple of smokers clustered outside the Mayflower pub. A van reversed into the car park. Other than that, there was not a soul to be seen.

‘Maybe it was kids mucking around?’ he said when he could see I wasn’t buggering off. ‘We’re coming up to Halloween, unfortunately. They all get overexcited these days, don’t they? Dressing up like the Americans. Someone could have put on a costume to spook you or summat.’

‘No,’ I said firmly, putting my hands on my hips. ‘She was real enough.’

‘Well, she’s gone,’ he said, throwing his torch upright and catching it with the same hand. The gesture indicated he was finishing up, thank you very much. ‘I’ll inform the police. They can keep their eyes out.’

‘Okay,’ I said and nodded unsteadily. It made no sense. She’d made no sense.

But I was a practical girl, not given to fancy. I selected the ‘Case Unsolved File’ in my brain and slotted it in there.

Okay, I admit I was unnerved. But up ahead was a place that sold medicine that sorted out that particular ailment. I bid goodbye to the coastguard and marched onto the street, my pace unusually feisty.

The Mercurial crew were sitting outside the Billet on a couple of trestle tables they had inelegantly wedged together. Half-empty foam punnets of cockles and prawns were interspersed across the table, along with several glasses. Most of them were just off empty so my arrival and inevitable offer of drinks produced an uproarious response and a multitude of orders. Maggie clumsily extricated herself from the squash of buttocks on the wooden bench and followed me into the pub to help carry the order.

While we were waiting to be served I filled her in on my afternoon, omitting my recent experience with the old dear. I didn’t want to appear like a nut. I had a thing about that, you understand – what with Mum and everything. So I concentrated my narrative on the comely Felix.

‘Great. He sounds interesting,’ she said, steadying herself on the bar. ‘You’re doing well, Sadie.’

I smiled at my reflection in the mirror behind the optics. ‘I think so too.’

‘Was he posh then? Portillion Publishing sounds it.’

‘Not really. Pretty down to earth. Wealthy.’

‘Do you think you can work with him?’

‘Well, obviously it’s not going to be like working with you, but I have to say – the pay’s a hell of a lot better. And, actually, there’s a few things I think I’d quite like to do with Mr Knight.’

Maggie’s eyebrows moved up her forehead. ‘Oh, like that is it?’

‘He’s very charming.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘Tall, good body. Has a bit of an Irish look about him.’ I thought back to that broad smile.

Maggie took in my face and punched my arm lightly. ‘Good for you, girl. You could do with a bit of luck.’

‘Well,’ I hesitated. ‘Just saying – he’s nice.’

She looked pleased and wagged a teasing finger at me. ‘Just don’t let the Man from Del Monte distract you from my deadlines though. I want my Hopkins article. Make it nice and juicy please.’

Minutes later I emerged with a tray of wine and glasses, whilst Mags followed, spilling a dozen millilitres of beer from the two pints she was carrying.

The group were in fine spirits. Even Felicity, or Flick as she was usually referred to, their quiet, conservative art director was gabbling away at top speed to Lola, the part-time PR girl. I used to think Flick rather stuck up. She never made eye contact and spoke very little, taking in everything from underneath her dark, wispy hair. One night, at the launch of a significant issue, she confided to being painfully shy and hiding it with ‘attitude’. I liked her after that.

Next to Flick, sat Rik, the sixty-something part-time ad exec who managed the advertising to supplement his pension and keep him golfing, and Françoise, the young speccy editorial assistant-cum-generally-put-upon-dogsbody. Rik was in the middle of telling a joke to Maggie’s husband, Jules, and her mini-me teenage-rebel daughter, Willow. I hoped he’d carry on but once he clocked me and Mags he insisted on starting all over again. The last navy streaks were disappearing from the sky as he began. It was black by the time he got to the punch line.

I can’t remember what the joke was about but I have a distinct recollection of laughing till I cried.

Which was good, as there was a hell of a darkness on its way.

Chapter Eight

I didn’t stay long at the pub. Usually I don’t work after I’ve had a drink but tonight, the excitement from my meeting with Felix was carrying me through.

I spread out my file of notes. I wanted to go back over the first section of the book to check that I’d got everything I wanted in there.

There was a hell of a lot to cover. The first few trials were pretty small fry, the convicted, either being fined or pardoned. Most of their crimes centred round causing livestock to fall ill, or in several pitiable cases, children. But then there was the Hatfield Peverel outbreak, with Agnes Waterhouse the first person to be put to death as a witch. Her daughter was also accused but turned witness against her mother and was found not guilty. Agnes allegedly confessed to being a witch. Her primary crime was owning a cat, who she talked to often. Its name was Sathan. Not the most sensible choice for an old woman living on her own in sixteenth-century rural Essex.

The hanging of Agnes Waterhouse set a precedent, and soon more and more women were executed. Mostly for ‘bewitching’ people to death. In 1582 in St Osyth fourteen were indicted. Of these, ten were found guilty. Ursula Kempe was accused by her eight-year-old son, whose testimony led to her execution and Elizabeth Bennet’s. In 1921 two female skeletons were found in a St Osyth man’s back garden. They had been pinned into the ground with stakes and iron spikes had been driven through their elbows, wrists and ankles. They were thought to be the remains of the two women and were bought by collectors in the nineties, for exhibition in their private collections. Imagine that – your remains bought and sold, then put on display for the rich to gawp at. I couldn’t imagine the women rested in much peace.

Then there was the sad case of Avice Cony. She and her sister and mother, Joan, were all charged with causing a number of people to die. Avice’s son was made to give evidence against her in the trial and, consequently, praised by the judge. Though he was only ten, his testimony sealed their fate. They were all found guilty. Joan Cuny, Joan Upney and Joan Prentice were executed within two hours of sentencing. Avice declared she was pregnant and was examined. After her claim was validated she was thrown into gaol until she gave birth. Then she was hanged the next day.

It was a shocking story, but one that was repeated time and time again. I noticed that I’d left the date off that last trial and, rather than sift through reams of notes, googled it. 1589. I wrote it in my notebook to insert in a minute.

When I replaced my hands on the keyboard an unwelcome sight greeted me: a private messaging box. Facebook had opened itself.

‘I’m sorry,’ the words in the rectangle read.

I picked up my biro and tapped it on the side of the table. Again, there was no name to note at the top of the box.

‘Little git,’ I thought.

‘Are you there?’ Same question as before.

I knew Joe had told me not to reply but part of me wanted to find out more details so I could trap the teenage tinker. Before my weakling impulse control was able to kick in I saw myself write, ‘How old are you?’

There was a pause, then, ‘You know. 15.’

A teenager in his bedroom. Joe was right. But this prankster was obviously rather thick too. He shouldn’t have responded. Now I had some info about him.

Would he be foolish enough to reveal more?

I tried it. ‘Where are you?’

Another pause. Then, ‘You know.’

The temptation to respond was overwhelming. Perhaps I could draw him out and hand over the details to Joe. ‘I don’t,’ I wrote.

Would he bite?

I waited for a moment then it came up: ‘I’m right here with you.’

A trail of goosebumps crept down my spine.

Hadn’t seen that coming.

I took my cursor to the ‘x’ and shut messenger down, silently cursing myself for playing right into his sweaty hormonal hands.

Still, I had to admit, it was a little unnerving. I pushed back from the table and went to look out the large front windows. There were no houses opposite, only the meandering curve of the grassy hill; the brownish silhouette of the station bathed in the orange half-light of the street lamps. I directed my gaze to the west. From this angle I could just about see a foot or two beyond the periphery of several balconies. To my left, the house next door bulged out. The upstairs windows were dark. I knew the old couple who lived there, Mr and Mrs Frenten. They were in their eighties and totally benign. I couldn’t see them trying to freak me out like this.

I turned back and, from my vantage point by the window, surveyed the room. The table was about four foot away. My laptop was turned into the room, so that when I worked I could take eye-breaks on the view.

There was a thin side window that looked over the flats to the west, but it was further back into the room and so narrow no one could see in. Even so, I had a good look out of it. The view was limited. Directly opposite, a frosted window was fogged up with condensation. A small round opening beside it billowed out steam. Someone was having a late shower.

There was no one who could see me at my computer.

Okay, well, I guessed it was the right time for a break. I got up and went into the kitchen. It was too late for proper coffee so I fixed myself a nice steaming instant and returned to the living room.

I stopped halfway across the room.

It was there again on the screen.

I sucked in some air and walked tentatively to the computer.

‘I’m sorry,’ it read.

Nope. Not having it. I scrolled down and disabled my internet connection. Bugger off.

Then I plonked down my coffee and returned to work. Where was I? Oh yes, 1589. I flipped into Word and inserted the date at the beginning of the paragraph.

The message box appeared on the screen. ‘I’m frightened.’

Quickly I checked my connection. The line was flat. I should be uncontactable.

‘I can feel him here.’ The words tripped across the box. ‘I can smell him.’

I didn’t want to answer it but that familiar sense of pity, alarm, was returning.

I tapped out ‘Who?’

‘The Devil.’

Right, too much. I slapped my laptop closed. Shit. My hands had a shake to them.

Now what? I stood up and took my cup to the mirror above my old seventies fireplace. My eyes were wide. A tight line fixed across my forehead like an arrow.

Screw it. I went to the table and picked up my phone.

Was I being stupid?

Probably.

He was slower to answer than before. ‘Evening.’

My voice was higher than usual, full of restless energy. ‘Hi Joe. I’m sorry to disturb you. I hope it’s not inconvenient, it’s just that, you know what I was talking about the other day? Well, it’s happened again. But,’ I faltered. ‘It’s more threatening now. They said that they’re here with me. And I took my laptop offline but the messaging continued …’ I was speeding through the explanation like a lunatic.

‘Hang on. Slow down. You’re on speakerphone. I can’t hear you.’

I waited a minute then took him through the details, describing the specifics of disconnecting from the internet.

‘That can’t happen, Sadie.’

‘I know.’

The connection cracked and buzzed. A horn blared down the line. He was driving.

‘Look, I’m busy tonight but I can pop round tomorrow afternoon and you can show me. How does that sound?’

I nodded then realised he couldn’t see me. ‘Yes please. I’ll be home by about three. Thank you.’

‘In the meantime, get off your computer and have an early night or something. You sound tired.’

I was. I suddenly so was. I said goodbye and took his advice.

It took a while to get my head down, what with the scratching up above, but once I was gone, I was well gone.

Chapter Nine

Impossible pain racked my abdomen. Coming and going in waves. Blackness all around me. Wind howling. Wet mud. It was coming again. The pain burnt through me like a flame forcing a scream from my lips: ‘No!’

I couldn’t stand it. The spasms were beyond anything I had known before, racking me, taking me, unloosing a howl that came from the depths of my soul.

‘Oh God. Mother. No.’

I woke myself up screaming it.

Another nightmare I couldn’t remember, only the lingering sting of agony.

My hair was plastered against my forehead, nightdress twisted up around me. I pulled it down and saw my hand left a red trail.

Lifting the duvet gingerly I found myself drenched in blood. What? I wasn’t due on for another two weeks. Though I suppose everything had gone a bit haywire after Mum. I hadn’t been eating and I hadn’t been sleeping so well.

It was earlier than I normally got up which was lucky as I had time to bundle my sheets into the washing machine and jump into the shower. Though I couldn’t dawdle: my interview was in North Essex.

I popped a couple of ibuprofen and downed a bitter coffee then dragged my sorry arse out of the flat and into the car, submerging my nightmare in music.

Beryl Bennett was one of those women whose age is hard to determine. She had the manner and wrinkles of a septuagenarian but the sleek brown hair of someone much younger. Her make-up, too, was quite contemporary – subtle beige eyes and a hint of bronzer under the cheekbones. Essex women always take care of themselves. Still, readers liked to know how old people were so I’d have to ask. That’d be tough on her, I thought as she put the kettle on. Though what with one thing and another, I never did find that out.

I knew this wasn’t going to need a lot of effort – it was just a puff piece for the Essex Advertiser on Beryl’s and her son, David’s, fundraising efforts for a children’s leukaemia charity.

I liked these little jobs. Back when I was doing news, up in the Smoke, it was so much harder; the questions more intrusive, the scenes more distressing. Down here in the suburbs and countryside, I found it quite refreshing that they filled up pages with news and events that, however mundane they might appear, actually testified to human compassion and community spirit.

David Bennett sat opposite me at the kitchen table. He was in his late forties. A thickset man with thinning grey hair and a brown jersey pulled over the beginnings of a good beer belly. There was something in the way he moved about the semi-detached house and interacted with his mother that made me feel sure he’d never left home. When I pulled the wooden chair back to take a seat it made a squeaky noise. David made a naff joke about farting and cracked up. He had the kind of unashamed chortle that sounded well practised in the art of laughing alone. Beryl appeared to have given up being embarrassed years ago. Much as she obviously loved her son, she made no attempt to hide an outstanding ability to filter out his crap gags and howlers. Selective deafness, I think they call it.

‘Be a dear,’ she called to David. ‘Fetch out the biscuits.’ He instantly obeyed Mrs Bennett and went to one of the units in the corner, producing a lurid floral biscuit tin, the like of which I hadn’t seen since the seventies.

The kitchen was decorated similarly; a pretty room, with poppy-patterned curtains that hugged a large window to some cutesy rear garden, complete with plastic flamingos. David plonked the tin on the table. ‘Garibaldi, Miss Asquith? Or perhaps a baldy Gari?’ He laughed alone.

I smiled politely. ‘Lovely, thanks,’ and took a biscuit. ‘Please call me Sadie.’

‘Lady Sadie?’ he asked.

‘Just Sadie,’ I told him.

‘Maybe Sadie.’

I said nothing.

The corners of his mouth drooped when he saw I wasn’t picking up the ball with this one. ‘So,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t got the big cheque any more. Is that okay? Your photographer came on Monday and took some photos of us holding it.’

I shook my head. ‘No, that’s fine. We don’t need it. This is just for me to ask a few questions for the piece. Make sure I’ve got all the facts right.’

‘Well, we appreciate you coming down, dear,’ said Beryl, setting out a tin tray with cups and saucers. ‘I know John is grateful.’

‘Right,’ I said and took my notepad out of my bag. ‘So that’s John who?’

David leant forwards as he spoke. ‘John Adamms. Two “m”s.’ He watched me write them down.

‘And how does John fit into this?’

‘He’s Polly’s dad,’ Beryl called out as she opened the fridge and took out the milk.

‘I see. And Polly is the little girl that died?’

‘That’s right,’ said David. ‘We were all very moved. That’s why we decided to raise some money.’

Beryl brought the tray over to the table and lifted the cups, milk jug and teapot onto the lace doily in the centre. ‘Tragedy. Life is full of it. Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk please. And so how do you know the Adamms?’

Beryl heaved herself into a chair. Her thin, wrinkled hands passed me a cup of tea then nudged David’s towards him. ‘They’ve been part of our group for a while now.’

‘And what group is that?’

‘The Hebbledon Spiritualists.’

‘Oh,’ I said and looked up. No one had mentioned anything about nut bags. I’d assumed it would be your usual sponsored walks and coffee mornings. No wonder the staff writers had farmed it out.

Beryl noticed my reaction and grinned. ‘We’re not screwballs, you know. Quite your everyday sort of people. We have accountants in our group, PAs, bus drivers. Bob’s a fireman.’

‘And we have a Postman Pat.’ David grinned.

Beryl smiled at him with the sad acceptance of parental disappointment.

I made a note about the Spiritualist group. ‘So how did you raise the money? It was a fair bit wasn’t it – a thousand pounds?’

David replaced his teacup into the saucer and leant towards me. ‘£1050,’ he said and watched me write it down again. ‘It was £1031.75. I made it up with my own money. People like nice round figures.’ He looked at my notepad. I didn’t write it down.

‘Wow,’ I said to Beryl. ‘Not bad.’

Mrs Bennett tested her tea with her tongue. ‘We’re getting more of the general public coming along to meetings now than ever before. But believe it or not, there are still a fair few people out there who have some odd notions about Spiritualism.’

No kidding, I thought. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘In this day and age …’

‘Yes, I know.’ Beryl made a tutting noise with her tongue and rolled her eyes. ‘So, we thought, well, why don’t we do some open evenings? Get local people in so they could see we were just ordinary people – doing our stuff to help others out. And of course we wanted to raise money for Polly’s charity.’

‘Mum’s a medium,’ David said. ‘Very talented too.’

‘I do my best,’ said Beryl, a proud little grin appearing on her lips.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Is that what you did then? Er, medium nights? What do you call them?’

Beryl opened her hands and spread them across the table. ‘Evenings of clairvoyance,’ she said in a singsong voice. ‘Yes, we put on quite a few and also ran a series of taster afternoons.’

I wrote that down in my notepad. ‘Which were what?’

‘I call them old skool,’ said David and laughed.

‘He means they’re old-fashioned,’ Beryl said gently. ‘There’s a few of us that have practical skills – reading the tea leaves; auras; dream interpretation, that sort of thing. A young lady, Tanith, from the neighbouring village is one of them Witchens.’

David leant in to correct his mother. ‘She’s a Wiccan.’

‘She does a lovely tarot, don’t she, David?’

Bennett Junior nodded. ‘Very accurate.’

‘So we got together and ran about ten of those. One a month. With volunteers selling tea and cake. And we hosted evenings. All the funds came through suggested donations.’

‘And you raised that much?’ I asked, doing a rough calculation in my head.

‘Some of the recently bereaved can be very grateful when they make contact with loved ones on the other side. It helps, you know.’

I wrote that down in my notepad and then flipped it shut so I could take a gulp of tea. ‘So, do you have practical skills, David?’ I turned slightly to him. He was on my left side facing the door.

‘Numerology,’ he said brightly. ‘Numbers. And astrology.’

‘Right,’ I said, searching for the right word to express limp engagement. ‘Interesting.’ It sounded so disingenuous I asked Beryl quickly, ‘And what about you, Mum? Do you have more skills? Other than clairvoyance of course?’

Beryl nestled into her chair and beamed. ‘Palms. Chiromancy, I like to call it. Always been able to do it. Even before I had the calling to clairvoyance. It’s just something I’ve grown up with.’ She chuckled. ‘I can see in your face that you’d like to have a go.’

‘Oh.’ She wasn’t that great a clairvoyant – I hadn’t thought about it. But the idea had a certain appeal. ‘What, now?’

‘Won’t take a moment, love.’ She patted the chair to her side. ‘Come and take a seat.’

I placed my teacup next to my notebook and swapped chairs. Beryl put her cup down and rubbed her hands. ‘They’re a bit cold, so ’scuse me.’ Then she picked up my right hand. ‘David, love, could you fetch my specs. They’re beside the cooker.’ David scurried over and came back with a small brown case. Beryl popped the glasses over her nose. She examined the skin of my palm and stroked a couple of fingers, then peered down at the left side of my hand.

After a minute she cleared her throat. The smile that hung upon her chocolate lips faded. ‘Were you very ill when you were young, dear?’

She looked over the tops of her glasses at my expression.

‘No,’ I said, blankly. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

Beryl touched her throat then reached out and picked up the cup of tea. She swallowed hard and returned to my hand.

David was also scrutinising it, drawn in by the attention his mum was giving.

She pummelled the flesh beneath my little finger and grimaced.

‘What is it?’ I asked, trying to grin.

‘Mmm,’ she said slowly and pushed the glasses back up her nose. ‘Sorry to ask this, but you’re not adopted are you?’

I laughed. ‘Definitely not.’

David stood up and gazed over his mother’s shoulder at my palm.

‘I don’t think it’s coming through well today, love.’ Beryl’s voice had risen.

‘Blimey,’ said David. ‘That’s a short one.’

‘What is?’ I asked too quickly.

Beryl sent him a warning look but he didn’t catch it.

He leant forwards and swayed on the balls of his feet. ‘By my reckoning …’ he started to say.

‘David!’ Beryl nudged him sharply in the ribs.

David’s brain didn’t connect with his mouth in time. ‘By my reckoning,’ he said in mock horror, ‘you’re already dead!’

He laughed heartily.

I didn’t.

I had become very cold.

Beryl sucked her teeth in annoyance. ‘David, sit down. Now don’t you go scaring people like that. Honestly,’ she said wearily. The bags under her eyes had darkened into swollen crescents of lilac. At that moment she did look very old indeed. ‘Typical man. No tact. Just like his dad.’ She sighed and pushed my hand away. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said, sitting back into her chair. ‘Can’t do any more. I’m not feeling too good.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said, returning to my previous seat. ‘Sorry. I hope it wasn’t anything that I …’

She didn’t reply to me. Instead she addressed the next instruction to her son. ‘Go fetch my pills please, love. They’re on the bedside table nearest the door.’

David got to his feet immediately and dashed out the kitchen.

Beryl was now the colour of ashes. Her make-up seemed only to be resting on top of her skin; beneath the foundation little muscles were flicking and flexing, as if an electric current was running through them.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ I asked gently.

She rasped a reply I couldn’t understand. Then her eyes fixed on me. All the rigidity and animation seemed to leave her body at the same moment and she slumped back in the chair. For a second her neck went slack and rolled backwards.

I stood up, worried yet completely unsure of what to do. Something was happening to the poor woman but I couldn’t tell what. I simply stood there and watched with growing alarm as Beryl’s neck moved upwards and forwards, pulled by an invisible thread. Her head slowly followed. And what a strange sight that was – the luscious brown hair, obviously a wig, slipped off, revealing a thinning layer of feathery white tufts. When I saw her eyes I very nearly screamed. They had rolled round so that all that poked through the hooded lids were the bloodshot whites. And then the shaking started. Not a sideways motion but a juddering up and down, quick sharp micro-moves.

A horrible creak was coming from inside her mouth. Her jaw slackened and then fell open, making a grating noise, then slowly it appeared to unhinge and drop lower than I ever thought possible without splintering bone.

Despite Beryl’s agonised movements I could do nothing but stare. A terrible paralysis had crept over me. I watched her kindly face disappear into a barely recognisable combination of features in seizure.

Her hands began to scratch at the table and the whites of her eyes fixed on my face, as if something beyond them perceived me.

Beryl’s frame jerked backwards, the upper half of her body shaking uncontrollably.

A gurgling came up from her throat. I could see she was struggling to breathe.

‘Oh God,’ I said, coming to my senses at last, and rushed round to Beryl’s side. ‘What can I do? Beryl? Mrs Bennett, are you okay?’

And then I heard it, coming up through her windpipe: a kind of wheeze; a low-pitched primal scream. Something like, ‘Ashhhh bitten.’ I couldn’t be sure: the word was wrenched out of her, fuzzy with sibilance and choked with phlegm.

Beryl convulsed. Her hand flew to her neck. The body heaved. She coughed once, twice, then gagged. As her face surged forwards to the table, her lips opened wider yet.

I gasped with shock and repulsion as I observed a black moth fly out of her mouth.

‘Shit.’ I was jittering now, backing away from her.

The kitchen door was flung open just as Beryl’s body lolled forwards and she collapsed onto the table.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said to her son, pointing to his mother’s prone form. ‘I think she’s having a fit.’

David rushed over and lifted his mother’s sagging shoulders back onto the seat.

‘Get some water,’ he barked.

I tore over to the tap and brought back a beaker.

Beryl was coming round.

Her irises had returned to her eyes but there was a dizzy circling going on in them.

David took the water and held it to his mother’s lips. ‘Come on, Mum. Take them down.’ With his fingers he popped a little yellow pill on her tongue.

‘What happened?’ I asked him, looking on anxiously at his mum. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

‘She’ll be fine in a bit,’ he said. ‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get her onto the sofa for a rest.’

‘Yes of course,’ I said and gestured to Beryl’s arms. ‘Shall I take this side?’

‘No,’ he snapped, knocking my hand away from his mother. ‘Don’t touch her. I’ve got everything under control.’

‘Right,’ I stammered, feeling disproportionately guilty.

‘Please leave, Ms Asquith. You can see yourself out I presume?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said and gathered up my things super quick. ‘I’ve got everything that I need to put the article to bed. Thank you for your time.’ David Bennett had already picked his mother up and carried her from the room.

I was opening the front door when I heard Beryl call out weakly. ‘Take care, Ms Asquith. Be sure to.’

I murmured that I would and shut the door; though privately I reflected of the two of us it was probably she who should be more solicitous.

Chapter Ten

The tide was out. Mud filled up most of the view from my window. It had a dark sullen pallor to it, the colour of an angry toad. You could see a paler line of grey further out: the water slithering to Chalkwell. A light fuzz above it suggested it was bringing in a mist.

And there was something else out there in the air that occupied the space between me and the creeping sea. Something I couldn’t yet make out but could feel – like a million unseen eyes watching me. Or perhaps they were just early stars?

It would be a cold night tonight.

I shivered and turned away from the gloom.

The mirror above my fireplace had a woman in it who looked slightly nuts; sad eyes, as grim as the dirty river. The pink skin underneath my lower lids had taken on a shade of damson plum. My bob had shaken free of any style and formed itself into something more brush-like. I peeled a strand away from my cheek. I needed a trim and several nights’ sleep but for now hairpins, some good foundation and lipstick would have to do.

I was finishing off the repair job when Joe arrived. To be honest, I was a little surprised to see him a) in uniform and b) accompanied by a female officer, who he introduced as Lesley.

I led them into the living room and offered them cups of tea. They refused. I saw that Joe, though quite bouncy as usual, had assumed a brusque air of efficiency. In fact he didn’t waste any time and asked to see my computer straight away. ‘I’ve filled in Lesley with the details,’ he said.

Lesley nodded from the sofa. She was a short woman. Probably weighed about the same as Joe, and wasn’t particularly forthcoming. She had the kind of face that made you feel sorry for her, like a bowl of rice pudding with two raisins in it. I imagined she was tolerating Joe’s detour to my place as a favour.

I opened the laptop and began to type in my password. ‘I did exactly what you suggested – closed the lid and left it. So everything should be here,’ I told Joe.

He came over and leant his hands on the table, lowering his head to look at the screen. Our faces were only a couple of inches apart. I could feel his body heat and smell him. A quick glance reminded me that he looked fit in uniform. Always had. Looked pretty good out of it too.

I recalled meeting him at an old friend’s thirtieth three years ago. He was with a large group of people and I think he had a girlfriend there too. But it was okay, his sunny demeanour wasn’t dented by embarrassment. On the contrary, he looked genuinely pleased to see me and presented me to his friends as ‘an exceptionally talented writer’, or something along those lines. I followed him with the usual self-deprecation and he smiled at me, almost as if he were proud. When I met his eyes, later that night, while Christopher was off at the bar and his girlfriend was dancing, there was definitely a twinkle there, like he was letting me know that there was something for me whenever I was ready. There was no pushiness about it or any sense that he was demanding an acknowledgement. It was more like an open-ended and unspoken question that lingered in the air between the two of us; ‘would you ever … ?’ Nothing more.

Anyway there we were, by my desk. Joe met my gaze and smiled. I sucked in my abdomen and registered a small thrill.

He seemed oblivious to the effect he was currently having on me: his eyes swivelled over the living room to his partner on the sofa.

‘Let’s have a look.’ This from Lesley. ‘Dragged me all this way, might as well sort it out.’ She plodded over to the chair next to me and heaved her large behind into it.

‘What were you doing?’ Her voice was gruff and fat.

I sniffed and sucked in her smell. She reeked of nights on the computer, microwave meals for one and two cats. ‘I was working on Word – ah – here it is.’ The document was there, cursor still flashing halfway down the third paragraph after the date 1589. ‘And I’d just been on Google to check that date. I minimised the window.’

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