The Witch Maker (4 page)

‘Which probably includes just about everybody who lives in this village,' Paniatowski pointed out.

‘True,' Woodend agreed. He turned back to Dr Shastri. ‘How long's he been dead?'

The doctor shrugged her shoulders. ‘I would guess at somewhere between five and eight hours. I might be able to be a little more specific when I've had the opportunity to stick my little thermometer up his backside.'

Woodend nodded. ‘Anything else you can tell me?'

‘There is a bump on the back of his head the size of a duck egg. It's my belief that when he was brought here, he was unconscious.'

‘So he never knew what was happening to him?'

Dr Shastri shook her head. ‘I did not say that, my dear sir. I did not say it at all. If we go around to the other side of the post, I think you will find his hands most interesting.'

Woodend followed the doctor and squatted down so that his eyes were on a level with the dead man's hands. Several of the nails were broken, and there was some evidence of bleeding.

‘He struggled,' the Chief Inspector said.

‘Indeed he did,' the doctor agreed. ‘Not that there was much point in it. His bonds were quite secure, and the post is as solid as a rock.' She laughed at her own joke. ‘I have no doubt that when I carry out my full examination I will find traces of stone dust under his fingernails.'

‘So he was unconscious when he was brought here, but he came around as he was being killed?' Paniatowski said.

‘That's one possibility,' Woodend agreed grimly. ‘But there is another one which is equally likely.'

‘And what's that, sir?'

‘That he didn't just
happen
to regain consciousness while he was bein' throttled. That his killer
waited
for him to come round before he started the garrottin'.'

C
onstable Thwaites supposed that most policemen who had stumbled across a murder would have gone out of their way to set themselves apart from the general public, but he wasn't most constables, and this was no ordinary general public.

He had no desire to isolate himself from the rest of the villagers. In fact, what he wanted to do –
desperately
wanted to do – was to join them.

To immerse himself in the collective consciousness.

To almost drown in it.

So it was that, when he emerged from the comparative safety of his police house and arrived on the Green, it was towards the people confined behind the barrier that his legs automatically took him.

He was nearly there when he saw the look in the eyes of the people he had known all his life – and lost his nerve.

‘Betrayer!' the eyes said.

‘Judas!' they called him.

And he couldn't ignore what the eyes were saying – couldn't even plead his own case with the people to whom the eyes belonged – because there was at least a part of him which knew that they were right.

He froze for a moment, then turned on his heel and skulked away. The legs now urged him to keep on walking – to tramp the moors until, through sheer exhaustion, they gave way under him. But his brain and – more importantly – his heart, had now taken over. And they told him that he couldn't leave the village however hard he tried – because he was part of it, and it was part of him.

He came to a halt in front of the Black Bull. His heart was thumping; his breaths were coming in short gasps.

Got to get a grip on myself! he thought desperately. Got to be able to find the strength – from
somewhere
– to deal with that bugger from Whitebridge.

He tried to remember whether he had actually
chosen
to become a policeman or whether it had been chosen for him. But this was the village, and such thoughts – such choices – had no meaning. Yet of one thing he was very sure: from the moment he had donned the blue serge uniform, he had behaved in the way the village expected of him.

‘Until now!' he moaned softly.

Until this morning, when he had taken it upon himself to bring the outside world into a place where the outside world did not belong.

But what other option had he had? What else was he
supposed
to have done? Was he to allow the fate of the village to be guided by someone who still only shaved every other day?

Thwaites turned his attention – and that decreasing portion of his mind he still had control over – to the Witching Post.

The big man in the hairy sports coat must be Woodend, he thought. They had never met, but he had heard enough about the chief inspector's unorthodox approach to police work to be convinced that – from the village's point of view – headquarters could not have sent a worse officer to investigate the case.

The woman who was with the chief inspector – the attractive blonde with the stunning figure and the nose which was perhaps just a little too large for Lancashire tastes – was a stranger to him. But from the way she stayed so close to Woodend, there could be no doubt that she was his bagman – and that made her a danger, too!

Woodend turned his back on the Witching Post, and walked over to where the sergeant from Lancaster was standing. They conferred for a few moments, then Thwaites saw the uniformed sergeant point in his direction. The constable had been expecting that, of course – but it still sent fresh waves of dread coursing through his body.

Monika Paniatowski saw the portly local constable standing in front of the pub, shifting his weight first on to one foot and then on to the other. He was nervous, she thought, but that was only to be expected from a rural bobby preparing to meet the Big Cheese from Police Headquarters. What he didn't know – but was about to find out – was that this wasn't a normal Big Cheese at all. It was Charlie Woodend – ‘Common-Touch' Charlie – and within a couple of minutes, the constable would be wondering why he'd ever felt any concern.

As Woodend and Paniatowski drew level with him, Constable Thwaites gave the Chief Inspector a rusty salute. Woodend acknowledged it with a brief nod, which managed to convey the impression that he didn't set much store by that kind of formality.

‘I don't suppose you get many smart-arses from Headquarters up in this neck of the woods,' Woodend said.

The remark seemed to knock the constable completely off balance.

Monika Paniatowski smiled to herself.

This was classic Woodend, she thought. Bluff, open and unconventional – and all the more effective because, while it was true it was something of an act he was putting on, it was also – in essence – the
real
Charlie Woodend speaking.

The constable was still searching for a response to Woodend's unexpected remark.

‘I ... er ...' he began.

Then he seemed to quite lose the will to continue.

‘You're a bit intimidated by it all,' Woodend suggested. ‘Well, don't worry about that, Constable Thwaites. If I was in your position, I'd feel exactly the same way.'

‘Yes, sir,' Thwaites replied dully, as if he didn't know what was going on, but still felt he had to say
something
.

‘The difference is, Thwaites, that unlike some of the other smart-arses they
might
have sent, I know when I'm out of my depth – an' without your help, I'll drown in this bloody village,' Woodend concluded.

It was at this point in Woodend's act that the local constable usually started to realize that he wasn't dealing with just another boss from Whitebridge, Paniatowski thought – this point at which his chest would start to swell slightly as he understood that there was a possibility that he, a mere hayseed, could actually be of real value to the investigation.

But that wasn't happening here! Rather than Woodend's rough charm plumping up the constable's self-esteem, it seemed to be throwing Thwaites into an even deeper panic.

‘Local lad, are you?' Woodend asked.

‘Yes, I am.'

‘Good. So you should know all there is to know about Hallerton.'

‘I suppose I do, sir.'

‘Then tell me about the Witch Makers. Are they always picked from the Dimdyke family?'

‘Picked?' Thwaites said. ‘What do you mean, sir, “picked”?'

Woodend sighed. ‘Is the Witch Maker always a Dimdyke?'

‘Well, yes,' Thwaites said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

‘So they're a bit like a royal family, are they? The Witch Maker's son automatically inherits the position, regardless of his ability?'

‘The Witch Maker doesn't have sons,' Thwaites said. ‘Nor daughters, neither.'

Woodend grinned. ‘How's that managed?' he wondered. ‘Do they cut his balls off when he takes on the job?'

‘No!' Thwaites said, clearly scandalized that Woodend could suggest such a thing even in jest. ‘It's just that he never marries.'

‘Never?'

‘Never.'

‘Not in the entire history of the Witch Burnin'?'

‘No, sir.'

‘An' why's that, pray tell?'

‘He has no time for a family.'

‘Oh, come on,' Woodend scoffed. ‘I'm a chief inspector. Do you think I'm not busy? When I'm on a case I can work round the clock for weeks on end, but even I've found time for a family.'

But had he really? he asked himself as he felt a sudden shudder pass through him. Certainly he had a wife and a daughter, but, given the pressures of his work, how much of a husband and father had he actually been?

‘The Assistant Witch Maker starts learnin' his craft when he's ten years old,' Thwaites said, his expression clearly indicating amazement that it was necessary to explain
any
of this.

‘Go on,' Woodend encouraged.

‘He completes his apprenticeship at the time of the next Witch Burnin', which is another ten years. Then the old Witch Maker retires, an' he takes over. Ahead of him, he's got ten years on his own – refinin' his skills – and ten years teachin' all he knows to
his
apprentice. By the time he steps down, he's forty years old. You can't really expect a man to think about startin' a family then, now can you?'

‘Some men do,' Woodend pointed out.

‘Not our Witch Makers,' Thwaites said. ‘It's a heavy burden they carry for the rest of us, an' it takes its toll. There's not many ex-Witch Makers who live to see another Witch burned.'

‘If they want to learn what it's like to work under pressure, they should try bein' Mid Lancs detectives,' Woodend said unsympathetically. ‘So, because of his position, Harry Dimdyke was a single man. But I take it he has relatives in the village.'

Thwaites frowned. ‘We
all
have relatives in the village, sir. We all
are
relatives in the village.'

‘But some relatives are closer than others,' Woodend pointed out.

‘I see what you mean, sir,' Thwaites admitted, relieved. ‘Harry's
closest
relative was his brother, Tom.'

Woodend surveyed the crowd, which had hardly moved an inch since he'd arrived on the scene. ‘Point him out to me, will you, Constable,' he said.

Thwaites glanced around. ‘He's not here,' he said.

‘An' why's that? Is he off travellin' somewhere?'

‘No, sir. We don't do much travellin' from Hallerton.'

‘You must have done durin' the war.'

‘A few of us were called up then,' Thwaites admitted, ‘but we never got posted far away from home. An' I suppose that since the end of the hostilities a few other folk might have been as far as Whitebridge or Lancaster. But that's the extent of it.'

‘So if the dead man's brother's not travellin', where the bloody hell is he?' Woodend demanded. ‘Hasn't he heard what's happened? He surely must have done, in a village this size.'

‘Oh, he's heard, all right. As a matter of fact, he was here earlier.'

‘Then why isn't he
still
here?''

Thwaites looked perplexed. ‘Well, I suppose the main reason for that is that he had to go.'

Woodend suppressed a sigh. ‘
Why
did he have to go?' he asked patiently. ‘Was he overcome by emotion or somethin'? Did he find the strain of watchin' it all just
too
much to bear?'

‘No, sir. At least, I don't think so.'

‘Then what is the reason, in your opinion?'

‘I imagine he'll have left because he'll have work to be gettin' on with.'

‘Work? What kind of work?'

‘The Witch.'

‘The Witch?'

‘It's only three days to the Burnin'. There's still a lot to do.'

‘Let me see if I've got this straight,' Woodend said. ‘His brother's just died – in one of the most horrible ways it's possible to imagine – an' he's gone straight back to workin' on the Witch.'

‘That's right,' Thwaites agreed. ‘What else would you expect him to do?'

I
t was a strange procession they made through the village – the portly constable leading, the big man and the pretty blonde following. Curtains twitched as they passed, doors creaked open once they had gone. This was a village in the heart of Lancashire, but it felt to the Chief Inspector and his sergeant as if they were entering a dark and unknown kingdom.

Woodend found himself thinking about the villages he'd known as a lad. They really
had
been a world unto themselves back then. Though never more than ten miles away from the nearest town, they might as well have been a hundred from it for all the contact they had with it.

Then more people had found themselves able to afford motor cars, and everything had changed. Executive housing estates had sprung up – as if by magic – on the edges of villages which had remained undisturbed for hundreds of years. And following in the wake of the office workers, came the men from the factory floor. True, they might have to content themselves with sitting behind the wheels of less flash vehicles than those driven by the pioneers, but they still saw no reason why they and their families should not share the country life with their bosses.