Witching Murder

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Seen your parents?’

  Annie and Jack Cooper were old friends of Charmian who lived in Windsor in a marriage whose battles gave alarm to their friends but apparently some pleasure to the married pair. They parted and came together again like performers in a dance.

  ‘Not yet. Haven’t been back long enough. Have to prepare myself. What’s the position at the moment? Under one roof?’

  ‘As far as I know,’ said Charmian cautiously.

  ‘Been quite a spell this time. How’s Annie’s work doing?’

  Annie was a well-known artist, much praised but sometimes lazy. The money which emancipated her and Kate was inherited.

  ‘Got an exhibition planned for the Hardcastle Gallery.’

  The Hardcastle was a smart Bond Street gallery sited in a minute shop between two famous jewellers. You were in the money if your work sold there.

  ‘Thought she despised it.’ Bond Street Boys, Annie had called them.

  ‘She does. But they made her an offer.’

  Annie had a shrewd business head, without doubt she had struck a hard bargain.

  ‘And what’s your big interest at the moment, Godmother? You’re usually getting some study together: criminous women, delinquent kids … What is it this time?’

  ‘Don’t you patronise me, child.’

  ‘Sorry, Godmother.’

  ‘As it happens I have got something … Women and Witchcraft.’

  Kate opened her eyes wide. ‘In history or in literature?’

  ‘In the present.’

  ‘Do you really mean it? Where? I must meet them.’

  ‘There’s a group of women in Merrywick calling themselves white witches.’

  ‘Oh, they’re good,’ said Kate at once. ‘Earth mothers, white magic, that sort of thing.’

  ‘One of them has been murdered.’

  Kate said accusingly, ‘I think you’re enjoying yourself.’

  ‘In a way.’

  Muff came in through the window, looking neither to right nor left, but leaping straight for Kate.

  Kate hugged her. ‘A real witch’s cat, you.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve called on old Mother Peacock?’

  ‘You mean you know about her?’

  ‘Oh, darling, yes. She’s famous. Dad went to her for warts once. Disappeared like magic. He thought it was magic. Don’t say she’s been done in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or murdered anyone? I can’t believe that.’

  Charmian did not answer. It was possible, anything was possible.

  ‘A young woman called Vivien Charles was found dead in her own house. I don’t think you’d have known her, Kate.’

  Kate, whose own history was not without violence, left the subject alone. ‘Let me know if I can do anything, Godmother.’

  When Kate had gone upstairs to unpack, taking a purring Muff with her, Charmian collected her thoughts. They were far from clear, which irritated her, since she prided herself on being a clear-minded person.

  I am interested in women’s groupings. Why do women come together? Is there something specific to their sex in any one such group?

  Crime can draw women together. Two years ago I examined one such group which came together to commit a felony, but they were just women who happened to be criminals. They were barely friends, and yet they were companions.

  Although I said that about friendship, imbedded in these groups there is usually one close relationship, although the women concerned may not even like each other very much.

  So I think women form groups if there is a strong personal relationship somewhere. The Queen Bee principle?

  Then why have this little group, who call themselves white witches, come together? They are believers. Women as believers? Is that my subject? But there has to be one strong believer among them to whom the others hold. I suppose I ought to try to identify her.

  A telephone call from Dolly Barstow broke into her thoughts.

  Dolly was in a hurry, but she got her message across: A meeting this afternoon of the Merrywick witches. They would all be there. She would do the driving.

  Leaving Kate to settle her possessions, of which she had a great many, all important to her, Charmian telephoned a young doctor, now a GP in practice in Richmond, whom she had got to know in an earlier investigation. He had been a swain of Dolly Barstow’s but they had floated apart and he was now married to a pretty girl who bred Dalmatians.

  ‘Hello, Len.’

  Dr Lennard (Christian name Alwyn, but he liked to be called Len) answered cautiously; he recognised the speaker’s voice, and in his experience of Charmian Daniels, trouble came with her.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d get you. Thought you’d be out seeing patients.’

  ‘Just having a cup of tea.’

  There was a light, falsetto growl in the background. ‘Down, Lucifer. Sorry, Charmian, just one of the dogs, likes a saucer of tea. What can I do for you?’ Nothing, I hope, he was saying inside himself, but contact with Charmian inspired a certain desire to co-operate even in a blameless GP. What effect she must have on those with a crime on their conscience wasn’t worth thinking about.

  ‘Professional advice.’

  This was a dread question. ‘Not ill, are you?’ he said with apprehension.

  ‘Just a few obstetric questions.’

  Good heavens, he thought, surely not?

  ‘Not for me.’ He could hear the gurgle of amusement in Charmian’s voice; damn her, she always had laughed at him. So had Dolly Barstow, which had annoyed him because he was a serious person. ‘Professional need to know.’

  ‘Can’t you get one of your own lot to do it for you? I daresay you will check on what I might say anyway.’

  ‘Oh, come on, off the cuff and quickly. I want to know what factors make an embryo go wrong.’

  ‘What a question! Do you hear a hollow laugh? It needs a book to answer. Anything, many things. Genetics, some drugs, alcohol occasionally, if you take too much of it, a fever, or just bad luck. Usually the latter. Of course, a lot of women never find out, they just miscarry so early they may not have known they were pregnant. I suppose I mustn’t ask why you need to know?’

  ‘Just a case.’ Charmian was evasive. ‘ I may be able to tell you later. Does the father contribute anything to this mischance?’

  ‘His genetic material might,’ agreed Len. ‘Some people are just incompatible.’

  ‘Could a shock do it?’

  ‘Probably. Did she have a shock?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think she might have done.’

  There had already been, as Charmian was to discover, a meeting of the Merrywick Guild of White Witches, summoned by Miss Peacock, after a short consultation with Miss Winnie Eagle, but held in Caprice Dash’s shop in Slough.

  Birdie Peacock arrived well ahead of the others. ‘How’s business, Caprice?’ Birdie had a stake in the shop. The group had really grown up around Birdie and her many interests in the spiritual world.

  ‘Not bad, not bad at all. Summer’s always a slow time, we shall do better as autumn comes on. It’s the dark evenings and the smell of wood-smoke.’ There was a poet hidden away inside Caprice, the retailer witch. ‘People are drawn to our sort of thing then.’

  ‘What about postal orders?’ Twickers had a large postal trade.

  ‘Ah, there we are up. Well up.’

  ‘So the ad in The Times got results?’ said Miss Peacock with satisfaction.

  ‘I believe it’s the one in The Guardian that’s been the draw. I think the readers are more open-minded.’

  ‘And what are the best sellers?’

  Caprice considered. ‘ The dowsing equipment does well. I expect they are after finding hidden treasure. Quite a run on crystal balls, although I never find them very satisfactory myself, I haven’t the knack. Magic holographs are down, they’re more Christmassy, I think. I’ve had a lot of enquiries about the bio-rhythm tapes. Incense and oil
s, likewise. I think ageing yuppies burn them at dinner parties and feel clever, not a serious use at all.’

  ‘And the black wax manikins? I don’t see any in the shop. Don’t say they were sold?’

  ‘One or two, but they’re really not our style. Nasty I think and so do the customers, even those looking for a joke. So I’ve put them in the back stockroom. I may shift them at Hallowe’en.’

  ‘Where did you order them from?’

  ‘A voodoo wholesaler that I’ve often dealt with. His goods usually have such style, but he’s let me down this time. The specimen I ordered from was nothing like the ones he sent. I think he’s got a new manufacturer.’

  The manikins were made, as she shrewdly guessed, in a small back room in Hackney where the dealer’s eldest son improvised whatever took his fancy. This last season, his fancy had turned darker, become sombre and violent.

  Birdie Peacock took a look at the shelves. ‘I see Lavarack is going well. I haven’t tried that myself.’

  ‘Don’t, dear, it’s most unpleasant. But the honey and seaweed preserve is tastier than you might think. Nutritious as well.’ Caprice knew how to promote her wares and on occasion this commercial side irritated her friend and patron.

  Birdie reacted now. ‘We must never forget we are a craft, and a very ancient one. We owe it to our fellow women.’

  Caprice was less dedicated than Birdie, more of a saleswoman. She had inherited her premises from her father who had been a grocer. But there was no place for good old-fashioned grocer shops in an area devoted to the supermarket, so Caprice had turned first to so-called health foods and natural remedies. But even in this field she faced sharp competition, so she had moved on, by a natural progression somehow, to being what she was now: the purveyor of magic and mystery and weird toys. On the way, the witchcraft bit had been added to her. As if by magic, she told herself, on awaking one morning after a supper with Birdie to find she had been declared a natural witch. ‘The best sort,’ Birdie had said. ‘Not many like you. I was lucky to find you.’

  The revelation had come to Birdie in a dream after their supper, not unconnected, some might say, with the curry that they had eaten and the fact that Caprice had a shop that needed support.

  At the moment Caprice felt a double person: one pair of hands selling and another raising spells – which never seemed to work although Birdie said they did. All she knew was that whenever she tried a spell on a particular enemy (Caprice always had an enemy or two around) they seemed to do better than ever. Possibly she hadn’t quite mastered the knack of malediction.

  Her two personalities could be united by the use of alcohol, but she kept this from Birdie and the other wiccers. They called themselves this on occasion, from the old English word Wicca for witch, pronouncing the two cs hard, although more properly soft. Hence the name of her shop: Twickers. It had been called William Dash, Grocer.

  ‘I don’t know how the murder of poor Viv will touch us. Can’t do us any good.’ Her tone was unemotional, she hadn’t, as it happened, had a lot of time for Vivien Charles.

  All the women had been questioned by a plain-clothes detective, Dolly keeping well out of the way, although sensed as a presence in the undergrowth.

  ‘It’s a horrible business,’ said Miss Peacock. ‘I didn’t know anything useful, but naturally I did what I could.’

  ‘Nothing to do with us, but, the trouble is, with those objects laid out round the body it looks as though it is.’ Caprice had made it her business to find out as much as she could about the circumstances of Vivien’s death, and although nothing had been reported in detail in the papers she had her own channels of information. ‘But they were all wrong, not genuine at all.’ A mistake, she thought, which might cost the killer dear. Mistakes of that sort always did in her experience.

  ‘We know that, but who else does?’

  The two women were silent. Then Alice Peacock said, ‘I explained to the detective who spoke to me that our intent was wholly good, and that … that muck was the kind of perversity we would have nothing to do with. I don’t know if he believed me.’

  ‘Could you expect him to? Probably got images of a black mass and naked bodies in his mind.’

  ‘I thought Dolly Barstow might have spoken up for us.’

  ‘Probably ashamed of knowing us.’

  The shopbell rang, announcing the arrival of Miss Eagle and Mrs Flight, an occasional member of the group, now rounded up and brought in by Miss Eagle in spite of her protests that she should really be playing bridge.

  ‘I know you’d rather forget you’re one of us, Jean, but you owe to us as women to come.’

  ‘Thank God my Fred is dead.’

  ‘He knows all about it and approves,’ said Miss Eagle firmly.

  Jean Flight had joined the group in order to get in touch with her late husband, which she had done satisfactorily.

  Winifred Eagle had been christened in the Church of England in the straightforward way and for some years had worshipped at St Jerome’s Church in Merrywick, but she had never felt at home. She had tried Methodism, a charismatic church, Yoga and Zen and had even made an attempt to be a Quaker but had not been encouraged.

  Then a visit to Avebury had provided her with an ‘experience’. Birdie had been on the tour as well and the realisation of what they had felt there, the strong sense of a female presence coming through the earth and woodland, of a tug in their guts as a wand of ash had moved in Birdie’s hands, of their being one with it, all had been very strong.

  Led, was how they put it. Birdie was already practised in Tarot and had some success with the crystal ball.

  Caprice had brought commercialism with her. At the same time, although Birdie regarded herself as their leader, Caprice had made them more of a group by means of her shop, which gave them a focus and a corporate identity.

  They were all women who had the leisure to meet in the afternoon as well as in the evening, and, of course, they belonged to other associations, too. Birdie was keen on the Women’s Institute and was secretary this year of her local group; Winifred Eagle was an active member of the Cats’ Club, Slough and Windsor Branch, and usually had a resident deprived cat with her as well as her own black angel. Even Caprice found time to take lessons in bridge once a week to improve her bidding.

  But what bound them all together was that they were all believers who wanted to find faith in something, but had not succeeded in meeting their needs in a more orthodox way. Closet feminists, to believe in an Earth Mother and a Great Goddess suited them.

  The Tarot Cards had brought in Vivien Charles who seemed, as Birdie said, a restless, dissatisfied soul. Birdie had never revealed what she saw in the Tarot Cards for Vivien, that was a professional matter about which one did not talk, but it cannot have been good.

  Under Caprice’s care they had advertised, made a local name for themselves, earned a little money – none of them was averse to that – and enjoyed some publicity. It was enjoyable to be interviewed by the local newspaper and talk about natural cures on Eton Radio. Some of their neighbours looked askance, but on the whole the group did not mind, conscious as they were of doing good things, like curing warts, alleviating acne, soothing arthritis and calling back lost animals.

  Caprice had brought in Josh Fox. He had come into her shop one day and somehow got an invitation out of her over a drink of whisky. They had welcomed his interest, no doubt about that; he was an attractive man: like the young Olivier, Birdie had once said in an unguarded moment. And although Caprice had laughingly called him their warlock or male wiccer, that was not what he was. Warlocks had a definite function and Josh had never so much as touched one of them.

  Sexless, the relationship with wiccers and putative warlock might be, but there was no denying that the band had been less harmonious since he arrived, as they competed for his attention.

  They gathered for coffee in the stockroom at the back, surrounded by boxes of mystery puzzles, Monsters in Mazes (described wrongly by Birdie who ha
d never really looked at it, as a kind of Snakes and Ladders game, and who had given one as a birthday present to a small neighbour, much to the alarm of his single-parent mother), tins, jars and cartons of herbs and potions, some in capsules, others in hard pills. Nostrums of all sorts were sold by Caprice who put a good mark-up on each item. Magic did not come free.

  Caprice had once made a collection of African witchdoctor masks, thinking they might make good window dressing, but they had proved so baleful that they clashed with the Good Earth Mother image she was promoting, so she had banished them to the back where they gazed with empty eyes on her friends.

  Caprice disliked them now, they were fakes, she had been cheated by the little Pakistani who had sold them to her. She had put a curse on him, but he had survived unscathed. Indeed, to prosper, with a new red and silver French car, customised with golden wreaths of flowers on the panels. Either spells did not work in Slough or she had got the wrong one. It might be the climate, you probably needed more sun or a higher temperature, and although she had put her ingredients in the microwave that had not helped either, though it had created a nasty smell.

  Birdie turned the mask hanging behind her chair to face the wall. ‘Rather not have it looking at me.’ She stood up and smoothed her skirt. ‘Shall we start with a short prayer to the Great Mother?’

  Winifred Eagle was fidgety and ill at ease tonight, anxious to get on with things. She was worried about her black cat who was missing. ‘ I don’t sense She’s here tonight somehow. There isn’t the feeling.’

  ‘Faith is not feeling,’ said Birdie with severity. She was a true believer.

  Caprice said, ‘Prayers or not, I think we should talk things over before the two policewomen get here. Work out what we are going to say.’

  ‘The truth,’ said Birdie.

  ‘There are truths and truths.’