The thirst was dreadful, as though I’d been wrung out and squeezed dry.
The gag had been replaced, tighter this time, which told me something else. I could not be allowed to scream. If I screamed here, there was a chance I might be heard. I was not too far from people. I would have found the thought encouraging if I’d had any hope left. I lay on the cold stone, wondering how much longer before he came for me again, and felt myself getting weaker as more and more blood seeped from my open wound.
The sound of the doors woke me for the last time in that dark place. They were pulled open in a hurry, allowed to clang, then banged shut. I heard footsteps coming closer, smelled something all too familiar and knew, finally, who had taken me.
I asked myself if I had the strength to fight and the answer came back, no. I caught a glimmer of light from a torch beam and closed my eyes, an instinctive response to an imminent yet undefined horror, and felt something harsh and rough being tugged over my head.
Sacking.
I was fighting now, bucking and wriggling, because I could picture the rough sacking we’d pulled out of the grave that had briefly held Luna. He was encasing me in sacking. No coffin for me, just a rough shroud, which he would have checked already for its strength. Unlike Luna, I wouldn’t be able to claw my way out.
My frantic thrashing about made no difference to him. He pulled the sacking down over my body, lifting me when he had to, holding me down when he didn’t. I kicked and hit out, even with both wrists together, even with pain shooting up my arm. I felt my shoe leave my foot and still I kicked. I grabbed and pulled and heard fabric tearing.
He beat me, of course. He was much stronger, uninjured, and I was bound hand and foot. When he finally got my feet inside the sack, he drew the opening together and I sensed knots being pulled tight.
A stillness fell. I could hear him panting, then getting to his feet. I heard banging, scraping sounds that I couldn’t interpret, but I felt a faint change in the atmosphere. Even through the sacking I could tell it was marginally cooler, a little fresher. And I could hear sounds of the outside world. The distant roar of a car.
He picked me up. I was carried a few yards, then thrown – there was no other word for it – but I landed almost immediately, as though he’d lifted me from a hole in the ground. He pushed and I rolled, and then I heard the banging again, which I thought, this time, was the sound of heavy doors being closed.
I was lifted again. Put down again. Another hard surface, but metal this time. Doors closed; an engine started. The vehicle I was captive in moved away.
I’d wait for it to stop, I decided, and then roll to the side and hammer against the metal with all my might, or I’d kick the back doors open and roll out. Better to die on the road than what this bastard had in mind.
He didn’t stop. Not once. We hadn’t been driving for much more than fifteen minutes when he pulled over again. I heard the driver’s door open and close, then the rear doors.
I had plenty of fight left in me. My life was about to end in the most horrible way. I fought hard inside that sack, and I screamed as loud as I could, even with the gag half choking me.
He carried me over his shoulder and in no time at all I was on the ground. I squirmed like a worm. I kicked and punched and rolled. I made noises that in my head were as loud as thunder but which probably travelled no more than a few yards. I went on and on until I collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Enough. I could do no more. I waited for him to roll me into the open grave.
He didn’t do it. I lay, panting and sobbing, bracing myself for the last blow. It didn’t come.
He’d gone.
I knew it as surely as I knew I was still alive. There was no sense of anyone near me. Wherever I was, I was alone.
Then footsteps, running.
I began fighting again. Someone was at my feet, pressing down hard. There was a pulling sound, a slicing sound and then my feet were free. Still tied but free of the sack. I could hear the sacking being torn, someone telling me to keep still – ‘For the love of God, keep still’ – and then the sack was pulled off my head. I could see the night around me, the stars and the moon. I could see the trees round the edge of the graveyard and the headstones, one of which so nearly became my own. And I could see the large head and small body of the man who was reaching behind me now, untying my gag, pulling the rag from my mouth and staring at me with wide, frightened eyes as though he really had pulled something undead from beneath the earth.
Dwane recovered quickly from his shock. He pulled away and yelled, ‘Mam! Dad! Get out here! Someone get an ambulance.’
Speaking was hard, but I had to shut him up.
‘Dwane, stop. Please stop shouting.’
I wasn’t sure he’d hear me, but he must have done because his lips slapped shut.
‘I need a drink,’ I croaked. ‘Now. And I need to phone Superintendent Rushton. Can you help? Can you help me get up?’
He looked at the ropes round my ankles and wrists, and, practical craftsman that he was, took a penknife from his back pocket. Within seconds I was free and he was pulling me upright. One of my shoes was missing.
I swayed and Dwane caught me, and then we were staggering together, like a drunken, mismatched courting couple, towards the entrance of St Wilfred’s Churchyard.
‘I need a phone,’ I said.
‘Heard you t’first time,’ Dwane replied.
At the porch, I had to stop, to lean against the gate stone. ‘Did you see who left me there?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Nah. Heard an engine. Odd, this time of night. I looked out t’window and couldn’t see anything, but I weren’t happy. Not with all the shenanigans going on in graveyards lately.’
In different circumstances, the word ‘shenanigans’ might have made me smile. As it was, I was glad Dwane was stronger than he looked, because I was fading fast.
‘I got you.’ He wrapped an arm around my waist and turned me to face the street.
‘Whole bloody town’s been looking for you,’ he said as we set off again. ‘Rushton’s had us all combing t’moors.’
The whole town?
‘They’ve got posters up and all. Nice picture. I’ve got one in my bedroom.’
‘How?’ I managed. ‘How did they know I was gone?’
‘Them two lezzers you live with now reported it. Camping out at station, according to my mam. Making right bloody nuisances of themselves. Insisting you can’t have run off, because your handbag and all your stuff is still at their house. I agreed with ‘em. I said you wouldn’t run.’
Oh, Avril, Daphne, I’m so sorry.
‘And then they found your bike up on top road. It didn’t look good.’
We’d stopped at the house at the end of the terrace, not a stone’s throw from the church. Dwane rattled hard on the door knocker.
‘What time is it?’ I asked, and knew I should really be asking what day it was.
‘Gone three,’ he told me. ‘She won’t be best pleased.’
Above us, a window opened. ‘What the bugger?’ someone called down.
‘Lady needs help,’ Dwane called up. ‘Police business. Look sharp.’
While we waited, he told me it was the early hours of Friday morning. I’d been missing two full days.
‘Dwane,’ I said, a couple of minutes later, when the door opened and he barged our way inside, past a startled woman in her dressing gown. ‘I need to speak to Superintendent Rushton. I don’t trust anyone else. It won’t be easy for you, because the sergeant at the station will want to take your call himself, and he’ll want to get a patrol car out here, but it’s really important that I talk to the superintendent before anyone else knows you’ve found me. Can you try, please?’
He gave me another of his completely unfathomable stares and picked up the phone. He dialled four numbers.
‘Uncle Stan,’ he said, after a few seconds. ‘It’s Dwane. I’m at Auntie Janet’s. Get thee sen round here. There’s a reet to-do.’
> 55
Friday 4 July 1969
While we waited for the superintendent to arrive, I learned that Dwane’s mother and the super were cousins, and that Rushton was Dwane’s godfather. His Aunt Janet, an honorary title because she was no blood relative, was a quiet, sensible woman. She brought me a glass of water, then a mug of tea, thick with sugar, and then aspirin. By the time the super’s car arrived, I was feeling a little better.
‘Florence, what the bloody hell—’ Rushton was saying as he walked through the door without knocking. Then he saw me, sitting on a chair in the hallway, a blanket around my shoulders, my hand on a clean tea towel on the hall table. Aunt Janet was trying to clean my wound with warm water and cotton wool, while Dwane stood guard at my right shoulder. ‘Jesus.’ His face drained. ‘Ambulance on its way?’
‘There isn’t time,’ I said. ‘Sir, I know who did this. If we can find him quickly, we can prove it.’ For the first time, I opened my clutched right hand and let him see the small triangle of apricot fabric and the tiny button that I held there. ‘I tore this off his shirt,’ I said. ‘It will be covered in blood too. If we can find him quickly—’
‘Who?’ he said.
‘Larry Glassbrook,’ I replied. ‘I smelled his aftershave.’
Rushton drove me in his car to the Glassbrook house. Dwane sat immediately behind me in the back seat. Rushton had tried, briefly, to send him home, but the little guy was standing tall. He wasn’t leaving me. A panda car followed us, lights and sirens off, and two more joined our convoy along the way. Rushton was taking no chances.
It hadn’t been easy persuading him to go straight for the arrest rather than get me to hospital. Especially as Aunt Janet kept pointing to the red streaks running up my hand, and talking about infection, and predicting the loss of my entire arm if I didn’t get it seen to soon.
Eventually, when I pointed out that I wasn’t going to stop arguing, he agreed to give me an hour.
‘Them two daft old bats drugged you,’ he said to me as we pulled away from the church. ‘Bloody well admitted as much. Said they wanted to make sure you had a good night’s sleep and that you didn’t follow them up the Hill. We realised what must have happened when we found your bike on the top road. Spent bloody hours looking up there. Dogs and all.’
‘Larry found me,’ I said. ‘He must have followed me from the house and carried me to the van while the coven was on the Hill.’
‘If someone had told me when I joined up that I’d be arresting witches and warlocks …’ He shook his head. ‘Why you, Flossie? No offence but you’re no teenager.’
‘He knew I was getting close,’ I said. ‘I’ve kept my charts and my notes in my bedroom and it didn’t have a lock. I know the girls were looking at them, so he must have been too. That’s why he wanted me to leave. He thought I’d spot something, work out that it was him. When we homed in on the cricket club, he knew he didn’t have much time left.’
‘Luna, though? The lass is his own daughter.’
‘I don’t think Luna was ever in any real danger. She was only in the grave for a few minutes. He knew I was on my way up there.’
‘Now, see, that’s what I don’t get.’ Dwane leaned forward. ‘If it was him, how did he phone you, Florence, that night to tell you where Luna was? How did he do that if he was in bed, upstairs?’
Rushton practically stepped on the brakes. ‘How the bloody Norah do you know about that?’ he demanded of the face in the rear-view mirror.
Dwane looked offended. ‘Mam serves breakfast, dinner and tea to your lot three days a week,’ he said. ‘You think she’s deaf?’
Rushton sighed as I turned back to Dwane. ‘I’m guessing his girlfriend, Beryl, made that call,’ I said. ‘She must have given him false alibis too.’
We turned into the Glassbrooks’ road. I recognised several cars parked some way down from their house, and as Rushton pulled over, I saw their drivers getting out. Sharples, Brown, Green, Butterworth. And Tom. I wrapped the tea towel more firmly round my hand – it was already soaked in blood – and tried to unlock the car door, but Dwane had jumped out and beaten me to it. He wrapped an arm around my waist to help me walk and I didn’t have the heart to stop him. The others had gathered on the opposite pavement and they waited for us to cross.
‘Good to see you, Florence,’ said Sharples in a low voice. Tom looked as though he wanted to stamp on Dwane.
‘I want the place surrounded,’ Rushton said. ‘I’m going in with Florence and Jack. Randy, Tom, you’re back-up. Dwane, stay in the bloody car.’
Rushton, Sharples and I led the way up the drive, Tom and Randy following, Dwane tagging along at the rear. The others spread out round the property.
The house seemed to be in darkness. ‘We should go round the back,’ I said.
We left the drive and made our way through the garden. As we neared the back door, I could see a low light in the kitchen. Rushton stepped in front of me and tried the back door. It opened.
Larry was sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of brandy and a glass in front of him. His shirt was apricot-coloured, and there were bloodstains near the buttons. His head was in his hands and he didn’t look up as we came in. I followed Rushton; Sharples came next, then Tom and Randy. We moved around the table, but I was in the middle. The one closest.
‘On your feet, please, Larry,’ Rushton said. ‘I need to have a look at your shirt.’
Larry tossed back the remainder of the brandy and, finally, looked at me.
‘How you doing, Flossie?’ he said, with a grin that struck me, at the time, as pure evil.
‘Up,’ said Sharples, and Larry stood up. His shirt was untucked and we could see very plainly the torn bottom corner with the missing button.
‘Do you want to do the honours, WPC Lovelady?’ said Rushton.
I did. I really did. I just couldn’t remember quite how ‘the honours’ went. I’d dreamed of making my first arrest; I’d practised it many times in front of the mirror, but when it came down to it, the words escaped me.
‘You’re going to die in prison, you vile man,’ was what I said to him.
Rushton did it properly, and then Tom and Randy patted him down and searched his discarded jacket, looking for hidden weapons. In his jacket pocket Tom found something that I knew would haunt him for ever.
My finger.
Part Three
‘… Make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose …’
Macbeth, William Shakespeare
56
Tuesday, 10 August 1999
‘We need to find Sally,’ I say.
‘You said we were going home.’
‘Larry knew I’d come back here for his funeral. He knew I’d find the clay picture. He practically told me where to look. And that means Sally must have put it there.’
‘I don’t see how.’ Ben wrinkles his brow, an old, babyish habit that to this day tugs at my heartstrings.
‘It couldn’t have been Mary. I saw her face. She was frightened. She and Sally were the only ones with keys.’
‘Hello? Beehives? No key needed. If Larry had told Sally to hide a witch’s doll on the off-chance of you pitching up, it would have been in the house. Mum, this is pointless.’
I’m not really listening to Ben. ‘Sally was the only one who visited him apart from me. Besides, I have her keys. I need to get them back to her.’
I stand up. He stays where he is. ‘It’s not a good idea, Mum.’
Ben is wise beyond his years, but he is still a child, and I’ve had decades of telling other people what to do. We find the car and head out. Once we leave the town and its new traffic systems behind, familiarity steals over me like a worn but warm cloak. The narrow road is unchanged. Its walls are still blackened with grime, and their state of repair seems the same as the last time I drove this way. I expect to see escaping sheep rou
nd every corner. The farmhouses and agricultural buildings we pass are the same eclectic collections of old stone, rotting wood and corrugated iron.
I brake hard once, to let the inevitable ewe scuttle out of the road.
As we climb higher, the moors spread out around us, their colours glowing in the bright sunlight. The grass is shamrock green, and the heather is starting to cast swathes of bruised colour across the landscape. Dominating it all, treeless, thin-soiled, watchful, stands the Hill.
Ben is mostly silent on the journey, looking out of the window, only once turning to me. ‘It’s all a bit Wuthering Heights, isn’t it?’ he says, and I don’t disagree. Neither do I say that he’s seeing the Pendle Forest at its best. In the cold months, the beauty around us turns grim.
Northdean Nursing Home is large: three storeys, stone-built – of course – with gabled windows and multiple chimneys. It is not dissimilar to the Glassbrook house and I wonder if its style and proximity to the Hill was chosen to make Sally feel at home.
In the reception area – clean and functional, smelling of chemically produced rose essence – Ben and I wait for attention. When a woman in blue overalls arrives, I give our names and ask if we can see Sally. She says, ‘Of course. Come this way,’ and would we like tea in a half-hour when the residents have theirs?
‘I haven’t seen Sally for many years.’ We follow the woman down a corridor and up the stairs to the first floor. ‘What can I expect?’
She glances back over her shoulder. ‘Early onset dementia. She may not know you, I’m afraid. But it’s nice for her to have visitors. Do you know her well?’ She smiles at Ben, even though she is older than I am, and I realise that female attention is something my son, and I, will have to get used to.
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