That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  This time when he woke up, the nurse had her hand on his arm, trying to shake him out of his torment. As he took in her concerned face and the curtains she had drawn around his bed, the safety of the hospital ward compared to the nightmare of his subconscious, he realised there was someone else standing behind her – the tall man with the piercing eyes who had introduced himself as Mr King.

  “Herr Kohl,” the man said, “I’m sorry you’re still not feeling any better.”

  The nurse gently piled up pillows behind Karl’s back so that he could sit up and face his inquisitor in a more dignified position. She wiped a cool cloth over his forehead and gave him a glass of water to sip. It was all he could do not to clasp hold of her wrist and demand that she stayed with him for as long as the man remained there.

  The Chief sat down in the chair by his bedside. “I hope you’re well enough to answer a few more questions,” he said. “It would be of the greatest importance to yourself and Clara if you could.”

  Karl brushed his forelock out of his eyes. “I’ll try my best,” he muttered.

  “Good,” said the Chief. “First, tell me everything you know about Simon De Vere.”

  The prisoner’s face registered incomprehension.

  “The professor?” the Chief tried again. “Perhaps that’s the name you know him by?”

  Karl shook his head. “Nein. I have never heard of this person,” he said.

  “All right then, let’s try Ralph Nicholson. A military man, an officer in the Air Force.”

  “No.” Karl’s free hand reached for the charm he once wore around his neck.

  “Ah,” said the Chief, “you’re still missing it, then?” Reaching into his pocket, he produced the Baphomet, hanging its chain over his fingers, just out of reach, and letting it sway from side to side. “Perhaps we should have a chat about this instead. You’re awfully fond of it, aren’t you? What does it mean to you?”

  Karl cleared his throat, which was parched, despite the water. “Clara gave it to me.”

  “When you had performed what you described to me as your marriage?” the Chief asked.

  Karl nodded, trying not to flinch as those eyes came closer to his own. He feared that in his current state, they could easily penetrate his thoughts.

  “I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mysteries, in His name Baphomet,” the Chief quoted from the text he had been brushing up on. Karl had a mental flash of Clara standing in front of an altar draped in black satin, pinpoints of flames from the black candles surrounding her, a dagger in her hand. “Tell me more about this society that Clara introduced you to. Did it have a name?” Raising her arms, a cloak the colour of midnight parting to reveal she wore nothing below. “Were you followers of Eliphas Lévi or were you a witches’ coven, serving the Goat of Mendes?” A black cock and a white hen, squabbling out their terror, the blade flashing in the candlelight, the scent of herbs and blood heavy in the air. “Was the Goat indeed present on the happy day?”

  “Now I think you are mocking me,” Karl croaked.

  “On the contrary, I am deadly serious. You see, Clara has been a frequent visitor to this man De Vere, who has a home close to Birmingham and a keen interest in the Dark Arts. I imagined you had been part of the same coven, in your pre-war days in Hamburg. It seemed logical that De Vere helped Clara to become so at home in her adopted city.”

  The amulet swung from his fingers like a pendulum.

  “Look,” said Karl, “I went with Clara to these circles, made these rituals with her, because that was how she got what she wanted. To live well, to be recognised for her talents – and not to have to work like a dog for it, like most women do.”

  He could see the other members of the coven, kneeling before the altar in their black robes, the hoods down to reveal their identities: men of industry; men of commerce; men of war. There had, once, been an Englishman, brought by one of Clara’s highest sources, the Ambassador. But while he faced this man, he must blank all that from his mind.

  “Ja, so she called herself a witch and she was proud of those skills as much as all her others. There were powerful people at these meetings, as I have told you before, but you have to believe me – I only saw a small part of it. Only what she wanted me to see.” Processing before the altar to sip at the bowl of crimson liquid proffered by their flame-haired High Priestess. “She never told me anything about these people in England, this professor and… what did you say the other one was called?”

  “Ralph Nicholson,” said the Chief. “But perhaps she wouldn’t have wanted you to know.”

  “Why?” Karl was suddenly far from Clara’s altar and back in the hospital room, where the groans came from the injured and the air smelled of antiseptic. “What do you mean?”

  The Chief wrapped the amulet around his fingers and deposited it back in his pocket. “You trusted her, didn’t you? Enough to jump out of a plane in the middle of the night for her. Well, I’m afraid to have to tell you but we have received information that Clara was intimate with this man – beyond what normally goes on at those ceremonies of yours. She was living with him in Birmingham.”

  Karl tried to swallow and found that he couldn’t. He could no longer remember the right words to any of the spells of protection she had armed him with. Instead, he could only see the branches of the nightmare tree start to shake.

  “I wonder what was going on in her mind?” the Chief went on. “Where you fitted into all her plans? Or perhaps you didn’t. Perhaps you were never meant to make a successful landing. Has that thought ever crossed your mind?”

  Clara’s scream started to echo in Karl’s mind and he was filled with impotent fury. He wanted to raise his drinking glass and smash it into the face of his tormentor. But the movement caused it to slip through his sweaty fingers and into the Chief’s open palm.

  “Steady, old man,” he said, putting it back on the bedside cabinet.

  Karl tried again. He grabbed the Chief’s wrist with more force than he looked capable of. “Stop all of these games and just tell me where she is,” he demanded.

  “Where she is?” the Chief frowned. “How should I know where she is?”

  “She is trapped, somewhere in the trees!” Karl hissed. “She is in danger! She comes into my dreams every time I shut my eyes to tell me so. You have to find her!”

  As the volume of his cries rose, the nurse came back through the curtains. “What’s happening? Is he delirious again?” she said, bending in closer to assess him.

  “Or giving a good impression of it,” said the Chief.

  The nurse gently prised the prisoner’s fingers away from his wrist. Karl murmured piteously at her touch, tears streaking down his cheeks. The Chief got to his feet.

  “I’m beginning to lose faith in your abilities, Herr Kohl,” he said, putting his trilby back over the threads of grey that ran through his mane. “Nonetheless, I shall return.”

  8

  DIZZY SPELLS

  Tuesday, 18 February 1941

  Spooner stopped the car outside Judith’s house and checked in the rear-view mirror. As far as he could see, there were no black Ford Anglias creeping up behind him. Perhaps the trick he had pulled yesterday had actually worked.

  The idea had come to him in the High View car park. As he pulled in, fresh from his visit to Anna, Bob was cleaning his own car, a battered old Ford Eight. Seeing Spooner, he wandered over for a closer look at the Rover.

  “What a beauty she is,” he said, rubbing an imaginary speck off the wing with his chamois leather. “I would have loved one of these at your age. Wouldn’t mind one now, truth be told. Can’t you just picture our Jan sitting on the passenger seat, eh?” The longing behind his words was clear.

  “Well, would you like to take her out for a spin in it?”

  “Well, I…” Bob did his best to look as though he was flabbergasted by the suggestion, “I mean, that’s very kind of you, kid. Are you sure? Have you got enough petrol?”

  “Aye,” sa
id Spooner. Not knowing how long he would be needing them, Spooner had been issued with a wedge of petrol coupons before he left London. Producing his wallet, he handed a couple to Bob. “But I tell you what, I’d be grateful if you could fill her up for me while you’re out. I’ll be leaving tomorrow and I’d rather leave on a full tank.”

  Bob nodded furiously. “Of course, kid, of course. Christ,” he said, examining the coupons, “I won’t ask how he sorted these out, but Norrie’s a marvel, isn’t he?”

  “The only other thing is,” Spooner added a caveat, “would I be able borrow your car in return? See, I still need to make another trip this afternoon.”

  Bob scratched his head. “How far you going?” he asked.

  “Over Stourbridge way,” said Spooner. “Why, d’you not think she’ll make it?”

  “No, kid, with the right handling, I think she’ll be fine. It’s just that I don’t know if there’s as much in the tank as you’ll be needing for the round trip.”

  “Ach,” Spooner couldn’t help but smile, “then I’ll fill yours up in return, nae bother.”

  An hour later, Spooner was heading towards the rise of hills that marked the borders with Worcestershire. According to his map, the highest peak of the Clents was called Wychbury Hill and on top of that stood a stone obelisk which, against the bare winter fields and leafless trees, had been visible for the last few miles. This monument, the information from his Triple-U file on Simon De Vere reminded him, had been commissioned in the middle of the eighteenth century by his ancestor, Viscount Francis De Vere, who had embarked upon an ambitious project to rebuild his family seat in the then highly fashionable Picturesque style. Beneath this monument to his ambition, the estate of Hagley Hall stretched across the valley, surrounded by landscaped woodland.

  Bob’s car could only creep along at a fraction of the speed of the Rover, but the switch had been worth making. Out in the countryside with a long ribbon of empty road behind him, Spooner could be sure he hadn’t been followed. He wanted some time and space to evaluate the events of the past few days and what better way to get that than to take a drive out to the ancestral home of the one suspect that had already been in his address book when he left London? Though it seemed unlikely that Simon De Vere could be the driver of such a common make of car as the one that had been pursuing him recently, the idea couldn’t be entirely discounted.

  There was a small lay-by halfway up the hill which he pulled into, running through Bob’s hints for getting the car to start again if she were to prove reluctant before he switched off the motor. A path led him through a copse up to the open hillside, where the wind was strong. But there was another thing he could be thankful for – it was a clear and crisp day, the sun still just above eye-level in an almost cloudless sky. After the constant smog and noise of Birmingham it was exhilarating to smell air that was fresh with the scent of soil and grass, of nature still going about her business unhindered by the chaos thrown up by man. With the aid of his binoculars, he would be able to see for miles.

  Spooner inspected the obelisk first. It was Greek in its line, with a square pedestal supporting a slender, tapered shaft and fashioned in sandstone the colour of a fox’s pelt. But its glory days had long passed – part of the shaft had toppled away into the long grass that surrounded it and the base was thick with moss. Nonetheless, the sight of it and the view over which it presided were still awe-inspiring.

  The valley beneath was thick with trees, between which protruded more towers, spires and turrets in the same russet hues, buildings that had been created within the same epic vision as the obelisk. As he adjusted his lenses for a better look, Spooner ran through the details of the report he would be writing for the Chief later.

  He had come away from his meeting with Anna convinced that she had been telling him the truth – everything Judith and Mrs Smith had said confirmed that the events of the nineteenth of November had turned the violinist against her former friend and led to the current state of fear under which she had hidden herself away. But, though she had told him more than he expected, he also divined there was another notion she’d kept in check. He thought she had tumbled what Clara was really up to.

  It was the detail about the steamer trunk that made him think so: the fact that it had already been in the boot of her boyfriend’s car when they were ostensibly both trying to retrieve their belongings from the blitzed hostel. The implication was that Clara had deliberately taken her belongings and gone before the raid, leaving Anna to her fate and then only pretending to help her afterwards and continued with the band to maintain that façade. The second raid on the BSA factory and West Bromwich on the same night had confirmed in Anna’s mind what she hadn’t allowed herself to process before: Clara knew where and when the bombs were going to fall and perhaps, in the second instance, even had some hand in where they had been directed. Which could only mean she was a spy.

  If so, then it followed that her boyfriend was in on it too, a British officer turned traitor by her will – their public spat at the Victoria a play-act, an excuse to get away from the vicinity of the air raid before the bombs started falling. Anna’s hunch about who had introduced them fitted with the Chief’s conviction that a fifth column lurked in Britain – with members drawn from the elite of society – and his own about what Simon De Vere had been doing at those fascist gatherings in 1939.

  Spooner’s binoculars settled on the turrets of a ruined castle in the valley below, a folly fashioned to replicate the likes of those recorded by artists on the Grand Tour. A building designed to deceive, to present an idealised and romantic fiction to retreat to. Spooner doubted the romance between Clara and this Nicholson was anything but a façade too, a front for her to amass as much information on the munitions factories of Birmingham and the operations of the British military as was possible.

  “She cast her glamour over both of us,” he recalled Anna saying. He wondered if, by this, she had been telling him that she was once in love with Clara too. That was the way it had sounded. He also wondered if he, in turn, hadn’t fallen just a little in love with Anna.

  Then there was this third man both Mrs Smith and Norman the landlord had mentioned: the Dutchman. Anna had talked about her friend Nils, the tightrope walker. That sounded like a Dutch name and if they had often worked together it would explain why his witnesses had taken them to be lovers. Or perhaps, he mused as he moved his sights across the valley, he was being overly romantic with the truth himself.

  His sweep took in the soaring spire of a church and some other kind of construction, lower down the hillside from where he stood, which was largely obscured by trees. It was just as he had pictured it; as if he already knew what he would find waiting for him here. As a setting for a secretive coven practising pagan rites, the De Vere estate could hardly have been bettered in any work of fiction.

  But in reality he wondered which of these people Anna was hiding from. When she said that Nicholson had a “posh flat” he wondered if Clara’s boyfriend could possibly have lived close by to where she found herself now, Judith living on the fringes of Edgbaston, one of the best districts in Birmingham. It would make sense of Anna’s fear of leaving the house if, by some quirk of fate, she had found sanctuary from her tormentors in the very place they were holed up. That was the explanation that made the most sense, he decided, as his gaze finally came to rest on the Hall itself.

  The great Palladian construction basked in the centre of the parkland, its sandstone flanks glowing rich umber in the caress of the slowly sinking winter sun. A thin line of smoke drifted up from one of its chimneys, signifying that someone, if only one of the servants, was at home. Spooner studied the stable block and garages for signs of life, but was rewarded only by the lone figure of a gamekeeper, a rifle cocked over his arm and a string of rabbits slung over his shoulder, making his way across the lawn towards the kitchens, a springer spaniel trotting at his feet.

  He knew the door would never be opened to him if he should call unannounc
ed and besides, Spooner wanted to be able to get back to Birmingham within the hours of daylight. However, he found himself reluctant to leave. It wasn’t just the beauty of the house and its surrounds that held him so in thrall, it was the notion that there was something he was missing. Perhaps it was his own unwillingness to go back to the deception he would need to continue with Anna tomorrow, the fact that, when her meeting with Norrie turned into a briefing with the Chief, she would be unlikely ever to hold him in any kind regard again. Chiding himself about the unworthiness of these thoughts, Spooner lowered his binoculars and turned back towards the car. He would never know if Anna would have trusted him more if he could have told her who he really was. But surely that was a price worth paying?

  Spooner stepped out of the Rover minutes before the appointed hour. They were expecting him, so he didn’t knock or ring the bell, but while he was waiting, he continued to reconnoitre the street. At exactly ten o’clock, the door opened and to Spooner’s relief, Anna stood there with her violin case and a small travel bag, wearing a smart grey wool suit, a green overcoat with matching beret and a nervous smile. Judith stood behind her, a protective hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  “Well,” Anna said, “as you can see, I’ve decided to take the plunge.”

  “She’s got my blessing,” Judith added.

  “As well as half her possessions.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Judith said. “That’s nothing and you know it. But I happen to think it’s for the best. Just so long as you take good care of her, Mr Spooner.”

  “Aye,” Spooner said. “Shall I take these for you?” he nodded towards Anna’s luggage.