by Pat Herbert
THE WITCHES OF
WANDSWORTH
A Reverend Paltoquet
Supernatural Murder Mystery
by
Pat Herbert
OTHER NOVELS IN THE REVEREND PALTOQUET
SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY SERIES:
The Bockhampton Road Murders
Haunted Christmas
The Possession of November Jones
So Long at the Fair
The Man Who Was Death
The Dark Side of the Mirror
Sleeping with the Dead
The Corpse Wore Red
Seeing Double
THE BARNEY CARMICHAEL CRIME SERIES:
Getting Away with Murder
The Murder in Weeping Lane
The Mop and Bucket Murders
ALSO BY PAT HERBERT:
Death Comes Gift Wrapped
The Long Shadow
PROLOGUE
If you were out and about at six o’clock on a particular brisk, bright April morning in the early nineteen-fifties, you might have seen a mangy black cat slink its way past St Stephen’s Parish Church in the London Borough of Wandsworth and make its way through the bars of the vicarage gate next door. If you had stopped to watch, you would have seen the formidable shape of the vicarage housekeeper loom out of the front door with a broom in her hand, ready to strike the trespassing feline should it have the temerity to venture further up the path.
However, if you weren’t in the vicinity at that time, but sauntering across the Common a few streets away instead, you might have seen a sight of a much more disturbing nature. The body of a young girl, partially hidden by foliage and piles of newly mown grass, is seeping blood from a deep wound in her stomach. She is very, very dead.
“That bloody cat’s been ’ere again, Vicar.”
Reverend Bernard Paltoquet is sitting down to his breakfast as Mrs Harper imparts this piece of information to him.
Although Bernard is more interested in putting golden syrup on his porridge than learning about the antics of some stray cat, he doesn’t say so. When his doughty housekeeper is in full flow on one of her rants, he has long since given up trying to get a word in edgeways.
“Really, Mrs Aitch? What did he want this time?” he asks vaguely, stirring his porridge.
“’E wants kicking, that’s what ’e wants.”
“He’s probably hungry, poor thing. You must be able to find him some scraps. Couldn’t we adopt him? I’ve always liked cats.”
“Over my dead body,” exclaims Mrs Harper, the porridge spoon poised precariously over Bernard’s head as she doles out the oats. “I ’ate bloody cats!”
“Dear, dear, Mrs Aitch. Well we won’t make an international incident of it, will we?”
Mrs Harper sniffs. “’Urry up with your porridge, as the bacon and eggs’ll get cold,” is all she says.
If you had walked past the vicarage while this interchange was going on and carried on down to the corner of the road and turned left, you might have entered a pretty crescent called Hallows Mead. If you’d carried on walking along this crescent, you would have eventually found yourself outside a very odd-looking dwelling called Appleby Cottage.
Its strangeness is mainly due to its lop-sided appearance, as if the builder was very drunk when he erected it, or the cottage itself has been squashed on one side by a large object from outer space. The windows are poky but sparklingly clean, as are the white net curtains hanging in them. But the most notable thing about the structure is its virtual invisibility to the naked eye. Indeed, if you were standing right outside it, you would need to look more than once to see that it is there at all.
This humble dwelling belongs to two equally strange and lopsided females. Vesna and Elvira Rowan are somewhat advanced in years and, like their squat, almost hidden home, keep themselves very much to themselves. However, far from leaving them alone, the local gossips are intrigued by their unintentional air of mystery. What have they got to hide? It is obvious, of course: they are witches. With names like Vesna and Elvira, coupled with the surname of Rowan, what else can they be?
So, the legend has grown up around them. It doesn’t help their case that both women look like witches. As far as the locals are concerned, they only need pointy hats and warts to confirm their witch status. These they don’t have, but they dispense herbal remedies to those people gullible enough to believe in their efficacy. They are harmless infusions for the most part, but to those who take them, they are magic potions, easing their rheumatism or headaches like no preparatory medicines can. Most people, therefore, conclude they are right in their assumption that they are witches, the only doubt being whether they are white ones or black ones.
The sisters have shared the funny little cottage in Hallows Mead since just after the Great War when, as two sprightly twenty-somethings, they moved into the district from, again according to more local gossip, ‘somewhere foreign’. Mrs Harper has often complained to Lucy Carter, the woman who serves as housekeeper to the local doctor, Robbie MacTavish, that they shouldn’t be bringing their arty-farty foreign ways to the neighbourhood. Where will it all end? she asks. Will they be eating snails and dancing the fandango before long? Lucy shares the older woman’s reservations about dodgy foreign ways.
But let us leave them to their gossip now and continue along Hallows Mead Crescent to the corner, cross over into Balaclava Terrace and turn left at the junction with Crimea Terrace into Marlborough Street. Just along on the right you’ll see a friendly-looking house with a brass plate on the gate announcing, ‘Doctor’s Surgery’. This is where the local GP, Robbie MacTavish, sees his patients and, on the floor above, has his living quarters.
Robbie is a close friend of Bernard Paltoquet, the vicar we have already met. They have known each other for about six years, when both parties first moved into Wandsworth. Inseparable almost from day one, Robbie and Bernard can be found most evenings ensconced in the vicarage study, playing chess, smoking their pipes and imbibing whiskey, should you have need to contact them for anything during those hours.
So, we have come more or less full circle and are back on the Common. When we passed by a short while ago, the body of the unknown young girl had yet to be discovered, but now there is a mass of people, among them, no doubt, all the gossips already mentioned. They are eagerly watching events unfold behind the blue police tape.
A makeshift tent has been erected to conceal the body from the public gaze. Inspector Philip Craddock and his oppo, Sergeant Brian Rathbone, are standing inside. The older man, Craddock, is now bending down and looking closely at the congealing wound in the girl’s stomach, but the weapon which had inflicted it is nowhere to be seen. It is a case of cold-blooded murder.
PART ONE
The First World War and After
Chapter One
Vesna Rowan stared out of the window. Her tiny garret room overlooked a pleasant, well laid-out park. It was a sight she usually found uplifting, but today she just sighed as she surveyed the scene, cupping her hand under her chin. It had been a hot and sunny summer, and she had enjoyed her stay in Rouen, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. She had just found out that her fiancé had been shot as a deserter, many months after she had tried to trace his whereabouts at the end of the War. When everyone else had come home, all those brave boys who had managed to climb out of the trenches still alive, Vesna had received no news of her fiancé, Private Rodney Purbright. Then the letter from the War Office had finally arrived.
Her older sister, Elvira, wasn’t so upset by the news. In fact, she almost welcomed it. She had never liked the man, and she was sure he was a coward. After all, hadn’t he deliberately shot himself in the foot a
t the beginning of the War, hoping not to be sent back after recuperation? Vesna had protested vehemently at this. How dare she presume he had shot himself on purpose? There was absolutely no foundation for saying such a thing. Plain-faced Elvira was only jealous because pretty Vesna had a fiancé and she hadn’t. At least, that was how Vesna saw it.
The last Vesna had heard of him had been in France in 1917, and so she and her somewhat reluctant sister had spent the last eighteen months in that country trying to trace him. But now that the War Office telegram had reached them, there was no reason to stay. Vesna’s dream of finding her poor young man in some French hospital, identity unknown, was dashed. Her sister had been right, after all. He had been a coward all along. But he was so handsome, so how could he be?
“Come on, Vessie, we can’t stay here much longer, can we?” Elvira had said. “We need to work. Our money won’t last more than another couple of weeks.”
Vesna had had to agree. She turned from the window now and glared at her sister as she entered the room.
“I’ve been thinking, love. I like it here. Maybe I could stay. Get a job,” she said. “You can go back, if you want.”
“I don’t want to go back without you,” said Elvira sullenly. “Besides, what work could you do here? You hardly speak the language, as it is.”
“I speak it better than you,” declared Vesna. “That nice man at the hotel offered me a job as a chambermaid the other day.”
Elvira smirked. “You? Work as a chambermaid? Clear up after other people? That’s a laugh. I’ve cleared up after you all your life. Since Mum died, anyway. When did you ever lift a finger?”
“You’re just a bloody bore,” replied Vesna. “The times you tell me that. Why should I be grateful for doing what any loving sister would do? I can’t go on being beholden to you forever.”
“I don’t expect you to. I just expect you to be kind and considerate to me sometimes, that’s all.”
Elvira tried not to let her vain sister see how she had upset her. Yet again. She bit her lip as she felt tears smarting behind her eyes. Vesna just stared at her with contempt.
“You hated me having a boyfriend, didn’t you? You resented my good fortune from the beginning. You were just jealous, and you did everything you could to thwart us. He was handsome, and he loved me, and you couldn’t stand that, could you?”
Elvira looked down at the well-worn carpet. She knew in her heart of hearts that what her sister was saying was all too true. After all, her vivacious younger sibling had all the advantages she hadn’t. What would become of her if Vesna got married and left her alone? She wasn’t pretty enough to find a man of her own. It was fear of being alone that was driving her. Jealousy came into it, of course, but being alone worried her much more
She cleared her throat. “Look, Vessie, I don’t want to argue with you. I’m sorry you feel like that. I – I only want you to be happy. But I want to be happy too. Don’t I have a right?”
“Of course, but making me unhappy isn’t the way to do it.”
“Of course it isn’t. I just want us to be together, like always. I don’t want you to – leave me.” Elvira admitted it at last and watched the expression on her sister’s face.
“So that’s it!” she exclaimed. “I thought as much.” Her tone softened a little. “But, Elvie, I can’t always think about you, can I? If a man wants to marry me, should I turn him down because you don’t want to be alone? After all, you could get married too.”
“You know that’s impossible,” said Elvira, turning from her sister and walking towards the door. “I have as much chance of getting married as flying to the moon. Have you noticed the men beating a path to my door? Well, then. Anyway, what’s this about a ‘nice man at the hotel’? What man? What hotel?”
Vesna drummed her fingers nonchalantly on the window sill. The sky had clouded over, and a few drops of rain had begun to fall.
“Oh, didn’t I mention him before? He’s the manager of l’Hôtel Grande Illusion in Sainte Michel Boulevard. I bumped into him when I was walking past one day last week, which made me drop my shopping. He helped me pick it up.”
“I’m sure he did,” said Elvira with just a hint of sarcasm in her tone. “So, what happened then? He offered you a job on the spot, I suppose?”
“Of course not! He asked me to tea in the hotel and we got talking. He asked me what my plans were and whether I would be staying long in Rouen.”
“I see. So, what are you going to do?”
Vesna sighed. “Come home with you, of course,” she said finally.
Chapter Two
The Rowan sisters returned to England in September 1920. Vesna had wavered about remaining in Rouen right up until they got on the train but finally decided that England was probably best. However, she made it clear to Elvira that she wasn’t going back home to Bootle. After their mother’s death from breast cancer just after the war had started, their father had taken up with some floozie whom he’d met in the pub, probably even before she had died. Now, by all accounts, he had made it legal, and she was ensconced in the family home, and both sisters agreed it was no place for them anymore.
Vesna declared she could get a job anywhere and suggested that London would be the best place. Elvira was sceptical but didn’t much care where they went as long as they stayed together. So, after a protracted search for somewhere they could afford to live, they finally managed to secure a small cottage in the borough of Wandsworth at a reasonable rent.
Vesna soon found work in the local grocery store where her pretty face and friendly manner were well received by shop owner and customers alike. Meanwhile, Elvira stayed at home making the cottage as comfortable as she could for herself and her sister. Vesna paid the rent, so Elvira did the housework and the cooking. It was an arrangement that suited Vesna very well, but her plain, older sibling wasn’t so happy. She wanted to be out in the world earning a living just like her sister. Instead, she was doomed to be tied to the home doing the housework and waiting on Vesna hand and foot. Elvira was sick and tired of it all.
The death of her fiancé had been a blow to Vesna, but she had soon recovered from it. Her blonde vivaciousness had caused a stir among the local menfolk, and she found herself the centre of much attention from them. Not so poor Elvira, whose dark, gaunt and lowering looks put them off straightaway. And, as they only ever saw her when in the company of her much prettier sister, the contrast was more obvious. She had long since given up all hope of marriage and having a family. Her sister was her only family now, but it was a bitter pill for her to swallow.
“Look, dear,” she said to her sister on one of the rare evenings when Vesna wasn’t going out with one of her beaux, “I need to do something more than just stay at home cooking and cleaning for you.”
Vesna looked at her sister’s sulky face and shrugged. “It’s not just for me, though, is it? You have to eat as well, and I provide the means to do that as well as give us a roof over our heads.”
There was no denying that, of course. “I know, love, but I need to do something more. I need to get out and meet people too.”
“Well, what do you suggest? If I get married, you won’t have to worry about me anymore, and then you can do what you like.”
“But I won’t have any money coming in, will I?”
“Then you can get a job, can’t you?”
“But I’m not fit for anything, Vessie, you know that. I’m not exactly popular, am I? And men don’t like me.”
“You should make more of an effort,” said Vesna sharply, who had been reading the latest novel from Boots’ lending library and was resenting the interruption. It was a lovely story about forbidden passion and a little risqué in places. Right up her street.
“How? What do you suggest? You got all the looks and personality.”
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Vesna, putting down her book at last and getting up to pace the room. “You’re not that bad looking if you’d only use a bit of rouge a
nd some lipstick. You don’t make the most of yourself.”
“Perhaps I don’t, but I can’t compete with you.”
“Well, no, I admit that I’m much better looking than you,” said Vesna, giving her an appraising look. “But women much plainer than you get married all the time. After all, most men out there aren’t oil paintings either.”
Elvira smiled grimly at this. It had never ceased to annoy her that, no matter how unprepossessing a man was, he would always assume he could chat up the prettiest girls and ignore the plainer ones. And it often worked. There were a lot of ugly men walking about with beautiful women on their arms, and it wasn’t always just because they were rich.
“Anyway, Vessie, I’ve been thinking. You know those old herbal remedies that Granny left us the receipts of?”
“Those old things? I’ve no idea where they are,” said Vesna.
“I do. I was wondering if I could make them up and open a little shop to sell them. What do you think?”
“That sounds a bit bonkers to me, Elvie love.”
“I don’t see why. If you could lend me the rent on a little shop, I’d soon be able to pay you back once I start selling the remedies. You must remember how good they were. They always seemed to work on us. Whenever we had an ache or a pain, Granny had a cure. I’m sure I could make a living out of them.”
Vesna came and sat down next to her sister on the sofa and took her hand. “Dear old Elvie, you’re mad but I love you.”
“So, you don’t think it’s a good idea then?”
Vesna looked serious for a moment. “No, I’m not saying that. I don’t honestly know. But, if that’s what you want to do, then you should do it. I’ll give you the money to set it up and if you make any profit, perhaps we can share it?”
