The Witches of Wandsworth

by Pat Herbert

  His dream still held him in its grip and suddenly he was holed up in a filthy trench dug out of French soil, along with some fresh-faced lads who weren’t singing It’s a Long Way to Tipperary anymore. Looking around him, he could feel his insides turn to water. Not again. He couldn’t go through all this again. He had had this nightmare many times before; the bullets and grenades falling thick and fast into his trench. He could hear his commanding officer yelling at him and all the others to go ‘over the top’.

  Suddenly it was all too much for him, just like it had been in reality. He let out a yell, clambered out of the trench and made a desperate dash for it. He didn’t know where he was going and made no attempt to fire his rifle at the enemy. He just ran and ran, dodging missiles, until he stumbled over the bodies of some dead soldiers. He couldn’t tell if they were German or English as it was pitch dark. Then his hand came into contact with something metal hard and he knew they were Germans. He closed his eyes as he pulled the helmet off one of the dead men’s head.

  “Right, Purbright. On your feet.”

  He struggled to open his eyes, wishing the nightmare would end. It had always ended here before, but the sun was streaming down on the dead bodies around him as it relentlessly continued. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, staring at the boots of an English officer. His own commanding officer had found him. He lost the contents of his bladder as he stumbled to his feet and found himself being manhandled by two other soldiers.

  “That’s right, men. Truss him up like a chicken and don’t leave his side for an instant. Be like a mother to him.”

  The two young privates tied his hands behind his back and pushed him towards a waiting wagon.

  “Get him out of here,” yelled the commanding officer. “I only hope we don’t waste time on his court martial – if you get my meaning.”

  So, they were going to shoot him like a dog, were they? They had tried that once before. But it took more than two mere bits of boys to get the better of Rodney Purbright. He almost purred in his sleep. He was enjoying his dream now.

  He was in the back of the wagon, sitting between the two men who had been told, in no uncertain terms, to dispose of him. It would be a cold day in hell before he’d let them do that. He weighed them up physically. One of them was thin but wiry; the other was well over six feet tall and broad shouldered with it. He would be difficult to overpower, that was certain. Then there was the man in charge of the wagon. He looked the toughest of them all.

  As he sized him up, the man looked over his shoulder at him. “You’re a bastard, aren’t you?” he said, not expecting a reply. “Here we are, up to our necks in muck and bullets, and you decide to bugger off and leave us to it. I hope you don’t expect any mercy from us, Purbright. By rights, we should be taking you back to HQ to stand trial but, quite frankly, we can’t be arsed.”

  One of his two escorts, the thin and wiry one, fumbled in his tunic and pulled out a squashed packet of cigarettes. Rodney was surprised when he pulled out a dog end and, lighting it with a match struck on the heel of his boot, handed it to him.

  “Here,” he said quietly. “Not much left, I’m afraid, but you’re welcome to it.”

  He accepted the fag eagerly, calculating how he could get this man to help him escape. By this kind gesture, it looked as if he was on his side. If he could persuade him to release his hands, between the two of them they could overpower the other men.

  The kind young soldier now addressed the driver. “Just shut your mouth, Dick,” he said. “This man’s just scared – like all of us.”

  The driver grimaced and then spat, whipping the poor mule pulling the wagon within an inch of its wretched life. “Yeah, but we don’t all run away, do we?”

  Rodney remembered feeling humiliated throughout that drive. He tried to wake up, but his eyelids wouldn’t move. Back in the hell he was forced to relive, there had come the turning point. Just as it had that day.

  “I need a piss,” he said suddenly.

  “Well, you’ll just have to tie a knot in it. Or go in your trousers,” came the reply from the driver. “Although you’ve probably done that already, anyway.”

  “Don’t be such a heartless beast,” protested Rodney’s young protector. “Stop the truck.”

  The older man raised his bushy eyebrows heavenwards. “For God’s sake, you a fool or what?” He pulled on the mule’s reins and the beast came to a grinding halt, snorting with relief.

  “Let the man have a bit of dignity,” insisted the young soldier, his companion now agreeing with him. “We’ll both take him, if you like. Make sure he doesn’t get away.”

  “You’ll have to untie his hands, so watch it,” grumbled the wagon driver. “I don’t suppose either of you want to hold it for him.”

  Rodney was helped down out of the wagon by his escorts. When his hands were untied, he rubbed his wrists gratefully, feeling the circulation slowly returning. He stumbled between the two men, thinking furiously. It was now or never.

  Then it had been a matter of seconds for Rodney to shoot one of his escorts.

  “What have you done?” The young soldier who had been so kind to him was glaring at him now. “How did you do that? One minute he was standing there with the gun, the next you had it in your hands and shot him with it. I can’t understand how you did that.”

  “No?” smirked Rodney. “The quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Now, hand over your rifle.”

  Meekly, the young man obeyed, and Rodney pointed the weapon at the driver’s head. He died instantly as a bullet seared his brain.

  With two of them dead, Rodney turned to the young Tommy who had shown him such compassion. He felt no answering compassion as he finished him off. After all, he had been ordered to kill him and he was obliged to carry out that order, fag or no fag. He knelt down and fumbled through his tunic for his identity papers. He removed his own papers and placed them in the dead man’s pocket. He checked his other pockets for anything else that might suggest he wasn’t who the papers now said he was, but the only thing he found was a small, creased photograph of a pretty blonde holding a baby. He screwed it up and threw it on the ground.

  Quickly shovelling some earth over the bodies, he took one of the soldiers’ rifles and headed back to the waiting wagon. He stroked the poor mule gently and climbed up onto the driving seat. At the click of Rodney’s tongue, the mule at once started trotting slowly towards the nearest town. The sun was rising over the sparse, war-torn fields. It was going to be a warm day.

  The sweat poured off him as the image faded. He slumped back on his pillow, slowly becoming aware that the gun digging into his brain was no longer part of his dream.

  Chapter Ten

  Vesna Rowan stared at the slumbering form of Rodney Purbright illuminated by the full moon through the small lattice window, now stripped of its lace curtains.

  The gun was heavier than she expected, and her hand trembled as she held it. She turned it over, studying it carefully by the moon’s rays, hoping the safety catch was on. Her knowledge of modern weaponry was practically non-existent.

  She forced herself to concentrate on what she had to do, and the fear her intended target could wake up at any minute spurred her on. She prayed the gun was loaded, not wanting to hesitate longer than necessary by checking the chamber. Just point the thing, she told herself.

  She looked around for something soft to put over his face. She didn’t dare risk waking him by removing one of the pillows under his head and didn’t want to lose any more time by retrieving a pillow from her own bed. Cursing herself for not having the foresight to bring a pillow with her, she was relieved to see he hadn’t discarded the lacy cushion on the club chair in the corner.

  Clasping the cushion to her breast, she eased herself up to the bed again and very gently placed it over his sleeping face. Shaking with fear and adrenalin, she pointed the gun at the cushion and squeezed the trigger. There was a muffled explosion and it was all over. The smashed and bloody face of her form
er fiancé was revealed as she removed the pillow. His cold, staring eyes looked accusingly at her through a pile of feathers.

  

  The following morning, the snow was falling thick and fast, battering the windows of the tiny, lopsided cottage. Vesna, who hadn’t been able to sleep all night, was at the kitchen table when Elvira strode into the room to make the breakfast.

  “Vesna!” she exclaimed, filling the kettle. “You’re not usually up this early. I wondered where you were when I woke. Couldn’t you sleep? Perhaps you need one of Gran’s receipts.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Vesna, eyeing her nervously. “I couldn’t sleep for a very good reason.”

  “Oh?” said Elvira, not really interested. “Well, now you’re up, you can help me set the table. I suppose we’ll have to take ‘his majesty’ his breakfast as usual.”

  “No, Elvie. Not today,” said Vesna, looking sheepish. “Nor any other day, either.”

  “What do you mean?” Elvira dried her hands on a tea towel and took some eggs from the larder. “I suppose I’ll have to do them sunny side up. He always complains if I don’t.” Turning from the larder, eggs in hand, she studied her pretty sister’s somewhat flushed face gravely. “What’s going on, Vessie? What are you trying to say?”

  Elvira came and sat down at the table beside her sister, who was now shaking like a leaf. Suddenly she burst into tears, tears she had stored up for the past two weeks, ever since Rodney Purbright’s unwelcome return.

  “Oh my God, Vessie – you haven’t? Please tell me you haven’t done anything silly.”

  “I have,” she wailed. “I couldn’t stand it any longer. I won’t get you involved, I promise. Except I’ve got a body to get rid of, and you’re the only one I can trust to help me and not shop me to the police.”

  Elvira tried to take in what her sister was saying. “But how? How on earth did you manage to do it?”

  “I – I shot him when he was asleep. With his own gun. I put several of those herbal sleeping powders into his cocoa, like I said, and, well, he didn’t wake up, and I – I shot him.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” was Elvira’s next question. If the deed was done, there was no point in holding a post mortem now. Dead was dead in anyone’s language.

  “Of course I’m sure. I blew half his face off. It was horrible.”

  Elvira shuddered. “Oh Vessie, you poor, brave, stupid fool.”

  “You are going to help me, aren’t you?” Vesna was scared now, her sister looked so disapproving and fierce.

  “Don’t be silly, Vessie, of course I am. We’re blood, we’re family. I’m going to help you. Just let me think for a moment.”

  She returned to the larder and put the eggs back in the hideous china hen-shaped container. Sitting down again, she took her hand in an uncustomary gesture of love and solidarity. “We could put him under the rose bushes like you suggested…” she began.

  “Yes, we could, couldn’t we?” Vesna’s face brightened through her tears.

  

  A solitary owl hooted as a cold, pale moon stared down into the little front garden of Appleby cottage. It was two o’clock in the morning and, apart from the owl who flapped its wings occasionally, nothing stirred. The frost glinted on the grass as the Rowan sisters carried a large and extremely heavy roll of carpet out of the front door.

  They looked up and down the crescent as they put down their burden and straightened their aching backs. It had been a mammoth task for the small-boned women to lift the dead weight of Rodney Purbright off the bed and roll him up in the carpet. It had taken them the best part of two hours to do it, and a further half-an-hour to manoeuvre him down the stairs.

  They stood in the front garden, waiting and listening. Not a sound. Not a single noise disturbed the still night. The leaves had long since fallen from the trees, so not even the rustle of foliage could be heard. Even the owl was quiet now. They looked at each other and then embraced for a few brief seconds. No words passed their lips. No words were necessary. This night would be one they would never forget.

  The ground was rock hard as Elvira started to dig vigorously beneath the rose bushes. Vesna, meanwhile, put on the kettle in preparation for the warming cups of tea that would inevitably be needed as the night progressed. It had been agreed that Elvira, being the taller and stronger of the two, should do most of the spadework, with Vesna taking over when she was too exhausted to continue.

  So, the weary hours passed, and it wasn’t until nearly five o’clock before there was a hole deep enough to put the body in. Vesna remembered how she had loved the fact her fiancé was such a fine, tall, strapping young man; now she wished with all her heart he had been a midget.

  But the work was done at last, and all that remained was to shovel the earth back over the body. Just in time, they remembered to bury the gun with it. Soon all was as before, the ground just looking well dug beneath the rose bushes. Nothing untoward could be seen and it was, thankfully, still pitch dark. Soon, they knew, the first stragglers of the morning would start to wander down the crescent. For them it would be just another working day.

  Exhausted, they climbed the stairs to their shared bedroom. Although Elvira’s room was now unoccupied, she had no intention of sleeping in there again until she had changed the sheets and fumigated the room thoroughly. And, she thought with grim satisfaction, put back the lace curtains.

  Both sisters were soon plunged into a deep sleep, until the noise of the paper boy whistling, the clatter of milk bottles and the rattle of the letterbox two hours later brought Elvira to alert wakefulness. Vesna stirred but didn’t wake.

  Elvira, lying beside her, tried to get back to sleep but it eluded her now. Every bone in her body was crying out for some soothing liniment so, giving up the struggle, and careful not to disturb her sister, she rose and went to the window. She stared down at the newly dug earth beneath the rose bushes and gave an involuntary shudder. Only they knew what was buried under them, thank goodness. Wrapping her candlewick dressing gown around her thin frame, she crept down to the kitchen to make some breakfast. The physical energy she had expended had made her ravenous.

  Frying some eggs and bread, she relived in her mind the events of the night before. She reflected that, despite the horror of the enterprise they had just undertaken, it had brought about a kind of rapprochement between her and Vesna. They had never been particularly close but helping to dispose of Rodney Purbright’s remains had given her an advantage she had never had before. Vesna needed her on side; needed to ensure her continued loyalty.

  She turned over the eggs with an expert flick of the spatula. Their relationship would be on a completely different footing from now on. Vesna would no longer have the upper hand. She would have to treat her with respect instead of doing her down like she usually did. Elvira smiled as she dished out the eggs and fried bread. There would be some changes made around here now.

  As she sat on at the kitchen table, eating her well-earned breakfast, she noticed that the room had grown markedly colder, even though the fire in the range was burning fiercely. She hugged the shawl around her shoulders and shivered. It was going to be a hard winter.

  Chapter Eleven

  It had been nearly eight months since the Rowan sisters had been bothered by the presence of the living Rodney Purbright. The dead version had been under the rose bushes in the front garden of little Appleby Cottage for all that time, and the blooms which had resulted were the talk of the neighbourhood. Their scent had not only filled the cottage’s garden, but most of the crescent as well. Clevedon Powell, a retired colonel who had recently moved into Hallows Mead Crescent a few doors down from the Rowans, was envious of those roses. He leaned over the front gate at Elvira one evening, demanding to know “how the hell she did it”. Of course, Elvira didn’t tell him the real reason for the splendid blooms, but simply smiled enigmatically and echoed a comment she had heard on a recent gardening programme on the wireless. “The answer, Colonel, lies in the
soil.” This had sent him into a fuming rage as he trudged back to his home and glared at his own poor specimens. Their soil must be the same as his, so why weren’t they benefiting from it, too?

  But, although the Appleby Cottage roses continued to bloom and make the garden look and smell glorious, inside the cottage it was a different story altogether. Elvira couldn’t account for the constant coldness in the place and, even in the middle of one of the hottest Augusts on record, she was forced to wear thick cardigans and woolly socks when indoors.

  For Vesna, it was even worse. She felt the cold just as much as her sister, but she also felt a ‘presence’ she couldn’t quite describe. One evening in late September she couldn’t stand it any longer. There was something preying on her mind and now, she decided, was as good a time as any to get it out in the open. She looked across at her sister who was busily writing up herbal receipts on a new card index system. After watching her for several minutes, she finally let out a scream.

  “Can’t you stop that pen from scratching?” she cried. “It’s putting my teeth on edge.”

  Elvira looked up in surprise. She blotted the card she had been writing so diligently and gently blew on it.

  “Sorry, Vessie,” she said mildly, “I’ll go into the kitchen to finish these off if it bothers you that much.”

  “Oh, stop being so reasonable, Elvie,” snapped Vesna. “Stay where you are. I’ve got something to tell you, anyhow.”

  “Oh?” Elvira took another card from the pack and dipped her pen into the inkpot.

  “I can’t stand living here any longer,” she said. “I’m going away…”

  This made Elvira drop her pen, spilling the ink from the nib onto her white blouse. “Going away?” The thought of her lively sister not being there made her suddenly panic.