‘Very well,’ Dowling replied, before I could debate the point further, ‘but what of the key?’
The rector looked at us both with a slightly guilty expression. ‘You should know that I lost a servant three days ago, a poor, mean, dishonest young man who I would be rid of anyway. He departed without a word. Strange that he should leave about the same time the key is taken from my desk.’
God save my pickled soul! This was too much to bear! ‘It isn’t strange at all,’ I said slowly through gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps now we can dispense with all this talk of popery and witches. What’s his name and where does he live?’
The rector observed me thoughtfully before picking up his quill and writing. ‘His name is Simpson and he lives in a tenement near to St Martin’s. If any one of my servants took that key – it was he.’ He wrote some more. ‘And here is the name and abode of the woman that I suspect of witchery. If you do not pursue her then I will find others that will.’
‘Sir,’ I spoke carefully, ‘we visited your church yesterday, and examined it indoors and outdoors. We saw no evidence of witchery, no markings, no herbs or smells or concoctions. You should pay heed afore you accuse an old woman of witchery. Should you send one of your parish to the secular court only because you did not aid them when they demanded it, and they in turn went wanting, then we should take a personal interest and make full use of the Mayor’s influences. In this age, as you said yourself, there are many folks not to be intimidated by the word of the Church.’
The rector’s big eyes glistened. ‘Yea,’ he muttered, ‘but then you know little of witchery. Perhaps I should not raise the issue with you at all, but seek an audience with the Lord Chief Justice.’
Dowling coughed. ‘There is no need for that, good sir. We will find the woman. You in turn, sir, I think should be less hasty. You may be a great man. Certainly it would be a pity to be a small man with such a great head.’ Dowling gestured to all of the books. Indeed it was true – he did have an extremely large head.
The rector’s cheeks turned bright red and he clasped his fingers together just below his nose. ‘I read you and take you, Mr Dowling. Maybe I was not so much in need of your wise words as you would think. Meantime I hope you will indeed proceed hastily, for the sake of my parish, and I will do what I need to do, and I will thank you not to tell me how to go about my job.’
‘Aye sir, thank you, sir. We should take our leave now,’ Dowling exclaimed abruptly before seizing me by the arm and pulling me roughly. Though I was much offended I let myself be led. The rector waved a hand, dismissively. We hurried out the house and back onto Fleet Street.
‘You would remove one of my arms?’ I demanded, straightening my coat sleeve and checking that he had neither stretched the cloth nor left a print on it.
‘I know that man by reputation. Clergy can be dangerous, and the time was right to leave.’ He patted me on the shoulder like a puppy and looked up at the sky. ‘We must find this witch!’ he called, striding out ahead.
If you have the sense that you were born with, then you will have understood by now that neither Dowling nor I believed for a moment that a witch killed Anne Giles. I am intelligent and educated and the butcher can read and write. But it says in Exodus, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. So if there are no such things as witches, then why does the Bible say so? The answer of course is that the Bible is both extremely long and very badly written; such that you can find in its pages whatever message you seek. This is not an argument worth pursuing in public, however, unless you are inclined to lose your liberty, selected pieces of your body or even your life. So we went to find the woman, whose name was Mary Bedford, on Fleet Street, to save her the role of rector’s scapegoat. This was a gallant deed that made me feel unusually worthy.
We walked the streets towards the west, for the City had choked up already, such that walking was the quickest mode of transport available. Dowling strode down the middle of the road by himself, oblivious to the evil broth that splashed about his legs, body and ears, while I trod the higher ground with those that knew the difference between man and dog. So it was that he crossed the bridge at Fleet Ditch before me, the filthy stream that served the slums of Alsatia and Bridewell.
Tiny, dark, airless alleys branched off Fleet Street like dead twigs, every one of them a choking rotten tributary of streaming slops that crept slowly down to the river. Most of the ramshackle buildings were built of wooden planks nailed to posts, covered with pitch and roofed with rough tiles. The only warmth in those hovels was generated from the bodies of those that lived there, nested together many to a room, like rats in a nest. The stink was the foulest stink in the whole of England, a poisonous cloud fed by the soap makers, dye houses, slaughterhouses and tanneries. The curing pits of the tanneries nestled alongside the outside of the city walls and were full of dog shit, a key ingredient in the tanning process.
The house that Mary Bedford lived in was tiny and unsteady, tucked in at the top of one of the foul alleyways just behind the much grander half-timbered houses of Fleet Street. It was closed up and the door was shut.
Dowling looked at me and shrugged, his mind back at his shop I reckoned, but given the rector’s ramblings about witchery we were committed to make greater efforts to find her, fearful of what might become of her were others to discover her whereabouts first.
The first house we tried was a large family house on Fleet Street. We didn’t hold out much hope of getting sense from the master of the house, for what man of standing would admit to noticing a poor wretch of a woman that sold meats on the street? But we hoped to find out something from the servants. The one that opened the door stared at us uncomprehending and unspeaking, even after we had explained our objective three times, ever slower and clearer. Finally he shook his head in bewilderment and wandered off into the house to find someone else. An imbecile. London was full of them – they came in from the villages, like Dowling. A short time later he returned, accompanied by a middle-aged woman wearing a coarse brown dress and white apron, with a white hood tied around her head. Her face was ruddy and rough, her expression impatient and puzzled. Another imbecile. She listened to Dowling’s questions, mouth agape and hands on her hips. Then she closed the doors in our faces. Washing day, as Dowling pointed out brightly.
We moved on to the next house and another street full after that.
‘Good morning to you.’ A grizzled face looked out through a ground floor window, a man maybe forty years old with a thick welt on his nose and one eye missing. Dowling recited his introduction for perhaps the twentieth time while I stood with my hands in my pockets. It was past lunchtime and my stomach wailed pitifully. The man leant on the sill with his arms crossed, chewing the inside of his cheek, apparently in the mood for a conversation.
‘Aye, I know Mary Bedford, Old Mary. Known her since she was a child.’
‘Have you seen her today?’ I demanded, astounded.
‘Not today. But she’ll be around.’
‘Around where?’
‘Somewhere.’
‘You know why she doesn’t go to church any more?’ Dowling probed.
The man nodded. ‘Same reason I don’t go no more. She asked to be put on the pensions list after she couldn’t stand her giddiness no more, but the new man told her she was lazy. She was ashamed. I had to tell her not to pay no heed, but she’s afeared to go back. Meantime she has to sell meats or else starve. If she’s not been home, then likely she’s lying on her face in a gutter somewhere. She’s too ill to be out working.’
‘Where does she sell?’
‘She won’t be far away, doesn’t like to wander. Shy of strangers too.’ His eyes were suspicious. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘We want to make sure she’s safe,’ I replied. The man shook his head and emitted a sorrowful cackle before closing the window. Dowling tutted sorrowfully, sighed and walked off.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked the back of his head.
He tur
ned to regard me solemnly. ‘The notion that a man wearing your fine clothes is likely to have an interest in the fate of one such as Mary Bedford is not to be believed.’ One of his big dirty hands landed on one of my finely clothed shoulders. He was right, of course. I tried not to look too disappointed, hopeful that he would relieve me of his filthy great paw.
The next house to yield an answer was dark and unlit. All the windows were closed and there was a smell like liniment, sharp and acidic, with perhaps a hint of alcohol and fruit. The man that lived there was no less unattractive than the one we had just left, though he did have two eyes. His pupils were locked up tight like pinholes and the whites were covered with scabrous yellow patches. His nose was red and his eyes flowed. He twisted a piece of cloth between his fingers, which was clearly what he used to clean his nose. Poisonous green gases seeped from twixt his lips. He also knew ‘Old Mary’, but less intimately.
‘There’s some say she’s a witch,’ he told us through weeping eyes, in between sneezes. ‘She suckles the Devil, so it is said.’
‘Who says so?’ Dowling asked gently.
‘Folks,’ was the only reply we got, and nothing else of any use.
By seven o’clock that night we were practically in Whitefriars. Some people spoke to us but we learnt nothing new. Confirmation of her poor circumstances, more loose speculation as to whether or not she might be a witch. This was nothing very interesting, since all old women living by themselves elicited images of witchery in many folk’s minds. As darkness fell we made our final house call. A woman pushed open the top half of a door and stood there simpering. Her face, body and limbs were shrunken and wrinkled like an old, dry apricot. She smiled sweetly and broadly and her eyes shone bright. We’d spoken to a few like this, this endless afternoon.
‘Ye-es?’ The old lady smiled so broadly that her eyes threatened to pop right out. It was a frightening sight. A tiny spittle of saliva trickled down her chin that she did not seem to notice. Dowling started to describe Mary Bedford using information that we had gleaned from others that day.
‘Ye-es. Mary.’ Smiling and staring into Dowling’s eyes she nodded slowly. He didn’t seem to mind. Probably used to it, being a Scot.
‘Tell me about her.’
‘Mary is my frie-nd.’ She continued to smile and waved her head from side to side like a snake, paying us scant attention. She seemed more interested in the darkening sky above our heads. Then she suddenly announced, ‘She is a witch!’ She said it quietly, melodically, as if she was talking about the weather, as if she did not understand the import of her words, which I suppose she didn’t. At that Dowling relaxed, as if he had seen it coming all along. When I quizzed him afterwards he told me that in his unfortunate experience living in the country, witches were always accused in pairs, never alone. Whilst I had never heard it said before, it explained Dowling’s persistence that afternoon, and his excitement in finding this woman, for she was, he told me, ‘the sort’.
What followed then was deeply disturbing. She told us tales of the two of them suckling children with their old dry breasts. How they would change their forms at night and visit children that mocked them during the day in the form of great toads. They had the power to cause children to die if they were too wicked in their ways, she claimed. We shouldn’t worry too much about Mary Bedford, she assured us, since being denied her pension she had subjected herself to spells that enabled her to walk freely again. She talked of how they were able to play with men’s senses, remove and bestow at will hearing, sight and the use of limbs. And the more that she spoke, the more miserable I became. Not because of the words themselves, for I had no doubt that the woman was speaking nonsense. No, this was not my source of dread. What disturbed me was that I had heard these tales before, that they were in fact very well known. Two years before, two old women, Rose Cullender and Amy Denny, had been tried by the Lord Chief Justice himself, and were found guilty of witchery. The tales that this old woman was relating to us were clearly lifted from the account of their trial, which was printed and widely distributed and read. This old woman was clearly bucket-headed and weak minded, but her state of mind would be held as proof, not as grounds for dismissal. And so long as she was disposed to stand at her door and talk such nonsense to strangers such as us, both her life and the life of Mary Bedford were in very great danger should the rector take steps to pursue his theory. The Lord Chief Justice Keeling himself had tried the Lowestoft witches in his previous role as Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
At the end of it Dowling pressed five coins into her hands and pleaded with her that she say no more of witchery. She nodded her head, and smiled happily, but neither of us believed that the money would change her behaviour. We left Fleet Street that evening, with troubled minds and troubled hearts, though not before Dowling asked me to reimburse him the five coins.
As the weak winter light slowly faded and a bloody red sheen slid forward over the cobbles and stones, we finally hurried to the address that we had for John Simpson. But all we gained was a vague description of an ordinary-looking man. Simpson himself had left the premises and taken what belongings he had with him. We would have to find him too, but not that night. I headed home exhausted and anxious.
Jane waited for me in the hall, simmering and full of tension. Waving her hands at me and making signs, she shepherded me towards the door of my front room. Then she put her lips to my ear and hissed, ‘Get him out!’
I looked into her eyes, but saw no fear, so I pushed the door slowly open and entered the room. A strange little man stood looking about him at every article of furniture and detail. His manner matched his strange appearance, ponderous yet threatening, like a mangy dog that would soonest flee yet still sink its teeth into your throat should you block its passage. Even with his funny hat on, tall with a wide brim in the style that the Puritans used to wear some twenty years before, the man did not quite match even me in stature. Yet his legs were long like a rooster. Shiny black leather boots reached nearly up to his knees, and were so loose from his leg that I found myself wondering what would happen were I to pour water into them. The top of his head was covered with tightly curled hair; the bottom of it sprouted a pointy little beard. With one hand he carried a stick that was taller than he, a thick, twisted branch of wood, gnarled and black. Finally he looked me in the eye. Once he had it, he would not let it go, just stood there looking glum, staring.
‘You have not found Mary Bedford.’
What business was it of his? ‘Who are you?’
Blinking and frowning, he muttered something to himself, before looking at me with sad eyes and turned-down mouth. A look of pity. I should have been angry, but instead felt intimidated. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. ‘I am John Parsons. I was told that you are trying to find out who killed Anne Giles. Seems I was told false. I beg your pardon.’ He made as if to leave.
‘I am trying to find out who killed Anne Giles. What’s your business?’ As I spoke it suddenly occurred to me who the man might be. His old-fashioned Puritan dress, his mercenary aspect – all reminded me of the pictures I had seen and stories I had read of Matthew Hopkins and John Sterne. ‘You are a witchfinder,’ I exclaimed, horrified, making no attempt to disguise my contempt.
He had the temerity to smile modestly and bow his head. ‘If I don’t find her in one day, then you have my word that I will press no claim upon you for money. But I will find her.’
Matthew Hopkins died young, just twenty-five-years old. He came from Ipswich where he was a lawyer, a man of no reputation nor social standing. Yet before he died he managed to torture and kill more than two hundred poor folks, most of them women. He was a parasite that had fed upon the fears of the poor ignorants that lived in the countryside and the small towns. This man reminded me of him. He gave off a stinking malodour of the same horrible zealousness. A calm certainty exuded from his tiny body, my sharp words fell against him like leaves falling from a tree. My instinct was to be rid of him, but then what w
ould he do? Men like him demanded money for their services, yet it wasn’t money that drove them. They were conceited and proud, over sure of their own worth and righteousness. If I turned him away, I knew that he would market his services about the parish until he found one that would pay. So I tried to be clever. ‘How much money do you want?’
His steady gaze made me feel like he could read my mind and was challenging me to rebuke him. ‘We can agree the sum after I have apprehended the woman and tested her.’
‘Tested her? You mean watching, searching or swimming?’ I tried to hide the rising fear and loathing that this man was eliciting in my soul. Hopkins had forced his victims to sit on a stool in the middle of a room for days and nights on end. Witnesses would be told to watch for familiars sneaking out into the open to suck blood from the witch’s hidden extra nipple. Every witch had familiars. He would keep them seated on the stool until they were exhausted, driven half mad by lack of sleep. Then he would extract his confession. Or he would search them, strip them naked and search every part of their body, looking for the hidden nipple and for witch marks. Or he would bind their hands and feet and throw them into a river or pond. Men would push them down to the pond to see whether or not they would rise to the surface. If they rose they were dragged out and hung. If they sank, then they were innocent, but dead.
‘I will make that judgement based on what I see.’
I was angry enough now to return his black stare without trepidation. ‘I will pay you well, Mr Parsons,’ at which he nodded calmly and let his gaze drop, ‘if you follow my instructions, and proceed as I instruct you.’
Looking up he seemed surprised, as if to ask what could I possibly know about his gory trade. He snorted.
‘You will find her, and you may apprehend her, but you will do nothing else until talking to me. You will not test her, nor indeed do anything to her whatsoever, until I have visited and we have agreed what next to do, together. Is that acceptable to you, Mr Parsons?’
The Sweet Smell of Decay Page 3
