Wychwood

by George Mann

  She started with the wardrobe first, which had long ago been given over to storage, rather than clothes. It was heaped with boxes of old junk – soft toys, records, baby clothes, school exercise books. She didn’t know where to start. She rummaged around for a few minutes, shifting a couple of the boxes and moving things around to see what was inside them all, but none seemed to contain any books.

  She lost ten minutes to a dusty photo album she’d filled one summer when she’d been given a Polaroid camera for her birthday. She’d loved the way all the photographs had come out first as indecipherable blurs, and had slowly resolved in their white frames, becoming sharper with every passing second. It had seemed like magic, and she’d wasted cartridge after cartridge snapping pictures of her friends and family, which she’d glued into this book, scrawling little messages into the margins.

  Peter was in there, too – chubby in those days, with his mop of bright red hair, wandering about with his poetry books. He’d seemed so sophisticated at the age of fourteen, reading Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, carrying around a little reporter’s notebook in which he jotted down all of his observations. Thinking now, it made perfect sense that he’d go on to become a detective. She wondered if he still recorded his thoughts in iambic pentameter.

  She dropped the photo album back into the box, and stuffed it back into the wardrobe, careful not to place anything on top of the records. She’d look forward to sorting through those in the comings days, maybe hooking up the old turntable and giving some of them a spin. She’d never quite given up on vinyl in the same way she’d abandoned cassettes; she adored the warm crackle of dust, the fact you were forced to consume the album as a piece of art in its entirety, as the artist intended, unable to skip or fast forward or play everything through on a random shuffle. She and Andrew had assembled quite a collection back in London. That was going to take some sorting out, too. She sighed.

  The wardrobe door wouldn’t close properly, now that she’d disturbed Dorothy’s carefully arranged stacks. She left it hanging open and glanced around the room, wondering where else her mum might have secreted her old stuff. Under the bed was the most obvious option, particularly for a box of heavy books. She dropped to her knees and grabbed her phone off the bed, using the torch function to take a look. Sure enough, there were three boxes under there, nestled in a sea of dust. She reached under and grabbed one, sliding it towards her. It seemed to contain nothing but ancient school uniforms, wrapped in plastic bags. She shoved it back under and grabbed the next one.

  This time she knew she was in luck. The weight of the box made it difficult to drag out, and when she peered inside, she caught a glimpse of an armoured knight standing at the gates of a castle; the lurid watercolour on the front of one of her most fondly remembered books, Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.

  She pulled back the cardboard flaps and pulled it out, spluttering at a plume of disturbed dust. She was certain that somewhere inside this old tome there’d be another watercolour describing a similar scene to the one she’d seen that afternoon in the woods.

  Half an hour later she’d finished leafing through Le Morte D’Arthur, The Mabinogion, and a handful of illustrated histories of the Dark Ages. She’d found nothing that even resembled the picture she remembered, and was beginning to wonder if she’d simply imagined the whole thing. Ellie placed the books in a heap on the floor and leaned back against the bed.

  Her phone had buzzed a couple of times, and she glanced at the lock screen, seeing two messages from her friend, Abigail. She sounded worried. Elspeth thumbed the button and dashed off a quick response:

  Visiting Mum in Oxfordshire. All good. Speak

  soon. X.

  She hit send, and then tossed the phone back onto the bed.

  There were still a handful of books in the box. She put aside a gazetteer of Roman Britain and a book about the Celts. At the bottom of the box, buried beneath a never-opened textbook on the interpretation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, was an old book with a familiar cover. The title Myths and Legends of Oxfordshire was emblazoned on the front in bold yellow typeface. She remembered poring over it for endless hours as a girl of twelve, daydreaming about all the bizarre creatures and characters contained within, imagining they were real, and still living in the woods at the bottom of the garden amongst the ancient boughs of the Wychwood.

  She turned the pages slowly, smiling at the primitive illustrations of local pixies and dragons, ghostly spirits and doppelgangers. The book held almost as many memories as the album of Polaroids. But it wasn’t until she turned to the chapter entitled ‘The Carrion King of the Wychwood’ that she realised what she’d missed.

  There, on page fifty-six, was the picture she’d been looking for. It was a primitive woodcut of a woman laid upon a bed of leaves, a crown of thorns and roses upon her head. She was wearing a cloak of feathers, and above her head, seven crows circled in flight, their beaks parted as they called out, silent and still. Beneath the picture was the caption: THE KING’S CONSORT.

  Elspeth shuddered. She felt suddenly cold. There was something chilling about seeing the old picture like this, only hours after bearing witness to its very real, very visceral reconstruction. What was more, there were further, similar pictures in the same chapter, of other bizarre characters, including a man with antlers and an arrow in his chest, and another woman on her knees, as if in prayer, her lips sewn shut with twine.

  She knew at once that she had to show the book to Peter in the morning. It was growing late now, though, and she no longer had any idea where he lived, or how to contact him. The only thing she could do was read the chapter through in full, and then take it over to Heighton first thing in the morning and see if she could get hold of Peter at the station.

  Elspeth loaded all of the other books into the box, and then pushed it back beneath the bed. Then, after selecting an Angel Olsen song on her phone and dumping it on the nightstand, she propped up the pillows, tied up her still-damp hair and sank into bed with the book.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As a child he had practised on birds.

  He’d grown quite adept at it: finding just the right kind of smooth-sided pebble, fitting it to the pouch of a catapult he’d stashed in his secret place in the woods, choosing exactly the right target.

  He’d started with pigeons, but soon gravitated to magpies, and then ravens and crows. The bigger birds rarely died when they were struck by the stone, but were injured or stunned, making them easier to catch. He’d scoop them up with an old fishing net he’d stolen from another child’s back garden and find somewhere safe amongst the trees to hide. He’d turn them out from the bright green net and hold them in his cupped palms, thrilled at the terrified fluttering of their hearts, at the way their warm bodies shuddered as he wrung their necks; that final, juddering spasm of life.

  He’d never felt guilt. More a crushing sense of disappointment that it was over so quickly; that the creature had died so easily, that its grasp on life had seemed so tenuous. He’d known death – he’d seen it visited upon others – and he was constantly amazed by how quickly, how willingly, the living embraced it.

  It wasn’t so much a fascination with death that had inspired him to such acts, however, but more a need to understand how to control it, how to exert power over it. If the taking of a life was such a simple act, couldn’t the reverse be true, too?

  He’d experimented with rituals to stir the creatures back to life, to breathe vitality into their silent corpses, but of course, he had failed. Real power, he had learned much later, was far more difficult to attain, and his juvenile efforts had been naive, ignorant, misguided. There was a toll to pay for mastery over such things. Sacrifices to be made.

  Now, though, decades after his search had begun, he had found what he sought: the tools of his vengeance and the path to real power. He had pieced the rituals together from fragments, painstakingly interpreted every word, every symbol. Soon, he would put them to proper use. This was to be hi
s finest hour, the summation of his life’s work. All he had to do was tread the path that had been laid out. The process had already begun.

  The first two had been nothing, not really. The woman had nearly escaped, but once he’d caught her, it had been just like snuffing out another bird, holding her in his arms as she shuddered and died. He would be more careful next time, though. He couldn’t afford for them to get away.

  It wasn’t that he’d wanted to kill them, more that he had no choice. These were the sacrifices, steps along the path towards transcendence. Steps towards being reunited with the one he had lost.

  Out here, amongst the gnarled boughs of the Wychwood, he felt close to him, as if he could almost hear him whispering amongst the shushing of the leaves, urging him on. He would visit properly, soon. Tonight, however, he had a different task. Tonight he was here to watch.

  He peered into the mirror he had propped upon the stump of the tree, and felt nauseous at the sight of the woman preening, peering out through the silvered glass as though she were looking right back at him. She brushed her hair, smeared ointments and creams upon her aged flesh, and he noted it all, monitoring every moment of her nightly routine, aware of every deviation from the norm.

  This one was different from the others, so much more than a simple sacrifice. History had already chosen a far more terrible death for her. If he wished to follow in the master’s footsteps, then he had to free himself of those who had wronged him, destroy them through their own vanity. She would be the first.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Heighton was one of those idyllic Oxfordshire towns that still retained its turn-of-the-century charm. It boasted tree-lined avenues of Victorian villas, a market square with its weather-worn medieval cross, and a bustling high street filled with antique shops, bookshops, upscale furniture showrooms and bistros.

  Heighton had always been the destination when she’d been a child – a short bus ride from Wilsby-under-Wychwood, and a small taste of the wider world. Where Oxford had its obvious charms, it had always seemed a little removed from her life in Wilsby-under-Wychwood, and while she’d visited regularly with her parents, she’d only really got to know it as a teenager during cinema and bowling trips, and then later, on drunken nights with her friends from college. Because of this she’d never felt the same attachment to the city as she did to Heighton.

  She’d forged so many memories here, and while a lot of the fascia boards had changed in the last ten years, the streets and alleyways remained the same. The smell of the place, too: the fresh fruit and vegetables from the market, the stale beer as she walked past The Fletcher’s Arms, the rich aroma of steaming coffee and frying bacon from Lenny’s Café. She was pleased to see the big chain stores hadn’t moved in and overrun the place like they had in so many of the market towns around London.

  It was a dry, overcast day with a sharp chill in the air, so she’d borrowed one of her mum’s sweaters and grabbed a pair of jeans from her case. She’d had to scrape the mud from her boots, too, after the previous day’s endeavours. She’d tied her hair up and spent a little time making herself presentable – after being caught lurking in the woods, she wanted to at least make something of a reasonable impression on her old school friend, assuming, of course, that he was able and willing to see her.

  While the place might not have changed all that much, Peter clearly had. As a child he’d been plump and bookish, rarely engaging with the other boys, who’d passed their summers playing football or racing their bikes down the old, abandoned railway tracks. Peter had always preferred to climb a tree and sit amongst the branches with a tatty old paperback or comic, if and when he could be dragged away from his games console.

  Elspeth had been bookish too, but her mum had insisted on kicking her out of the house during the holidays, telling her the fresh air would do her good, that if she wasn’t careful the TV and games machines would give her square eyes. Together with Helen and Benedict – two other neighbourhood kids – she and Peter had spent these summer days wandering the woods, climbing trees and getting up to mischief.

  And now she’d met Peter again in that very same place, after all these years. She wondered what he’d make of her discovery. She wondered what he’d make of her.

  She considered all of this as she ambled up the incline towards the station. At least the walk would give her chance to stretch her muscles; her old single bed wasn’t quite as comfortable as she’d remembered.

  The police station was a squat, single-storey building at the top of the hill on the way out of town, with an old-fashioned blue lamp outside, and a clutch of ivy strangling the brickwork. It was opposite a small park, and close to a primary school. She could hear the children playing in the schoolyard, cheering and laughing and galumphing about.

  She was a little out of breath when she reached the top of the hill, so she stood for a moment in the car park, watching the traffic whizzing by. There were more cars than she remembered, too.

  Inside, a cadaverous-looking man sat behind the reception desk. He must only have been in his late fifties, but his face was lined and gaunt, his hair was thinning, and he had dark yellow stains on his fingers from years of nicotine addiction.

  There were two other people sitting in the waiting room – a middle-aged woman with a carrier bag full of shopping, and a young man in a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, listening to music on his phone. His foot tapped in time with the rhythm of whatever atrocious dance beat she could hear through his tinny in-ear headphones.

  “Can I help you, miss?”

  “Yes, I’m here to see DS Shaw. Peter Shaw.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” The man peered at her along his aquiline nose, narrowing his eyes.

  “No, I don’t have an appointment or anything. Just some information that I thought might be useful to him.”

  “Right then, miss. You can leave that with me if you like, and I’ll be sure that he gets it.” He opened a drawer and took out a notepad, then looked at her expectantly.

  Elspeth considered this for a moment, and then shook her head. She wasn’t supposed to know any of the details of the murder investigation. She didn’t want to get Peter into trouble for letting her leave the scene yesterday. “I’m sorry, but it’s rather… sensitive information. I should really speak directly to DS Shaw. If he’s not available at the moment I can come back later.”

  She heard voices as two men in suits came bustling into the station behind her, and turned to see Peter laughing with one of his colleagues – a man with a bushy black beard and smiling eyes. They were carrying takeout coffee cups from Lenny’s.

  When Peter caught sight of her, he clapped the other man on the shoulder and made his way over. The desk sergeant tutted somewhat indiscreetly, and put his notebook back in the drawer, turning his attention to the computer monitor on his desk.

  “Elspeth? Is everything okay?” Peter looked concerned, his brow furrowed. The surprise of bumping into her the previous day had clearly diminished, and he looked worried.

  Now that he was here, she felt a little foolish. They probably knew all of this stuff anyway – all she’d done was look something up in an old book, join a few dots. She felt her cheeks flush. “Yes. Everything’s fine.” She lowered her voice. “It’s about the murder. Or more specifically, about the body.” She caught the slight look of panic in his eyes, the fact he was glimpsing from side to side to make sure no one was listening. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure,” he said. He ran a hand over his stubbly chin. He clearly hadn’t shaved that morning. “Let’s step outside for a few minutes, shall we?” She nodded and followed him back out into the daylight. “Over there, in the park.” He indicated a bench with a tip of his coffee cup. They crossed the road.

  “It was good to see you yesterday, Ellie,” he said, dropping onto the bench. “I mean the circumstances were a bit unusual…”

  “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, and I
end up getting into trouble.”

  “Is that what’s going on with you? Is that why you’re back? You said you used to work for a newspaper…” He took a long swig from his coffee.

  “God, you are a policeman, aren’t you?” She laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Is it just a visit, to see your mum?”

  “No. I mean… maybe. I’m not really sure yet. It’s complicated. Let’s leave it at that.”

  He smiled. “But you’ve enough time on your hands to be helping me with my investigation?”

  “Looks like it.” She reached into her bag and took out the book. “Do you remember when we were kids, and I used to go on and on about all the Arthurian legends?”

  Peter laughed. “Yeah. I used to have to pretend to be Lancelot. All the time.”

  Elspeth felt her cheeks flush. “Yes, well. I went through a phase of being obsessed with different myths from the Dark Ages. My mum bought me this book. I must have been about twelve.” She handed it to him.

  “Myths and Legends of Oxfordshire?” he said.

  “Turn to page fifty-six.” She watched while he leafed through the pages. His eyes settled on the illustration, and widened. “Oh, God. That’s her. That’s Lucy Adams.”

  “The King’s Consort,” said Elspeth. “That’s why it seemed so familiar. Someone knows the story of the Carrion King of the Wychwood.”

  Peter looked up from the book for a moment. He was frowning again. “You’ll have to jog my memory, Ellie. This was all a long time ago.”

  “I read up on it last night. There’s tons of stuff online, too. He was a pagan magician, who was said to have lived in the Wychwood towards the end of the ninth century.”

  “Like a magical Robin Hood?”

  “Well, he lived in a forest, but was far less magnanimous. He declared himself a king and took in followers, forming a sort of primitive cult. There were five members of his court: The Confessor, The Master of the Hunt, The Master of the Pentacle, The Fool and—”