His Uncle Harry would never have noticed the difference, he thought, but the Witch Maker before him – Great-Uncle George – would have seen it right away. He found himself wishing his great-uncle was still around to advise him, but George, like so many Witch Makers of the past, had completed his life’s work and then simply faded away to an early grave.
When the barn door swung open, Wilf expected either his father or his sister to walk in. But it was neither of them. Rather, it was the big bugger from Whitebridge.
Woodend looked across at the young man, standing over the Witch with his chisel in his hand, and the expression of great concentration – and obvious artistic distress – on his face. He had expected to find Tom Dimdyke standing guard over the new Witch Maker, but luck was on his side for once, and the other man was absent.
‘Dad isn’t here,’ Wilf said curtly.
‘An’ why would you assume it’s him I want to talk to?’ Woodend asked mildly.
‘Well, because ...’
‘Because he is your dad? Because he’s the head of the family?’
‘I suppose so,’ Wilf said.
‘But you’re the head of the whole village, aren’t you?’ Woodend asked. ‘The monarch of all you survey?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Wilf said, sounding confused.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Woodend responded interestedly. ‘Why not?’
It was strange to be talking to this outsider, Wilf thought. Part of the strangeness, he supposed, came from the fact that he didn’t normally talk to any outsiders at all. But there was more to it than that. Woodend was the enemy – at least, that was how his dad saw the man – yet he seemed very kindly for an enemy. There had been no challenge in his questions, merely a curiosity. It was almost as if he really did want to understand what was going on in the village.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Woodend asked amiably.
‘No, I ...’
‘So what’s the problem, lad?’
‘I was just thinkin’ about what you said. I’m not like a king at all. A king can do what he wants. There are so many things I can’t do.’
Woodend chuckled. ‘You shouldn’t believe everythin’ you read about the royal family in the papers, you know.’ He paused. ‘Although, of course, you probably don’t read the papers anyway, do you?’
‘No. None of us do.’
There was no need to ask who ‘us’ was, Woodend thought. Wilf was talking about the whole village.
‘When people talk about the monarch havin’ freedom, they’re missin’ the point,’ the Chief Inspector continued. ‘Can you imagine the Queen goin’ down to the Black Bull on Saturday night for a few pints an’ a bit of a knees-up?’
Wilf grinned. ‘Not really.’
‘If truth be told, she probably doesn’t even want to. But if she did, she still couldn’t. There’s hundreds of things she’s constrained from doin’. But she is still the Queen, an’ – in certain matters – if she says jump, then everybody round her leaps into the air. An’ I imagine it’s pretty much the same for you.’
‘Maybe,’ Wilf said dubiously.
‘When did they first tell you that you were goin’ to be Witch Maker?’ Woodend asked.
‘I’ve ... I’ve always known,’ Wilf said, with a wonder in his voice which came from the realization that he’d never really thought about the matter before.
‘Always?’ Woodend asked.
Wilf frowned. ‘I can remember my mum’s funeral,’ he said, almost as if he were slipping into a trance. ‘I wasn’t more than three or four at the time. We were standing by the grave – me an’ my dad. Mary wasn’t there. She was too young.’
‘I understand.’
‘I ... I wanted to cry, but just before I did, Dad squeezed my hand very hard. I don’t think he meant it to hurt, but he sometimes doesn’t know his own strength.’
‘Aye, he’s a powerful feller, all right,’ Woodend agreed.
‘Then he bent down an’ whispered somethin’ in my ear.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “You can’t cry now, son. Not while you’re on show. Save it till later. Once we’re back in our home, we’ll both have a bloody good bawl.” An’ we did. We were up half the night, sobbin’ away.’
‘I’m sure you were,’ Woodend said. ‘I was a grown-up when my own mam died, but it still hit me harder than I’d ever imagined it would.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Wilf said impatiently.
‘Then what is?’
‘I knew what he meant when he said I couldn’t cry. I knew why I couldn’t cry. Do you know?’
Woodend nodded gravely. ‘Because even then you understood that you were goin’ to be the Witch Maker – that one day you’d wear the crown.’
‘I’m not a king!’ Wilf said angrily. ‘I’m not. I’m just the lad who knows how to make the Witch.’
‘You don’t really believe that, do you, lad?’ Woodend asked. ‘That you’re no more than the lad who knows how to make the Witch?’
‘Why shouldn’t I believe it?’
‘Because if all you were doin’ was makin’ a dummy, it wouldn’t take so much out of you. Buildin’ the Witch isn’t just a mechanical experience, is it? There’s somethin’ religious about the whole process.’
‘We don’t believe in religion in Hallerton,’ Wilf said.
‘I know that,’ Woodend said. ‘So maybe “religious” isn’t the right word. Would you be happier if I called it a spiritual experience?’
The bobby was getting too close to the truth, Wilf thought – too close to what he thought himself.
‘My thoughts are my own business,’ he said.
‘Aye, so they are,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But would you mind if I asked your opinion about somethin’ that’s been puzzlin’ me?’
‘You can ask,’ Wilf said, not yet ready to give an inch.
‘I was thinkin’ about the Witch Maker an’ how he’s selected,’ Woodend said. ‘I never knew your Uncle Harry, but I’ve seen enough of your dad to be able to form an impression of him, an’ it seems to me that—’
‘Don’t go attackin’ my dad!’ Wilf said with new fierceness. ‘Don’t you ever dare do that. He’s the best man who ever walked this earth.’
‘I wasn’t goin’ to attack him,’ Woodend responded. ‘Like I said, I was just thinkin’.’
‘Thinkin’ about what?’
‘That he really cares about this village, an’ what it stands for.’
‘He does.’
‘An’ that he’d have made a perfect Witch Maker.’
‘He would. He’d have put his heart an’ soul into it.’
Woodend pulled out his packet of cigarettes and offered it to Wilf, and when the young man shook his head, he lit up one for himself.
‘So what I don’t understand,’ the Chief Inspector continued, after he’d inhaled deeply, ‘is why it wasn’t your dad who was chosen. What’s the answer?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wilf admitted.
‘But surely you must have asked yourself the question?’
Wilf shook his head. ‘In this village you don’t ask questions – you accept things as they are.’
‘I wonder how your dad felt about it,’ Woodend pondered. ‘Do you think he resented not bein’ Witch Maker?’
Wilf laughed hollowly. ‘Why should he have? It’s not much of a prize.’
‘Not to you, maybe, but, as you’ve already pointed out, he’d have put his heart an’ soul into it.’
Wilf’s fingers tightened around the chisel in his right hand. ‘What are you suggestin’?’ he demanded, furious. ‘Are you sayin’ my dad killed Uncle Harry because he was jealous of him?”
‘No,’ Woodend said. ‘But I rather think you are.’
‘My dad’s the gentlest man alive!’ Wilf screamed. ‘An’ if he was goin’ to kill Uncle Harry because of jealousy, wouldn’t he have done it years ago? When they were both still kids? When there was still a chance of him beco
min’ the Witch Maker himself?’
‘There was never any chance of him becomin’ the Witch Maker,’ Woodend said.
Both the words themselves and the certainty with which he had expressed them came as a surprise to him – such a surprise that he felt a shiver run down his back.
‘There was never any chance of him becomin’ the Witch Maker,’ he’d said.
But he hadn’t always thought that way. Indeed, at the start of the investigation he had automatically assumed that Tom would replace his brother. So what had brought about this change in his way of thinking? What had made him so convinced that Tom had never had a chance?
The impression had to have come from the man himself, he decided. Not so much from what he had said, as from how he had acted. There was an aura about Tom Dimdyke which suggested that he knew that the one thing he desperately wanted – desperately craved for – had been denied him from the very start. He was not to be Witch Maker, and he had understood that from much the same age as his son had understood that he would be.
Twenty-Three
If Woodend had had to choose one word to describe Zelda Todd’s caravan, that word would have been ‘cosy’. But it was not cosy like some of the gypsy caravans he’d seen – all exotic hangings and bright wood carvings. No, this was cosy in a front-parlour-in-Whitebridge way, with its Boots’ prints hanging on the metal walls, and its shelves of knick-knacks which would surely have to be carefully stored in cotton wool every time the fair moved on.
Zelda herself was in her late thirties. Her hair was set in a sensible salon perm, and she was wearing a cardigan and skirt which could have been bought from any of the high-street chains. The only things which distinguished her from an ordinary housewife were a number of large and elaborate rings on her fingers, and the fact that when the sunlight caught her at the right angle, it gleamed on her three gold teeth.
‘You know why I’m here, don’t you?’ Woodend asked, settling himself down as comfortably as he could on the narrow bench which ran along one side of the caravan.
‘You’re here to ask me about Stan Dawkins,’ Zelda said.
‘That’s right, I am.’
‘Well, I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you. He was only with the fair for a few months before he was killed.’
‘Yet even in that short time, accordin’ to your boss, you got to know him quite well,’ Woodend countered.
Zelda sighed. ‘We were both young,’ she said. ‘It was all very romantic – almost innocent.’
‘Almost innocent?’ Woodend asked, pouncing on the word. ‘It seems to me that means that it wasn’t innocent at all?’
Zelda shrugged. ‘You can believe what you like, Chief Inspector. Whatever it was, it’s long past now.’
‘So are you sayin’ you didn’t sleep with him or that you did?’ Woodend persisted.
‘You wouldn’t have been quite as blunt as that if you’d been talking to a middle-aged woman back in Whitebridge, would you?’ Zelda asked. ‘If I’d lived in a semi-detached house – rather than been a traveller – you’d have found a much nicer way to say it.’
Woodend couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed, but knew that he was blushing now.
‘You’re right, of course,’ he admitted. ‘I made an assumption you wouldn’t be offended by my comin’ directly to the point. But it was an assumption I had no right to make – an’ I apologize for it. Still, you do see my dilemma, don’t you?’
‘No. But maybe I will if you can be bothered to explain it to me.’
‘I’m tryin’ to find out what happened twenty years ago. I’m tryin’ to get into the mind of a man who’s been a long time dead. An’ part of understandin’ what made him think like he did – an’ act like he did – is your relationship with him. If you were keepin’ company together in a serious way ...’ He paused and smiled. ‘Is that tactful enough for you?’
Zelda smiled back. ‘It’ll do.’
‘If you were keepin’ company in a serious way, he might have acted differently to if you’d only been at the pressed flowers an’ love notes stage. Do you see what I’m sayin’?’
‘No.’
Woodend wasn’t sure she was being entirely honest with him. In fact, he suspected that she was using his early insensitivity as a weapon with which to keep him on the hop. This was a very intelligent woman he was dealing with here – and if he didn’t watch himself, she’d run rings round him.
‘Perhaps it would help if I told you what I felt like when I was Stan’s age,’ he suggested.
‘Perhaps it would,’ Zelda agreed.
Woodend sighed. ‘I was brought up in a different world to the one that the lads growin’ up now know. In my day, you didn’t “keep company in a serious way” with the lass you were plannin’ to marry until you were married – an’ that meant waitin’ while you’d come out of your apprenticeship an’ were earnin’ a decent wage, so you could rent a house of your own.’
‘Go on,’ Zelda encouraged.
‘Well, when a lad’s eighteen or nineteen, he wakes up in the mornin’ with a hard ... he wakes up feeling amorous. There’s nothin’ he can do about it. It refused to go away. An’ somehow, for the lads of my generation, that seemed to make all the waitin’ until we could afford to get married even more difficult to take.’
‘So what was the solution?’
‘There were always a few girls in any town who didn’t want to wait for the weddin’ ring to be placed on their fingers, an’ if you bought them a few port an’ lemons on a Friday night, there was the chance they’d “keep company in a serious way” with you on a purely temporary basis.’
‘Is that what you did, Chief Inspector?’ Zelda asked.
For the second time in just a few minutes, Woodend felt himself starting to flush, which – he was well aware – was exactly what she’d intended.
‘I ... er ... considered it,’ he said.
‘But you didn’t follow it through?’
‘Well, no, I didn’t,’ Woodend admitted, almost as if he were ashamed of himself.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Zelda Todd told him. ‘Can we get back to Stan Dawkins now?’
‘Aye, we’d better,’ Woodend agreed. ‘You see, the way my mind is workin’ is that Stan might have gone in the village in search of one of them port-an’-lemon girls an’—’
‘He didn’t.’
‘... an’ that the local lads might have given him a worse beatin’ than they intended to, and killed him.’
‘That’s certainly what Mr Masters thinks,’ Zelda said. ‘And it’s what the police probably thought at the time, though they’d never have admitted it. But it’s not what happened.’
‘How can you be so sure.’
‘I just am,’ Zelda Todd said evasively. ‘Anyway, what’s that got to do with the murder of the man yesterday?’
‘I’m not sure it’s got anythin’ to do with it. I’m just makin’ general inquiries.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Zelda Todd contradicted. ‘Shall I tell you what you’re really thinking?’
‘Will that involve readin’ my palm, or takin’ out your crystal ball?’ the Chief Inspector asked.
‘This is what you’re really thinking,’ Zelda said, ignoring the comment, and making Woodend feel ashamed of himself all over again. ‘You’re thinking that Stan was murdered by some of the lads in Hallerton, and it’s been a festering wound in the side of this funfair for twenty years. So when we finally come back, some of our lads decide they’ve finally got an opportunity to take their revenge. Now, they either think they know who killed Stan, or they decide that – on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth – it doesn’t matter which of the villagers is killed, as long as it’s one of them. How am I doing?’
‘You’re nearly right,’ Woodend admitted. ‘Except that if it did happen that way, I don’t think the killer necessarily had to be someone who was with the fair the last time.’
‘No?’ Zelda Todd asked, expres
sionlessly.
‘No,’ Woodend said. ‘Most violent killers are youngish men, an’ anybody who was here the last time must be well into middle age by now.’
‘So?’
‘So fairground folk are a tight bunch – an’ they have what might be called a collective sense of honour. Somebody wanted Harry Dimdyke killed – but that doesn’t have to be the same person who actually carried out the murder. In other words, one of the older folk might have talked one of the younger folk into doin’ the killin’ for him. Or for her.’
‘You think I arranged it?’ Zelda Todd asked.
‘I didn’t say that. But if the theory that Harry Dimdyke was killed by somebody from the funfair is correct, then that certainly makes you one of the main suspects.’
‘I swear on my daughter’s life that if anybody from the fair was involved, I know nothing about it,’ Zelda said.
‘An’ I’m almost certain I believe you,’ Woodend said. He rose to his feet, being careful not to bang his head on the caravan roof. ‘It’s been nice talkin’ to you, Mrs Todd.’
‘Miss Todd,’ Zelda corrected him.
‘Miss Todd,’ Woodend amended.
Head bent, he made his way to the door. On the threshold, just before stepping out into the bright sunshine, he stopped and turned around. ‘By the way, there is one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘I asked you if you were keepin’ serious company with Stan.’
‘I remember.’
‘But somehow, you managed to avoid answerin’ one way or the other.’
Zelda Todd laughed, and the sunlight caught her gold teeth again. ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ she said.
Twenty-Four
Even at that late stage in the afternoon, the light which flooded in from outside was almost blinding. So for a few seconds after the barn door swung open, all Wilf Dimdyke could make out was two dark shapes – one broad and solid, the other slimmer and almost insubstantial. Then the two figures advanced into the barn, and Wilf saw the new arrivals were his father and a young woman.
The Witch Maker Page 12
