Dying Fall

She was the person you went to if you needed a spell to make your sick child well or to help your wife conceive. She was full of ancient wisdom and lore. For many years she helped the people in these hills.’ He looks at the three faces turned towards him, even Kate is listening intently. ‘But as time went on, people turned against her. There was some dispute about land. One family in particular had a grudge against Alice. They went to the magistrate and claimed that Alice had put a spell on their child, who subsequently died. They said that Alice boasted that she had a familiar – a Thing – who did her bidding. They said that Alice did not take Communion at the church; she saved the holy bread for her Thing. It was said thatthe Thing could take the form of a dog or a human man. It was said that Alice lay with the Thing and that she suckled it – its teeth, it was claimed, had left a mark on her belly. The Devil’s mark. Alice was accused of witchcraft. She refused to defend herself, saying only that the Great Mother would protect her. Those words probably signed her death warrant. She was hanged the next day.’
    There is a silence. The dog – Thing – moans in his sleep.
    ‘So you called your dog after Dame Alice’s familiar?’ says Ruth.
    ‘Yes.’ Pendragon leans over to pat the animal’s head. ‘He’s my familiar, my companion.’
    ‘Do you see Dame Alice?’ asks Cathbad in a matter-of-fact voice, just as if he’s asking if he sees the postman.
    ‘No,’ says Pendragon, rather regretfully. ‘I don’t see her but I feel her presence. Sometimes I leave gifts for her – hops, apples, corn dollies. The offerings are always gone in the morning. Sometimes I smell her herbal infusions. Once, when I was troubled with headaches, I went and lay in what had been her herb garden. I slept the night there, and when I woke the headache had gone, never to return.’
    And you had rheumatism instead, thinks Ruth. As for the apples and corn dollies, she suspects the local fox. There’s a fox in her garden in Norfolk that steals her wellingtons if she leaves them out on the back step.
    ‘Thing sees her, I think,’ says Pendragon. ‘Sometimes he’ll look up, staring straight past me, tail wagging in recognition.’
    Despite herself, Ruth shivers. She looks at the sleeping dog who, thankfully, does not look up, ears pricked, to greet his ghostly mistress.
    ‘So, why the gun?’ asks Cathbad, helping himself to another hunk of bread. ‘You seemed pretty scared when we arrived.’
    ‘It’s a long story,’ Pendragon says again. But, unlike the Dame Alice story, this does not seem to be a tale he is inclined to tell. Instead he drops down on his knees next to Kate. ‘Do you like those dolls, Kate?’ He looks up at Ruth. ‘I found them in the house, under one of the floorboards. I think they belonged to Dame Alice. One of the stories told against her was that she made wooden effigies of her enemies and then burnt them.’
    Ruth looks at her daughter playing happily on the floor with the voodoo dolls. Next to her, the devil dog sleeps on.
    *
    ‘Harry Nelson!’
    The large man behind the desk gets up, arms outstretched. The two men don’t actually embrace – the desk is in the way for one thing – but they exchange a hearty handshake.
    ‘Sandy Macleod! How long has it been?’
    ‘Too long. But you don’t look a day older.’
    ‘I feel a hundred years older,’ says Nelson, sinking into a chair. It feels wrong to be this side of the desk but it’s great to be with Blackpool CID again. Bonny Street Station hasn’t changed a bit: there’s still the blue light outsidethe door, still the rather grim Victorian brickwork, still what looks like the same graffiti outside, ‘Pigs Go Home’. Sandy himself, though balder and fatter, looks much the same. He has a lugubrious, rubbery face, like an old-style music-hall comedian. Nelson remembers that it was always hard to know whether Sandy was joking or not.
    ‘How’s the countryside treating you?’ he says now, sending a WPC out to make tea with an admirable lack of political correctness. (‘Make us a cuppa, there’s a good lass’.)
    ‘I’ve had a tough couple of years,’ says Nelson, thinking that this is an understatement. Child abduction, murder, a serial killer, not to mention the mess of his personal life. But Sandy looks quite admiring as he says, ‘You’ve had a few high-profile cases.’
    ‘God save me from high-profile cases.