The Witch Maker (13 page)

‘What! And draw attention to myself? No chance!'

‘So you didn't really care. You just sat back and let the killers get away with it.'

‘If anybody let them get away with it, it was the local rozzers.'

‘What makes you come to that conclusion?'

‘The rozzers could have worked out what had happened, just like I did. And they'd have known where to look and who to talk to – if that was what they really wanted. But they didn't do any of that. After all, why should they upset people they'd known all their lives, just because some toe-rag of a carnival worker had got himself murdered? The way they probably saw it, by being in the village at all he was asking for what he got.'

Paniatowski lit up a cigarette, inhaled, and studied the fairground manager for a few moments.

‘What a jaundiced view on life you really do seem to have, Mr Masters,' she said, blowing smoke out of her nose.

‘What a jaundiced world I have to live in, Detective Sergeant Paniatowski,' the funfair manager replied.

T
he general store in Hallerton was located further down the main street than the pub. Thus, while the Black Bull had a view – of sorts – over the Green, all that could be seen from the store was a seemingly endless row of grim stone cottages.

The store was no more than a stone cottage itself, Woodend noted. And a badly neglected one, at that. The paintwork around the door and window frame was cracked and blistered. The window itself was streaked with dirt. And though the man who ran it was a widower, the sign over the door announced that it was owned by Alfred and Doris Raby.

The Chief Inspector stepped closer to the window, and peered inside. There wasn't much to see. Central to what could only
charitably
have been called a window display was a jumbo-sized cardboard model of a brand of cigarettes which Woodend was sure the manufacturers had stopped producing shortly after the war. This sad, fading and dusty relic was flanked by an advertisement for a chocolate bar that virtually no one ate any more, and a haphazardly arranged set of mugs celebrating the coronation of the Queen, eleven years earlier.

It was true that the whole village had stood still in time, Woodend thought, but most of it did not seem to have actually
decayed
, as this place so obviously had.

He lit up a cigarette, knowing as he did so that he was only stalling – putting off the moment when he would force himself to do something which was probably going to be as unpleasant as it was necessary.

An old man – heavily muffled despite the warmth of the day, and leaning heavily on a stick – came out of one the houses opposite. At first he was too busy watching where he put his feet to notice anything else, and it was only when he was sure he was firmly anchored to the pavement that he looked up and saw Woodend standing there on the other side of the street.

The effect of his discovery was instantaneous. He twisted arthritically around and, using his stick, hammered on the door he had just come out of. A woman – who looked young enough to be his daughter, and probably was just that – opened the door. The old man spoke urgently to her, they both looked across at Woodend, then the woman helped the man back into the house.

So you've started scarin' granddads now, have you? Woodend asked himself. Well, that's
certainly
somethin' to be proud of!

He flung his cigarette to the ground, stubbed it out with the toe of his shoe, and opened the shop door. A brass bell just inside it whimpered a cry of metallic desperation to announce his arrival.

The man standing behind the counter fitted in perfectly with his surroundings. He was wearing a knitted cardigan. It hung loosely on him, and had gone at the elbows, so his shirt sleeves stuck out through the holes. His jaw was slack; his eyes were watery. He was probably not that old in actual years, Woodend thought – he was possibly still even in his early forties – but his face held the expression of a man who had long since wearied of life.

‘Mr Raby?' Woodend asked.

‘That's me,' the other man replied, in a voice which was little more than a whisper.

‘My name's Woodend. Chief Inspector Woodend. I'm here to investigate the death of Harry Dimdyke.'

‘Yes?' Raby replied dully, as if the subject could hold no possible interest for him.

‘And I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.'

‘I know nothing about Harry Dimdyke's murder. How could I? I hardly ever leave the shop.'

‘It wasn't actually his murder I wanted to ask you about,' Woodend said awkwardly.

‘Then what is it you want?'

‘I ... er ... I know it's probably still very painful for you, but I was wonderin' if you'd be willing to answer a few questions about your wife's suicide.'

‘You want to ask me about my wife's suicide?' Raby repeated.

Under the circumstances Raby would have had a perfect right to be angry, Woodend told himself. But that wasn't what the man was! The tone in his voice was not one of rage, but of incredulity. It was almost as if he'd passed beyond anger – had reached a point at which such heavy and expressive emotions were well outside his emotional range.

‘I'd really appreciate it if you could spare me a few minutes, sir,' Woodend said.

‘But what would be the point?'

What indeed? Woodend wondered.

Looked at coldly, he could argue no clear link between the unusual number of suicides in the village and the murder of Harry Dimdyke. On the other hand, he reminded himself, he could name half a dozen cases he'd worked on in which a series of abnormal – but apparently unconnected – occurrences had turned out to have a common thread running through them.

‘It wouldn't take long,' he coaxed. ‘And I promise you that we'd stop immediately you found it was becomin' too much of a strain.'

‘There's the shop to look after, you see,' Raby said, looking helplessly around him. ‘I was expectin' somebody to come in an' take over from me, but they haven't.'

He was speaking now with the voice of a man who is never disappointed because he never has expectations, Woodend thought – the voice of a man who accepted misery as his lot with an almost gloomy satisfaction.

The door open, the bell emitted its mournful peal, and a small, round woman entered the shop.

‘Sorry I'm late, Alf,' she began, ‘but what with the bobbies swarmin' all over the place and—'

Then she saw Woodend, and bit back the rest of her words.

‘Are you Mr Raby's assistant?' the Chief Inspector asked.

The woman seemed to take it as a personal slight. ‘No, I'm not his
assistant
,' she said.

‘Then ...?'

‘I just help out. A lot of us do. That's what it's like in this village, not that you'd know anythin' about that. And what are
you
doin' here?'

‘He wants me to talk about—' Raby began.

‘Shall I go an' get Tom Dimdyke?' the woman interrupted him. ‘Is that what you'd like me to do, Alf?'

Panic crossed Raby's face. ‘No, I—'

‘Because it won't take me a minute to go up to the barn, you know, if you think it's for the best.'

Raby waved his hand weakly in protest. ‘I wouldn't want ... You can't go and ...' He took a deep breath. ‘Would you mind lookin' after the shop for a few minutes, Emily?'

‘Of course I'll look after the shop,' the round woman said. ‘That's what I'm here for.'

‘An' if
you
wouldn't mind comin' into the back ...' Alf Raby said to Woodend.

He doesn't want to talk to me, Woodend thought – it's just that he'd rather do that than have a visit from Tom Dimdyke.

The Chief Inspector followed the shopkeeper through a door into the back parlour. It was a joyless room – a shrine to the 1950s, but a shrine which had been very much neglected.

Raby sank into a heavy, overstuffed armchair, and indicated to Woodend that he should take the one opposite.

‘Emily's been very good to me,' the shopkeeper said. ‘She looks after me. They all do. I don't know how I'd manage if they didn't.'

‘Could we talk about your wife?' Woodend asked gently.

‘The one thing I'm grateful for is that Doris didn't hang herself, like Beth Thompson did,' Raby said. ‘Her goin' at all was bad enough, but if I'd found her hangin' in the lavvy, like Jed found Beth—'

‘How
did
your wife kill herself?'

‘She took sleeping pills. They said at the hospital that she must have swallowed at least a hundred of them.'

‘Where did she manage to lay her hands on so many? Did they ever find out?'

‘She'd been saving them up. The doctor gave her a few every week, an' she hid them until she had enough.'

So she didn't do it on impulse, Woodend thought. She must have been very unhappy – and very desperate – for quite a while.

‘She wasn't ill, was she?' he asked. ‘She didn't have some sort of terminal disease?'

‘No, she'd never had a day's sickness in her life. She was as strong as a horse, physically. But she didn't have the
mental
strength of the other women.'

‘What other women?' Woodend asked, mystified. ‘The other women who killed themselves?'

Raby looked puzzled by the question. ‘No,' he said. ‘The ones who didn't.'

‘Sorry?'

‘She couldn't take it any more, you see.'

‘Couldn't take what?'

‘The pressure. The strain of it all. She just couldn't convince herself that she was doin' the right thing. I tried to tell her it was the same for everybody in the village – that we all did what we had to do – but ... but ... she just wouldn't see it.'

The man's mental balance was on a knife-edge, Woodend thought. He had to be handled with extreme care, or he would go to pieces before his very eyes.

‘This pressure?' he said softly. ‘This strain that the other women could handle, but your wife couldn't? Would you like to tell me what it was?'

The bell in the shop rang again. Woodend cursed the interruption, but decided that it was probably just a customer. Well, fat Emily was there, and she could handle whoever it was.

‘If you could give me some idea of what this pressure was,' Woodend cajoled. ‘Just a hint will do.'

‘It's always been the same,' Alf Raby said. ‘Ever since we burned Meg Ramsden. I should have known Doris wasn't strong enough. But even if I had, what could
I
have done about it?'

The parlour door crashed opened, and a furious Tom Dimdyke stormed into the room.

‘What the bloody hell's goin' on here?' he demanded of Woodend. ‘You're supposed to be investigatin' my brother's death, you bastard, not persecutin' a poor widower.'

Woodend rose from his chair. Previously, he'd only seem Dimdyke bent over the Witch. Now they were facing each other, he could fully appreciate what a big hard bugger Dimdyke actually was.

‘I
am
investigatin' your brother's death,' he said. ‘Not that I'm getting' much cooperation from his immediate family. But leavin' that aside for a moment, Mr Dimdyke, what business of yours is my conversation with Mr Raby?'

‘I didn't tell him anythin', Tom,' Raby bleated pathetically. ‘He asked me, but I didn't say anythin'.'

‘You'd better leave while you still can,' Dimdyke told Woodend.

The Chief Inspector shifted his weight slightly. ‘That's the second time in two days you've threatened me, Mr Dimdyke,' he growled. ‘It didn't work the first time, and it's not working now. You may be an important man to this village, but don't let that fool you into thinkin' you can have your own way with me.'

Though they'd never been intended to, Woodend's words seemed to have a calming effect on Dimdyke. His face relaxed a little, and a look that was a mixture of pity and amusement came to his eyes.

‘Me! An important man!' he said. ‘I count for nowt! None of us do. Don't you realize that, Mr Chief Inspector? There's only one feller in this village who matters – an' that's the Witch Maker.'

‘Who, now that your brother's dead, happens to be your son,' Woodend pointed out.

‘Wilf
may have been
my lad before, but he isn't now,' Dimdyke said. ‘The Witch Maker isn't
anybody's
son.'

‘Then what is he?'

‘He's the one who has been chosen to carry the heaviest burden.'

‘And who chose him?'

‘Do you want a name?' Dimdyke asked, incredulously. ‘Do you actually want me to say it was me – or Alf here – who made the decision?'

‘Yes, that's what I'd like,' Woodend agreed.

‘Well, it's not that simple. It doesn't work that way at all. He wasn't chosen by a
person
– he was chosen by what happened all those years ago.'

‘You're not makin' any sense.'

‘Maybe I'm not – to you.' Dimdyke's expression softened. ‘Look, I'm sorry if I came on all heavy-handed. I'm sorry if I seemed to threaten you. It's been a terrible couple of days for all of us, an' I probably said things I never intended to say. But there's no point in makin' matters any worse, now is there? Alf's upset. Don't you think it might be best if you just left him alone?'

‘Yes, I think it might,' Woodend agreed.

But probably not for the same reasons Tom Dimdyke thought it best. Woodend would agree to leave Alf Raby alone because there would be no point in doing anything else – because even applying thumbscrews wouldn't make the shell of a shopkeeper say any more now.

M
ary Dimdyke sat on the orange crate – her elbows resting on her knees, and her chin resting on her hands – while Wilf worked slowly and patiently on the modifications to the left foot of the effigy of Meg Ramsden.