Witch (22 page)

At once my heart almost stopped, and I drew a deep, agonising breath as I read what was written in a spidery scrawl across it. To read that note was like being repeatedly punched in the stomach. I felt winded, as if unable to fill my lungs with air. I reached for the wall of the well to support me as my legs gave way beneath. I dropped into the water, as it splashed darkly about me.

“No,” I cried out.
“No!”

I didn’t want to believe what was written on the note I had discovered. But in my heart I knew that it was true. It was the only thing that made any sense.

“No!” I screamed, rocking my head back against the wall.
“No!”

Hot acid shot up into my throat, and I gaged. I felt sick. A part of me wanted to turn off the torch and sit in the black at the bottom of the well and never climb out again.

“How could you do this to me!” I screamed, kicking at the water with my feet and banging my fists against the wall. I screwed the letter up in my fist as I pounded the wall over and over again. From the corner of my tear-filled eyes, I saw the letter getting ever more creased. Slowly, I stopped. I couldn’t destroy it. I couldn’t destroy the letter if I was going to ever have justice for those people who had died in the well.

Shaking from head to foot, I dragged myself out of the water and lent against the slick grey wall of the well. I looked one last time at the note which had been signed:
This is the dying declaration of Police Constable Lee 5013
.

I yanked on the rope to give the sign to Vincent that I was ready to be pulled up. I put the note back into the bottle and tucked it into my coat pocket. I switched off the torch,
then gripped the rope as Vincent began to pull me up out of the well. With my head resting against the rope, I wondered how I would even begin to explain to Vincent what I had discovered. Slowly, I reached the top, feeling cold, wet, and in shock. I gripped the edge of the well to hoist myself out. I felt a cold pair of hands take hold of mine. I looked up expecting to see Vincent, but instead I was looking into my father’s face. He pulled me over the lip of the well, and I staggered away, my legs still feeling like two sticks of rubber.

“What are you doing here?” I gasped, glancing through the driving rain in search of Vincent. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“What am I doing here?” my father barked at me. “I should be arresting you for the continual harassment of Farmer Grayson, and for repeatedly trespassing on his land. He called the three 9s claiming that thieves were on his property. I was on patrol close by. The last person I thought I would find is you!”

I knocked the strands of wet hair away, which were plastered across my face, and
stared at my father.

“What is wrong with you, Sydney?” he shouted, coming towards me through the rain.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed back at him. “Don’t you dare come near me –
murderer!
”

“What are
you talking about?” my father snapped as he came towards me through the dark. “Have you lost your mind?”

“It’s not me who has lost their fucking mind
. It’s you!” I screeched at him.

“Sydney,” he said, his voice seeming to soften now.

“Keep away from me!” I warned him, holding up the flat of my hand. “Don’t come near me.” I glanced around in the dark again for Vincent, but still couldn’t see him. Where was he? Was he listening to this? I was in danger here.

“What’s this all about?” my father tried to reason with me. “Does it have something to do with those people you killed?”

“It has to do with who
you
killed,” I hissed at him. “Who you murdered!”

“What are you talking about?” he said, staring at me, rain dripping from his police cap and raincoat. 

“You murdered a police officer...” I stammered. Even I couldn’t believe that I was accusing my father of murdering a police officer. “You killed Constable Lee.”

My father’s eyes grew wide, and now it was him who looked like he had taken a blow to the guts. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you silly bitch,” he growled.

“Don’t I?” I screamed at him, curling my fingers around the bottle which was still hidden in my pocket. “I know all about what you did that night ten years ago. I know what you and your buddies, Mac and Woody, did to that girl...what you did to Constable Lee.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking...” 

“You changed your statements!” I screamed at him, making my hands into fists. “I thought you changed them to protect the person Molly Smith was coming to meet that night. But you changed them to protect yourselves...to cover up what you did to her.”

“We didn’t do anything to that filthy little...” he started to bark.

“You found her distraught and crying on the road that night,” I started to remind him. “But instead of helping her...taking her home...you and your buddies dragged her into the back of your police van and touched her...” I could hardly bring myself to say the words. “You tried to hurt her, but Constable Lee stopped you, he helped her escape. Like animals, you went after her. Because she meant nothing to you.”

“Sydney...” my father started, and even in the darkness, I could see his face had turned as white as paper, and his eyes wide with rage. I wouldn’t let him talk. I didn’t want to listen to his lies – to his bullshit.

“Jesus, Dad,” I glared. “Molly Smith was not a lot younger than me. She was somebody’s daughter. She was Jonathan Smith’s daughter. That’s why you did what you did. That’s why you didn’t help her, because she didn’t deserve your help. Just because her family chose to live their lives differently from everyone else – just because they looked and dressed differently, you hounded her through the woods like a pack of wild animals, fearing that she would be able to tell others about what you had done.”

“Stop this!” my father roared, his voice sounding high-pitched and a little scared.

Ignoring him, I said, “But by the time you had found her, she was in the bottom of the well. I bet you couldn’t believe your luck! You were going to leave her there – to be found sometime later. Constable Lee had the courage to stand up to you! He had the guts to say ‘No’! He wanted to help her. You and your buddies refused. So he decided to climb down into the well to save her. You couldn’t have that – he was a cop who just wanted to do the right thing. So when he was standing on the wall of that well, you pushed him in. You murdered him!”

My father stood motionless in the dark, the brim of his cap covering his eyes in darkness now. The only thing I could clearly see was his thick, black moustache covering his top lip.

Clapping his hands slowly together, he said in a cold, emotionless voice, “So how do you intend on proving this, Sydney? You have no evidence.”

Slowly, I took the bottle from my pocket and said, “I have the dying declaration of that police officer.
The police officer who you pushed into the well.”

My father glanced at the bottle and didn’t say anything.

“As he lay dying at the bottom of the well, he took a sheet of paper from his pocket notebook and scribbled down what really happened that night. He tucked the note into a bottle, hoping and praying that one day, it would be discovered.

“Is that all you have?” my father mocked with a chuckle. “That could have been written by anyone. It could have been written by
you
, Sydney.”

I looked at the bottle, then back at him. I knew my father was right. He slowly came towards me, his hand outstretched, ready to snatch the bottle from me. I stood in the rain, rigid, unable to move.

“Give the bottle to me, Sydney,” he whispered.

Suddenly someone spoke from the shadows of the nearby trees. “Don’t give him the bottle, Sydney.”

Both my father and I snapped our heads around in the direction of the voice.

A figure stepped slowly from beneath the trees, and looking at my father,
the voice said, “Sydney has a witness. I saw you push the police officer into the well that night.”

“Michael?” I breathed, watching him step from the shadows and out into the clearing by the well. “What are you doing out here?”

With his dark hair wet and tousled-looking as it swept off his brow in the roaring wind, Michael said, “I’m sorry I lied to you, Sydney, but I just can’t go on keeping secrets. It’s killing me inside.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, staring at him.

“It was me Molly had come to meet that night,” he said, looking at me, then at my father. “We were in love, but because of people like your father standing here, and my own, we had to keep that relationship a secret. I loved her with all of my heart. I wanted nothing more than to be with her. But like your father, I was a coward and feared what people like my father and yours would say about me – think of me – if I was in love with such a girl. So I arranged to meet Molly out here that night. She came and I told her I didn’t love her, and that I never wanted to see her again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I asked, seeing the pain in his eyes.

“Because of what I saw out here that night,” he said, glancing at me, then back at my father. “When I told Molly that I couldn’t be with her, she ran crying into the trees and down onto the road. I thought she was heading home. I waited up here in the dark, angry with myself and others. A short time later, I heard someone running back through the trees and towards the well. It was Molly. Her clothes were torn and I had never seen anyone look so scared. I took hold of her and she fought with me, screaming and scratching as if I was going to hurt her in some way. It was like, in her blind panic and in the darkness, she thought I was someone else. She pulled free of me, and in doing so, she toppled back over the wall and into the well. In terror I called out her name, but she made no noise. It was then I heard the sounds of others approaching through the trees. I could see the flashing lights from torches and the sound of radios. I knew it was the police. Fearing that they might suspect me of pushing Molly into the well, and still desperate to hide the fact that we had been lovers, I slunk back into the shadows amongst the trees and hid.”

As Michael was talking, I glanced over at my father and could see the drawn and haunted look on his face as he feared what Michael was going to say next.

“I saw a young-looking copper run into the clearing,” Michael continued, not taking his eyes off my father. “He raced to the edge of the well, and with his torch, he saw Molly lying at the bottom. He called out for help and he was joined by three other coppers. One of them was you,” he said, pointing a finger at my father.

My father said nothing.

“The younger copper wanted to climb down into the well and help Molly, as he hoped that she might still be alive. But the others didn’t want to help her. They said she was a thieving whore. To hear him speak about her in such a way, I had to do everything in my power to stay hidden. The younger cop said he hadn’t signed up to break the law himself. So he clambered up onto the wall of the well as if getting ready himself to climb down and help Molly. It was then I saw you...” Michael said, his voice turning suddenly angry as he jabbed his finger at my father again. “I saw you run forward and push that young officer into the well. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. I had to cover my mouth for fear of crying out and revealing myself. I couldn’t comprehend what I had just witnessed. A police officer murder another police officer.”

“Why didn’t you help him?” I snapped at Michael, feeling sick and confused.

“I was just twenty – a boy,” Michael said, looking at me. “I’m not trying to excuse the fact that I have remained silent for all these years, but they were police officers. I heard the three of them get their stories straight as if it was something that they were used to doing. How did I know that they wouldn’t say that it was me who had pushed the officer into the well? How did I know they wouldn’t give evidence to say I had killed Molly, too? I was just young and scared. So I ran, Sydney. I’m not proud of that. I ran and kept running. Two days later, I left Cliff View and hit the road. I was angry and confused and I hated myself. I started to drink, get into fights to try and release that hatred I had eating me alive from inside out. I began to believe that I had been cursed for my cowardice. Then one night, as I sat and got drunk in that bar, I watched as that guy kept harassing that young girl. In my drunken state, that young woman looked like Molly. I swear to God, Sydney, it was her. She looked at me from across the bar and whispered, ‘Help me, Michael.’ So I got up. I wouldn’t fail her again. I raced across the bar and took hold of that guy. As I had my hand gripped about his throat, it was your father’s face I could see as he had pushed that young copper into the well. So I pushed back, not just for Molly, but for that poor police officer, too. I pushed your father down that flight of stairs,” Michael explained. With tears streaming from his eyes, he looked at my father and said, “But it wasn’t you, was it? It was some drunken punk who thought it would be fun to tease a girl in front of his mates. And when I looked back at the girl, she wasn’t Molly. She was just some girl, who wouldn’t even meet my stare, although I had come to help her.”

I crossed the short gap by the well, and took Michael’s cold, damp hands as thunder began to rumble in the distance. Michael looked at me and said, “Every second I spent locked in my cell, I knew I was paying for being a coward that night – for not coming forward and telling the truth. And I know that the ten years I spent in prison would never make up for what I failed to do. I would ne
ver be free of that guilt. Tonight, it stops,” Michael said, looking back at my father. “Tonight the guilt – the curse – I’ve been living with since that night ends. I’m not scared of you and your friends anymore.”