Viridian Tears (25 page)

“So I’m driving you what will be close to two hundred miles on a case that isn’t even mine?”

“Don’t think of it like that. Think of it as an act of charity for a poor old man who never did anybody any harm.” Meinwen looked at a wind farm in the distance. Cornwall had embraced wind power while the rest of the country was still squabbling over whose turn it was to put the kettle on. “Besides, everything is connected. Joseph found this key on the canal bank where Eddie Burbridge was murdered and he was murdered in turn. Who’s to say your Shirley wasn’t murdered for the same thing?”

“Anything’s possible” Michelle glanced at the object Meinwen was holding up. “What’s it a key to, anyway?”

Meinwen risked another glance at her. “A witchfinder’s traveling chest.”

Chapter 26

“Is there a petrol station down here?” Michelle eased off the accelerator as they topped the brow of the hill. In the distance the cold waters of the Celtic sea scintillated with the setting sun but was soon lost to view among the houses lining the road.

“How should I know?” Meinwen leaned back to see the petrol gauge over the crook of Michelle’s arm. “It’s not run out again?”

“It will soon.” A car park appeared on their left and Michelle pulled into it. Apart from a man with a dog and two people eating sandwiches it was deserted. November was not a good month for tourists, though to judge by the sheer size of the car park it was popular during the warmer months. “Ten quid doesn’t get you very far these days. We need to put at least that much in again to get home.”

“I’ll get us a pay and display ticket.” Meinwen opened the door and just luxuriated in the seemingly novel condition of not having her legs crushed by her own tapestry bag.

“I’ll be right back.” Michelle held up her phone. “I have some appointments to cancel and I need to tell Graham where I am.”

Meinwen gave her an upward nod and went to get a parking ticket “Two-sixty for up to four hours?” She looked around the deserted area. “It should be free this time of year.” Shaking her head, she fished in her purse for the correct change and took the rapidly-printed sticker back to the car. Michelle was standing under some trees arguing into her phone.

She stuck the permit to the inside of the window and breathed in. The air was sharp, as if it was full of ice just waiting to fall but there was the tang of salt from the sea. They were too far away, and the estuary between the harbor and the sea too zig-zagged, for her to hear the pounding of the waves against the jagged Cornish cliffs. If there was time before the light failed she’d encourage Michelle to take a walk along the long, and probably muddy, path above the harbor to the cliff tops.

Michelle was still talking, though the shouting had subsided. Meinwen closed the passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side, then reached in and pulled Michelle’s keys from the steering column and locked the door.

She walked across to the other woman and handed them over. “Come on. They’ll be closed before we even get there.”

“Graham, I have to go. No, this is important. Look, we’ll talk about it when I get back, okay?” She dropped the phone in her hag and hurried to catch up. “Men. Who’d have them?”

“There’s a reason I live alone.” Meinwen led the way to the bottom of the hill, past several forlorn gift shops and a grocer’s with crates of seasonal vegetables outside. They crossed a small road where a bridge to their left led to a small cottage and a mill that had been converted into craft units. “It’s down this way, toward the harbor.”

“Is this really Boscastle?” Michelle detoured around a dip in the path full of muddy water. “I was expecting something more impressive.”

“This is impressive.” Meinwen paused and turned a full circle. “This town has stood here since Uther Pendragon fought Golois at Tintagel, down the road a-ways. The harbour itself is famous for its tricky passage between the two hills and that shop over there,” she pointed to what was hardly more than a door in a flint wall, “sells the best ice-cream this side of Naples.” She shrugged. “In the summer, anyway.”

“I was just expecting something more…” Michelle shook her head “Well, something with more pizzazz about it. Disneyland for witches or something.”

“That would defeat the whole object, I think.” She led Michelle past a shop for woolen clothing and another selling trinkets for the National Trust to an unassuming, white-painted building. They turned a corner to find it was the Witchcraft Museum. “That’s a relief. I was terrified we’d be too late and find them closed.”

“Look!” Michelle pointed at a sign on the wall. “They have the same ‘Witch’s Parking’ sign you do.”

“That’s because I got it from here.” Meinwen ushered her inside and paid the entrance fee for them both.

“You’ve only got an hour left.” The woman behind the counter seemed concerned they wouldn’t get a proper look round.

“It’s okay. I’ve just come to look at one particular exhibit.” Meinwen smiled at her as she dragged Michelle past. “I’m surprised you haven’t been here before. It’s practically
de rigueur
for anyone dabbling in the supernatural arts.”

“I didn’t see any need.” Michelle trailed past the ‘What is Witchcraft’ and ‘The Pagan Year’ exhibits. “I mean, I’m not a witch, am I? I don’t make potions or stand around a cooking pot calling up Satan.”

“And you think I do?” Meinwen chuckled. “Granted, I do make potions but they’re generally of the rosehip syrup and elderflower cordial variety. I’m not one for eye of newt and wing of bat.” She almost bumped into a woman coming the wrong way down the stairs. “Not that I think there’s anything wrong with such practices, of course. There’s always a place for tradition.”

Her feet echoed across the wooden floor as she made a beeline for the display case entitled ‘Persecution of Witches.’ “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

Meinwen stabbed a finger at the glass. “Look at the picture behind the mannequin. That’s Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General. This symbol is the one used by his assistant, John Stearne, when they wrote up their findings. Can you see what he’d sitting on?”

“A stool?” Michelle’s breath steamed against the glass. “Maybe a box.”

“Exactly and they’ve got the box, here.” Meinwen pointed to the next display case.

“What about it?”

“Look at how robust it is. Seasoned oak, bound with iron.”

“It says ‘facsimile.’“

“That’s not the point.” Meinwen took out the envelope with the key inside. “It’s the same symbol.”

“An Eye?” Michelle shook her head. “That’s what the old man gave you, isn’t it? Is the key to this box? Let’s see if we can get someone to open the case so we can try it. This is exciting. It’s like a treasure hunt.”

“One that claimed the life of a friend.” Meinwen caught her arm to stop her rushing off. “Listen. This key wont fit because that box is a facsimile. What it does tell me is that this is the key to the real one.”

“What’s inside? Is it treasure?”

“No. Tools for declaring a woman to be a witch so that the church can seize her assets. The witchfinders got a percentage of the estate of any witch they burned, you see.”

“That’s awful. What stopped then from pointing at anyone with a wart and declaring them a witch, then?”

“Now you’re getting the idea.” Meinwen frowned. “Old women were the scapegoats of society. A dozen ills could be labeled ‘witchcraft’ and a finger pointed. It behooved the church to investigate and finding them guilty was the profitable outcome. Once in a while there’d be an outcry, so the inquisitors saw fit to decide everyone was a witch. Hence the lost villages of England and Europe.”

Michelle pointed at the oddments around the case. “Are these his tools of the trade, then? They look…brutal.”

“A scold’s bridle.” Meinwen grimaced. “A full cage that clamped to the head with spike to pierce the tongue and cheeks. A henpecked husband could accuse his wife of being a witch and they’d put her in one of those.”

“That’s awful.” Michelle looked as if she were smelling something unpleasant. “And that? A pear?”

“That was inserted internally. When the handle was turned the four quarters of the pear separated on screws. The more it turned, the further apart they got.”

“But why?”

“They thought they were saving the women’s souls. The confession of witchcraft was followed by begging for forgiveness from God and the tortured soul would go to Heaven.” Meinwen snorted. “After the woman was drowned, hung or burned at the stake.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“You won’t find anyone arguing.” Meinwen followed the second set of stairs to the curator’s office and knocked on the door.

It was opened by a portly man in his sixties with an unruly shock of gray hair. “Can I help you?”

“We’re interested in the Persecution exhibit.” Meinwen treated him to her best smile. “We were wondering where the real witchfinder’s box is?”

“Ah. Funny you should ask that. He opened the door further and allowed them into a small office area filled from floor to ceiling with books and oddments of witchery. “It used to belong to the Goodrush Estate. That’s where we got the details for our copy. Cecil Williamson, the founder of the museum when it was still in the Isle of Man, made the copy in nineteen sixty-four and it’s a good job he did. Arthur Goodrush died in ‘eighty-nine and everything went up for auction. The box was bought for an undisclosed sum by an anonymous buyer and hasn’t been seen since.”

“So what happened to the original?”

“No one knows. It never turned up again.” He sighed. “It probably resides in the basement of some collector in America, along with all the missing Van Goghs and Picassos.”

“What a pity.”

“Isn’t it just!” He shook his head, his lips pursed. “What I wouldn’t give to see the original.”

“As long as they never reinstate the Witchcraft Act.”

“Good heavens, no. Not that anyone could afford to any more.” He grinned as he showed them out. “Too many ladies in positions of authority. Imagine what would happen if someone just had to say ‘she’s a witch’ to get rid of them for good.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Meinwen caught Michelle’s arm and dragged her out. “I think that was our answer. My murdered friend and your blackmail case are linked after all. What we need to do is locate the real witchfinder’s chest.”

“Where’s that, then?”

“Somewhere in Laverstone, at a guess.” Meinwen looked around the museum foyer. They were alone, but there were bound to be cameras about and who knew how far sound travelled in an old building like this? “Let’s go somewhere we can’t be overheard.”

“All right.” Michelle followed her out and down the path, climbing up a steep lane and past a series of white-painted fisherman’s cottages mostly owned, by the look of the cars parked outside, by wealthy bankers and white-collar workers. The lane narrowed to a footpath and climbed higher, but there was a bench set into the hillside, which afforded them some protection from the wind.

“Can you hear that?” Meinwen cupped a hand to her ear to hear the waves braking against the jagged rocks. “I love to see the sea, but I don’t think we’d make it to the top and back before the light goes.”

“We need to get back.” Michelle stared down at the harbor walls below her. The tide was out, leaving the few small vessels stranded. “It took us two hours to get here. It’ll be more on the way back because of rush hour. Tell me why you think this witchfinder’s chest is in Laverstone?”

“Because Joseph told me he’d found the key on the canal tow path, opposite the railway sidings. That’s where they pulled Eddie Burbridge out of the water after his mysterious and unexpected fall from sobriety. What if the key was his and he was killed for it? This is just a theory but I think he invested all his crime money in an antique chest and when they came for him he dropped the key on the towpath, hoping to return for it later. Someone roughed him up and he fell in the canal and drowned. They panicked and left him, but when he was pulled out again the next day there was no key. That’s why they stole the digger to dredge the canal and that’s why someone thinks Shirley knew where it was hidden.”

“Hence my blackmailer.”

“And Joseph’s murder when someone realized he’d found the key.”

“But who knew he had the key in the first place?”

“Joseph, me and…” Meinwen felt the blood leave her face. “Winston.”