Witch (13 page)

“Sorry,” Vincent shrugged like a schoolboy who had been caught having a sly smoke. “I thought it would be nice to have some background music...”

“Background music!”
I cried. “The whole freaking town could hear it!”

“I didn’t mean to have it on so loud. I couldn’t figure out how to turn the sound down...” he started to explain.

“You didn’t look as if you were doing much figuring out from what I could see,” I said. “You looked like you were throwing some kinda fit. What is wrong with you?”

“I got caught up in the moment,” Vincent said. “Besides, when I saw the name of the track on your iPod-thingy, I thought it was going to be that love song.”

“What love song?” I quizzed with a frown.

“You know the one...” he trailed off as if deep in thought. “What was it called...oh, God I can’t remember
now. It was sung by that woman Jennifer Warnes and...what was his name...you know...that old git with long, grey hair and...”

“Bill Medley,” I cut in.

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” Vincent said. “Anyway, I thought it was gonna be that song...you know something nice and romantic...”

With a frown I looked at Vincent and said, “Why would you want to listen to romantic music...there’s only the two of us here.”

“Romantic? Did I say romantic?” Vincent blushed. “What I meant to say was something nice and relaxing because you feel stressed out. I was just thinking of you...I mean, you’re right...why would we want to listen to romantic music together...I mean...we could if you wanted to...no...oh, God...this is getting kinda embarrassing...how many sugars do you take in your tea?” Vincent said, rushing away from me and into the kitchen.

I watched him go. He was the strangest guy I had ever met. He was certainly odd, but in a charming way. He took the piss by constantly helping himself to my stuff and interfering, but he had a sweet – innocent quality. Something I hadn’t often – if ever – come across in the men I’d met before. I got the impression that he liked me but was way too shy or clumsy to just come out and say it. Not like Michael. Michael had made his feelings known straight off. Vincent, on the other hand, got all tongue-tied and embarrassed. Now I felt kind of guilty for having to moan at him. He’d obviously been looking for something romantic to listen to on my iPod, but had completely made a mess of it. Vincent seemed to put his mouth into gear before his brain, as I remembered the comment he had made the night before about wanting to go to bed.

Endeared by his blundering attempts to romance me – if that was truly what he was trying to do – I went and stood in the kitchen doorway and watched him pour two cups of tea.

“Just the one for me,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Mm?” Vincent said, a spoonful of sugar hovering over a cup full of tea.

“One sugar,” I said, my voice losing some of the frostiness for him.

“Sweet enough, are you?” he said with a smile.

“Why do you keep saying all this stuff?” I asked, taking the cup and stirring it contents with a spoon. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

“Who, me?” he said, sounding surprised.

“Who else would I be talking about?” I said, placing the spoon in the sink and taking a sip of the tea.

“I don’t s’pose you remembered to get some biscuits,” he said, changing the subject.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just haven’t had a chance. I’ve been too busy...”

“Good job I remembered then,” he beamed, brushing past me and heading back to the living room.

I followed. He went to his coat, which hung from the back of the armchair, and took something from the pocket.

“Jammie Dodgers,” he smiled, holding up a packet of biscuits.

Vincent sat down and opened the packet of biscuits, dunking one of them into his hot tea. Looking up at me as he munched happily away, he said, “Sorry, Sydney, would you like a biscuit?”

“No, thanks,” I said, taking a seat on the sofa opposite him. I sat and watched him. “You never answered my question.”

“Huh?” he said, glancing up at me.

“Never mind, it’s not important,” I said with a shake of my head. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Oh yes, I was forgetting,” he said, placing his cup and biscuit onto the small coffee table in front of him. The light from the lamp in the corner made the numbers on his epaulettes shine brightly. I could see that his police collar number was 5013. Vincent reached inside his jacket and pulled out a beige coloured file. “You said to let you know if I found any more paperwork on that girl who died at the bottom of the well.”

I looked at the file and my nerve endings started to tingle. Vincent crossed the room, sat next to me on the sofa, and opened the file.

“There isn’t a great deal to go on,” he said, taking out a piece of paper. “The file room back at the station is a real mess. I’ll carry on looking, though.”

“So what have you found?” I asked him, eyeing the piece of paper he held in his hand.

“A letter from the deceased father,” Vincent said.

“That was the old guy who died out on the road the other day,” I breathed, my stomach beginning to clench up.

“His name was Jonathan Smith,” Vincent said, looking down at the letter which he held.

To hear the old man’s name for the first time made me feel queasy. It made what I had done seem more real somehow. I could no longer just think of him as an old man – a nobody – as my father had described him. This man had a name. He had been a real person – not just a ghost who haunted my dreams.

“What’s the letter about?” I whispered.

“Okay, so it was his eighteen-year-old daughter, Molly, who fell into the well,” Vincent explained.

That was the name Michael had told me.

“Her father, Jonathan Smith, wasn’t convinced that his daughter’s death was an accident,” Vincent continued.

“Why?” I asked, looking down at the letter then at Vincent again.

“Read the letter for yourself,” he said, handing it to me. “It was written to the station sergeant at the time. His name was Skrimshire.”

“He’s now the inspector at Penzance,” I said, taking the letter from Vincent. The sheet of paper was dog-eared and old. The writing across it was a spidery-scrawl, but legible. It seemed odd to be reading something which had once been held by the man I had killed, and my heart began to quicken. I took a shallow breath and began to read.

15
th
February 2003

Sergeant Skrimshire,

I write concerning the tragic death of my daughter, Molly Smith, who was found at the bottom of the well on the Grayson farm two nights ago.

Unlike what has been reported by you to the local press, I do not believe my daughter’s death to have been an accident. It has been a suspicion of mine that my daughter had been in some kind of a relationship with a local man. Although my daughter never said who, I knew that she intended to end this relationship, as we were to move away from the area because of hostilities shown to us recently by members of the local community.

Unlike firmly held beliefs by some residents of Cliff View, neither me nor any other members of my small family are criminals. Despite what has been reported in the local press, my daughter was not trespassing on the Grayson land to steal or commit any other type of crime the night she died.

It is my belief that my daughter had arranged to meet this man to
discuss their relationship, during which time an argument occurred which resulted in my daughter being pursued and then pushed into the well to silence her. The fact that police also saw my daughter walking along the Buckmore Road...

“Where is the rest of the letter?” I asked Vincent, holding out my hand.

“Missing,” he said, taking the piece of paper from me and placing it back into the file. “Or at least I can’t find the rest of it. But I have found some more paperwork which I thought you might find interesting.”

“How come?” I quizzed.

“Okay,” Vincent said, taking several more sheets of paper from the file. “You’ll notice that at the end of Jonathan Smith’s letter he mentioned that police had seen his daughter walking along the Buckmore Road.”

“Okay?” I said, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

“Well, there were four officers crewed up in a van that night out on patrol,” he said, looking at me. “One of them was your father. He was still a constable at the time. He was one of the officers who saw Molly Smith walking along the road that night.” Handing me some sheets of the paperwork, he added, “This was your father’s statement.”

I took the paperwork from him, which had gone an off-white colour with age. Across the top of the first piece of paper, written in thick black ink, were the words: WITNESS STATEMENT. Just below this was my father’s name and signature. Holding my father’s statement in both hands, and feeling as if I were spying on him, I read what he had written all those years ago.

WITNESS STATEMENT

Police Constable Richard Hart. 14
th
February 2003.

I am currently employed as a police constable at Cliff View Police Station, Blake Road, Cliff View, Cornwall. On Thursday the 13
th
February 2003, I was on duty and in company with Police Constable McDonald, Police Constable Woodland, and Police Constable Lee. About 22:00 hours, myself and the above mentioned officers started our nightshift. At 22:30 hours we were crewed in police vehicle Romeo 45, which is a marked police van. We left Cliff View Police Station and went on patrol for the evening. There had been a spate of burglaries on local farms, so we had been tasked by Sergeant Skrimshire to undertake high profile patrols in the surrounding area, to act as a deterrent, and to offer the public reassurance.

About 23:05 hours the same day, we were on patrol on the Buckmore Road, Cliff View, Cornwall. Constable Lee was driving. The road was dark as there is no street lighting along that particular stretch of road, and it was raining, so visibility was poor. I was sitting in the passenger seat next to Constable Lee, and Constables MacDonald and
Woodland were both seated in the back. Suddenly Constable Lee swerved the vehicle away from the curb and braked sharply.

“I nearly hit that girl,” I heard Constable Lee shout.

“What girl?” I said.

“There was a girl walking alongside the road. Didn’t you see her?” Constable Lee asked me.

Once the vehicle had stopped, all four of us climbed out. It was then I saw a young girl standing beside the road in the dark. I walked towards her. I now know this female to be called Molly Smith. I would describe Molly as being about eighteen years old, and about five foot and four inches in height. She was of slim build, with long black hair and wearing a thin black dress. I noticed her feet were bare, which struck me as being odd, as the night was cold and it was raining. I recognised this girl to be part of a small family who had recently moved to the town of Cliff View. As I approached Smith, I could see that she was in a distressed state. She was crying and shaking uncontrollably.

“Are you okay?” I heard Constable McDonald ask her.

The girl made no reply, but just stood beside the road, with her hands covering her face while crying.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” I heard Constable Lee ask Smith.

“He hates me,” I heard Smith reply through her sobs.

“Who hates you?” I asked Smith. I was confused as I couldn’t see anyone else nearby and didn’t know who she was referring to.

“Come with us and we will give you a lift home,” PC Woodland said.

“No. I need to go and tell him I love him,” Smith said.

I then saw Smith turn and run into the wooded area beside the road. At this time I lost sight of her. Constable Lee ran back to the police van and returned a short time later with two large dragon lights.  He gave one of them to me and kept the other.

The four of us then made our way into the thick crop of trees beside the road in search of Smith. Even with the powerful dragon lights, it was dark inside the woods and we became easily disorientated. The ground was wet and slippery and made our progress slow as we made our way up the hill which leads to the Grayson farm. We must have been searching for Smith for at least ten minutes or more, when I heard a scream from the distance.

Together, me and my colleagues headed in the direction of the scream until we reached the crest of the hill where we found a well. I saw Constable Lee run to the side of the well and aim his dragon light down into it.

“The girl has fallen into the well,” Constable Lee said.

Myself, Constable Woodland, and Constable MacDonald joined Constable Lee at the side of the well. I pointed my dragon light into it. At the bottom of the well, I could see Smith. She was lying on her back in a pool of water.

“Hey!” I shouted into the well, but Smith didn’t move or stir.

“I think she might be dead,” I heard Constable Lee say as he climbed up and onto the edge of the well.