The Witch Maker Read Free Page A

you’re quotin’ straight out of some kind of pamphlet,’ Woodend said.
    â€˜I may be,’ the Chief Constable replied. ‘But that does not alter the facts. I’ve had people –
important
people – ringing non-stop since the news broke. They all want the burning to go ahead – and so it will.’
    â€˜Even if that means the murderer gets away with it?’
    â€˜Hallerton’s a small village, and it’s obviously a local crime,’ Marlowe said airily. ‘I doubt there can be more than a handful of possible suspects. It’s surely not too much to ask that you pin the killing on one of them by Sunday, is it?’
    â€˜An’ what if I don’t?’ Woodend asked.
    Marlowe smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. ‘Then I shall be forced to form a very unfavourable opinion of the way in which you have conducted the investigation,’ he said.

Three
    T he moorland road was not built for speed. It weaved and twisted its way around ancient property lines which had long since ceased to be of interest to anyone. It climbed, then dipped, then climbed again. At some points it was wide enough for two cars to pass each other comfortably, while at others it had barely the breadth to accommodate a single vehicle. Woodend seemed to have noticed none of this. He took the corners on two wheels and slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator whenever there was more than a few yards of open road ahead of him.
    Sitting in the passenger seat of the Wolseley, Monika Paniatowski took it all calmly. She was, if truth be told, a bit of a mad bugger behind the wheel herself. Besides, she had learned from experience that when her boss was furious – as he undoubtedly was now – a few close encounters with dry-stone walls were just what he needed to calm him down again.
    â€˜He wants me to have it wrapped up by Sunday,’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘Wants it
pinned
on somebody – his words, not mine – by the time the Witch Burnin’ gets under way.’
    â€˜What exactly
is
the Witch Burning?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Does it have anything to do with the Pendle witch trials?’
    They had begun to climb a fairly sharp slope, and the engine of the Wolseley groaned its displeasure at its driver’s choice of gear. Woodend ignored the complaint.
    â€˜No, it hasn’t a lot to do with the Pendle trials,’ he answered his sergeant. ‘In Pendle it might have been barbaric, but at least it was legal. It was the authorities from Lancaster who actually arrested the witches, an’ the official executioner who hanged them. In Hallerton, on the other hand, it was more a case of do-it-yourself justice. The villagers themselves arrested Meg Ramsden, conducted the trial and carried out the execution – all within an hour.’
    â€˜And they got away with it?’ Paniatowski asked incredulously.
    â€˜Some of them did. The authorities couldn’t try the whole village for the murder, naturally. But the crime couldn’t go unpunished either, so the high sheriff had the ones who’d played the biggest role arrested.’
    â€˜And who might they have been?’
    â€˜The fellers who actually tied the poor bloody woman to the post an’ burned her. Who else?’
    â€˜What happened to them?’
    â€˜They were hanged in Lancaster Gaol. An’ on the day of their execution – at the very moment when the trapdoor was due to be opened – the village burnt Meg Ramsden in effigy.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜There you’ve got me, lass. Maybe as an act of defiance. Anyway, whatever their reasonin’, twenty years to the day after the men were hung, the people of Hallerton burned a second effigy. An’ they’ve kept on doin’ it – every twenty years without fail – ever since.’
    They had almost reached the crown of the last hill before Hallerton. Woodend slowed, and then pulled