A Painted Doom

Kate Ellis was born and brought up in Liverpool and studied drama in Manchester. She has worked in teaching, marketing and
accountancy and first enjoyed literary success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition. Keenly interested in
medieval history and ‘armchair’ archaeology, Kate lives in north Cheshire with her engineer husband, Roger, and their two
sons.

Kate Ellis was short-listed for the CWA Short Story Dagger and her novel,
The Plague Maiden
, was nominated for Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2005.

For more information regarding Kate Ellis log on to her website:
www.kateellis.co.uk

The Merchant’s House

The Armada Boy

An Unhallowed Grave

The Funeral Boat

The Bone Garden

A Painted Doom

The Plague Maiden

The Skeleton Room

A Cursed Inheritance

The Marriage Hearse

Published by Hachette Digital

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2002 by Kate Ellis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-749-93756-0

Hachette Digital

Little, Brown Book Group

100 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DY

www.hachette.co.uk

Copyright

Also by Kate Ellis

Angel

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Historical Note

For Roger

I left you there in paradise,

Now in dreams I see your eyes.

Sweet thing wearing white,

You weren’t meant for the dark night.

(Chorus)

Angel, sweet angel,

How good it was before the devil came.

Angel, my angel,

You were just part of his game.

He broke your wings like a butterfly.

How I often wonder why.

We were just kids, how could I know

That you’d burn in the fire’s glow?

(Chorus)

Now you’re gone and I don’t know how.

You don’t hear or see me now.

He took you off into the night;

Crushed your wings and put out the light.

(Chorus)

Words and music by Jonny Shellmer

August 1966

The girl knew they were staring at her, glowering out of the gloom with hideous red eyes. Eyes that knew all her secrets …
even the worst secret of all. She put her hand to her face and felt the tears on her cheek.

Then, after a few long minutes of silence, she stood up slowly, stiffly, trying not to catch the watchers’ eyes. She looked
down and saw the old metal box still lying there on the straw: the box he had told her about; the box that had put the evil
thoughts into his mind. She pushed it away with her foot. She wanted nothing to do with it … ever. Thick golden needles of
straw had stuck to her flesh, leaving livid indentations behind. She brushed herself down with trembling hands, sobbing gently
and praying that nobody would hear her.

She heard a sound, distant at first, then closer: someone was outside calling her name. Recognising the voice, she froze,
not daring to move a muscle even when a large spider scampered over her bare, pale thigh, its eight fragile legs tickling
her flesh. She watched the creature scurry away and waited, quite still, with shallow, silent breaths, until she was sure
that she was alone.

She stumbled out into the sunshine and began to run towards the water’s edge. Down and down the steep path she ran; through
nettles, through soft cowpats, through
overgrown thistles. Her feet were bare but she felt no sensation, no pain, no disgust. Down and down until the water appeared
before her; she kept her eyes focused on the river; on the moving, shifting ripples and the dazzling sparks of sunlight which
flashed and danced on the surface. As she moved forward she felt that the eyes were still on her, watching, knowing: those
devils’ eyes that had witnessed everything.

She reached the river. It was high tide; no time for fear or second thoughts on the drowned shingle beach. As she waded in,
the salt tears and mucus rolled down her face to mingle with the blue-green waters of the River Trad. She waded in farther,
the force of the river slowing her pace, until the waters reached her waist and the currents snatched at her legs, knocking
her off balance. As she sank beneath the surface, she felt a sudden, unexpected urge to fight, to struggle, to choose life
over the other option. She kicked against the current, taking greedy gasps of air as she surfaced. She didn’t want it to end
like this. But it was too late now.

It was almost over. And she knew that the demons were still watching her with greedy, mocking eyes, hungry for another lost
soul.

Right worshipful husband,

I recommend me to you, desiring heartily to hear of your welfare. All is well on your lands and yet I am much afeared that
your loyalty to the Earl will lead you into danger.

But I would write of matters that concern us here. Touching the marriage of your son, John, I heard while I was in Exeter
there is a goodly young woman whose mother is friend to a kinsman of his mother’s and she shall have two hundred pounds at
her marriage. I spoke with the maid’s kin and friends and have their good wills to have her married to John. I do hope that
they will not hear of his misdeeds or my plans will come to nought.

I heard talk in Exeter that Queen Margaret is in France awaiting a passage to our shores and that the Earl’s people are waiting
to rise up in Devonshire at her call.

I pray the Lord to keep you from all harm and our daughter, Elizabeth, sends greeting.

Your loving wife
Marjory

Written at Derenham this fourth day of March 1471

March 2001

Terry Hoxworthy parked his battered Land Rover with its rusty trailer in front of the old barn and gave his son Lewis, who
was slumped beside him in the passenger seat, a sharp nudge before climbing out.

Lewis Hoxworthy was fifteen years old with bright red hair and the plump, doughy figure of one who took too many hamburgers
and not enough exercise. Slowly, resentfully, he pushed the Land Rover door open, jumped down onto the rough damp earth and
complained about the cold.

His father raised his eyes to heaven. When he was Lewis’s age he’d have received a clip around the ear for the mildest dissent.
When Terry was young, a farmer’s son helped out on the farm and that was that. But Lewis had led a softer life, a life which
in times past would only have been enjoyed by the privileged sons of the aristocracy. He looked at the boy’s scowling face,
attempted an encouraging smile and wondered where he’d gone wrong.

‘Come on, Lew. We need to clear this place out. The people from the planning department are coming tomorrow.’

Lewis looked unimpressed.

‘And after they’ve been Mr Heygarth from the estate agent’s is coming round to value the place.’

Lewis looked at the ramshackle old building, doubtful that anyone would pay good money for it.

‘If we both pitch in, it won’t take long. Many hands make light work,’ Terry said with awkward jollity.

The boy pressed his lips together tightly and said nothing. He turned away from his father and placed an experimental toe
into the puddle that had spread itself across the doorway of the barn like a defensive moat, then he pulled it out again quickly
before the water could soak into the soft white leather of his new Nike trainer.

Terry jumped over the puddle and suggested nervously that Lewis might put some wood down to stop their feet getting wet. Lewis
gave him a look of contempt and
shrugged his shoulders, but Terry forced himself to stay calm and resisted the urge to yell at the boy, demanding instant
obedience. Teenage years were difficult years, and parents had to tread carefully if good relationships were to be maintained
– or so his wife had read in one of her magazines.

After a few moments spent staring at the problem, Lewis relented a little and made a half-hearted attempt to create a makeshift
bridge from a couple of planks he had found propped up just inside the doorway: hardly the product of a great engineering
mind, but Terry reckoned it would probably do the job and made appropriate noises of praise. Praise was important.

Then things looked up. Lewis, having decided that further resistance was futile, began to help, and the pair worked quickly
with hardly a word exchanged between father and son. Half an hour later the first trailer-load of detritus from the barn was
ready to be whisked off for disposal.

Lewis turned down the chance to drive with his father to the local tip, choosing instead to stay at the old barn: he was unused
to the hard physical labour of hauling and carrying and he told his father that he needed a rest to get his breath back. Terry
Hoxworthy thought it best to say nothing.

As soon as the engine of Terry’s Land Rover was out of earshot, Lewis began to mooch around the barn, in search of anything
to relieve the paralysing boredom of an afternoon parted from his computer screen.

The ladder leading up to the hayloft caught his attention first. It would do no harm to explore, he told himself. Whatever
secrets the barn held, they could hardly rival the attractions of
Death Horror III
– the latest pirated computer game acquired from his mate Yossa at school – but he was stuck there so he might as well make
the best of it.

He climbed the ladder, testing each rung carefully before he trusted it with his weight. It was darker up in the loft,
and the layer of ancient straw on the floor smelled musty in the damp March air. Normally the hay was stored up here, but
it had been cleared out in preparation for the anticipated sale.

At first sight the empty loft seemed as boring as the rest of the barn; nothing to be seen apart from a few sticks of broken
furniture and a thick layer of dusty, mildewed straw. A scattering of rusty nails and a corroded horseshoe had inexplicably
made their way up here at some time in the place’s long history and, strangest of all, a pair of woman’s low-heeled shoes
– size four or five – lay dusty and unclaimed on top of a pile of deeper straw by the left-hand wall. Perhaps a bit of what
his father called ‘hanky-panky’ had gone on in the barn at one time or another, and this thought set Lewis’s hormones racing
and his loins tingling for a few turbulent seconds. Girls were as yet uncharted territory for Lewis, but the barn would be
an ideal place for That Sort of Thing should the chance ever arise. He felt a first small pang of regret that his father was
having to sell the place.

The exposed rafters looked massive from Lewis’s elevated position: tree trunk thick, the cross-beams would have made a tempting
assault course for the adventurous. But Lewis wasn’t tempted. Climbing was for kids.

At the end of the loft, by the great gable end, was a large filthy wooden panel leaning against the wall. The bottom jutted
out slightly to form a lean-to hiding-place normally hidden from view behind bales of hay – an undiscovered, secret place.
Lewis approached it slowly, and when he reached the narrow triangular entrance he bent to look inside.

He fumbled in his pocket for the torch on his key-ring – a cheap plastic affair that he’d bought last year while staying with
his aunt in Cornwall – and pressed the switch, which sent a weak beam of light out into the darkness.

A rusty metal box lay on the floor at the farthest end: it looked interesting, mysterious, and Lewis resolved to crawl
in and retrieve it. Then the feeble beam swept over the wooden partition and he heard himself gasp. Perhaps he had been playing
too many computer games, or watching too many of those horror films his mates got out of the video shop in Tradmouth. Perhaps
his eyes were playing tricks.