The Sweet Smell of Decay (3 page)

Witch-hunting was an old sport. An accusation would be followed by torture until a confession was obtained. Then the rector would be free to stage a public exorcism, a cleansing of his church and parish with him as blessed cleanser, and the
poor wretch hung by the neck, burnt alive or drowned. I looked to Dowling for help. He sat expressionless and impassive.

‘Sir, I know you by your noble reputation,’ Dowling said cautiously. ‘I know you as a learned man and a wise man. I am much surprised to hear you talk of witchery. It is my understanding that the learned give little to notions of witchery and maleficium. These are the superstitions of the poor and uneducated, and the Presbyterian Scots.’

‘I think you are telling me your
own
views, sir,’ replied the rector firmly, ‘but they are not the views of the secular courts, one of whose tasks it is to ensure the prosecution of black magic and maleficium. God himself spake through Moses; “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Until two years ago this church was ministered by an Independent, I know not what he preached to these people, for none will relate it to me, so I must presume that it was heresy. Where there is the stink of heresy one cannot rule out that witchery has grown from the seed so planted. Give up witches, give up the Bible.’

‘I am a humble man,’ I said untruthfully, ‘but in my turn I also divine that you disfavour providence because of its consequences. How can you be sure that the slayer did not take the key from your desk?’

‘I cannot. That is my sadness, sir. Now that you bring it to my attention the theory of providence becomes strong again. I simply cast my net wide so that I might catch the right fish.’ The fisher of men ran his talons through the tight black curls upon his head.

‘The Devil needs no witches to do his deeds. He is able to do his own deeds.’ Dowling looked cross.

The rector nodded thoughtfully. ‘You may not dismiss
maleficium so easily. The Devil uses witches because he uses witches. The issue of need is not at issue here. If you are investigating this murder, then you must consider witchery. Indeed, even if the key
were
stolen, it is just as likely to be maleficium as providence. You must agree!’

‘Very well,’ Dowling replied, before I could debate the point further, ‘but what of the key?’

The rector looked at us both with a slightly guilty expression. ‘You should know that I lost a servant three days ago, a poor, mean, dishonest young man who I would be rid of anyway. He departed without a word. Strange that he should leave about the same time the key is taken from my desk.’

God save my pickled soul! This was too much to bear! ‘It isn’t strange at all,’ I said slowly through gritted teeth. ‘Perhaps now we can dispense with all this talk of popery and witches. What’s his name and where does he live?’

The rector observed me thoughtfully before picking up his quill and writing. ‘His name is Simpson and he lives in a tenement near to St Martin’s. If any one of my servants took that key – it was he.’ He wrote some more. ‘And here is the name and abode of the woman that I suspect of witchery. If you do not pursue her then I will find others that will.’

‘Sir,’ I spoke carefully, ‘we visited your church yesterday, and examined it indoors and outdoors. We saw no evidence of witchery, no markings, no herbs or smells or concoctions. You should pay heed afore you accuse an old woman of witchery. Should you send one of your parish to the secular court only because you did not aid them when they demanded it, and they in turn went wanting, then we should take a personal interest and make full use of the Mayor’s influences. In this age, as you said yourself, there are many folks not to be intimidated by the word of the Church.’

The rector’s big eyes glistened. ‘Yea,’ he muttered, ‘but then you know little of witchery. Perhaps I should not raise the issue with you at all, but seek an audience with the Lord Chief Justice.’

Dowling coughed. ‘There is no need for that, good sir. We will find the woman. You in turn, sir, I think should be less hasty. You may be a great man. Certainly it would be a pity to be a small man with such a great head.’ Dowling gestured to all of the books. Indeed it was true – he did have an extremely large head.

The rector’s cheeks turned bright red and he clasped his fingers together just below his nose. ‘I read you and take you, Mr Dowling. Maybe I was not so much in need of your wise words as you would think. Meantime I hope you will indeed proceed hastily, for the sake of my parish, and I will do what I need to do, and I will thank you not to tell me how to go about my job.’

‘Aye sir, thank you, sir. We should take our leave now,’ Dowling exclaimed abruptly before seizing me by the arm and pulling me roughly. Though I was much offended I let myself be led. The rector waved a hand, dismissively. We hurried out the house and back onto Fleet Street.

‘You would remove one of my arms?’ I demanded, straightening my coat sleeve and checking that he had neither stretched the cloth nor left a print on it.

‘I know that man by reputation. Clergy can be dangerous, and the time was right to leave.’ He patted me on the shoulder like a puppy and looked up at the sky. ‘We must find this witch!’ he called, striding out ahead.

If you have the sense that you were born with, then you will have understood by now that neither Dowling nor I believed for a moment that a witch killed Anne Giles. I am intelligent and educated and the butcher can read and write. But it says in Exodus, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. So if there are no such things as witches, then why does the Bible say so? The answer of course is that the Bible is both extremely long and very badly written; such that you can find in its pages whatever message you seek. This is not an argument worth pursuing in public, however, unless you are inclined to lose your liberty, selected pieces of your body or even your life. So we went to find the woman, whose name was Mary Bedford, on Fleet Street, to save her the role of rector’s scapegoat. This was a gallant deed that made me feel unusually worthy.

We walked the streets towards the west, for the City had choked up already, such that walking was the quickest mode of transport available. Dowling strode down the middle of the road by himself, oblivious to the evil broth that splashed about his legs, body and ears, while I trod the higher ground with those that knew the difference between man and dog. So it was that he crossed the bridge at Fleet Ditch before me, the filthy stream that served the slums of Alsatia and Bridewell.

Tiny, dark, airless alleys branched off Fleet Street like dead twigs, every one of them a choking rotten tributary of streaming slops that crept slowly down to the river. Most of the ramshackle buildings were built of wooden planks nailed to posts, covered with pitch and roofed with rough tiles. The only warmth in those hovels was generated from the bodies of those that lived there, nested together many to a room, like rats in a nest. The stink was the foulest stink in the whole of England, a poisonous cloud fed by the soap makers, dye
houses, slaughterhouses and tanneries. The curing pits of the tanneries nestled alongside the outside of the city walls and were full of dog shit, a key ingredient in the tanning process.

The house that Mary Bedford lived in was tiny and unsteady, tucked in at the top of one of the foul alleyways just behind the much grander half-timbered houses of Fleet Street. It was closed up and the door was shut.

Dowling looked at me and shrugged, his mind back at his shop I reckoned, but given the rector’s ramblings about witchery we were committed to make greater efforts to find her, fearful of what might become of her were others to discover her whereabouts first.

The first house we tried was a large family house on Fleet Street. We didn’t hold out much hope of getting sense from the master of the house, for what man of standing would admit to noticing a poor wretch of a woman that sold meats on the street? But we hoped to find out something from the servants. The one that opened the door stared at us uncomprehending and unspeaking, even after we had explained our objective three times, ever slower and clearer. Finally he shook his head in bewilderment and wandered off into the house to find someone else. An imbecile. London was full of them – they came in from the villages, like Dowling. A short time later he returned, accompanied by a middle-aged woman wearing a coarse brown dress and white apron, with a white hood tied around her head. Her face was ruddy and rough, her expression impatient and puzzled. Another imbecile. She listened to Dowling’s questions, mouth agape and hands on her hips. Then she closed the doors in our faces. Washing day, as Dowling pointed out brightly.

We moved on to the next house and another street full after that.

‘Good morning to you.’ A grizzled face looked out through a ground floor window, a man maybe forty years old with a thick welt on his nose and one eye missing. Dowling recited his introduction for perhaps the twentieth time while I stood with my hands in my pockets. It was past lunchtime and my stomach wailed pitifully. The man leant on the sill with his arms crossed, chewing the inside of his cheek, apparently in the mood for a conversation.

‘Aye, I know Mary Bedford, Old Mary. Known her since she was a child.’

‘Have you seen her today?’ I demanded, astounded.

‘Not today. But she’ll be around.’

‘Around where?’

‘Somewhere.’

‘You know why she doesn’t go to church any more?’ Dowling probed.

The man nodded. ‘Same reason I don’t go no more. She asked to be put on the pensions list after she couldn’t stand her giddiness no more, but the new man told her she was lazy. She was ashamed. I had to tell her not to pay no heed, but she’s afeared to go back. Meantime she has to sell meats or else starve. If she’s not been home, then likely she’s lying on her face in a gutter somewhere. She’s too ill to be out working.’

‘Where does she sell?’

‘She won’t be far away, doesn’t like to wander. Shy of strangers too.’ His eyes were suspicious. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘We want to make sure she’s safe,’ I replied. The man shook his head and emitted a sorrowful cackle before closing the window. Dowling tutted sorrowfully, sighed and walked off.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked the back of his head.

He turned to regard me solemnly. ‘The notion that a man wearing your fine clothes is likely to have an interest in the fate of one such as Mary Bedford is not to be believed.’ One of his big dirty hands landed on one of my finely clothed shoulders. He was right, of course. I tried not to look too disappointed, hopeful that he would relieve me of his filthy great paw.

The next house to yield an answer was dark and unlit. All the windows were closed and there was a smell like liniment, sharp and acidic, with perhaps a hint of alcohol and fruit. The man that lived there was no less unattractive than the one we had just left, though he did have two eyes. His pupils were locked up tight like pinholes and the whites were covered with scabrous yellow patches. His nose was red and his eyes flowed. He twisted a piece of cloth between his fingers, which was clearly what he used to clean his nose. Poisonous green gases seeped from twixt his lips. He also knew ‘Old Mary’, but less intimately.

‘There’s some say she’s a witch,’ he told us through weeping eyes, in between sneezes. ‘She suckles the Devil, so it is said.’

‘Who says so?’ Dowling asked gently.

‘Folks,’ was the only reply we got, and nothing else of any use.

By seven o’clock that night we were practically in Whitefriars. Some people spoke to us but we learnt nothing new. Confirmation of her poor circumstances, more loose speculation as to whether or not she might be a witch. This was nothing very interesting, since all old women living by themselves elicited images of witchery in many folk’s minds. As darkness fell we made our final house call. A woman pushed open the top half of a door and stood there simpering. Her face, body and limbs were shrunken and wrinkled like an old, dry apricot. She smiled sweetly and broadly and her
eyes shone bright. We’d spoken to a few like this, this endless afternoon.

‘Ye-es?’ The old lady smiled so broadly that her eyes threatened to pop right out. It was a frightening sight. A tiny spittle of saliva trickled down her chin that she did not seem to notice. Dowling started to describe Mary Bedford using information that we had gleaned from others that day.

‘Ye-es. Mary.’ Smiling and staring into Dowling’s eyes she nodded slowly. He didn’t seem to mind. Probably used to it, being a Scot.

‘Tell me about her.’

‘Mary is my frie-nd.’ She continued to smile and waved her head from side to side like a snake, paying us scant attention. She seemed more interested in the darkening sky above our heads. Then she suddenly announced, ‘She is a witch!’ She said it quietly, melodically, as if she was talking about the weather, as if she did not understand the import of her words, which I suppose she didn’t. At that Dowling relaxed, as if he had seen it coming all along. When I quizzed him afterwards he told me that in his unfortunate experience living in the country, witches were always accused in pairs, never alone. Whilst I had never heard it said before, it explained Dowling’s persistence that afternoon, and his excitement in finding this woman, for she was, he told me, ‘the sort’.

What followed then was deeply disturbing. She told us tales of the two of them suckling children with their old dry breasts. How they would change their forms at night and visit children that mocked them during the day in the form of great toads. They had the power to cause children to die if they were too wicked in their ways, she claimed. We shouldn’t worry too much about Mary Bedford, she assured us, since being denied
her pension she had subjected herself to spells that enabled her to walk freely again. She talked of how they were able to play with men’s senses, remove and bestow at will hearing, sight and the use of limbs. And the more that she spoke, the more miserable I became. Not because of the words themselves, for I had no doubt that the woman was speaking nonsense. No, this was not my source of dread. What disturbed me was that I had heard these tales before, that they were in fact very well known. Two years before, two old women, Rose Cullender and Amy Denny, had been tried by the Lord Chief Justice himself, and were found guilty of witchery. The tales that this old woman was relating to us were clearly lifted from the account of their trial, which was printed and widely distributed and read. This old woman was clearly bucket-headed and weak minded, but her state of mind would be held as proof, not as grounds for dismissal. And so long as she was disposed to stand at her door and talk such nonsense to strangers such as us, both her life and the life of Mary Bedford were in very great danger should the rector take steps to pursue his theory. The Lord Chief Justice Keeling himself had tried the Lowestoft witches in his previous role as Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.