Connor stood in the crowd around the pond, his deadline quite forgotten as he waited for the police to finish prising the body out of the thick oozing mud where it had sunk out of sight.

“Any news yet?” John Whittle sidled up, lit a **** and had a few quick puffs to get his nicotine levels up to regulo six.

“I think they’re getting ready to bring her up, look over there.” They both turned to an accumulation of official vehicles, where a winch had been set up with a stretcher attached to it. John pulled at Connor’s arm.

“Let’s get closer and see if we can tell who it is.”

They inched along the bank towards the edge of the crowd, just as the stretcher was sent down onto the pond bed. They waited impatiently as the slow process was followed to bring the body up to the surface, Connor growing steadily more frustrated and hopping from one foot to the other.

“Here she comes.” John leant over the edge for a better look and almost lost his footing.

“Watch out. You don’t want to fall on top of her. That wouldn’t look good in the local paper.” Connor nodded over at the two journalists who were snapping away on the far side of the village pond. A ripple ran around the folk gathered at the edge of the last known resting place of the girl on the stretcher. Connor gasped as the whisper reached his own ears.

“It’s Sally Cookham. No! I only saw her yesterday on my way to the pub.”

“The question is…did she fall or was she pushed?” John raised his eyebrows and wiggled them.

Connor stared over the top of John’s head, looking at the stretcher, but there was too much wet mud on what was purported to be Sally to tell if she had sustained any injuries. Her hair hung lank and thick with weeds and muddy water. He could only see one small flash of flesh on her cheek where the muck had been wiped away, revealing a spot of pinkness. He felt a sudden surge of sadness for Sally. She couldn’t have been very old. Maybe 24 or 25 at the most. A pretty girl, with a strong nose.

“It’s a shame isn’t it?”

John nodded in silent agreement as the coroner’s vehicle drove away. The crowd began to disperse, and more people than usual to find their way to the Dog and Sausage. Connor still had a bit of a sore head from the night before so he stuck to Dandelion and Burdock to try and clear the fog on his brain and ordered a large piece of pie to help to settle his stomach.

Connor worked late into the night trying hard to make up for all the time he’d lost waiting to discover the identity of the body in the pond. It was near daybreak when he began to yawn. He’d abandoned his clothes hours ago and had been sketching in his underpants. Stretching his arms over his head, he felt his neck creak and then he heard it. It was a scream. It came from outside, and not too far away. He felt a shudder run all the way down his stretched spine. Connor hastily withdrew his arms from his yawn, and shuddered again. Listening hard, he strained his ears to catch the slightest noise, but there was nothing to hear, only the gentle hum of a hot summer’s night. He walked to the window, squinting to see if there were any signs of lights or movement outside but apart from the very dim haze of dawn beginning to chase away the shadows of the night there was nothing to see. Connor ran up the stairs two at the time into his bedroom, racing to the bedroom window, but there was nothing more to be seen from a higher vantage point. He wondered whether to go out, but an attack of fear gripped him in a tight hold and he slunk towards his bed, pulled the loose white sheet up to his face and stared at the moonlight flickering across his ceiling before he fell asleep.

Connor opened his eyes and glanced over at the radio alarm – the bright green digital display said eleven o’clock.

“What?” He rocketed out of bed, hurled his sleep befuddled body into the bathroom. A quarter of an hour later, he’d reached the dressing stage and went in search of his shorts. Climbing into them, he suddenly realised how quiet it was outside. He stopped with just one leg in his shorts, wondering where the lorries were. He hopped to the window, pushed it open and leaned out. A silent crowd stood on the edge of the pond staring downwards. A cold hand gripped his backbone and twisted it, making him wince. He remembered the scream from the night before. Leaning out further, he tried to see along the green, or rather what had once been the green, he guessed it should now be renamed the brown. That wasn’t an improvement, he knew there was only one thing for it – he would have to join the crowd.

Connor finished dressing and went out to see what was happening.

“What’s going on?”

Tom the landlord who stood with his arms folded gazing into space.

 “It’s a bad business this, make no mistake.”

“What’s a bad business. Sally’s death?”

“That were yesterday’s body, Connor. Today, there’s a fresh one.”

All in a rush, Connor was overcome with guilt at the thought of the scream from the night before. He was aware of the colour draining out of his face and he felt weak at the knees. Maybe he could have saved her. He suddenly felt very ashamed.

“Another one?” he whispered. Almost as if Tom didn’t hear him he wouldn’t be able to answer his question.

“Another girl it is. Bright red hair - you can see who it is, look!” Tom pointed down at the pond bed where a body lay sprawled face down in the mud. A few stray wild locks of bright red hair could be spied amongst the brown and sludgy greens below them.

“Tessa St James?”

“Sure to be, with that hair.”

“Oh God, it’s so awful. Who’s doing this?” Connor looked around frantically as if he expected to see a wild-eyed maniac in the crowd ready to spring out and claim another victim at any second.

John Whittle and Hugh Brentree appeared, merging in with the gathered throng.

“We’ve heard,” said Hugh with a sorrowful tone to his voice.

“A St James and a Cookham,” John shook his head. “That’s two of the oldest families in the village, all we need now is a Heale and we’ve got the makings of the hanging mob.” Connor looked puzzled; he made a small quizzical noise, sounding a little like a disturbed gerbil.

“You must have heard about the hanging mob? Didn’t your family tell you anything about village history when you were little?”

“Probably, but I never listened.”

"Squire St James, Dr Cookham and Preacher Heale were our resident witch dispatchers here in Muchover Westlake. They sought out and put to trial many suspect women, one of whom was old Mother Murcheson. Most of ‘em ended up in that pond, so I heard.”

“Why do you think all this is happening now?”

John Whittle tapped his nose. “I told you, never disturb the past.”

Feeling seriously rattled, Connor made some deadline-related excuses and slunk back to his cottage to drink a pint of strong coffee and eat a pile of toast. As he sat clutching his mug, he began to wonder about village history. He vaguely remembered his grandfather telling him dribs and drabs when he was tiny, mostly to frighten him and give him a thrill. All of a sudden, Connor remembered the books his grandfather had left him. He searched his mind for where the books could be and realised he’d put them in the attic. Slurping down the remainder of his coffee, he went upstairs and opening the narrow wooden door to the attic, he climbed the rickety staircase into the roof space. It was very hot up there under the eaves. One tiny window let light into the loft, showing up cobwebs, scuttling spiders and little mounds of mouse turds. Connor opened the window then poked around in the gloom until he found the big cardboard box marked ‘books’. He flipped open the box flaps and peered inside to check. It must have been damp in the attic for some of the topmost book-covers were coated with the bloom of mould. Connor hefted the box up to his chest, carrying it downstairs to search through the books for information about the village.

He got a can of Dandelion and Burdock from the fridge to wash the dust from his throat before he started reading. There were a few books on fishing, one on natural history and an indecipherable journal written by his grandfather – he put all of these to one side and delved in once more. Right at the bottom lurked a thick book entitled ‘The Associated History of the Westlake Villages, 1600 – 1800’. Connor began turning pages, skimming down them looking for anything relating to the village pond. His finger stopped midway down a page where the heading ‘The Strange Case of Eliza Murcheson’ had caught his attention.

‘Eliza Anne Murcheson of Holly Cottage, Muchover Westlake, was accused of witchcraft, and in particular the conjuring of evil. The council of Westlake sentenced her to trial by water and on the 13 October 1635 she was cross-tied by the fingers and toes and plunged into the depths of the village pond. It was decreed if she floated Eliza would be hanged as a witch and if she didn’t, heaven would have another innocent to embrace. Eliza Murcheson never broke the surface again. The pond was exhaustively searched by the villagers, who sank long poles down to the bottom, but her body was never found. The girl’s mother was Morgena Murcheson, the local midwife. Mother Murcheson (as she was known) never recovered from her daughter’s disappearance. Slowly, she became deranged, turning eventually to strong drink to ease her pain and loss. One year later, Mother Murcheson died a desperate death in Holly Cottage.’

Connor stopped reading and took a swig from his can. It looked like Hugh had got it wrong. It wasn’t Mother Murcheson who was tried as a witch - it was her daughter. And the reason the new beer was named after her was because she had drunk herself to death. He wondered if Eliza had become stuck in the mud at the bottom of the pond, but quickly discarded this theory as her bones would surely have been found when they were dredging up the remains of Sally Cookham. He turned back to the book, wading ever deeper into its pages until he found a section marked ‘The Ponds of the Westlake Villages’. He scanned down the page, picking out key points, but it wasn’t very exciting reading or illuminating to his search. The three villages, Muchover Westlake, Lussunder Westlake and Westlake Partington, all had ponds dating back to the Doomsday book. They had a varied history of being used for washing, the watering of beasts, the ducking of scolds and trial by water. Connor suddenly sat up. He read the last passage again in disbelief.

To be Concluded

Copyright Suzanna Stanbury 2009 All Rights Reserved