At the end of it Dowling pressed five coins into her hands and pleaded with her that she say no more of witchery. She nodded her head, and smiled happily, but neither of us believed that the money would change her behaviour. We left Fleet Street that evening, with troubled minds and troubled hearts, though not before Dowling asked me to reimburse him the five coins.
As the weak winter light slowly faded and a bloody red sheen slid forward over the cobbles and stones, we finally hurried to the address that we had for John Simpson. But all we gained was a vague description of an ordinary-looking man. Simpson himself had left the premises and taken what belongings he had with him. We would have to find him too, but not that night. I headed home exhausted and anxious.
Jane waited for me in the hall, simmering and full of tension. Waving her hands at me and making signs, she shepherded me towards the door of my front room. Then she put her lips to my ear and hissed, ‘Get him out!’
I looked into her eyes, but saw no fear, so I pushed the door slowly open and entered the room. A strange little man stood looking about him at every article of furniture and detail. His manner matched his strange appearance, ponderous yet threatening, like a mangy dog that would soonest flee yet still sink its teeth into your throat should you block its passage. Even with his funny hat on, tall with a wide brim in the style that the Puritans used to wear some twenty years before, the man did not quite match even me in stature. Yet his legs were long like a rooster. Shiny black leather boots reached nearly up to his knees, and were so loose from his leg that I found myself wondering what would happen were I to pour water into them. The top of his head was covered with tightly curled hair; the bottom of it sprouted a pointy little beard. With one hand he carried a stick that was taller than he, a thick, twisted branch of wood, gnarled and black. Finally he looked me in the eye. Once he had it, he would not let it go, just stood there looking glum, staring.
‘You have not found Mary Bedford.’
What business was it of his? ‘Who are you?’
Blinking and frowning, he muttered something to himself, before looking at me with sad eyes and turned-down mouth. A look of pity. I should have been angry, but instead felt intimidated. He cleared his throat and licked his lips. ‘I am John Parsons. I was told that you are trying to find out who killed Anne Giles. Seems I was told false. I beg your pardon.’ He made as if to leave.
‘I am trying to find out who killed Anne Giles. What’s your business?’ As I spoke it suddenly occurred to me who the man might be. His old-fashioned Puritan dress, his mercenary aspect — all reminded me of the pictures I had seen and stories I had read of Matthew Hopkins and John Sterne. ‘You are a witchfinder,’ I exclaimed, horrified, making no attempt to disguise my contempt.
He had the temerity to smile modestly and bow his head. ‘If I don’t find her in one day, then you have my word that I will press no claim upon you for money. But I will find her.’
Matthew Hopkins died young, just twenty-five-years old. He came from Ipswich where he was a lawyer, a man of no reputation nor social standing. Yet before he died he managed to torture and kill more than two hundred poor folks, most of them women. He was a parasite that had fed upon the fears of the poor ignorants that lived in the countryside and the small towns. This man reminded me of him. He gave off a stinking malodour of the same horrible zealousness. A calm certainty exuded from his tiny body, my sharp words fell against him like leaves falling from a tree. My instinct was to be rid of him, but then what would he do? Men like him demanded money for their services, yet it wasn’t money that drove them. They were conceited and proud, over sure of their own worth and righteousness. If I turned him away, I knew that he would market his services about the parish until he found one that would pay. So I tried to be clever. ‘How much money do you want?’
His steady gaze made me feel like he could read my mind and was challenging me to rebuke him. ‘We can agree the sum after I have apprehended the woman and tested her.’
‘Tested her? You mean watching, searching or swimming?’ I tried to hide the rising fear and loathing that this man was eliciting in my soul. Hopkins had forced his victims to sit on a stool in the middle of a room for days and nights on end. Witnesses would be told to watch for familiars sneaking out into the open to suck blood from the witch’s hidden extra nipple. Every witch had familiars. He would keep them seated on the stool until they were exhausted, driven half mad by lack of sleep. Then he would extract his confession. Or he would search them, strip them naked and search every part of their body, looking for the hidden nipple and for witch marks. Or he would bind their hands and feet and throw them into a river or pond. Men would push them down to the pond to see whether or not they would rise to the surface. If they rose they were dragged out and hung. If they sank, then they were innocent, but dead.
‘I will make that judgement based on what I see.’
I was angry enough now to return his black stare without trepidation. ‘I will pay you well, Mr Parsons,’ at which he nodded calmly and let his gaze drop, ‘if you follow my instructions, and proceed as I instruct you.’
Looking up he seemed surprised, as if to ask what could I possibly know about his gory trade. He snorted.
‘You will find her, and you may apprehend her, but you will do nothing else until talking to me. You will not test her, nor indeed do anything to her whatsoever, until I have visited and we have agreed what next to do, together. Is that acceptable to you, Mr Parsons?’
The witchfinder looked at me for a moment as if I was the weakest and least resolute man in the whole of England. Then he smirked, nodded, and confirmed that he was prepared to do my will. I should have felt satisfied, but as I watched him leave I felt my cold skin prickle. God help us.
‘Who was that?’ Jane glared at me from beneath the red tangle on top of her head.
I grunted. Not having a wife of my own, I had managed to acquire a bit of wealth. Indeed I was worth a hundred pounds, money that I kept in a small brown casket that was buried beneath the floor of the cellar. Those hundred pounds were the fruit of my efforts over five long years spent toiling every waking hour over at the Tower. Once I had saved a hundred pounds I had decided that it was enough. As long as I had money for food, wine and tobacco, that was funds sufficient. It was at that point I had employed Jane.
She had been a quiet girl when I first offered her employ. She’d worked for a lot of different households and came to me without any references whatsoever, but she did have this astounding wild red hair that I found instantly fascinating. For the first couple of days she did everything I told her to without comment, but on the third day, I think it was, she threw a cooking pot at my head for no reason at all and started shouting — all kinds of blasphemies — some of which I’d not heard before. After that we got on much better. She doesn’t often do what I tell her to, but knows better than I what needs doing. Deep down I know that she wants to lie with me, but I think she’s concerned that she may spoil our master and servant relationship. She keeps telling me that I ought find a wife, but not with any sincerity.