The Witch Hunt (Jonny Roberts Series Book 3) Read online

  “Yes. Zara should be home too.”

  “Zara? Who the hell is Zara?”

  “Isabella’s daughter. Didn’t you know she had a daughter?”

  “What? No! When were you going to tell me that? How old is she? Like five, or something?”

  “Actually, she’s 18 . . .”

  “18!” I did some quick maths, trying to work out Isabella’s age. Dad was about 50, and Mum had said Isabella was half his age. But that couldn’t be right. “But I thought Isabella was about 25?”

  Dad laughed heartily. “What? No. Who the hell told you that?”

  “Mum.”

  Dad shook his head. “If you must know, she’s 40. She’s eleven years younger than me.”

  I had to admit, I was a little taken aback. And it did press a seed of doubt into my mind, that if Mum had exaggerated about Isabella’s age, then what else had she exaggerated about?

  “Anyway, none of that matters. Let’s head inside, shall we?”

  Dad retrieved my suitcase from the car boot. It had started to rain again, a steady drizzle falling from the sky, brushing against my face.

  “It’s meant to be horrible weather all weekend,” said Dad. “Shouldn’t stop us from a few countryside walks, though.”

  Great, I thought.

  Dad had forgotten his key, so I waited on the porch while he knocked on the front door. The immaculate red door, with an antique door knocker. At first, I’d thought this cottage cute. But now, it was beginning to make me feel claustrophobic. A little out of place. Or maybe it was just that my mouth had become dry again, and my mind was still conjuring up different images of Isabella. What she might look like; how she might act; how this evening might pan out.

  When the inside light flicked on, and I saw a figure behind the door pane, I swallowed. Watched as the door handle turned, as the door creaked open.

  I blinked. Looked into a pearly smile.

  “Oh my god, you must be Jonny! How nice to meet you!”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said. Bewildered, I put out my hand, but Isabella waved it away.

  “None of that. I’m Bella. Come for a hug.” She pushed back the door a little and pulled me in. As my chin brushed her shoulder, I smelled her sweet perfume. Her blonde hair tickled my face.

  “I’ve made us all dinner,” said Bella, as she pulled away. “Come in, come in.” I stepped in first. “It’s chicken paella; is that okay Jonny?”

  “Yes, thank you.” I didn’t even know what paella was.

  “I lived in Spain for a few years, so I picked up the tastes. Come into the kitchen. Jonny, can I get you a glass of anything?”

  “Water would be nice,” I said. As I followed her into the kitchen, I glanced to Dad, who was grinning smugly.

  “So, what do you think of our little place?” he asked.

  I hadn’t had much of a chance to look around yet, what with meeting Bella. None of the pictures I’d conjured were remotely close to how she seemed. She was happy, chirpy. Like she was genuinely pleased to meet me. And I’ll even admit that she was beautiful. She wasn’t young like I’d expected, but she had more of a mature beauty.

  Before we entered the kitchen, I had a quick look around the cottage, to keep Dad happy. I was more curious to follow Bella, to work out who she was. Looking, I saw gleaming floors, bannisters, stairs. Nice furniture. Oak ceiling beams, from wall-to-wall.

  “It’s very nice,” I said.

  “I’m glad you like it,” said Dad.

  Walking into the kitchen, the first thing I noticed was the table in the corner, made for four. Two candles flickered in the middle of the table. Oddly, I had a flashback to when we held a séance for Alice Pickering. I quickly doused the thought. That was in my past, not in my present, or my future.

  “Zara’s getting ready at the moment,” said Bella. “She’ll be down in a few minutes. She’s always running late, that girl. So, Jonny, how was your journey?”

  Bella had been pouring me a glass of water as she spoke, and now, she passed it to me. As she turned, I noticed her blue eyes, like skies on a clear day. It made me think of her. But again, it was in my past. My damn past. Not now. Not now.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the glass from Bella. She gave me another of her gleaming smiles, then turned back to the paella. “My journey was fine thanks, though it was a bit of a drag. I had to go through London, so that was a pain.”

  “Oh yes, I guess we didn’t think of that. Friday is always the worst time to commute. I used to work in London, so I know what you – Zara!”

  We’d all turned to the sound of footsteps by the kitchen door. When I set eyes on Zara, I realised she’d already been looking at me. A pugnacious look, narrow eyes and thin lips. A look that told me I was in her house, and I needed to remember that.

  She put out her hand though.

  “Zara,” she said, with deep, semi-masculine tones. Indeed, Zara had acquired little of her mother’s beauty. It made me think that her father must have been a brute, what with Bella’s slender frame. For Zara was well-built, tall, with broad shoulders and thick arms. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she was a rugby player.

  “Jonny,” I said, shaking her hand. Her palm dwarfed mine, and my hands weren’t small. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” she said. Then she turned away from me, the seconds she’d given me already too many. “Mum, what you cooking?”

  Bella had turned back to the food. “Paella.”

  “Not that crap again. It’s all we ever eat.”

  “It’s your mother’s best meal,” said Dad, giving her a look.

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said, in a way that made me think she cared little about Dad’s opinion. Of course, for all I knew, Zara and I could have been in the same boat. Bella might have done exactly the same thing to her father that Dad had done to Mum. In which case, she’d have full right to hold a grudge against him.

  “You’re so fussy,” said Bella. “Michael, can you get some plates for us please? I think we’re ready to serve up.”

  “Gladly,” he said, moving over to the kitchen cupboards.

  In the end, dinner proved to be pretty nice. And not just the food, but also the conversation. On the train, I’d imagined Bella to be jealous, conniving, someone who would throw me a snide remark at every opportunity. In reality, she was exceptionally kind. She offered me extra food; she refilled my glass when it was empty; she asked me lots of questions about my life. Not that there was much to tell. And of course, I said nothing of Stephen, or of Cassy.

  I reciprocated the questions too, and found out a lot about Bella. That she didn’t have a job, and had been a housewife for the past year. She was looking, she admitted, but she’d only go for the right opportunity. That Zara was her only child, and that she’d left her husband over five years ago, which had been a bit of an awkward topic. Then, getting onto more stable ground, she talked to me about how much she loved gardening, that she had an allotment, and the rain hadn’t been great for her vegetables.

  The only downer on the evening was Zara. For most of the meal, she sat on her phone. Not that anybody told her off for it. Every now and then, she’d burst out laughing, and when we asked her why, she’d tell us not to worry. At one point I glanced at her screen and saw she was looking at memes on Instagram.

  But it didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to make friends with Zara, even if she was only a couple of years older than me. I’d come to see Dad again. And throughout the dinner, he was on good form, cracking jokes like the old days. Though, when I found myself laughing with him, a strange reluctance spread through my stomach. I didn’t want him to think he was off the hook, that I’d forgiven him for everything that he’d done to me.

  It was late by the time we’d finished chatting, dinner hours before. Zara went up first, then Bella. Which left Dad and I at the table, a little music playing in the background. The Beatles, which had always been Dad’s favourite band.

  “Your room is the first one on the
left by the way,” said Dad. “I put your suitcase in there earlier.”

  “Great, thanks. I should probably head up in a minute.”

  “Sure. You must be tired, after all that travelling. Before you go up though, tell me. What do you think?”

  “Of Bella?”

  “Yeah. Of Bella.”

  I thought about my response. I looked at his expectant smile, his hopeful eyes. “Honestly, I think she’s really lovely. I can see that she makes you happy.”

  “Thank you, son,” he said, exhaling. “I’m glad you like her. It worried me, I’ll be honest, after everything that happened. So it really does mean a lot to me to hear you say that.” He smiled. “It’s been good today, seeing you again.”

  I nodded. Wanted to say the same, but couldn’t quite bring myself to it.

  5

  When I woke up, the glowing alarm clock showed 2:14.

  I’d been having a dream. In it, Dad and I had been in the car again. Only this time, it had gone really well. We’d hugged it out, and then he took me fishing, where I caught the biggest fish I’d ever seen. Literally the size of a shark. We both celebrated over it.

  Only, his cries of delight had turned to screams.

  However, they had been odd screams. They weren’t the deep, masculine cries that Dad would have made. They were high-pitched, shrill. Muffled.

  It was only as I came to that I realised the screams weren’t coming from Dad’s mouth at all. They were coming from outside the bedroom.

  I blinked in the dark. For a moment, I heard nothing. Only silence. But then, just as I was wondering if I’d imagined it all, I heard the cry again. The shrillest and loudest of them all.

  At first, I didn’t know what to do. Whether it was Zara or Bella, I’d only known them both for about five minutes. Surely Dad would be out there, helping them? Maybe it was something stupid, like one of them had seen a spider, or had stubbed their toe on a step?

  But, when I heard that shrill scream once again, thinking it would be ear-piercing if not for the bedroom wall, I realised that they weren’t screaming because of some spider. I realised that something serious was happening, and that maybe Dad needed help.

  I pushed the bedcovers off myself, crept across the bedroom floor. I could see light filtering through the crack in the door. My room wasn’t pitch black, everything cast in a dusky grey. As such, I didn’t bother turning on the light.

  I grasped for the door handle. Twisted it. Decided at the last moment to pull the door back only slightly, just a fraction, so that I could look through the gap, see what the hell was going on.

  The handle turned in my grasp, as another scream erupted from someone’s throat.

  Light immediately invaded the room. A thin line of it painting the bedroom floor. I shimmied round the door to the light.

  And, looking through the crack, I gasped.

  The light was coming from Dad and Bella’s bedroom, the door of which was open wide. In front of the bed kneeled Bella, tears forming rivers along her cheeks. Behind her was Dad, who had his arms wrapped around her shoulders, though not in comfort. It was the sort of move you might see a wrestler use, only worsened by Zara, who had Bella by the legs, pinning them to the ground.

  Initially, I just watched, stunned. Wondering why they were deciding to re-enact WWE in Dad’s bedroom.

  But, as I noticed the saliva flicking around Bella’s mouth, when I saw the rabid hunger as her pupils dilated, I thought that this was no game. Only confirmed when Bella bared her teeth, and sank them into Dad’s arm.

  I recoiled. Dad cried out, bared his own teeth, scrunched his eyes. But he kept his vice-like grip on Bella, even as blood trickled down his arm, dripped to the carpet. When she finally released her bite, Dad’s face contorted in pain.

  Bella let out a primal, guttural roar. Her mouth formed a horrid, black circle. Her perfect teeth stained with scarlet.

  I was frozen. Why on Earth Bella was acting in this way, I didn’t know. But then I heard Dad as, through gritted teeth, he said to Zara, “Don’t worry. It’ll pass. It’ll pass like it always does.”

  Bella struggled. All the time trying to bite, scratch, kick her way out of her captors’ grasps. She must have realised the fight was hopeless as her crying began to cease. As her breathing slowed, became normal once again.

  It was just before her eyes closed that she looked to me. I don’t know if she noticed me or not, if she was even capable of recognising me in that moment. But the eye contact was enough to send electricity through my body. To stop my own breathing.

  For those weren’t the eyes of a sane human being. They were demonic eyes. Hateful eyes. Eyes that thirsted for pain.

  Her body went limp. Her eyes closed, and she drooped in my father’s arms. Zara patted him on the shoulder, and it was only then that he looked up. Glanced to where I stood.

  And, like Bella, I didn’t know if he’d seen me. For as soon as he looked up, I shut the door.

  It took me a while to get back to sleep. When I awoke again at seven, the morning light glaring through my window, I knew that trying to sleep any more was futile. Instead, I stared at the ceiling, my eyes sore and heavy. Any good mood I’d had from the night before had fully dissipated.

  Rubbing my eyes, I tried to conjure an idea for why Bella had acted in such a way. How she’d slumped in Dad’s arms after the attack made it look like she’d been experiencing some sort of waking nightmare.

  And when I’d looked at her, just before she’d fallen asleep, I’d felt electricity inside me, like when I’d seen Alice Pickering and Katy Johnson. But no, it couldn’t be. It was just looking at her, that was all. Looking at whatever was happening to her.

  After a time, I heard pans banging, and voices downstairs. I was reluctant to get up. But, thinking that I’d have to face them sooner or later, I pulled myself out of bed, put on a dressing gown, and braced myself.

  Stepping round the corner to the kitchen, I wondered how Bella would look. Exhausted? Frightened? Psychotic? But, as soon as she noticed me, she looked up from laying out croissants on a tray, and beamed. “Jonny! Morning! How did you sleep?”

  Maybe it took me a little too long to reply, as I looked her up and down. Her eyes seemed a little purple, but apart from that, it was as if last night had never happened. As if it had been a figment of my imagination.

  “Good,” I said. “Good. How about you?”

  “Not bad, thanks.” Still she smiled, turning back to the tray. “The kettle has just boiled. Michael, want to make Jonny a cup of tea?”

  Now, I turned to Dad. His face was a completely different story. Whereas Bella’s eyes were a little purple, Dad’s eyes were grey. Puffy. And, as he made eye contact with me, then held that eye contact, I knew that he was trying to work out what I knew. Whether he’d seen me peeking in the dark, or if it had just been his eyes playing tricks on him.

  “Of course,” he said, breaking the eye contact as he said it. He pulled a white mug from the cabinet and placed it on the worktop. I noticed that he was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt. His forearm looked particularly padded, most likely hiding some sort of bandage. “The TV is on in the living room, Jonny, if you want to watch something?”

  I nodded. “Sure,” I said, taking my cue to get away from this situation. To think a little bit more. “Thanks.”

  I wandered into the living room. BBC news was playing on the television. I pretended to watch, being far more interested in listening to what was happening in the kitchen.

  No conversation was made though. The two scrambled around in silence. I didn’t know what they were up to; surely they knew that I’d heard Bella last night. She’d been loud enough to hear from the road outside, most probably. Yet Bella didn’t seem like she was hiding anything.

  Dad came into the living room to give me my tea. I thanked him, but he didn’t say anything. He merely shuffled back out the room, as if he were a different man to the joking, jovial one of the previous evening. And this time, no eye contac
t. Bella might be playing the saint, but Dad’s performance in this drama was woeful.

  The next I heard him was when he called me for breakfast. Bella had bought in croissants, luxury jam and chocolate spread. But as the three of us ate at the table, the nice food still didn’t cure the silence, permeating the air around us.

  Often, I glanced at Bella. Despite the silence, she was still grinning to herself, clearly enjoying the peace and quiet, as well as her croissant. Feeling little awkwardness, or at least, trained enough to hide it. On a couple of occasions, I also risked a look at Dad. He never looked back, staring at his croissant as if it were the only thing in the room. As if he were pretending that we weren’t there.

  After finishing off my first croissant, I realised that it had to be me who made the conversation.

  “So, what’s the plan for today?”

  Bella grinned. “Well, did you know that this area was one of the prime spots for witch hunts in the middle ages?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. So we’re going somewhere where a witch hunt took place?”

  “Not just any witch hunt. A witch hunt directed by the Witchfinder General himself, Matthew Hopkins.”

  I shook my head. “Never heard of him.” Not something they’d taught in GCSE History, clearly.

  “A lot of people haven’t. Ever since we moved here though, we’ve become really interested by the topic, haven’t we, darling?”

  Dad wore the sort of look that told me his interest was very much feigned. “You really want to go, don’t you, sweetheart?” The first time he’d spoken since the call for breakfast.

  “I really do. We went last year, and it was so interesting. Your dad couldn’t come though; work stuff. The place is called Devil’s Lake, named because witches were said to have served the devil, and it was where a lot of them were drowned, or hanged. There’s a house there where they have all the old torture equipment, too.”

  “Sounds like a lovely day out.” I looked to the open kitchen door. “Will Zara be joining us?”

  “Oh, yes.” Bella was spreading jam on another croissant. “I’ll drag her along. It usually takes her a long time to get out of bed. In fact, we were surprised that you were up so early.”