like to have a go at bringing it into contemporary consciousness to make people think about it.’
Roger rubbed his beard. ‘Do you not think, Mercedes, some things are better left undisturbed?’
Amelia glanced at me, sensing a clash coming on. Her look was a hush; I didn’t obey it. I said ‘No way. This is part of my heritage. It’s part of who I am.’
‘But what about what’s going on now?’ Roger fixed me with a determined stare. ‘Surely there’s more to be made from scout fetes and council corruption than digging up the past?’
I glared at him, thinking right, that’s just what you’d like me to do isn’t it? Just then Janet appeared with a bottle of champagne. ‘Oh, empty here are we? Do let me top you up.’
In spite of my earlier decision re: the car, I let her refill my glass and within seconds more guests had appeared. Roger got up to greet them and moved further down the garden.
Amelia however was still back in the dark days. ‘Sadie, I’m intrigued. I have an interest in this.’
I glanced at her skirt. I wanted to steer clear of any airy-fairyness. ‘Are you into that New Age stuff? That’s not the angle I’m taking.’
Amelia laughed. ‘No, not at all. I may wear the uniform but I’m not in the club, so to speak. I live in Manningtree, that’s all. Well, just outside. The local history is fascinating. No one really speaks of Hopkins. Not any more – they’ve been there and done that. But I’m not a native so I’ve found all that side of the town history very interesting. I’m from Launceston originally, in Cornwall. It’s near Boscastle. Do you know it?’
I shook my head. ‘I recognise the name but I haven’t been.’
Amelia grimaced. ‘Got hit awfully badly by those floods eight years back. You probably saw them on the news.’ She tutted. ‘Terrible. But,’ she clasped her hands over her knee, ‘they’ve also got a Museum of Witchcraft. Wonderful.’
‘That’s interesting.’ I was being genuine.
‘I went back a couple of years ago and gave a lecture on what I found out about the dastardly Master Hopkins. Did the Women’s Institute too.’
She caught me arching my eyebrows. ‘The W.I.’s not all jam and fairy cakes these days, you know. We’re quite progressive. Anyway, it went down well. All quite amateur sleuthing though, I’m afraid.’ She raised her own eyebrow now to imply faux modesty.
‘Really?’ I asked. Now I was seeing Amelia with different eyes – as a possible source. ‘So do you know much about Hopkins?’
She leant her shoulders into me. ‘I know he wasn’t born in Manningtree. Suffolk more likely. There’s a will of a James Hopkins who was a minister of the parish of Wenham. Most people agree that was his father. Personally I’m not that interested in his birth. No, it’s his end that interests me. There are stories that tell of him being lynched by a mob when he returned to Manningtree. Some think he went overseas.’
I could hear the West Country twang in her voice now.
‘I’ve heard some of that before,’ I said, thinking back to what Flick had said about my ‘ghost in the machine’, the unknown hand that had sent that missive to me – ‘He wasn’t he wasn’t he wasn’t’. Thing was, most people thought Hopkins was buried in Mistley and I said as much. ‘I’m sure most of that’s conjecture. Isn’t the consensus that he died of tuberculosis? That’s what his sidekick Stearne wrote, I believe.’
‘Yes. All true,’ she said with an enthusiastic nod. ‘But you have to agree that it was a rather sudden disappearance. Tuberculosis is slow and creeping. And perhaps Stearne had thrown the towel in with Hopkins. The Witchfinder was involved somehow with Lady Jane Whorwood. Some thought that association was the end of him. She was a Royalist. Absolutely pro-Charles I; visited him in prison. They may have possibly even had an affair. She certainly helped him escape. Perhaps the Parliamentary Puritans who backed the witch hunts grew weary or suspicious of Hopkins’ motives. Or perhaps, as you say, he just wasted away …’
I could tell she was saving the best for last so I asked, ‘You don’t reckon that happened then?’
Amelia beckoned me closer. ‘I always wondered if he wasn’t murdered,’ she said, throwing her hands up in the air.
‘Really? By whom?’
‘I don’t know exactly. But I have a half-formed theory.’ She sat back and took a large swig of her champers. ‘Who gains from