and plates; some gorgeous necklaces, the like of which might have been replicated and displayed on several D-list celebrities of today; a replica chariot used by the warrior queen, Boudicca or Boadicea, as she was known in my childhood. I don’t know when her name changed but I really preferred the original. Mum had too, telling me that nobody really knew how it was pronounced and I could say it whichever way I wanted. She liked the warrior queen but she thought her story wasn’t all there. ‘History,’ she’d tell me, ‘is a matter of who tells the tale and why.’ I remembered her having a bit of a rant over Tacitus’s account. ‘He was writing years after the events but we take his words as gospel. It’s us who allow time to reduce history to a half truth. It’s only one person’s perspective. You got to watch out for that, Sadie.’ Well, I certainly was. I was here in Colchester Castle wasn’t I? Getting my own perspective on the place. She’d be pleased about that – solid primary research.
I was looping through the Middle Ages section when Felix found me, lingering on an ornate hair clasp. Woven into its design was a cluster of butterflies and moths. One of them had been darkened by some kind of chemical technique to accentuate the pattern.
‘The moth and the butterfly were Japanese symbols of the soul,’ read the accompanying text. A vision of Beryl Bennett’s mouth flashed up. But it was gone in the next instant when Felix began to speak.
He was full of the ‘bone pipe’, and told me how he had signed an ‘entry form’ and would be contacted once they’d identified it and had been able to assess its historical
significance.
‘My object,’ he repeated, chin jutting out with pride. (God, he’d taken ownership of the thing.) ‘That’s what they called it. It will be returned to me. Unless of course, I want to donate it to the museum, if it’s of any historical significance.’
‘You shouldn’t have it back,’ I said. Another shudder went through me.
‘Why ever not?’ he asked. ‘Could be old. Roman even. A little bit of our ancestors’ empire. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want it.’
‘Just makes me feel odd,’ I told him, expecting him to disagree or make some joke, but he nodded.
‘It’s quite an odd sort of thing,’ he said. ‘Can’t say I like it. But certain collectors may. Don’t you think it’s intriguing? If I sell it on, you can take a cut. If you hadn’t fallen I never would have found it.’
It was generous of him but I declined. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with it. It’s yours.’
‘Spoken like a historian of witches!’ he said and winked one ironic eye.
‘It’s not that,’ I said, but it was.
‘Well, then I’ll lay claim. If you don’t mind. You don’t, do you?’ His voice was casual. I could see him in the reflection of the glass cabinet in front of me. He glanced at me from under a tuft of fringe, one hand thrust deep in his pocket, but the other reaching up nervously to scratch the back of his head. He wanted it. A lot.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I told him.
‘Fantastic,’ he said with far too much zeal.
I didn’t know how to respond so I just went, ‘Mmm.’ And he didn’t come back with anything.
A dismal sort of anti-climax trickled down over us.
Felix shrugged and offered me his arm. I threaded mine through his and thus we continued to work our way through the sections. We both tried to be bright, with quips here and there, but there was a crookedness about us that we just couldn’t shift. It felt like we were still carrying the bone pipe with us.
Despite Felix’s wit and charming company I found myself becoming nervy. As we turned a corner into the Middle Ages I came face to face with a weary-looking dummy in the stocks and screamed to high heaven. Felix thought it was hilarious and insisted on taking a photo of me next to the display. I tried to laugh it off but my chortle was fake; tension in my shoulders had forced them so far up that they were touching the bottoms of my earrings.
We were nearing the prison.
The castle, I was fully aware, was where the accused witches were transported after they had been tortured and confessed. In fact, most of the building was used as a gaol during that period.
Certainly it was here