Witch Hunt - By Syd Moore Page 0,87

told him.

Insipid conversation returned to the table whilst we made our way through three courses. I was beginning to wonder if the picture of the Red Lion was all that Amelia had to show. Don’t get me wrong – it was interesting, but I’d be miffed if it was the only thing I’d dashed over for. After all, Dan had just emerged and I would have liked to have spent more time with him.

However once she’d polished off a trio of desserts my dining partner took a large slug of wine, ordered two coffees and leant towards me.

‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t want us to run out of time and it’s getting late. You’ve been patient.’ She picked up the leftover cutlery. ‘Can you put these to one side please? Okay.’ Amelia picked up the napkin and carefully wiped any vestige of grease from her fingers. I watched her stretch her fleshy forearms over the table and sweep the crumbs from the tablecloth. ‘Last Saturday, after your uncle’s birthday party, you really got me thinking about Hopkins again. Hadn’t thought about him for a while, at least a few years, until our conversation at the party, so when I got home I dug out the file which contained all my info for the lectures back home. And I came across an old biography of the man, which I’d bought many years ago. I’d forgotten all about it, to be honest with you, but after hearing about your book, I suppose my interest was rekindled. So I sat down and skimmed it, and before I knew it I was completely taken by it again. I ended up re-reading it from cover to cover. Now, a couple of things hit me. I don’t know why I hadn’t put them together before and perhaps you have, I don’t know.’

The waiter returned with two cappuccinos. I was eager to hear what she had to say and coaxed her on. ‘Go on.’

Amelia thanked the man then reached down for her handbag and put it to the side of the table. She sequestered a tissue from the sleeve of her dress and dabbed a spot of wine on the tablecloth. Then she plucked a thin ream of carefully folded papers from the dark of her bag, and laid them across the table.

‘Right now,’ she said to herself. ‘Okay,’ she unfolded the papers. I guessed from her careful manner of handling them that they were fragile and old although the last piece that she took out was a photocopied sheet which she placed on top of the pile. ‘Now, Bishop Hutchinson you have probably heard of.’ She tapped the topmost sheet and tilted her face to me.

I nodded a confirmation. I was familiar with Francis Hutchinson. Born in 1660, he had been so appalled by the witch trials he penned and published An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft. The work gathered together a whole bunch of pertinent historical detail and provided a good sceptical examination of events.

‘Right.’ Amelia was tracing her finger over the page. ‘Have you read it?’

‘Skimmed it,’ I said, a little impatiently.

‘Don’t blame you,’ she sniffed. ‘I tried once. All those extra “e”s and convoluted sentences. I got quite confused by the old English “s”s. They’re printed here like “f”s. Lots of comments about imps “sucking” that make you look twice. Dearie me! Couldn’t get through it all but I did re-read parts of it that are relevant to what I want to show you. This bit in particular.’ She turned the page round so that it faced me and pointed to a sentence halfway down. I tried to work out the curly script of the early eighteenth century. ‘See.’ She had highlighted a section in a fluorescent pink. The first paragraph, which was very long, referred to the alleged swimming of Hopkins. At the bottom was written, ‘that clear’d the Country of him’. Amelia had put two fat pink exclamation marks in the margin beside it.

I processed it and looked up at her. I’d read this before. ‘So? Some people thought that he’d been drowned. That’s “clearing the country” of him, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly and fingered the document. ‘But note the capital “C”. A reference to England rather than Essex?’

I realised that her instruction to ‘note’ was literal so took out my notebook and wrote down: ‘Bish Hutch – Cleared England of him.’

This had better not be the juice she had to spill. She was going over stuff that I

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