The Sedgemoor Strangler and Other Stories of Crime

Away With the Fairies

“Location, location, location” is supposed to be the mantra of home-buyers. If so, Miss Jackson hadn’t heard of it. The cottage was not practical for a lady in her seventies who knew nobody. It stood a good half-mile outside the village, in a clearing in the woods with access along a track that would test the suspension of any car. Picturesque, admittedly. Over the years a succession of people had been tempted into ownership, but few had lasted more than a couple of years, and there had been some long spells when it was empty and up for sale. The estate agents danced on their desks after the old lady walked into their office and said she wanted the place because she’d lived there as a little girl.

30 May, 1938

I hate it here. Hate the spiders and all the creepies. Hate the cottage and the smell of the oil lamps and the candles and the dark corners of the rooms. Hate the ugly pig called Tim and hate Mummy for marrying him.

She moved in one August afternoon and soon there were new lace curtains at the windows and a small yellow Citroen Special outside. People walking their dogs past the cottage caught glimpses of a short, wiry woman with permed silver hair. Her long-haired white cat was always on view, eyeing the dogs indifferently from an upstairs window.

A few elderly villagers remembered Bryony Jackson from before the war. They spoke of her with reserve, and it was evident that none of them planned to visit and talk about old times. Although she’d attended the village school she had never been accepted as local. She wasn’t from a village family. Her people, like so many previous owners of the cottage, had been suburban Londoners beguiled by the idea of a thatched home in the woods. They moved in, realised their mistake and left after a year or so. They weren’t even Wiltshire folk.

This was before the electricity was laid on and the bathroom was installed, so they must have found the conditions difficult. The parents had used bikes to get their shopping and the child had walked through the woods to school. Nobody thought anything of it at the time.

“She were strange,” Mrs Maizey, mother of the shopkeeper, recalled. “You couldn’t get friends with her if you tried. She weren’t exactly stuck-up, just didn’t want to join in things, so we let her be. There wasn’t bullying as I recall. Nothing worse than pulling of her pigtails that all of us girls had to put up with.”

10 June, 1938

Miss Stirling says I have to join in their stupid games, but I can’t understand their silly singing, and they only laugh when I try, so why should I? This school is horrid. Children of all ages are in the same class and some of them have itchy things in their hair and don’t bring hankies and some don’t even wear shoes. I can’t wait for the summer holiday. But then what will I do? Spend more time with Mummy and HIM? No thank you!!!

After a month or so when she must have been busy sorting out the house, Miss Jackson started taking walks through the woods. The narrow footpaths ensured that if she met someone, she or they would have to step aside. She made it clear from the brisk way she thanked people and moved on that she wasn’t interested in lingering to talk. Nobody was getting much out of her. If Thomas the postman couldn’t persuade her to open up, no one would. She did her shopping at a supermarket in Devizes rather than the village shop. Admittedly the local vegetables couldn’t compare with what Safeway offered, but everyone suspected she still wouldn’t have used the village even if everything was fresh each day.

It was interesting how Miss Jackson’s determination to stay aloof only encouraged the locals to find out more. She was spotted buying a garden spade in Devizes and the entire village discussed it. What would an old biddy be wanting with a spade when she had no garden? The ground around the cottage was simply the coarse turf that had been there for centuries. Surely she wasn’t going to give herself extra work by cultivating it?

One morning as early as 7 a.m., Thomas the postman saw the new spade resting against the wall of the cottage. There was fresh mud on the blade, indicating that Miss Jackson had left it out. Fair enough. She’d bought the thing, so she must have had a use for it. No, what intrigued Thomas (and everyone he told) was that there was no sign of digging in the vicinity of the cottage.

26 July, 1938

The holidays are here at last and hooray, I have found a secret place where I am writing this. I’ll come here whenever I can and lie in a sunbeam, listening to the water trickle over the stones. It’s a nice sound, like the fairies talking. I take off my sandals and socks and dip my feet in the cool stream. There are bright red toadstools and I found some lovely stripy feathers, blue, white and black, that I’m using to decorate my magic place. I’m happy here.

“She could be digging up plants,” suggested the younger Mrs Maizey. “Folk do, and it’s illegal now. Primroses and things are protected.”

“Why would she dig up plants?”

“To sell ’em. Townspeople pay good money for a primrose.”

“Violets,” said the older Mrs Maizey.

“Wild orchids,” said the younger.

“Where would she keep ’em?” Thomas the postman asked.

“In the spare bedroom. She’s got plenty of room in that cottage.”

Most of the village had been inside Glade Cottage at some time in their lives, through knowing the owners, or through a window at the back in years when the place stood empty.

“That’s daft,” said Thomas. “Plants wouldn’t survive indoors. Besides, how would she get ’em to a plantsman in that poky French car of hers?”

“All right, cleverclogs. What’s your theory?”

“I don’t think it’s plants,” said Thomas. “I think something is buried in the wood.”

“Something valuable?”

“Something she’s dead keen to find, if it’s worth buying a spade for. She knows a thing or two the rest of us don’t. That’s for sure.”

“What would Bryony Jackson know? She hasn’t lived here for the past sixty years.”

“You’ll have to ask her, won’t you?”

“Are you thinking she saw something when she was a child?”

The senior Mrs Maizey chuckled and wheezed. “Don’t you know what she saw?”

Thomas the postman shook his head. “Before my time.”

The young Mrs Maizey said, “Tell him, Mother.”

Old Mrs Maizey was pink-faced. “Do you ever eat a boiled egg, postman?”

“Course I do.”

“And after you scoop it out from the shell, do you poke your spoon through the bottom?”

“I do.”

“And why? Do you know why?”

“Couldn’t say. We’ve always done it in our family.”

The old lady nodded. “Ours, too. ’Tis country lore. If you leave an eggshell unbroken there’s a danger the little folk will take it away and put wheels on it and turn it into a coach.”

“The fairies?” said Thomas with a wide smile.

She drew a sharp, disapproving breath. “You said it. In our family we never use the word.”

“They’re said to make all kinds of mischief,” the younger Mrs Maizey explained, “like snatching babies from their cradles and putting changelings in their place. I don’t believe a word of it myself.”

“Load of rot,” Thomas confirmed.

Old Mrs Maizey smiled wickedly. “Well, them’s what Bryony Jackson saw. She said she saw them regular. She swore blind and it was in all the papers.”

1 August, 1938

I was in my secret place all afternoon watching the pretty dragonfly things with blue wings that hover over the stream and I missed tea and got back when they were listening to the news on the wireless. Mummy was very cross and I wouldn’t tell them where I had been. She said my clothes were in a dreadful state. I was sent to bed early and the pig sucked on his smelly horrible pipe and smiled.

The mystery of Miss Jackson and her digging continued to intrigue the locals. Those who hadn’t been around in 1938 were treated to vivid accounts of the fairy sightings from Mrs Maizey, old Ben Harmer, Olwen Sparrow, Walter Williams and other veterans — in fact, from everyone except Bryony Jackson herself. Even if she had been on speaking terms with the villagers, it was too embarrassing a matter to raise with her. The memories varied as to detail, but the essentials were pretty well agreed.

Some time in the summer holidays of 1938, Bryony’s solemn little face was on the front page of the local paper over a report that she had often seen and spoken to fairies in the wood where she lived. No one would have believed the child except that her stepfather, Timothy Walkinshaw, claimed to have seen one of them himself and had signed an affidavit that was reproduced in the Observer, and the other national papers when they took up the story from the local press.

Bryony became a celebrity. She took a photographer from the Daily Mirror to get a picture of the fairies. He thought he saw something, but somehow the camera didn’t capture it.

3 August, 1938

Yesterday as a punishment for spending so long in the woods and getting my clothes in a mess I was kept in all day, and today I was not allowed out of sight of the cottage. The pig was watching me from the window while I made a long daisy chain. I know he was hoping he could tell on me and get me into worse trouble. Mummy said she would smack my bottom if I disobeyed her, and I’m sure he wanted it to happen so he could be there to watch. So I did just as I was told, all day long. It was a boring, horrid day, but at least the pig was bored too and didn’t get what he was hoping for, ha ha. Anyway, when Mummy smacks me she always makes sure he isn’t about. He isn’t even allowed to see me in the bath.

The new theory about Miss Jackson originated with someone other than the Maizeys — probably Olwen Sparrow, who had a morbid turn of mind. She was old enough to have been at school with Bryony. The theory was that shortly before the family left Glade Cottage in 1940, or thereabouts, Bryony got pregnant. Of course it would have been a great scandal. Abortions were illegal and (according to Olwen) Bryony kept the pregnancy a secret for a long time. Finally a baby was born. It didn’t survive. Bryony’s mother — who was known to be narrow-minded, even by the standards of the time — was said to have buried it secretly in the woods.

Olwen — in outlining this theory — was extremely vague. She didn’t know for sure if the pregnancy had been true. She just thought she’d heard her parents discussing it. She would only hint that Bryony had murdered the child.

No one else remembered Bryony being pregnant, but then the war was on, and there was so much else to occupy everyone’s attention. Mrs Maizey senior said she thought the child had been too young to bear a child. But others thought it possible. The idea that she had returned after all these years to dig up her dead baby had a certain poignancy. Maybe her conscience had given her no peace and she wanted to give the child a proper burial. Maybe she would persuade the vicar to find a place for it in the churchyard.

“When does she do this digging?” Olwen’s son Derek asked.

“At first light, before anyone is up,” said Mrs Maizey.

“I’m up,” said Derek. “I’m an early riser. Happen I might take a walk through the woods tomorrow.”

3 August, 1938

Another day making daisy chains. Mummy says if I promise to keep my clothes clean and be back by tea-time I can play in the woods tomorrow. I know what will happen. I saw her look at the pig when she was talking to me and he winked at her. She wants him to spy on me. When we were having dinner, he asked me what games I play in the wood. I told him I don’t play games. I said I visit the fairies. He told me it’s wicked to make things up and I said I wasn’t making anything up. There really were fairies in the wood and they were my friends. He says he doesn’t believe me, but I think he does, a little bit. Well, I say let him try and spy on me because I have a SECRET PLAN.

Derek Sparrow got up before five and was waiting within view of Glade Cottage and listening to the dawn chorus and wondering if he was on a fool’s errand when Miss Jackson came out wearing green wellingtons and carrying her spade. She headed off purposefully down one of the footpaths between the bracken. When it was safe to follow, Derek took the same route.

4 August, 1938

Mummy left early to go shopping and I went out soon after. The pig was wearing boots and gaiters and had his field-glasses on the table, so I knew he was going to try and follow me. I could easily have run on and lost him, only I didn’t. I walked to another part of the woods a long way from my magic place. When I got to a fallen tree I sat down and pretended to hide something in a hole in the trunk. I knew he was not far off, watching me with the glasses, because I saw the sun flash on them. In a minute I pretended to move on, but really I hid behind some bushes and got ready. Just as I thought, nosy Pig came to look in the hollow. AND WHAT A SURPRISE HE GOT!

Derek could hear the sound of digging ahead, so he approached stealthily, using the trees as cover. Presently he caught sight of the old lady at a lower level where a stream coursed downwards among stones. Evidently she had been working here before, because a large heap of scrub lay to one side. She had cleared an area of about three square metres at the side of the stream and was now scraping the surface with the spade, shifting stones and roots. It looked hard work for someone of her age.

Once she stopped and leaned on the spade and sighed so loudly that he heard her from where he was. Then she turned and looked straight in his direction, just as if he had sighed. He ducked and kept very still and she went back to the work.

After half an hour it was obvious that she was digging deeper, taking divots from one small area. It was slow progress; she had to rest every few minutes. Derek could have shifted the earth in half the time. He kept thinking she could bring on a heart attack doing heavy work at her age. He was getting sorry for her.

At the depth of little more than the spade-length the edge of the blade struck something metal. The sound was unmistakable. She put down the spade and knelt beside the hole and shifted some earth with her hands.

Derek crept towards a bramble just large enough to shelter behind.

Miss Jackson picked up the spade and tried to lever something out. She wasn’t much good at it. All she got was a metallic scraping sound. After a number of tries she flung down the spade and said, “Oh, God help me!”

By now Derek’s admiration for the old lady’s efforts had reached a point when he felt compelled to respond. He couldn’t bear to watch her pathetic efforts any longer. So he played God. Standing up, he stepped down the bank towards her and said, “Morning, Miss Jackson.”

She stared at him open-mouthed.

“Can I help?” he asked.

She shook her head and took a step back from the hole.

“What have you got here?” Derek asked. “Buried treasure?”

“What are you doing here?”

He said something about early morning walks. He crouched by the hole and looked into it. “It looks like a tin box of some sort.”

Miss Jackson had snatched up the spade and lifted it to shoulder height, threatening him. “Get away from there! It’s mine.”

He backed off, trying to calm her. “Easy. I’m only trying to help. I’m Derek — Mrs Sparrow’s son.”

“Olwen Sparrow?” She lowered the spade a little.

“You remember?”

“Some things, yes.”

“Mother was at school with you. I happened to see you here and thought you were in trouble.”

“It’s just something I buried a long time ago.”

“Want me to get it out?”

She sighed, lowered the spade, and gave a nod.

To Derek’s eye, the box appeared too small to hold a dead baby. It was coffin-shaped, certainly, narrow and oblong, but it was only about nine inches long. He flicked away some dirt and saw the words “Sharp’s Toffees” on the lid.

“What’s inside?”

“Memories,” she said.

He used a sharp-edged stone to force out enough earth to get his fingers underneath. Then he lifted it from the hole. It felt light in weight, but there was definitely something inside.

Miss Jackson grabbed it from him and held it to her chest.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Not here. Would you pass me the spade?”

“I’d better carry it for you, if you’re going to hang on to the tin.” She was gripping that box in a way that left no doubt she would not let go of it.

They walked together through the woods towards her cottage. Derek asked, “What was it like, growing up here in the war?”

“Before the war,” she said. “We came before the war.”

“And lived in Glade Cottage?”

“Yes.”

“Just you and your Mum and Dad?”

“He wasn’t my father. My father died in London when I was quite small.”

“How long were you here?”

“Two or three years. They parted — my mother and stepfather — and we went back to Wimbledon, mother and me.”

Derek got nothing more from Miss Jackson. At the cottage door she could have invited him in for a coffee after the good turn he’d done, but she didn’t.

He said, “I’d like to know what we dug up.”

She said, “It’s private.”

5 August, 1938

I never thought I would feel sorry for the pig, and I don’t. But I almost do. Mummy didn’t believe him when he said he’d seen a fairy in the wood. She likes people to tell the truth, however bad it is. He was scared to say he’d seen me undressed, because that’s rude and Mummy’s really modest and it would have made her very upset and angry, so he told her what I made him say — that it must have been a fairy he saw. Mummy laughed at first and asked what this fairy looked like and I butted in and said it was quite big and wasn’t wearing any clothes and he had to agree. Mummy frowned then and got cross when he kept saying it really happened. In the end, she said he would never get her to believe it, and he said would she believe him if it was in the paper? So a lady from the paper came this afternoon and talked to us about the fairy. I said I’d seen fairies lots of times in the wood and the pig said he’d seen this one yesterday at a place where I took him. Now they want to try and get a photograph for the paper.

8 August, 1938

It was in the paper, all about the fairy. No picture, of course, but there’s a picture of me with Tim the pig. He looks so uncomfortable, just like he’s sitting on a hedgehog. Now more papers want to come and talk to us this afternoon. It’s very funny. And the funniest thing of all is that Mummy STILL doesn’t believe a word of it. But she isn’t cross with me. She thinks the pig must have made me say it, about the fairy. They are having HUGE arguments.

Alone in the cottage, Bryony Jackson lifted the lid from the tin and took out an object wrapped in oilskin cloth. It was her diary of 1938. For some time, she had been reading in the papers about recovered memories — people who had gone to counsellors and psychiatrists and discovered dark truths they had suppressed all their adult lives. She wanted to know if her stepfather, Tim, had abused her as a child. Else why had the marriage ended so abruptly with his quitting the house in 1938? You heard so much about wicked things happening to children. It had begun to worry her after she heard about women recovering childhood memories, and the worry had increased until it almost reached the level of mental torment. But she would never go to a psychiatrist. Anyway, there were counter-claims about something called false memory syndrome.

The childish handwriting was still legible. She spent the next hour totally absorbed, thankful for the chance to unlock her past in privacy, reassured when she was certain no sexual abuse had taken place, but appalled to learn how manipulative a jealous child can be.

10 August, 1938

The pig left us this morning. Mummy says he’s gone to live somewhere else. She asked me lots of questions about what happened in the woods and if I had anything I wanted to tell her. Of course there was nothing. Nothing happened except me giving him the fright of his life by coming from behind a tree in my birthday suit, but I can’t tell her that now, can I? Tim the pig didn’t dare tell Mummy he’d seen me like that. She would have thought it was his fault for sure. She hates rude people, specially rude men. She’s always warning me about nasty men. So he had to tell her what I told him to say. Seeing a fairy might have sounded silly to a grown-up, but it wasn’t rude or nasty, because fairies don’t wear clothes usually. Mummy says she and I won’t have to live here much longer. She doesn’t like the place any more. That’s a pity, in a way. I think I could get to like it now.