What Will Burn by James Oswald (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

but had politely declined Madame Rose’s offer of cake. Beside her, on a low table, a small cardboard box contained the ashes of Cecily Slater. McLean had the impression that she wouldn’t let them out of her sight until they had been scattered in the grounds of Burntwoods. Possibly not even then.

‘I’m surprised that Lord Bairnfather didn’t object.’ He indicated the ashes with a slight nod of his head.

Downham stared at him for a moment down her long, straight nose. It was like being back at his hated boarding school and facing up to Matron.

‘What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,’ she said, then took a sip of her tea that was clearly intended to signal the end of that subject. McLean let it slide; there were more important questions to answer.

‘You said that Ms Slater made it clear she didn’t want to be buried in the family mausoleum. Might I ask when she told you this?’

‘I’ve known Sissy Slater almost all of her life. From the very first, she always said she wanted to be brought back to Burntwoods when she died. I suspect however that you mean to ask when last we spoke of such things.’ Downham made it sound like a foreign concept, as if she were more used to communicating through telepathy, or the reading of cards. ‘She called me about six months ago, I’d say. We didn’t speak often, but Sissy knew she didn’t have long left. She was anxious to put her affairs in order before the end. All of her affairs.’

‘There was no mention of it in her will.’ McLean tried to recall the salient details, buried deep in the case notes somewhere. There hadn’t been any instructions for dealing with her mortal remains, but then often those sorts of things weren’t covered.

‘You’ve seen it then, I take it?’ Downham’s face, not exactly filled with good cheer to begin with, took on a sour look.

‘It was reviewed as part of the investigation into her death. If anything had seemed amiss it would have been followed up, I’m sure.’ McLean made a mental note to dig out the relevant notes and go over them himself, and damn the chief superintendent’s order that the investigation be mothballed. ‘Is there something about the will that we might have overlooked, Dr Downham?’

‘I cannot say. I was never party to it. I only know Sissy meant to put things in order. Whether she managed or not, I have no idea, although the fact I had to personally intervene to obtain these . . .’ Downham gently patted the box of ashes ‘. . . might suggest that she was thwarted.’

‘A shame then that her end came sooner than expected, and in such a horrible fashion,’ Madame Rose said.

Downham turned her imperious stare on the medium. ‘Not at all, Rose. Sissy knew exactly when, where and how she would die. That was always part of her covenant. I would have thought you of all people would know that.’

Madame Rose looked suitably chastised, something McLean wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. From his brief encounter, he had already come to the conclusion that Mirriam Downham was not someone given to idle talk. She thought about what she was saying and who might hear before speaking her mind.

‘Her . . . covenant?’ he asked, ready to be told to mind his own business. Instead, Downham leaned forward in her seat and fixed him with a stare it would be difficult to break.

‘What do you know of the persecution of witches, Detective Inspector?’

It was McLean’s turn to pause before answering.

‘I have to confess perhaps not as much as I should do. King James the Sixth and First had a bit of a thing for witchcraft when he came to power at the end of the sixteenth century, didn’t he? Witches coming from Denmark in sieves, stuff like that? We . . . by which I mean men and the establishment . . . spent the next hundred years or so persecuting perfectly innocent women, torturing confessions out of them and burning a fair few at the stake. Think I read somewhere that in Scotland we tended to strangle the witches first before burning them, unlike down south where they like to burn them alive. Could be wrong there, though.’

Downham stared at him for a moment with those piercing black eyes that drilled right into his thoughts, her face blank until the faintest whisper of a smile ghosted across it.

‘A little cold and heartless, but actually that’s pretty much the gist of it. Always a power play, always the men keeping those uppity women in their place.’ She paused, placed her cup and saucer on the table beside Cecily Slater’s ashes. ‘Those uncounted poor innocents. Tortured, murdered, butchered, and all because they had the temerity to stand up to men. To be different.’

‘Is that all it takes, then? To be a witch?’ It was Harrison who asked the question, although McLean had thought it. The detective sergeant was focusing on Downham with an intensity he’d not often seen in her. Something about the old lady fascinated her.

Downham’s smile was like a knife slash in a bloodless face. ‘Need it be more? Any woman can be a witch. Young Isobel here is well on her way. As are you, Janie Harrison.’

‘I . . .’

‘You serve your community selflessly, you are motivated by justice for everyone, not simply your paymasters. You have a good soul and it shines brightly. So yes, I’d say you are a witch. You could be much more, if you want to be.’

‘I thought there was a wee bit more to it than that,’ McLean said.

Downham laughed, an oddly bird-like trilling sound. ‘Yes, of course there is. And that is the covenant Sissy entered into. The power that she contained is free now. You have seen it, even if your male eyes cannot really understand what they have seen. Soon, though, it will need someone new to sustain it. And whoever it chooses, she will become a true witch.’

A silence fell upon the room then. McLean’s grandmother might have said an