The Soprano Read online

  The Soprano

  A Supernatural Thriller

  S. E. England

  Copyright © 2017 Sarah England

  Editor: Jeff Gardiner

  Artwork: RoseWolf Design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Note from the author: The inspiration for this story came from a true event, reported in local newspapers at the time. However, the characters, location, history and details included in this novel – other than the nature of the crime itself – are totally fictitious. Likewise, the fictional village of Ludsmoor is based on the village my parents grew up in, the dialect quite unique and totally authentic, but the characters are a figment of the author’s imagination.

  www.echowords.org

  www.sarahenglandauthor.co.uk

  About the author: Sarah England originally trained as a nurse in Sheffield (UK), before working in the pharmaceutical industry and specialising in mental health – a theme which creeps into many of her stories. She then spent many years writing short stories and serials for magazines before having her first novel published in 2013.

  At the fore of Sarah’s body of work is the bestselling trilogy of occult horror novels – Father of Lies, Tanners Dell and Magda – all available in Kindle, paperback and audio formats. The Witching Hour is a collection of some of her darker short stories; and The Soprano is her most recent work.

  If you would like to be informed about future book releases, there is a newsletter sign-up on Sarah’s website, the details of which follow here. Please feel free to keep in touch via any of the social media channels, too. It’s good to hear from you!

  www.sarahenglandauthor.co.uk

  This book is dedicated to my father, Dr John Beech

  Acknowledgements

  Dr John Beech – Thank you for answering all my questions about growing up in North Staffordshire during the 1940s; providing my grandad’s scrapbook along with lots of local books and leaflets; and adding in your own inimitable way, a variety of humorous anecdotes.

  Raven Wood, a traditional witch of Germanic and Celtic roots. Thank you for your invaluable contribution on pagan witchcraft – from the astronomy to the incantations, the herbs to the spells, and of course, the wicked hexes – it’s a fascinating subject and I am most grateful for your help. [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Ludsmoor

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  References

  Ludsmoor

  1951

  Wish Lane Cottage

  Annie Bailey

  Moody Street

  Vivien and Harry Whistler

  Louise, Arthur and Iddy

  Lake View Villa

  Ellen Danby

  Marion, Rosa, and Lana

  Alders Farm

  Agnes and Grace Holland

  Spite Hall

  Vic and Nell Holland

  Danby

  Hazel and Max Quinn

  Prologue

  1887

  “He is lying in his bed,

  He is lying sick and sore,

  Let him lie intill his bed,

  Two months and three days more.”

  The boy jumped back from the doorframe, spine flat to the cool, damp staircase wall, adrenalin flooding into his heart and lungs. She knew he was there…her back had stiffened.

  For several long seconds the only sound was that of dead leaves scratching around the front door. He held his breath. Perhaps she hadn’t seen the flicker of movement, and maybe…maybe there was an outside chance he could still creep away? He looked towards the front porch, at the prism of light streaming through the stained glass square onto the hall rug; then to the dark, back kitchen where she’d been chopping, crushing and boiling.

  The new baby snuffled and the cradle creaked on its hinges by the old range. A fresh gust of wind buffeted the walls.

  Cowering into the hallway he made himself as small as possible, sliding onto his haunches and praying…praying so damned hard she hadn’t seen him.

  Her voice cut through the air. “Come here, Billy!”

  The cold, hard blade of fear plunged into his stomach. Instantly his bladder relaxed and tears burned his eyes with shame as urine trickled down his thigh. Standing up, his good leg – the normal one – shook violently; the other – the one withered to bone – a lead weight that dragged behind the rest of his body as slowly, reluctantly, he forced himself to rise from the shadows and shuffle into the kitchen.

  Not meant to be here today he’d caught her out, and they both knew it.

  “Well now,” said Annie.

  He focused intently on the chopping board spread with herbs, nettles and thorns; at the pestle and mortar filled with insect wings and dirt; at the dead mouse…at anything except her. Don’t look into her eyes…

  Candles spluttered and oozed with wax, the flames now flicking higher, more strongly…

  The force of her stare was magnetic. In desperation he concentrated on the open book spread out on the table. Must not look into her eyes…must not…Do not… Soon she will just tell him off and then he can go. He pictured escaping into the garden and hobbling down the lane. Still she did not speak. The ancient text blurred and the desire to look at her intensified. Must not… must not…Then to his horror his head started to creak around of its own volition, jerking with tiny movements on its stem, until finally their eyes locked. And a slither of ice slipped beneath his skin.

  The air crackled with static and everything stilled. There was not the slightest movement or sound from anywhere inside the house or out, as silently her lips began to move and she raised her right arm to point directly at him with two fingers outstretched.

  Paralysed to the spot, he stood helplessly as dark shapes slithered from the corners of the kitchen and began to crawl across the floor towards him. The table, the dresser loaded with plates, the cooking pots – all vanished into a vacuum of blackness. He gripped the nearest chair and tried to close his eyes but found he could not.

  The day had chilled to ice, and wind screamed in a vortex of trapped, angry voices ripping through his head. Terror shot through him in fire-cracks. This was death. His heart would burst. Collapsing to the floor, he scrambled onto all-fours and skittered like a whipped dog for the door.

  His next conscious moment was to find the hall skirting board in front of his nose. For a moment he lay there
trying to recall where he was and what had happened. Leaves blew against the door and the sound of coughing came from upstairs. The light through the square in the porch door streamed onto the hall rug in precisely the same place as it had before; and in the kitchen she was still chopping and crushing, stirring and muttering as if nothing had happened.

  However, life would not be the same for him again – not ever. And he would have to leave. Just as soon as his father had finished dying – retching and writhing in the room upstairs.

  ***

  Chapter One

  Sunday night, January 1951

  Louise

  Our breath misted on the freezing air as inside the chapel the temperature plummeted below zero. Positioned at various intervals along the stone walls candles flickered and faltered, failing to lift the gloom. And from time to time violent whips of wind lashed the building, buffeting the stained glass windows with an almighty force. The rafters creaked and groaned. Snow was coming – you could feel it.

  High on the moors our small village would soon be cut off. We didn’t have any streetlights back then and the nights were tunnel black. Later, we’d walk home blinded and gasping in the howling blizzard, holding onto each other’s damp-gloved hands, chilblains stinging as we slipped and stumbled along the street. But that was yet to come, because right there and then, in that moment, the congregation stood swaying, mesmerised, with not a sound between us despite the bone-aching cold.

  On a small wooden platform to the right of the altar, with the choir on the left, Grace Holland was singing. And while sleet spattered across the glass panes, the day darkened and thunder rumbled over the moors, the power of her voice eclipsed all else, transporting us from the damp tomb of Sunday Chapel to a higher place. She could do that, you see – with a soprano that carried away its listeners on wings. It made your skin prickle and your eyes fill up. I think, looking back, that Chapel made us feel part of something more important than life itself, dwarfing earthly needs, transcending the grit and grime of everyday routine. It’s the only way I can describe it. The hymns did that to us, and we knew them all note for note, word for word. Chapel defined us. But when Grace sang it was more than that – it was heavenly. Well, she had a special gift, maybe divinely given - that’s all I can say.

  On that particular night – the one each and every one of us would later recall so vividly – Grace’s voice soared over the top of a biting North Easterly that whined around the building like a gang of lost souls. That wind – it came from out of nowhere. It whistled under the heavy oak door and jiggled the lift bar as if demanding entry. It shook the very fabric of the building and juddered the foundations. But every Methodist in the village had turned out that evening and we weren’t leaving until the show was over. The pews were packed with children huddled onto parents’ knees; and men stood shoulder to shoulder along the back wall, caps in hand.

  I was six years old, wedged in between my mother on one side and my older brother, Arthur, on the other. My two brothers had grey, woollen shorts on – their legs mottled with cold. And in front, Auntie Flo’s hat obscured the view almost entirely with a large, brown feather, but I could just see Auntie Grace and her wide-open mouth painted as red as a phone box. Uncle Handel, a small round man with a few strands of hair combed over to one side, was waving a short stick around in front of the choir. I thought he looked silly – jabbing and pointing it - dipping and darting like a bird on a rock.

  I tugged at my mother’s coat sleeve. “Mum, why’s he waving that stick? Mum? Mum?”

  She didn’t answer. She never did. And besides, like everyone else she had her eyes fixed on Grace.

  How Great Thou Art, sung with crystal purity, had every thumb-sucking babe, rheumy-eyed old man and washing-weary wife completely entranced. And when the choir, resonant with the rich bass and tenor voices of miners, mill-workers and farmers joined in with the refrain, Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee… it swelled many to tears, their faces quite wet. Even at that young age I too felt my heart surge and my senses stir. It never left me either, that feeling. To this day I hear a gospel or Welsh male voice choir and it chokes me a little – there’s something about all that heartfelt passion and the soul in those voices. And I swear the more the wind screamed and the door rattled on its hinges, the stronger and more fervent the singing.

  The chorus faded away as softly as velvet, and Grace’s ice-fine soprano cut into the void once more. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing…He bled and died to take away my sin…

  A deep intake of collective breath and then the choir opened their collective voice and exalted the performance with a deeply rousing finale: My God, How Great Thou Art…

  When it was over we stood as one, dazed and chilled; the silence sobering and the wooden pews suddenly hard and uncomfortable. It was time to go. A fresh squall of sleet battered the old chapel walls, scattering at the windows like grain. The roof creaked alarmingly, and something slipped and fell with a thud to the ground outside. You couldn’t see out of the windows at all by then, washed as they were in a grey blur.

  We turned to face each other in the flickering half-light. I remember my legs were trembling, whether from trepidation or cold I couldn’t say, and I felt for my mother’s hand. She was picking up her handbag, taking out a scarf, turning to speak to someone behind us, clicking it shut. My God, everyone knew everyone back then. It was such a remote, dark kind of place. I never thought of it when I was growing up, but it really hit me when I came back years later and saw it through adult eyes – all those battened-down, blackened stone terraces coated in moss and lichen, tufts of hardy grass blown flat to the ground, and bare-branched trees blasted into permanent submission. It seemed as though all the energy had been sapped simply from staving off the weather. It got me thinking though, that maybe the isolation was to blame in some ways for what happened? Certainly it played a part.

  The villagers said their good-byes quickly that evening. Normally people lingered outside for the weekly gossip, but the minute the latch was lifted the great wooden doors slammed back against the walls with the force of the storm. A fierce wind flew inside, scattering dead leaves as far as the pews, causing grown men to stagger backwards and the candles to snuff out. Women pulled on their gloves and tightened their headscarves, shuffling into the porch to peer outside. Lightning flashed over the moors.

  “Best get going.”

  “By ’eck it’s a wild night.”

  “Ooh, I’m not looking forward to this.”

  “Will you be alright, duck?”

  “Hold on to us…”

  Staunch Methodists, there would be no tipping into The Quarryman for a tot of blood-warming liquor on the way back though, just huddled groups tramping home with torches bobbing in the blue-white expanse of an icy blizzard.

  Yes, it’s funny the things we remember. Maybe there are only a few truly pivotal moments in our lives – that point where we step out from the relative safety of everyday comfort and hover on the brink of uncertainty – but that was one of them: standing there in that wind-blasted chapel porch. The night before everything changed. I was only a small child but I remember it with total clarity – every snapshot of detail. I think we all can.

  ***

  Chapter Two

  Louise - continued

  Having Grace Holland in the family was a bit like being related to a film star. My mother’s cousin, Grace, was a tiny wren of a woman. She wore long, off-the-shoulder evening gowns on stage, usually dark green to highlight what everyone said were her striking, emerald eyes; although Dad said no one noticed her eyes with dresses cut as low as that! I do remember she had Cupid’s bow, red lips and a coil of black hair like Liz Taylor’s piled on top of her head. Oh, and she wore very high heels, which made her totter everywhere in baby steps – quite a contrast to the other women in the village. They’d stand there in sensible lace-up boots, thick tights and flowery pinafores, shaking their heads whenever she wiggled down the main street.

>   Mind you, they all dressed up for Chapel.

  Everyone had a weekly bath and put on their Sunday best for that. For the women it usually meant a tweed suit, hat, gloves and pearls; maybe a brooch. I used to lie on the bed and watch my mother getting ready. Once dressed, she’d untie the headscarf she wore every day, then one-by-one pull out the little, pink rollers. This was the only time those rollers ever came out. Her hair was quite short and each roll of hair had to be loosened before being brushed and sprayed into a ‘do’. Then she’d plonk a hat on top, which seemed a waste. Her only make-up was bright red lipstick, blotted on a folded tissue, re-applied and then blotted again. After that she’d pop her glasses back on and dab Nina Ricci scent onto her wrists and behind her ears. I never liked the smell of it and still don’t, but she had it every year at Christmas from Grandma Ellen and made it last. I think my mother only had that one brown suit and hat, too. I never saw her in anything else anyway, apart from the clothes she wore every day to do the chores in. When she went to work she just threw a coat over the top of her house clothes. They all did.

  It was only Grace who was different is what I’m saying: a Hollywood cut-out, living and breathing in our rain-sodden, grime-coated, post-war mining village. Arthur would stand there with his mouth open, gawping when he saw her teetering down the street in a pencil dress. Once, when we’d gone to choose from the penny tray at Auntie Flo’s, we saw her get out of a car and walk past the shop. It was a warm, summer’s day and she was wearing this tightly fitted, cream suit that nipped into the tiniest waist imaginable; and she had her hair wound up on top of her head – honestly, it looked like a sated, black python basking in the sun.