THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS Part 3.

a return to the cottage in Brumpton woods

PC Billy Pierce was feeling quite annoyed when he saw the two teenagers walking on the unmade path through Brumpton Woods, determinedly walking close enough behind him to actually be just about in touch with him.

“Excuse me,” he called to them when it was clear they were following him, “but if you’re shadowing me, you shouldn’t. I’m on police business.”

That was a mistake, he realised, because the moment that he called out to them the two moved closer to him and were by his side within the shortest of moments.

“We were worried about the old lady,” the girl he knew as Enid Scratchpole told him, “she looked sort of old and lonely to us, and that isn’t right.”

“And she had a gun,” added Anthony, “one that didn’t work, but it might have and then I’d have been killed and there’d be a lot more coppers in the woods today if it had.”

“So we want to find out all about her if we can, and maybe help her if that’s what she wants.” suggested Enid.

“Well, I can’t stop you because as far as I know this is a public right of way, but I warn you: don’t interfere with me once we get to Miss Winterbotham’s cottage.”

“Of course we won’t. We wouldn’t dream of it, would we Enid,” declared Anthony, crossing his fingers and hoping the constable didn’t notice.

“It just seems so unfair that an old lady should be on her own with a collection of odd ideas in her head,” Enid told the constable, “like we’re going to report her to some awful commandant who never existed. I mean, never existed here and with the sort of power to make her as scared as she is!”

“According to our records there are two of them living there,” Billy told them, “Winifred Winterbotham and her mother Ada. Ada must be one hell of an age because there’s no record of a death or a funeral.”

“We didn’t see anyone else yesterday,” said Anthony thoughtfully, “though I seem to remember that she mentioned her mother as someone who warned her about something or other that didn’t make any sense to us.”

“That’s right,” agreed Enid, “I thought at the time it was odd her having a mother still alive.”

“Well,” said Constable Pierce,” I’ve checked the records and there’s an older lady than the one you saw, the mother it might have been, that you just mentioned, and she was born over a century ago, so if she’s still alive she must have a collection of magic pills that keep a soul going well beyond the normal lifespan of a human being.”

“Or she died, and nobody was told,” nodded Anthony.

“That’s whet we reckon, so the purpose for me coming this way is to make sure that the records are put right,” said the policeman, and watch out … we’re nearly there.”

And so they were. The cottage looked just as drab as it had the last time they’d been that way, and the only difference was the back door being open at an odd angle, as if it had finally collapsed on its rusty old hinges.

“Summat’s wrong!” hissed Anthony, “the door wasn’t like that, was it Enid!”

She shook her heard. “I don’t like it,” she whispered.

“You kids! I told you to get lost!” squawked toe familiar voice of the elderly woman who had been far from pleasant to them last time they’d been to her cottage. She had made her way from inside the building to be standing just outside the collapsed door, and she was still holding what looked like a gun in one hand. She raised it threateningly, pointing it in their general direction.

“What’s wrong with your door?” asked Anthony.

“Get orf, I tell you!” she shrieked, enraged by their very presence, “or I’ll, what did mother tell me to say, or I’ll fill you full of lead!”

“Now then, misses, we can’t be talking to kids like that!” intervened Constable Pierce, “carry on like that and I’ll have to take you in!”

“And who are you in your Nazi uniform?” shrieked Mrs Winterbotham, shaking with rage so that the direction her gun pointed was just about anywhere.

“I’m the local constable, as you’d know if you looked at my uniform, and I order you to put that gun down!” he replied.

“So that’s what you want, is it?” she squawked, forcing me out of my own country without a means of defending mesen?”

Billy shook his head sadly. “Nothing of the sort, madam,” he began , but she cut in somewhat rudely,

“Don’t you madam me, you jack-booted terrorist!” she shrieked. A blackbird in a tree opposite her cottage took flight at the sound as her voice rose an octave.

He shook his head again. “Our records show there are two ladies living here,” he said, consulting a paper he pulled from a pocket on his uniform, “and I needed to make sure that’s quite right. Both of the surname Winterbotham, Ananda and a Winifred. just want to make sure we’ve got everything right.”

“What you want to know for?” she demanded, “is it what Hitler odered, eh? know all about Hitler, I do. Mother told me when she could still talk properly.”

Constable Pierce could barely believe his ears when it seemed that this old woman’s mother still apparently lived in this cottage.

“Er,” he began, and then went on decisively, “I need to ask Ada Winterbotham one of two things seeing as she’s what would seem the senior lady ere.”

“Well you can’t, you bully boy! She ain’t talkin to no-one. She told me that way back afore she lost her voice.”

“But I’ve been advised to check her out. That’s all. Have a tiny word with her and then go back to the station.”

“Well you ain’t!” she almost exploded.

But the policeman had a job to do, and the more he took in the old woman holding what he saw as a toy pistol the more he knew that something was clearly wrong. So he pushed towards her.

She pointed the apparently toy pistol towards him and he saw her finger pumping away at a trigger that refused to do more than click until, as if in dreadful resignation, the weapon discharged with a dreafening explosion.

A bullet crashed into the sink, which had been filled with washing water and a handful of clothes she must have been washing by hand. The water chose to pour out through a hole that hadn’t been there before, and Winifred Winterbotham dropped the offensive weapon onto the floor at her feet and screamed loud and long and painfully, her eyes moist with tears and madness.

© Peter Rogerson 13.01.23

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