The Widow's Window

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The first word appeared yesterday. It was a name.

Wilfred.

Centred, In Italics. Appended to what I’d written the day before.

I hadn’t written that. I knew I hadn’t, but who had? Who could have? Someone must have been in the house - used the computer. Who would? It was impossible. Besides, the file was password protected. But someone had… Remote access maybe? Hackers? Cyber-elves? Just too weird. It must have been me.

I shook my head, I must be going crazy, deleted the mystery word and continued writing the report. It wasn’t going well. I had this nagging idea that the research was weak and I wasn’t sure of how to end it.

I decided to take a break, saved my work and closed the laptop. As I heard it powering down I tried again to remember writing the name ‘Wilfred’. It meant nothing to me.

On my way out I locked the study door (something I don’t usually do) and went downstairs. My two dogs Bonnie and Sammy, were leaping about excitedly. They needed a excercise. A walk on the wide expanses of the fens would clear my head and might stimulate my brain.

I walked the dogs from the isolated old farmhouse down to Long-acre meadow, following the Saxon way to the village of Hawndale. It was a biting December morning and the fog was thick. I was looking forward to a pint in the warmth of the Bull Inn before returning home.

The village church stands between the pub and the path. I put the dogs on leads to cross the churchyard, as I always do. As we passed the ancient yew at the gate, both leads jerked in my hands. Bonnie had frozen in her tracks and was growling and snarling wild-eyed into the fog. Sammy was cowering behind me and whimpering.

The mists lying over the graves hid whatever terrified the dogs. A sudden horror crept into me and I was taken by an urge to turn back and walk home without my visit to the Inn but I’m not the superstitious type. I reassured the dogs (and myself) and led them on a circuitous route through the graveyard avoiding the area that had spooked them so badly. This took us round the perimeter of the graveyard on a path I’ve never walked before. Outside the tall boundary of bramble entwined iron railings I noticed a forlorn looking gravestone, cracked, eroded and covered in moss and lichens. It leaned toward the fence as if yearning to be on the sacred ground. I walked up to the rails to read what was engraved on it.

The granite was badly weathered and I was able to read only the date, which was 1777 and one word ‘murderer’.

I confess I felt a thrill of excitement at my discovery. I wondered if I could find out more at the pub.

Alf the landlord was on his own. He was a middle-aged man with a red face and a fat neck. I asked him about the grave.

‘Dunno much about it mate’ he said. ‘cept they call it the ‘murderers grave’. The wife did a bit of research online. Found this’. He rummaged among some papers in a draw beneath the till and pulled out a sheet of paper.

I’d never met Alf’s wife, in fact he hardly ever mentioned her but I’d heard she was much younger than he was. They’d apparently met online but now she kept herself shut away upstairs where she spent most of her time on the internet. For a widower like me this seemed a shame. It would have been nice to have a little female company behind the bar once in a while.

‘She interested in local history then Alf?’ I asked conversationally, hoping to glean a little more information on his mysterious other half.

‘She’s into anything creepy, spiritualism, ghosts all that crap’, he said as He handed the paper to me and I read.

THE BOSTON CHRONICLE
28 Jan 1777- NEWS:
Mon 20 Jan: body of Wilfred Little of Boston (missing since Sat morning) found on the beach at the north side of Boston harbour. He had a gun-shot wound in his head, the shooter being so near that the wadding was found in the wound, and the shot was all within an area just 3 inches in diameter. Coroner's Jury verdict, murder by person or persons unknown. "He has left a wife, with child, just at down-lying, and a large family of children, several of them now in the small-pox.

‘It says person or persons unknown’, I said. ‘How do you know the man in the grave is this murderer?’

Before Alf could answer, a realisation struck me that shocked me so much that my face must have suddenly turned pale.

‘What’s up mate you look like you seen a ghost or summat’, said Alf.

‘Its weird’, I said and told him about the appearance of the name Wilfred on my computer. Alf stiffened, shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck awhile before snatching the paper from me, saying, ‘I’d leave it if I were you mate’. He leaned toward me his eyes wide and desperate he glanced over his shoulder and whispered, ‘seriously mate, leave it!’.

After that he was diffident and I couldn’t get him to talk about it at all. He busied himself with paperwork for a while before asking me to watch the bar while he attended his cellar duties.

Walking home I was tense and on-edge. The events of the day had unsettled me. I’d rather believe in coincidences than the supernatural but questions haunted me. What tied the newspaper article to the murderer’s grave? The only connection seemed to be that damn word on my computer. Why was Alf so freaked? I couldn’t work it out. I decided to put it all down to a combination of weird coincidence and Alf’s superstitiousness.

After lunch I went back to the study to resume my report. The fact that the study was locked reminded me how spooked I’d been by the name on the screen. The computer hummed back to life. Word was still open, the document flashed onto the screen. At its foot, centred and in Italics were two more unexpected words.

IN HELL.

I scrolled up to find the name had been reinstated in the same position. I slammed the machine shut and pulled the power-cord out. My mind froze in panic. I paced back and forth before snatching up the computer and ripping out the battery.

That night I couldn't sleep. The important report was due for completion in two days. I considered hand writing it (such was my anxiety about re-opening the computer). Intellectually I knew there must be a rational explanation, but it was impossible for anyone to have entered the house without evidence of a break-in. Also it was password protected so whoever had done it had to have known more about computers than I, or read my mind. The only believable explanation, frightening though it was, was that I had written those words myself in a state of mental disorder akin to schizophrenia.

Options looked bleak at that hour. My nerves were shredded. I needed a drink. I went downstairs and poured myself a rum and turned on the television. It refused to entertain or even distract me from my worry. I drank another rum and poured a third to take to bed.

As reached the landing I noticed a cold glow seeping under the door of the study. Not thinking, I pushed the door open. The laptop sat on the desk in the darkness, its screen ablaze with spectral pale blue light.

Confronted with this impossibility my curiosity momentarily overcame my fear. I drew closer to the machine. On a new line, two new words.

HELP ME!

I stared first at the screen then at the battery and disconnected power lead, then back to the screen. The machine had no electricity supply yet the spectral light of the monitor glowed fiercely in the darkness.

Though there was no rationalising this. Still I tried, was I hallucinating? I turned on the light switch and looked around. Everything else seemed quite normal. I was facing a nasty truth: my belief that everything could be explained rationally was wrong – always had been. Some inexplicable intelligence with powers beyond my comprehension had communicated with me. My mouth went dry. A blackness hazed my peripheral vision and my bowels loosened. I struggled to make sense of questions rushing at my panicked brain . What did it mean? Why me? Was I in danger? No answers. The impossible behaviour of the computer was terrifying, but worse, if Wilfred had been murdered this brought the possibilitly that a murderer's malevolent spirit was in control. A bitter chill ran through me. I had to make it go away.

Tentatively I pressed the power off button. Nothing happened. Suddenly I felt freezing cold. My skin was sweat-soaked and my stomach, knotted and tight. The urge to run overwhelmed me and I fled from that room in terror.

In a lay-by fifteen miles from home I tapped Vince’s number into my phone. It rang once before I lost my nerve and aborted the call. It was 3:30am. He’d be asleep. What would I say? The truth? I could hear it in my head. It sounded crazy. Even an old friend like Vince would be right to call me a lunatic and put the phone down on me.

For the first time since my wife died I realised how alone I was. I pictured my little car surrounded by the cold night fog, an insignificant dot on the endless empty expanse of the fens. The isolation of the place had always been a comfort to me, far from the madding crowd, but now the bleakness of the landscape held the threat of the unknown and emphasised my solitude. I had nowhere to go. I started the car and headed home.

As I passed the Bull Inn I noticed a downstairs light was on. Maybe I could get a room till morning. Even the Inn’s proximity to the murderer’s grave was not as unnerving as the prospect of going home.

As I pulled into the car park the door of the inn opened. A thin tired looking woman of about thirty was standing in the doorway in a dressing gown, arms crossed in front of her.

'Are you Alf’s wife?' I called as I got out of the car.

‘Bernadette’, she said. ‘Did you see him?’ She had a strong local accent.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Wilfred’, she said.

I don’t know why but at the mention of the name I started to cry. Trying to contain my fear through the night had left me emotionally shattered. She came to me, across the gravel car park in her bare feet and put her arm round me, ‘Shhh’, she said softly, ‘ I know, I know’. She led me inside.

In the light of the hallway I could see that she was pale and looked exhausted. Dark circles of fatigue round her concerned eyes.

‘What do you know about Wilfred Little?’ I asked.

‘I know he can’t hurt you’, she said. ‘Now come on, I can see you’re not used to this. Come in the kitchen I’ll fix you a drink.’

At the kitchen table, over an Irish coffee, I told her the events of the day. I needed to tell someone and Bernadette, I hoped, would be sympathetic to the tale.

‘There are things you need to know,’ she said putting her hand on my wrist. Her hands were callused and hard ‘When I was young you could read that headstone, name and all.’

This seemed ridiculous. ‘You still are young’, I said.

She smiled wearily. ‘Older than I look’, she said.

‘Whose grave is it?’ I asked.

‘Wilfred Little’s’ and he weren’t no murderer. ‘Self-murderer’. That was what it said on the gravestone. Poor bugger committed the cardinal sin of suicide. That’s why he’s in hell. Shot his self in the head leavin’ his poor wife to care for a house full of sick children’.

‘Then it must be him, doing this to me’, I said.

‘I reckon not’, she said shaking her head sagely. ‘More likely her’.

I must have looked puzzled. ‘Think about it’, she said.

‘I don’t get it’, I said.

Bernadette sighed. ‘What was the last message? “Help me” right? Who needs help more than a widow with a house full of dying kids? Havin' to cope with no man to support her poor woman.’ worked herself to death I shouldn’t wonder’,

‘But why me?’ I said.

She looked at me sideways. “A handsome widower like you? Why not you, more like’, she said smiling and pulling herself towards me.

I backed away. She was a married woman. Suddenly a dizzying nausea swept over me. My insides were burning. I fell to the floor

I heard Bernadette’s voice saying ‘Come lover, help me’.

I watched myself curl and spasm on the floor thrashing in agony. Heaving and gagging to retch up the poisoned coffee.
I watched myself die there on the floor of the kitchen of Bull Inn.

So it was that Bernadette bought me to share her existence of endless toil and misery where dying babies cry eternally. Little wonder that it drove poor Wilfred Little to end his own life. Lucky Wilfred to have had that option.

You may wonder how it is that I am able to tell this tale, to put the words before you, but I suspect

you already know.

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