Coffin Island: The Gripping New Mystery in the DI Wesley Peterson Crime Series by Kate Ellis

Author:Kate Ellis
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Police Procedural, Fiction, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780349433189
Publisher: Piatkus
Published: 2024-08-02T05:00:00+00:00

Journal of the Reverend Thomas Nescombe

July 1574

A wet nurse was hired from the village of Midton and the child thrives. My wife named him Thomas after me, yet I cannot bring myself to look at him. She is sorely distressed by my coldness and claims she does not know the reason for it, but I cannot help my feelings on the matter. The boy is not mine but is the product of my wife’s adultery with a man known as a follower of the Devil. A betrayer who was responsible for the terrible death of a saintly man. I pray and pray over the matter yet I still cannot forgive.

I no longer share Anne’s bed, but last night she came to me weeping.

‘You have been so cold towards me since our son was born. You will not even speak to me.’

‘There is nothing to say.’

‘But there is. There is a confession I must make.’ She knelt by the bed on the hard floorboards.

At last, I thought, she is about to admit the truth. But her words were not as I expected.

‘You are a man of God, so I was ashamed to tell you. Our son was brought about by magic.’

‘What foolishness is this?’ I snapped.

She bowed her head. ‘We had been married three years with no sign of a child. Then I heard talk that Elias Anselmo had certain powers. I visited him and underwent rituals.’

I could contain my fury no longer. ‘Rituals that involved you lying with him.’

‘No,’ she cried. ‘You are mistaken. I did no such thing. He performed magic in his cellar, then when I thought I was with child he told me to take herbs to the cliff and offer them to the sea to raise the land of Lyonesse. He gave me words to chant. There was a storm, but the lost land did not appear.’

I heard the ring of truth in her words. And yet my pride would not let me acknowledge my error.

‘I resorted to summoning spirits to help me in my plight. Can you forgive me?’

I did not know what to say.

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