The Six

by Luca Veste

  Not even the Reddit forums had this case listed, it seemed. It just wasn’t a story that had generated all that much interest, I guessed. Not after reading the story anyway.

  LOCAL FARMER SEARCH CALLED OFF

  Wednesday 16th May 2019

  The search for missing local farmer, William Moore, has been suspended with no further evidence found. Moore, 62, has been missing for an undetermined amount of time. He was last seen a number of months ago, and due to his reclusive nature, it has proven difficult for police to ascertain when he may have disappeared.

  According to a police spokesperson, Moore was a keen fisherman and his disappearance may be linked to another discovery some months back of fishing gear near a particularly dangerous spot on the River Severn.

  His son, George, owned the farmhouse where they both lived until recently. However, he has been unable to help police with their enquiries. Sources believe Moore got into difficulty at the coastline, and that they believe this may be the best explanation at this present time. The small farm holding was only a few miles walk from the popular fishing destination, and searches along the route have proven unfruitful.

  It was just as I’d been thinking, somehow. A local farmer, who didn’t seem to have any ties to other people. No quotes from family members or friends. I imagined a loner, who lived with his son.

  George.

  I tried to make an estimate of the ages. If he’d had his son when he was young, it was possible that the man who called himself Peter was George. Something didn’t seem right about that though. Peter’s accent had sounded genuinely northern. I imagined those who talked from that area would sound a little Bristolian. Or West Country. I wasn’t sure.

  There was a good chance Peter had been faking it, of course.

  A further search threw up no other hits for the farmer, who now seemed my best lead. If I could call it that.

  I messaged Chris.

  I think I’ve found CMan. I have a name. He has a son. Call me.

  Then, I opened my dummy email account in the name of Dave Richards – the supposed journalist’s name I’d created – and emailed a short response to Peter.

  Or whatever his name was.

  I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms when I was done. Closed my eyes and nodded my head in time to the music coming softly from the speakers on my desk, and worked out what to do next.

  Michelle could be there now. Back in Brock Hope.

  I was about to stand up when my phone began ringing. I picked it up, expecting to see Chris’s name, but instead it was Alexandra’s.

  Thirty-Three

  Alexandra sounded fed up, tired and angry. Or none of those things and my read on her wasn’t as good as it had once been.

  It had been a long time since we’d spoken two days running.

  ‘So, we have a name for him. I’m not sure what we do now.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ I replied, stifling a yawn and reaching for the coffee on my desk. The glass it had been sitting in was stone-cold, so I paused before tipping it down my throat in one large gulp. I almost gagged on it, but the action was enough to give me a jolt. ‘It has to help us though, right? At least we know what we’re dealing with now. It’s a way of finding Michelle.’

  ‘You think it’s the son who’s been leaving candles in Stuart and Michelle’s houses and the reason we can’t get hold of her now?’

  ‘Doesn’t it seem the most likely option?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe the most likely reason is that Michelle is finally getting some sleep – which you should too, by the way – and there are no candles being left for us to find. That’s probably wishful thinking though.’

  I bit on my lower lip to stop myself from telling her about Nicola’s visit that morning. She’d asked me to wait until she’d told Chris, which I was happy to do for as long as it made sense. It was something that I wouldn’t be able to keep to myself for long – not with Michelle now missing and my fears seemingly realised.

  ‘Alexandra, you can’t ignore this,’ I said, once I’d calmed myself. ‘There’s just too much going on that doesn’t make sense otherwise. Look at everything – put the candles to one side if you have to. Stuart looking into and meeting the same weird guy I did, then being found dead a week or so later. The year anniversary that only we in this group know about, and suddenly Stuart is dead and Michelle is missing. Both of them have red candles in their houses, in the same type of metal storm lantern that we found in the woods. It’s some coincidence.’

  ‘I understand,’ Alexandra replied, but it didn’t feel like she was ready to change her mind as quickly as Chris had. ‘I’m just saying there’s no reason for us to go half-cocked into something we don’t fully understand yet.’

  ‘We’re all going to meet up,’ I said, still refusing to be drawn into an argument neither of us were going to win. And making a decision not to tell her what I’d decided to do next. ‘Later on, if that’s okay with you?’

  ‘It’s not like I have much else going on right now. Other than trying to work while my so-called friends try and convince me a mad serial killer has come back from the dead to get his revenge.’

  I turned that over in my mind. I’d never believed in ghosts or vengeful Freddy Krueger types, but it would explain certain things.

  Maybe I was going mad.

  No. It wasn’t mad. What was mad was thinking Stuart had faked his own death.

  ‘I’ll let you know what time,’ I said, ignoring the weird part of my brain that was suddenly conjuring up villains from horror films. ‘Probably be here, but I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I ended the call, placing my phone back on the desk and looking at the screen again. Somehow the man we had killed suddenly having a name didn’t make any of it easier. I wasn’t sure why it might have, but I was looking for anything at that point.

  I looked at the time. Just gone 10.30 a.m.

  I turned over the decision I had made in my mind and looked at its pros and cons. I knew it wasn’t a good choice, but I wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing while I waited for the rest of them to wake up and realise we couldn’t sort this out on our own.

  Maybe they just needed a push in the right direction.

  Maybe I was just tired and not in the best frame of mind to make any sort of logical decision.

  I opened up the Maps app on my phone and tapped Brock Hope into the search bar. Pulled on my jacket and left the house after standing in the doorway for twenty minutes.

  I was getting quicker.

  *

  It was a three-hour drive according to the expected drive time on the Maps app, but once I was on the quiet country roads in Wales, it didn’t take that long. I arrived just after 2 p.m., stopping off in the last village I went through to pick up a coffee – downed as soon as it wouldn’t scald my mouth – and a sandwich that remained unopened on the passenger seat.

  The place seemed to be both familiar and strange. Each road seemed to look the same – narrow and bordered by overhanging trees that made it darker than it should have been at that time of day. The roads dipped and bent in odd ways as they wound through countryside that hadn’t been designed for this kind of travel.

  My phone cut the music quieter for a second, telling me to turn right. I was glad it was still talking, as the music I was streaming kept cutting off as the mobile signal dipped in and out. It was still working well in the villages, but once out on some of the country roads it was intermittent.

  It seemed like a bad omen.

  The farm hadn’t been named in the news report I’d read, but I’d placed the nearest one I could find to the approximate area where the music festival had been held. I could see the app counting down the minutes until arrival, while a voice inside my head tried to bring me back to reality.

  What are you doing, you fool? Turn around, go back, and find a different idea. This is stupid.

  I continued to do what I’d done for the previous three hours. Ignore it.<
br />
  The countryside was like another world to me. I’d lived my whole life in a city and even though we had hidden woodland areas, I’d tended to only see housing estates and the waterfront. This was a world of different rules and ways of doing things, I’d always thought. The kind of place where if you hadn’t grown up there, you’d always be treated like an outsider. From the windscreen, I watched as the road almost seemed to disappear into a lake of greens and browns. Golden squares of pasture, held together by thickets of hedges that kept the modern from the old.

  To anyone else, it was probably considered scenic, beautiful, picturesque, but to me, it was just grass and mud and space that wasn’t being used in the right way.

  I was often wrong about that type of thing.

  The road became narrower again as my satnav informed me we were approaching the destination. I couldn’t see any change outside, but as the yards clicked down I could finally see a sign.

  Mentmore Farm.

  It was as good a place to start as any, I thought. I hadn’t considered if this was the place – whether a serial killer had raised a child there – but it hit me now.

  What the hell was I doing?

  I pulled the car to a stop and checked the front. A sign offering fresh eggs and potatoes was attached to the fence that ran along the outer wall. The farmhouse itself was only a short walk from the road, so I moved over as far as I could and then got out of the car. Pocketed my phone and looked at the place.

  It wasn’t the home of William Moore. That much I could ascertain pretty much instantly – as I approached the entrance, there was a familial feel to the place. Then I stopped myself and wondered what the hell I was thinking. I didn’t know anything about the man. I didn’t know if this farm was that man’s or not. It was my own mind creating the idea that he would have lived in some sort of dark, foreboding place, a mind that was cracking with each passing moment.

  I was about to turn round and leave when a shout made me stop dead.

  ‘Hello, are you looking for someone?’

  From behind another wall, a face popped into view. It was a woman in her fifties, short greying dark hair and a green coat that looked like it had been new when I was a child. As she got closer, I could see she was holding a basket of something.

  ‘I was just looking for eggs,’ I said, smiling and hoping I looked somewhat normal. ‘I saw the sign and thought I’d pull over.’

  ‘No problem at all,’ the woman replied, still looking me over and sizing me up. ‘You’re not from round here.’

  It wasn’t a question and I guessed even if my accent was local, she would say the same thing. ‘No, just down here looking up some old friends. Thought it would be nice to pick up some local produce on the way.’

  The woman frowned a little and I didn’t think she believed me in the slightest. Still, business from people passing by at that time of year must have been slow, as she seemed to shake it off quickly and beckon me towards an area to the side of the main building.

  ‘A dozen or half? We also have potatoes, tomatoes, plenty of other things. My husband is out in the fields at the moment, finishing up. There’s still a lot of choice here.’

  By the time we were done, I had twenty quid’s worth of stuff I didn’t need and no change for a coffee on the journey home. I waited until she was bagging things up for me before I tried to make the whole trip more fruitful than it had been up to that point. ‘I’ve been around Brock Hope a few times. It’s a massive place though, so I’m not sure where I’ve been before and that.’

  ‘Oh really?’ the woman replied, who was more interested in getting a few spuds in a bag, now the transaction was complete. Her hands were lined and red, calloused from hard work. The air was fresh, but with a hint of saltiness behind every gust.

  ‘Yeah, we would come down when we were kids,’ I continued, trying to keep the lies general enough to not be questioned. ‘Some friends of ours relocated out over by the coast, but I like driving through this part of the countryside.’

  ‘Well, it’s a nice place to look at,’ she said, handing a bag over to me and walking back towards the road. ‘The scenery can be breathtaking in the winter.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ I replied, allowing myself to be led out and away from the farm now. I stopped as we got to the gravel path that led back to the road. ‘There used to be this other place, nearby. Over by where they do the festival camping and that?’

  Her face darkened somewhat and I knew that I wouldn’t want to cross her at any point. Her shoulders had tensed and she suddenly looked a few inches taller and broader.

  ‘Oh, that thing. Such a shame what that brought to the area. A lot of damage was done to the surrounding land holding that thing. Thankfully, I don’t think it’ll be happening again. Not after that poor boy went missing.’

  ‘Didn’t another guy go missing during that same time? I seem to remember seeing the name and thinking it was the farm I’d visited on another trip down here.’

  She frowned at me and I could see I was starting to raise suspicions. Someone asking questions probably stood out in this type of place. I kept my face as straight and open as I possibly could.

  ‘I think you’re talking about the Moore family,’ she said eventually, thrusting her hands in her pockets and looking out past me and towards the forestland. ‘They were a couple of miles through the tree line. Not there anymore of course, after what happened to the father. Terrible business.’

  ‘Was he ever found?’

  She shook her head but there didn’t seem to be any sadness there. ‘Lot of rumours, but nothing official. You ask me, he was probably into other stuff other than farming. We never saw him doing any actual work on the land. He only had around fifty acres or so, but no livestock or anything like that. It was always very quiet over there and we never saw them in the village or anything like that. They didn’t mix in with the other locals. It was just him and his son.’

  ‘No other family?’

  ‘Not that we ever saw. The story was that his wife died while giving birth to the boy, but we weren’t exactly on speaking terms. He never mixed with the people in the area. Kept themselves to themselves. When he went missing, we tried to help out, but the son didn’t seem to want anything, it seemed. All a very strange business, but people were more interested in that boy from the music thing, so he got forgotten about. It can be hard out here. You make a wrong step and you can be lost for years. The son, he sold up about six months ago and Jim Treador – he owns the place that bordered on his land – bought it up. Now, at least the land will be used properly.’

  ‘He has plans to use it then?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. He’ll be knocking down the old farmhouse that’s there now, I imagine. It’s not in a good state, by all accounts.’

  ‘Ah right. That’s a shame. So you never spoke to the son after his father disappeared?’

  From the look on the woman’s face, I’d outstayed my welcome now. One question too many.

  ‘Who are you exactly?’ she said, regarding me anew. Her gaze hardened a little. ‘You’re not just passing by, are you? Are you one of those journalists looking for another story about the young boy who disappeared? Trying to link it to us “simple country folk” like condescending fools?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ I stammered out in response. I began walking away. ‘Thanks for all this, I’m sure my friends will be very happy with it all.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure they will,’ she replied, but there was nothing but sarcasm in her tone now. ‘Just be sure to watch yourself out there. Not everyone out here is as accommodating as I am.’

  I waved out of politeness as I reached the car, but she was still standing in the same spot as I turned on the engine.

  Thirty-Four

  There was no choice. Even if the son had sold the place, it was a possibility. And I couldn’t leave without making sure.

  Michelle was out there, somewhere. And this seemed like a good enough place to start.

&
nbsp; I’m not thinking straight.

  I kept moving anyway.

  Back in the car, I drove out of sight of the increasingly suspicious farmer. Pulled over to the side of a country road and took my phone out of my pocket. Found Mentmore Farm, where I’d just left, and searched on the Maps app for the farm she’d indicated with a sweep of her hand.

  A mile or so behind that farm, there was another place. No streetview available, but I could see the overhead image. It didn’t look in the best state even from that.

  I worked out the best route and programmed the satnav to take me as close to it as possible. Managed to get less than a minute’s walk away – down a side road with no name. It contracted as I drove slower and slower down it, until I came to a place that was impassable. The satnav told me I was only a couple of hundred yards away from the marker I’d placed on the map, so even though I couldn’t see the farmhouse, I got out of the car and walked the rest of the way.

  It was the middle of the day, but the thick tree line covered the sky above me. The path was thick with overgrown foliage and broken branches, crunching under my feet as I approached the marker on the map.

  A bird chattered unseen to my left, then fell silent. I could hear a breeze lifting leaves from the ground and the sound of my own breathing as it increased in frequency. Nothing else.

  I pushed aside a low hanging branch and saw the farmhouse for the first time. To say it was rundown would be being kind. The outside brick had been white at some point, but thanks to weather damage and ivy crawling over it, it was now a dirty mix of green and brown. The roof was falling in on one side, exposing rotten wood and slate. Attached to the house was a metal lean-to, rattling a little in the wind, being held up by its own will alone, it seemed. The rust was a shade of orange-brown that stood out against the grey.

  I was standing there, taking it all in, working out how best to proceed. Whether I should shout Michelle’s name and hope for an answer. Or creep closer and find a way inside.