—It’s funny isn’t it? How someone can tell a story about someone and everyone believes it. You know all about that too, don’t you?
—I’m interested in what Sorrel told you about Maryanne. Back then I mean.
—He said he wasn’t even that into her. He settled for Maryanne cos he thought he’d get no one better. She was a drug addict when he met her, off her face on all sorts, he said. She was mates with drug dealers and wasters. Other addicts … I can talk, can’t I?
—Let’s put that aside for now, Sonia. Let’s just concentrate on Maryanne. What else did you know about her?
—These are all Sorrel’s stories: she was a stalker. She was obsessed with him. She’d followed him from some hotel and was working at Dayton’s because of him. She told him she was pregnant when she wasn’t. She came to him with a pillow up her jumper, started asking him for child support. She was insane, unhinged. She would walk round Dayton’s bumping into things and talking to herself. He did give her money; he did stay in touch – because he was a gentleman. He could have binned her off, ignored her, but he didn’t. He would make sure she was OK. Like, he would go to her house and make sure she got home from work alright. He told me they had a little code: he would tap on her window twice and she would know he’d been looking out for her. It sounds funny, doesn’t it? Why would he bother? Any why tap? Why not just go in and say hello?
—I’ve heard this story before, secondhand, from Darren Morgan. So you were aware of Maryanne and Sorrel’s past when the two of you began dating?
—Yeah … unfortunately I was. He told me everything about it. He said he was being honest with me. I thought that was so different from other men – they would have hidden something like that. But I would have been better off not knowing some things. Things that got to me.
—Like what?
—He told me she wouldn’t respect his privacy. All he wanted in a relationship was mutual trust. He said she used to go through his telephone bills. He told me she would sit there with a highlighter pen and call every number she didn’t recognise, and if a female voice picked up she would lose her temper with them, start screaming down the phone at them, tell them to leave her man alone. Sorrel said she wouldn’t let him ever interact with other women.
—He did though, didn’t he? I mean Sorrel worked in catering. There was no way Maryanne was able to police that.
—Yes. And he told me that he used to do it on purpose, to wind her up, to teach her a lesson.
—What would he do?
—He told me that women – waitresses, bar staff, even guests – were always giving him their numbers. He would call them from his chalet. He said he regretted doing it, but she drove him there. It was her fault. It was just harmless fun, just flirting. Besides, she was a whole lot worse. She was the bad one in all this, wasn’t she? She told him she was pregnant when she wasn’t, right?
—I’ve heard this from you and from Darren.
—Imagine if none of it was true.
—What do you mean?
—Imagine if everything I just told you about Maryanne Manon was a lie? It’s amazing to think that all it takes is a single story to destroy someone.
—Are you saying that Sorrel concocted this lie about Maryanne?
—You’ve met her. What do you think? Who was telling the truth? Mad Mary or Sorrel Marsden?
I find myself at a loss. Sonia is not aggressive in her scrutiny of my opinion. Her voice is kind. I know Maryanne Manon’s version of events. I know that she was pregnant. I know what sort of a person Sorrel Marsden was. And I know that Sorrel did indeed concoct this lie. But I don’t want to tell Sonia any of this. Not yet.
—I wasn’t there. I don’t know.
—No. You haven’t joined the story yet, have you?
I pause, not sure what she means. Then I switch my questioning, begin asking Sonia about her and Sorrel’s early life together in Prestatyn, before it all went wrong.
—We moved in together quickly. I wanted to be away from home, and living in the staff accommodation at Dayton’s just wasn’t for Sorrel.
—There was a lot of partying going on there, right? I thought he enjoyed that.
—Sorrel was at the heart of it all. It wasn’t a party without Sorrel. But it was having a bad effect on him. On me, too, all that drinking and partying. It brought out the worst in us. We’d spend our days off drinking, never going anywhere or doing anything interesting.
—Do you think that’s when your problems with alcohol started?
—Perhaps. Perhaps it had always been there and being at the Party Palace just unlocked it. But that’s all we did, Sorrel and me. We worked, we drank, and on our days off we drank more. There was a little entertainment room at Dayton’s. Sorrel would play on the slot machines for hours at a time. Drinking. I would just sit there with him, drinking, too.
—Did none of your colleagues, your friends ever have a problem with that?
—If they said, I didn’t listen. I was in awe of Sorrel. His compliments were everything to me. They gave me life. I would just sit there, usually wearing something low cut. He liked that. I’d just sit and wait for him to say something nice about me. That was the real addiction.
I mention the story Darren told me about finding Sonia asleep in the bathroom, and she tells me this was a common occurrence. Sorrel would drink himself into a stupor and collapse onto his bed, leaving Sonia to find refuge somewhere else. She tells me that was the least of their problems, though.
—Sometimes it seemed like Sorrel hated everyone else who worked at Dayton’s. It got really boring. He was always moaning about someone – even Darren. And he would tell me everything: who was sleeping with who, what people had done in their past. He would just rant on, saying awful things about them, telling me how much he hated them.
—Why do you think he did that?
—I have no idea. I’m not sure he did either. People just frustrated him. He never showed any real emotion other than bitterness. It was always facts with Sorrel: facts and resentment: ‘He slept with so-andso again, what a dick.’
—Did Sorrel ever make any sort of effort with your friends?
—Sorrel couldn’t bear those people. All he could say was how they were all so immature compared to me.
—Did you continue to socialise with them though?
—Yeah, it wasn’t like he stopped me going. But Sorrel didn’t trust other men. And he worried about me, he used to say. So I used to have to call him on the hour, if I was out, because otherwise he would worry. So in the end I stopped going out with my friends. We would just drink with his friends instead. And he would show me off, see? He would always tell them how young I was and you could see their tongues practically hanging out of their mouths.
—And how did that feel for you?
—It was amazing! I made someone happy. I made Sorrel happy.
Sonia repeats this idea of making Sorrel happy a great deal when describing their life together.
However, the drinking and partying was getting too much for the couple and not long after they met, they decided to up sticks and move into their own place – a top-floor flat on the outskirts of Prestatyn. Sonia fell pregnant and she stopped working at Dayton’s. Then Sorrel relocated to a small restaurant a few miles out of the town. His hours were unsociable – early mornings, late nights, weekends, bank holidays. Sonia found it hard to cope on her own. Her friends were as young as her, so had no experience of childcare, and anyway weren’t welcome at the flat. Sorrel could not tolerate Sonia’s family at his home, and the animosity was mutual. Sonia quickly found herself completely isolated.
—Can we talk about your parents? They were nearby weren’t they?
—They couldn’t stand Sorrel. But they would never tell me why. It was infuriating. Why didn’t they say something? Instead of just talking to me about it, they made me feel like it was all my fault – tell me how upset I had made them, how I had disappointed them. I needed them more than anything, and they d
idn’t want to know. So I forgot them and raised Alfie by myself. I had no idea what to do and Alfie was hard work. He wouldn’t settle, there were always problems with him. When the health visitor and the GP came to visit, Sorrel did all the talking. He said he didn’t trust me to say anything. He said, if I did, they would build a case to get Alfie taken away from me. He said it was up to me to do better.
Sonia says it was after Alfie was born that Sorrel seemed to change. He became much more stringent about checking up on her. She would never know when he was going to come home, and when he did, he derided her for not keeping their flat immaculately clean. Sorrel was used to high cleaning standards at work and told Sonia that all he wanted was to come back to a clean home where he wouldn’t have to do any more cooking. He also began to spend more and more nights away from her and Alfie, often, she found out, for no other reason than more drinking and partying.
—I was just stuck at home with the baby. I was utterly alone.
Sorrel said I shouldn’t go to the mum’s groups in town. He said the people there would fill my head with nonsense. And my family weren’t speaking to me. And to make it worse, when Sorrel did come home, he was full of stories about all these young waitresses, how beautiful they were, how much fun he was having.
—That must have felt awful.
—I just felt empty and useless and after the baby, frumpy and fat! I used to try and do everything at home to make him happy – to try and keep him at home.
—What about Alfie? Was Sorrel there for him as a father?
—Not really. If Alfie cried or wouldn’t sleep, Sorrel would hand him back to me with this look on his face, like it was my fault, and I had to take Alfie into the other room. If Alfie got ill, Sorrel would stay overnight at a hotel nearby so he didn’t catch whatever it was. Alfie was lovely, but he consumed my entire life. I felt like it was me doing everything. But Sorrel would always tell me, he was the one working; he was the one who made us able to afford nappies and food.
The couple eventually moved again. There was no discussion about it. Sonia tells me that one day Sorrel came home from work and just told her it was happening. He had got another catering job at a small restaurant near the Cheshire village of Audlem, around sixty miles east of Prestatyn, over the Welsh border into England. Sonia’s problems with alcohol had developed way beyond her control by this time. Alfie was two.
—The drinking, that was the only thing to have come with me from Dayton’s. And I didn’t even like it. I drank because Sorrel did. Because everyone did. And it gave me a confidence I’d never had before.
I can’t remember how the drinking started at home. I wouldn’t touch a drop when I was pregnant, but once I knew it wouldn’t hurt Alfie … I just … it just seemed to make the days go by quicker. When you’re on your own with just a toddler, it’s hard. As I say, Alfie was hard work, and every milestone took longer than it should: walking, talking. I was a disappointment as a mother as well as a girlfriend. And people don’t tell you and no one wants to admit it, but being alone all day with a little one is boring. Long, empty days cleaning up shit, feeding, napping. Drinking passed the time.
—When did the drinking get bad for you?
—It just happened before I knew it. I suppose it was really noticeable when Alfie started at nursery and I had some hours to myself. I had nothing to do but drink.
Sonia was even more isolated in the small village of Audlem. She didn’t fit in with the community. As Alfie moved on from nursery to school, Sonia was still drinking.
—It all came to a head about a year later, when we went on holiday. It was supposed to be just the three of us … It became four though…
Sonia tells me the story that you heard in episode four. How Sorrel coerced Wendy Morris into joining the couple to ‘help out with Alfie’.
—Sorrel told me that she was an old friend, and that she was the only woman he’d ever trusted. Charming! I didn’t even know who she was. He said she was just like him, that she would be able to help me with Alfie. I thought she was another one of Sorrel’s exes. She said she was at Dayton’s and I thought I could remember her face, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything then. I had no will of my own, no fight left.
—It sounds to me like it was Sorrel, not you, who was in the wrong.
—But what was I doing? How was I fighting back? I wasn’t. I was just numbing myself. And when I tried to speak up for myself, it was only because I was drunk and foolish.
Sonia recalls the night on holiday – the one on which Alfie ran into the forest.
—I remember just little bits. I remember Sorrel sending me back to bed, telling me I was a mess.
—That was him humiliating you, surely?
—So what? Who was it who stayed asleep when Alfie ran off? Who was asleep the whole time? Drunk Sonia, that’s who. Drunk, useless Sonia. I remember when Sorrel rescued him, brought him out of the forest. Something changed after that.
—Changed? In who?
—In Alfie. It was like he’d gone into that forest and come back a different child. That was my fault. Sorrel told me over and over again that I turned into a different person when I was drunk, that he had to protect Alfie from me. Maybe when Alfie came back from the forest and I’d been asleep, it was the moment Alfie realised that it was true: I couldn’t look after him. Couldn’t protect him…
There is a sudden burst of noise, as if the rain at Sonia’s end has become heavier. Her voice cuts in and out. And then Sonia stops speaking. I wonder if we’ve been cut off.
—From…?
—Nothing. It doesn’t matter. When we got back home, Sorrel was different too: meaner, angrier. Justifiably so. He never let me forget about that night, how he had saved Alfie while I slept. That’s when I first began to hear the noises.
—Noises?
—It was the drink. It had to have been. If I think back now it just seems ridiculous, but I remember it so clearly. They seemed real.
—What did you hear?
—It started in Alfie’s room: a scratching, scraping sound that seemed to come from inside the walls. I thought it was mice at first, or rats. I was so scared of mice. I still am. Sorrel thought being scared of such small creatures was irrational, stupid. But I knew he would go off his head if we had pests. So I left traps and poison out – not in Alfie’s room but round the house. That didn’t do any good. Then the scratching turned into tapping. It followed me round the house. I drank more and more to block it out. But it was always there, in the background. Sometimes it would go away for a few days, a week, but then it would come back again.
—Did you tell Sorrel?
—I had to. Because he didn’t seem to hear anything. It would always happen when he was out of the room. He’d come back in and I’d ask him to listen. Then he’d just shake his head and give me that look, like I’d let him down. I always felt like I disappointed him. He was already telling me I was losing it. He’d find things all over the house that I’d ‘lost’ – Sellotape in the fridge, the radio in the bed. He was right. I was losing my marbles, he used to say, like it was a big joke. He would say that I was always seeing mice that weren’t there. He got Alfie laughing at me, telling him mummy was scared of ‘bad piggy’.
—Bad piggy? Wasn’t that something Sorrel used to say to Alfie?
—Yes but he started saying it to me, both of them did. It was all a joke at my expense! They used to say that there was a bad piggy in the bath or a nasty goat in the cupboard under the stairs. Sorrel used to tell me I believed it! He even had Alfie saying it: ‘Bad mummy. Mummy mad!’ I went to the doctor once. Sorrel was there of course. And he did most of the talking. I got given some pills. No questions, nothing like that. Sorrel charmed them, as per usual.
—What medication was it?
—Amitriptyline. It didn’t help. It just made me drowsy, turned me into a zombie. Sorrel told me when and how much I should take. He said I wasn’t capable of managing it myself. But when Alfie started school again af
ter that holiday, things got worse: tapping, things going missing, then the laughter. Sometimes I would be on the sofa and I’d hear things running up and down the stairs. But when I looked there was nothing there. I couldn’t get up in the morning with that medication, so Sorrel would take Alfie to school. Those days are a blur. I don’t even remember what my boy did at school. What a failure of a mother. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
—You don’t need to apologise, least of all to me.
—I would give anything to go back and be stronger, be better – be a good mother. You understand that don’t you? I need you to understand that.
—Of course. I understand. I’m not blaming you, Sonia. Not at all.
Alfie’s behaviour at school was worrying his teachers. This is clear from episode three. Sonia tells me that he was on a final warning from his primary school for fighting with other children, and it was clear that Sonia could barely cope with him. It’s heartbreaking that Sonia takes full responsibility for what was happening. She reiterates Sorrel’s mantra that he was the one earning the money. But when he wasn’t at work he was at the pub, preferring that to sitting in the house with his alcoholic partner and their unruly child.
—There’s so much that I see differently now, in hindsight. Too late, though, isn’t it? Those days are just a black fog of drink. All I wanted to do was look after my son and make Sorrel happy, and I couldn’t do either.
Things began to come to a head between the couple in early 1988, when Alfie was nearly seven. To put things in context, this was around the same time the Baxter’s development in Wentshire Forest had begun. Already, the stories of the strange events at the site were starting to bleed into the press.
—I was obsessed with Wentshire Forest. I had every article written about it. I was convinced that there was something wrong with the place; that our holiday there had changed Alfie. That it had changed Sorrel. They had both gone in there one way and come out … different.
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