I have heard from cynics that there was nothing more wrong with Zach Crystal than a twisted ankle and that this was yet another bizarre PR stunt to show the star in a sympathetic light. Whether this was Crystal’s choice or a decision by his people, Craig doesn’t know. He does know, however, that for a long time, when he saw him at Crystal Forest, Crystal’s leg was in a splint.
—He spent most of his time in that tree house of his. You had to be specially invited to go up there. Only the cleaners and Mr Cryer could enter that treehouse without a specific invite from Mr Crystal. Anyone else – instant dismissal. None of us dared go anywhere near. But he did have a lot of visitors up there, a lot of well-wishers.
—That strikes me as odd, considering the lack of people at the party.
—Ah, it wasn’t friends he had up there with him, it was fans. Lots of those unfortunate girls; the ones from the homes and that. When he broke his leg, he let lots of them come to visit him in there. Mr Cryer organised it all.
According to Craig, during Zach Crystal’s rehabilitation for his broken leg, there were so many visitors to his tree house, the staff at Crystal Forest were working flat out. The visitors quarters at Crystal Forest were full and when one set of visitors left, another would arrive.
In the years that followed, unless Crystal was on tour, Crystal Forest always seemed busy with fans. Only a select few were allowed to spend time in the treehouse. At the same time, though, security was upped – there were more patrols in the forest, and there was state of the art CCTV, inside as well as out.
—Oh it was madness. Loads of teenage girls all over the place and their parents or their carers. It was bedlam sometimes. All those cameras too. You had the kitchens working twenty-four-seven, the housekeepers never stopped cleaning. I stayed out of the way, me. They were up till all hours, in the tree house, watching horror movies apparently.
—Did you ever go inside the tree house, any time you worked there?
—Like I say, instant dismissal without an invite. But I came close though.
—Really?
—Oh, aye. It was a funny one. It was a year or so later – 2005 maybe? I was up on the top floor. We called it the Crystal Museum. It was where he kept all his stuff – his costumes and his outfits and awards. It was all in glass cases, all dark with those motion-sensor lights inside them, so when you went in there, the cases lit your way. I thought it was spooky, but he liked it. All his tour posters, all his merchandise. He had one of everything – every poster, every keyring, everything, mounted in these cases. I also knew that whenever anyone was in the Crystal Museum, those sensors would set off lights up in the tree house. He could watch you on his own CCTV up there.
—Really? Why?
—The entrance to the tree house was behind one of the cases. There was a secret lift, you know? There was a keypad at the very end of the museum. If you were Mr Crystal or Mr Cryer, you knew the code and it would make one of the cases slide open. There was a lift that went up there that housekeeping had a key for and after that another two security doors. Mr Cryer kept that key in his office and housekeeping had to ask him for permission to clean. He was very security-conscious was Mr Crystal. He needed to know if someone was coming. There was a secret exit from the tree house as well. A ladder that led into the forest and a lift that went into the garages. I know all this because I saw it all being built. It was crazy – proper Indiana Jones stuff.
—Why though? Why was it so cloak and dagger?
—Listen, I couldn’t tell you how many times I got emails or letters asking for access to Mr Crystal. We all did, everyone who worked there. Because he was so elusive, everyone wanted a piece of him – journalists, fans. I’ve been offered ridiculous money to take photos up there. I’ve been offered all sorts to take people’s kids there, to ask for autographs, everything. Even now. Even now he’s dead, people still want to know if I can get them to look around the ruins of the place. You’re the first one that hasn’t.
—But you never had the code back then?
—Not me. Nope. Only Mr Cryer and Mr Crystal, and Mr Cryer himself let the cleaners in.
—You say you came close to going up there.
—Well, like I say, I was up in the museum. They wanted a new security system installed and I was just having a look, you know? Anyhow, the case door slides open and it’s one of the housekeepers.
—OK.
—So we says hello and that, and she’s away, but I notice the door isn’t closing – the glass case is jammed. Must be a fault, so I go to have a look and I see something’s dropped off her basket. At first I thought it was a washcloth, so I go to pick it up, but it’s stuck in the door somehow. I get into the lift and pull it out. But then the doors close on me and it starts going up.
—To the tree house?
—Aye. I’m shitting it. By then he’ll be able to see me on the camera. I’m not supposed to be up there, but I figure I’ve got a good excuse, no? Problem is that once I’m up, I don’t know how to get back down again.
—So what did you do?
—Well, that was it. I was stood there like a lemon for a wee while, in front of the security door, the lift open behind me. It was quiet there, dead quiet. Even if the wind was raging outside, you could have heard a pin drop. I was a bit … uncomfortable, you know? Then I hear something – I mean, it was probably just wind in the lift shaft or a sound from the speakers or the intercom or whatever, but it gave me … this feeling.
—What sort of feeling?
—Let me tell you something: the forest, that forest, has never scared me. I feel like I know it and it knows me too. That sounds daft, I know, but it’s true. One morning though, when I was wee, I was out at dawn with my da and we were watching a herd of deer graze. It’s a beautiful sight. They’re like ghosts: they make no sound, they come and they go like they were never there. Any movement though and off they go. So I’m stood, stock still, watching, drinking in the sight of these delicate animals when … I dunno, there’s this feeling in the air. It’s not wind, it’s like a cloud passes over your heart. I feel all the hairs on my body standing up, and I’m scared. I’m so scared I slip my hand into my dad’s and we say nothing. We watch. Those deer, they feel it too, I swear, because they all stand up from their grazing, in one movement, look one way and dash off, vanishing, quick as a breeze.
—What was it that spooked them?
—I’ve no idea. Not even now. The feeling was gone a moment later. I asked my da and he just says that sometimes there’s things that the forests still hold secret. I never forgot that fear though. Never. And that’s what I felt when I was stood there outside the lift while this sound, this soft wail of wind, calls out and disappears again.
Eventually I had no choice, did I? I thought I had to call Mr Cryer. I just hoped Mr Crystal wouldn’t go off his nut. I was about to call Cryer when I looked down at what I’d pulled out of the lift door. I thought it was a duster or a cleaning rag or whatever, but it’s not. It’s some pyjamas. Bottoms. Girls’ pyjama bottoms. Little frilly things, with bows, like what young lassies wear. Not little kids’ ones, but … small, you know, young adult size. The cleaner must have dropped them from the washing basket, I thought.
—What on earth did you do?
—I didn’t know. I didn’t think, I just stuffed them in my pocket. Prayed he hadn’t seen it through the camera. Then I called Mr Cryer on my phone. I was terrified because all the time I was explaining what happened – the door had stuck and I’d gone up – I had these pyjamas in my back pocket. I could feel them in there.
—What were you scared of?
—Someone finding them. Mr Crystal or Mr Cryer finding out I had them. Then I’d have to explain and I’d drop the housekeeper in the shit too. It was all such a mess, you know? I can’t really say much more. That was how I felt. I’m not implying anything.
Such an incident can be seen in a number of ways. I’m sure there are those out there who will regard what Craig found at Crystal Forest a
s very dubious. There are also those who won’t. There are several potential explanations – both innocent and nefarious. We can read what we want into the discovery but we cannot know exactly why they were there. It’s entirely possible, Craig tells me, that they came from the guest quarters on the lower floor – they could have been brought up by one of the young women. Or else they belonged to Zach Crystal himself. That would beg even more sinister questions. What interests me here is Craig’s fear upon finding the garments; that cannot be disputed. Certainly around this time there was increasing media scrutiny around the young women who were allowed into the sanctity of Crystal Forest. The mentality among the staff, Craig says, was that the media reports were bitter grapes. Zach Crystal did not allow the press anywhere near him, so they reacted by spinning unpleasant rumours.
Craig tells me that not long after these unsavoury whispers began to spread online, Crystal released the Damage album and started a sudden and very public relationship with actress Zadie Farrow. At this point, Zach Crystal was thirty-three years old. It was rare, Craig says, at this point, that Crystal spent much time at Crystal Forest. Damage sent Crystal stratospheric and his image was everywhere, even if he himself was not, save for carefully orchestrated events and carefully choreographed and pre-scripted appearances.
—I don’t know when he started dating Ms Farrow. One day there was nervous energy at Crystal Forest, lots of cleaning and that going on, stuff being chucked out.
—Stuff?
—From the tree house. Junk, I imagine. Mr Crystal kept a lot of junk up there apparently. There was always loads of rubbish. He was like a teenager; the cleaners were always bringing down bags and bags of pizza boxes and fizzy-drink bottles. I think he wanted the place spruced up. It wasn’t every day you brought home a movie star, right?
Zadie Farrow was slightly older than Zach Crystal, aged forty in 2007. The pair met at the premiere of Dark Tide, a horror movie directed by Tony Almiron in which Farrow starred and was eventually Oscar-nominated for. Crystal, well known for his love of horror movies, was said to be absolutely infatuated with Farrow.
By this time, Zach Crystal was possibly the world’s biggest music star. His appearance grew ever more flamboyant: tailor-made clothes, all of which were themed around woodland. He wore tiara-style headdresses with short antlers fixed to them and either veils or elaborate masks that covered most of his face. Tall, with his mane of thick, blond hair, only his piercing green eyes peering out at the world, he was quite a sight. He was graceful and soft in his speech and movement, always standing tall and regal. Personally, I think he looked like some kind of pagan deity, summoned to our world.
—How were they together, Zach and Zadie?
—In all honesty, you never really saw them together. They were both busy people, you know? The only time I ever saw them together was when they were doing photo shoots in their crazy costumes for publicity. They never seemed unhappy, just … different people, I guess. That’s how it seemed to me; they were never really together.
Craig tells me, in these ensuing years, Crystal’s elusiveness began to become detrimental to his image.
—There were even more folk trying to get to him at Crystal Forest. Not just young lasses but photographers, journalists too. It became a real problem.
With the increased incidents of people becoming lost or injured in Colliecrith National Park as they were trying to reach Crystal Forest, the park service and Police Scotland eventually clamped down hard. Anyone caught on the Crystal property or that of the neighbouring Shaw estate would face arrest and a hefty fine.
But unfortunately, there was to be a terrible tragedy in Crystal Forest that same year. At the time, Zach Crystal fans were trying to find their way through the forest at Colliecrith to their idol’s home in larger numbers. The great majority were caught at the perimeter and ejected by Craig and his security team, but some, unfortunately, weren’t so lucky.
—It was insane. It was more than you’d ever think. Two or three a week, easily. More in the summer. Most of them would get the coach or the train to Aviemore or Newtonmore, sometimes Dalwhinnie. We’re talking a day and a night’s walk to Colliecrith from there. But they tried it. Some of them drove. Taxis round here had to have signs in Japanese as well as English, telling folk they wouldn’t take a fare to Colliecrith. You think that being head of security is all glitz and glamour? No way. Most of your time you spent being called all sorts by crazy girls who’ve camped out in the Cairngorms all night.
Crystal Forest’s state-of-the-art security meant that there was no way any of the fans were able to access the property, but that didn’t stop them trying.
The deaths we’ve mentioned before, of two fifteen-year-old fans – Lulu Copeland and Jessica Morton – is an incident that Craig remembers well.
—Poor wee things. That was the worst day of my whole life. Finding them two lassies. Horrible. I can’t forget that day, even though I want to.
Jessica Morton and Lulu Copeland were reported missing by staff from their residential home in Truro in July 2007. CCTV caught the girls at Truro Bus Station late one night, boarding a bus to Bristol. After that, nothing was known of their whereabouts. The story was floated briefly on the UK news, but quickly vanished again and the girls were forgotten. Many have argued since that this disappearance was woefully under-reported and the investigation distinctly lacking. From the outside it seems that a lack of communication among police forces across the UK hampered the investigation, which eventually petered out entirely. There are many questions still being asked about how the two girls managed to get all the way from the south coast to the Scottish Highlands, undetected. A cynic may argue that had Jessica and Lulu been middle class and from a stable background, there would have been significantly more effort put into the search.
It was a month later that the pair were found, by Craig, in Colliecrith. His face darkens as he recounts the discovery.
—I was on my rounds, just outside the perimeter. There were some trees needed felling, but they weren’t part of Crystal Forest. So it was a load of admin, basically. That’s why I was out there … and … I mean…
Craig falters and dissolves into a coughing fit. A few heads turn our way as he splutters, and when he raises his head again, his face is red and his eyes are bloodshot and watering. I give him a few moments to compose himself.
—Sorry.
—It’s OK – we can skip over the details if you’d rather not talk about it? No problem.
—It’s not that. It’s not that, mate. It’s just … all the stories of the Whispering Wood. That’s what I thought they were at first, you know? Just stories, the daft things your granny tells you to keep you from hurting yourself, eh?
But there was something. Something I found during the build. I mean at the time, I just thought it was nothing, you know? Just a little bit of weirdness.
—Yeah?
—It was probably nothing and I didn’t want to cause a fuss, so I never said anything.
—What was it?
—Well, you see maybe I imagined it, but I swear down when I was scouting out the land, I found a cave. That wasn’t so weird, cos the forest was full of dips and ridges and rocks. There were lots of little divots like that in the land. But this was more than that. It was almost hidden by ferns, and it was … I dunno, there was some funny marks on the rocks round the entrance.
—Was there anything inside?
—I’m pretty embarrassed to say, but it gave me a bad vibe. For some reason it reminded me of seeing those deer when I was wee. You remember? One of those secrets the forest keeps. I just wanted to get away. So I did. I just went away. Thought I’d come back but – and this was the weird thing – I could never find it again. None of the workmen mentioned it either so I just kept my trap shut. It was too weird.
—What do you think it was?
—Just … I dunno. I dunno what it was. Just a cave, right? Just a cave in the woods. Maybe an animal lived in there. I dunno. I just know I d
idn’t want to see it again. Ever again.
I ask Craig about the video that’s emerged recently: what looks, from the blurry mobile phone footage, like the inside of a cave, and the two girls.
—I haven’t seen it and I’ve no intention of seeing it either. Maybe it’s real, maybe not…
—Could you ever bring yourself to watch it?
—No. Never. Just in case … just in case it is real.
—What would that do to you if it was?
—If it was real, it would stay in my head forever; it would haunt me, day and night. It would consume me. Those poor lassies. I’d never be able to unsee it, you know? I’ll never watch it. Never.
—Is the similarity to the story of the Whispering Wood part of what makes you so uncomfortable?
—We all knew that story, the one about the little girl and the laird – our grannies had all told us it. But, it’s the laird’s family that’s cursed, not Mr Crystal. It’s the Shaws, who own the other half of the forest.
—And do that family still own part of Colliecrith today?
—Aye, the bit that wasn’t Crystal Forest goes a long way all around.
Deity Page 12
