Hydra

by Matt Wesolowski

  But it all started to dawn on me. I looked around and all of them were wearing those board shorts or skinny jeans, where the crotch sort of hangs down. Mine were from the supermarket cos they did the bigger sizes and they were cheaper. It didn’t matter what jeans I had on, did it? But it did. Of course it did. And I realised that I was wearing my Skexxixx T-shirt – not the ‘S’ one that most fans had, but the limited-edition one that just said ‘EMPTY’ in these big white letters.

  ‘It’s Empty,’ Jack said, pointing at Greg’s waddle walk. And they all burst out into louder laughter. The high of hanging out with Anna and Kirsten and the other girls at the bus stop with the palm trees was now replaced with this horrible sense of dread.

  ‘I told Anna, you know,’ Jack was saying. His eyes kept flicking to me, like a lizard’s. ‘I told Anna that Empty liked her, and you know what she did?’

  The question was to me – he was looking at me and the others were holding their breaths.

  I was in paroxysms of shock, of horror. This was school – this was school all over again. Everything I had built up in a year – all the belief that Mum and Dad had helped instil in me that I wasn’t worthless, that I was someone, despite my weight – was gone. Thundering back came the days when Mum and Dad had to drive me to school to escape the names and stones hurled at me by Darren Hayfield and the rest of his goons. This holiday, this fucking holiday was supposed to be about celebrating how far I’d come. And it was all unravelling faster than a lie…

  ‘She ran!’ Jack finished, bent double.

  The others exploded into laughter and I felt the tears coming. I had to get away and I just began to walk, fast as I could, not looking, not saying anything, a great big lump swollen in my throat, tears clenched like fists behind my eyes, ready to spill out. I could hear them cawing like crows, caterwauling with laughter as I started along that path up the cliff, cursing myself, hating myself. What did you think, you stupid, fat idiot? What did you think would happen? They’ve been laughing at you this whole time, calling you ‘Empty’. How long’s that been going on – that running joke? I bet it seemed like a hilarious piece of irony, considering the size of you. You go on holiday, far away from everything, celebrate how well you’re getting on at college and look – look what happens. This is your fucking destiny and you deserve it.

  Then I heard someone running behind me, breathing heavy.

  ‘Anth … Anth mate…’

  I knew who it was and I couldn’t look.

  ‘Anth mate, I’m sorry. I’m sorry…’

  ‘S’fine,’ I said and I could barely even speak cos a lump of agony filled my throat.

  I wanted to say, Fuck you. Fuck off away from me, you. You of all people. You were the one who was my friend before Jack and Greg came along. You and me wandered out here and smoked fags and talked shit and it was like I had a friend. How could I have been so stupid?

  I saw him out the corner of my eye. I saw him turn back to the others, to Jack and Greg, shrugging, raising his hands in a what-can-I-do? gesture.

  As if I was just an irritant – a problem that he couldn’t fix.

  ‘I’m sorry Anth…’ he said. Then turned around and ran back down the track to the others. Free of me at last.

  I was crying then, all the way back up to the hotel. I just let it all out, all the last year in tatters and all of it my fault.

  Kyle had been my friend. For a time at least. For a couple of days I had had a friend. Now I had to tell Mum and Dad that, yet again, I was on my own. They wouldn’t shame me – they weren’t like that – but I could always see the sadness in their eyes when yet again I fucked something like this up by just being me.

  That’s when I met her.

  That’s another person whose life I fucked up, just by being part of it.

  Welcome to Six Stories. I’m Scott King.

  Over these six weeks we are looking back at the Macleod Massacre – the infamous killing of the Macleod family by the eldest daughter, twenty-one-year-old Arla. We’re looking back from six different perspectives, seeing the events that unfolded through six pairs of eyes.

  Then, of course, it’s up to you. As you know by now, I’m not here to make judgement, or draw definite conclusions. I simply present what information I discover.

  For newer listeners, you should know I am not a policeman, a forensic scientist or an FBI profiler; this isn’t an investigation and no new evidence is revealed. My podcast is more like a book group, a discussion at an old crime scene. We look back on tragedy.

  The person whose voice you heard at the beginning is Anthony Walsh. If you listened to the last episode I’m guessing you have inferred that already. He is another person who was present during the Macleod family’s holiday to Cornwall. A holiday, I am convinced, holds the key to why Arla Macleod did what she did. Anthony has come forward himself to tell his part of the story. I’ll leave him to tell you his reasons for doing so.

  Before we continue with this episode, I want to mention something. As those of you who have been following this series know, my investigation of the Macleod case has provoked a lot of vitriol online. I am aware that, for some reason, there are those out there telling me I should be leaving this case well alone. I called for reasoned debate and discussion in the previous episodes, and I’m still waiting.

  Let me tell you, there has been more communication, but none of it has, as yet, been of a measured nature. I will not read out what I have received, and I will also not respond to threats. I will only reiterate that I am still waiting for an opportunity to have a reasonable discussion.

  I also apologise for having to temporarily close down the comments section on the Facebook group; those who participate in that particular community know the reasons why. I will not stand for intimidation, insults and discussions that are inflammatory in their nature. I realise that there is lots of intense and potentially distressing subject matter within the realms of Six Stories. True crime, is, by its very nature, horrific. But that’s why we need to be able to debate like sensible people.

  If you don’t like it. No one is forcing you to listen.

  That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.

  Back to Anthony Walsh.

  Anthony speaks to me from his home town, which he has asked me not to disclose. Twenty-six years old, Anthony still lives with his parents in the same house and lower-middle-class suburb he grew up in. He works mostly from home as a freelance graphic designer and makes enough money to pay for his board and lodging. His mother and father have always been supportive and Anthony emphasises the value he places on his relationship with them in our Skype chat.

  —Yeah, Mum and Dad are good. They always have been. We’ve always got along. I think I’ve never wanted to be too far away from them. Maybe that’s because of how they’ve always been so supportive. They’ve always looked after me.

  Anthony’s been through the mill. An unusually shy child, he found it hard to mix with others from a young age. This timidity resulted in Anthony becoming a target of bullying as far back as primary school.

  —It was my weight as well – we can’t skirt around that. Literally and figuratively! I’m nearly seventeen stone now and only five foot seven. That’s overweight. That’s obese. But it’s how I’ve always been – heavy. And you know what? Mum and Dad never got on my back about it; never tried to get me to lose weight. They never planted the message that I’d get friends if only I was slim. That happens to so many kids and it’s awful. So many parents project their own experiences onto their children. As I’ve got older I understand why. I don’t have children and never would. I would never want anyone to grow up and be remotely like me.

  The bullying of Anthony Walsh at school is something that we could spend much longer on. A lot of the previous series of Six Stories have dealt with perpetrators who were bullied and perpetrators who were bullies. That’s not to say it’s a cause of crime but it’s definitely involved somehow.

  You will notice from the clip at the
start of the episode that Anthony appears to have been, like Arla Macleod, a fan of Skexxixx. It’s an aspect of his life that I will discuss with him later. I am in no doubt that there were many others like Arla and Anthony – young people who felt like outcasts and who could identify with the lyrics of Skexxixx.

  Anthony is a quiet and well-spoken individual. And there is a softness to him – a vulnerability – that induces real empathy. Anthony does not wear the scars of his life like medals. He does not draw attention to them or make himself out to be a pariah or a martyr. Anthony talks about what has clearly been a battle with a sense of reason. The trauma of what he has been through is unmistakable on his face. When he recalls events, such as the story of what took place at the beach, it strikes me just how much damage living your life as an involuntary victim can do.

  —I got through it. I got through school. I never wanted to take time off, to get my parents involved – that would have only made it worse. Every bullied kid knows that. We just have to keep our heads down and take it until we can get out and get better jobs than those who bully us.

  —Was anything ever done about it? At school?

  —Let’s say it wasn’t a priority. And it was never that bad – it was never, like, people beating me up or anything. I was too pathetic even for that. It was just a consistent, low-level unpleasantness that didn’t go away.

  —What could have been done? Something, surely?

  —Perhaps. I mean, sometimes teachers would … I hate to say it, but some would join in, especially some of the younger ones. It was the men especially – male teachers trying to be liked, to be ‘one of the lads’. Again though, it was always like, under the radar, snide remarks. You had to feel sorry for them. Imagine being a grown adult and trying to endear yourself to teenage boys by picking on the fat guy?

  —You’re remarkably together about it all.

  —I’ve been through a lot of therapy. No, really, that’s not a joke. I have. Everyone should. People need to talk.

  But you see, I can’t just blame all my problems on other people. I’m just naturally quite an anxious person, always have been. I think I showed signs of depression in childhood: shyness, difficulty making friends, that sort of thing. I never slept properly as a baby. I don’t know how Mum and Dad coped with me – up and down all night; bad dreams; night terrors. Back when I was a kid you just didn’t equate these things with illness. That’s the other thing. Something like depression – people always seem to want a root cause, as if your illness has to be quantified, like it can’t be enough that your brain chemistry is skew-whiff, I don’t know. It’s not really relevant I guess.

  It’s a shame – the more I talk with Anthony, the more I glimpse how endearing he is as a person. But as soon as he takes one step onto his soapbox, he climbs down, cuts himself off. I almost want to tell him it’s OK, that what he has to say is important, that I want to hear him. It saddens me somewhat that this learned behaviour – not getting above his station – is now just his way of life.

  —So let’s go back to the holiday you and your folks took to Cornwall.

  —Yeah. I was sixteen. I’d completed my first term at college and I’d done it without any problems. I was getting the bus there on my own without having a panic attack; I was weaning off my meds – everything was going in the right direction.

  —That must have felt like an achievement in itself.

  —Yeah, totally. I remember the first day, Dad drove me into the car park and when he said goodbye I just wanted to cuddle into him and ask him to walk in with me, to hold my hand. I just saw all these other people – all these kids who all looked so much older than me – and I just thought, wow, these folk are just a world away from someone like me. But I did it: I walked in there; I knew what building I had to be at and I just stood there. I was waiting … waiting for the first comment, the first insult, the first bit of bitten-off rubber thrown at my head. But then someone just came up and started a conversation – with me! Imagine that! Some girl just walked up and said ‘Hi,’ like it was the most normal thing in the world. A girl!

  From what Anthony tells me, he was enjoying college. He had a small group of friends and a sense of confidence beginning to emerge. Green shoots. Anthony was undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy for his anxiety and was beginning to see results.

  —I’d got myself out of these cyclical patterns of negative thinking. I had strategies. Of course there were setbacks – there were bad days – but I really felt like I was making progress. My main problems were isolating myself, spending too much time online, falling into internet worm-holes … do you know what I mean?

  —Was the internet a place of refuge for you?

  —It was, but I knew it was negative. I used to read all sorts of strange things on there. I was making an effort to try and forge real friendships offline too. That was one of my targets – self-imposed, I may add! It’s so easy to just stay at home, in your little bubble, your safe place, a place where you can hide out, you can rage-quit a social interaction online but you can’t in real life. My parents, they’d helped me realise that there was a way out, there was a place I could be after school – a place for me in the world. Does that sound stupid?

  —Not at all. Everyone deserves their place in the world. No matter who they are.

  —Yeah. I believed it too. What happened in Cornwall set me back a long way. Then a few years later, when it all came out in the news – all the stuff about the Macleod Ma— sorry, about what happened to that family, I turned it all inward. I turned it all back on myself. I guess I blamed myself for all of it.

  —Really? You blamed yourself for what Arla Macleod did to her family?

  —Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But that’s just how my brain works. It makes these ridiculous neural connections. I’m so used to feeling like I’m the problem.

  I was so scared when the … when what Arla Macleod did became big in the news, when it was all over the internet. I was terrified. I mean, I was being disproportionate, hysterical, but … did you see what happened to that guy? The caretaker from her old school?

  —I saw the end result, yes.

  —It’s like … complicated … hard to explain. I … I don’t want to say too much…

  —What’s holding you back?

  —I’d rather not say. It’s not my business. That man topping himself was the end of it, the only bit that we got to see. I wonder if anything else happened.

  —Like what?

  —I wonder if there was anything before all that? There has to have been, right? I just wonder what he might have seen, that’s all.

  —I find myself having little sympathy for a man who groomed children online…

  —If he even did it at all?

  —Do you have doubts about that?

  —I do. I’m sorry but there was a lot more going on than just that. It’s … I’m not sure it’s my place to mention all that.

  —All that?

  —Yeah … kids, but not … I’m sorry, can I … can I have a minute?

  A change comes over Anthony as we speak. His face goes pale, his eyes glaze over and he begins to tremble. A text message I have received swims into my mind, silent and deadly, like the tentacles of some terrible jellyfish:

  U have seen what we can do :)

  Now back off.

  Anthony’s alluded to the notion that the paedophile hunter sting on Mr Marsh may not have been all it seemed. Is Anthony implying that the old caretaker of Saint Theresa’s may have been set up? I consider this and realise just what an involved and complicated process that would have to have been. If Marsh was set up, then whoever did it would have had either to hack some form of social media or else create a fake profile. Seeing as Marsh was older, I imagine his online presence was minimal. Whoever did it would have to have known where the man lived, tracked him down – found his address when he moved from Stanwel. That speaks of a vendetta to me.

  But the question is why?

  The only reason I can
think of is that Mr Marsh was guilty of some sort of misdemeanour, or a perceived one at least. Someone had a good reason to do this to an old man.

  I try and get back in touch with ‘Tessa’ from episode two, but to no avail. I want to know whether she had any encounters with Mr Marsh or even if she has heard rumours from her time at school or afterwards. Unfortunately, all the online profiles I used to contact ‘Tessa’ before as well as the phone number she gave me all seem to be dead.

  I do, however, contact Paulette English again and refer her to this comment she made in episode three:

  ‘[Marshy] was just a little old oddball. He had this red face, all wrinkly and the lads used to say he was a convicted murderer on parole, that he’d killed his daughter. It was just another stupid story. No one who’d done that could work in a school, right? How would that even happen? Anyway, if Marshy had caught us, we’d have known about it.’

  Paulette clarifies.

  —I just meant … I never had anything to do with him really. You never even saw him. Occasionally, between lessons maybe, just pottering about and that.

  —What did you mean by saying that if Marshy caught you you’d ‘know about it’?

  —In that context I see what you’re getting at. But no, it wasn’t like that. Marshy was just a little, angry bloke – hated the students. He had that grouchy-old-man thing going on, you know? Like, if the lads kicked their ball up on the roof and that, Marshy wouldn’t get it down. The year sevens said he had a cabinet full of old footballs he’d burst on purpose. I don’t know if any of that was true, but no one liked him. He was old school. If he caught you messing about, he’d give you both barrels, screaming in your face and that. It never happened to me.

  —Do you think Arla ever had an encounter with Mr Marsh?

  —She could have done I suppose, but she never said anything. I would have remembered that. And it would have been all over the school if she had. It’s a bit of a cliché really, isn’t it? The janitor did it in the end. Just like something out of Scooby Doo.