Perhaps what I’m worried about is that they’ll tell me I should have left it all alone. That I’ve enabled Scott King and Six Stories to bring it all up again. The third episode had record listeners, apparently. There have been new articles in the broadsheets. There’s even word King will do interviews. I doubt it.
I feel like I’ve helped construct a bomb.
A couple of cars pass and I stare at my feet; mud-stained boots, one in front of the other on the pavement. The church, St Sophia’s, comes lumbering around the hill, and I can already see the graveyard gate is locked with a blue bike chain.
I can’t stop here.
There’s going to be a service later on this week, to commemorate what happened here. Belkelders will trim the verges and clean the net curtains; polish the brass horses on their windowsills. Some will share their experiences with the Guardian weekend supplement. Some will rue the Rangers, the police and most probably my father through the yell of the tabloids.
St Sophia’s has already been tainted by what happened in her quiet graveyard. The benches have been removed and a home-printed sign is gaffa-taped to the gate, asking people to respect the dead.
I pass without another glance and reach the small parade of shops; the war memorial where a stone soldier stands, head bowed, tattered poppies at his feet. This is where I stop and compose myself, keeping my face turned to the plinth, as if reading the names carved long ago.
Haris Novak won’t be here for the service; nor will any of those that were directly involved. The papers that painted Novak as a monster will lament the tragedy, still keeping their knives sharp. The people of Belkeld will suffer the flashes of the cameras, the mini media frenzy.
I can’t stay here long. Morning has come and there are a few people about now, back and forth up the little parade of shops; cagoules and worn faces. Belkeld still has a proper butcher. I pass the closed Tourist Information Centre, next door to a Pet Supplies store and a key-cutters. I’m baffled how these places prosper.
I read there’s been a surge in tourism here since the first couple of episodes of Six Stories. Amateur sleuths and bloody ghouls, I imagine. The same kind of weirdos who enquire about renting The Hunting Lodge.
The story of the Beast of Belkeld has been an unwelcome highlight of the series so far. There’ll be T-shirts soon, mark my words. The Tourist Information Centre already has a few books in the window; a hastily cobbled together display: Myths and Legends, England’s Haunted Castles, that sort of rot. Scarclaw Fell makes a couple of the covers. A pixellated Google image, or else it’s been Photoshopped into the background. I bristle and wonder if they need my permission.
I walk past and keep going. There’s only empty countryside in the distance; a bench that sits askew beside the pebbledash wall of the Nepalese takeaway that lies on the very edge of the village. I’ll buy a coffee and sit on that bench before I leave. Give something back to a place I have taken from. A place that will never be the same.
I’ve looked into the story of Anne Hope, the ‘witch’ who ‘cursed’ Belkeld, and have only come up against the same dead ends as Scott King. Witches and curses are beyond my understanding of the world, but a line from episode two stayed with me. The ‘long, black man’ whom this witch coven was supposed to be appeasing. I’ve woken a few times in the night with the memory of what we saw that night on Scarclaw. Do I believe in the devil? I’m not sure. I certainly don’t believe what we saw was the devil – what we pursued through the rain and the mud that night.
We had a crisis meeting.
It took seconds. We shut the dormitory door to muffle the sound of Tomo’s lurchers and stood in the short corridor that turned its L-shape to the room further on: the famous dormitory.
‘We all saw that, didn’t we?’ Tomo said. ‘Outside?’
He had that little-boy look in his eyes again; round and begging. I didn’t want to look at his hands; didn’t want to see them shaking. A funny little part of me wanted to say no, wanted to ask him what on earth he was going on about, wanted him to have been the only one who saw that black shape outside. Who saw it stare at us and run.
‘What the fuck?’ Jus said. He looked furious.
I couldn’t say a word, a bubble replaced my tongue. Jus was glaring at us both, but his lower lip was trembling. If he began to cry, I don’t know what I would have done.
‘If this is a fucking gag, boys…’ he said, one fist clenched.
But no one answered. Jus knew himself this was no joke.
If this had happened today, we all would have had our phones out. Help would be on its way.
‘Where’s the fucking gun, Tomo?’ I said, with a mouth that was not my own.
Tomo inclined his head to the door of the dormitory. The lurchers’ skittering was subsiding. The shape that had looked in on us had passed. If it had been there at all.
‘So you’re saying we all saw it, right?’ Tomo pleaded. ‘Right?’
I couldn’t look at him, or at Jus.
‘Come on,’ ordered Tomo.
I followed him into the dorm, bent-kneed, playing soldiers. My heart was thudding but my head was oddly straight. Adrenaline had long chased away any effects of alcohol. Jus slunk behind us. I didn’t want to look at him in case his face betrayed the fear that thrummed through me. We had to keep it together.
The rest of Tomo’s lamping gear was in the boot of his Jag, but the shotgun lay sheathed in a waterproof carry-case on the top bunk beside his sleeping bag. He drew it out as one might draw a broadsword.
‘Is it loaded?’ I asked.
Tomo looked down at the gun, alien in his hands, and nodded, a tiny movement.
It didn’t matter. Just the sight of it would scare whatever – whoever – was out there.
‘We’ve got the dogs, too,’ Tomo said, as if thinking exactly the same thing. ‘No one’ll fuck with them.’
The two lurchers were circling around our feet. I saw Tomo flinch when one of their noses brushed his hand.
There was a noise, and we both turned to see Jus crawling onto one of the bottom bunks. He turned his back to us and began to curl into a foetal position. The soles of his feet were wet with spilled booze, twin screams soaking through his socks.
‘Justin, for fuck’s…’ I began, but stopped.
The lurchers had begun growling again. Through the rain came the sound of branches against the walls; damp slaps, as if something moved past.
‘What was that, before?’ I said, trying to control the tremble in my voice.
‘What?’ Tomo swung the gun and picked up the dogs’ leads. I felt my arsehole clench.
‘That rhyme thing you were saying before?’
This suddenly felt like we were part of an elaborate prank. I stared into the corners of the dormitory, looking for cameras. Only spider webs and dust looked back.
‘C’mere!’ growled Tomo. The dogs were whining now, too excited to stay still. Tomo’s hands were shaking.
‘Let me.’ I bent down, glad to have something to do. The lurchers began sniffing my face; I could smell their meaty breath. I didn’t want to look at Tomo holding that gun. I clipped the leads onto the animals’ collars and rose.
‘It’s something my dad told me,’ Tomo said, fiddling with the gun. Was he trying to cock it, perhaps? Both dogs were pulling at the lead now. ‘Some folk song or other. I don’t know.’
‘About Scarclaw?’
Tomo shook his head. ‘No. At least, I don’t think so. He used to say it when I was a kid. Proper shit me up, it did.’
Some other accent was creeping into Tomo’s voice. Midlands perhaps?
‘Mother, is that father’s form at the door?
It’s taller and longer than ever before.’
At that, Justin uncoiled from the bottom bunk and got to his feet. The dogs barked as he stamped toward Tomo and met him, chest to chest, eyes wet and face red.
‘Just stop it,’ Jus said through clenched teeth. His mouth was an inch away from Tomo’s nose. ‘Just f
ucking shut up, do you hear me?’
Tomo’s hands rose in submission. ‘I’m sorry Jus, mate, I…’
‘There’s nothing out there. No ghosts, no fucking … whatever, OK?’ He turned his fury to me.
I nodded, quick.
Satisfied, Jus continued. ‘But this is your land, Harry.’ He pointed to the window. ‘And some cunt’s out there trying to shit us up…’ He turned back to me and I could see a new steeliness in his eyes. ‘Are you guys going to fucking stand for that?’
Tomo and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
‘There’s lights in the boot,’ Tomo said, nodding toward the window.
‘The fuck are we waiting for then?’ Jus said.
The dogs, sensing our sudden resolve, began straining at the leads even harder.
‘Pass me the fucking whisky,’ I said.
‘Good lad.’ Jus thumped my back and shoved the bottle into my hand.
The liquid was lukewarm and it burned hard. I felt an urge to throw it back up, but I didn’t.
This was my fucking land.
‘Give it,’ Tomo said, and followed my example.
There is evil in the world. There is definitely evil in this world of ours. We carve monuments to our fallen, engrave them with the names of those whose lives were snuffed out when trying to stop evil.
We don’t forget.
Episode 4: Nanna Wrack
—It’s a dark, freezing night on Scarclaw Fell. The wind wails mournfully through the trees of the old forest and little bundles of sheep huddle together like balls of damp cotton wool. Frost freezes on the edges of the leaves, the trees glisten in the moonlight, and their branches caress the frozen earth like the withered fingers of some long-dead corpse.
The night rides on, endlessly, soundlessly. The last few lights in the village are winking out. But as a cloud passes over the moon … yes … there – something is moving.
Breath – little puffs of fog – and the crackle of breaking leaves and twigs. It’s a traveller– not a man, not a hiker in boots and pack, but a boy, a little boy, and he’s running; every step is agony as the frozen ground bites at his bare feet.
On and on he goes, higher and higher, the darkness surrounding him, spinning his bearings this way and that. Has he been this way before? Yes … no … maybe? The trees all look the same – hard and sneering. He stops. Rests. Takes a breath.
All he can hear is his own heartbeat … shhhhh … and the wind … shhhhh … through the trees…
One … more … step…
CRACK!
His foot plunges through thin ice, and he’s up to his ankles in freezing water. Oh no, it’s the marshlands – the place they told him not to go. The one place they told him that, if he went, he would certainly die.
But the dark, the cold, the panic in his belly, it’s too much for him and he stumbles.
CRACK! CRACK!
He’s waist deep in it now. It is so cold it chills his very bones and the mud sucks at his toes. He cries out, but only the night hears him.
He’s got to get out of here. He’s heard the stories about what dwells down here, in the dark place below the earth. The moon appears from behind a cloud, and, in the fleeting light, he sees a rock, an island, sanctuary in the sea of swampy earth.
The boy pushes his legs as hard as he can … forward, onward through this terrible frozen marsh. He’s made it … up onto the rock, feet out of that freezing mud.
Thank god … thank god…
He stares around in the silence of the night. All around him is the swampy ground, the trees in the distance. All is quiet … shhhhh … so quiet….
EEEEAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!
There she is! Bursting from beneath the ice not two feet from him, with her hair a wild tangle of seaweed, her skin shrivelled and pale like the belly of a fish, and her eyes like black, whirling madness.
Nanna Wrack – the marsh-hag: she’s found him. She’s found him and she reaches for him, those terrible fingers with the bent, blackened, broken nails like claws … snick snick. And her terrible mouth opens and he can smell foetid death.
EEEAAAAAGHHHHH!!!
And as her clammy hands close around him, as those peg-like teeth tear into his flesh, as those terrible fingers heave him from that rock and pull him, down, down, down into that stagnant water, the last thing he remembers is the warm firelight of home…
Yeah … it went something like that, I think.
Welcome to Six Stories. I’m Scott King.
Over six weeks, we are looking back at the Scarclaw Fell tragedy of 1996; seeing the events that unfolded through six pairs of eyes.
In the last few episodes, I’ve talked to three people who were present at Scarclaw Fell in August 1996, when fifteen-year-old Tom Jeffries went missing and whose corpse was subsequently found a year later in nearby marshland.
I interviewed Derek Bickers, leader of the loose group of teenagers Tom Jeffries was a part of, who went on an excursion to Scarclaw Fell. I’ve spoken to Harry Saint Clement-Ramsay, the son of the landowner who found Jeffries’ body; I’ve spoken with Haris Novak, a man from the nearby village of Belkeld, who encountered Tom Jeffries and his friends a number of times. And in the last episode, I spoke to Derek Bickers’ daughter, Eva, who knew Tom Jeffries intimately.
From these people, I have been able to build up a picture of Tom Jeffries; how he was seen by his peers, and by adults. I’ve begun piecing together a sense of the dynamic in that group of teenagers. Maybe this will help shed new light on details that were overlooked or deemed irrelevant back then. Maybe not.
—So, yeah, that was the Nanna Wrack story. That’s how I used to tell it. Christ, I haven’t told that story in years. I haven’t even really thought about it. It’s amazing how these things just stay with you, isn’t it?
The voice you’re hearing is the same voice that told the tale of the boy lost on Scarclaw Fell; the tale of Nanna Wrack, the marsh-hag. This voice belongs to Charlie Armstrong, now thirty-five years old.
Charlie was seen, not only by the other teenagers, but also by the accompanying adults, as the ‘alpha’ of the group. Perhaps even more than that: he was revered by the others; looked up to and followed.
Charlie meant a lot to those who knew him.
—Oh, I don’t know about that. I didn’t really notice.
—They certainly seemed to think very highly of you. You must have been aware of that.
—That’s just … ha! That’s so strange … because … I … I mean I was just a mess back then, just a stupid mess. Full of anger and misery and doom. How strange. I can’t get over that – that they looked up to me. I just can’t.
I find Charlie in a big city (he’s asked me not to name it). He’s the manager of a chain bar – a job that seems totally at odds with what I know about him as a fifteen-year-old. Unlike Eva, he hasn’t heard of me or the podcast, but he seems to like the idea of it, which, I guess, is a compliment. We conduct the interviews over the phone, usually late at night, after he’s got in from work. A lot of the time he’s tired and on more than one occasion he says there are some details that he just can’t muster the strength to go back into.
—From what I’ve heard about you, Charlie, I would have expected you to be doing something more … creative, perhaps?
—Ha! Like what?
—I don’t know. A writer?
—Ha! I haven’t written anything since like, GCSE English, mate. But there you go. People change, things change, blah, blah, blah.
—You’ve changed since Scarclaw Fell?
—Since 1996? Of course, mate, yeah; of course I have. Who doesn’t? I’m not that angry kid with long hair anymore, am I? That shit’s for teenagers, isn’t it? All that rebellion stuff – you have to … you have to change or else … well, you’re stuck there aren’t you; stuck in the past.
—Have you been in contact with any of the others since?
—Not at all. I think a few of them added me on Facebook. God, my memory’s so
bad. I think Brian did, Brian Mings. And I nearly sent him a message. You know, ‘Alright mate, how’s things, what you doing?’ – all that shit. But I was just busy and then it became too late. He’s not on there anymore I don’t think. He seemed to disappear a while back, or he blocked me, I dunno. I wouldn’t blame him.
—What about Eva Bickers or Anyu Kekkonen, have you heard from them?
—Nah. As I say, mate, I’ve grown up, moved on. They’ve probably got kids and stuff now, right?
—I heard Anyu and her mum went back to Canada, to Labrador.
—Oh. Right. Maybe they did. That’s a shame.
—What is?
—I dunno – that they went without saying goodbye.
—Maybe they moved on, too?
—Maybe.
—So, Charlie, I want to go back to 1995.
—Aw, Jesus mate, I don’t even know what fuckin’ year it is now. 1995, that’s…
—The year before what happened with Tom…
—Yeah, OK. Look, mate, my memory’s fucked. I’m so bad at remembering stuff. Honestly, it’s like someone just came in and stole my memories, or, like, jumbled them around or something. I’ll do my best for you, though.
—That’s cool.
—Hey … err …mate … I know this sounds weird, right, but have we … have we met before?
—What makes you think that?
— I dunno. Something … something in your voice just then. Ha! See what I mean? We probably have met; we probably met the other day and I can’t remember! See what I mean? Jesus Christ.
Charlie’s charisma is immediate. He has something about him – an attractiveness that somehow makes you want to please him. I don’t think it’s engineered; it seems natural.
Charlie often describes himself back then and now as a ‘mess’. He has huge problems remembering swathes of detail. He’ll remember the brand of a stereo, but not the name of his favourite album; he’ll recall the taste of a certain make of sweet, but where he went to primary school is fuzzy. He blames a lot of his memory problems on the amount of weed he used to smoke when he was growing up. He says it wasn’t just because of Tom; school had its part to play as well.
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