Me.
Or someone he thought was me.
This person – this ‘other’ Scott King had enough of the right credentials – the paperwork and knowledge of the case – to seem legit. However, in retrospect, Harry says that there was something not quite right about the man; that when the interview was over, he was filled with a troubling sense of relief, which, Harry felt, had nothing to do with the subject matter.
What was going on?
Eva Bickers, a big fan of my previous podcasts said something in episode three that has stayed with me and will help you to understand what has happened.
‘The thing is, Scarclaw Fell – it’s exactly the sort of case that you would cover.’
She is right.
And I did. Sort of.
I’m Scott King. Welcome to Six Stories.
For the last time.
I heard about this particular series at the same time the majority of you did: the day episode one was released.
In actual fact, I was out of town for a weekend and came back to a plethora of text messages, voicemails and emails from iTunes, congratulating me for episode one’s fantastic chart position, despite the complete lack of any promotion. As you well know, my series run predominantly on reputation, but I am not above employing the services of promoters to assist in making the public aware of the thing I have created. However, Six Stories did none of that; it just appeared, as if from nowhere.
The entire concept of this series was brand new to me. This isn’t how I usually do things. This series felt like a drama, a captivating one. I was as compelled as you, constant listener.
So I sat down and listened.
I listened to episode one twice in a row; heard the voice of the presenter, his lexical choices and mannerisms identical to my own. Did I feel invaded, violated, robbed? Was I furious at this copycat who, as I would find out, had used my own identity to catfish the people involved with the Tom Jeffries case to come forward and reveal themselves?
I know I should have done. But I didn’t. You know what my overriding emotion was?
Jealousy.
That’s right; a burning black jealousy. Like Eva Bickers said, the Tom Jeffries case was exactly the sort of case I would cover in one of my podcasts. The extent to which this case has been researched, the attention to detail and the care that has been shown to the interviewees has been nothing less than professional.
Also, Six Stories is very, very good.
—I mean, it was weird. But I just thought it was another thing – some pop culture teenager craze that I wasn’t aware of. I had no idea of the name Scott King or anything.
Why did I do it? You … he … sorry – it’s still so bizarre – he just sort of convinced me. He just made it sound so … good.
This is the first voice you heard in episode one – Harry Saint Clement-Ramsay. He tells me about the interview that he agreed to do with ‘me’.
—I had a few of the guys, yeah? Just sort of watching. You – he – told me I had to come alone, which was already a bit suspect. Why would I have to come alone?
—But you did?
—Yeah. As I say, he was really convincing. He told me all about the other podcasts and stuff. I searched the name online, did a bit of digging. It all seemed legit.
So, when the day of the interview came, I had a few of my guys sort of hiding, nearby. They had their guns, just for protection; none of us ever thought we were going to use them. But you can appreciate, it’s not every day you are asked to do an interview about a kid that died nearly twenty years ago – in a car, in my dad’s driveway, with a guy wearing that … that mask.
Just to clarify, I sometimes wear a mask when I interview people for the podcasts. It’s just a plain, blank-faced thing which, I admit, can be a little unnerving for some.
I’ve got nothing to hide, but I want the show to focus on the case itself, rather than me. So it’s better that people don’t know who I am. That way, if our paths cross again, there’s no awkwardness. I know some people find this strange, it makes them uncomfortable; it makes them think that I am hiding something, but there you go. For this final episode, my face is bare.
—If I think about it, yeah, his voice was probably a bit different to yours. But you don’t notice these things at first, do you? His eyes were … I don’t know … were they different? Again, unless someone’s got really distinctive eyes or something, well, you just kind of relegate them to the back of your brain, don’t you?
I ask Harry if he ever explained what he and his friends were doing in Scarclaw Wood, the night that they found Tom Jeffries’ corpse. This is something that’s been troubling me as I’ve listened to these podcasts.
—Did any of you, or anyone you know, ever see something out there?
—What do you mean, ‘something’?
—Like, something that shouldn’t have been there: a figure, a person, an animal. Or were you looking for a body?
Harry pauses for a long time and stares beyond me. It’s as if he’s battling with something. And in this moment I want to thank him – not just for agreeing to talk to me today, for being the only one who has – but for being honest. What happened to Tom Jeffries was nothing to do with him or his father, but Harry is fully aware of the impact that this podcast may have on his father and his family’s reputation.
—Look, we weren’t looking for a body. We were looking for … something else.
—You had your lamps and guns with you.
—Right. We weren’t hunting deer, though. Look, it sounds so ridiculous, I almost don’t want to tell you but…
—Go on.
—Dad had … Dad had seen something out there. I know – he’s an old man, probably in the first stages of senility. But I know my dad, and I know when he’s talking cod and when he isn’t.
I’ll freely admit, after listening to the five episodes of Six Stories, it was not without trepidation that I asked Harry about what his father saw. I was hoping it wasn’t what I – and, I imagine you are thinking…
—He said it was some … some gangrel thing, some phantom. At first I thought he was joking. He’s got an odd sense of humour sometimes. But he wasn’t – not at all; he was really scared. And my father doesn’t get scared.
This was just what I didn’t want to hear. Lord Ramsay had allegedly seen something akin to the creature Charlie Armstrong and Tom Jeffries claimed to have seen that day in 1996. Harry reiterates that, yes, he’s heard a whisper about the Belkeld Beast, but always put it down to some old story or an escaped wild animal. Harry says the old man paled as he spoke, and that he was unable to describe the thing in detail, only spoke of its strange, unnatural movement – long limbs dragging themselves across the land.
—And did you or your friends ever see it, too? Do you think there was anything there?
—Well, that’s the thing. The dogs were following a trail; but whether it was the scent of that boy’s body or … whatever the other thing was or is … we’ll never know.
—What do you think was there, in your heart of hearts? What do you think your father saw?
—If I knew, well, we probably wouldn’t be talking now, would we?
It would be pointless for Harry and I to speculate about Charlie Armstrong’s ‘Nanna Wrack’, or Anyu Kekkonen’s ‘Qalupalik’. These creatures are naught but myths. Perhaps it’s something inherent in Scarclaw Fell itself, with its wild forest and hooked peak. Maybe it’s a place that conjures monsters from the mind.
Still something bothers me, though; something my mystery imposter never really investigated. That is, how was it possible that the body of Tom Jeffries had lain undisturbed for a year? One theory at the time was that he had sunk so deep into the bogs, the sniffer dogs and search parties at the time were not able to find a scent. And then, subsidence, caused by the ever-churning mineshafts beneath the land, spat him back out a year later. The figure that Lord Ramsay saw was never investigated, as far as I’m aware.
So what stopped the other
Scott King following up this question? Was it the same fear that rendered Lord Ramsay silent for all this time?
Or does my doppelganger know something we don’t?
So where do we go now? The rest of the Rangers will not speak to me; and I don’t blame them for that.
I’ve followed each story like you have done; read the web forums, the Reddit thread that has sprung up around the case. Through episode two, episode three, I remain silent, simply accepting the praise that comes my way.
Should I have worried that this mystery impersonator had a vendetta against me? That something terrible would unfold, that my identity would be revealed, that he would heave away my shell, leaving me soft and exposed, like the underside of a limpet?
No. Because I realised as I listened, that this was not about me.
This really was the story of Tom Jeffries and the Rangers; this is the story of what happened on the 24th of August 1996 at Scarclaw Fell.
The day that episode five appeared on iTunes, I received an email from an encrypted IP address. The email contained an audio file and an address.
The audio file had a title: ‘The Sixth Story’.
I have not edited that audio file in any way, save for adding this rather lengthy introduction, a few asides and some words at the end. I’m sure that there are things you want to know and I can say now that the following audio answers those things.
Yes, we will find out what happened to Tom Jeffries that night.
Yes, we will find out who ‘Scott King’ – the other ‘Scott King’ is.
—Welcome to Six Stories for the last time. This story is mine.
I hope it doesn’t disappoint. Unlike everything else I have ever done in my life, I can say with some certainty that it won’t.
—My name is Brian Mings.
I can’t remember how old I was when I knew I’d be famous. I just knew it, man; I just knew it. You know when you just … know?
I’d aced grade two piano by the time I was eight or nine: not bad for someone like me. Someone like me? Short-arse, speccy. I wore those horrible orange NHS things all the way up to year seven, you know?
It’s amazing what such a small thing can do for you; the furore it invokes in your fellow children. The cruelty.
But back to the piano. It was a battle, it was always a battle; I never felt like … natural, you know, like some of them do, giving it their whole ‘oh, it just comes to me from somewhere’ bullshit. Helen Stocksfield, she used to say stuff like that. I think she was the first girl I ever loved, was Helen.
She lived down the road at [street removed], and Mum used to make me call for her in the mornings on the way to school. I can’t remember if we talked or anything. Think of that: a boy and a girl walking to school together. A fat, speccy boy and an awkward, skinny girl. I knew her from piano; that’s what I used to say when they took the piss: I know her from piano and my mum makes me walk her to school.
They still took the piss. ‘Speccy-four-eyes and Fuzzy (a reference to the cloud of wiry, blonde straw that surrounded her head) K-I-S-S-I-N-G!’ We weren’t either of us worth a well-constructed rhyme.
When I used to call for Helen, her mum used to poke her head round the door. She had the exact same hair – like a toilet brush on top of her head; but hers was grey.
‘Will you walk our Helen to school, Brian?’ she used to say, every fucking time; as if I’d just knocked on the door to wash the windows or something.
Dad left about the time I did grade two piano.
I never played it after that.
I never called for Helen again.
Hi again, it’s Scott King – the real one. Of course, we’re going to hear the recording in full. As you’ve heard, I’ve edited out the place names. Other than that, I haven’t edited any of Brian’s recording.
What I have done is researched some of the people mentioned. First off, Helen Stocksfield, now Helen Morris, mother of three, tells me about her former school-run companion.
—Yeah, Brian Mings was an oddball alright. We shared the same piano teacher: Mr Karlsson. He was a disaster as well; he always stank of fags and drink and would stop your lesson halfway through to go outside and cough up a lung!
Helen is unaware of Six Stories and doesn’t remember the Tom Jeffries disappearance back in ’96.
—Because I would have recognised the name, wouldn’t I?
Brian Mings … I always wondered what became of him, you know. We used to walk to school, when we were little, like in year five and that. I don’t really remember what we talked about, to be honest. Probably nothing much; we were just at that awkward age … boys and girls and that. I do remember some stuff from school that was weird, though. There was something that happened in year six … they did a really rubbish job of keeping it quiet, the teachers. They’d found something in Brian’s bag. I didn’t see it but everyone was saying that it was a jam jar with a … a poo in it … like his poo. Like, he was just carrying it round with him.
But his mum and dad had broken up and that was sort of the ‘explanation’ for it. It was, like, the late eighties, and people’s mums and dads didn’t really break up, not around [name removed] anyway! I think that singled out Brian quite a lot, anyway, in school and that. His dad was a massive alchy, wasn’t he? We all knew who he was: you’d see him after school up against the wall of The Swan, his hands all yellow from his fags, or asleep on the bench next to the fountain.
—What about his mum?
—Yeah, I don’t remember her much. She and my mum were friends, but when they got divorced she just … she just … I think she was concentrating on Brian, making sure he was OK and that.
According to others I’ve spoke to who knew Brian Mings, there were more peculiar behaviours. Schoolmates of Brian’s say he was an attention-seeker, always doing something to get everyone to laugh. But they were pretty extreme things he did, though: drawing all over his own face with black pen, or holding the pipes of the old radiators until he burned his hand, then proudly displaying the blisters before bursting them.
A number of people say it was hard to feel sorry for Brian Mings, because a lot of the bullying he received in those early school years, he brought on himself. Another schoolmate, who asked not to be identified, says Brian used to lie on the classroom floors, trying to look up the girls’ skirts, but it was only when he did this to his teacher that he was reprimanded.
Helen Morris tells me one more story about Brian that I feel is significant.
—He had this sketch book that he used to carry round and he used to write these stories. He did the drawings and that as well. They were always about, like, a little prince who killed, like, a dragon; but there was no story, it was just pages and pages of how he cut off the dragon’s finger, then its other finger and stuck a burning sword into its mouth, and cut out its eyes. He just used to go on and on…
It wasn’t just Helen who Brian showed these obsessive stories to. In fact, everyone I spoke to about Brian remembers that notebook. Its content became a bit of a craze in the primary school and always the stories involved defecation, urine, blood. This moves us onto the next part of Brian’s recording:
—Helen’s mum was … well, she thought I was a psycho because I had a bit of an imagination, more imagination than the others. I used to write stories. The other kids loved them; they used to crowd round in the yard to see the drawings. Honestly, I’ve never felt so popular. I don’t think anyone’s listened to me like that since … well … until now!
So that’s when I realised it wasn’t going to be piano that’d make me famous. Not that out-of-tune piano I used to clonk away on night after night after night, with mum wailing away up in her bedroom. It was stories … I was going to tell stories. Even as a kid, I knew that’s what I was going to be known for. But then school just … just fucked everything up. The teacher, she got my notebook, all my stories, and called my mum in. And that was that, it was over. No more stories. Thanks, school, yeah, cheers for that.
&nb
sp; As Helen Morris makes clear in our interview, things at home can’t have been easy for Brian.
—Did you ever meet Brian’s dad? When you two were growing up?
—Nah. I mean, like, I never met met him. I knew who he was; everyone knew who he was.
From what I have gathered, Stanley Mings was known in the area, more as a sort of local eccentric than anything else. He was an alcoholic who sometimes slept rough, or else crashed at the houses of various other alcoholics in the area. Mrs Mings was at the end of her tether with him and wouldn’t let him stay in the house. He would flit into Brian’s life, make a load of promises about how he’d change and then, within a week, he’d be passed out outside the supermarket in the precinct in a pool of his own vomit.
What is significant is that both Helen and Brian’s former teacher in high school both assert that, at some point, Brian tried to help his father – even trying to assist him in finding some help and a place to live. However, Brian gave up when Stanley made it clear that his priority – the thing he put before his wife and son – was drinking. The effect that would have had on a young boy like Brian, going through his formative teenage years, must have been deeply wounding.
Six Stories Page 21
