Beast

by Matt Wesolowski

  Mildred sighs and stares down into her empty cup for a good thirty seconds as if reading the leaves. She takes a deep breath and turns to me.

  —I wish we had something in the way of answers. This is the thing that we cannot get over. There’s no answer to what those three did to Elizabeth. The savagery of it. Elizabeth was popular, she was clever, she was beautiful. What anyone could have against her, I just don’t know. All I do know is that wretched tower needs knocking down, demolishing. Its ashes need raking into the sea and the place forgotten about.

  —I can imagine it’s a constant reminder of what happened.

  —It’s not just that, Mr King. It also reminds us about the ridiculous rumours and stories in Ergarth – and how things like that get blown out of all proportion.

  —Stories like those about the Beast from the East – the Ergarth Vampire.

  —Exactly. You see how a silly folk tale can be perpetuated. Even when we were young, people said they’d seen her … Everyone had a vampire story.

  I’m desperate to ask for more, but I’m aware of how unwelcome questions about vampires would be right now. Instead I stay silent. Harold Barton takes a breath.

  —Listen. This is a good example of the sort of rubbish that Ergarth’s been plagued with. When I was a boy – twelve, eleven – I used to wander around and explore places where I shouldn’t. Including Tankerville Tower.

  As Harold begins this story, Mildred shakes her head, lips thin and eyes closed. Eventually she leaves the room. I don’t blame her.

  —My friends and I had clambered in, as you do. There were none of those drug addicts there then. But the place was still unpleasant: it smelled bad, and there was just a terrible feeling in there, in the dark, where all you could hear was the sea smashing on the cliffs. There’s no light in that tower, just wet earth. We didn’t dare go up that staircase into the top. No one was brave enough. Plus it was freezing cold. Our fingers were numb.

  Anyway, we were prodding about with sticks, you know, as boys will, and we came upon something in there, something terrible, half buried in the earth.

  —What did you find?

  —There will have been a perfectly rational explanation of course … We came upon this sack, one of the large ones for animal feed. Heaven knows why, but we kept digging, pulling out this bag. It was huge and there was something in it; lumps and bumps. We used our sticks to lever the thing out, and when it did there was a smell so terrible it nearly knocked us to our knees. Harvey Brown was sick, I think.

  —What was in the bag?

  —Pigeons; there must have been twenty of them or more, stuffed into that bag. All of them without heads; half rotted, their insides hanging out. It was as if something had been at them. I still dream of it sometimes. I sometimes wake up still smelling that smell; seeing those dusty feathers, their bones, the places where their heads had been.

  —What on earth was that about? I mean who had done that?

  —It will have been pest control, I imagine; someone doing it on the cheap and dumping them in the tower. At the time, of course, a ludicrous rumour went around about something in the tower.

  —What do you mean?

  —Just a silly story. People were saying they saw something in the sky around the cliffs at twilight. Something huge.

  —Who saw it?

  —Like I say, it was just silly stories. People heard about what we found and then turned seagulls into giant bats with their overactive imaginations. As Mildred says, the sooner that place is demolished, the sooner everyone will sleep better in this town.

  Harold tells me that after he and his friends found the bag of dead pigeons, the stories of something ‘big’ flying around Tankerville Tower at night spread. Others said they heard something scratching at their bedroom windows, and there was a spate of family pets going missing. All these things, Harold tells me, are typical of the Ergarth rumour mill. All it takes, he says, is one silly thing to start it off again. I wonder if it was this sort of insular Chinese-whisper effect that began the legend of the Ergarth Vampire in the first place. I think of the shape I saw out there, and the biting cold I felt.

  I tell the Bartons that I’m now going to ask about the perpetrator of their daughter’s death we haven’t yet discussed: Solomon Meer. They tell me they understand. It’s almost like they’ve braced themselves for this moment.

  —But I think you may be disappointed, Mr King.

  Harold shakes his head. They both look tired, spent. I don’t want this to go on for much longer.

  —Elizabeth never even mentioned the boy’s name to us. Not even once. Since … what happened … we’ve come to find out that he was in some of her classes at school. I mean, that’s it. That’s all we know. We know he hated her, but why? Because she was everything that little toe rag wasn’t. He wanted to be popular and he killed our daughter to do it.

  As he speaks, the emotion finally cracks and tears trickle down the hollows of his cheeks.

  —She was beautiful where he was scruffy and savage, she was smart where he was insolent and stupid, she was talented where he had nothing! Our daughter was everything Solomon Meer wished he was; she had everything he wished he had. What he did to her after she was dead – we’ll never understand that sort of butchery, never!

  Mrs Barton dissolves into tears beside her husband. Harold is shaking with rage and grief, and I feel that we may be drawing to the end of our interview. Harold takes a huge, rattling breath and prepares to keep going.

  —Can I ask what you know about the whole ‘vampire’ angle on this? Solomon Meer was obsessed with the story of the Ergarth Vampire, wasn’t he?

  —All that was something we only discovered after the event. We heard Meer was found down in Ergarth Dene with some others, conducting Satanic rituals. I heard he was trying to bring the vampire back from the dead. That’s what people have told me. He wasn’t right in the head, was he? There was something deeply wrong with that young man, but he was clever with it – a manipulator, a sociopath.

  —He worked in Ergarth Books, didn’t he?

  —That place is about as welcome in this town as Tankerville Tower. No wonder Meer turned out the way he did, reading all that nonsense.

  —Do you think Solomon Meer coerced the other two into helping him do what he did to your daughter?

  —He had the gift of the gab. People with minds like his, they know how to convince people their delusions are real. That’s how he managed to coerce those other two into helping him with his plan. Those two weren’t the brightest buttons – Meer spun them some yarn about Elizabeth being a vampire and they swallowed it. It all made sense after that – Martin Flynn hanging around the house at night; George Meldby harassing Elizabeth at work. He was the one who took advantage and made those two help him. Then what they did to her after she was dead. It was just … it was beyond the pale. It was beyond inhuman.

  What I’m saying, Mr King, is that whatever you do, however much you achieve, there’s always someone out there who wants to bring you down a peg or two. I’ve learned in my lifetime that achievement breeds resentment, jealousy and there’s nothing you can do about that. That’s what I told Elizabeth, when she started to win things, when she started to achieve – I told her that there’d always be someone who wouldn’t be happy about it. I told her to rise above them, to tell herself that it was a problem inside them, not an issue in herself.

  —Solomon Meer maintained your daughter’s death was an accident, that it was a prank gone wrong.

  —Maybe it was. We’ll never know for sure. But if that is the case, why did he play the prank in the first place? That’s the issue here. To be popular? To get everyone to look at him and like him? That’s the sign of someone who’s damaged. Why our daughter? What did she do to him? It just doesn’t make any sense.

  I feel we’re coming to the end of the Bartons’ patience. I’m not sure how much more of this interview they can take.

  The Bartons tell me they simply didn’t understand the Dead
in Six Days challenge until after Elizabeth’s murder. This is something I find very hard to believe. It even made the local newspaper. This bothers me and maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s unethical of me to say, but I just don’t believe them. They are certainly older; having Elizabeth and Jason much later in life but is that really an excuse?

  Harold Barton tells me that it must have passed them by: ‘We’re old people, Mr King,’ he repeats, ‘we cannot be expected to know every little silly craze that is going on at all times.’

  The Bartons have had little to say about Elizabeth’s online success, save that they were pleased about it. I wonder what would have happened if they’d taken more interest. Harold and Mildred Barton knew Elizabeth was popular online, yet it seems this was all they saw. Maybe, for them, it was all they needed or wanted to see. The finer dynamics of social media seemed to have passed them by.

  I simply cannot leave without at least trying to get an answer from the Bartons concerning Jason’s claim that Solomon Meer was in the Barton house a day or two before Elizabeth was killed. Something else occurs to me as I think about this, something that, for some reason, has not entered my mind until now. I curse myself for not realising and asking Jason Barton outright.

  Jason Barton lives in Bristol. How on earth could he have known if Solomon Meer was there or not? Unless someone told him? Or he was there too? Something’s missing here.

  —Mr and Mrs Barton, I want to ask you one last thing before I go.

  Mildred lets out a sob, and Harold Barton waves his hand at me. He tells me that they’ve had enough of my questions now. They’ve said all they can. Perhaps it’s unkind of me but I finally disclose to the Bartons that I’ve spoken to their son. Harold Barton’s face colours but he expresses no anger. He only slumps in the sofa, his face sags, eyebrows furled in disappointment. I wonder how many times Jason saw this exact look.

  —And I suppose he told you what terrible parents we were, didn’t he? I wonder if you bothered asking him why he didn’t come to Elizabeth’s funeral. What on earth she had done that deserved that?

  —What Jason said about you was that you both provided well for both him and his sister. You did your best.

  Some of the disappointment and suspicion in Harold Barton cools at this.

  —Well that’s true at least. A roof over his head, food on the table. Even if it was that vegetarian muck. Neither of them wanted for anything, Mr King.

  I think of Jason’s night-time escapes, his poor behaviour in school. His desire for something from his parents that they were not giving him.

  —Jason told me a story. About Solomon Meer.

  Harold and Mildred exchange raised eyebrows and now a wry smile plays over Harold Barton’s mouth.

  —Yes indeed. Stories. That’s our Jason’s area of expertise. Always has been. What did he tell you?

  —He told me that a few days before Elizabeth was found in Tankerville Tower … Solomon Meer was in your house. In the middle of the night.

  There is a terrible silence. The smile falls from Harold’s face. Mr and Mrs Barton look at each other. For a moment, I think Harold is going to order me from his home. He opens his mouth and Mildred places her hand on his knee. She looks up at me, tears still wet on her cheeks.

  —We’ve held it in for too long. All of that.

  —My love…

  —No, Harold. Enough. Just tell him. Let’s let it go. It’ll help us … to let her go too.

  I feel for the Bartons, I really do, and in some ways I wish I could take back what I’ve said. But whatever it is that they’ve held on to for so long will surely be better gone. With a heaviness, Harold Barton takes over.

  —They found her on the Sunday. This would have been Friday – the middle of the night. I’d got back from Frankfurt and I couldn’t sleep. Too much travelling. I’d got back late because of the snow. Had to take a taxi from Newcastle Airport all the way to Ergarth. I nearly didn’t. I nearly stayed in a hotel.

  At first I thought it was the snow; something to do with the pipes. I don’t know. I woke up and heard footsteps on the landing. Whispered voices. You know your own family don’t you? You know their noises, the sound of their footsteps. You know when something’s not right.

  —You thought there was a burglar, didn’t you my love?

  —That’s right, a burglar. So I got out of bed and—

  —You picked up your cricket bat, didn’t you?

  —Yes. I picked up my cricket bat and went out onto the landing, only to come face to face with that piece of work, Solomon Meer.

  —What was he doing?

  —Well … he was on his way out wasn’t he, dear? You weren’t face-to-face with him; you saw him in the hall, downstairs.

  —Correct. And none of it … none of it made any sense.

  —Go on…

  Harold Barton is becoming more and more flustered. Mildred is still on hand, prompting him on the finer details.

  —Solomon Meer was in the hall…

  —We had no idea what on earth he was doing.

  —I must have caught him in the act, before he took anything.

  —It was actually Elizabeth who saved the day in the end.

  —How so?

  —She was down there too … but she had her phone out. She was filming him. We had all the evidence we needed, he was bang to rights!

  —That’s why we didn’t call the police in the end. That’s why we left it at that. Our daughter was ahead of the curve. As always.

  —I think what I’m struggling with is why you didn’t call the police.

  —Sometimes, Mr King, you have to take the initiative. You have to sort things out yourself. Make no bones about it; I told that boy to leave our daughter alone. I told him I didn’t want to see him ever again, and if I heard a peep out of him, we’d give the police the film.

  Let me tell you now, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it. What I didn’t do. What I didn’t do will stay with me forever.

  The whole thing was entirely my fault.

  Harold Barton finally breaks. It’s like he collapses in on himself and his whole body is wracked with sobs. It makes sense – they didn’t speak out about this incident; they didn’t go to the police. If they had, Solomon Meer would have been placed in custody for long enough not to be able to do what he did to Elizabeth the following night.

  I feel that not all of this frankly bizarre and convoluted story is true, but I don’t challenge them on it. The Bartons are clearly consumed with guilt and my sympathy for them knows no bounds. But I am utterly perplexed about why they failed to mention this incident to the police after Elizabeth’s death; why they went through the trial without speaking of it. Surely it would have shown premeditation on the part of Solomon Meer?

  —I have to ask you: why was it that you decided not to mention this to the relevant authorities during the investigation into Elizabeth’s death?

  Pain spreads across the Bartons’ faces. Harold draws himself up and wipes his eyes. His breath shudders in his chest.

  —I’ll tell you the truth, Mr King. It was on Elizabeth’s request that we didn’t take the matter further.

  —Elizabeth?

  —Yes. She begged us, she implored us to leave it – to let the matter rest there and then.

  —What were her reasons?

  —Elizabeth was the sort of person who saw the good in everyone – to her own detriment in the end. She had the video evidence of Solomon Meer in the house, she said. That was all she needed.

  —I still don’t understand. Did he break in? Why was he there?

  —Elizabeth felt sorry for him, I think. Him, of all people. My guess was that he was like the others – she’d been kind to him, she’d taken time to speak to him, to do something caring. Perhaps it had something to do with her foundation, her new project, those videos – that’s why she didn’t want us to do anything.

  —Elizabeth made us promise not to mention it and we obeyed her wishes. We gave her everyt
hing she wanted, we made sure she was not disappointed. She stretched out a hand of kindness to that man and look what he did. That sums the whole thing up. That shows us who is wrong and who is right in this whole terrible affair.

  —Whatever he was doing here, it doesn’t matter anymore does it? That’s not what I think about when I remember my daughter.

  —What about afterwards? Surely it would have played a part in helping to convict the three of them? They were all trying to get reduced sentences weren’t they? It would have showed premeditation.

  I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Harold and Mildred Barton close their mouths and look at each other with glassy eyes. They’ve moved closer together on the sofa and taken each other’s hand. I can’t press them any further. The question remains though: why did neither Harold, Mildred nor indeed Jason say a word about Solomon Meer being right here, in Elizabeth’s house?

  There’s also Elizabeth’s ‘new project’ – the Elizabeth Barton Tower Foundation. We know that Elizabeth was working with Solomon Meer on something to do with YouTube videos; was this it? Now Elizabeth is gone and Solomon Meer is in prison, why can’t it come out?