Contrary to some beliefs, autism doesn’t equate to some sort of photographic memory power. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but what I do know about Haris Novak is that he has trouble with social boundaries – understanding where they are. The people in Belkeld knew him well and were used to his idiosyncratic ways. But to a stranger, Haris’ mannerisms can be somewhat perturbing. Often, Haris is over-friendly or else completely withdrawn, there’s no middle ground. He also struggles with understanding other people’s emotions, with reading their body language and facial expressions. And he also has specific learning difficulties. All this traps him in an eternal child-like state.
I ask him about how the teenagers responded to him when he approached them the very first time. This was back in 1995; a year before Tom Jeffries vanished.
—I don’t know why they were there. The boys were smoking cigarettes next to the pub. I asked them if they were there to go canoeing or go rock climbing, or to look at the animals in the woods. They were laughing, they kept laughing, so I was laughing, too.
They said they didn’t know why they were there and that made me laugh. We were all laughing. It was nice, it was sunny and we were laughing. Like friends.
From what I can piece together, this was a weekend trip to Scarclaw in the spring of 1995. According to the logbook at the Woodlands Centre, there were fifteen kids staying, including Charlie Armstrong, Eva Bickers, Anyu Kekkonen and Brian Mings. Tom Jeffries was yet to join the group.
—I asked them, I asked them some questions. First, I asked them if they were OK, if they were lost. They said they were fine. And next I asked them what they were doing, and they said they didn’t really know, which was strange, and I asked them if they were looking for the bus stop. Lastly, I asked them if they were new-age travellers, because they were dressed funny, like hippies – peace man! – They started asking me things.
—What sort of things?
—Well, first they asked me if I could buy them some beer. But you’re not allowed glasses outside, except the beer garden, so I said I’d go and talk to Sam, the landlord. I know Sam very well. But they said not to; they said that it was OK, because they weren’t thirsty anymore. That was funny and we laughed again.
Then they asked if I would go in the shop for them. They wanted cigarettes. But I told them about the dangers of smoking, because smoking can give you cancer.
Charlie, Eva, Anyu and Brian would all have been around fourteen years old at this point. According to Haris, it was Charlie and Brian who were smoking. He says he never saw either of the girls smoking, but it was Anyu who asked him to go to the shop for cigarettes. I can’t help feeling sorry for Haris when he describes what happened next.
—I asked them where their mums and dads were, and the older boy, the one with the long hair, said that their parents were all dead, that they were orphans. I felt sorry for the poor little orphans, all alone like that, so I gave them some money that Mum had given me for my birthday.
—How much money did you give them?
—All of it. I thought they could get some food or some new clothes, because their clothes looked all ripped and dirty. I think it was about fifty pounds. I was going to buy some clothes for myself, but the little orphans needed it more than me.
Then the big one, the one with the long hair – Charlie, he was called – he told me I was cool. He said I was cool.
It would be easy to condemn right now; a bunch of privileged teenagers taking advantage of a vulnerable adult. I don’t think, however, that this was necessarily the case. Remember, autism wasn’t widely understood back then. Also, Haris isn’t incapable, he’s well aware of what to do if he feels someone isn’t being kind to him. He had plenty of people in Belkeld who knew him and who he could have told about the teenagers if he felt they were abusing him. I honestly don’t believe Charlie, Eva, Anyu or Brian had it in their natures to be malicious to Haris. Not at this point, anyway.
It may well have been the case that none of them had encountered someone like Haris before. According to Haris, one of the girls – he doesn’t remember which one – tried to give him his money back. But he insisted. Once Charlie Armstrong told him he was cool, he decided that he would tell them his secret.
—I said, if they were orphans, that I knew a place where they could stay. I said they could come with me to the woods; but they had to be careful.
—Why careful?
—There’s secret places in the woods, high up on the fell; dangerous places.
—The old mines, right?
—Yes, the old mines. They’re very dangerous; there are fences and signs that tell you not to go inside. You can fall; there are drops of up to two hundred feet, and you could break your legs and no one could hear you and you could die down there quite easily.
—So why did you want to take the orphans there? Why not take them to the safe parts of the woods?
—Because there’s nowhere for them to stay there. There’s nowhere that they could sleep. It gets cold, it gets windy, their clothes were tatty and they would have got cold. I know where the dangerous bits are. I know the secret ways and how to stay safe.
As you’ve probably guessed, this was brought up at the inquest. What you probably don’t know, and what wasn’t widely publicised at the time, if at all, was that Haris Novak was questioned by police in the wake of Tom Jeffries’ disappearance on his own. These days, you would imagine a vulnerable adult like Haris would be better protected. But we’ll come to the questioning later; the trauma of that is still very fresh in Haris’ mind, even after all these years. His cousin agreed to talk to me about that, alone.
Let’s continue with Haris’ story.
—So, you took the orphans up the side of the fell, to the mine?
—Yes. You have to walk for a while. You have to climb high, through the gorse bushes and through the heather. And that’s where there’s a secret place. It just looks like the fell-side, but I know it’s there.
Haris’ ‘secret place’ is now fenced off. What he’s talking about is a concealed entrance to one of the mineshafts. I’m amazed that no one else knew about it apart from Haris, but that’s the way it was. Traversing Scarclaw Fell from the Belkeld side, where the ‘claw’ overhangs, you emerge onto a steep, uncompromising slope covered in gorse and heather. The going is tough, so I suppose the reason why no one knew about the mine entrance was that there was no real reason for anyone to want to climb this way. Haris, however, spent most of his time on the fell, watching wildlife.
—One of the boys, the shorter one, he kept saying he didn’t think it was a good idea, and said they should go back. The bigger boy was laughing at him and calling him a ‘wuss’. The girls weren’t really paying much attention, they were just following along.
We got to the secret place. It’s a pile of rocks. You nearly can’t see it because of the heather. You have to be really, really careful because it’s muddy and you can slip. You have to hold on. I showed them how to climb down to where the mine is. It looks like a sort of mouth and you have to duck to get in.
—Did they go in with you?
—Yes, they did. The smaller boy, he had a bit of trouble climbing down. His face was all red and his eyes were like he was going to cry, do you know what I mean? They were all wet and I told him that it was OK, that he’d soon be safe. And the others were laughing, so I was laughing, and the bigger boy, he said I was ‘too cool’ and he sort of hit me on the shoulder; but he was laughing and I was laughing, so it didn’t hurt.
—Why did you take them to this particular place, Haris? Why there?
—Well, I had some supplies there: a wind-up lamp and some food. I come here sometimes to see the bats. There’s some Natterer’s bats that roost here; they come every year and hibernate in the winter. They’re a protected species and you’re not allowed to disturb them. I don’t disturb them, I just watch them.
—Did you think the orphans would like to see the bats?
—Yes. People like to see animals. T
he bats are really interesting, but I also thought that the orphans could sleep here in the winter, just like the bats do. It’s dry down there and I could bring them food.
They would also be safe down here … from the beast.
—The beast?
—Yes. The Beast of Belkeld.
I have done a lot of research into Haris’ claim that there is a ‘beast’ in the area, and I have come up with some strange results. I will go into them presently; but first, it’s useful to know a bit of the place’s history. I talk, briefly, to a lady called Maxine Usborne, one of the volunteers at the local tourist information centre. Maxine is seventy-eight and still enjoys hiking on the fells every weekend. I speak to Maxine in person as she doesn’t like telephones.
The tourist information centre in Belkeld is a tiny room in a small parade of shops. It is impeccably tidy, with posters of wildlife neatly tacked onto the walls. There’s a display of flyers about the nearby tourist attractions: castles, gardens, farms and conservation. On the desk where Maxine sits, there are piles of home-made leaflets that contain instructions for walking in the area.
—So, do lots of people come here to hike?
—Oh, yes; even in the winter time, there’s a lot of groups that like to come here. There’s lots to do round here, you know: rock climbing and walks.
—Can you tell me about Scarclaw Fell?
—It’s not as popular, because of the mine. It’s dangerous on there and most of it’s been fenced off. The woods are nice, though. They’ve been left, not been meddled with, and there’s some lovely walks. But the fell itself … it’s not terribly popular.
—Do you know much about the mine – when it was a mine, I mean?
—Not much to tell really, I’m afraid. It used to be a galena mine when it was first dug in the 1400s. Galena’s a lead ore, a source of silver. It was quite prosperous, I imagine. Then it became a proper lead mine. The engine house was built in the nineteenth century to pump out the water.
—It was closed though, wasn’t it – the engine house?
—That’s right; they closed it when the tunnels began to collapse. There were a few accidents I believe. They tried again in the 1940s – to re-open them, I mean. There’s a lot of lead in the fell, but it was just too dangerous, so they just left it. What a shame; it would have done wonders for the area.
Maxine is right. Despite the order and friendliness of the tourist office, the area around Scarclaw Fell is by no means prosperous. And I’m surprised there is little in the way of farming on the fell.
—I’ve heard that there is something else about Scarclaw – a story that keeps cropping up.
—Oh, you mean the beast?
—That’s right, the beast.
This is interesting. I’ve talked to a number of people from Belkeld and the surrounding area, yet no one else, barring Haris Novak, has mentioned the beast. When I ask them about it, they just look at me blankly, shrug, and claim they’ve never heard of such a thing. I press Maxine for more information.
—Oh it’s a silly story; an unwelcome story, if you really want to know. People round here, they don’t like it; think it scares the tourists away. But that’s just rot – the Belkeld Beast is an old wives’ tale, a rumour, a whisper in the breeze, nothing more.
—When did it start? When did you first hear about it?
—Oh, when I was a girl, my mother used to tell me not to go up onto the fell because there was a monster there. I think everyone else’s mothers had the same idea. It was when they were trying to re-open the mine and there was talk that a few men had died. Silly really, because they were killed by the subsidence – the tunnels collapsing in.
—Why did people say it was a monster then? Why not just say the mine was dangerous?
—I don’t know, really. Maybe it was one of those stories, you know; like the one about the tailor:
‘The great tailor always comes to little boys who suck their thumbs…’
My mother used to tell that one to my little brother; he used to wake up screaming in the night, checking his thumbs were still there, that they hadn’t been chopped off by scissors!
—So you think the beast was just a cautionary thing – invented by the local people to keep their kids away from the mine?
—Nothing more.
It’s a legitimate theory. Delve deeper, however, and there are signs that the legend of the Beast of Belkeld was around long before Maxine’s childhood. Witch Covens in Northern England, published in the early 2000s by a now-defunct publishing house in Lancaster, tells a seventeenth-century tale of a Belkeld woman by the name of Anne Hope who joined a coven of witches. The coven would meet at midnight ‘atop Clawubeorg’ (‘clawu’ being the Old English word for ‘hoof ’ or ‘claw’. It is not clear why this name was used, unless to protect the identity of the woman in question, or Scarclaw Fell itself ). According to the book – the coven would dance – sometimes in their own shape, sometimes becoming animals such as hares or dogs. Anne was asked to join in the dancing, which, along with reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards, was to please a ‘long black man’ who granted the witches’ wishes. Anne Hope was eventually arrested and tried for witchcraft. She eventually admitted (I imagine, through torture of some form) that she had caused a sickness that blighted the village of Belkeld.
I ask Maxine if she has ever heard of this ‘sickness’.
—It was around the end of the plague in London, and across the country at that time. I imagine that there was a lot of fear that it might spread here. I don’t know about any recorded ‘sickness’ at that particular time, but very little was known about disease then.
The book does not explain whether this sickness was spread between humans or animals – witches were often blamed for diseases in farm animals. It is also known that there are rings of standing stones atop Scarclaw Fell, as well as the rock art, any interpretation of which evades us, even today.
Anne Hope was duly executed not long after her conviction for witchcraft and was hung in Belkeld. According to the book, she stayed defiant until the end, apparently ‘cursing’ the land. Afterwards, people reported seeing a ‘terrible black figure’ stalking the fell ‘in the dead of night’. This figure was reported to be ‘much like a bear’ and was eventually ‘commanded to leave, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ by a local priest. There are no more records – none that I can find anyway – of this creature.
I tell Maxine this story.
—I’ve never heard that one before! It certainly could be true, though. There were witches executed in Belkeld, but you find me a place back then where there weren’t! When my mother told us about the fell, she never mentioned a ‘curse’ of any kind. The Beast of Belkeld was just a silly tale to keep us kids out of the mine. Nothing more.
I relate the story back to Haris. Just in case. This is when he tells me about his first experience of the beast – when he was walking through the woods with his mother, in his new Transformers trainers.
—Can you tell me about that day?
—Yes, I can. It wasn’t a nice day; it was raining and we’d been shopping. Mum had bought me new trainers and I was so happy. But I was also a bit worried.
—Why?
—Well, my new trainers were hurting my toes. They didn’t have them in the right size, you see, they only had the smaller size. But I liked them, I liked them so much that I told Mum that they were fine. I was also worried because I thought I might get them muddy and Mum would get cross. When it is raining, we walk home through the woods because the trees shelter us from the pouring rain. We walk along the track in the woods and it sometimes gets muddy but sometimes doesn’t.
—So you and your mum were walking through the woods and it was raining?
—Yes, that’s what I said. I was being slow because my feet hurt a little bit and I was looking out for a woodpecker. I had heard a woodpecker in this part if the woods; they drum on the trees to mark their territory, you know. I was looking for it because I�
�ve only seen a woodpecker a couple of times. It was raining and it was getting dark because of the clouds. Mum was saying, ‘Come along Haris! Come along!’ And so I was walking quickly and then I heard a sound behind us.
Sorry to break Haris’ story, but I should mention here that his sighting of the monster in the woods doesn’t ring with the same authenticity as do his meetings with the Rangers. While he’s meticulous with his other animal sightings, he’s unclear what age he was when he saw ‘the beast’, or even what time of year this happened. If I had access to his animal diaries, we could have perhaps used them to jog his memory, but, unfortunately, they’ve either been thrown away or lost. Haris’ mother passed away in 1999 and his cousin lived in a different part of the country back then. As we will discuss, this story of Haris’ could simply be a coping mechanism, a rationalisation to help him deal with what happened to him in 1996.
Or it could be true. We may never know.
—So I stopped and listened because I thought it might be the woodpecker, but it wasn’t a sound like that; it was a different sound, a terrible stamping sound. It was coming from the forest, from the trees.
—And you’re sure it wasn’t thunder, something like that?
—Thunder comes from the sky. Thunder happens when there’s a storm. It was raining, but there wasn’t a storm. It was a stamping sound, like big feet.
Six Stories Page 6