Six Stories

by Matt Wesolowski

  —Did your mum hear it, too?

  —I don’t think she heard it, too. She was going fast, saying ‘Come on Haris, come on!’

  That’s when I looked behind me, back the way we had come, along the path. And that’s when I saw it. It poked its head out of the trees and it saw me.

  —What did it look like?

  —It was big, with big black claws and teeth, and it looked at me with big, terrifying eyes.

  —And were you scared?

  —I wasn’t that scared because my mum was there and I thought that it was scared more than me, because it was only there for a second and then it was gone.

  —Where did it go?

  —Back into the trees.

  Interestingly, Haris is not alone in claiming to see creatures of this kind in the UK. Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, a site of countless UFO phenomena, is supposedly home to a ghostly ‘pale-eyed’ ape creature, sightings of which date back to the early 1900s. Shropshire Union Canal has its very own ‘man-monkey’, and ABCs (Alien Big Cats – mostly pumas and panthers) have been sighted in the British countryside since the 1760s. What is slightly unnerving about Haris’ ‘beast’ is that it links, albeit rather tenuously, back to the ‘terrible black figure’ and the ‘long black man’ sighted on Scarclaw Fell and described in Witch Covens in Northern England.

  According to Haris, he told the ‘orphans’ about the beast when they had descended into the tunnel. Then he had to go home for his tea. He says he was going to leave them in the mineshaft and told them he would come back with some food.

  —Did you come back, after your tea?

  —No. No, I didn’t, because one of the girls talked to me before I went home – the tall, skinny one. She talked to me and told me that they were fine, that they would be going on their way and that I shouldn’t worry because they would see me again. They would come and see me when they came back again. I was a little bit sad that they didn’t want to stay, because they were my friends.

  According to Haris, he didn’t see Charlie, Eva, Anyu or Brian until a few months later; in the summer of 1995. Haris didn’t speak to them this time – he just saw them in a minibus passing through. He remembers waving and the teenagers waving back from the back of the bus. The Woodlands Centre logbook states that all four of the teenagers did visit in early August of 1995, along with Derek and a couple of other adults. They were there to insulate the building. They stayed for one night and left early the following day.

  However, that winter, December 1995, there was another excursion to the Woodlands Centre. Derek Bickers mentioned it in episode one. This time, there was a much bigger contingent: fifteen kids in all – the youngest being eight and the oldest fifteen – that was Charlie Armstrong. I imagine Derek and the rest of the leaders were more willing to take the kids there in the cold, snowy conditions because of the insulation that they had installed the previous August. The logbook has a few comments from some of the younger kids: ‘We built an igloo! It was skill!’ ‘Sledging is MEGA!’

  This winter trip was Tom Jeffries’ first to Scarclaw with the Rangers.

  —Yes, I saw them again, in the wintertime. They came back and they were in Belkeld again. There were five of them this time: the four from the time before and a new one, another boy.

  —Did you just see them the once?

  —Yes. Only once. When they came through Belkeld. I asked them if they were hungry and the tall girl with the dark hair, she said that they were OK, that they weren’t orphans anymore, that they had people who looked after them.

  —Can you remember what they were doing in Belkeld?

  —Just … I don’t know … just hanging around, I think. It was cold and it was snowing, but there was grit on the pavements; loads of grit, because otherwise you can slip and fall. I told them that they must be careful because of the snow. They all had warm coats on so they were warm.

  —Were they smoking cigarettes this time?

  —Yes, they were smoking cigarettes. The big boy with the long hair, he was; and the smaller boy, again; and the girl with the dark hair, she was; and the new one, the boy, he asked if I wanted to smoke with them. I said no, because it’s bad for you, and he started laughing. But it wasn’t the laughing like the first time; it was different laughing.

  —Different how?

  —I don’t know. It was different because I wasn’t laughing this time, and the new boy, he kept turning away and repeating what I’d said in a silly voice. The others were laughing, but not properly. The girls, they were saying, ‘Stop it, come on let’s go’, but he wasn’t listening to them; he kept saying, ‘Wait there, wait there.’

  —Can you remember what this new boy looked like?

  —Yes. He was thinner than the others. He wore a cap on backwards. He had big black jeans on, that were baggy, and you could only see the tips of his shoes poking out.

  The person that Haris is describing is unmistakably Tom Jeffries. Jeffries was a thin and gangly boy, who wore a ‘Raiders’ baseball cap, perpetually. The hat still adorned Jeffries’ corpse, but his jacket was never found.

  —I asked them what they were doing on this snowy day, and they said they were bored so they’d come for a walk and they needed some supplies from the shops.

  It was not a strange occurrence for the teenagers to be in Belkeld. Both Derek Bickers and Sally Mullen maintain that, so long as they were together, the older kids were allowed to walk through the wood and across the fell to Belkeld. It was a good hour’s walk and there were five of them. Derek admitted to me that most of his judgements concerning the kids, he stands by; save for this one. He often wonders whether he should have allowed them to go off on their own like that. It was the only time that the kids had ever kept something from him, something important: Haris Novak.

  —Then the new boy, he said he had a present for me. That made me feel better, because I was starting to get confused about why he was laughing. So he said he had a present for me and he gave me a little bit of black rubber stuff and he said it was a sweet and I should eat it. It didn’t look much like a sweet and I didn’t want to eat it.

  The next bit of Haris’ story doesn’t make for pleasant listening. Either the shame of it was too much, or, like some things, the complexity of Haris’ conditions simply didn’t render it important enough to recall when questioned by police at the time of Tom Jeffries’ disappearance. We’ll discuss that further at the end of the episode, when we speak to Haris’ cousin. None of the teenagers mentioned it – neither when they were questioned, nor during the inquest. Perhaps it was too shameful, or perhaps, it being nearly a year before, they didn’t consider it important.

  —The new boy, he kept saying, ‘Eat it, eat it, go on.’ Then the other boy – the one with the long hair and the skeletons T-shirt – he started saying it, too. He said, ‘I thought you were cool, like us.’ So I ate it because he told me last time that I was cool. It was horrible, it tasted like plants; like a mushy leaf or soil or something, so I went to the shop to get a drink, and when I came out, they’d gone.

  —What happened after that?

  —I was fine. I thought the orphans must have gone on their way again, so I thought I’d go to the secret place to see the bats; to see if the bats were there because the bats hibernate in the mine and they’re an endangered species, so I went to have a look at them. I walked up into the village, where there’s the cenotaph and the churchyard, and it was sunny even though it was snowy. It was a nice day. I thought I’d go the long way, past the cemetery. The birds were tweeting and I thought they were probably hungry because of the snow, so I thought I would put out some seed when I got home. And then I felt something hit me on my back.

  —What sort of thing?

  —Well, it felt like a hand, like someone had hit me, but when I looked around there was no one there. So I kept going, and then I felt it again. I was scared in case it was a ghost. There was only the cemetery on the left and the road on my right, and I got a little bit scared in case there w
as a snowstorm. And I looked and there was snow on my back, so I started to run. Then something hit my head and I nearly fell over. I looked round and it was the boys.

  —The orphans?

  —Just some of them. It was the long-haired boy and the little boy, and the new boy, They were in the cemetery, behind the railings, and they were throwing snow and laughing. It was a snowball fight. I wanted to play snowball fights, so I picked up some snow, but they were too quick and they kept moving. My snowballs kept hitting the railings, or the boys would dodge behind the gravestones. It wasn’t really fair and they kept doing it. They kept throwing snowballs and some of them had bits of soil in and it hurt. My hands were getting cold, so I said we should stop now, but they kept doing it.

  —All of them?

  —Yes. The three boys. The new boy and the long-haired boy; theirs hurt the most. The other boy – the smaller one – his snowballs always missed. So I ran away and I could hear them laughing and I ran and ran at top speed until I got to the woods. Then I started feeling funny.

  —Funny how?

  —Sort of sick, sort of floaty, sort of all tingly. I wondered if I had got too cold on my hands. I’d taken off my gloves, you see, to play snowball fights, and I couldn’t find them, so I went back the way I had come, and it was hard because I was suddenly out of breath and the road felt all weird, like it was sinking. And my head was cold and I realised I’d lost my hat too. So I ran at top speed again and got back to the churchyard and there was a funny smell.

  —What sort of smell?

  —It was sort of like cigarettes and something else, something sweet. My heart was beating really hard and that tingly feeling was in my legs and I was really thirsty. The boys were in the cemetery and they were all smoking a big cigarette and it looked funny because it was big and it smelled funny so I started laughing.

  —Then what happened?

  —They were all laughing again, the boys, and they told me to shh, shh, and then they told me to come into the cemetery. So I went in and I was feeling really funny then, like all sort of wobbly and tingly, and the world was going really slow like one of those flick-books. The boys wanted to tell me a story. The one with the boots and the long hair, he told me a story, and his voice was all low, like a cat purring, like a dog when it’s trying not to growl.

  —What was the story?

  —I don’t … remember … but it was frightening. It was a nightmare and everything was breathing: the church and the snow and the blue sky were breathing in and out, and I had this great big scream inside me, blowing up like a balloon, and suddenly it all came out … I was screaming.

  —That sounds awful…

  —Then the new boy, he got angry and he ran to the railings and started saying, ‘Get out of here. Go on, get out of here!’ But I couldn’t stop laughing, and I was thirsty but I was laughing, and the new boy he started saying, ’Shh, shh.’ But I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop and then he said that something was coming, and that’s when I thought of the beast.

  —He said the beast was coming?

  —He did … or I did …I don’t know; it was a bit like a dream. I think I had got too cold because my heart was thudding and I was thirsty and everything was soft and funny. And then the new boy said, ‘Come here.’ So I went over and he poked his head through the railings and told me that the beast was coming, that I had better run.

  —Did you?

  —I did run. I ran back into the woods and kept going because I could hear it behind me, and it was making a screaming, laughing noise, and I ran as fast as I could and I didn’t look back and I didn’t stop and I could hear its feet behind me and my heart was thudding and when I was nearly home I stopped because I couldn’t run anymore.

  —And the beast?

  —I think it had gone. I think I outran it, because everything was still again

  —What about your hat and gloves, did you ever find them?

  —Yes. I found them the next day.

  —Where?

  —In the churchyard. Someone had made a snowman and they had put my gloves and my hat on it, and they’d put a cigarette end in its mouth and given it a … a penis … and Father Brown, he was really cross with me and told my mum. I got in real trouble and she said I was acting ‘out of character’.

  Telling this story is clearly traumatic for Haris; his voice quickens and he becomes more child-like, avoiding my eyes and shaking his head. I break off our chat to give him a breather, and his cousin takes him aside to calm down.

  From what we’ve heard so far, it is pretty obvious what happened that afternoon. What is particularly telling here is the attitude of the teenagers to Haris in the presence of Tom Jeffries. Haris mentions the ‘girl with the dark hair’, which I assume is Anyu Kekkonen, who often reassured him and tried to give him his money back the first time. I’m surprised Eva Bickers hasn’t really featured in Haris’ account. In fact, neither of the girls seem to have made much of an impression on Haris. But then, it’s the emotionally impactful moments rather than the pleasant ones that stay with us. Certainly, the snowballs and the drugs were a terrifying combination for Haris, as you would expect.

  Notice something else though: Haris does not refer to any of the teenagers by name; he knows them only as ‘the orphans’. As we’ll hear throughout, Haris finds it hard to deviate from a certain neural pathway. To Haris, the Rangers were ‘the orphans’, and that was that. Haris doesn’t recall meeting any of the others, or the adults. That makes sense; there would be no reason for any of the leaders or the younger kids to be hanging around Belkeld. Neither Derek Bickers, nor any of the other adults had heard of Haris until the inquest.

  What surprises me most about this whole thing is that Haris never mentioned the incident with the snowballs to anyone – even his mum. Listen to this extract from the police interview with Haris from a few days after Tom Jeffries disappeared; it might give us an understanding of why.

  [Audio extract from taped interview

  with Haris Novak, 26/08/96]

  —What are you saying to me Haris? Are you saying that on the 12th of December last year, you did or you didn’t speak to and interact with these people? For the record, I am indicating the photographs of Tom Jeffries, Charlie Armstrong, Anyu Kekkonen, Eva Bickers and Brian Mings.

  —No … I mean … yes, I suppose so … sort of.

  —What does that mean, ‘sort of ’? You either did or you didn’t speak to them.

  —I did. Sort of.

  —Haris. This isn’t a question of ‘sort of ’. There is a missing child here; a missing child; and you’re stopping us finding him by saying ‘sort of ’.

  —I met them … I met them, I met them, the orphans, I met them.

  —For the record, Mr Novak is pointing at the photographs in front of him. You can confirm you spoke to Tom Jeffries, Charlie Armstrong, Anyu Kekkonen, Eva Bickers and Brian Mings on the 12th of December 1995?

  —The orphans. I saw them.

  —Right, then. So whereabouts did you see them?

  —It was weird … everything was strange. Everything was topsyturvy and funny and I was…

  —Will you just answer the question, please, Mr Novak?

  —It was like a dream. It might have been a dream. It felt like a dream. It was a dream.

  Haris had an alibi for the night Tom Jeffries disappeared the following summer. He has no history of violence; nothing that linked him to the teenagers, save for these few fleeting meetings in Belkeld. I find it difficult to believe that Haris thought the teenagers were a dream. When he talks to me about them, he doesn’t mention dreams. Despite Haris’ disabilities, he does not hallucinate: he does not hear voices. When he goes to the toilet, I speak to his cousin about this discrepancy.

  —So, do you know why Haris told the police seeing the teenagers was a dream?

  —It’s a coping mechanism. That’s the best I can come up with. Ask Haris about certain things – he’ll tell you they are dreams. His mum, for example: he doesn’t ta
lk about her much, not with me anyway. The night she died, when they took her to hospital, he was there the whole time; but if you ask him about it, he’ll say it was a dream.

  —Does he believe them to be a dream now? The teenagers, I mean.

  —I’m … I dunno; it’s hard to tell. Sometimes he talks about stuff and if you ask him whether it was a dream, some days he says yes and some days he says no. That whole thing, it was a fucking disgrace, the way the papers went after him. He didn’t even have an appropriate adult in with him when they questioned him. Fucking disgusting. The whole thing traumatised him. There’s great swathes of it he doesn’t remember – or says he doesn’t; or says it was a dream. Sometimes he wakes up screaming in the night about the beast. The fucking Beast of Belkeld.

  —What do you think about that? What’s your opinion?

  —To me, I think the whole ‘beast’ business is another way he copes with what happened back then.

  To be honest with you, I didn’t have much to do with Haris’ side of the family – not until the whole thing happened. His mum, she was just … she was lost. So I visited more, to help them out. It was me who helped them with the move, got them out of Belkeld. Looking back, I think it’s all mashed up, sort of, in Haris’ head – what is real, what isn’t. I’m not sure even he knows anymore.

  —He said he saw it as a child.

  —Yeah, he’s told me that before but … I don’t know if that’s just some sort of false memory – something he’s created. He likes things to be logical, to be consistent. I have a feeling that the whole thing of seeing the beast when he was a kid might be just … I dunno … just a safety net sort of thing. Do you know what I mean?