So what do we really know?
Well, we’ve learned a lot about the dynamic of the group. It’s something I know I keep coming back to, but being able to understand the world of those involved might in some small way help us understand what happened that night.
So, peeling back the layers, we know that Tom Jeffries was, at best, only tolerated by the rest of the group. However, at the same time he clearly had a major influence over them. Specifically, he quickly managed to ‘get in’ with Charlie, by using his ability to get hold of drugs.
Was he consciously trying to gain dominance over this particular group of teens? I do believe Tom had a need to feel dominant. And, looking at Jeffries’ past, he was no stranger to bad behaviour, or how to influence others. Was he mimicking older people’s influence over him? Or maybe it was his warped way of trying to fit in.
My gut feeling is it was the latter. From what we know about Tom Jeffries, it seems likely that he wanted to influence those lower down the pecking order than him. Look at his comment, as recalled by Eva Bickers, when he first meets the others:
‘Hippies, eh? I like hippies cos they smoke the herb.’
To me, that’s not a normal thing to say when meeting a group of your peers for the first time. It reeks of contempt – as if he’ll lower himself to their level because it will do something for him. He also said it in front of the adults; testing the waters to see how they would react.
Jeffries then entrenched his position, asserted some sort of power over the group by sleeping with Eva; something that only Charlie, their leader had done. This was all about power.
But was all this enough to warrant murder? Some might think so. But, if so, who was the killer? From my experiences of Charlie, Eva and Anyu, I doubt any of them would be capable of murder. Charlie has his problems, but he asserts that he never hated Tom, nor does he now. Eva and Anyu both found Tom repulsive, but was that repulsion enough to kill?
So, did anyone have a real motive to kill Tom Jeffries? Someone with a clear motive is Haris Novak. We’ve seen how Tom took advantage of him – asserted his dominance and utilised his innocence to his own ends. The boys scared the life out of Haris with their Nanna Wrack story. Did Haris finally snap and seek revenge? First off, Haris has an alibi for that night – a twisted ankle and … well … he simply doesn’t have that sort of violence in him.
That leaves Brian Mings.
So far, we know that Brian was a follower, not disliked by the others, but not deemed particularly important. We also know that he would have done anything to impress them. Tom picked on him, as did Charlie. The incident with Brian’s new coat is particularly unpleasant. But was all of that enough to make him kill Tom?
Brian Mings seems to be the elephant in the room. I get a sense that everyone I’ve spoken to wanted to say more about him, but, for some reason, didn’t.
However – and it’s a big however – Brian Mings had the safest alibi of all of the teenagers for the night Tom Jeffries vanished: Eva Bickers’ bed.
So where does that leave us?
Next episode, in our final story, we will attempt to complete the circle; to fill in the gaps and review everything we’ve learned about the disappearance of Tom Jeffries.
Maybe there’s a solution, a reason, or at least fresh insight, into what went wrong for him that night.
Next week, we talk to Brian Mings.
This has been Six Stories with me, Scott King.
This has been our fifth story.
Until next time…
An A road somewhere in Northern England. Establishing connection… 2017
Everyone is waiting for the final episode.
Everyone.
I actually heard some people discussing the thing in a service station Starbucks on my way here. I had to turn away before they saw me staring. Six Stories has found its way onto the nation’s lips and wormed its way into the collective mind. It terrifies me. Maybe this is why I fled to Scarclaw Fell. Maybe it’s why I’m fleeing now.
I’ve battened down the hatches; ignored the surge of web traffic to The Hunting Lodge; the questions, the requests. Sky Television has asked me if they can film some sort of reality show. The BBC want to send someone out to make a documentary.
I haven’t given anyone an answer. I feel like I’m being lured out of the dark, and I won’t be. I simply won’t. For me, for Dad, for the Ramsay name.
I could pay for security – fences to enclose Scarclaw Fell, but what message would that send? People would ask what we were trying to enclose, what we don’t want anyone to see. This Ramsay land is no longer Ramsay land; not since Six Stories. Scarclaw Fell belongs to the rest of the world now, and that’s why I’m getting away from it. That’s why I’m not going back.
There are barely any cars here – no services, no hard shoulder. It’s as if the road is ushering me as quickly as it can away from Scarclaw Fell. I’ve put on the radio; one of the stations that won’t be talking about Six Stories. I’ve tried to ignore the thrumming desire inside me that wants to stop, pull over and connect my phone to the Bluetooth; listen to those five episodes once more.
He’s smart, Scott King, I’ll give him that. It’s been a few weeks now since episode five, but he’s gone quiet, too. All under the advice of a newly acquired agent, I imagine. Probably trying to convince King to charge for the final episode. King wouldn’t do that, would he? How am I to know? I know nothing of the man. Just how he likes it.
It’s good advice, whoever’s giving it to him: keep them waiting; build the tension. The internet is bristling with theories. I’m told there’s a Six Stories SubReddit; someone sent me a link to the ‘Top Ten Reasons that Charlie Armstrong Killed Tom Jeffries’ on Buzzfeed. Vice went with ‘I went on a Six Stories style 90s camp with some old school friends’. Some guy called @tomjeffries on Twitter has just closed down his account.
It’s a mess.
To add some poetic sentiment to my own feelings, I’d like to say that, as I get further and further away, I can still feel Scarclaw Fell behind me, rearing up from the land, watching me as my car twists along this endless grey artery through the English countryside, as inscrutable as it ever was.
But I can’t say it. Because I don’t feel that.
All I do feel, if anything, is a twinge of sadness that I won’t be coming back here again. Sadness for when this land was mine. Now, all that’s left of Scarclaw Fell is the feeling of the knot that tightened inside me when I closed the door to my car and heard the crunch of the gravel beneath the tyres.
I look out at the woods that pulse by me on the left and I wonder what their name is, who owns them; how are they maintained?
There was a time when a part of me believed I had tamed Scarclaw Fell, calmed the residual memories that haunt its hills. But that time has gone. What is wild should stay wild. Even with all the fences and walls and stories and warnings; you cannot tame a place like Scarclaw Fell.
Rain has begun to fall; great big slugs of it streaking my windscreen. A lorry shudders past, its backdraught making me clutch the steering wheel a little tighter, leaving this land with a question that rises up like a vast menhir, higher than the fell; a question that my ownership of this land cannot answer.
It is, of course, about what we saw that night we found the body of the boy. There have been times when I’ve walked the forest floor and heard things. I have heard the birds stop mid-song, and the presence of something terrible begin to fill the silent, green places. It calls to mind an old story, a dusty book from Dad’s library. A troop of men out in the wilds, hunting. One of them is called by the voice of some terrible, unseen presence.
‘For the voice, they say, resembles all the minor sounds of the Bush – wind, falling water, cries of animals and so forth. And once the victim hears that – he’s off for good of course!’
On his return to camp, the man is changed, broken. He has seen something he dare not speak of – some rustic leviathan whose myth winds deep into the roots and soils of
the forest.
When I feel that presence in the woods, I wait it out, stand trembling and allow it to pass.
It always does.
Because perhaps it is only a part of me that, in the silence of the forest, I can hear; a part of me I can’t hear anywhere else.
‘What the fuck is that?’ Tomo stood, pointing at the cream-coloured pile that lay in the muck before us.
We, all three of us knew what it was. It curled in on itself like a dead insect. Tendons hung from the wrist like thick, brown wires, and the remnants of flesh were grey and limp. But none of us wanted to say it. We could smell it, a foul reek that wound its way into your very soul, it seemed.
I wanted it to be a joke. I wanted Jus or Tomo to start snorting, apologising; the other one furious at him for breaking the spell. I wanted to see the flickering lamplight reflected in the lens of a camcorder.
But there was only the stench of old flesh and the rain.
The lurchers were tied to a tree. Jus and I helped Tomo do it, the leads burning our hands as the animals strained to claim their prize.
None of us dared to follow their trail. Our feet were numb and all of us were shaking with cold and adrenaline. As we tied the dogs up, eyes fixed on each other instead of the grisly trophy a few feet away, we began to confer.
‘We were lamping deer,’ Tomo said. His eyes were wide and desperate. ‘OK guys? … OK?’
Jus and I nodded.
‘Say it,’ Tomo said.
‘What?’
‘Say it out loud. Say we were lamping deer.’
Like children greeting their headmaster at assembly, Jus and I said it out loud. Accompanied by the rain and the wind and the panting of the dogs and the reek of rotten flesh, we said it.
‘We were lamping deer.’
It didn’t need to be spoken, none of the rest – the questions that would come about what were we really doing out here; what were we hunting with the lights and the gun. What would we have said? The black shape we all thought we saw became suddenly shrouded in doubt.
‘Say it again,’ Tomo said.
We did.
And like some arcane chant, like some invocation, we said it over and over again. And with every breath, that black figure at the window became less and less real.
Became more like a dream.
Or some figment of a child’s imagination.
I am going to stop at the next service station – it’s in twenty miles, according to a sign that slips by. I’ll buy a bag of sweets; toffees, fill my mouth with them like I did when I was a boy, allow the buttery, brown liquid to run down my chin as I drive. The sound of the toffee between my teeth, the ache in my jaw, will block out the rest of this journey.
There’s nothing more I can do out here. I feel if I stay and try to answer what, if anything, walks Scarclaw Fell, I will become that man from the story. The one that came face to face with what was out there. Or else, I will stand and watch all the others seeking the devil in the woods of Scarclaw Fell. I can’t build more fences, because they’ll just ask me what I’m trying to contain. So, maybe I should just let them – let people search Scarclaw for their own Devil, Wendigo, Nanna Wrack or Qalupalik. Let this land become a monument to a mystery.
Which leads me to another question that I cannot answer now. It’s not the one that is on the lips of everyone else; it is not about who or what killed Tom Jeffries.
It’s, will this story ever rest?
For me, Six Stories is over. But something tells me, that for other people, it will continue.
A buzz from my phone startles me, breaking through the tattoo of the rain and the squeak of my windscreen wipers. The road twists, so I do not look away from the blind corners. With a glance, I think I see the name on the screen but I want to concentrate on the road. Let the buzzing subside.
‘They’ll call us mad. They’ll fucking implicate us in this somehow!’ Tomo pointed, without looking, to the coil of bone in the muck beside us.
Jus and I nod.
‘WE know what we saw, and that’s what matters, OK?’
I think of the rhyme that Tomo recited before – some relic from the silt-choked lake we all have in the backs of our minds; the place where we keep the bad stuff; the scary stuff.
‘Mother, is that father’s form at the door?
It’s taller and longer than ever before,
His face is all white, coat black like a loon,
His teeth glow like blades in the light of the moon.’
‘And that’s where we’ll keep it,’ I said, pointing into the blackness of the trees. ‘That’s where it’ll stay.’
The others nodded.
The rain dripped down our faces like tears.
I’m still not comfortable with talking, as I drive, even with hands-free. So I pull into the space in front of a gate and look at the screen. A sinking feeling fills me: it’s the name I thought I saw.
By the time the police arrived, Jus had gone back to the Woodlands Centre to pick up our clothes. We were all shaking, our teeth chattering. I don’t remember who called them. Maybe it was me?
All I knew when they arrived was that I wanted my dad.
‘Harry?’
‘Yes, speaking.’
‘I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you again.’
‘What? Why? I thought you said…’
‘I know. I did say. I’m sorry. There’s … something’s come up.’
‘Your voice sounds…’
‘Different? I know. I’m sorry. Look, is it OK if we talk? One last time? I mean, if you say no, I’ll understand.’
‘We can talk.’
After we’ve finished on the phone, I put my car in gear and pull away from the gate. The roads get straighter as I move toward the city. I can see buildings on the horizon and more vehicles begin to pass me on the other side. Through the rain, their headlights are glowing eyes; their engines are growls.
Behind me the trees wave in the wind as if bidding me farewell.
I don’t look back.
Episode 6: The Sixth Story
Hi.
Before we proceed, I’d like to introduce myself.
Properly.
My name, as you know by now, is Scott King.
Except it isn’t, not really. Scott King is simply two words – generic first and surnames put together. It’s not me.
Not really.
Scott King is my professional name; the name I chose in order to protect my real identity. Who I actually am doesn’t matter. It never has.
I’m not a journalist. I used to be, but that was a long time ago now. These days I devote my life to this, what you’re listening to now: my podcasts.
It’s far from an original concept, this thing I do – shining a light on past darkness, picking through the settled dust of a cold case. Raking through the earth of old graves.
My podcasts make money … at least they do now. After my first series, I very nearly lost everything. I was down to the few coins I had in my pocket, and that’s no exaggeration.
That was before the donations started coming in; before you listeners, through the kindness of your hearts, pledged me as much as you could afford – a dollar here, a pound there. I never asked for much, but it’s because of you that I can do what I do.
That’s why I want to be straight with you now.
That’s why I want to tell the truth.
So here’s the thing. I am careful to seek agreement from everyone I speak to. I am not here to pick at old sores, nor to stare into forbidden places. I make these podcasts with the full permission of everyone involved, and I draw no conclusions of my own. That part is for you, the listener.
As regular listeners of my podcasts know, I do not have a ‘brand’ as such, a USP. However, the type of cases I look at are similar, inasmuch as each case has a sense of something unresolved, a question that rises again and again to its surface, impossible to ignore. I do not seek justice. I do not push for the freedom of incarcerated people. I onl
y look at the facts. That’s the way it always has been; the way it always will be.
The case of Tom Jeffries in 1996 was, I will admit, completely unknown to me until very recently. I do not give out an email address; I do not use social media. Yet somehow, about a year ago, an anonymous listener got in touch and pointed me in the direction of Scarclaw Fell and Tom Jeffries.
It was perfect for me and they knew it.
Like any of the podcasts I create, a lot of leg-work and research has to be done before I can start recording. So imagine my surprise when I started contacting those involved in the disappearance of Tom Jeffries. They all told me they didn’t want to hear from me again, that, for them, it had been enough, it was over.
Even more troubling, each of them claimed I had told them that neither I nor my production team would be back in touch. They were furious: how dare I break my promise? They felt betrayed.
It felt like a terrible dream. It couldn’t be true, could it?
Only one of the people involved agreed to speak to me again. For that, I will always be grateful. Without them, I think perhaps you wouldn’t be listening right now.
That person is the one whose voice you heard at the start of episode one: Harry Saint Clement-Ramsay. He was the only one who was willing to explain to me what on earth was going on. He will join me later. Don’t get me wrong, I hold nothing against Eva, Charlie, Anyu, Derek and the others. But I wish I could have had the chance to explain myself to them. Harry is one step removed from what happened in 1996, so maybe it was this that allowed him to feel comfortable enough to speak one last time.
Harry told me that he had been contacted by my ‘researcher’ six months ago to arrange an interview about Scarclaw Fell. He was unaware of me and what I do and thought it sounded a bit shady, which, to be fair, it does.
Harry agreed, however, to the interview, so long as there were certain parameters and restrictions in place; i.e., there were things he did not want to talk about for legal reasons and for the sake of his father. The interview itself was conducted in a car with a man that Harry had been corresponding with for a number of weeks.
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