Epilogue

It was two weeks later when I came round. I thought that I was dead. Although I was drugged up to the eyeballs, I recall a succession of familiar faces standing over me, brother, sisters, mother and friends, smiling and happy faces, their voices reassuring. There were also unfamiliar ones too. Serious faces, asking questions, frowning and accusing faces. My left arm was strapped across my chest; the right was handcuffed to the hospital bed. There were uniforms, lots of uniforms, police, nurses, doctors. And there were the needles. More fucking needles than you can imagine.

As the mists of pain and medicine cleared, there was only one question on my mind but no one could tell me what had happened. I asked it a hundred times but no one would answer me until one day a senior detective cleared the room. It was deemed that I was well enough to give a statement. They offered me a lawyer but I didn’t see the point. The detective refused to give me any details about what had happened at Soldiers Point until I had given a full statement. It took the best part of two days to recount my side of the story; they tape recorded the entire sorry tale. At the end of it, he was good to his word.

No one was found alive at the scene except me. The police examined the underground cells and the skeletal remains of fourteen people had been recovered, although they were struggling to identify some the victims. I didn’t think that they would. The niners picked their victims carefully. The explosions brought the ceiling down on the ceremony cavern. Thousands of tons of rock had collapsed, liquidising the remains in there. They didn’t think that the investigation into what happened there would ever reveal any evidence. They simply couldn’t justify spending millions of pounds to recover mush. All they had was my word for it. My version of events was taken very sceptically.

Porth-y-felin House was gutted. When the inferno died down only the walls were left standing and the remains had been searched thoroughly. Signs of occult activity had been recovered but the police wouldn’t release all the details. Although the mansion was a landmark, it was demolished a few days later.

Jennifer Booth and her followers were blown to bits. The jetty was nothing more than a pile of twisted metal. The investigation was limited to testing the DNA of a few bin bags of rotting flesh recovered from the metal stanchions of the jetty, or remnants floating on the sea. The rain washed most of the evidence away, leaving the forensic teams with mush. Any larger pieces of human remains which had landed in the sea had been gnawed at by the dogfish in the marina. Four of the six niners who were killed on the jetty were identified. Jennifer Booth was one of them. The police were left with more questions than answers, especially when a shredded blanket was recovered from the marina. It was stained with blood and there were chunks of skin covered in thick black hair. When the DNA was tested, they couldn’t identify it but they said it was derived from the lupine family tree.

They told me that Joseph survived his injuries and escaped any criminal charges. I have it on my list of priorities to call him and offer to replace his crockery. In the grand scheme of things, it is important to me that I at least offer to pay for it. He was lucky to walk away a free man, whereas I don’t think that I’ll be afforded the same leniency. I will do some time once they decide exactly what I’m guilty of and I’ll embrace the experience with both arms. It will give me the time to write again. Being locked behind concrete and steel doesn’t seem so bad any more I’ll be fed, showered and given a bed to sleep in safety. They know that I’ll be a target, so I took a deal. They will guarantee to put me in segregation if I guarantee that I will not plead not guilty, ‘on the grounds of diminished responsibility’. That would mean admitting or pretending that I lost my mind and went mad.

I can’t do that. I was never mad at any point. I knew what I was doing at every stage of the horrific journey. I thought that it was all over apart from serving a few years, but once again, I was wrong. I received hundreds of cards from well wishers, many promising to sign an online petition which was designed to put pressure on the courts to apply leniency. I can’t remember all of them but one stuck in my mind. It said, ‘Colin has saved you a seat in hell.’ There was nobody in that cellar but us. My mind tells me that it’s a coincidence but I don’t do coincidences. My gut instinct tells me that despite Jennifer being fish food, it isn’t over.

Am I mad?

No.

Am I evil?

That’s a different question all together.