—When I went to work at Dayton’s, I was just reeling from everything. I thought it was impossible I could get any lower. But I did – afterwards. Back then, at Dayton’s, I was just floating through life. It was like I was only half a person. I don’t even remember how I got the job. I was just on autopilot, just going through the motions. Before I know it I’m living on the site and I’m in the kitchens.

I think that’s what helped me out at first. In a job like that you didn’t have to think too hard. It was like being back at the big hotels, working there, ’cept the food weren’t as good. The kitchen was huge, a load of fryers and a big range where all the meat went. I could have done that job with my eyes closed. Suited me just fine.

And there wasn’t a proper hierarchy, like head chef, sous-chef, chef de partie, all that. There was the head chef and there was the rest of us.

And that’s where I met Sorrel Marsden. And we became mates.

Well, I thought so. You see in the kitchens, all you really have is each other. You’re all from different places, different walks of life, but you all have something in common – kitchen people are a bit, well, messed up. We’re all wastrels, misfits … addicts.

Welcome to Six Stories. I’m Scott King.

This is episode four.

In the last few weeks we’ve been looking back at the case of Alfie Marsden, the child who vanished into Wentshire Forest in 1988. We’ve been building up some context to the story, trying to understand how a seven-year-old boy could disappear and never be seen again.

The Alfie Marsden case, for most, is resolved. The boy is officially deceased. The name is synonymous with a family’s sorrow. Despite that, I want to look again – from six different perspectives – to unearth anything that may change this well-worn narrative.

Wendy Morris took some convincing to talk to me. She is a resident in a ‘sober living home’ in rural Cheshire – a group facility for addicts and sex workers, owned by a charity. The home, which I will not name, is beautifully kept. There are well-tended flower beds in the front and a small allotment in the back. There is even room for a small menagerie of animals; chickens scratch and burble in a wooden pen, and a goat sleeps in the shade of a small shed. Wendy’s link to Alfie Marsden has never before come to light. Wendy has never told her story. This is, I think, because she believes it does not matter, because she believes she does not matter. Whether she’s right is up to us to decide – the Six Stories ‘book group’ who meet at the edge of an old crime scene.

I chat with Wendy over a pot of tea at a wooden picnic table at the back of the home. The smell of honeysuckle and the languid buzz of bees is all around us.

 

—So yeah, I knew Sorrel. He was alright, he was. He looked after me a bit, when I first started.

—Looked after you?

—He was one of those blokes who’s good at seeing if someone’s in a mess, not doing well. I think he saw that about me the moment I walked in the door. He was straight over, looking after me. He stood out from the others.

—What makes you say that?

—Cos he was different. I know the sort of blokes that work in kitchens, and Sorrel wasn’t like any of them. I remember when I came into the kitchen for the first time and one of the other chefs made some smart-arse comment. Sorrel was on him straightaway, sent him off to go and peel some spuds or something. That’s what he was like at first. He was nice, you know? He saw I was in a bad place and stopped the other lads having a dig. And he told me I was a decent cook – which is a massive compliment.

—Did you ever think Sorrel had any romantic interest in you?

—I dunno about that. I knew Sorrel had just come out of a messy one with someone else.

—Mad Mary … I mean, Maryanne?

—Yeah, her. Anyway. It wasn’t long after I started that Sonia Lewis walked into the place and that was it for him.

—Sorrel fell in love?

—In love? He was obsessed with her! We used to take the piss out of him no end. We used to call her his little dolly bird and he’d get all red in the face and start swearing. It was funny!

—Did you get to know Sonia at all?

—We all knew each other, but she wasn’t a mate. All I knew of her was that she was more my age than Sorrel’s but she was a kid inside. She’d hardly lived – never even been out of Wales. Sorrel was much more my type of person. He’d lived a life as well.

—I don’t know a lot about Sorrel before this point in his life.

—You know I said before that all kitchen people are weird, fucked up? He was no different.

—Did he confide in you?

—Sometimes. When we was drunk. Before Sonia came on the scene. He was brought up by his grandmother. She was one of those horrible, old-fashioned ‘children should be seen and not heard’ types. She sounded like a witch, filling his head with scary stories when he was a boy.

—Really?

—She told him a whole load of nonsense, told him if he didn’t behave that ‘things’ would come and get him. She scared the life out of Sorrel when he was a boy. He said she told him he was different from the rest of his family, that he was the black sheep. I think he’d spent most of his life trying to please the old fucker.

My mum was a piece of shit, and Sorrel’s grandmother was, too. Maybe that’s why we became friends.

This is interesting, but how significant to the story it is, I’m not sure. Wendy explains that she saw the way Sorrel behaved in the kitchen and, thinking about the drunken snippets he’d reveal about his grandmother, wondered how she’d influenced him.

—He was a bloody control freak. Everything had to be done his way or he’d lose it. Ninety-nine percent of chefs are the same, but still…

—Did you feel sorry for him?

—If I’m honest, no. But back then I didn’t feel much of anything for anyone. But since I’ve been here, since I got sober, I can see where all that came from. People try and make up for the lack of power in their lives by focussing on what they can control. Sorrel couldn’t control how his grandmother felt towards him, but he could control what went on in the kitchen.

It’s an interesting observation from Wendy. But she tells me that’s the only real insight she ever got into Sorrel.

—He was a hard bloke. Not physically, but emotionally. He was like me: didn’t let much in or out. I guess that’s why we became mates. Maybe we saw each other as safe…

Wendy and Sorrel became better friends when he began dating Sonia. Wendy says she was the only one who could get away with ribbing him about how protective he was. Sorrel would often confide in her about Sonia, how worried he was about her. Wendy, in turn, told Sorrel about her life, about her brother Sam who’d died, something she had never opened up to anyone about.

I ask Wendy about the early days of Sorrel and Sonia’s relationship. She remembers Sorrel always checking his watch during service and, no matter what he was doing, downing tools at a certain time and going to the payphone in the back corridor. This sent the other chefs mad. His explanation was that he worried about Sonia when she was out, that her friends – the other younger waitresses and front-of-house staff – were, as he put it, ‘idiots’ and he didn’t trust them with her.

In turn, Sonia, wherever she was, would then call the number on the payphone to tell Sorrel she was safe. Wendy corroborates what Darren Morgan told me: how, when they had days off, they would spend them drinking in the Dayton’s staff bar. Again like Darren, she also says that the few times she saw Sorrel lose his temper were when he thought someone was looking at Sonia wrongly. He would square up to them, so enraged, that whoever was the subject of his ire would immediately back down and apologise.

Thus far, then, we’ve learned nothing that we don’t already know about the early days of Sorrel and Sonia’s relationship. I feel like we’re going over old ground, albeit from a different perspective. Wendy, however, tells me that we’re only halfway done.

—I just needed to tell you that bit first, because otherwise the next bit won’t make sense. You see when Sorrel and Sonia were together, I was low. But Sorrel … I really thought I had a friend in him. I really did.

—Did something happen between the two of you?

—He left. He and Sonia just upped sticks and left. Maybe I’m selfish, thinking that he should have stayed for me. It’s just that one day he was there and one day he’d handed his notice in; him and Sonia were getting a place together.

—How did that make you feel?

—Like I didn’t matter. It’s not like we were best mates or anything, but I thought we were close! As close as either of us could get to having a proper friend. I mean, I told him about Sam, he told me about Sonia. It just seemed cold.

—When he called, I didn’t even recognise him. This would have been, what, eighty-six, eighty-seven? He’d been gone for a few years.

—What did he want? To catch up?

—You won’t believe it, it was that strange. I guess it showed who and where I was back then that I agreed to do it. It was almost like he knew I was low enough to do anything anyone asked me to.

—And what was it, Wendy? What did Sorrel want you to do?

—He wanted me to come on holiday with him and Sonia and their little boy. I didn’t even know that he was a father.

This is quite the revelation. Based on what we already know about the family, Alfie would have been about five or six years old at the time and Sonia already deep into addiction. Sorrel was the fabric holding the family together at this point, so it’s no wonder he needed someone to help out.

For those unfamiliar with Sorrel Marsden, it might be a mystery why he chose Wendy for this job, so I want to take you back to a throwaway remark Darren Morgan made in episode one.

—You were Sorrel’s only real friend?

—There was someone else, now I come to think of it; another chef. I think she might have been the only woman Sorrel didn’t try and put the moves on. I forget her name – Winnie. Wendy maybe? She never tried to mess him about. I think that’s why they were mates. Like him and me, they were equals.

—I thought that at the time: Why me? Why now? Then I remembered something…

—What was it?

—It’s daft really. I was probably mistaken. I was off my head – drugs, drink, everything…

—It’s ok to say what you think. Even if you were mistaken.

—OK. It’s just that there were times back in those days when I could have sworn I saw him.

—Sorrel Marsden?

—It was probably just someone who looked like him. Like I say, it was nothing. But there were a few times I was sure. I thought I would see him at the back table in a pub; a face on a dance floor or crowded into the kitchen at a house party.

—And did you ever approach him, or the person you thought was Sorrel?

—I remember once, at this party, I was completely out of it. But I was talking to a bloke. And I was sure the next day that it had been him. Like I say I’d been so out of it, I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure.

—Did he recognise you? Did you remember that?

—He didn’t say anything that I remembered. I did know that he kept giving me drinks, and kept rolling joints and lighting them for me. Then he was gone. Or I was gone – passed out, you know. I did used to think about him after that, though. Sometimes picked up the phone and wondered if I could track him down somehow. I never did.

—Why not?

—I think he would have been disappointed to see how far I’d fallen. He was that sort of bloke; I couldn’t bear to have disappointed him. That’s why when he did get in touch, I was so eager to go – to do it. I wanted to impress him.

—That was why you agreed?

—I thought it would be good for me…

—Did you agree?

—I thought it would be good for me. They were going camping, he said; taking Alfie to Wentshire Forest. They wanted me to help out with him cos Sonia was finding it hard. He said something like, ‘Sonia needs you’.

I’d never been needed before in my whole life. I think he knew that and that’s why he said it.

The next thing Wendy knew was that Sorrel Marsden, someone who had abruptly walked out of her life, and who hadn’t been in touch for years, was on his way to pick her up.

—I hate to ask, Wendy, but was there any … gain for you from this arrangement?

—How do you mean?

—Aside from what I presume was a free holiday, was there any money offered?

—I don’t think there was. I mean, I had no job. I was beginning to get a habit and I was in a dark place, so I could have done with the money.

—What was it made you to agree to go, then?

—I guess … I have to say it was Sorrel.

—He convinced you?

—You see, Sorrel had this thing about him, he had this way about him that was hard to resist.

—He was charismatic?

—Yes and no. I mean, he wasn’t particularly attractive. But he had this … this charm. This is going to sound stupid, but it was like he had this light shining out of him.

—So how was it, seeing Sorrel and Sonia again?

—Oh it was OK. Sonia was a bit quiet. She was always like that though – timid and shy. She looked rough. I suppose giving birth and that does it to you. She was a pretty little thing when she worked at Dayton’s but that prettiness had almost gone. Sorrel was just as I remembered him, though – chattering away, making jokes.

—And Alfie?

—Yeah … that poor little boy. He was just lovely, sat there in his little car seat, looking out the window. I was sat in the back with him, with half the bags across my knees. I spent most of the journey laughing and singing with him. He wanted ‘Wheels on the Bus’ about a million, billion times. Sorrel joined in loudly every time. Sonia though, she just sat there, staring out the window. It was like she couldn’t be bothered.

—What was going on with Sonia at this point? Did she have problems of her own?

—Everyone knows – from the news and that – that she was drinking. I think it was just getting really bad around then. I didn’t know what was going on at home with her and I wasn’t really looking to be completely honest with you. I didn’t smell drink on her. She just looked defeated.

At some point on the journey, Sorrel pulled off the pass and opened a gate onto a dirt track leading into the trees. Wendy says she’s sure they were trespassing as there were no official signs pointing to any sort of campsite.

—We drove for ages, the car bumping about. Alfie was having a great old time, laughing and giggling. When we stopped, I realised we’d gone totally off road – there wasn’t even a track anymore. Sorrel had just driven into the middle of the forest. It was lucky it was summer or else the car would have got stuck, I reckon.

—It seems a rather odd place for a holiday, did you think that at the time?

—I remember that we were the only ones in that whole forest; there was no one around. But that would’ve suited the Sorrel I knew.

—What do you mean by that?

—He hated scrutiny. He was defensive, always thought that people were judging him. Being away from everyone like this, I guess it gave him a bit of freedom. And he would have been embarrassed by Sonia. And, I shouldn’t say it, but probably the boy, too.

—Sorrel saw Alfie as an embarrassment? Really?

—Sometimes I think Sorrel saw that boy, not as a person in his own right, but a reflection of himself. I think he felt that Alfie’s behaviour reflected on him as a parent, which to some extent, it did. So going somewhere remote kind of solved that problem for a bit. As for me, I thought it would be good for me to be in the middle of nowhere. No pubs, no temptation. It felt like I could regain who I was with my friend beside me. It was an opportunity for me to sort my life out a bit.

Sonia and Wendy pitched the tents and looked after Alfie while Sorrel went off into the woods to gather firewood. Wendy says that Sonia came out of her shell a little bit then and the two women were able to chat while they worked and played with Alfie.

—It was a funny place, that forest. It was dark and huge. The trees were massive, blocking out most of the sky. It was quiet too, just faint rustlings of birds and that. We couldn’t relax, we couldn’t settle in there.

—Why was that?

—It sounds daft, but it felt like something was watching you. All the time. And we found we was talking quiet, shushing Alfie if he made too much noise. As if we was in a church or something.

I think it was cos we knew we wasn’t supposed to be there. We listened out for Sorrel, thought we’d hear him chopping branches and that – he’d taken this little axe and a spade with him – but there was nothing. It was like the forest had swallowed him up.

—Did Sonia confide in you at all while Sorrel wasn’t there? Did she say anything of note? Perhaps about how things were at home?

—No. She didn’t come across like she was … anything really. There just wasn’t a lot to her.

—What about Alfie? How did he seem?

—He was like any other little boy; wandering about, grabbing sticks. He loved it in them woods. I was glad because I just found the whole place weird. I couldn’t relax. I remember he had us playing this game. The trees were dead close together outside the clearing, the woods were really dark. Alfie kept walking over to the line of trees and pointing.

—Really? What at?

—It was funny. He kept saying ‘Doggy!’ and either me or Sonia would go over to look, and Alfie would shout, ‘Doggy gone!’ He did it with other animals too: ‘Piggy gone!’, ‘Goat gone!’

I don’t want to mention what Callum Wright told me about the animal sightings in the forest, I don’t want to plant bias in Wendy’s mind or taint her story. All of a sudden, her smile turns to a frown.

—Kids are funny, aren’t they? They come out with all sorts. I remember Alfie toddling over to another clump of trees; he had his hands out as if he was trying to catch something. Me and Sonia, we’re just sat there, looking at him, and then he stops still and stares into the trees. Dead quiet. Well, Sonia was trying to lie down, she was done playing, but I go over to him, quiet cos I can hear him chuntering away.

—What was he saying?

—It was just gabble – made-up kiddie speak, but he was whispering it. It was weird cos it was like he was answering back, you know? As if he was talking to someone.

—I don’t follow.

—Like someone was speaking to him.

—Who?

—No one! There wasn’t no one there! I get closer and squat down in front of him and he starts laughing. Well, when a little one laughs like that, you can’t help yourself, can you. I started laughing, too. We’re laughing and laughing, and I ask Alfie what’s funny. He’s still looking away from me, into the trees.

He stops then and turns round to face me. He does this funny thing: he puts his hand up and touches my lips with his finger, dead soft.

‘Shh,’ he says.

So I play along, like it’s a game, and I start whispering. I ask Alfie why we need to be quiet.

He looks at me, right in my eyes and says, ‘Bad piggy wake up.’ And the corners of his little mouth turn down like he’s going to cry. Well, I dunno why, but there was something I didn’t like about the way he said that. ‘Bad piggy’ – it sent a chill through me. God knows why.

—Did Sonia know what he was talking about?

—She acted funny about it. She shouted at Alfie to stop it, which I thought was pretty harsh. I asked her what the matter was and she got all sulky. She said it was a thing that Sorrel did. She said she wasn’t having it while they were away.

—What did she mean?

—She said Sorrel and Alfie had a game they liked to play together, without her. She said it started cos she’s scared of mice. The game was simple; Sorrel and Alfie used to make scratching sounds with their feet when she wasn’t looking, point at the floor and say ‘bad mousey’ – it would make Sonia scream out. They thought it was hilarious, she told me.

—It just sounds like a kids’ game. It doesn’t sound particularly nasty.

—She said that Sorrel did it to Alfie, too. If Alfie didn’t do what he was told, Sorrel would make a scratching noise, a snuffling, a growling. He would tell Alfie that ‘bad piggy’ would come and eat him if he didn’t behave. I think it was just a way for Sorrel to try and control him.

—Perhaps that’s all it was…

—Anyway, I think he was getting tired then, cos he starts playing up.

—Playing up?

—Sonia tells him to come and get a drink and something to eat, but he won’t. He keeps telling her to shush. He keeps shaking his head and pointing into the trees, babbling away. Sonia’s fed up with it and she tells him to get over there now. Alfie though, he starts getting red in the face, his little hands curl into fists and he points at Sonia. He starts shouting ‘Bad lady!’ at the top of his voice. Over and over again: ‘Bad lady! Bad lady!’ It took both of us to calm him down.

—What do you think was wrong with him?

—No idea. I tell you what, though, I didn’t like all that ‘bad piggy’ nonsense. It messed with me head. I kept thinking I was seeing things in the trees. I thought I was hearing footsteps or whispers in the wind. That was probably cos I’d not had no drink or anything, though. You hear things when you’re drying out.

And another thing – by the time she’d finally calmed him down, Sonia had all these cuts on her arms. There were bruises as well.

—Alfie did those to her?

—Who else could have? He must have been scratching and hitting her. Then Sorrel came back. And that’s when everything started going really wrong.

—What happened?

—Sorrel had been gone for ages and after Alfie had some food and a drink, we were getting a bit bored. Once we was used to the fact we was in a forest, there wasn’t actually anything to really do. We had put the tents up, dug the fire pit and Alfie had helped us put stones all round it. Sonia said that Sorrel would like that. We had all the food ready to go, we was just waiting for the firewood. None of us wanted to go far from the car and the tents, we didn’t want to explore or nothing. Not after all that ‘bad piggy’ nonsense.

So finally Sorrel comes back with a handful of firewood, just enough to get a fire going, and there’s suddenly this tension.

—How do you mean?

—Before, in the car, he was laughing and joking and that, but he came back with this scowl on his face. I’d seen that scowl before, when he wasn’t getting his way in the kitchen. I remember Alfie running over to him to give him a hug and he just stands there, looking at Sonia. I could feel her tensing up beside me.

—What was the matter with him?

—I dunno. He was filthy; all covered in mud and sweating. I remember how red he was, like he’d been running or something.

—Did he say what he’d been doing?

—He never said, but he was tired, irritable, started asking Sonia all these questions: where’s this, where’s that? She starts getting flustered and he’s getting more annoyed. He didn’t even have much firewood.

—So what do you think he’d been doing instead of collecting wood?

—I had no idea. Must have been pretty hard work, whatever it was. But I didn’t want to ask. Sonia and me, we were just scuttling about, trying to appease him.

—Was Sorrel angry with her? Was he … abusive in any way?

—No. It was more like he was disappointed. Every time he asked her something and she didn’t know, or hadn’t done something, he just did this face. He sighed. That was the thing with Sorrel: he was so charming that you didn’t want to disappoint him – you wanted to make him happy. So I starts scratching around, trying to get the fire going. And Sonia’s trying to get Alfie to go down for a nap. The whole time, Sorrel was just looking at Sonia like she’d failed him.

—Alfie was getting silly, too; he kept trying to run off. Every time Sonia tried to soothe him, he would start doing his ‘bad lady’ thing and laughing. Sonia gave up after that. That’s the only time I seen Sorrel actually do anything with Alfie that trip. He sits down on this log and starts telling Alfie a story.

—Trying to settle him?

—Well, not really. It wasn’t like no fairy story, I tell you. He starts telling him that there’s little men what live in the woods. He called them ‘the wood-knockers’. He says to Alfie that if he listens, he’ll hear them knocking. So we all go quiet. The sun was going down and there was a wind in the trees. You could hear the quiet of the place like a rushing in your ears and every so often there’d be a snapping noise or a rustle, and you’d look round but there was nothing there.

Alfie was looking up at his dad, his eyes wide. He was wearing this little yellow rain coat and blue wellies, and my heart just … I could see how scared he was. But Sorrel goes on.

He says that the wood-knockers have no eyes, but they have sharp teeth and their favourite food is children. He says that if you run off into the wood without a grown-up, they’ll catch you and eat you.

—Wow.

—I know. But Alfie, he’s a spirited little one. He says ‘Dad, how can they catch me if they got no eyes?’ Sorrel doesn’t miss a beat. He says that they can smell children, that their noses are stronger than dogs’. He says that, if they smell you, they’ve got these long fingernails what they tap against the trees to let the others know you’re coming. He must have thought this story up when he was collecting firewood cos he’s got this stick in his hand and he starts tapping it against the log he’s sat on, behind his back so Alfie can’t see.

—That’s … unpleasant.

—Poor Alfie. I can see his lower lip going and Sorrel’s face is deadpan, serious. Alfie looks at him and back to his mum. Sonia opens her mouth and I swear, she’s about to tell Alfie it’s just a story, but Sorrel gets in first.

‘Mum’s heard them, too,’ he says. His eyes go wide. It’s a warning look, and Sonia nods her head. Something comes over Sorrel’s face then. I’ll never forget it – it was like he was telling an inside joke.

‘Mum hears a lot of strange things, Alfie,’ he says. ‘Mum hears a lot of things that Daddy doesn’t.’

‘Listen,’ he says, and we’re all just stood there like lemons, listening to nothing. ‘Hear that?’ Sorrel says, and Sonia sort of twitches. Her whole body jerks like she’s been electrocuted.

Alfie’s just looking up at us all like the world’s gone mad. I just keep my mouth shut.

—Why? Did you hear something?

—Yeah I did and I didn’t want to say nothing cos this was obviously not my business. It was some family thing that I had nothing to do with.

—What was?

—It was obvious. Sorrel’s got that bit of wood behind his back and he’s tapping on it with his knuckle. I could see him. But Alfie’s pretending like he can’t hear anything, and Sonia’s acting like she’s got ants in her pants.

I have no idea what’s going on, and all I want to do is take that little boy in my arms and tell him it’s not real, that he’ll be OK. Sorrel and Sonia are just staring at each other.

—I imagine none of this was conducive to getting Alfie to sleep that night?

—Poor little mite. It was Sonia who had to try and get him down while Sorrel just sat in front of the fire. We could hear Sonia in the tent, singing and soothing, trying to get Alfie to settle. It was dark by then. The darkness in there … it just fell. All we had was the torches and the fire, but even they weren’t bright enough.

—What about when Alfie went to sleep?

—We sat up for a bit, the three of us. It wasn’t cold and we had the fire. And Sonia perked up a bit then, too.

—Why was that?

—She had a drink then, didn’t she? They’d brought a wine box. Sorrel and her was drinking it. I was trying to stay off the drink, though. I was thinking that I’d be getting up with Alfie in the morning. After all that’s why I was there – to be like a babysitter.

—Did you think of just leaving?

—How could I? I couldn’t drive. You know how big Wentshire Forest is? There was no way I was going to start walking through that place on my own. Also, I felt for Sonia. I felt for both of them, to be honest.

—Did Sonia drink a lot that evening?

—Yeah. She was chatty for a bit before slumping into a stupor. She must have drank about half that box. Sorrel just had that disappointed look on his face and packed her off to bed. I heard him muttering, her slurring her words. Then they started arguing, I covered my ears for a bit cos I didn’t want to hear it. The argument went on for ages, then he came and sat back down. That’s when he told me what was going on.

—Sorrel gives me a plastic cup full of wine. I couldn’t turn him down. He says thanks for today; he says he knew I’d be the best person to come and help.

—Did you not ask him why it had been so long since he’d been in touch?

—That was another thing about Sorrel; when he talked to you, it felt like you were the only person in his world, that you were the most important thing in his life. I didn’t want to disappoint him by moaning about why he’d not been in touch. We was sat together on that log, just the two of us, and the only sound is the crackling off the fire and Sonia crying.

Then she comes out of the tent again. She’s all bedraggled, her face all blotchy. She’s sniffing and sobbing, asking Sorrel just to talk to her.

—Sounds awkward.

—It was awful. He gets up and marches over to her, chest puffed out. For a moment I think he’s going to slap her, but he just sends her back to bed, tells her to go to sleep like he’s scolding a little kid. I didn’t know where to put myself.

—Did he come back to you?

—Yes. And he wanted to talk.

—What did he say?

—He wasn’t really emotional – he just told me sort of facts. He was working all hours to keep the finances above water. He was souschef in a restaurant and working in a bar, too. It sounded relentless. Sonia didn’t work at all; she was supposed to be looking after Alfie. She had a few hours in the day when Alfie was at school, but Sorrel would come home and the house would be a mess, and she would be drunk.

He kept refilling my wine, and I just couldn’t say no. He was saying how Sonia was getting delusional – seeing and hearing things what weren’t there.

—What sorts of things?

—I don’t know. I just remember his face in that flickering firelight. He looked like he’d given up. I felt sorry for him. He says that this was their only holiday since Alfie was born, but she’s even managing to spoil this for him. She’ll be a mess tomorrow, he says. That’s why you’re here. Cos I know I can trust you. I know you’ll have my back if anything … happens.

—What did he mean by that?

—I honestly think he was scared.

—Of what?

—Sonia. He said she was really good at pretending. She was good at hiding her drinking. He said he just wanted someone to see what he had to deal with. Just once. He said I was his best friend; he had never known anyone like me, that he always thought about me and wished we could have kept our friendship going.

—Did you ask him why it had been so many years since he’d been in touch?

—He said it was all Sonia’s doing. She was unreasonably jealous; she used to open his post, go through the phone bill. He said that if he wanted to go out and do things with his female friends, she wouldn’t let him. If he so much as talked to a woman, she would lose her mind. ‘What do you need female friends for when you’ve got me?’ That kind of thing. Sorrel said that, despite all the years that had passed, I was the best friend he’d ever had, and I always would be. He said that if I was there with them, he would be safe, but more importantly, so would Alfie.

—What?

—I know, right? But right then it made sense somehow. Like I said, he had this way of talking to you that made you feel amazing. I’d forgotten how he was able to do that to me. All those years he’d been gone, and I’d fallen further and further, but now I felt like I was something again, thanks to him. It all feels so cheap now, though.

—Why is that, Wendy?

—Cos he went and spoiled it all, didn’t he?

—What do you mean?

—Well, we’re talking, and he’s getting closer and closer to me, snuggling up. I didn’t think nothing of it, but suddenly I can feel his hand on my thigh.

—Sorrel made a pass at you?

—Yeah and it felt so awful. After all those years of us being friends, of being able to talk. I didn’t want this. I wanted to help him, maybe even tell him what was going on in my life. But he didn’t even give me that chance.

Wendy says that, despite being half drunk, she managed to wriggle away from Sorrel. She also says that maybe the move was made out of desperation and tiredness rather than any sort of real desire.

Unfortunately this tumultuous first night does not end here.

Wendy says she feigned tiredness and retired to her tent but was unable to fall asleep.

—I was just so het up after what happened – the argument, Sorrel, I just lay there in the dark with my eyes open. And I kept hearing things.

—What sorts of things?

—I’ve always lived in the city so I’m used to noise at night: cars, people shouting, cats, whatever. In that forest, the silence was massive. Every little noise seemed louder. Everything sounded like footsteps, like something brushing against my tent. I kept thinking of Alfie pointing into the trees, all that ‘bad piggy’ stuff. It gave me the chills. It was cold. I could feel every single goose bump rising on my arms. I kept wondering what would happen if I looked out of the tent and I was on my own. The car, the others, all gone. Then there was that stupid story of Sorrel’s; those wood-knockers. It was stupid, but there in the darkness, I could see them; their rows of little teeth, their blind eyes, making snuffling noises like pigs. I was terrified. And I swear on my life I could hear tapping as well. Far off in the distance, tapping and laughter, like someone was playing a joke on me.

—Are you sure you could hear tapping?

—No. I’m not. It could have been a dream, it could have been my imagination. It could have been, I dunno, a woodpecker or something. But it scared me so bad.

—Did you fall asleep at all?

—I must have done. But I kept waking up. I kept hearing things.

—What sort of things?

—It must have been a dream, but it was like something was touching the outside of the tent.

—An animal?

—I can’t say. Whatever it was, was pressing on the canvas. Then it would move and make this sound, a high-pitched scraping. It was as if someone was running long fingernails over the side of the tent. I just closed my eyes and pulled my sleeping bag over my head.

—Did the noise go away?

—Eventually. But if anything, the silence was worse. I was just waiting for the next thing. For a while I considered going to Sorrel and Sonia’s tent and seeing if either of them was awake. But I was too scared to move. That’s when things got worse.

Because suddenly there was a scream and I woke up. My mouth was all dry and it was pitch-black, I had no idea where I was.

The screaming was still coming, though. It was Alfie.

—Alfie had a nightmare? That’s not surprising I guess.

—It wasn’t coming from their tent, though. I’d pitched my tent right next to Sonia and Sorrel’s. The screams were coming from further back, in the trees.

—Could you have been confused?

—Yeah. Of course. But I wasn’t. I felt around and got out my torch. I turned it on but cupped the light with my hand. I still dunno why I done that. I think it was the feeling in the forest, like it was watching. I didn’t want it to see me.

But I could still hear Alfie. He was screaming and crying, like a little baby, you know?

—Jesus.

—I’ve never been more frightened in my whole life. I know what they say about that forest: that there’s strange things in there. I thought, what if it’s a spirit or something, trying to get me to come out of my tent? What if the others are gone and it’s just me on my own with the ghosts?

—And did you look out of your tent?

—Eventually. I listened out for a while first cos I thought if it was Alfie he must be with Sorrel or Sonia. I didn’t think he would be wandering about on his own in the dark in the middle of the night. I started to unzip the tent, slow and steady, trying not to make any noise. I had it in my head that if I looked out something would look back. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t hardly hold the zip.

I got braver, pulled the zip all the way down and got out. That’s when I heard something else. It came from far away in the trees. It still sounded like Alfie, but muffled, as if he’d put his head inside something. Or something had been put over his mouth. I’m shining the torch about at the sound of the noise. My hands were still trembling and the light was everywhere. There was this big wall of trees and I could hear something crashing around. I froze. Something was coming out of them trees. Something was coming for me. I shone my torch at the trees and that’s when I saw them.

—Them?

—You’re going to think I’m insane. That’s ok. No one’s going to care what an ex-smack-head, alcoholic waster like me thinks she saw a few decades ago in a wood in the middle of the night. No one. So I’ll tell you.

In that torchlight, shaking all over the place, I saw a figure between the trees. It was flitting in and out like a faulty video.

—Was it Alfie? Sorrel?

—I saw my brother between those trees. Seven-year-old Sam. He was pale, like a ghost. He was reaching for me. All around him there was eyes, peeping out of the darkness. It was like something out of a kid’s story book. He was mouthing something, but no sound was coming out. Then he flickered and disappeared…

And suddenly Sorrel comes bursting out the trees with Alfie in his arms.

Sorrel’s got no top on and his hair’s all over the place. Alfie’s got his pyjamas on. And they were both covered in mud and leaves, like they’d been rolling around in the earth.

As soon as he sees me, Sorrel freezes, with his mouth open, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then he comes back to life and starts saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ And he tells me he heard a noise and he woke up to find that their tent was unzipped and Alfie was gone.

—Gone?

—He says that he found him wandering around in the woods; thanks God he woke up cos of what might’ve happened to him.

—Poor Alfie.

—That little lad was inconsolable. Clinging to his dad like a limpet, he was. He’d gone beyond tears, and his mouth was just opening and closing like a dying fish. He was wheezing, gasping for breath, it was awful.

—What had happened to him?

—I don’t know! It was like he couldn’t breathe, like Sorrel had pulled him from the sea or something.

—Sounds like he was in shock.

—Sorrel said Alfie had got lost, panicked, caught himself up in some brambles, and got a mouthful of earth – nearly suffocated himself. Then I asked Sorrel where Sonia was. He stopped dead, stared off into the trees and in that moment I thought he was going to say something else. And when he turned to me, the look on his face … it was pure hate. He wasn’t disappointed anymore. He said she was still asleep, passed out cos of the drink. And for a second it was like a mask had dropped. There was hate on his face, and then it turned into disgust. I’ll tell you, I felt disgusted too. I started asking him what had happened, how it had happened. But he said we just needed to go. I said I’d go and get Sonia up and tell her, but he stopped me. Alfie was still clinging to him, gasping, and Sorrel, he told me to go and get in the car. I did and then Sorrel peeled Alfie off him and strapped him into his seat. Then Sorrel got in and sat in the car, too. It was the three of us in the back. Sorrel shut the door, turned on the ceiling light. This seemed to calm Alfie down but Sorrel was just looking at me.

He said, ‘Wendy, we need to keep this between us. Sonia won’t get it. She won’t understand.’

I didn’t know what he was on about, but he said we couldn’t tell her what happened, we had to keep it a secret. I asked him why and he said she’d just turn it against him. She’d make out like it was his fault.

‘It wasn’t, though,’ I said, ‘how could it be your fault that Alfie wandered off?’

He told me that Sonia had been different on this trip. Worse than usual. He said he worried about Alfie, that she might do something stupid to him.

—To Alfie? You mean hurt him in some way.

—Or worse.

—Really?

—That’s what Sorrel said. He said Sonia had insisted on coming to Wentshire Forest, where no one else would be. She was the one, he said, who had let Alfie wander off into the woods.

—So why did he tell you, you needed to keep what happened between the two of you?

—He told me how Sonia was at home; that she became ‘unreasonable’ when she was drunk. He was almost in tears, and he said she sometimes got violent. That was the reason for me being there. To protect him. He said that she’d been getting more aggressive at home, that she blamed him whenever things went wrong. And that, if anything bad happened to Alfie, she said she’d take him and she’d get full custody.

—That seems out of character, wouldn’t you say?

—I dunno really. I couldn’t imagine her being like that, but you never know, do you?

—What about Alfie? He still seemed traumatised?

—Yeah, the poor lad. He was different after that. We left just as it started to get light. All the way home, he was quiet. He never tried to sing or nothing like that; just stared out the window. When Sorrel tried to give him a snack, he threw it against the window and screamed. Sorrel didn’t know what to do.

—And Sonia?

—She was no help at all. We had to pack away everything, load up the car at God-knows what time. Sonia just lay in the back of the car, Alfie beside her. They weren’t even touching. He was curled up into a ball; she was just on her back. Still drunk. She could barely even look after herself, let alone Alfie.

—And after that?

—That was the last time I saw them. That was Sorrel, just marched back into my life and out of it again. I never heard from him again, not even when Alfie disappeared.

—Why have you never spoken about this to anyone? Surely this trip into Wentshire Forest must have something to do with what happened?

—Does it really, though? Alfie was never scared of that forest. I have no idea why he ran away in the middle of the night. What could I say that anyone doesn’t already know? Yes, he’d acted strangely on that trip, but imagine if I said that to the media? They would crucify me! He was probably just playing up. There was a lot going on in his life. After that trip I went back to my life. It only got worse. I was on gear until I was forty – until I came here. I saw what the press said about Sonia, how they said it was because of her drinking problem that Alfie disappeared. How Sorrel had to get away from her, how she was violent.

—Did you believe that?

—No. I don’t claim to know Sonia well, but I know her better than them. If she had something to do with it, Sorrel’s covering for her. What I do know is that, despite it all, she loved that boy. She just wasn’t a good mum. All this story does is reinforce that. And who’s going to listen to an old smack-head like me?

—I’ve listened to you.

—I know. But I only spoke to you because someone I trust said that would be OK.

—That’s the same someone who put me in touch with you. What’s their part in this story?

—That’s not for me to say. She’ll tell you, I’m sure of that.

—In your opinion, what happened to Alfie Marsden on Christmas Eve, 1988?

—All I can tell you is that there’s something wrong with that forest. I’m glad you can’t go in it anymore. Someone should burn it, get rid of it. It got in everyone’s heads: mine, Sonia’s, Sorrel’s. Them woods made up that horrible wood-knockers story; something in them woods got Alfie out of his bed, I swear.

—If that is actually what happened…

—Right.

—What do you believe happened when he disappeared?

Wendy pauses and leans forwards in her chair. She takes her teacup in both hands as if to warm them, despite the sun. The chickens cluck contentedly and in this moment, in this little pocket of light, with the scent of the flowers and the stillness in the air, I wish I could take my question back. Wendy’s come here, to this place of peace, to hide from her demons. But there are things in this world that cling to us wherever we go, that permeate whatever defences we put up to guard against them.

Finally, after staring into her tea, she looks up and I see her eyes are glazed over. Her voice is choked when she speaks.

—That little boy wasn’t scared of those woods. I was, though. I was terrified after I saw Sam in those trees. It wasn’t Sam though … it was something in there. I reckon that same something lured little Alfie into them woods all those years later.

Wendy stares at me then, her bottom lip trembling. Her look begs me to laugh, to challenge her. I don’t dare.

—I’ll tell you one last thing. When we were driving home, we were all silent. I had my head against the window, watching the motorway go past. It was raining, everything looking smudged. I just let myself drift asleep. Then suddenly there was this tapping, like someone was outside, like someone with a long fingernail was tapping right on the other side of my head. I jerked awake and screamed. Sorrel swerved and I thought we were going to die. Another stupid dream.

—What about Alfie and Sonia?

—They never even made a sound. I looked up and Sorrel was turned around in his seat staring at me, not looking at the road. I wanted to beg him to turn back round. He took one hand off the wheel, put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shh.’

And we just kept going like nothing had happened.

Wendy clams up now. She looks worried, tired. These old memories have clearly been difficult for her to recall.

What can we make of her story of that night in Wentshire Forest? There are several things that need our attention. The first is why Sorrel called Wendy out of the blue and asked her to accompany the family on their holiday? It seems odd, considering they’d not been in contact for a number of years and that, according to Wendy, Sorrel wasn’t in touch afterwards either.

The second point for our attention is the tapping sounds, specifically the ‘wood-knockers’ Sorrel invented to dissuade Alfie from wandering off. Is it a coincidence that others – Callum Wright and Delyth Rice – mention knocking and tapping sounds? It’s possible.

Thirdly and most importantly: what happened in the middle of the night during that camping trip? Did Alfie wander off? Or was he by then too scared of Sorrel’s wood-knockers? Or did something lure him into the trees? Did Sonia Lewis ever know that this happened? And what were the noises that Wendy heard? What was Alfie talking about when he mentioned the ‘bad’ animals in the woods?

These are all questions that Wendy cannot answer.

What we do know is that Alfie Marsden changed significantly after this incident in Wentshire Forest. The amateur and ill-informed psychologist inside me points to this trauma being the switch between the young, sweet Alfie described by his teachers, and the Alfie that Delyth Rice encountered. His home life was certainly also fractured. If we are to believe Sorrel, Sonia’s behaviour at home would have certainly had a huge impact on Alfie’s developing mind, making it prey to the trauma of an incident such as the one Wendy describes.

And then, there are other considerations. Should we take seriously the presence of some sort of other-worldly entities in Wentshire Forest? And if we do, was it them who lured Alfie Marsden from the car on that fateful Christmas Eve? Was Alfie drawn between the oaks and into that darkness for the second time in his short life?

There are two more perspectives on this whole story that we need to address. I need to talk to Sonia Lewis and Sorrel Marsden.

Until next time.

This is Six Stories.

This has been our fourth.