—I was a virgin when I met him. In my head, I thought the first person I ever slept with would be the person I would stay with.

He knew that. I told him.

We were fooling around. He told me to close my eyes. He told me he was going to do something and I’d like it.

It hurt. It hurt, and I cried but he kept going. He told me that I’d loved it.

I didn’t consent.

—He used to make me do things I didn’t want to. I was young. I wasn’t experienced. If I told him I didn’t like it, he would get angry. He would say everyone else liked it and there must be something wrong with me … So I did it … I let him.

—I dyed my hair. He said he loved it. His exact words were: ‘When I’m doing you from behind, I can pretend it’s someone else.’

I told him I would dye it back and he told me I wasn’t allowed to. Not until he was bored of it.

—He wanted it six times a day. Whether I wanted to or not. The rest of the time he ignored me. I would just sit there wondering what I’d done, what was wrong with me, why he didn’t want me…

—I got upset with him, I got upset with all the other women he was flirting with, all the phone numbers and photographs he would leave lying around. I cried and shouted at him. I was furious. He put his hands around my throat and squeezed until I was quiet. He did that every time I spoke up for myself. He did it so many times that I never dared to speak up again.

—We had a signal. He would put his hand on mine. On the outside it would look like he was showing … love? Affection? Those words don’t even … they sound so wrong. When he put his hand on mine like that, it meant ‘shut up’. It meant ‘stop talking or you’ll pay later’.

I only ever paid once. That was all it took.

—He held the number of people I’d slept with against me. He mentioned it at every opportunity, whenever he wanted his way. He made me feel disgusting. He made me believe I was nothing, no one. It wasn’t long before I believed it too. I was nothing and so he could do anything he liked to me.

And that’s what he did…

—He made me sleep on the floor. He said if I behaved like an animal, that I deserved to be treated like an animal.

He woke up in the middle of the night and found me there. Then he … I’m sorry … I can’t…

Welcome to Six Stories.

I’m Scott King.

The voices you have just heard have all been digitally altered to hide the identities of the speakers. All I will say about them is that they are many. And they are all talking about the same man. None of them has ever spoken out until now. And there are many more I could have included.

When Sorrel Marsden’s seven-year-old boy vanished in Wentshire Forest on Christmas Eve, 1988, it seemed that the entire world sympathised with his plight. Rightly so. The world then empathised with the agony that Sorrel and Sonia must have felt when their only child vanished and was pronounced legally deceased in 1995. It is this case that we’ve been looking at, through six different pairs of eyes.

We have now reached our final account.

I want to warn listeners that what you’ll hear in this episode may disturb and may upset you. We’re heading down a dark path. So be prepared.

The outpouring of sympathy, the fundraising, the support that came the way of Sorrel Marsden in the wake of Alfie’s disappearance was tremendous. Alfie Marsden was a household name. He was even mentioned on BBC’s Comic Relief appeal in 1989. All of it, to no avail though.

And while Sorrel has been empathised with around the world, Alfie’s mother has been condemned. Sonia Lewis has been portrayed as a cold and uncaring alcoholic. Her behaviour and lifestyle have, in fact, been the subject of significantly more scrutiny than Sorrel’s claim about what happened to his son that night.

I want to get the story from the horse’s mouth, as it were, so let’s hear Sorrel speaking to BBC Cymru Wales in 1988.

 

—It was pouring down and it was dark. I just wanted to get Alfie somewhere safe. And it was safer to get out of that house and over to my place. I just wanted him to have a proper Christmas.

He was fast asleep for most of the journey, thank God. Then, about halfway into the forest, I heard this sound coming from the engine, this rattling. It didn’t sound mechanical though. More like a tapping. It was horrible. It was almost like something alive in there that wanted to get out! I had no choice but to stop. What if something had gone wrong and we crashed? I knew that that building site was nearby, so I pulled over. I didn’t know anything about cars, engines. When I went to take a look that was when … he must have got scared and run away … I couldn’t find him … I had no torch or nothing like that. I’ll never forgive myself…

Sorrel Marsden has stuck to this story since he told it to first-responders on Christmas Eve, 1988. He’s never wavered. And there has never been any evidence to prove Sorrel had anything to do with Alfie’s disappearance.

Sorrel doesn’t often mention the strange occurrences at the Great Escapes site. However, he, like anyone who lived nearby, must have been aware of the alleged haunting of the building site, and the whole of Wentshire Forest. This is all the audio I could find where Sorrel talks about the forest. It makes me wonder if there was a part of him that was trying to portray himself as a fearless hero.

—I knew all the stories about that place, but I had no choice. What if Alfie was there? What if something had happened to him? I didn’t even think about all that nonsense; all I wanted was to get help, to find my boy.

 

Thus Sorrel Marsden cemented himself early in the world’s psyche as a poster boy for the hardworking, grieving father. He attended every press conference and spearheaded every search, while Sonia was marginalised, driven away and then eventually forgotten. Even to this day, Sorrel’s annual pilgrimages to the site help maintain his carefully constructed character. Sorrel’s last television interview about what happened was for a rather tawdry documentary series in 2013 called Missing: UK.

Extract from Missing: UK – series 1, episode 1, 2013 (Down There Productions)

—Sonia moved on quickly after Alfie disappeared. She found it easier than me to forget about him. Without guidance, without help, she was vulnerable to, let’s say ‘outside influences’. Other men. There was a steady stream of them the minute I left, apparently. It showed how much she cared for Alfie and me, didn’t it? But people like Sonia can’t change. No matter how much we want them to.

It’s taken an inordinate amount of time to get Sorrel Marsden to agree to an interview. It was only when I told him I’d talked to Sonia that he said yes. I just want to point out that we only have Sorrel’s word about who Sonia saw after the two of them broke up. And if she did, I don’t see what bearing it has on, well, anything.

The interview took place on Sorrel’s terms. There would be no face-to-face. No Skype. I was to call him on a phone number that would be emailed to me. It was rather cloak-and-dagger and, I felt, unnecessary. However, he clearly wanted control over the situation, so we went ahead.

I’ll be honest, speaking to Sorrel conjured some strange emotions in me. I managed to hold myself together as we spoke, but it was difficult.

Sorrel Marsden exudes an energy and charm that I’ve never before felt about another human. Despite our interview being over the phone I feel myself drawn to him when he speaks. I hang on his every word. Despite everything. But I know that this is a skill he has spent years perfecting. I wonder whether it’s conscious, what he’s doing. Is he aware of his inflection, his power? Or is it instinctive, like a snake waiting to pounce? Unfortunately for Sorrel, he’s not the only one who has hidden venom.

—Do you know how many times Sonia came to look for Alfie? Less than the number of men who came to her door in the weeks after he disappeared. That tells you all you need to know about her, doesn’t it? I knew that’s what she’d be doing as soon as I left. Sorry to be so blunt, but it hurt to see how little she cared for me and for Alfie.

Sonia’s alleged promiscuity is something Sorrel never fails to mention when discussing Alfie’s mother. I wonder what it has to do with him, but I stay quiet.

—It was the same when he was first born and I was working all the hours God sends to earn enough money to provide for them; to keep him in nappies and her in booze. Sonia wanted to take the easy way out. But parenting isn’t easy. It’s a full-time job. All she could do, though, was laze around the house, drinking. She used to be so lovely, so beautiful, such a good person. It was a tragedy what Sonia became. I did everything I could, but ultimately it was her who was supposed to be looking after our child and our home.

And when Alfie went missing, I was out with every search party, and when they had stopped, I kept going. But did Sonia ever come to one? We both know the answer.

Sorrel’s right. Sonia was not present at the searches for Alfie. It was something I did discuss with her. In fact there is quite a lot I discussed with Sonia that did not make the cut of episode five. This was intentional, as I want to put some of Sonia’s claims to Sorrel. Not right now though. They can wait. There will be a time when I know I can spring not just Sonia’s words on Sorrel but the words of others. I need to choose my time carefully, though. I need to wait until he is in a corner, a place where he cannot back out. There is always the possibility that Sorrel will hang up. And I am more or less sure he is using a burner phone to speak to me. If he does hang up and slips away, I suppose that will say more about what’s being levelled against him. Let’s see.

Wentshire Forest was eventually bought by the Ministry of Defence in 1996, a little over a year after Alfie was declared officially deceased. The forest became inaccessible to the public, and it was clear that Alfie Marsden, nor his remains, were ever going to be recovered. Sorrel has the utmost respect for the military and does not resent the MoD for buying the forest.

I talk Sorrel along his well-trodden paths. We discuss his visits to the area, the shrine along the Forest Pass dedicated to his boy. I’ve been to visit it – an old bus-shelter, lovingly converted for free by a local craftsman. Inside it’s rather cosy, the walls lined with bunches of wilted flowers and soggy cuddly toys – donations from well-wishers. There are handwritten cards with religious sentiments and two battery-operated candles flicker atop a makeshift altar. In pride of place stands a framed school photograph of Alfie himself. It’s the one that everyone knows. The bus stop is technically on MoD land, but they turn a blind eye to its existence. A well-maintained barbed-wire fence looms ominously between the trees just behind it. When he comes for his annual pilgrimage here, Sorrel walks the length of the pass every day. Rain or shine. In the corner of the shed is a bucket containing umbrellas and a waxy, fleece-lined rain jacket hangs from a hook on the far wall.

—You’ve probably spent more time in Wentshire Forest than most people, Sorrel. I’ve often wondered if you’ve ever experienced anything strange here.

—There’s a lot that’s strange about the forest. People say there are things there, things that no one can explain. I remember all that was going on at the time. The builders couldn’t get anything done.

Yes, strange things happen in Wentshire Forest. Even now.

—What sort of things?

—Lights, sounds. This is MoD land, though, so it could be anything – they could be testing some sort of experimental weapons, couldn’t they?

—What have you seen, just out of interest? While you’ve been walking here?

—I’ve seen things that you’d tell me I was lying about. White lights going in and out of the trees. Odd noises I couldn’t explain. It’s why the MoD keep people out.

—What do you think the MoD are actually testing?

—Sonic weapons and stuff, I imagine. And I reckon they were conducting all sorts of tests in the forest long before they set up the base. That would explain all the nonsense people say – about the witch, the fairies, ghosts and all that rubbish.

—Do you think your story has anything to do with the MoD? The tapping in the engine?

—I don’t know. I could never explain that. We were driving along the pass. Yes, I might have been going quickly, but not too quick. I had my boy in the back, after all. Then there’s this noise … this tapping sound coming from the engine. I’ll admit, I was scared.

—Alfie didn’t wake up, though…

—No. He was tired. And they sleep through anything, don’t they? Anyway, I had to stop. And that’s when … Oh God, it never gets any easier telling this story. I was looking at the engine for all of five minutes and … and when I looked back, he was gone.

Maybe he ran off, he was a strong-minded kid. A handful. No wonder, with Sonia the way she was, and me working all hours. All he needed was a bit of consistency, some decent parenting.

—Is that what you think you could have given Alfie if he’d been with you and not Sonia? Decent parenting.

—Yes. Of course. We all know what Sonia was like.

There is a degree of prickliness about Sorrel as he tells his story. I wonder if he repeats the same account all these years later through stubborn resolve or because he actually believes it.

—I’ve told the story a great number of times. I can tell it without thinking. I’ve never changed it. There’s been no need.

—The thing is, Sorrel, I don’t really want to talk about Alfie. Not just yet.

—So what is it you think you want to discuss? Sonia? Whatever she’s said, you need to know how much someone like that lies. You need to have a think about what she wants out of all this.

—What do you think she wants?

—Oh, I don’t know. Exposure on your podcast thing? Sonia will say anything to anyone. She was probably just glad someone could be bothered to listen to her. She’s had people whispering in her ear about me from day one. Such an impressionable woman.

—I’ve not implied that Sonia’s said anything bad about you.

—It’s the principle of the thing. Sonia is Alfie’s mother, but she’s never given a stuff about him. About me. She likes to pretend that I’m the bad guy in all this. But I had to work to keep a roof over our heads while Sonia spent all Alfie’s food and nappy money on drink. That’s the facts.

—Did you ever think about getting help for her? You knew she was struggling with her drinking, right? Her mental health.

—I tried alright. But there wasn’t that much out there in those days.

—Sonia was taking medication, wasn’t she?

—Yes.

There’s a tense silence. I am seized by an impulse to blurt something out. Sorrel, though, is being careful, never saying too much. He’s good at manipulating silence. I am too.

—I searched for my son in that forest, all the way to the building site. In the rain, in the dark. I was screaming his name. It was pitch-black in there. I was soaked to the skin. And I couldn’t find him…

Sorrel’s sincerity is infectious, I want to draw these questions in another direction, away from that night. Sorrel, however, has conjured up his grief, his story.

—Did anyone know about Sonia’s problems? Her family? Her friends?

—They were against me from the start. They filled Sonia’s head with lies, with rubbish about me, trying to turn her against me. She refused to stand up to them; left it to me.

—How does it feel, thirty years on from that night? I can’t imagine it gets easier.

—I still find it hard. They say time is a healer, but not for me, it isn’t.

—And do you still have hope? That Alfie might just one day walk out of the forest and into your arms?

—Yes. I dream of that day.

Another powerful silence, and the rage that is simmering deep in my belly is beginning to bubble over. I think of Sonia, who has given everything she had to Sorrel. I think of her sacrifice. There’s something in Sorrel’s voice that dares me to disbelieve him, dares me to challenge him. And it’s hard not to let this mask of faux-objectivity slip. I find myself choked with emotion, a lump forming in my throat. I try to laugh and it comes out as a sob. Because the thing is, I believe him. I believe that he believes what he’s telling me.

I tell Sorrel I’ve spoken to Wendy Morris, too. That’s something he wasn’t expecting. I hear a sound on the end of the line; a sniff, a snort; almost a hiss.

—Let me tell you something about Alfie. I’ve never told anyone this story. You can have it for free. It’s a world exclusive, or whatever you want to call it…

—Go on…

—That Wendy Morris, I thought we were friends. It just goes to show how people change, how false people are. You think you know someone and a few years go by and poof, suddenly they’re someone else. No one has any real integrity anymore. You just can’t trust other people. But that’s always been my problem. I attracted those sorts of women – needy and with problems. I don’t know why. Yes, she came to help us out on a holiday that didn’t go quite to plan. But it was thanks to Sonia! Sonia was the one who begged and begged me to ask someone to come and help her with Alfie. She wanted a babysitter so she could drink and not have to look after our son. I’m sure that’s not how she told that story though, is it? I bet she said Wendy being there was all down to me. Sonia’s always been an amazing storyteller. I can see she got through to you…

I want to admit something. At this point in the interview, just for a moment, I doubt everything I’ve heard about Sorrel Marsden. I wonder if he is actually not in the wrong. I can feel myself wanting to excuse him, to protect him.

I steady myself. Tell myself to think logically, remember who is the trapper here, who is the prey. I have to remind myself what I know, what I’m carrying with me. I have to feel the weight of it before I can carry on. Like a loaded gun, a sheathed sword.

—Sonia was the one who was drunk. Sonia let Alfie wander off into the forest in the middle of the night. Wendy and Sonia. They were as thick as thieves. Wendy practically throwing herself at me every time Sonia’s back was turned. But it was me was who found Alfie. Right?

—That’s what I’ve heard.

—Exactly. Me. Not Wendy, not Sonia. Alfie was running away into that forest in the middle of the night. He was running away from a mother who didn’t care enough about him. I swear to you.

—Yes, I made up a stupid story about wood … things. I was trying to keep him from running off. I had to be a parent to all three of them that weekend. But when Alfie came back out of that wood … he was different. Something had changed in him. It was like he’d been replaced. By another child. I couldn’t get close to him after that. No one could. I think the whole experience damaged him. Mentally. It was like he was no longer my son.

—And why do you think Alfie changed?

—I lived with my grandmother for most of my childhood. She always told me that I was bad, that I was different to my brothers and sisters. I didn’t look like any of them. It was genetics; I know that now. My grandmother, though, she told me that I’d been ‘switched’ in the night, when I was a baby. The fairies had the real Sorrel and that’s why I was so bad.

During that holiday to Wentshire Forest I realised that Alfie had maybe hit some kind of point in his life – that he’d changed somehow, and not for the better. I thought that, because I couldn’t be there to help him, he’d changed.

Alfie spent his days with an alcoholic with mental problems. And that’s what changed him! No nonsense about fairies!

After that holiday, his behaviour in school was appalling. I tried everything I could to get him right, but I was too late. There was only one way to get him back to the boy he could have been. I had to take him away from Sonia.

Sorrel is brimming with emotion, his voice hoarse. This is my moment, I have seen a flash of weakness and I strike. Hard and fast.

—Sorrel, I don’t believe any of that. I think you’re lying.

—What? How dare you. What do you want with me?

—I just want to talk.

—Well, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you. I don’t want to do this anymore.

—That’s an interesting choice of words.

—What on earth could you mean by that?

—‘I don’t want to do this’. Do those words sound familiar to you?

—What the hell are you talking about?

As an answer to Sorrel’s outrage, I play one of the recordings you heard at the start of the episode. I play it with the voice clean. Then I play another one, and another. I say each person’s name afterwards.

Sorrel does not react.

Eventually, after a horrible silence, he speaks.

—Prove it.

—What?

—Prove any of it. It’s amazing what people will do to get their name known – for a little bit of fame or money. How much did you pay these women to say those lies about me?

—Nothing. No one was paid.

—Well then, what was the point? What is your point? I thought you were here to help me look for my son, not play me lies.

—I’m here to talk.

—Well, I don’t have to talk to you. You’re here on some character assassination mission.

—You don’t have a choice. Just like those women didn’t have a choice, Sorrel.

—I do and so did they! I never harmed one hair on any of those women’s heads. Slags, the lot of them; whores and slags. All they did was lie and cheat and sleep around. Now they want to tell lies about a father who’s lost his son. Disgraceful. You’re disgraceful.

—Coercive behaviour is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation, or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

—What are you talking about?

—Controlling behaviour is a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape, and regulating their everyday behaviour.

—What are you talking about?

—I’m talking about the law, Mr Marsden. This is how the 2015 offence of coercive or controlling behaviour is described. And I’m talking about Maryanne Manon. I’m talking about Sonia Lewis. You can say what you like, Sorrel, but it’s their words against yours.

—Liars. Both of them!

—Their words and many others. Their words that they kept quiet out of respect, not for you, but for Alfie.

—What?

—You acted quickly. You showed your face on the television, you were at the forefront of every search.

—Of course I was. I’m his father, for fuck’s sake!

—But you didn’t do it for Alfie, did you? You made yourself a hero because that was your way of being able to remain in control. You knew none of these women, especially Sonia, would say a word about who you really are.

—They could have. Of course they could. But they didn’t! Ask yourself why that is. It’s because they’re liars.

—It’s because you chose women like Sonia, like Maryanne – vulnerable women with problems. Who would believe a drug-addict and an alcoholic? Who would believe Sonia after you ‘rescued’ Alfie from her care? After you wrenched from her the only thing she had. You took everything from her because you could.

—Sonia and I … we were special…

—You told her that. And I don’t doubt you told yourself that, too. The thing is, it was only special because it went your way. You had her exactly where you wanted her. You found a young, naïve girl, and you broke her and built her back up until she was fully under your control.

—That’s not true. I never laid one hand on Sonia.

—That now carries a five-year prison sentence, Sorrel. You don’t have to have touched her. And you didn’t need to. You broke her from the inside out. Drip, drip, drip. Like water torture.

It was her love for Alfie that saved her. Ironic, really, seeing as you got her pregnant as just another way to isolate and control her.

—I loved—

—Sorrel, this isn’t about you anymore. This is about Alfie.

 

There is a sharp intake of breath and the line at Sorrel’s end goes dead. I spend a few moments trying to call back but it doesn’t even ring.

It’s telling that at the mention of Alfie, Sorrel decides he’s had enough.

An admission of guilt, perhaps? That’s not for me to say. What I am able to reveal, however, is the case I have against Sorrel Marsden; the case I would have put to him to answer.

Perhaps we’d better start at the beginning – with the most important person in this story: Alfie himself.

I believe Alfie Marsden was born not as a result of some paternal instinct on the part of Sorrel, but simply as a device, as a cog in a mechanism of coercion and control against Sonia Lewis. Alfie’s life was disposable.

What has brought me to this terrible conclusion? All we have heard. I believe that Sorrel Marsden gaslighted Sonia and encouraged Alfie to do the same. He utilised his son as a weapon against Sonia’s sanity. The strange phenomena that were being reported in Wentshire Forest, at the Great Escapes site, were prominent in the press at the time. The tapping, the suggestion of some sort of hidden folk and of strange, hybrid animals – Sorrel used these to make Sonia’s life a misery, making her believe she was losing her mind. Looking back at Wendy and Delyth’s stories – and even Maryanne’s – we know they all experienced tapping noises and unexplained occurrences when either Sorrel or Alfie were somewhere in the vicinity. And the same is true of Sonia.

We know, too, that Sorrel encouraged Alfie to play the ‘bad mouse’ game on his mother. We also have in Wendy a witness to Sorrel tapping on wood to scare Sonia in Alfie’s presence. All of this would have seemed like fun to the boy, and perhaps it was the only positive attention he had from his father.

Little boys worship their fathers, however awful those fathers are. Alfie was on his way to becoming a mini Sorrel: aping his behaviour, mimicking his sustained assault against Sonia. And sadly, this was Alfie’s only real use his father had for him. Once Sorrel had utterly conquered Sonia, Alfie had served his purpose. How can I be sure? Let’s look at the facts. Sorrel made no effort to be with his son, save for the occasional visit. The family he neglected were simply an irritant.

My belief, based on the evidence I have gathered, is that Sorrel Marsden meant to get rid of his son in Wentshire Forest on Christmas Eve, 1988. He had used the seven years of his son’s life to build a story around himself and Sonia – she the bad mother, the alcoholic; himself as the grieving hero. And it worked.

We don’t know how Sorrel became this way, other than a small hint at the upbringing he endured from his grandmother. We can, however, speculate on how he perfected his technique. The ability to manipulate like this takes work. A monster has to practice becoming a monster. And practice gave Sorrel Marsden the ability to identify victims early; he learned that those with low self-esteem, were the easiest to control. He therefore learned how to spot a victim. He preyed on those he thought he could break – using them to hone his craft. We’ve heard from his victims, the people who have been brave enough to speak out about what he did.

But let’s look now at Wendy Morris. She seemed like the perfect candidate, yet Sorrel seemed to hold back when they first met. A part of me wonders if she was the only friend he’s ever had? Perhaps. But Sorrel had another use for Wendy. He brought her to Wentshire Forest as an alibi, as someone who would vouch for him. After all, he knew her intimately; he knew how he could bend her to his will. People like Sorrel do not see love, companionship, friendship, only opportunities to get what they want.

And what about Maryanne Manon? By the time he encountered her, he was almost fully-fledged, nearly a complete monster. Yet Sorrel underestimated Maryanne.

That was his mistake. And I think he knew it. When she followed him from Shrewsbury to Prestatyn, I think that was the moment he realised. So he destroyed her reputation, he told stories and people believed him. Maryanne became ‘Mad Mary’.

Sorrel then found Sonia. Young, naïve, vulnerable, she was the perfect victim. Sorrel got her pregnant before Maryanne could warn her or expose what he was.

Now let’s fast forward to Christmas Eve, 1988, Sorrel Marsden decided he was done with Sonia and Alfie for good. Alfie would disappear; Sorrel would be the figure of sympathy and Sonia would be buried by her reputation. Unlike Maryanne, she would never come after him.

I wish Sorrel was here to answer all this. I wish there was some pushback to this story I’ve put together. But he’s not, so all I can do is present what I see in front of me: that Sorrel Marsden did not care, he did not love, and he thought only about himself. That was the difference between him and Sonia.

Sonia Lewis gave up everything she had; first for Sorrel then for Alfie. She believed that if Sorrel got his way, he would have had full custody. She never imagined Sorrel would go as far as getting rid of their son. So she gave him up so he wouldn’t be raised by someone like Sorrel. So that he wouldn’t grow up with a sly and controlling demon as a role model. Sonia could see Alfie was already on his way to becoming like his father – tapping and manipulating. And his behaviour at school indicated that he was becoming seriously unstable.

From Sorrel’s perspective though, Alfie was just a hindrance. So he doped up his son on Sonia’s medication, put him in the back seat of his car and drove in the middle of the night to Wentshire Forest, where he intended to dispose of the child.

If Sorrel was still here, I would put it all to him directly. I would ask him what he was doing in the forest when he got out of the car and left his son sleeping. He says he was looking at the engine, but Maryanne didn’t see him there. I wonder if we’ll ever know where he went, and what he did during those few minutes.

If Sorrel was still on the end of the phone I would then put it to him that he hampered the search for Alfie. It was him who drove the truck from the Great Escapes site. It was him who tampered with the lights on the building site, not the fairies in the wood.

I would also put it to him that he then employed all of his storytelling and manipulation skills. He knew the press would eat up the story of a missing child and his desperate father, so he gave them everything they wanted. To what end, though? Maybe he couldn’t help himself. Maybe all he ever wanted was to be seen, to be important.

If Sorrel was still on the other end of the line, I would tell him this: More than anything, Sorrel, I feel sorry for you. Whatever made you this way, I’m sorry it happened. And if I could offer you any advice, it would be to seek some help. Find out about yourself. Begin the journey through the forest to face your own monsters.

I could sit here and reflect and speculate. But I won’t. Instead I feel that it’s time to do something I’ve been waiting to do ever since I last saw Maryanne. I reach into my bag and pull out a letter. Looping, spidery handwriting on the front.

‘The End’ it reads.

I sit there and I read.

This series has been unlike my others. I have dropped all the episodes at once. All of them in one fell swoop – before I vanish. Again.

They took me a long time to edit. It’s because I want this series to sound perfect.

There is plenty more I could have said to Sorrel Marsden. It was like any conversation when emotions get heated. No one is as articulate as they could be. There’s always something we wish we could have said.

But I’m sure of one thing: Sorrel genuinely has no knowledge of what happened to his son in 1988.

But I do. Now.

And I wonder if I should have told Sorrel. I wonder if he deserved to know.

Because there is another story I could have told him. A story I’ve discovered since he left. Since I read a letter. A letter from a friend.

It’s a story about a traumatised seven-year-old boy who apparently went ‘missing’ in a forest. Whose father gave up on him.

Should I have told Sorrel about the people who didn’t give up? The people who made sure the boy found a new family – people who would love him, despite what he’d been through. A family who would nurture, who would patiently coax that little boy out of his own darkness and give him the life he would never have had. Should I have told Sorrel that, despite all their efforts, that darkness would always be with that boy, and the man he would become, buried somewhere inside, waiting for him to turn and face it … to walk back in among the trees?

I wonder if Sorrel Marsden would even have cared.

As for stories. Maybe it’s that one that has been our sixth?

And it’s me that has been Scott King.

This episode is dedicated to the King family, who took on a broken boy and made him whole.

And this episode is our last. For now at least.