It’s all of them, the six that went to Rutmoor together in 2002. All standing together outside a tent. Everyone in the photo is smiling, and he runs his finger from left to right checking them off: Gary, James, Tom, Matt, Tim, and Mr Stevens, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

All present and accounted for.

He frowns to himself and flicks the photo with his finger, looking out at the drizzle-soaked scenery.

When he thinks about his friends – both the ones that died and the ones that are still alive, no matter how different the surviving few may look now – it’s always this photo that he sees in his mind.

All of them lined up like that, smiling in front of a row of green tents, a small campfire on the ground in front of them and some water bubbling away in a saucepan. All frozen in time.

Who was it that took the photo? He can’t remember now, and doesn’t think it matters.

The whole nightmare started with the six of them, after all; they were the ones who mattered.

He glances at the pieces of paper stuffed in his bag, then shakes his head. The nightmare didn’t start with the six of them; it would do him well to remember that. This was something that had been going on for more than half a century, probably even longer.

At the time – during that long weekend in Rutmoor in the summer of 2002 – it had seemed like it was just about the six of them, but when you’re 13 years old everything feels as though it’s just about you, doesn’t it?

Now he knows better.

He’s different from the boy smiling out of that Polaroid photo – maybe not that different physically, at least compared to the others – but he knows he’s different nonetheless. He’s a lot less tolerant, for one. A lot less forgiving, too.

If I’m going to put a stop to the whole thing once and for all, he thinks, I’ll have to be.

For a while he goes back to staring out of the window, not really thinking anything at all. Eventually the drizzle eases up.

News Cuttings (1958–1998)

From the West Devon Gazette, 23 June 1958

Man’s body found in Rutmoor National Park

Police are launching an investigation after the body of an 18-year-old man was discovered beside Collier Lake in south Rutmoor.

The body of 18-year-old Fred Phillips has been discovered on the shore of Collier Lake in Rutmoor National Park.

Phillips and his fiancée, Jude Peterson, were camping half a mile from the lake near the top of Collier Tor. Peterson woke Sunday morning to find her fiancé’s sleeping bag empty. After searching the nearby area for approximately 30 minutes, she told police she came across his body on the southern shore of the lake.

The cause of death is thought to have been drowning.