It's late, I've had a few and I can't sleep. Tomorrow's the inquest
into the death of my best mate, son, my godchild and all round
great kid. I've got to be there to give a character statement on Carl,
a friend of mine since the first day of school, and his wife,
and whether there might have been foul play involved in Noah's death, And
honestly, I don't know. I can't stop thinking about it, replaying the
story as Carl told it to me. Mostly I can't stop thinking about the
shoes. Everything I know I know second hand from Carl. So I'll tell
you what he told me, and maybe you could let me know what you
make of it, because I just don't know. Carl was a guy I'd
have trusted with my life. Last year he bought a new house with his
wife, Sue's. It was never in a million years the kind of house
i'd imagine Carl buying, an old, tumble down little thing with a thatched
roof in the assent of nowhere Devon a beautiful house, no mistaking, with
wooden beams, buckets of character, acres of garden to get lost in in
a village where everyone knows everyone nice, just not very Carl. I can
see what drew them though they needed the space. Noah was fast approaching eight
and his younger brother Archie was a five year old wrecking ball. Add a
heavily pregnant and a cat into the mix, and London just wasn't an option
anymore. I went to visit in the first week after moving. Everywhere was
still a mess of boxes, but you could see how happy they were about
the potential for the place. It wasn't without its drawbacks. The floorboards were
an even and groaned under the slightest pressure. The layout was maze like,
and sometimes it felt like there was no knowing where a corridor was leading you
before you'd somehow been turned back on yourself. The thick walls made it a
Wi Fi nightmare, and the house didn't warm evenly. In fact, some
areas with downright freezing. It was the tail end of a balmy summer and
I'd gone to get some more beers from the garage when I noticed that first
cold patch hits you in the bones. Called. I mentioned it to Carl
and he laughed, yeah, we've noticed them, never in the same place
twice. Though you can be walking the house at any time of day,
all night, and it's like you've walked into the bloody Baltic. SU's nodded
in agreement, but she didn't laugh. The weirdest one was the other night.
I was the last one up watching match of the day, hadn't shifted
from the arm chair in a few hours, and it was like the cold
spot walked into me with hindsight. I don't know if any of that is
relevant. It was just my first recollection of that house. The first really
strange thing happened about two days after that. I was helping Carl returf the
garden. All these boys raced around playing a game involved from Pirates. We've
been working for a few hours. We both noticed the kid's game had stopped
and they were both stood perfectly still, staring down at one of the flower
beds. Karl shrugged and we both went over to see what had paused their
game. What struck me first was how oddly still they had both become.
They didn't seem to notice. The first time. Carl asked whose shoes are
those? Noah stirred the trowel in his hand. The two of them had
been digging in the flower bed, and now in front of us was a
hole that was nearly three feet wide and one deep, and filled with shoes.
Karl stooped down to pick one up. This isn't yours, is it,
he asked Noah, brandishing an old black leather shoe with an enormous buckle.
Noah shook his head. Of course, it wasn't his shoe. It
was perhaps the right size for an eight year old's foot, but it was
far too old to belong to any of them. Karl lifted out another one,
shaking the earth that filled it, another shoe that belonged to a different
time. I'm no expert, but it wouldn't have surprised me to find that
either of their shoes was more than a hundred years old. Karl sent the
kids inside, and together we excavated the rest of the flower bed. We
found twenty pairs of shoes that day, all of them made for children's feet,
each a different style and shape, some pow and beaten, some expensive
and finest, and all of them for children. Carl was clearly alarmed,
and I could see his eyes start to roam around the rest of the garden,
wondering what else might be buried out there. Whatever Carl said about the
shoes. The sus was a conversation behind closed doors. That night, we
went out to the pub and spent most of the evening reading what Google had
to say about children's shoes buried in the garden. The suggestions ranged from the
sublime to the ridiculous, dodgy landfills, serial killer calling cards, play cleansing,
Victorian wards that keeps spirits away, fertility rituals. We took turns reading
them out while we drank. Had had been a good night and we'd laughed,
but maybe he should have paid more attention. After that, the shoes
were kept inside. They made a little display of them, tasseled together and
old bits of rope around the fireplace, so who was thought they were quirky?
In the months that followed, there were other strange things that Karl would
text me about. He said he'd got up around four a m. One
night kneading the toilet and smelt smoke. On the way back to the room.
He did a once over other house and had become convinced that the smell
was coming from a free standing pot plant in the kitchen. It was a
little shrub that they'd had for longer than then had noah. After a lot
of sniffing, Karl said there was no question it was coming from the plant,
and when he pulled it out of the pot, saw that the entire
root system was ablaze, like the soil was full of fluorescent worms. Neither
of them had any idea what could have happened, but were relieved they caught
it in time, given how flammable all the old timber and thatching was.
A week or so later they found the wasp nest. Sus was cleaning the
lounge trying to sponge out a mark on the wall when she heard the buzzing.
The spot she was sponging gave way completely, revealing a throbbing wasps nest.
Carl sent me a voice message, maddest thing, man, don't know
if you've ever seen a wasp nest. They're a bit like beavers apparently,
and that they'll carry back all sorts of material to make it. But the
nest was bright red and pulsing. Sue's thoughts. She found like some kind
of organs pulsating in the walls at first, and wouldn't stop screaming that the
house was alive. It's messed up all good, though. Exterminators yesterday and
they reckon they've got them all, just need to keep an eye on it.
Weird that nothing came up in the surveys about this, though, not
like the solicitors were cheap. Then the cat went missing. First day that
Noah went out to try his new school. He came home calling for George
and ran around the whole house, but the cat was nowhere to be seen.
Big fat old thing, not prone to long adventures or leaving the house
at all, really a London cat that liked its creature comforts, just gone.
They bought signs up around the village and Noah requested that there was some
kind of reward for the finder, but it stayed gone. On Halloween,
Carl and Suez took the kid's trigger try eating around the village. They were
starting to really settle into the village life and getting involved in things that they
had never done in London. They come home swag bags bulging with little chocolates
to find a cat sat on the doorstep outside their house. Not George,
Nothing like George. This cat was sleek, lithe and mean looking, as
Sue's put it. But Noah had burst into tears and immediately started hugging and
kissing New George, insisting that it had to come inside and that the cat
had chosen them. What are you going to do? I laughed down the
phone. I never had kids of my own, and with the state of
my love life, it's doubtful I ever will. Oh, damn, man,
I don't know. Obviously, that is someone's cat, isn't it.
We can't just have it. I tried to explain this to Noah, and
he said that the person can have the cat back when they come for it.
And that was a week ago. Now I'm just worried. No nor
come and we'll be stuck with this new cat, who really is a bit
of an asshole. We'd laughed, and that was the last time I heard
Karl laugh. Maybe we'll never hear Karl laugh because the next strange thing that
happened was that Noah died. Karl said that he'd been sleeping when it happened,
but Sue's woke him in a blind panic, not knowing exactly what was
wrong, but that something had happened. They went to Noah's room first and
saw that it was sound asleep in bed, and then went downstairs because they
heard a bang. The door to the garden was wide open, and the
strange black cat was prowling around near the flower beds. Carl said they never
noticed this at the time, probably not until a few days later, but
all the shoes around the fireplace were gone. All of no shoes were missing
as well. Then they heard a little giggle coming from upstairs and ran back
up to find Little Archie sat on the toilet with his trousers around his ankles.
What are you doing, arch sus had asked, apparently happy. Little
Archie pointed down the hallway behind them and said that he wanted to join the
daisy line because it looked fun. Neither Carl or Sue's understood what this meant.
All the kids were arm in arm like a daisy chain, and they
went dancing down the corridor. They went in and out of all the rooms,
and I missed it because I was in here and I was laughing,
because they went into Noah's room and out he came. He got to join
the daisy line. Didn't look like he was having fun, though. Carl
told me that this was when his heart really started to race. He said
that a call patch had settled over them over the whole corridor. Maybe it
was because the leader was so mean. He had such a mean face.
Even though the dance was fun, he made sure that all the children kept
dancing and dancing and dancing, and if they stopped, he whacked their little
toes with a sharp stick. Out of all the questions that Carl had wanted
to ask, what children, what leader? What on earth are you talking
about? All he actually said was Noah, before renting off down the corridor
back to his first child's room. Maybe we can catch up with all of
them in the garden, was the last thing Sue's remembers Archie saying from the
toilet. Carl tore into Noah's room, and the boy was still lying in
bed, just as they'd seen him the first time they checked. But this
time Carl went right to his bedside. Sure enough, Noah had no pulse,
his little chest no longer rising and falling. A cold patch had settled
into the room, and his cold little body caught death or infant death is
what people keep calling it. Noah was really too old for that, but
according to the doctors, sometimes these things happen. According to the doctors,
this can also be EXAs braided by neglect, abuse or trauma from the care
providers. So tomorrow is calls in quest to see if either him or Sue's
had a hand in this, and I don't know. They both tell anyone
who will listen these stories, these strange happenings in the house and what Archie
had said about the dancing children that night, and everyone smiles and nods at
these poor broken parents and wonders exactly what I'm feeling right now? Was there
something else going on and around this whole mess I'm trying to help organize Noah's
funeral. Sue said that if I looked up in the attic, I'd find
his little black suit that they bought him for a wedding a while back,
and a little box with some smart black shoes. I found a suit,
but the box was empty. And the most messed up thing is I think
I know exactly where those shoes are, and I can't bring myself to look