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1:18

BBC Sounds. Music, radio,

1:20

podcasts. If

1:24

this is your first time listening to the show, I

1:26

strongly recommend you go back and start from the beginning. The

1:29

story being told here has been building from

1:31

the case of Charles Dexter Ward through The

1:33

Whisper in Darkness and into The Shadow

1:35

of Rainsmith. I pretty

1:37

much figured the story was over. But I

1:39

was wrong. If you haven't

1:41

listened before now, what's happening here

1:44

may not make very much sense. Even

1:46

if you do know it so far, it's, well,

1:50

still here? OK, then. And

1:53

before we start,

1:53

I'm not Matthew Haywood. Matt

1:56

had a gift for putting all this stuff together in a coherent

1:59

and accessible way.

1:59

I'm finding out that

2:02

I don't have that gift, so please bear

2:04

with me and I hope this doesn't get too confusing.

2:07

Let's start at the beginning. Hi,

2:13

I'm afraid Red Hook Stories is not currently operating.

2:16

This machine is checked every now and again, so if you want to

2:18

leave a message, someone might get back to you at some point.

2:21

Kennedy Fisher, my

2:23

name is Marcus Byron. Would you pick up the

2:25

phone, please? This is January 2023.

2:29

By this point, Matthew Heywood had been missing

2:31

for a little over two years, and I

2:33

had exhausted every possible lead looking

2:35

for him. I was still dropping into

2:38

the studio once a week to check the mail and

2:40

pick up whatever voicemails might be there. But

2:43

there was no real hope of ever finding Matt, and

2:45

I was slowly starting to accept that I had to move on

2:47

with my life. Look, I know you're

2:49

there. I'm in the cafe across the road.

2:52

I just watched you walk into the building so

2:54

I know you couldn't hear me. Your name was given

2:56

to me by Parker. Would you please pick

2:58

up? Where's Parker?

3:06

We have an answering machine. No, it's 2023.

3:09

This is the cafe Matt and I used to come to to talk

3:11

about the progress of our stories. I

3:13

hadn't said foot in there for two years. I

3:16

found Marcus Byron sitting at a table in the corner,

3:18

facing the door. He was

3:21

in his forties, with messy hair and

3:23

wearing a rumpled suit that looked like he'd slept in it. Where's

3:26

Parker? She's not around. But

3:28

you're from the department? Kind of. Can

3:30

I see some ID? No. You know we don't carry any.

3:33

Okay, look, whatever this is... Parker

3:35

said I should bring this to you. A kid

3:37

called Theo Martin, 19 years old, supposedly

3:40

killed himself a couple of weeks ago. Does this

3:42

have something to do with Matthew Heywood? Is

3:44

that a condition of your interest? It is? I don't

3:47

know. And I'm sorry. I

3:50

can't help you. Tell Parker to do our own digging. She

3:52

said you'd be like this. She said you should call

3:54

Ellen a peck. I'm not gonna do

3:56

that. Ask her about Rob Carrick and Blake.

3:59

Ask her about... I'll

4:03

be here when you come back.

4:06

Robert Harrison Blake, seriously, do you

4:09

have a thing for mad lonely old men? I didn't go

4:11

right off and call Eleanor. I

4:13

was actually determined not to.

4:15

But the involvement of Parker, however removed,

4:18

ate away at me over the course of a couple of days, and

4:21

I finally caved. Who is he? He was.

4:23

He's dead. Do

4:24

you remember the big storm back in 1987? He

4:27

was two years old. Well, that was a big

4:29

storm. Blake died in it, or he was found dead. After

4:31

it. I suppose so. Sounds

4:34

like supposedly he's doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Well,

4:36

he might have died a fright. From the storm? He

4:38

was a man, Kennedy, not a spaniel. So why does

4:40

this Byron guy want me to ask you about Robert Blake's notebook?

4:43

The notebook. Well, Blake was a journalist. Quite

4:45

a good one, I think. And then he went off the

4:47

rails. And by off the rails we mean... He heard

4:49

of the Starry Wisdom cult.

4:50

Oh. This is where this goes, Kennedy.

4:52

This is where it always goes.

4:54

Okay, tell me. The Church of Starry

4:56

Wisdom was a thing in the 1930s, kind of the

4:58

mystical side of the British fascism movement.

5:01

Oh, good. Robert Blake was convinced they hadn't

5:03

died out with the Second World War. He thought they'd gone

5:05

underground,

5:06

infiltrated the establishment, and... And

5:09

he detailed all of this in a notebook. He made a record

5:11

of his investigation, yes. Every

5:13

now and then, mention of the notebook surfaces online

5:16

because people suppose it might hold some juicy

5:18

names of secret fascists. But the notebook

5:20

itself went missing. It wasn't in Blake's

5:22

effects when he died, and it's been missing for decades.

5:25

Although, to be fair, that's mostly

5:28

because no one outside of the bedroom conspiracy theorists

5:30

has ever shown the slightest interest in

5:32

finding it. We don't like to acknowledge

5:34

our pot hole for fascism in this country, so

5:37

there are a lot of scabs we simply avoid

5:39

picking up. So what would be the Department of

5:41

Works' interest? I'm not sure. As far as I

5:43

know, Blake never brought into the mystical side

5:45

of things. He

5:46

was into rooting out fascists, and

5:48

if that necessitated digging into their wacky

5:50

belief systems, then he was up for that. I

5:53

don't think he ever subscribed to any of it. I

5:55

think it got too much for him, brought him to the stage

5:57

where he was seeing conspiracy everywhere he looked.

6:00

But

6:01

he wasn't the guy dancing naked in the woods trying to

6:03

commune with fairies. So his notebook isn't

6:05

some mystical tract. I shouldn't think so.

6:08

No. You'd have to ask Parker or this

6:10

Byron guy why they're so interested in it.

6:13

The next morning I went across the street to the cafe.

6:16

It had been three days since I last saw Byron. But

6:18

there he was. In the same seat, same

6:21

table, wearing the same rumpled suit.

6:22

He took your time. Why

6:26

is the Department of Works interested in Robert Blake's notebook?

6:29

There is no Department of Works. It

6:31

got shut down. When? The

6:33

year or so after your shill and again's in pleasant green.

6:36

For a long time there was a balancer, some one side,

6:38

them on the other. And by them we mean? Elements

6:41

within the establishment. The ones who crave power

6:43

and don't much care how they come by. There's always

6:45

meant to be checks and balances. The scales

6:48

tipped. Well they described

6:50

it as budget cuts. And this is why Parker... Everyone

6:53

scattered to the four winds. Those who

6:55

made the most trouble like Parker, like John Silencer

6:57

lying very low indeed right now. So

6:59

how does Blake's notebook fix this? It doesn't.

7:03

The Department's gone. Maybe

7:05

one day it will come back but in the meantime, those

7:08

who worked for it have a duty to continue that

7:10

work. Within whatever framework

7:12

we can cobble together. If we don't,

7:14

the other side wins and that's not good for anyone.

7:17

Okay, so what do you need the notebook for? Don't

7:19

know until we see it. All we know is that they

7:21

have started looking for it and that search started

7:23

with Theo Martin. The kid who died. Does

7:25

name Philip Gibson mean anything to you?

7:28

Should it? Probably best it doesn't for

7:30

the moment. It's a rabbit hole you don't need

7:32

to go down yet. It seems likely

7:34

that he was the last person who had possession

7:36

of Robert Blake's notebook. Gibson died probably

7:38

in 2010. Probably in 2010 or

7:41

probably died?

7:44

Probably both. His

7:46

daughter was Theo's mother. There's a

7:48

chance she took possession of the notebook

7:50

when Gibson passed away and that when she in turn

7:52

died of Covid in 2020, the book

7:54

passed to a kid. Is that a lucky family?

7:57

You don't know the half of it. Family tree looks like

7:59

a

7:59

like a maniac went nuts with a crayon. Anyway,

8:03

Philip has Robert Blake's notebook. That

8:05

notebook is handed down to Samantha and then

8:08

to young Theo. Who killed himself. That's

8:10

the official version, but no, we know things. He

8:12

was killed by whoever was looking for the notebook. That's

8:15

a reasonable guess. And did they find it? Let's

8:18

hope not.

8:20

I'm standing outside a row of small terraced

8:23

houses on the border of Tufnell Park in Kentish Town.

8:26

I'm guessing when these were built, they would have been fairly

8:29

standard middle class homes. But

8:31

now they all have multiple doorbells suggesting

8:33

that everyone has been converted into flats. Milk

8:37

and sugar? Laura Gibson is in her late 20s. She

8:40

is the surviving

8:41

child of Philip Gibson from his second marriage.

8:43

That makes her Theo Martin's aunt, his mom's

8:45

half sister. When Theo's mom, Samantha,

8:47

died of COVID, Theo came to live here. Just

8:50

black, please. It's a cramped one bedroom flat.

8:53

The living room, where we're sitting now, still

8:55

shows signs of Theo's occupancy. He

8:58

slept on the sofa, and there are history books

9:00

piled up next to it.

9:02

His duvet is still rolled up at one end. He

9:04

was a good kid.

9:06

It doesn't make any sense. As Laura

9:08

tells it, Theo was a quiet boy,

9:10

studious and hardworking. It was

9:12

a difficult life for him. His

9:15

dad died when

9:16

he was little. Wasn't much of a loss,

9:18

to be honest. He was a nasty bastard. But

9:21

then he's gone, Dad. My dad vanished

9:24

off the face of the earth when Theo was just

9:26

six, seven. And

9:29

he'd been close.

9:30

And my dad thought the world of him. Daniel

9:33

Martin, Theo's dad, died of an overdose

9:35

in 2006, when Theo was two.

9:38

Samantha, Theo's mom, was left

9:40

alone to raise the boy. She had

9:42

health problems and struggled financially. There'd

9:45

been money

9:46

way back. My great-grandfather

9:48

was a big deal, apparently, in the 20s and 30s.

9:51

I never knew him.

9:53

But then his son apparently pissed all the money away.

9:56

By the time my dad was born, there was nothing left. It's

10:00

a constant battle just to put

10:02

food on the table, you know?

10:05

But Theo showed promise. I don't

10:08

know where he got it from, but

10:11

he just inhaled books. He

10:13

had all this energy. His

10:16

mum died while he was

10:17

in his first year of A-levels, and

10:19

even then he managed to keep it together.

10:22

You've never seen exam results like those.

10:25

On the morning of January 3, 2023, Theo

10:29

Martin left Laura's flat to go for a run. This

10:32

was part of his daily routine. Laura

10:34

saw him before he went, and she said he seemed fine.

10:38

In the previous October, Theo had started doing

10:40

medieval history at the University of East Anglia. Financially,

10:43

it was hard, but Theo was loving

10:45

it. That morning, Laura

10:48

and Theo had talked about when he was going to return

10:50

and what preparations needed to be made. Theo

10:53

seemed bright, Laura says. He

10:55

was looking

10:56

forward to going back to Norwich.

10:58

But he never returned from his run. A few

11:01

hours later, the police knocked on the door

11:03

and told Laura that her nephew's body had been found

11:06

on the railway tracks beneath a bridge in Camden. There

11:09

was no note, and there were no witnesses, but

11:12

the coroner ruled the death of suicide.

11:14

He seemed fine.

11:16

People say that though, don't they?

11:19

I don't know what to think.

11:22

Someone did this? Why?

11:26

What did he ever do? There

11:28

are photographs of Laura on the mantelpiece in

11:30

this room. Despite her difficult

11:32

circumstances and the losses she's suffered in the

11:34

past, she sports a really bright

11:36

smile in all the pictures.

11:39

Someone has taken that smile away from her.

11:42

Someone who probably never even knew she existed.

11:44

Did you ask about the notebook? She didn't know anything about it.

11:48

Did you search the place? Did I toss the tiny

11:50

apartment of the grieving auntie? That was the point

11:52

of the exercise. It's not there, Byron, and Laura

11:54

knows nothing about it. Hardly any of Theo's

11:56

stuff is in that apartment. Of course, no, because

11:58

it's in Norwich. Someone

12:01

beat you to that punch, I'm afraid.

12:04

I show Byron the printout of the local news

12:06

story

12:06

I found online.

12:08

Two days after Theo Martin died, someone

12:10

broke into the fight he was sharing near the University

12:12

of East Anglia in Norwich. Shit.

12:16

I don't think they found the notebook. Why

12:18

not? Because

12:20

I don't think Theo Martin ever had it. I'm

12:25

in Byron's car and we're heading out to the Thames

12:27

Estuary, to the village of Canud in Essex. This

12:31

was the birthplace of Philip Gibson and, according

12:33

to Laura Gibson, her father had a unit in a storage

12:35

facility out here. The

12:37

space was

12:38

rented in Laura's mother's maiden name, Davis,

12:40

so we're hoping that whoever is searching for the blank

12:42

notebook hasn't thought to look here yet.

12:44

What? No,

12:47

nothing. Parker warned me about

12:49

a constant narration. I thought she was kidding.

12:52

If the name Canud in is ringing any bells

12:54

with you, then it's probably because this was

12:56

the birthplace of George Pickingill, the

12:59

man who, at the turn of the 20th century,

13:01

was supposedly one of the vessels for Ipquia.

13:05

The history of witchcraft and witch trials in this

13:07

area is long and unpleasant. I'd

13:09

been around here a while back, investigating

13:12

something called the Salt Marsh Incident. It's

13:14

not a place I was ever hoping to visit again.

13:17

The storage facility is a few miles outside Canud

13:19

in itself.

13:21

This area of Essex is more or less completely

13:23

flat. The sky really

13:25

dominates. And

13:27

it's quiet. It

13:30

feels empty. The

13:33

facility doesn't look to have been purpose built. If

13:35

I had to guess, I'd say this was some kind of industrial

13:38

building from the early 20th

13:39

century. It's military. The

13:43

World War II RAF Canud was a chain on radar base. The

13:46

early warning system for when German planes

13:48

came across the water.

13:50

It's all gone now, but this was probably a part of the

13:52

facility. You've been to Orford

13:54

Nest. Where I met Parker. Strange

13:59

things. happened around these places.

14:03

Okay, babe, I'm talking.

14:09

He doesn't feel like anyone's around. Hold

14:11

up a sec. Too

14:17

quiet. There are no birds.

14:21

I would say you should wait in the car. Yeah,

14:24

that's not gonna happen.

14:27

I don't suppose you have some kind of skeleton key

14:29

or... Skeleton key?

14:36

The interior of the building is dark. There

14:38

is no one around. What? Quiet,

14:41

don't. I thought your box

14:43

was a voiceover.

14:46

The interior of the building was dark. There

14:48

was no one around, and no signs of life.

14:53

We stepped into a dark corridor that ran off to the left and right, lined

14:56

on both sides with locked storage spaces. More

14:59

corridors ran off this main one, so that

15:01

the inside of the facility was laid out like a grid.

15:02

What number are we looking for? What?

15:08

You fall apart. In the Eugene 23

15:11

is the number representing entropy and destruction. You

15:15

believe that? The reality

15:16

doesn't care what I believe.

15:18

Number 23 had an up-and-over door,

15:21

like a garage, fixed with a heavy-duty

15:23

padlock that looked like it had been there

15:24

for some time. This

15:27

lock's gonna take a couple minutes.

15:31

Are these markings on the door? Are

15:33

those anachaeans? A magical

15:35

wall chair. You don't

15:38

remember this, will you, Gibson, right here? The

15:40

name Gibson reeks a big bell somewhere.

15:43

A while back, you and Matthew Hollywood ran across

15:45

a woman called Amelia Fenner. Yeah.

15:49

She had a kid called Destiny. Melody

15:51

Coughron's mum. Right. Oh,

15:54

shit!

15:55

And before Destiny married Melody's dad, she

15:57

was married

15:58

to a guy called... Philip Gibson.

16:03

both

16:03

now

16:34

there's just so much content these

16:37

days right where do you put

16:39

your precious attention i'll tell

16:41

you you put it

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