Mr Rawson raised a hand to calm Harry. ‘Her older brother, by only a year,’ he said, ‘but he acted older, really looked after her. Really cared for her. And they were out together in the snow, you see? They’d been sledging in the morning, then that afternoon they headed off along the path down from Gayle to Hawes, you know the one.’
‘I do,’ Harry said, recalling his little run in with the local teenagers and their attempts at trying to be cool while smoking cannabis.
‘Sally was fascinated by the way the beck had cut its way through the snow. She loved to just stand and watch it, and her brother, James, well, he would just stay with her, look out for her, make sure she didn’t get too cold.’
‘So what happened?’ Jenny asked.
‘Capstick is what happened,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Him and his little gang, they came along the path, sledging down all the steep bits to the beck, then I suppose they saw Sally and just couldn’t resist.’
‘You were there?’ Harry asked.
Mr Rawson shook his head. ‘No, but James, he remembered everything. Every detail. Could never forget it either, which I suppose was why he did what he did.’
Harry noticed a change in Mr Rawson’s intonation, the last few words coming out slightly different to the rest, almost as though he was referring not only to what his son James had done that day, but to something he did later. It confused him, but he wasn’t given a chance to ask, as Mr Rawson was still talking and clearly didn’t want to be interrupted.
‘All six of them were there, Capstick and his little band of followers. They started with snowballs, and that set Sally off. She started to scream and panic, so James retaliated, only that made it worse. So, he decided to bring Sally home, because that was the most sensible thing to do, but the thing was, Capstick, you see, well they blocked the way. No matter what James did, Capstick and his gang would run and stop them, throw a snowball, call Sally names. And James? Well, James got angry, didn’t he? And I don’t blame him for that. How could I? He went for Capstick, and I mean he properly went for him. Lamped him one hard on the side of his face. Nearly broke his wrist doing it, but he knocked that Capstick kid to the ground. The trouble was, he didn’t make sure that he stayed down, did he? And that was where it all went wrong. The rest of the gang grabbed him, Capstick was on him then, and they gave him a bit of a pasting. And all the time, Sally was standing there watching and screaming. So they went for her next.’
‘How do you mean?’ Jenny asked, her pen poised above the copious notes she’d taken. ‘What did they do?’
‘They chased her,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Chased her right down to the beck, tripping her up on the way, yelling at her, forcing her on, herding her I supposed. And James couldn’t do anything about it, because three of them sat on him in the snow, forcing snow into his mouth, his nose, slapping him, laughing, and he could hear her screaming, not just in fear, but for him, screaming his name. Can you imagine what that must have been like?’
Yes, Harry thought, I can.
‘Then the screaming stopped,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Just stopped, like it had just been switched off. And then Capstick and the others, they just ran off. And after what they’d done, I’m not surprised, the little shits! The evil little bastards! They deserve to die, you know? For what they did! They deserve it!’
‘What did they do?’ Harry asked.
‘She was on the edge of the beck,’ Mr Rawson explained, his voice quieter now, slower, sorrow and memory and shock and anger all twisting his voice into a distant thing, something lost to time and horror. ‘And she fell. They frightened her so much, kept pushing closer and closer, until she just fell. Into the water. In winter. James ran up to where she had fallen in. The river was running fast as well, under the snow, fed by the melt water from the fells, and he jumped in, went after her. It could have killed him, too, but he got snagged on a rock, then someone spotted him, from the bridge over the beck, you know, the one in town? And they rushed around, got some help, grabbed him. If they hadn’t I would have lost both children that day. In many ways, I think I probably did.’
‘What about Sally?’ Harry asked, not really wanting to, knowing that he had to.
‘She wasn’t found for two days,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘She made it over the waterfalls, disappeared under the ice, and just got swept downstream. Can you imagine the terror of it? The cold? The helplessness? Knowing she was going to die? Can you imagine that at all?’
‘So,’ Harry began, keeping his voice level and calm, ‘are you saying that all this has led to what’s been happening these past few days?’
‘My wife, Jean, she was the next casualty,’ Mr Rawson said, his eyes on Harry. ‘Burying your own child, it’s the worst thing, Mr Grimm, I promise you that. Nothing is worse. Nothing! And Jean, she broke apart that day and I just couldn’t put her back together again. Drink took her in the end, two years later. Sometimes I think it was probably for the best. She was never the same. We none of us were. God, I miss her.’
Harry said no more, instead leaving it to Mr Rawson to continue in his own time, the memories now washing through him relentlessly, tears starting to fall.
‘Next was James.’
‘Your son?’ Jenny asked. ‘Oh, dear God, I’m so sorry . . .’
‘He did well, to keep going at all,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘After what he saw, what happened, he blamed himself. Nothing we said made
