The Orange Boundary

The ticket queue hadn't moved in forty minutes. I was watching the counter at the bottom of my screen: 218 unread alerts, and trying to remember the last time I'd actually cleared it. Maybe March.

Probably not even then.

My office was a former linen store beside Manchester Royal Infirmary's third-floor service corridor. There was just enough room for a desk, two monitors and a filing cabinet I'd never opened. A loose ventilation grille rattled every thirteen minutes.

I'd timed it once during an overnight shift. That was where I was at.

My phone kept buzzing. I ignored it the first three times, assuming it was the usual stuff. Spam about compensation for an accident I'd never had, or whatever.

On the fourth buzz, I checked.

The group chat. Of course.

Helen had started it. She always started these things.

'All right, for real this time. Two nights. Beddgelert Forest. Who's in?'

Callum replied in about ten seconds.

'Absolutely in.'

Priya said yes as well. Then Gareth.

'When?'

Helen answered.

'This weekend. Friday night to Sunday morning.'

I put the phone face down and went back to the ticket queue. Someone in radiology couldn't log into the imaging software. Standard password reset. I could do it in my sleep.

The phone buzzed again.

'Mercer, you're coming, right?'

Then Callum.

'Don't make us beg.'

Then Helen again.

'No work talk, I promise. Just trees and bad coffee.'

I typed, 'Can't. Snowed under this week.'

That was true enough. We were always snowed under.

But I also didn't really want to drive three hours to sit in the woods and pretend I was the same person I'd been at university.

Helen rang me. An actual phone call. I let it ring twice before answering.

'Hello.'

'You're not snowed under.' No greeting, straight into it. That was Helen.

'I've got more than two hundred tickets in the queue.'

'You always have two hundred tickets. That's IT.'

She wasn't wrong.

'Come on. When was the last time you left Manchester?'

I didn't answer, because I genuinely couldn't remember.

'It's two nights,' she said. 'We'll set up camp Friday evening, visit the outdoor pools on Saturday, pack up Sunday morning. Easy. And I swear, no shop talk. Nobody's going to ask you to fix their laptop.'

'Gareth's bringing someone,' Callum's voice cut in. Speakerphone, apparently. 'A colleague, so there'll be an even number.'

'I don't care about even numbers,' I said.

'Just come,' Helen said. 'Please. I'm sick of looking at the same four people every weekend.'

The thing about Helen was that she didn't usually ask for things. She told you what was happening and you either got on board or you didn't. So when she actually said please, it landed differently.

I looked at the ticket queue again. Someone in oncology needed printer drivers. The ventilation grille rattled.

'Fine,' I said. 'I'm in.'

Helen made a satisfied sound.

'Good. I'll send you the details.'

'Yeah.'

'And Daniel, bring layers. It'll be cold at night.'

She hung up before I could answer.

I finished the password reset and moved to the next ticket. My brain was already running through what I'd need to pack. Tent, sleeping bag, probably check whether the camping stove still worked. I hadn't used any of it since the last time Helen had talked me into one of these trips.

Two years ago, maybe three.

The weekend came faster than I wanted. I loaded my second-hand Skoda Yeti on Thursday evening so I wouldn't have to think about it after work on Friday. Tent, sleeping bag, stove, head torch and the small first-aid kit my mum had given me when I left home, still unopened.

I threw in a hoodie, a flannel shirt and the waterproof I kept in the wardrobe.

On Friday I left the hospital at 4.30 pm, which never happened. I stopped at the Tesco Extra near the Mancunian Way for supplies and bought the basics: bread rolls, hummus, mature Cheddar and a prepared couscous salad that would probably be unpleasant by the second day.

I stood in the lager aisle longer than necessary before choosing a crate of inexpensive Welsh lager. Cheap and close enough to familiar.

The drive into north Wales took just under three hours. I followed the M56 and A55, then turned onto the A4085 through wooded mountain country. The trees grew taller and the slopes darker the farther I went, packed tightly on both sides of the road. My mobile lost its signal beyond Betws-y-Coed.

We had agreed to meet at the national park visitor centre car park there. Helen, Callum and Priya were already waiting beside their cars when I arrived, and Gareth pulled in a few minutes later in his larger four-wheel drive, Sophie in the passenger seat. The remote pitch was reached by a rough forest track, so we left my Skoda and the other cars in the visitor centre car park and transferred our tents, food and bags into Gareth's vehicle. It had room for all six of us, though only just once the luggage was packed around us.

We reached the campsite at dusk. The seasonal reception hut was closed, but Helen had booked pitch 17, so Gareth drove slowly around the loop until she pointed out the number on a weathered post.

Callum was out first. He stood beside the picnic table in a padded gilet, grinning at me as I climbed down.

'Mercer, you made it.'

'Apparently.'

Priya crouched beside a half-assembled tent. She looked up and gave me a small wave. I'd met her perhaps twice before. She was nice, quiet. I didn't really know her.

Helen emerged from the trees carrying an armful of firewood.

'Grab your things. We've cleared a spot for you near the river.'

I hauled my tent and gear down to the clearing. The pitch sat at the edge of the Afon Glaslyn, beside a wide, rocky stretch where the water ran fast and loud. You could hear it over everything.

It was the sort of sound that made it difficult to think, which honestly wasn't the worst thing.

Helen helped me pitch my tent. We didn't talk much, simply settled into the rhythm of it. Poles, fabric, pegs, flysheet. I'd done it often enough that my hands remembered, even if my brain didn't.

'Thanks for coming,' she said when we had finished.

'No problem.'

'I mean it.'

'You've been strange lately.'

I didn't know what to say to that, so I shrugged.

Behind us, Gareth opened the rear door of his vehicle and began unloading. He looked as though he hadn't slept, which was fairly standard for Gareth. He was a big man in a worn fleece and walking boots that had covered some miles.

'Traffic was horrendous,' he said.

It wasn't an apology. Just a statement.

The woman who had travelled with him took off her dark waterproof and tied back her hair. Tall and watchful, she had a methodical way of scanning the campsite, as if taking inventory.

'Everyone, this is Sophie,' Gareth said. 'Sophie, this is everyone.'

She nodded to us.

'Hello.'

'Sophie works with me,' Gareth added. 'She's sound.'

Callum gave her the same grin he'd given me.

'Welcome to the chaos.'

We helped put up their tent while Gareth unloaded the rest of the equipment. Sophie didn't say much, but she worked efficiently, passing pegs and checking the tension of the guy lines without being asked. I got the impression she'd done this before.

By the time everything was ready, it was fully dark.

Helen got the fire going. We drew six camping chairs into a loose circle, and Gareth opened the first lager. That was when the trip actually began, when it stopped being logistics and became the thing itself.

Callum told a story about a server migration at his company that had gone wrong. Priya laughed in the right places. Helen poked the fire and made dry remarks about hospital trust management. Gareth drank faster than the rest of us and became louder.

Sophie remained quiet for the most part, watching.

I let it all wash over me. I didn't contribute much. I sipped my lager and felt the hospital part of my brain begin to power down. The river continued behind us.

The fire popped and settled. It was comfortable and familiar. We'd done this exact thing a dozen times over the years. Different campsites, same rhythms.

I almost relaxed.

Shortly after midnight, the fire had burnt down to glowing coals. Priya had gone to bed. Helen was telling Gareth he should probably call it a night, and he was ignoring her in the amiable, drunken way he had.

Callum was fiddling with his mobile even though there was no signal.

That was when I heard it.

A sound from across the river, harsh and wrong. A man's voice, shouting.

'Help! Someone, help!'

Ragged. Unmistakably human.

I stood so quickly that my chair toppled backwards. My hand went to my head torch before I'd even thought about it.

Everyone froze.

The shout came again. The same voice, the same desperation, somewhere among the trees on the far bank.

'Help! Please!'

Then it stopped.

It didn't fade or trail away. It simply cut off, cleanly, as though someone had flicked a switch.

The river kept running. The coals glowed. Nobody moved.

I stood holding my head torch, its elastic strap hanging loose from my hand. My heart was still hammering from the speed with which I'd jumped up.

There was only the river now, and the fire crackling down to nothing.

Helen moved first. She took her mobile from her jacket pocket and held it up, turning in a slow circle. The screen cast blue light across her face.

'Has anyone got a signal?'

I checked mine. No bars. I'd known that already, but I looked anyway.

'Nothing,' Callum said. He remained in his chair, but had leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees.

Gareth pulled out his mobile too, then shook his head.

Sophie didn't bother checking. She stood at the edge of the firelight, looking across the river into the trees. Her posture was straight and alert, as if she were waiting for something.

'We should call 999,' Helen said. She addressed the group, but she was looking at me.

'No signal.'

'I know that.' Her voice had developed an edge. 'I mean we should drive until we find one and call.'

Callum breathed hard through his nose.

'And say what? That we heard somebody shouting?'

'Yes.'

'Helen, come on. It was probably just...' He paused and waved a hand towards the dark. 'Walkers messing about. Students.'

'It didn't sound like messing about.'

'You don't know that.'

Gareth still hadn't spoken. He stared beyond the fire, past Sophie, towards the trees on the other side of the river. His lager can stood forgotten beside his chair. He looked as though he expected someone to emerge from the shadows at any moment.

That bothered me. The way he was staring.

'It didn't sound like a prank,' Sophie said. She didn't turn as she spoke. She kept watching the darkness.

Helen looked at her, then back at Callum.

'Thank you.'

Callum stood.

'All right. Let's say it was real and somebody genuinely needs help. What are we supposed to do? Wade across the river in the dark? We can barely see three metres.'

'We could try,' Helen said.

'That's stupid. The current's too strong, and we don't know where they are. We'd only get lost or hurt.'

'So we do nothing?'

'I'm saying we wait until morning. If somebody's actually out there, we can look when we can see.'

Helen's jaw tightened. I knew that look. She got it at work when a registrar made a decision she disagreed with.

But Callum wasn't exactly wrong. The river was loud and fast, and the trees on the far side were nothing but black shapes. I didn't want to stumble around out there either.

'Daniel,' Helen said. 'What do you think?'

I didn't want to be the deciding vote. I put on my head torch, mostly to give my hands something to do. The elastic had stretched and hung loose, so I had to tighten it.

'I don't know,' I said. 'Callum's probably right. There isn't much we can do in the dark.'

Helen made a sound that wasn't quite agreement. It was more as though she were filing the answer away for later.

Priya unzipped her tent. She'd been inside for perhaps five minutes.

'What's happening?'

Her voice was small and careful.

'Nothing,' Callum said quickly. 'Just a noise. Go back to sleep.'

She didn't.

She stood with half her body inside the tent and half outside, holding the zip pull.

'Someone shouted for help,' Sophie said, still facing the trees.

Priya looked at Callum.

'What?'

'It's fine,' he said. 'Probably walkers.'

It didn't sound fine.

'Did you call anyone?' Priya asked.

'No signal,' I said.

She looked at me, then at the darkness across the river. Finally she stepped back into the tent and zipped it shut completely. I heard her sleeping bag rustle.

Nobody spoke for a while.

The fire popped once. A log split and settled, sending up a shower of sparks that died before reaching the ground.

I couldn't shake the way the voice had stopped. It hadn't trailed away. It hadn't grown fainter. It had simply cut out.

'We should at least try to find a signal,' Helen said. Her mobile was still in her hand.

'In the morning,' Callum replied.

'Now.'

'Helen, it's after midnight. We're all tired. Whoever that was...' He stopped and began again. 'If someone's hurt, a few hours won't make a difference.'

It was the wrong thing to say. I saw it land badly. Helen's shoulders tightened, but she didn't argue.

She looked at him for a long moment, then put her mobile away.

'Fine,' she said. 'Morning.'

Gareth finally moved. He picked up his lager, drained the rest and stood without saying anything. He walked towards his tent, slightly unsteady.

Sophie watched him go, then looked at the trees once more before following.

Helen kicked earth over the coals. She didn't ask for help. I stood with my head torch on and watched her smother the fire in methodical arcs.

When it was out, she straightened and looked at me.

'Do you really think it was walkers?'

'I don't know.'

'But you think Callum's right? That we should wait until morning?'

'I think we can't see anything now.'

'Right.'

She nodded without saying whether she agreed, then turned and went to her tent.

I stayed where I was a little longer. The river kept running. The trees didn't move. There were no more voices.

I switched off my head torch and listened, properly listened, for perhaps two full minutes.

Nothing.

I went to my tent. Inside, I didn't remove my hoodie or my trainers. I sat on top of the sleeping bag with my back against the tent wall and the head torch in my lap.

My mobile showed 12.43 am. Still no signal.

I turned off the screen and listened to the river.

I didn't sleep much.

Morning came cold and grey. I heard Helen's tent unzip at about 6.15 am, followed by her footsteps on the earth. I waited another ten minutes before climbing out.

The campsite looked normal. Tents in a loose cluster. Picnic table. Fire ring filled with dead coals. The river still running loudly behind us.

Nobody screaming. Nobody stumbling out of the woods.

Helen stood at the picnic table with her camping stove alight, heating water in a dented aluminium saucepan. She glanced up as I approached.

'Sleep all right?'

'Not really.'

'No. Me neither.'

I sat on the bench opposite her. The wood was damp, and the cold came through my jeans. My back hurt from spending half the night propped against a tent pole.

'I'm going to walk the perimeter,' I said.

I hadn't planned to say it. The words simply came out.

Helen looked at me.

'Why?'

'I don't know. Just to have a look.'

She nodded slowly.

'Want company?'

'I'm fine.'

I got up and began walking around the edge of the pitch. It wasn't a large area, perhaps twelve metres across. Our tents clustered near the centre, with the fire ring set towards the river. Trees pressed close on three sides. The fourth opened onto the gravel track we'd used the previous evening.

I followed the tree line first, examining the earth and undergrowth. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Footprints, perhaps. Rubbish. Anything out of place.

I found the first length of tape about six metres from my tent.

It was fluorescent orange forestry marker tape, the bright sort used by trail crews and search teams. Someone had tied it around a branch on a fir tree at shoulder height. The knot was neat.

Not a bow. A proper knot, the sort that required both hands and attention.

I stopped and stared at it.

It hadn't been there the previous day. I was certain. We'd put up the tents in daylight, and I'd walked along this exact stretch while gathering wood with Helen. I would have seen it.

I kept going. Another length appeared several metres farther on. The same tape, the same knot, the same height.

Then another.

They formed a circle. Not a mathematically perfect one, but unmistakably a circle.

I counted fourteen pieces before I completed the perimeter. The whole campsite was inside it. Our tents, the fire ring, the picnic table. Everything.

My hands felt cold.

I stood looking at the final marker, the one nearest where I'd begun, and tried to imagine why anyone would do this. Marking a campsite. Surveying an area. Preparing for trail maintenance.

None of it made sense. Trail crews didn't work in the middle of the night, and they didn't tie tape in circles around occupied pitches.

I returned to the picnic table. Helen was pouring hot water into a mug of instant coffee.

She looked up.

'Find anything?'

'Yes.'

Her hand stopped halfway through the pour.

'What?'

'Orange tape tied around the trees. All the way around the pitch.'

She set down the saucepan.

'What do you mean, around it?'

'In a circle. We're inside.'

She stood.

'Show me.'

I took her to the nearest marker. She looked at it without touching it, then looked at me.

'This wasn't here yesterday.'

'I know.'

'You're sure?'

'Yes.'

She reached up and touched the knot, then tugged it lightly. It held.

'It's tight.'

'They all are. And they're all the same.'

We walked the perimeter together. Helen stopped at each marker and examined it, saying very little.

By the time we returned to the picnic table, the others were awake. Priya stood outside her tent brushing her hair. Callum was pulling on his walking boots. Gareth looked rough, with swollen eyes and slow movements. Sophie was already dressed and stood near the fire ring with her arms folded.

'Morning,' Callum said.

He sounded almost normal. Almost.

'There's tape around the campsite,' Helen said.

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

'What?' Priya asked.

'Fluorescent orange marker tape, tied to trees in a circle. We're in the middle of it.'

Callum frowned.

'Wardens probably mark pitches sometimes. Maintenance or something.'

'It wasn't there yesterday,' I said.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

Priya walked to the nearest marker. She wore sandals and a thermal top, her arms wrapped around herself against the cold. She studied the tape, then looked back at us.

'Maybe they put it up at night when nobody's about.'

'Why would they do that?' Helen asked.

'I don't know. So they don't disturb campers?'

Helen shook her head.

'The circle is centred on us. On the tents. That isn't a pitch marker.'

Sophie had gone to the next strip of tape. She examined it closely, her head tilted.

'The knots are identical,' she said.

I joined her. She was right. I hadn't registered it properly before, but every knot had been tied in exactly the same way. The same loops. The same orientation.

'Someone took their time,' Sophie said.

She wasn't looking at me. Only at the tape.

Gareth finally spoke.

'Maybe it's a prank, like the shouting.'

'It isn't a prank,' Helen said. The edge had returned to her voice.

'You don't know that.'

'Gareth.'

'I'm only saying we're jumping to conclusions. It's tape. That's all.'

I returned to the first marker I'd found, reached up and began loosening the knot. It took several seconds. Whoever had tied it had pulled it tight.

When it finally came free, I wound the tape around my hand and moved on to the next one.

'What are you doing?' Callum asked.

'Taking it down.'

'Why?'

I didn't have a good answer. I simply wanted it gone.

I untied the second marker and added it to the first. The tape felt strange. Slightly damp.

Not with dew. Something different.

I carried both lengths to the picnic table and put them down. Helen watched me. So did Sophie.

I picked up one strip and examined it more closely. The end was slightly frayed, but the main length remained intact. It was definitely wet.

I rubbed it between my fingers. Then I smelled it.

Saliva. Faint, but unmistakable.

I dropped the tape.

'What?' Helen asked.

I didn't want to say it, but Sophie was already leaning over the table. She picked up the tape, brought it near her face, then set it down and looked at me.

'It's wet,' she said.

'Yes.'

'Not from rain.'

'No.'

Helen picked up the other strip and inspected it. Her expression didn't change, but her jaw tightened.

'Someone put this in their mouth,' she said.

Priya made a small sound. Callum stepped nearer to the table.

'You don't know that.'

'It's damp.'

'It smells of spit.'

'That's...'

He stopped, picked up the tape himself, looked at it and put it back.

'All right. That's strange.'

I took a plastic rubbish bag from my jacket pocket, put both lengths of tape inside and sealed it. My hands were trembling slightly. Not much. Just enough for me to notice.

Nobody spoke.

We stood around the picnic table looking at the bag of damp orange tape while the Afon Glaslyn roared behind us and the remaining twelve markers stayed tied to the trees in their perfect, deliberate circle.

Helen raised the subject while we were still gathered around the cold fire ring. She said we should stick to the plan and visit the old woodland spa hotel near Betws-y-Coed, with its outdoor heated pools, as we'd discussed before the trip. Normal Saturday activity.

Callum agreed quickly. He said it would be good to get moving. Priya nodded from the picnic bench, both hands wrapped around her instant coffee. Gareth merely shrugged and said, 'Fine.'

I didn't argue.

Part of me wanted to walk back to the visitor centre, get into my Skoda and drive straight to Manchester. Another part thought Helen might be right. Perhaps crowds, daylight and the routine of following a marked trail would scrub the night clean and make it smaller. A peculiar thing that had happened once and then stopped.

Sophie was the last to agree. She stood beside her tent with a cross-body bag already on, her waterproof zipped to the throat even though it wasn't yet raining. She considered each of us for a moment.

'All right,' she said in that flat, careful voice of hers.

We packed lightly: water bottles, a few cereal bars and mobiles that still showed no signal.

I kept my head torch in my pocket even though we wouldn't need it. That was probably just me being strange.

Helen tucked a small first-aid kit into her waterproof. Gareth put two cans of lager into his fleece pockets. Helen raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

Gareth drove us back along the forest track, then up a gravel spur ending in a rough trailhead car park. Three other vehicles were already there: an estate car with recognisably English registration plates, a Nissan Qashqai with a Wrexham AFC sticker and an ageing Land Rover that had seen better years.

Normal weekend walkers.

That made me feel a little better.

The path began wide and level, cutting through old woodland where moss hung from everything and ferns crowded both sides. It smelt of wet earth and rotting timber. Good decay. The kind that meant things were working as they should.

Callum walked in front with Priya. Helen stayed near the middle beside me. Gareth and Sophie followed without speaking.

Nobody mentioned the voice from the previous night. We simply walked.

For the first half-mile, the path curved alongside the river, close enough for the water to drown the noise of our boots on the packed earth. A family passed us in the opposite direction: two parents and a child of seven or eight in a bright yellow waterproof. The child complained about being tired. His mum told him they were nearly back at the car.

Normal things.

We'd been walking for perhaps twenty minutes when I saw him.

He stood just off the left side of the path, about five metres ahead, as if he'd stepped aside to let people pass. He wore a dark green waterproof with a badge on one shoulder.

I noticed the badge first because it caught my eye. It was circular and official-looking, the kind of warden emblem that might belong to the Eryri National Park Authority.

Then I noticed the boots.

Cheap black wellington-style work boots. The sort you could buy for GBP25 from a builders' merchant. Their soles were unnaturally smooth, without any proper tread. They weren't walking boots. They didn't match the jacket at all.

Callum saw him too and slowed. Priya moved closer to Callum.

The man smiled and lifted one hand in a small wave. He looked about forty, pale and thin-faced, with hair that seemed wet even though it wasn't raining. His jacket was clean as well, too clean for someone who had spent the morning working in the forest.

'Morning,' he said.

His voice was friendly. Normal.

Callum returned the greeting. Priya nodded.

Helen stopped beside me. I felt Gareth and Sophie draw up behind us.

The man moved a little closer to the path but didn't step onto it. He remained among the ferns, his boots sinking slightly into the soft earth.

'Just doing a quick wildlife check,' he said. 'Volunteer work. You lot heading to the spa?'

'Yes,' Callum said.

The man nodded and glanced at each of us. His gaze rested on Sophie for a moment before shifting to me.

'Lovely morning for it.'

He paused, tilting his head slightly.

'Random question. Did any of you happen to hear shouting last night? We had a report and we're following it up.'

My stomach tightened. Helen became very still beside me.

'Yes,' I said. 'We heard something.'

The man's expression remained friendly and calm.

'About what time?'

'Midnight,' I said. 'A little after.'

'Across the river from pitch 17,' Helen added.

Her voice had taken on the clipped tone she used at work when questioning a patient she didn't entirely trust.

The man nodded slowly, as though filing the information away.

'Right. Good to know.'

He shifted his weight. His boots made a wet sound in the mud.

'Is somebody missing?' I asked.

He looked at me.

'No report of that. Just due diligence, you know. Making sure everyone's accounted for.'

He took a small notebook from his jacket and opened it. From where I stood, the pages appeared blank.

'Mind if I take your names? Just for the log.'

That bothered me.

A wildlife check didn't usually require the names of walkers, but I knew too little about how national park volunteers operated to challenge him.

Gareth answered first.

'Gareth Bowen.'

Quickly, without hesitation.

The man wrote it down, or pretended to. I couldn't actually see his pen move.

'Helen Price.'

'Callum Reed.'

'Priya Shah.'

'Daniel Mercer,' I said when he looked at me.

He wrote, or didn't write, then turned to Sophie. She waited half a beat longer than the rest of us.

'Sophie Hargreaves.'

The man repeated the names under his breath while studying the notebook. Not loudly, only a murmur.

'Bowen. Price. Reed. Shah. Mercer. Hargreaves.'

Then he smiled again and put the notebook away.

'Much appreciated. Enjoy your walk.'

He stepped backwards into the ferns, farther from the path, as if giving us room to pass.

Callum moved first. Priya followed. I went after them.

As I passed the man, I looked at his boots again. They were definitely wrong. The smooth soles were caked with fresh, dark mud, but the rest of each boot was clean, as though he'd stepped into a single patch of earth and nowhere else.

Helen passed without looking directly at him, her eyes fixed ahead. Gareth went by quickly.

Sophie was last. I glanced back as she drew level with the man. She watched his hands rather than his face, tracking them. Her back was straight and her shoulders tense, as though she expected him to move suddenly.

He merely stood there. He didn't wave again or say another word.

I turned and kept walking.

Nobody spoke for perhaps two full minutes. We simply put distance between ourselves and him, our boots grinding over gravel and earth. The river sounds faded as the path curved away from the water.

At last Helen spoke, quietly enough that I almost missed it.

'I hated the way he repeated our names.'

I didn't answer. I'd hated it too.

Callum didn't slow until we'd covered another quarter of a mile and the path opened beside a wooden footbridge over a stream. He stopped in the middle and turned to look back.

'That was strange, wasn't it?'

Priya nodded.

'Volunteers don't normally take your name.'

Gareth pulled one of the lager cans from his pocket, opened it and drank without speaking.

Sophie was also watching the path behind us. The same alert posture.

'His boots were wrong,' she said.

'Yes,' I replied. 'I noticed.'

Helen looked from one of us to the other.

'Should we go back? Ask to see some identification?'

Callum shook his head.

'And say what? That his boots don't match his jacket? Maybe he's new. Maybe the park authority doesn't care what volunteers wear.'

'Maybe,' Helen said.

She didn't sound convinced.

We continued. The path climbed through dense trees in a series of bends, then levelled as we approached the hotel. I could hear voices ahead: other walkers, families, the ordinary weekend crowd.

It helped. It made everything seem less strange.

The spa hotel occupied a converted late-Victorian hydrotherapy lodge, with dark timber, pale stone and a broad covered veranda. A nearly full car park lay to the eastern side, and a paved path led towards the outdoor heated pools. Signs listed the rules and admission prices.

Two actual park wardens stood near the entrance talking to a group of visitors. They wore proper uniforms, sturdy walking boots and radios clipped to their belts. Their circular badges were cleanly embroidered and looked nothing like the cheap patch on the man's jacket.

Real wardens. Not like the man on the trail.

We didn't use the pools. None of us had brought swimming costumes, and I don't think anyone was in the mood by then. We walked around the main building, looked through the windows of a gift shop that was closed for refurbishment and sat on benches beneath the veranda for a few minutes.

Priya bought coffee from a machine beside the public toilets. Gareth finished his first lager and opened the second.

I watched normal people doing normal things. Parents with children. A couple holding hands. An older man taking photographs of the Victorian building.

It almost worked. It almost made the shouting, the tape and the man on the path feel small and manageable.

Then I looked at Sophie.

She stood near the entrance to the public toilets, staring through the open doorway. She wasn't moving. Just staring.

I got up and walked over.

'Are you all right?'

She didn't look at me.

'There was orange tape,' she said quietly. 'Tied to one of the locker handles inside.'

My chest tightened.

'What?'

'The same kind we found at the campsite. Bright orange forestry marker tape.'

At last she looked at me.

'I'm going back to see whether it's still there.'

She entered the women's toilets.

I stood outside with my hands in my hoodie pockets, trying to look casual. Helen noticed and came over. She asked what was happening, and I told her.

Her jaw tightened.

Sophie returned perhaps thirty seconds later.

'It's gone.'

'Are you sure it was there?' I asked.

'Yes.' No hesitation. 'It was tied to the second locker from the left. Now there's only a wet mark where the knot was.'

I went inside. I didn't care that it was the women's toilets. I pushed open the door and walked to the lockers.

The second handle from the left was damp. A small dark patch remained where water, or something else, had soaked into the material and not yet dried.

There was no tape. Nothing else.

I stood staring at the wet mark for longer than necessary, then walked out again.

We returned to pitch 17 at about 4.00 pm.

I could tell something was wrong before I had fully climbed out of Gareth's vehicle. Not wrong in an obvious way. There was no rubbish scattered about, and none of the tents had been knocked down.

It was wrong in a careful way, the sort that made your stomach drop because someone had been there and wanted you to know it.

I stood beside the passenger door for a moment longer than necessary. Helen was already out, scanning the pitch with her arms folded. Callum and Priya climbed out behind us. Gareth switched off the engine but remained in the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel.

'Does this look strange to anyone else?' Helen asked.

It did.

The cool box had been moved. We'd left it beside the picnic table, I was nearly certain. Now it stood beside the fire ring, its lid closed and its sides aligned precisely at right angles to the stones.

It hadn't been tipped or dragged. It had been placed.

The chairs were worse.

All six had been arranged in a perfectly straight line facing the river. They were no longer in the loose circle around the fire where we'd left them. They hadn't been folded or knocked over. They had been set out like seats for a performance.

'What the hell?' Callum said.

I approached the chairs.

My tent looked undisturbed. So did Helen's, Gareth and Sophie's, and Callum and Priya's. Every zip was closed. Every peg remained in place. I couldn't see any torn fabric or footprints around the guy lines.

Nothing had been stolen. That made it worse.

If somebody had searched our things and taken the cool box, a tent or even the lager, it would have made sense. People stole. People were desperate or opportunistic.

This wasn't that.

This was deliberate.

Helen walked to the cool box and opened it.

'Everything's here,' she said. 'Most of the ice has melted, but nothing's missing.'

I checked my tent. I opened the flap and looked inside. My sleeping bag remained rolled in the corner where I'd left it that morning. My rucksack stood against the far wall. The head torch's empty mesh pocket was exactly as I'd left it.

Nothing appeared to have moved.

'We should leave,' Helen said.

She stood beside the cool box with her hands on her hips, staring at the row of chairs.

'Now. Pack everything and go.'

'Yes,' I said.

I didn't argue.

Callum was already crossing to Gareth's vehicle, taking out his mobile even though it still had no signal.

'I'm fine with that. Let's get out of here.'

Gareth had climbed out by then. He reached back into the driver's side, checked the ignition and then the centre console. He straightened, frowned, and leaned inside again. His hands moved over the console and cup holders.

'You've got to be joking,' he said.

'What?' Priya was halfway towards him.

'My keys.' Gareth's voice rose. 'They're not here.'

'What do you mean, they're not there?'

Priya reached the vehicle and leaned in beside him, searching the console and cup holders.

'I mean they're gone.'

Gareth stepped back and checked every pocket in his fleece, then his trousers. Callum began searching the front footwells.

'You had them when we arrived,' Helen said.

'Obviously I had them when we arrived.' Gareth's face had gone pale. 'I switched off the engine, put them in the console and got out. I know I did.'

Callum pulled up the floor mats and looked beneath the seats. Priya checked the back row, her hands beginning to shake.

'All right,' I said. 'It's fine. We'll find them. If we don't, we'll walk back towards the visitor centre until we get a signal, arrange breakdown recovery or fetch the spare, then come back for the vehicle.'

I was already digging my own keys out of my pocket when Gareth spoke from behind me.

'We all came in one vehicle from Betws-y-Coed,' he said. Quietly. Flatly.

I stopped. Right. We had shared lifts. Met at the national park visitor centre car park in Betws-y-Coed because it was easier than taking every car along the narrow forest roads.

Callum and Priya had ridden with Helen. I had come in my second-hand Skoda Yeti, but I had left it there too, because Gareth said his larger vehicle had more room for six people and all the gear.

My Skoda was hours away.

'Shit,' Helen said.

Priya made a small sound and began listing things.

'The registration document is in the glovebox. There's a blanket in the boot, the spare wheel-'

'Priya.'

'Did you leave your wallet in there?'

'Priya.'

'Because if someone took the keys, they might come back for the vehicle. They might already have-'

'Priya.' Callum took hold of her shoulders gently. 'It's all right. We'll find them.'

But he did not sound as though he believed it.

I turned in a slow circle, studying the campsite. Tents, fire ring, cool box, six chairs in their strange audience row, picnic table, trees pressing in on every side. If someone had taken Gareth's keys, they had not taken them far.

This was not theft. It was the same thing as the chairs and the cool box. A message. A game.

Something.

'I'll look around,' I said.

Helen nodded. 'I'll help.'

We split up. I took the north side of the pitch, near the river. Helen went south towards the road. Callum and Priya stayed beside Gareth's vehicle, still checking beneath seats and in the boot as though the keys might somehow have fallen there.

Gareth stood near the fire ring with his hands in his pockets, watching me.

I checked the ground first. Dirt, pine needles, a few scattered stones. No keys. I widened the search, moving in a grid the way you were meant to when looking for something small.

Methodical. Left to right. One step forwards. Right to left.

I found them after perhaps two minutes.

They were hanging from a low branch on a fir about five metres from Gareth's vehicle, exactly at eye level. They dangled from a loop of fluorescent orange forestry marker tape.

The same bright colour as the fourteen lengths I had found that morning around our pitch. The same width. The knot was clean and deliberate, a simple overhand loop holding the key ring perfectly in the centre.

I stared at it for a moment. The tape shifted slightly in the breeze. The keys clinked softly together.

I reached up and untied the knot.

The tape was damp, and its texture was exactly as I remembered from that morning. Slick plastic, rough along the edges where it had been cut. I walked back to the others and held the keys out to Gareth.

'Found them,' I said.

Gareth took them. 'Where?'

'Hanging from a tree by your vehicle.'

'Hanging?' Helen repeated as she came back from the roadside. 'As though someone put them there?'

'Yes.'

I tried to make my voice sound normal. Unconcerned.

Just a strange coincidence. Just a prank. Just students messing about, as Callum had suggested the night before.

It came out wrong. Too flat. Too controlled.

Helen looked at me, then at Sophie, who had been standing beside her tent the whole time without saying anything, then at Callum and Priya. They all wore the same expression, as if I had confirmed something they had been thinking but had not wanted to say aloud.

'What?' I said.

'You don't seem surprised,' Sophie said carefully.

'I am surprised.'

'You don't look it.'

I did not know what to say to that. I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked at the ground.

'Daniel,' Helen said. 'If there's something you know-'

'I don't know anything.'

'The tape,' Callum said.

Gareth was holding up the keys and examining the orange strip still tangled in the ring.

'This is the same stuff from this morning,' Callum continued. 'The forestry markers you found.'

'Yes.'

'And the warden,' Priya said quietly. 'He asked for our names.'

Nobody spoke.

The Afon Glaslyn ran behind us, loud and constant and completely indifferent.

Gareth cleared his throat. 'Maybe we should just pack up.'

'Yes,' Helen said. She was still looking at me. 'Maybe we should.'

I nodded without meeting her eyes.

The truth was that I did not know what was happening. I did not know who had moved the chairs, taken the keys or tied fluorescent orange tape around our pitch. I did not know whether the man on the trail was really a park warden, why his clothes looked wrong, or why his cheap wellington-style work boots had unnaturally smooth soles.

But I knew it all felt deliberate.

And I knew everyone was looking at me as though I were part of it.

After dark, I stayed close to the fire. We all did.

Helen added another log even though the fire did not need it. Callum sat with his mobile in his lap, its screen dark, checking it every minute or so despite knowing there was no signal. Priya had pulled her chair in tight, her knees almost touching the stones around the fire ring. Gareth opened another lager.

Sophie sat on the far side, near her tent, but not so far that she was close to the trees.

Nobody said it, but nobody was going anywhere alone.

The six chairs had still been in that peculiar straight row facing the river. We had pulled them back around the fire without discussing it. I kept looking at the place where they had been lined up.

Someone had done that. Someone had moved the cool box. Someone had hung Gareth's keys from a tree with orange marker tape.

I did not want to think about the rest. The tape at the spa hotel. The man on the trail with the wrong clothes and the GBP25 boots.

Helen prodded the fire with a stick she had used earlier. Sparks spiralled upwards. The river kept running behind us, loud enough to smother almost every other sound unless you made an effort to listen.

Callum cleared his throat. 'Remember that ghost story you told in second year? The one about the bloke who-'

'Callum.' Helen did not look up from the fire.

'I'm only saying we used to do this. Tell stories. It was fun.'

'This isn't fun,' Priya said quietly.

Callum rested his mobile on his knee. 'I know. I'm trying to... I don't know. Make it normal.'

Nobody answered.

Gareth drank his lager. I watched the trees beyond the firelight, the point where the visible forest ended and became solid blackness.

'We could play a game,' Callum tried again. 'Or-'

'Nobody wants to play a game,' Helen said.

Callum stopped talking. He picked up his mobile, turned it over in his hands and set it down again.

I knew he was trying to help. That was what Callum did. He made jokes when things became tense, told stories, kept people talking. But none of us could find the right tone. Every time someone began to say something, it felt false, as though we were pretending everything was all right when it plainly was not.

Gareth finished his lager and opened another. His fourth, perhaps. His fifth. I had lost count.

He was not speaking much. Just drinking and staring beyond the fire into the darkness. His face looked heavier than usual, his eyes unfocused.

'Gareth,' Helen said. 'Maybe slow down.'

He did not answer. He did not even look at her. He simply took another drink.

Sophie shifted in her chair. She had been quiet since we returned from the heated pools at the old woodland spa hotel, watching the rest of us. Now she leant forwards, elbows on her knees, and looked directly at Gareth.

'We should probably talk about why I'm here,' she said.

The way she said it made everyone stop.

Priya lowered her water bottle. Callum looked up. Helen turned away from the fire. Gareth did not move.

'What do you mean?' Callum asked.

Sophie kept her eyes on Gareth. 'Gareth didn't invite me because you needed even numbers. He invited me because of what I do.'

'You work with Gareth,' I said.

'Same company. Same building, different department.' Sophie pulled her jacket tighter around herself. 'I consult on cold cases. Missing people, mostly. People who disappear in national parks and other remote places.'

The fire popped.

Nobody said anything.

'Gareth contacted me three weeks ago,' Sophie continued. 'He showed me a photograph. An old one. It looked as though it had been taken with a disposable camera. Trees, a trail marker, nothing remarkable. Except there was fluorescent orange marker tape tied around a sapling in the background.'

My stomach dropped.

'He asked whether I knew what the tape meant. I told him trail teams and search teams sometimes use different colours for different purposes. Orange can be used to mark a boundary.'

'A boundary for what?' Priya asked.

'Where they stop looking.'

Helen's face tightened. Callum stared at Sophie.

'Gareth wanted to know whether I'd seen that particular tape before,' Sophie said. 'Whether it appeared in any of my cases. It hadn't. But he said the photograph was taken here, in Beddgelert Forest, roughly a decade ago.'

At last she looked at me.

'He said you took it, Daniel.'

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

'I didn't,' I managed. 'I don't... I don't remember that.'

'Gareth said you wouldn't.' Sophie's voice remained calm and level. 'He said you didn't remember most of that trip. That you came here with friends during your final year of university and something happened, but you couldn't recall the details.'

Helen was staring at me now. So was Callum.

'That isn't-'

I stopped. My hands were shaking. I pushed them into the pocket of my hoodie.

'I haven't been back here since university, and I didn't take any photographs of orange tape. I would remember that.'

'Would you?' Sophie asked.

'Yes.'

She did not look convinced.

'Gareth also told me about the memory problems. That you had a gap. Missing time from that trip.'

'I had a concussion,' I said.

My voice came out too loudly.

'I fell and hit my head. The doctor said it was normal to lose a few hours.'

'How many hours?'

'I don't know. Six, perhaps. Maybe eight.'

'That's a lot of time, Daniel.'

I did not answer.

The fire crackled. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.

Helen stood. 'What are you saying? That Daniel did something?'

'I'm saying Gareth brought me here for a reason.' Sophie looked at him again.

He stared down at the lager can, turning it slowly in his hands.

'He wanted me to see whether anything felt familiar. Whether the tape appeared again.'

'And it did,' Callum said quietly.

Sophie nodded. 'This morning, around the pitch. Then at the spa hotel. Then on the vehicle keys. The same tape. The same pattern of placement. Boundary markers.'

'A boundary for what?' Priya asked again, her voice smaller this time.

Sophie did not answer at once. She reached into her cross-body bag and took out her mobile.

'I don't have enough signal to play it here, but I downloaded a file before we left. It's an audio recording of a 999 call from 9 August 2014. It was passed between North Wales Police and mountain rescue. The caller's mobile briefly connected to a mast covering this forest campsite, but they never found the source.'

My chest tightened.

'It's a man,' Sophie said. 'He's screaming for help. He's near a river. You can hear it in the background. He's terrified. Then the call cuts off.'

'Why does that matter?' Helen asked, though she was still looking at me.

Sophie's eyes did not leave my face. 'Because I've listened to that recording perhaps twenty times over the last three weeks, and I'm almost certain the voice is Daniel's.'

The world tilted.

'That's insane,' Callum said. 'People's voices sound alike. That doesn't mean-'

'There's a hitch,' Sophie interrupted. 'On the inhale, just before he screams the second time. It's distinctive. I noticed it while we were walking today. Daniel does the same thing when he's under stress.'

I could not breathe properly.

She was wrong. She had to be wrong.

'I didn't call 999 in 2014,' I said. 'I was in Manchester. I was working on a help desk at-'

'When?'

'I don't... Summer. Late summer.'

'The call was made on 9 August 2014.'

I did not know where I had been on 9 August 2014. I had not kept a diary from a decade ago, but I knew I had not been here.

Helen's expression had changed. She looked ill.

'Daniel, is this true?'

'No. I don't... Helen, I don't know what she's talking about.'

'Did you come back here after university?' Her voice cracked.

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

I wanted to say yes. But everyone was staring at me. Sophie sat there, calm and certain, while the strip of orange tape from Gareth's keys lay on the picnic table.

'I'm sure,' I said.

Callum stood. He said nothing, only stared at me as though he had never seen me before. Priya wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes wide.

Gareth finally moved. He set down his lager slowly and deliberately, then looked at me for the first time since Sophie had begun speaking.

'I'm sorry, mate,' he said.

His words were slurred.

'I had to know.'

'Know what?'

My voice sounded strange. Distant.

'Whether you remembered.'

Then the shouting began across the river.

It was closer than the night before. Much closer.

'Help! Somebody help me!'

It was my voice.

Not exactly. But close enough that everyone turned towards me, then towards the trees, then back to me.

The voice screamed again, ragged and desperate.

'Please, somebody-'

It stopped.

Not fading. Not moving away. It was cut off, just as it had been shortly after midnight the previous night. Just as Sophie had described the 999 call ending.

I was still beside the fire. I had not moved. My mouth was closed.

But I had heard it too. The hitch on the inhale.

Exactly like mine.

Priya made a sound that was not quite a word, more like all the air leaving her lungs at once. She looked at me, then back at the trees, then at me again. Her hands were shaking.

Callum stood so quickly that his chair toppled backwards.

'What the hell was that?'

I did not answer. I had no answer.

'Daniel.' Helen's voice was tight and controlled, the way she sounded in A&E when a patient was crashing and she needed everyone to concentrate. 'Did you-'

'No.' I stood. My legs felt disconnected from the rest of me. 'I didn't. I'm right here.'

'But it sounded-' Priya's voice broke. She covered her mouth with both hands.

Callum moved between us. It was not obvious, only half a step sideways, but enough that if I moved towards Priya, he would be in my way.

That hurt more than it should have.

'It sounded like you,' Sophie said.

She was still sitting, still calm. Her mobile was in her hand, its screen dark.

'The hitch. The exact same pattern.'

'I didn't do anything.'

My voice was louder than I intended.

'I've been sitting here the whole time.'

Gareth lowered his lager to the ground, slowly and carefully, as though he were trying not to startle anyone.

'I'm sorry.'

I looked at him. 'What?'

'I brought you here on purpose.' He did not meet my eyes, staring into the fire instead. 'The camping trip wasn't really Helen's idea. I suggested Beddgelert Forest. I pushed the plan in this direction, then let Helen start the group chat and organise everything.'

Helen turned to face him. 'What are you talking about?'

'Three weeks ago, a private investigator contacted me. Matthew Pritchard.' Gareth rubbed his face with both hands. 'He's been looking into the 999 call Sophie mentioned. The one from 2014. He said the caller's mobile briefly connected to a mast covering this campsite before the connection disappeared.'

My stomach dropped.

'You didn't tell me.'

'He asked about you. About university. About the trip when you hit your head.' Gareth finally looked at me. His eyes were red, whether from the lager or something else I could not tell. 'He knew you couldn't remember what happened. He thought that if you came back, something might trigger it. You might remember.'

'So you lied.' Helen's voice was flat and dangerous. 'You arranged all this to do what? Test him?'

'I didn't know it would-' Gareth gestured towards the trees, the river, nothing. 'I thought he might see something familiar. That's all. I didn't think-'

Priya began to cry. Not loudly. Quiet, steady tears ran down her face as she stared at the ground. Callum put an arm around her shoulders.

'We need to leave,' he said. 'Right now.'

'Yes.' I turned towards my tent. My hands were shaking. 'Pack up. We're-'

'Well, this is disappointing.'

The voice came from behind me.

Calm. Almost conversational.

I spun round.

The man from the trail stood at the edge of the firelight. The one who had asked for all six of our names. He wore the same dark green waterproof, with an official-looking circular Eryri National Park warden badge fixed to it, and the same cheap black wellington-style boots.

He had made no sound. No footsteps. No rustling in the undergrowth. He was simply there.

In his left hand, he held a coil of fluorescent orange forestry marker tape. The plastic caught the firelight, bright and slick.

'Your circle doesn't work if you don't all believe in it,' he said.

His voice was wrong. Too flat, as though he were reading from a script.

'That's the rule.'

I stared at the circular badge on his jacket. The stitching around its edge was lifting slightly. It looked as though the badge had been glued on rather than sewn, or removed from one coat and fixed to another.

Helen edged towards the picnic table. Her hand found the small splitting axe we had used on the kindling. She did not lift it. She merely rested her palm on the handle.

Callum drew Priya backwards, away from the fire and away from the man. Gareth remained frozen beside his chair. Sophie rose, her posture changing, becoming tighter and ready.

I stepped forwards. 'What do you want?'

The man smiled. It did not reach his eyes.

'You need to finish what you started.'

His voice slipped for a second. The cadence changed. The pitch rose.

It sounded like me.

'I don't know what you're talking about.' My heart was beating so hard I felt it in my throat.

'Yes, you do.'

His voice was his own again. Then mine. Then something between the two.

'You left them there. You broke the circle. You have to go back.'

Then I saw the rubbish sack. The one I had filled with the fourteen lengths of marker tape that morning.

It was still beside the picnic table where I had left it.

I grabbed it. The plastic was cold and damp. The tape inside shifted and rustled.

The man's eyes followed the movement. His smile vanished.

'Stay back.'

I held the sack between us. My voice shook.

'I don't know what you are, but-'

He stepped forwards.

I swung the sack at his hands.

He recoiled with impossible speed, as though the tape had burnt him. His face twisted into something that was not quite pain. It looked more like recognition.

And I remembered.

Not everything. Only a flash. A fragment.

My final year of university. 9 August 2014. Night beside the river.

A stranger in the water. Half alive. Skin too pale. Eyes too dark.

Reaching.

Someone else was with me. I could not see their face, but they were speaking. Insisting. Explaining.

A circle of orange tape.

It keeps them from crossing.

You only have to believe it works.

And I had left. I had walked away, back to the path, back to my car.

I had left them there.

The memory ended sharply, like walking into a wall.

I looked at the man. At the orange tape in his hand. At the boots with dirt only on their smooth soles.

I pulled the tape from the rubbish sack. The plastic was slick and cold. My fingers fumbled with it.

'Daniel?' Helen said, uncertainty in her voice.

I did not answer. I moved towards the man.

He retreated. Not quickly. Steadily, as though he could not help it.

I seized his wrists.

They felt wrong. Too cold. Too smooth. More like plastic than skin.

I wound the tape around them. Three loops, pulled tight.

Then I tied the same overhand knot I had seen on the tree branch. The same knot that had fastened every marker at shoulder height around our pitch. The knot I had tied ten years earlier.

'Keep it tight,' Sophie said, close behind me. 'Don't let go.'

Helen snatched up the small splitting axe and drove it blade-first into the earth between the man and the fire. The handle stood upright.

A boundary marker.

The man's face changed.

For a second it blurred into mine. The same nose. The same jaw. The same tired eyes.

Then it became indistinct, like a face seen through frosted glass.

The shouting across the river stopped.

I had not realised it had begun again.

The man dropped to his knees. The tape around his wrists shone a faint orange in the firelight. He did not struggle or speak. He simply knelt there as though the tape were the only thing holding him together.

'We need to go,' Callum said, his voice high and tight. 'Now.'

I released the tape.

We ran.

Helen drove Gareth's vehicle. She did not ask for the keys. She snatched them from the picnic table, climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. Callum and Priya scrambled into the back. Sophie took the front passenger seat. Gareth and I squeezed into the remaining seats behind them.

Nobody spoke for the first twenty minutes. Helen's knuckles were white around the steering wheel.

The headlights carved a tunnel through the dark. Trees hemmed us in on both sides. We passed no other vehicles.

My mobile buzzed in my pocket.

Signal. Two bars.

'Stop,' Helen said.

She pulled into a brightly lit petrol station outside Porthmadog. Fluorescent lights washed over an almost empty forecourt. A young man behind the counter watched us through the window.

Helen got out, took out her mobile and made the call.

I stayed in the vehicle. My hands were shaking. I could not make them stop.

The young man at the counter kept watching. His name badge said Lewis. He looked worried, or perhaps only curious.

Helen returned after five minutes.

'The real wardens say they didn't send anyone to our pitch,' she said. 'North Wales Police are on their way, and they've asked mountain rescue and the park authority to check the campsite.'

Callum let out a breath. 'What do we tell them?'

'The truth,' Sophie said.

PC Carys Hughes took the initial report.

She was perhaps in her late thirties, calm and professional. At Caernarfon Police Station, she put us in separate rooms and took our statements one at a time.

Helen went first. She gave a clear timeline: when we arrived, the cry for help shortly after midnight on Friday, the tape circle early on Saturday morning, the man on the trail, the trip to the spa hotel, and the campsite disturbances we discovered at about 4.00 pm.

Sophie went second. She confirmed Helen's account and added details about the orange tape and the historic 999 call.

I went third.

PC Hughes asked what I remembered. I told her about the voice across the river, the man in the waterproof, the false badge, the tape and the way his face had changed.

She asked whether I had been to Beddgelert Forest before.

I said yes. Once, on 9 August 2014, during my final year of university. I had fallen and suffered a concussion. Until that night, I had not remembered where the accident happened or what took place during the missing six to eight hours.

She wrote it down without reacting.

She asked whether I had called 999 from the forest that night.

I said I did not remember making the call.

She asked whether that meant no, or whether I genuinely could not remember.

I said I genuinely could not remember.

She wrote that down too.

Detective Sergeant Owen Griffiths rang me two days later. He had more questions.

We met at a cafe in Manchester city centre.

He brought a folder and a recorder. He asked about the trip, the orange tape and the false warden. I answered what I could.

He asked about 9 August 2014. I told him what I had told PC Hughes: that I remembered being in the forest and injuring my head, that I had recovered only a few fragments, and that the rest remained a blank.

He asked whether I would be willing to work with a specialist, someone experienced in trauma and recovered memories.

I said I would think about it.

He gave me his card and asked me to ring if I remembered anything else.

I did not ring.

I have not returned to Beddgelert Forest.

Helen asked me once, a few weeks later, whether I wanted to go back and try to remember. I said no. She did not press me.

I cannot pretend the past is harmless any longer. I know that much.

I know I was there on 9 August 2014. I know I called for help.

I know I left someone behind.

And I know that something in the forest learnt my voice well enough to use it. Well enough to cry out in the darkness. Well enough to make other people come looking.

I do not know what it wants.

But I know it is still calling.