The Missing Money | The Walkers Ep1

Summary

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The Walkers: The Real Salt Path | Tortoise Investigates

Episode 1: The Missing Money
Release Date: January 13, 2026
Host/Reporter: Chloe Hadjimatheou (for The Observer)
Producer: Matt Russell

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Episode Overview

The debut episode of "The Walkers" peels back the layers of Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir, "The Salt Path." What began as a celebrated tale of love, adversity, and nature is scrutinized after reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou receives a tip alleging significant deception at the heart of the story. Retracing the Winns' (formerly the Walkers) past, Hadjimatheou embarks on an investigative journey into claims of financial wrongdoing, family rifts, and questions about the memoir's truthfulness. This episode sets the stage for a potent examination of truth, trust, and the cult of inspirational storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points and Timeline

1. The Tip-off and the Investigation Begins

• [02:58-04:39]
  • Chloe Hadjimatheou describes receiving a tip from a stranger on Instagram hinting at dishonesty in Raynor Winn’s memoirs.
  • Initially skeptical, Chloe is drawn in as she discovers the widespread impact of "The Salt Path" and the celebrity of Raynor and her husband "Moth."

2. Raynor and Moth: National Treasures

• [05:05-08:37]
  • The book’s meteoric rise is recounted: bestseller status, 90+ weeks on the Times list, literary prizes, and a major film adaptation.
  • The couple's origin story is highlighted: losing their home, Moth’s terminal illness diagnosis, and deciding to tackle the South West Coast Path as a final act of hope and love.
  • Notable Moment:
    • “The real gift is this book. It will change your life.” – Sophie Raworth [05:54]

3. The First Crack: Fresh Allegations Emerge

• [09:23-10:35]
  • Chloe publishes an article detailing her nascent findings about inconsistencies in Raynor’s account.
  • The public and media reaction is immediate and massive, sparking new leads and revelations.

4. A Family Source Steps Forward

• [11:09-13:24]
  • Chloe meets a family source in a service station. The source hands over a letter written by Raynor.
  • Notable Quote:
    • “This is a story about one of the biggest celebrity deceptions in modern times. About a couple who persuaded the world they were victims when they were nothing of the sort.” – Chloe Hadjimatheou [13:02]

5. Pulheli, Wales: Where the Walkers' Real Story Began

• [14:49–16:21]
  • Chloe traces the Winn/Walker backstory to Pulheli, North Wales, interviewing friends and colleagues from the time—especially the Hemmings family, for whom Sally (Raynor) worked as a bookkeeper.
  • A contrast is painted between the Winns' financial struggles and their ability to buy a chateau in France and a new Land Rover.

6. Financial Irregularities and Betrayal

• [23:36–33:47]
  • The Hemmings’ family business suffers unexpected financial shortfalls.
  • Sally Walker (Raynor) is suspected after the discovery of unbanked cash and multiple forged checks.
  • Notable Quote:
    • “Thousands of pounds had been taken out of the business in forged checks and there was only one suspect, the bookkeeper. Sally Walker.” – Matt Russell [31:55]

7. Flight, Legal Settlement, and the Origin of the Debt

• [34:06–36:34]
  • After being confronted, Sally flees, first to Skye, then to London, securing a £100,000 loan from a wealthy family member (Cooper) to pay back the Hemmings and afford legal counsel.
  • The settlement requires Martin Hemmings not to press charges or discuss the case. Criminal charges are never brought.
  • The high-interest private debt soon passes to unrelated businessmen, leading to mounting trouble.

8. The House Repossession and the Memoir’s Rewriting of History

• [38:22–40:55]
  • The Walker home is featured on a BBC property show as they attempt to sell it and repay the debt.
  • After failing to resolve the debt, their house is repossessed in 2013.
  • Years later, when "The Salt Path" is published, the Hemmings family is startled to see their real-life experiences dramatically reframed.

9. Personal Reflection, Anger, and Legacy

• [41:46–43:33]
  • Roz Hemmings expresses hurt and anger:
    • "Why can’t she just say she’d done this terrible thing? Stolen the money… Why doesn’t she just be honest?" – Ros Hemmings [41:46]
  • The emotional fallout for those affected is highlighted. The juxtaposition between truth and the crafted myth is at the heart of the staff and family interviews.

10. The Winns’ Response

• [44:05–46:25]
  • Raynor Winn issues a statement to The Observer, admitting to mistakes made as a bookkeeper but denying theft or writing incriminating letters. Winn expresses regret but maintains the truthfulness of "The Salt Path."
  • Notable Quote:
    • “This is the true story of our journey… Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret and I’m truly sorry.” – Raynor Winn [44:11]

11. Episode Cliffhanger

• [43:33–44:05]
  • The episode concludes by questioning the validity of the iconic Salt Path journey itself:
    • “If their origin story’s a lie, then what about the extraordinary walk?” – Chloe Hadjimatheou [43:21]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Book’s Influence:
  • "It will change your life." – Sophie Raworth [05:54]
• Family Fallout:
  • “That’s my aunt and she’s a liar.” – Unnamed family member [10:50]
• Revelation:
  • “This is a story about one of the biggest celebrity deceptions in modern times. About a couple who persuaded the world they were victims when they were nothing of the sort.” – Chloe Hadjimatheou [13:02]
• Victims Not Victors:
  • "In this version, a version backed by legal documents and by so many witnesses, Rainer and Moth are not victims at all. The mess is of their own making." – Matt Russell [41:29]
• Betrayal and Hurt:
  • “My husband, who was lovely, had been destroyed because it did shatter his confidence in people.” – Ros Hemmings [42:09]
• Raynor Winn’s Official Statement:
  • “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret and I’m truly sorry… I was not charged, nor did I face criminal sanctions.” – Raynor Winn [44:11]

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• [02:58] — Investigation begins with Chloe’s tip-off
• [05:05–08:37] — Public perception and myth of Raynor and Moth
• [09:23] — Chloe’s exposé and public reaction
• [11:09] — Secret family meeting, the crucial letter
• [14:49–16:21] — Introduction to Pulheli, the Hemmings, and early Walkers
• [23:36–33:47] — Discovery of missing funds, the investigation unfolds
• [34:06–36:34] — Sally’s flight, legal settlement, debt origins
• [38:22–40:55] — House sale attempts, final eviction
• [41:46–43:33] — Emotional fallout and reckoning
• [44:05–46:25] — Raynor Winn’s official response and statement

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Tone & Style

The episode is investigative yet empathetic, giving space for the voices of those who feel betrayed while also acknowledging the magnetic appeal of Raynor Winn’s narrative. There’s a persistent sense of peeling back a story—measured, skeptical, but not sensationalist. Chloe’s narration oscillates between the journalistic and the personal, especially as the human cost of the controversy is revealed.

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Summary

"The Missing Money" challenges the foundational truth behind a literary sensation. Through meticulous reporting and emotional interviews, it reconstructs the Winns’ (Walkers’) downfall—not as innocent victims of fate, but through alleged financial misdeeds, private settlements, and a reinvention of identity. The episode closes with questions still swirling about the nature and extent of the couple’s mythmaking, promising deeper revelations in forthcoming episodes.

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Transcript

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[Ros Hemmings]

The observer. You've entered the car park for your destination.

[Matt Russell]

2025 was a weird year for me. Most of it was spent following one tip off. I get a lot of these tip offs Working in investigations. And I can tell you they rarely lead to a story. They hardly ever pan out. But this one, the one that came to me last spring, was different. It's taken me from Wales to Cornwall to France. And then a few months ago, On a sunny October afternoon, I found myself parking up a few hours drive from London. So we've just pulled in to a service station off the motorway in Gloucester. It all feels very Deep Throat and Secret Squirrel. I was there to meet a source. They are extremely nervous about talking to me. So at the moment this is all on background and completely off the record and I can't even say who they are. All this secrecy for a story about a book. The tip off that started the ball rolling on this whole thing was from a stranger who messaged me on Instagram. They told me they had some information about a memoir called the Salt Path. Art stories really aren't my thing. I'm more a sort of disinformation, Middle east, true crime kind of journalist. So I was about to reply that this wasn't one for me, but then they messaged again and said I should take a closer look at the author because they suspected she might have lied in her books. I mean, I'm a pretty voracious reader, but I'd never come across the Salt Path and I'd never even heard of its author, Raina Wynne. Turns out I must have been living under a rock because the minute I started looking around, I realised she was everywhere. On TV chat show sofas, splashed across magazine spreads, and on the stage of every literary festival in the country.

[Sophie Raworth]

Sophie Raworth. And I'm talking to you from the BBC newsroom. And it is a great honor to. To join you this evening to talk to Raina Win.

[Matt Russell]

Can I welcome to the stage Raina Win. So please everyone give another warm welcome to Rainer Wynne. Rainer Wynn and her husband Moth. The main subject of her books, have become national treasures. It is a proper phenomenon. I mean, one of the big sort of 10 books of the last five years or so is like this huge thing spent more than 90 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists and changed thousands of lives for the last seven years. Readers all around the world have been deeply moved by this couple's true story.

[Sophie Raworth]

But you know, anybody who's read the book, I mean, you can't fail to be touched by it as people in.

[Matt Russell]

Terms of having hope.

[Sophie Raworth]

The real gift is this book. It will change your life.

[Ros Hemmings]

People in the worst of times finding the best of themselves foreign.

[Matt Russell]

It's a heartbreaking story that Raina Win has told countless times about how deeply unfair life has been to her and Moth. And it starts with their house. I'd been living in this place in Wales that I bought with my husband, Moth.

[Sophie Raworth]

It was our dream home, a place.

[Matt Russell]

We'D thought about for probably a decade before we actually bought it. But someone they thought was a friend manages to trick them into a dodgy business deal that ends with their house being repossessed. So has been served with an eviction notice from that place, that place that we'd put our heart and soul into, that had been so central to our.

[Sophie Raworth]

Lives in one week, that changed our lives utterly and indelibly forever.

[Matt Russell]

Then Moth is told by a doctor that he's dying. In that week, Marzban Moth had a hospital appointment and he was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease that had no treatment.

[Ros Hemmings]

CBD is a very lonely existence.

[Matt Russell]

Terminal condition, no cure, nobody gets it. Faced with destitution and a terminal illness, the couple make an extraordinary decision. They're going to walk the 630 miles around the southwest coastal path. While they're thinking of what to do next with the little time Moth has left. That moment when we said, yes, let's walk, I think it was just the idea of following a line on the map. They sleep rough in a tent and survive on less than £50 a week. People they meet along the way scorn them for being homeless. But in the end, the healing power of nature and of walking helps Moth overcome his illness. And it helps Rainer realise the only home she really needs is Moth. At its heart, this is a love story between two people who overcome anything and everything for one another. Just the idea. The idea of letting go of that seemed utterly impossible. Reconnecting with that path, I know that this place holds a sense of home that I didn't think I'd feel again. Raina Win won and was shortlisted for prestigious literary awards. And then last summer, Hollywood came knocking.

[Ros Hemmings]

Are you walking the path? Yes, we are. That's a long old hike.

[Matt Russell]

Yeah.

[Ros Hemmings]

Retired, are you? Open up, it's the bailiffs.

[Sophie Raworth]

Hello.

[Ros Hemmings]

Homeless. Actually, we lost everything.

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Look me in the eye, coward.

[Sophie Raworth]

Our home, our livelihood. Maybe we should just follow a line around the coast. We just walk.

[Matt Russell]

Gillian Anderson went full Rainer win with wild frizzy hair.

[Sophie Raworth]

I fell in love with the book. I thought it was extraordinary. I think it's an amazing story for the.

[Matt Russell]

And Jason Isaacs was playing the sick and limping Moth.

[Ros Hemmings]

They are amazing people. They describe themselves as very ordinary. Well, certainly something extraordinary happened to them and it's real.

[Matt Russell]

In July, I published an article based on some of the initial findings I'd made from that tip off. It highlighted some of the ways Raina Wynne had misled her readers about her origin story. How they'd lost their home, how and when they'd walked the coastal path and her husband's illness. The next day, every newspaper in the country and many around the world had latched onto it.

[Sophie Raworth]

It's a continuing controversy around the hit novel the Salt Path. The supposed real life story of Reynard investigation in the observer came out by journalist Chloe Hajimete.

[Matt Russell]

Within hours of publishing, I had a tsunami of emails and social media messages from members of the public. In the more than 20 years I've worked as a journalist, I've definitely broken more important stories, but none has had the impact this one has. After the article, I was being inundated with fresh leads and suddenly I found myself trying to piece together a sprawling mystery. Who really were Moth and Rainer Wynn and what happened on that walk.

[Sophie Raworth]

Did we know them though? Did we honestly know them for what they were?

[Matt Russell]

She used that to create divides. And I don't think it will ever be the same again that someone who's.

[Sophie Raworth]

So dishonest and so horrible is getting so much.

[Matt Russell]

That's my aunt and she's a liar.

[Sophie Raworth]

Locked and humiliated for it and lied about.

[Ros Hemmings]

It's for a fleeting few days.

[Matt Russell]

I had a little bit, I hope.

[Ros Hemmings]

And then it's gone.

[Matt Russell]

All of which brings me back to that motorway service station. I'd suspected how important that meeting might be because the person I was hoping to talk to that day was a family member of Raina Wins. I feel like the public Persona that they've put on, the image that they've shown their readers, that's not really them. I don't know who they are yet. And I really hope that the person I'm about to meet has the key and might agree to share it. I remember willing this woman to somehow find the courage to show up. So it's the beginning of a conversation, but if I can get this person to go on the record, essentially, I think it will blow the whole story open. So here goes. Listening back now, I can actually hear that I suspected I was about to uncover something big. It turns out I had no idea what was coming inside that cafe. I sat across from this very ordinary looking, middle aged blonde lady, but it quickly became clear that what she wanted to share with me was really quite extraordinary. I watched her reach into her bag and pull out a clear plastic folder. As she slid it towards me, I could see that inside was a letter written by Raina Wynne. I sat there reading it with my mouth hanging open. I've written this to make some sense of it. If I try to talk to you about it, the words won't come out. Or at least not those that need to be said. And I'd do anything for you. This is like to end here. I can hear you saying, how could she have done this to us? It's of no consolation to you, but this morning, writing this, I feel better than I have for years because I know it's over. There was one thing I knew for sure. It definitely wasn't over. This is a story about one of the biggest celebrity deceptions in modern times. About a couple who persuaded the world they were victims when they were nothing of the sort. And like the Emperor's New Clothes, looking back now, the signs were always there because this is a love story. Not the one Rainer sells, about love, conquering, illness and destitution, but about the lengths people will go to to cover up for one another. A story about an industry willing to look the other way and crucially, about how desperate we all are to buy into. I'm Chloe Hegemotho and from Tortoise Investigates and the observer, this is the Walkers. Episode one, the Missing Money.

[Ros Hemmings]

Good morning, Sean. Hello. How are you? I'm all right to you? I'm fine, thank you. This is the man that took us home.

[Matt Russell]

Hi, nice to meet you. This story starts months before the motorway service station in a small windswept town in North Wales. The place where Raina Win would be made and broken. It's about as far as you get from the bright lights of multi million pound book deals and Hollywood film adaptations. But this is where my investigation starts. I'm here to meet a woman who was a witness to the first chapter of the Salt Path as it really happened.

[Ros Hemmings]

Now, I love this place. I'm very much part of this place. It's lovely. It is lovely. As long as your family don't want to go out and do city things.

[Matt Russell]

So is this what it looked like.

[Ros Hemmings]

When you were here? No, no. Sean's got it looking lovely.

[Matt Russell]

Ror's Hemmings is very connected to Pulhelly, the place where Rainer, Wynn and Moth were living at the beginning of the Salt Path. It's a market town of just over 4,000 people. Raising a family there meant a quaint country life by the sea, nestled in the Shadows of Snowdonia National Park. Ros and her husband Martin had two daughters who enjoyed the freedom there they wouldn't have had in a big city.

[Ros Hemmings]

You know, from quite an early age. They could be put on the bus in the village and go to town and go and come back and say, did you buy something? Yes, I want a pencil and a rubber. I went on the pick and mixing walls as there was then. And that was it, really.

[Matt Russell]

It was safe.

[Ros Hemmings]

It was safe, utterly safe.

[Matt Russell]

Roz has short, curly salt and pepper hair and a warm, humorous glint in her eye. She looks like someone who enjoys life and spends most of her time in a pretty jolly mood in many ways. This story, or my telling of it at least, starts with Ros and with her friend.

[Ros Hemmings]

I knew Tim Walker first. I worked for the National Trust at a property they have on Mithlean and he was the gardener there.

[Matt Russell]

So Tim Walker's going to end up a key character in this story. But back then he was just some guy Ros happened to work with, so.

[Ros Hemmings]

He would come and tell me about some of the plants and I just became friends by talking plants really.

[Matt Russell]

Did you like him?

[Ros Hemmings]

Yes, he was very pleasant, very pleasant, very chatty. You could keep him talking for hours and not gardening.

[Matt Russell]

And what did he look like?

[Ros Hemmings]

He was always extremely well dressed, a man, always with a cravat. He wore very nice sort of gardening smocks and I always remember I admired them and he said his wife made them for him.

[Matt Russell]

Tim was married to Sally, a shy woman with wild frizzy hair. She'd grown up in a hard working family of farmers. The couple had come to Wales from Staffordshire in the early 90s and bought a very old, rickety but charming farmhouse a 20 minute drive from Portheli in 2001. This is a few years after Ros and Tim started working together. He tells Ros that his wife Sally's looking for work.

[Ros Hemmings]

She'd been made redundant where she worked at a hotel in Abaso and I think they were going into financial difficulties and it was at the same time as my husband's bookkeeper had retired.

[Matt Russell]

Ros's husband Martin ran a property surveyors and estate agent in Pulhelli. It was more of a family business really. Ros helped out there whenever she wasn't working at the National Trust site.

[Ros Hemmings]

So I thought, well, this is great, we know the Walkers and she came to work for us. She only ever worked on a part time basis, but we only employed people on part time basis.

[Sophie Raworth]

It felt like a family.

[Matt Russell]

Janice worked in Martin Hemings, estate agents for years. Did Sally fit into the office quite easily? Was she quickly sort of one of the team?

[Sophie Raworth]

Oh, yeah. She was always pleasant and quiet, she kept to herself. But then she would pass pleasantries and talked about a family. Chiltern mainly. Everything costing so much and no money to do this, that or the other.

[Matt Russell]

As a part time bookkeeper, Sally couldn't have been making much and Tim was on a tiny salary as a gardener at the National Trust site, which is why an announcement Sally made at the office all of a sudden really stuck with Janice.

[Sophie Raworth]

So then when she came in one day and said, oh, guess what I did last night? She said, we've gone and bought a chateau in France.

[Ros Hemmings]

Wow.

[Sophie Raworth]

Well, I was just totally gobsmacked at this. I mean, you know, you just couldn't quite believe what she was saying.

[Matt Russell]

Did you think she was making it up at the beginning?

[Sophie Raworth]

Well, it was just a little bit unbelievable because you think, where have you had the money from? You know, but you didn't ask that question. Both Martin and myself were just thinking, wow, that's very nice for you.

[Matt Russell]

And it was around this time that Ros came into the National Trust site one day and noticed that Tim had made an expensive purchase.

[Ros Hemmings]

He turned up in this Land Rover. I think it was a Defender. This was towards the end of the.

[Matt Russell]

Time and it was new, it looked.

[Ros Hemmings]

Pretty new, but they're not cheap.

[Matt Russell]

Were you surprised?

[Ros Hemmings]

Well, I was surprised, but I just thought it was family money.

[Matt Russell]

By this point, Debbie, Ros's daughter, had started working for Tim Walker in the National Trust gardens.

[Sophie Raworth]

I mean, he taught me a lot. I mean, this is why I'm still a gardener now. I was 15, so it's the summer before I left school.

[Matt Russell]

Debbie's in her 40s and has the same sparkly smiley eyes as her mum. And she remembers the same unusually well dressed man that her mum does.

[Sophie Raworth]

But he always wore a red cravat, quite a designer shirt, moleskin trousers, walking boots, very stylish. He was always very stylish, even in the gardens, you know, the rest of us would turn up in holy trousers and holy jumpers, but he always looked tidy. Aaron, sweater, you know, jacket on occasion. Worked with Tim for two or three days, depending on what was needed. He is good fun.

[Matt Russell]

Debbie and Tim were spending a lot of time together, so these two families were quite entwined.

[Sophie Raworth]

I'd go in the office and dad would be like, oh, yeah, Sally's upstairs, so go up and say hi.

[Matt Russell]

Martin had given Sally her own room on the top floor where she could take care of the books in silence. Tell me a bit about your dad.

[Sophie Raworth]

Oh, he was a card. He was good fun. He was good fun as a dad. He was firm, you know, kept us in line. But he was a good laugh.

[Matt Russell]

And he was always working.

[Sophie Raworth]

We wouldn't see him from dawn till dusk. Ah, continuous. That was his second home, the office. Yeah. I mean the most time I spent with dad was doing surveys on houses. Come with me, my sos. We've got a full structural to do and so we'd head out, you know, I'd go around with the damp meter and we'd sit in the van and eat sandwiches and drink a flask and he'd write up his reports.

[Matt Russell]

And if Martin Hemming's office was his home, his staff were an extended family.

[Ros Hemmings]

It was a family business. Well, Martin was famous always. His business was next door to a chip shop. So on cold days, you know, the chips became irresistible and he would buy them all chips if they wanted them. Hot weather. Everybody who ever worked for him always remembers the enormous numbers of ice creams that they ate.

[Matt Russell]

But behind the scenes there were difficulties. Despite being a workaholic, Martin's business didn't seem to be making that much money.

[Sophie Raworth]

I mean he was a one man band so it was never ever going to get massive, you know, and he was good to local people. He had empathy towards people in the area because it's a very low wage place. So the bills weren't always sent out promptly.

[Ros Hemmings]

I am afraid I would blame him and say, well you haven't sent the bills out. So he'd send out a few and then nothing. And this went on and on and on really, that he was rubbish actually making people pay for anything. He often didn't let people pay for things.

[Matt Russell]

Some months the Hemings only source of income was Roz's National Trust wages which were extremely modest, barely minimum wage. The family operated on a shoestring. The Walkers seemed to be doing okay though with new cars and holiday homes. But by 2008, Martin Hemmings was in serious trouble. He wasn't even sure he could pay Sally and the rest of the small team their salaries. Ros remembers how stressed he was.

[Ros Hemmings]

He rang me up sometime just before Easter in 2008 and he said I was paid cash this morning and I gave Sally the cash to go and pay in because otherwise we would not be able to pay the wages.

[Matt Russell]

It wasn't a lot but the £600 would at least ensure the staff got paid. But Sometime later, when Martin tried to access the money in his business account, he couldn't find it.

[Sophie Raworth]

He rang me and he said, there's no money. I don't know what to do. I can't pay the ladies. I said, well, it's got to be there somewhere. But he said it isn't. It's just not there.

[Ros Hemmings]

He blamed the bank. He said, I'm going to, you know, go up and sort it out with the bank. Now the bank was at the end of the street.

[Sophie Raworth]

I can imagine him walking up the street. He'd set off and he was very fast walker. He really struggled to keep up with him. And I can imagine him heading up to HSBC or Midland bank as it was probably back then.

[Matt Russell]

The bank manager knew Martin well and she could see how distressed he was.

[Ros Hemmings]

So the two of them sat down together and the money had never been paid in.

[Matt Russell]

Mom.

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[Matt Russell]

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[Matt Russell]

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[Matt Russell]

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[Matt Russell]

Is it this one here?

[Ros Hemmings]

This one? Yes. Yeah.

[Matt Russell]

When Martin hemings died in 2012, Roz sold that estate agents and it was taken over by someone else and it's still operating as an estate agent today.

[Ros Hemmings]

Martin loved this place. He was married to this place and I was the other woman.

[Matt Russell]

It's been refurbished in recent years, but the layout of the old shop hasn't changed all that much.

[Ros Hemmings]

Well, Janice sort of sat there and then there was someone else would sit here.

[Sophie Raworth]

Yes.

[Ros Hemmings]

Various different people.

[Matt Russell]

And then where would Sally work?

[Ros Hemmings]

Sally worked on the top floor.

[Matt Russell]

Was that because she needed quiet to.

[Ros Hemmings]

Sort of do the books?

[Matt Russell]

Was that the idea?

[Ros Hemmings]

I think that was the idea, yes. Yes.

[Matt Russell]

Walking around Paul Felly. I feel like such a Londoner. People greet Ros as she walks down the street in a way that you'd never get in my neighborhood. It's clearly a tight knit community, which is why I think what happened to the Hemings family business was all the more shocking because people in this Working class Welsh village aren't particularly well off and they certainly weren't well off in 2008, £600 was quite a bit of money to go missing.

[Ros Hemmings]

So up the road here is the bank, right? Yeah.

[Matt Russell]

So how often would Sally take this walk to the bank, do you think?

[Ros Hemmings]

I would think when there was any quantity of checks to pay in, clearly when we had this dollop of cash, sometimes we would save cash, but we were so short it had to be paid in and thank goodness it did, because that quarter, I mean, Martin, he just didn't think that people would do things like that and sadly they do. He was too trusty.

[Matt Russell]

Sally Walker had been given the cash, but she hadn't paid it into the business account. So the bank manager suggested they take a closer look at what was being paid in and out of Martin's business over the last few months.

[Ros Hemmings]

They started looking backwards through the accounts and in those days, of course, every check was sort of kept in the bank. And he said, well, I didn't. That's not my signature, that's not my signature, that's not my signature. And that was the point when she looked out of the window, the bank manager, and she said, I see that solicitor over the road has not gone home yet. You go over there and take him on because you need him before this person who is a criminal gets him, because he's very good. She said, and I will ring the police.

[Sophie Raworth]

He found out there was £9,000 missing initially, and that was a lot of money. I mean, it's a small business, so any amount of money is a loss, isn't it? Poor Mum and Dad back then. It must have been horrible for them to have to go through all of this.

[Matt Russell]

Thousands of pounds had been taken out of the business in forged checks and there was only one suspect, the bookkeeper. Sally Walker. Martin's new solicitor suggests this is serious enough that Martin needs to go to the authorities.

[Ros Hemmings]

The police came in the next morning, they said, well, you know, just tell her not to come into work and we'll call in and see you in the morning. So he said, you know, they were just problems and don't come in today.

[Matt Russell]

And so do you think Sally would have had an inkling at that point?

[Ros Hemmings]

Well, she did, because within a couple of days she called on me after Martin had gone to work and offered me money. She brought a cheque and she sort of cried and said, oh, well, we haven't any money and I'd only borrowed it and this is all I, you know, and I'VE sold some of my mother's things and here's the check.

[Matt Russell]

And what did you say?

[Ros Hemmings]

I said, no, no, I can't take that. You'll have to go and give it to Martin.

[Matt Russell]

When Sally shows up at his office offering to pay back the missing 9,000 pounds, Martin accepts the money and he tells the police the losses have been made good. But that's not the end of the story because the missing £9,000 was from the last few months. What about before that? Sally had worked for the Hemings for around seven years. So every evening after work, Martin and Ros would sit together at the kitchen table late into the night, looking through years of financial ledgers. And eventually, as Ros remembers it, they worked out that £64,000 had been taken out of Martin's business. If £9,000 was a lot of money back then, then you can imagine this was a fortune.

[Sophie Raworth]

I think it was a feeling of disbelief from all of us because, you know, I'd known Tim, we'd known Tim for years. We entrusted Sally into coming into our business to help out with the books. You can't believe somebody can do that to you.

[Matt Russell]

Early on Wednesday 8th October 2008, the Walker family is awoken by banging on the door. It's the police. They arrest Sally for fraud and theft. She's taken into custody for questioning and her house is searched. And after a day of refusing to answer questions, they let her go home on the agreement that she'll return another day for follow up questions. But Sally Walker never shows up. When they go round to her house, it's clear her family have no idea where she's gone.

[Ros Hemmings]

They went there and Tim sobbed and said, she's gone. Skye.

[Matt Russell]

The Isle of Skye in Scotland, a favorite haunt of Tim and Sally's. It's where the couple got married. The police in Wales call the local Isle of Skye police and they go and investigate. Ros doesn't really remember what the police did next. She only remembers that the woman who the family had trusted and thought of as a friend had betrayed them by stealing tens of thousands of pounds and then wasn't prepared to face up to it. She'd done a runner.

[Sophie Raworth]

She's gone about two weeks because I remember talking to Mum and Dad and saying, what happens if she never comes back? And Mum and Dad were like, well, she's gone then, hasn't she?

[Matt Russell]

But Sally hadn't gone for good. This quiet, unassuming woman had a plan. She'd fled to London to visit a very wealthy relative. Of her husband's, a man she called Cooper Moth would later tell this man and his family that Sally had also secretly taken out credit cards in both their names and and maxed them out. But Cooper was on hand to help. He lent Sally £100,000 and with that money she hired a lawyer.

[Ros Hemmings]

She was contacted by some London solicitors who said that an unnamed client wanted to pay back all the legal fees and everything she owed Martin on the understanding that he would sign a an agreement that he wouldn't disclose this.

[Matt Russell]

Sally Walker's solicitor made Ros and Martin Hemings an offer. Sally would pay them back all the missing money on a no admissions basis and in return Martin had to promise not to pursue criminal charges and not to talk about the matter publicly again. Roz says in the end they decided against a long legal case with which might mean they wouldn't see a penny. No criminal charges were ever brought against Sally Walker in relation to the missing money. The Walkers had solved their problems, but only temporarily because Cooper had lent them £100,000 to pay back the Hemmings and pay the expensive lawyers. But it was on the understanding that they'd sell their house in Wales and pay him back soon. So now they had a second private mortgage on their home at a high interest rate of 18% per annum and it was payable at the demand of the lender. At that point, it's probably safe to say Sally and Tim Walker weren't too worried because Cooper was a relative and a friend. But just a few months later, Cooper Cooper's business went bust and the loan he'd given the Walkers passed from Cooper to two businessmen he owed money to. And almost immediately those businessmen called in the debt. I've seen solicitors letters from Sally and Tim Walker to the men who wanted their money, assuring them that they will get paid soon. And it's clear the Walkers were trying to sell their property. Their house appears in an episode of the BBC property program Escape to the country.

[Sophie Raworth]

On the market of 435000 pounds. This 16th. This is the main farmstead. It's a traditional Welsh farmstead.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sophie Raworth]

Dates back to the 1730s, although it is a lot older than that.

[Matt Russell]

Right, ready to step inside?

[Ros Hemmings]

Definitely, yes. Looking forward to it.

[Matt Russell]

In 2011, more than a year after the debt had been called in, the house still wasn't sold. Cooper, who at this point was still pretty close to Tim Walker, wrote to one of the businessmen who were owed the money. I have now spoken to Tim twice.

[Ros Hemmings]

At length and he has Been at very great pains to emphasise his efforts to sell the house.

[Matt Russell]

Speaking of pain, unbeknown to me, Tim's.

[Ros Hemmings]

Developed a degenerative and quite debilitating muscle disease and he's been in hospital with it.

[Matt Russell]

He didn't make a particular point of.

[Ros Hemmings]

It, and I'm certainly not trying to either, but we both know blokes, fortunes ebb and flow.

[Matt Russell]

But at some point that same year, the Walkers just stopped responding to the businessmen who in the end felt they had no choice but to go to court to get their money back. By now, the interest on the loan had racked up and the Walkers now owed more than 150,000 pounds. In July 2013, having failed to pay back any of the loan, the Walkers house was repossessed. Years went by and the Hemmings had tried hard to forget the Walkers. Martin died, the estate agency was sold and Ros started working for the local lifeboat charity. Debbie carried on gardening as a profession and eventually started her own family. And she really thought she'd moved on. Do you remember when you first found out about the Salt Path book? Yeah.

[Sophie Raworth]

I'd gone in for a meeting with my boss in his office, got this beautiful coffee table and he's always got really interesting books on there. I picked up this book, Salt Path, and I was like, oh, it's quite nice, nice cover, pretty like this. And he goes, oh, it's a really good read, that is. And I was like, is it? Yes. Yeah. And I turned the picture over. Yes, picture of her on the back. And I was like, vaguely recognize her. And of course, it wasn't her name on the front, was it? And it took me about 15 minutes to work out where I'd seen that face from.

[Matt Russell]

And this is where our stories intersect. The Walkers small and provincial story about a local woman embezzling money from a small family business. Nothing like the true story Rainer Wynn has told in the Salt Path about a couple beset by terrible bad luck. Sounds totally different, but this is what really happened. Because in case you hadn't already worked it out, Sally and Tim Walker are Rainer and Moth. This is how the real story of the Salt Path begins. And in this version, a version backed by legal documents and by so many witnesses, Rainer and Moth are not victims at all. The mess is of their own making.

[Ros Hemmings]

I thought, why should she lie? Why can't she just say she'd done this terrible thing? Stolen the money, had to borrow it back, lost it because she hadn't sold her, you know, lost her house. Why doesn't she just be honest? Lots of people do commit crimes and then go on to be really good people. And that made me angry.

[Matt Russell]

How did you feel?

[Ros Hemmings]

Hurt and heartbroken, really. You know, my husband, who was lovely, had been destroyed because it did shatter his confidence in people.

[Matt Russell]

Raws says the saving grace has been that Martin never had to suffer the humiliation of seeing the Walkers use the story to profit from their embezzlement. How do you square it all with the Sally and Tim that you knew when you were young?

[Sophie Raworth]

Did we know them, though? Did we honestly know them?

[Matt Russell]

As for the Walkers, or the winds as they're now known, this was the start of a whole new chapter. By the time they reappear in Roz hemmings life in 2018 with the publication of the Salt Path, the tale they tell is even more jaw dropping than Ros could ever have imagined. And at this point I can't help wondering, if their origin story's a lie, then what about the extraordinary walk? 630 miles undertaken in desperation and destitution. Moth dragging himself along horribly ill and with a death sentence hanging over him. What in this true story about a walk is really true? Coming up in episode two.

[Sophie Raworth]

You'D think.

[Matt Russell]

That she might at least, having gone.

[Ros Hemmings]

Through this terrible situation she went through, have some of the humility to now be more reflective.

[Sophie Raworth]

All I wanted from that was an apology for the family.

[Ros Hemmings]

I thought to myself, that sounds rather like there are some skeletons in the cupboard.

[Matt Russell]

Raina Win responded to the Observer's investigation with the following statement. The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey. Moth and I shared an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey. On her website, Rainer goes on to say, I worked for Martin Hemings in the years before the economic crash of 2 2008. For me it was a pressured time. It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret and I'm truly sorry. Mr. Hemmings made an allegation against me to the police, accusing me of taking money from the company. I was questioned. I was not charged, nor did I face criminal sanctions. I reached a settlement with Martin Hemmings because I did not have the evidence from required to support what happened. The terms of the settlement were willingly agreed by both parties. Mr. Hemmings was as keen to reach a private resolution as I was. A part of that settlement was that I would pay money to Mr. Hemmings on a non admissions basis. This is why we needed the money back from Cooper that we invested. As with most people's lives, there will always be someone willing to criticise you. That is part of life. However, it is a great source of sadness that Tortoise Media's observer is now seeking to drive a wedge between our family members. The family have always been able to share their concerns privately and they still can. I did not steal from family as others can confirm, nor have I confessed to doing so and I did not write the letter suggesting I did. Thanks for listening to the the Real Salt Path. It was reported by me, Chloe Hadjimatheu with additional reporting by James Urquhart. The series producer was Matt Russell. Music supervision and sound design was by Carla Patella. Series artwork by Lola Williams. The script editor was Gary Marshall. The editor was Jasper Corbett.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

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[Matt Russell]

Thank you for listening to the Walkers. We hope you're enjoying the podcast so far. You can listen to all seven episodes today by subscribing to the Observer. By subscribing, not only do you get all our podcasts before anyone else, you also get access to our premium Food and Puzzles newsletter, exclusive offers from our partner mubi, free tickets to our events, and much, much more. Subscribe [e-mail] subscribe or via the link in the show notes.

[Ros Hemmings]

The Observer.

[Matt Russell]

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