A/N: I decided to put up a few chapters of the sequel up before Halloween, when I'll put up the rest. I was going for a Young Dracula Halloween story, but decided this would be better.
Why? Let me give you this quote from The X-Files.
'It's been said that fear of the unknown is an irrational response to the excesses of the imagination. But our fear of the everyday, of the lurking stranger and the sound of footfalls on the stairs, the fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive, are as frightening as any X-File; as real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.'
I structured the chapters so some of them resemble books I have read about true crime, so they may get descriptive.
Mike wondered about Klaus now he had been locked up again. He knew there was another sentence added on for abducting Bailey. But he had been disgusted to find that the sentence was only another seven years and was to be run co-currently. At the same time.
Mike had looked up Klaus' original trial when Bailey had come back. Sentenced to life, but expected to apply for parole when he was in his early sixties.
Mike had been fuming, asking why a psychopath would be freed. The excuse was that when Grunewald was too old to reoffend, he may give information as to other victims.
It was simply a joke.
Mike knew that no matter how badly he felt, other families out there had lost their biological children. Even more wondered if their missing or murdered son was a victim of Grunewald's.
He was looking over notes now. He knew he shouldn't, but he simply couldn't help himself knowing what Bailey had avoided by the skin of his teeth.
His eyes took a quick look at the smiling, chirpy boy sitting at a blue-and-white checked tablecloth in a garden. He had black hair that was neatly brushed. It was summer in the picture. Was it the last picture ever taken of Edward Konig?
The description said Edward had gone to a bicycle shop, to choose a present for his older sister's birthday. He had left the house at 2.30pm and just vanished into thin air by the shop minutes later.
Mike couldn't help thinking of the boy's parents, asking themselves where he was. The police writing him off as a runaway due to his being a teenager, despite the fact everything was happy at home and he only had fifteen Zlotys on him.
Not to mention the disturbing revelation when dog-walkers came across his body on a freezing December morning. The skinny body found over eighty miles from his home.
Mike shut the file. He couldn't bear to look at any more horrors.
But he couldn't help thinking that if Grunewald had succeeded in murdering Bailey, Mike would be in the same nightmare. Looking through 'what could have been' scenarios weren't going to help.
The families had all sent their consolations, of course. But he knew they were all envious.
Meanwhile, Johnny was sitting on his bed in the army barracks. Stationed in East Sussex, they were going through a training course. He'd read about Grunewald. He knew he was lucky, with everybody thinking Grunewald had killed Aidan, but he doubted people would always think so.
As he had read, Grunewald was considered a likely suspect. But some said the farmer didn't give the exact day.
Johnny even found a website where psychics tried solving mysteries. He'd looked up Aidan English and found that one psychic was eerily precise.
He had noted down what the psychic, a woman from Cambridge, had got right.
Sudden. Argument. Non-sexual motive. Someone hiding a secret. Innocent child, most likely a female. 5 years. Scapegoat.
Johnny dreaded what would be uncovered. He knew living with this forever would be terrible, but he didn't know what he could do.
Nothing implicated him. Ryan wasn't going to tell.
But Johnny's conscience weighed heavy on him.
Out of all the people that could have been accused, it couldn't have been a better option than Grunewald. A kidnapper and serial killer, the 'Schoolboy Strangler' still made headlines long after his first arrest.
Johnny had read about that evil man. Looked up timelines, of when he had driven across Western Europe, of his routes he took for deliveries, his sick, foul, twisted mind and complete lack of empathy.
Johnny had read about what had been found at Grunewald's 'house of horrors' in a suburb in Dresden. In a chest in his attic bedroom, they had found the emblem from Kevin Cunningham's Scout group, Joel Wedekind's grubby trainers, Gerald Salzwedel's Power Rangers wallet.
In Joanne Gottschalk's garden, after she had confessed everything Grunewald told her, they found two small, folded piles of clothes. The Versailles boys.
They also discovered Felicidad Bonaventura's book, still with his name inside, as well as a DVD that he got for Christmas, both inside his bag three feet below a barbecue pit.
Johnny found articles in English, German, French, Spanish and Polish.
The Polish ones talked about Edward Konig, black-and-white pictures of the village where he'd been found. The German ones were from national newspapers. It hadn't translated, but Johnny knew a little German anyway and besides, it didn't take long to figure out some of the words.
One was a cut-out from a Spanish newspaper.
It had a picture from a Christmas party. A close-up of Felicidad, his long, straight black hair flat against his shoulders, his head at an angle. Johnny smiled. Felicidad looked fun. Then he reminded himself Felicidad was dead.
Johnny read how Grunewald had bragged to Joanne that he had held Gerald Salzwedel as he drove around Germany, taking pictures of forests and valleys.
He had those pictures in an album at his house, each with timestamps to say he had been in those areas. Police were interested in those areas, stating they may 'hold more clues'.
About how he had arrived at half past twelve on the morning of 11th July 2011, parked his van in her garage and fell asleep on her futon, before telling her his latest crime. The abduction of Daniel Fromm and Jacques Van Heel.
Johnny saw their happy faces in the book now, his sweat sticking to the photos.
The left one was of a smiling teen with strawberry blond hair, sitting at a table, in a green jumper. The one on the right was a boy the same age, his hair light golden brown, wonky front teeth and in biking gear.
An early poster on a telephone pole, written in French. Then a picture of Grunewald as he was lead from a courthouse in handcuffs. He didn't look at the direction of the camera, but Johnny could tell he had a small smile on his face.
Did people like Grunewald ever feel emotion, Johnny wondered.
Probably not, he decided. Grunewald had been diagnosed as a psychopath. He had no empathy.
Johnny knew he was not a psychopath.
But he had still killed Aidan. Did that make him a psychopath? He never thought about Aidan much, even back then when the case was still fresh. Did that mean Johnny had no feelings?
Tyler was at the computer in the den. He had seen Mike talking to Bailey in the office. Bailey had seemed pained.
Tyler hadn't asked him about those thirty-six hours Grunewald had held him. But he knew Bailey had nightmares and screamed at half past two in the morning.
Tyler had had to go into the office to flick through a group of papers Mike had. He was horrified to hear about Grunewald driving to Brittany, where he stayed for over thirty hours before burying Bailey.
If the police had been five minutes later, Bailey would have died.
He'd spent a month at a French hospital and was at present suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Tyler felt relief when he thought that it would have been far, far worse if Bailey had been awake during those thirty hours.
He didn't exactly like Bailey. But he never wanted anybody, especially a fifteen-year-old boy, to have to go through this.
Across the sea, Grunewald smiled as he was lead out of the prison cell, into the car.
He was being extradited to Britain so Scotland Yard could talk to him about Aidan English. As usual, Grunewald was keeping his mouth shut.
So many websites and books had Aidan listed as a victim. Honestly, didn't anybody believe in coincidence? But, it seemed, the longer he kept his mouth shut, the more power he held over these innocents.
Tyler went to the library the following day, to read about the cases.
The book, less than two years old, was in the crime section, near the back of the library. He sat at the table, hidden by bookcases. He had a notebook with him, ready to write anything he found that could be useful.
He didn't know why he was doing this. He just felt as if he had to.
The Schoolboy Strangler: The Real Story of Klaus Grunewald was 253 pages long.
Tyler skimmed over the table of contents. Chapter One: Arrest in Saint-Etienne-du-Rovray. Chapter Two: 'Bastard Child'. Chapter Three: Orphanage Abuse. Chapter Four: Delivery Driver. Chapter Five: Warsaw Old Town. Chapter Six: Belgium and the Netherlands. Chapter Seven: Truant. Chapter Eight: Confidant. Chapter Nine: Double Kidnapping. Chapter Ten: Possible Victims. Chapter Eleven: 'A Life For Nine Lives'. Chapter Twelve: Aftermath.
Tyler skipped to Chapter Ten. He found Aidan pretty quickly.
'Aidan English, fourteen, was on holiday in the New Forest. Like Grunewald, Aidan had been in care for most of his life.
'The parallels between Grunewald and Aidan are uncanny; both went into care at the age of eight following their parents' arrest, both suffered from dyslexia, both had a love of model airplanes.
'Sadly though, Aidan's short life was over.
'On 21st August 2011, Aidan's care home arrived at the New Forest, where they planned to stay for three days.
'Aidan was only at this home temporarily – he had arrived just a few weeks before and was due to go to a high-security home in a few days. The children were split into groups, Aidan with three other boys.
'Upon climbing a hill, two of the boys wanted to go off fishing. They asked the third to come with them, but he kept on going with Aidan.
'Aidan, in his bullying, cruel way, had made the twelve-year-old carry his bag, stuffed with unessential items, including DVDs and trainers.
'The younger boy's watch fell off as he was unpacking. When he was putting them back in, he accidentally put his watch in as well.
'According to the boy, this was about 2pm. Grunewald is believed to have been at a farmhouse just 500 metres away. It is not known exactly which day, but it was sometime in that week.
'Grunewald frequented a hotel in Portsmouth when he made deliveries to England. Only a forty-minute drive from the crime scene, although Grunewald is not a prime suspect, he is considered a very good one.
'Aidan had an argument with the other boy, causing them to part ways at a fork in the road around 2.10pm.
'The boy found the other two youngsters by a stream, before going back to the campsite. 'The other boys were returned by a social worker at roughly 2.20pm. Park rangers searched the area until 4pm, when the police were called.
'Despite his unhappy situation, police did not believe he ran away.
'He had no belongings on him, was over 300 miles from his care home and had no money. Initial investigators believed he had fallen into a stream or got lost in the woods. However, when his body was discovered by a day-tripper on 15th September, police decided otherwise.
'An autopsy showed he had been beaten around the head and had been strangled, with minimum force. Covered in brambles and branches, scuff stains on his jacket showed he was pushed inside and posed.
'Grunewald became a suspect in 2013 after his trial.'
Tyler breathed heavily. He didn't know how Mike could live with this hidden from them. Tyler guessed that they didn't really need to know, so he'd never told them. But it was still unsettling.
He looked over the other cases. He didn't really know why – maybe he thought he'd find a link to suggest the same person killed Aidan? He would see if the jigsaw pieces fit.
Later, he was on the computer while most of the other young people were playing football or in their rooms. He didn't want to read in front of everyone.
Soon, he had some reason to believe that Bailey's kidnapper had killed Aidan.
Klaus Grunewald was thirty-four years old. He was born on 27th April 1982 to an unnamed woman, who gave him up.
He lived in an orphanage from 1990 to 2000. Afterwards he had moved to Dresden and stayed there for the next thirteen years. Klaus became a delivery driver in August 2000.
There was an interactive map on a crime site, which Tyler found rather useful. It listed all known victims and all possible victims. There were also places that were important to Grunewald.
Grunewald had delivered all over Western Europe. The main deliveries were things like bratwurst or beer or other 'authentic' German food.
It was really no different from American candy being sold in Britain or British fruit preserves and juice sold abroad. Because Grunewald had a small van, as opposed to other truckers, he could go on ferries.
Despite being convicted of nine murders, police forces over Europe believed him responsible for up to sixteen.
The suspected murders, the website suggested, included 'two in England, two in Holland, one in Belgium and one in Luxembourg.' Grunewald had also gone into the Czech Republic and Switzerland, but police forces doubted he murdered in those countries.
Tyler clicked on a link to a profile of Aidan. Unlike the other profiles he had glimpsed, there was only one picture of Aidan and he was frowning.
It named 'Elmtree House, now closed down' as his place of residence. It stated the circumstances Tyler already knew; Aidan and an 'unnamed twelve-year-old' had gone off and got separated. That Grunewald visited the New Forest sometime in late August, with the date unknown.
The autopsy revealed Aidan 'died within three to four hours of his disappearance' and had been killed by strangulation. The body was in the process of skeletonising when found.
In other words, he was killed and the body left there.
There was also indication of 'foul play' due to his being hidden by brush.
Tyler closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Strangulation and beating around the head. Three or four hours. Hidden carefully.
Whoever had killed Aidan had to be someone without feeling.
Later, Tyler was searching through a TV guide when something caught his eye. An American show, Expose, was going to air an episode about Grunewald. It was at midnight, so Tyler would need to be careful.
The show was about revealing the facts behind big crimes; it had mostly covered cases from America, Australia, Canada and Europe.
The show talked about criminals on Death Row who were going to be executed, cold cases heating up, anniversaries of national tragedies.
It had done a piece on Watergate a few years ago. Another recent one was on a Danish murder; oddly enough, it was attributed to Grunewald until the real killer was proven with DNA.
Tyler decided he needed to watch it.
That night he snuck down and set up the sofa, shutting the doors. Tyler turned the sound off and put the subtitles on, so nobody would hear it. Heart pounding, he crossed his legs and held a cushion close to him as he watched.
The host, a thirty-something American with a tired face and a grey suit and colourful tie, was talking to a guest in the studio.
Tyler knew from programming that this was the part with an expert or a witness or a member of some police department. It would be like this for most of the first part, before they went to the adverts.
"So, Herr Messer, could you tell us a bit about Klaus Grunewald?" the host asked, leaning forward with his hands clasped.
The camera panned to the German, a much older man with salt-and-pepper hair and glasses with thick, black rims. He seemed to look down for a few seconds before he went on.
"Well, as everybody has been told," Herr Messer began, "Grunewald grew up in – quite a pleasant home, if I may be frank – but the thing is his foster parents, the only parents he knew, were arrested in 1990."
"What for?" the host asked.
Messer went on.
"They were arrested for embezzling from their company. As we can see from these photos," several pictures in black-and-white came up of a family on a boat in a hot country somewhere and at a table with a sunshade, "Klaus was actually quite a happy boy."
"Erm, when was this taken?" the host asked, as more pictures were shown.
"This is the last one of Klaus and his foster parents, in March 1990."
"March 1990, all right," the camera went back to the host, seeming interested, his head on one side, "and he was taken to the orphanage…"
Messer replied, "In late May 1990. It was a crushing turn in his life. His family –" Messer raised his hands high, "like that. So – so he had nobody. He went into care."
Tyler swallowed a bit at that.
Grunewald was a care kid. Just like them.
"How long did he stay at the orphanage?" a few pictures, black-and-white and colour, of an orange-brick building in Germany.
"He stayed there until a month after his eighteenth birthday, in April 2000."
Then a picture of Grunewald as a boy. He was young there, maybe the same age as Mo. He had his back to the camera, but his blond head was turned towards it, his eyes squinting. It was in a field, with small balls of forestry some way in the distance.
"As you can see, this is when he was a bit younger than the majority of his victims; this was in 1992 or 1993. But you need to remember that the person who took the picture is very likely to have been a member of staff and, in turn, an abuser."
The hairs on the back of Tyler's head stood up.
Then there was footage, a reconstruction, of children holding hands and dancing in the background, as the camera panned up from the ground.
The entire left hand side of the camera was taken up with a wall and door, with a child actor playing Grunewald staring at them. A voice shouting out his name and speaking German.
Messer's voice played over it.
"In 1994 there was an investigation at the orphanage by German authorities, of suspected abuse taking place there. But, well, nothing came of it. Not until 2003, when one of the social workers there was arrested for another crime and children from there – came forward –"
"But Grunewald had already left by then?" the host asked.
As the footage ended, Messer told them, "The social worker – was there between 1992 and 2003. It was while Grunewald was there and I really doubt that – this man, who cannot be named, was not the only one."
Then the adverts rolled.
Tyler lay back against the cushions, thinking. Maybe, if Grunewald had grown up differently, he wouldn't be as horrid as he was.
Those boys would have been saved.
After the adverts had ended, some footage was being shown, of a guest in America, in a lab somewhere. Tyler had read that this section would tend to be describing the sort of person the episode's subject was about. Any similar cases were often depicted too.
The show went on about the uniqueness of some of Grunewald's crimes.
"Of course," the guest was saying, with some reconstruction footage and snapshots of crime scenes, "there are serial killers who operate trucks, which I think is the closest I can get – to Grunewald. But what I need to say is that he varied between races. Now, that is very unusual."
The host, off camera, asked, "Can you please explain to the viewers?"
The guest was pointing in a scrapbook, which contained photos and maps, "Most psychopathic killers tend to stick to one type of victim; young women or old people or green-eyed prostitutes, etc. Very few tend to vary between race or gender or age.
"But what I find peculiar is that when killers alter between genders, their victims tend to be children. It's really hard to find a serial killer whose adult victims change gender, unless, of course, the motive involved is money or some other type…"
The host interrupted, "But can you explain why Grunewald changed races?"
The guest turned a page.
"As I said, varying across race seems to be extremely rare, even with serial killers who attack adults. The only other one I can think of who targeted more than one race is the Green River Killer. But in Grunewald's case, I need to examine the victims themselves."
A picture on the wall, on a large map, of Joel Wedekind, next to a thumbtack by Amsterdam.
The guest was pointing to it.
"As we see, Joel was a rather light-skinned black boy, so he could probably have been mistaken for mixed-race or not even black at all. And as we can see here," he went south-east to Austria, "Felicidad is a pale-skinned Spaniard – some Spanish and Portuguese people are actually fair-skinned, some with blonde or red hair, including Felicidad's mother – so it is entirely possible that Grunewald mistook him for an Austrian."
"Some parts of a serial killer's lifestyle tend to reflect their childhood," the host was saying, "and did you find anything in the orphanage records that indicate his racial preferences?"
The guest had a folder, which he was flicking through, reading. "Grunewald claimed to have been bullied there, mostly between the years 1992 and 2000. I have been able, from the incident records, to pinpoint four children in particular.
"Now, their names have been omitted so I can not allowed to say then aloud, but I can say," there was yet another reconstruction, "that there were three boys and a girl that bullied him.
"One certain incident, from early December 1994, takes place when Grunewald was fourteen. The boys were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen and the girl was twelve. I think it was an argument and a fight over who their social worker…sorry, I just…Grunewald got a black eye and he then called one of the boys a racially insensitive name. Now, the meaning of that name suggests this boy was black."
It went back to the lab and the host asked, "Could that explain the abduction of Joel Wedekind or the recent attack?"
The guest was nodding slowly. "It seems possible."
A little while later they showed footage from French, German and Dutch news stations about the kidnappings in those respective countries. Luckily, the subtitles were an English voiceover.
The host was standing at a grassy path, only fifteen or twenty yards from a road. He was gesturing towards some thick brush by some thin trees. A steep bank lay behind him.
"Right here, almost eight years ago, dog-walkers stumbled across the body of the Schoolboy Strangler's youngest victim. Kevin Cunningham was found at this spot, on Boxing Day, four days after he vanished leaving Scouts only twenty miles away."
A picture of a boy came up on the screen as a voiceover narrated.
"Grunewald had been delivering food to a country club in Falkland, less than half an hour's drive from where Kevin was abducted. To get back to Edinburgh, Grunewald would have had to drive through Kinghorn."
Then a reconstruction. A boy in an orange jacket over his Scouts uniform, leaving a building (presumably not the same one). The camera changed to a view behind some railings.
The narrator spoke and Tyler could feel his heart pounding in his throat.
"At just after 4pm on 22nd December 2008, Kevin left his Scouts meeting and began to walk a 750 yard journey to his home. He never arrived."
Then there was footage from the news, of the area the host had been in. But it was coated in a fluffy layer of snow. The investigator's green high-visibility jackets stood out against it.
"Kevin Cunningham's body was put here sometime after heavy snowfall on Tuesday. A full autopsy has revealed that the Kinghorn schoolboy was killed by strangulation and beatings around the head. Scotland Yard have issued a statement saying that they will be offering a ten thousand pound reward to anyone who can give information leading to the killers."
The programme went on to say that the autopsy gave Kevin's time of death as Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning – meaning he was alive over twenty-four hours after he was kidnapped.
Tyler thought about that smiling, perky boy from the photos. He felt angry at the thought that this boy had been alive all that time. Held by that – that wicked man. Tyler's only relief was that Kevin was likely asleep for most, if not all, of that period.
Five minutes later the host was talking about 'possible connections to other murders'.
"In February 2013, police forces across Europe joined to discuss the possibility that a man or group of men were abducting children across the borders. Twenty abductions and murders of children of both genders and different ethnic backgrounds were seemingly snatched between France and Poland."
A picture of a German newspaper article. The writing was so small that Tyler wouldn't have been able to read it even if it wasn't in German.
Then some cases were highlighted, the screen going darker in places.
"The cases of Edward Konig, Maurice Rey, Joel Wedekind, Gerald Salzwedel and Torvald Gunvaldsson were included."
Different ones were now lit up, instead.
"These cases were linked to an offender in Belgium," yet another set were lit up, "and these to a ring in France."
The camera lit up three more cases and panned in on them. "But these were suspected to be connected to Grunewald."
Then it cut to a field in Belgium.
The host went on. "Just a few miles from Belgium, a boy was murdered here in 2009. However, DNA ruled out Grunewald in 2014 and was connected to another man, in a Belgian prison."
Then a view of a small town from some fields.
"In 2004, a boy was kidnapped from Lellig in Luxembourg, close to the highway that Grunewald took to Luxembourg City to smuggle cigarettes. The boy was found in a forest several miles north. Grunewald was suspected after his arrest, but last year DNA proved another man had killed the youngster."
A Dutch canal.
"Almost a year before Edward Konig's abduction, an eleven-year-old boy was killed in this part of Amsterdam. His body found in this very canal, the contents of his bag scattered around. But a local man was convicted in 2014."
But, after that, it showed five photographs, one after the other. Aidan's was fourth.
Tyler barely noticed to the first three, when they were talked about. All he could think about was how Mike had felt, being given the results of the autopsy. According to Tee, Johnny came back just after 2pm. Mike and the park workers had started looking at ten to four. Aidan died sometime between 5pm and 6pm.
Aidan must have heard Mike calling for him as Grunewald had him in his van. Or maybe Aidan had been drugged and couldn't hear –
Tyler snapped out of it. He didn't need to think about this.