A/N: 'Grunewald' is pronounced with a 'v'.
Sitting on the bed in Paris, Bailey flicked through the holiday brochure. Sightseeing in Paris for three days. They'd just arrived and already he was fed up. Having to wake up at four in the morning, take a ferry to Amsterdam, then a train drive to Paris and it was late in the afternoon.
Combined with the younger children talking and Ryan moaning that he wanted more room and Carmen squealing about some stupid beauty regime, it was a nightmare.
Walking downstairs, he sat in the hotel garden, on a bench. He just wanted some privacy. But when he heard Mike calling to the children that they would go into the garden, he let out an irritated groan and walked down to the small gate between the hedges at the bottom of the garden. Walking through, he came out to the street, near where the food would be dropped off.
Only seconds after exiting the alley, he saw a dark green car stop next to him. The driver rolled down the window and asked something in French. Bailey shook his head, so the man tried again in German. Bailey shook his head again, before the man sighed and asked in English, "Map?"
He was holding a map out and asked, "Palace of Versailles?"
Bailey shrugged. "Sorry mate, can't help you."
He turned, but the man had already come out. Bailey's heart started pounding as he moved back to the alley. But the man had already come up, held Bailey in a headlock and pulled him up.
Bailey let out a strangled gasp, before the man held a knife by his throat. He hissed, "You move, I cut."
He dragged Bailey onto the road, pushing open the lid of the boot. Chucking Bailey in, he slammed it shut. Bailey wasn't taking this lying down. He slammed loudly on the lid and shouted.
But it was hopeless. Then he felt in his pockets for his phone. Hands sweating, it was amazing that he was able to dial Mike's number.
Mike was in the garden, sitting with Mo and Floss at a table, when he picked it up.
"Yes Bailey?" he sighed.
Bailey blurted, "Mike, please, help me! Some guy just pushed me in a car!"
Mike listened for a second. He could definitely hear the rattle of an engine.
Bailey gabbled, "He's white, brown hair, medium length, wearing a grey jumpsuit. I guess thirties, around Ryan's height..." then his voice trailed off.
"No, he's stopped."
Mike had stood up and walked to some tall trees, heart pounding. "Slow down, Bailey." His mind was a whirl. What had happened? How had it happened?
Heavy footsteps and then a man yelling.
"Get off!"
Then the line cut.
May-Li walked up to Mike as he slowly dropped the phone onto the grass. "Mike, what's wrong?"
He mumbled, "Get everyone inside. Call the police. Bailey's been abducted."
Ten minutes later, the children were all in their rooms, with officers talking to Mike in the manager's office.
Mike was just explaining what had happened. He could barely believe this. After giving the description of the man, the two officers looked at each other and, with scared faces, conversed in French.
Then the male officer looked back at Mike.
"Mr Milligan, have you heard of Klaus Grunewald?" he asked, slowly.
Mike strained to remember. Then he went pale.
"No," he said, shocked, "not another one of my kids!"
He put his head in his hands as he just let himself go.
May-Li went back to the kids. Looking on her phone, she leant against the wall. She had heard enough of the conversation to know that this man must be bad.
Her eyebrows flew up when she read the profile.
Klaus Grunewald, thirty-four, was a German murderer. He had first killed in 2002 and was only caught in 2013, not too far from here, in a village called Saint-Etienne-du-Rovray. Nicknamed 'Monster of the Franks', he was currently being held in a prison near the German-Dutch border.
His mugshot looked scary. Wild hair, thick eyebrows, he looked almost like a bear than a person. May-Li clicked on an article.
It said that skeletons had been found by a gardener and had been identified as two boys missing since 2011.
A connected article showed a map of western Europe, with small captions over certain areas, way up in Scotland, as far south as Austria and as far east as Poland.
Apparently, Grunewald was a van driver, delivering authentic German food from his house in Dresden to places across Europe.
Convicted of killing nine, he was suspected of having killed as many as sixteen, although some were on flimsy evidence, a couple with better suspects.
Then she frowned as she looked closer at one name.
Aidan English was fourteen when he vanished in the New Forest on 21st August 2011. Last seen with another boy from his children's home based in Newcastle, the two separated after 2pm. The other boy returned to the camp alone about half an hour later. He said Aidan had gone further east.
Another child from the home said they had seen a white van in the area, but no driver. This was at about 2.20pm. At 3pm, the social workers called police.
On 15th September, Aidan's body was found in a nearby stream, only 300 yards from where he went missing. He had been covered with undergrowth and had been killed by blows to the head and strangulation, a trademark of Grunewald's other victims. However, Grunewald had so far refused to talk about this particular murder and there is speculation that he may not be involved.
When Mike left the office, his face still red and puffy, May-Li stopped him on the stairs.
"Mike, did you know a boy named Aidan English?" she asked.
Mike drew in a deep breath. She would have to know sometime.
His only failure.
24th July 2011
Mike had stood in front of the children at the kitchen counter. "Now, we have a new boy coming today. He will be going in Toby's old room. He's had a lot of problems but he's managed to settle now. He'll be arriving any minute. So please make Aidan feel welcome."
He walked out as he paced to the office. Liam asked, "What do you think he meant by 'problems'?"
Sapphire replied bluntly, "If it's anything like Elektra, then he's a maniac."
"I heard that." Elektra snapped. But Sapphire just put a hand up and turned.
Carmen asked, "Well, what are the chances he'll fit in just as well?"
Liam, Frank and Elektra answered in unison, "None."
When Aidan came into the kitchen, followed by Mike, they all had a good look. Aidan was skinny, neither tall nor short, had black hair that was obviously far too long for a boy, with mean-looking brown eyes and very scruffy, unwashed clothes. He looked as if he had been living on the streets.
Mike just murmured, "I'll let you all get acquainted."
He walked off quickly. Aidan stared at them and snorted. "Idiots." He said.
He turned to go, but Liam came up, shouting, "You can't call us that!"
Aidan looked back. "I can tell. I'm stuck with a bunch of thick, wimpy idiots. It's just like everywhere else. I've had three options in my previous homes; children with mental disabilities so they act like they're little kids, homes for children who are depressed or clinically insane, or ugly, uneducated dimwits who can't tell an apple from an orange."
As everyone watched in silence, they let him leave. Gus was the only one who didn't start complaining, as he was writing in his notebook.
That night, Johnny was in bed when he heard swearing come from downstairs. Gina was trying to stop Aidan getting sweets.
"Aidan, it's past your bedtime," she was saying, as he swore loudly, slammed doors and smashed plates and mugs onto the floor.
"You can't do that!" she cried in despair. But Aidan snorted.
"You're the staff. You clean up." he argued. Going out of the kitchen, he pushed Johnny into the wall.
Johnny went into the kitchen and then knelt down to help Gina. "Don't worry, I've got it." He told her.
She sighed. "Thank you, Johnny. I just don't know what to do with that boy."
Over the summer holiday, it got worse. Aidan found everything wrong with everyone.
He called Elektra a 'blue twit' and even worse names. Whenever Johnny went past, he kept seeing Aidan stare at Elektra. However, it was always a little smirk. Johnny was still young, but he was old enough to know what that stare meant.
After a few days, Johnny was playing pool in the den when Aidan and Liam were arguing over whose turn it was on the computer. Liam said, "I've just got on. Talk to Mike."
Instead of walking away, Aidan leaned down and pulled the plug out.
"Hey!" Liam called after him. But Aidan just ignored him. Liam ran up and pulled him around by the upper arm. "What was that for?"
Aidan snarled. "You're obnoxious. That's what Mike said."
Liam seemed taken aback, but tried not to show it. "Mike would never say that."
Aidan smiled a wicked smile. "Course he wouldn't. Care workers never tell you their true feelings."
He walked off, leaving a chill down Johnny's spine. Twisting the pool cue, he didn't look at Liam.
For three weeks, Aidan was a nightmare. He was rude, pushing and shoving, swearing and hitting. Thankfully, Johnny overheard Mike telling Gina that Aidan would move to another, more secure home, before school started.
He went off to tell Tee, but had to wait while Aidan shouted at her, called her 'a fat girl' and gave her a black eye. Aidan ran down the stairs before Johnny could hurt him, but Johnny just went straight up to Tee.
He put an arm around her and soothed her, stroking her hair. "It's all right, Tee." He reassured her.
Tee sniffled, looking up. "I'm not fat, am I?"
He bent down. "Tee, he was just saying that to be cruel. Ignore him, all right?"
She nodded. As she went off to her room, Johnny thought. If Aidan had done anything to his sister in the long run, he would look after her. No matter what.
2016
Tee poked her chips on her plate. She couldn't think about Bailey.
"He's annoying," she said, more to herself than anyone else sitting with her, "but I don't want to think of him in danger."
Tyler asked, sitting next to her, "So, who was Aidan?"
Tee looked up, face pale. "What do you mean?"
Tyler replied, "I heard Mike talking about him. He lived with you five years ago."
Tee put her head in her hands, gripping. Then she looked up and then looked at the others around the table.
Tyler, Sasha, Carmen and Ryan. Carmen nodded at her to go on and Tee sighed.
Not looking at anyone in particular, she explained.
"In August 2011, a boy lived with us. He was – he was a really cruel boy. Tyler, imagine Denis as a kid and that's how sadistic I think he was."
Tyler made a face. "I'm thinking about it," he frowned.
Tee explained. "We went down the New Forest for a weekend away. Johnny and Liam and Aidan were in a group. Liam walked off to fish with Frank, but Johnny and Aidan went up to the forest area. Johnny said he came back to see Liam and Frank, about 1pm. He walked off to the minibus. Gina asked where Aidan was and Johnny said he went off about twenty minutes earlier. Everyone came back at 3pm and nobody knew where Aidan was.
"Then Mike and some workers went off to find him. The police were called. Nobody could find Aidan. They questioned everyone. Johnny had last seen him going over some parts towards the road. Johnny didn't go because he said there were nettles and he had sandals. But Aidan vanished. No-one could find him.
"We were given counselling for what had happened. It was hard, but we felt guilty because none of us liked him. Not because we did like him. I guess that made it easier for us to try and move on.
"In September, his body was found in a stream. He had been strangled and hit over the head. Investigators thought the head injuries were caused by falling down the hill, but they couldn't rule out foul play. Chances are the killer was disturbed. Gina feels terrible because she thinks she was walking near that path about then. But she was told that if it was a violent killer, it probably would have made no difference."
Carmen murmured, "When Grunewald was arrested in 2014, I was old enough to know. He was a delivery guy. He drove anywhere in Western Europe. I looked up his crimes and he was known to strike in Paris, so this does make sense."
Ryan asked, "Was he in the New Forest?"
Tee shrugged. "He was known to have visited England for deliveries. For south England he went to Portsmouth. That's not too far from where we were. He had definitely visited south England in May. Plus, it was summer. He may have gone for a holiday."
She stood up and began walking out. "Well, that's all I was told." She looked as if she may say something else, Ryan noticed.
Many miles away, out over a cliff in Brittany, Grunewald exited his stolen car and looked out over the sea.
He'd always liked the sea. Living in Dresden had meant he was stuck in a crowded area. He loved the seas and the mountains. Places where he could get away from everything and relax.
As he sat on the bonnet, he looked out and took everything in.
He'd escaped from prison. He was on the run. For some reason, the prison authorities hadn't told police until twenty-four hours after he'd escaped.
Slipping out during a laundry delivery seemed like a cliché. But it had worked.
For the first time in two and a half years, he was free. Plus he got himself a nice little victim as well. It would be hard to travel with the boy dragging him down. So Grunewald had decided to spend a little time at this French seaside village, away from everything. Then he could dump the boy in the sea.
He really should have done that ages ago. Everyone knew his modus operandi was leaving their bodies in woodland.
Maybe it was because he'd grown up near woodland.
He thought back to his lonely, friendless childhood.
Born to a Frankfurt waitress in 1982, he was given up to an orphanage. Luckily, he was fostered almost immediately. But he had dyslexia. Ridiculed and tormented, he had also been a very fragile child, falling over in sports and always the last picked.
It got worse when he turned eight. His foster parents were found guilty of embezzlement. He had to go back to the orphanage in Moritzburg. He scowled at the memory. Bigger children, pushing him around, mocking him, hitting him.
Well, he'd tried revenge. There had been a cat that sometimes visited. A large, fat Manx. The older children loved him. So one day when Grunewald had been alone and it came, he left it in the bathroom as a surprise.
The neighbourhood lost some dogs after that. Over the next ten years, they'd slowly vanished. Some turned up, often minus their fur, but no-one suspected him. He was the quiet, good boy who kept to himself and had a fascination with toy airplanes.
The boys that teased him were with him for most of that decade. From ages eight to eighteen, he was mocked and called hurtful names. When he left, the orphanage didn't try to get him somewhere nice.
He just took the first job he could; a delivery van in Dresden.
It was two years after that when he first killed a person.
EK had been from Warsaw Old Town and was found a hundred and thirty-five kilometres west on the E30. Found in a forest, the Polish police had this filed away for a decade, before his arrest.
Now Grunewald walked to the boot of the car and popped the lid. His newest victim, a black English child, had been drugged, as all his victims had been.
He smiled to himself, before slamming the lid down again.
2011
Johnny was fed up. He was stuck with Aidan in climbing a hill in the New Forest. He'd wanted to go with Tee, but she was put with Sapphire and Lilly and Tracy.
Mike had looked Liam in the eye, just before the boy was about to lead Johnny, Frank and Aidan off, telling him, "Don't do anything stupid like last time. Just keep to the map. I'm trusting you."
Liam had smiled. "Mike, would I do that?" he asked.
Mike frowned, his eyes still focused on Liam. "Just be responsible this time."
Climbing the hill had been a nightmare. It was hot and tiring. Aidan had also stuffed most of his things into Johnny's backpack so the boy had to carry his items as well.
Soon, Frank complained, "This is stupid. I want to go fishing, Liam."
Liam told him, "Mike trusts me. I can't."
"But Liam..." Frank whined, so Aidan snapped, "Just push off! Johnny-boy and I will be fine."
Liam didn't liked the idea of leaving Johnny with Aidan. But Johnny just told him, "We'll be all right."
Frank pointed in the direction of a stream he'd seen and Johnny and Aidan went further up the hill.
Johnny panted, "Mike told us to be back by half two. What time is it?"
"I'm not telling you." Aidan snapped. "That's for me to know and for you to guess."
Johnny was regretting his decision.
When they'd reached the top of the hill, Johnny sat down on a rock, exhausted. Aidan simply swaggered around. "You can't be that fit if you can't get this far." He argued.
Johnny scowled. He'd had to carry all this garbage up! What did Aidan have in here, anyway?
Aidan seemed to answer his thought by taking the bag off and unloading it. Books that no-one besides Gus ever read, DVDs, a clock and a pair of trainers. Johnny knew Aidan did this just to be horrid.
He asked Aidan, "Why are you so horrible?"
Aidan retaliated, "Why are you so ugly?"
Johnny just grimaced.
Meanwhile, just over five hundred metres away, a van stopped at a farm. The gates opened as some geese waddled past and the farmer asked, "How much this time?"
Grunewald peered over from the driver's seat and said, "Not too much today. I'm staying at a hotel down near Portsmouth. It's my holiday, you know."
The farmer simply nodded, "Pleasure doing business with you."
"It's just a chicken-building." Grunewald told him.
The farmer laughed and then explained. "Hen coop, Klaus."
Then he thumped on the side of the van and waved as he went inside his house. Grunewald simply backed up and drove out to the crossroad, before going west to have lunch.
Johnny and Aidan had walked further south by this point. Having reached the bottom of the hill, they had got to a large stream with another, smaller hill, overlooking it.
Johnny looked at the drop. He swallowed as he measured it was about thirty feet.
Aidan groaned. "Can't believe I'm going to be out of his dump soon."
Johnny asked, "You are?" he was pretending this was a surprise, although truth be told, he couldn't be more relived.
Aidan had his back to Johnny as he carried on talking. "Though I don't like any of you. You're too snappy. Wanting your way, not mine. Nobody listens. Nobody ever listens to me. I want things, people just listen to me."
Then he said something which changed Johnny's life forever.
"Though you're going to leave when you're sixteen. Away from your sister. If I'm lucky, you'll never see her again."
In that instant Johnny snapped.
He ran forward like a charging bull and pushed Aidan on his back.
Aidan fell down the mossy hill, slipping and sliding, turning over several times. His head must have bounced on a few rocks, Johnny noticed.
Johnny, heart pounding, began to slowly make his way down, being careful. Aidan crashed into a log, sending it spinning ninety degrees. Aidan's pull-cord on his coat got caught on part of the log. Suddenly, it snapped.
Sliding over the edge, Aidan fell the final ten feet into the water.
Johnny stopped, looking over. He looked wildly around for a way down. He saw a tree leaning against the cliff. Good, sturdy branches.
Johnny made his way down and then looked at Aidan.
Kneeling down, he pulled a stick from the pull-cord. It must have come from the log.
Johnny had no idea what to do. Putting his hand a few centimetres above Aidan's mouth, he felt for breath. Then he pushed Aidan's sleeve up and checked his pulse.
Johnny stood up slowly as the enormity of the situation became clear.
He was a murderer.
A twelve-year-old murderer.
2016
Back in his army barracks, in northern Kent, by the sea, Johnny was cleaning the sergeant's boots. Sitting up, his eyes wandered to the newspaper lying on a nearby table.
Looking at it, he swore he saw Bailey's face. Unfolding it, he read on.
His heart was in his mouth as he read that Klaus Grunewald had escaped from prison. That a teenage boy had disappeared from Paris and Klaus had been spotted in a stolen car in the area at that time.
Everything had Johnny had buried came flooding back.
2011
Johnny didn't know what to do. Then he decided he needed to hide Aidan. Say he had run off after swearing. That sounded like Aidan.
Dragging him by the hands, the heavy boy was soon out of the stream. Pulling him along, Johnny dumped him by some large rocks. He was pushing away some of the brush, throwing as much brush as he could over the body, folding Aidan's legs to fit.
Heart pounding, as Johnny walked to the nearby path, he planned a story in his head. After walking down the hill, they'd got to another path which went up the hill. Aidan had wanted to go up, but since Johnny had carried everything, he'd refused. Aidan had called him lazy and unhealthy and went up by himself.
Johnny told himself this so much that he almost began to believe it. As he reached a recognizable path, he saw Liam and Frank together, fishing at another stream.
"Hi!" Johnny called, trying to stop his voice shaking. Liam turned round.
"Oh, hey Johnny!" Liam called. Then he asked, "Where's Aidan?"
Johnny replied, "He called me lazy and walked off. I said I didn't want to climb up with all his stuff."
As Johnny sat with them, cross-legged, he asked Frank, "What's the time?"
Frank looked at his watch. "Almost two."
Johnny was surprised. Just a few yards away, he'd seen his watch and it was almost quarter past. Frank's watch must be wrong. Oh well, it meant he had an alibi.
Walking back down the path to the campsite, he trudged in the long grass, hoping it would wipe any moss from his clothes.
He sat down, taking his trainers off and wiping grass against them, pushing any stains off.
He hoped this would work.
When he got up and arrived back at the campsite, he saw Gina and her group had come back.
"Where are the others?" Gina asked as he approached.
Johnny shrugged. "Liam and Frank are fishing up there. Aidan walked off."
Gina muttered about 'that good-for-nothing boy' and then said, "All right, stay here, will you?"
By now, Tracy, Sapphire, Lilly and Tee had reached the farm.
Tracy asked, "All right, which direction is it?"
Sapphire groaned, "Beaker, you got us lost."
"I didn't." Tracy answered, looking at her map. "There's a farm there, it's south to the campsite."
Lilly and Tee were fed up. They'd been walking for over an hour.
Tee just looked off in the distance. A van began driving close by, stopping to let them past. Tracy took the chance. She stepped up and asked, holding the map, "Excuse me, do you know the way to the campsite?"
Grunewald looked out and peered at the map. "Sorry, can't say, miss." He shook his head.
Tracy just went, "All right, thanks anyway."
Then he asked, "You ladies look pretty tired."
Tracy grinned sheepishly, pulling hair behind her hair. "Yes, I guess we are."
He asked, "How about trying the farm? The farmer's still there, far as I know."
Sapphire just walked up and began pushing Tracy aside. "I'm sorry, but we're late as it is and we can manage by ourselves."
Grunewald grunted. He set the van up again and started to drive off.
By the time Mike returned with Gus, Harry and Carmen, he asked, "Where's Aidan?"
Liam and Frank had already been found, shouted at and brought back by Gina. Johnny just sat on Gina's chair.
He answered, "He swore and walked off."
Mike muttered and asked, "When was this?"
Johnny tried to work out how long it would take to walk down from the fork in the road to where Liam and Frank had been.
"About ten past two." Johnny said.
Mike had gone white with horror and red with fury at the same time. It was a very odd sight.
Mike had put a finger up. "Nobody go anywhere. I'm going to look."
Johnny checked his watch. It was now almost three. Aidan had been dead roughly forty-five minutes. He just hoped that Frank's broken watch would give him an alibi.
Soon, Gina asked everyone to go back into the campsite building and she would wait for Tracy.
Everyone began talking. Inside the building, Carmen asked, "What do you think happened?"
Liam grunted, "No-one cares about him, so I'd say just let him get lost."
"Liam, that's not very nice." Carmen pointed out.
"Well, he's not nice." Liam told her.
Gus was writing everything in his notebook. He said aloud, "There could be several things that may have happened. He could have broken his leg, maybe under a log or rock. He could have fallen and hurt his head. He could be lost."
Elektra put her hands up. "I think let's just wait for them to come back."
Gus snapped, "Talking! The last option is he could have been abducted."
Elektra answered, "Well, that's unlikely. You weren't near a road, were you, Johnny?"
Johnny realised everyone was looking at him. He quickly answered, "Not that I knew of."
When Mike had come back, it was almost four. They'd called the police and some workers were combing the fields.
Johnny just hoped he'd lead them in the wrong direction.
At five, some police officers took the children into separate rooms. Two sat with Johnny in a kitchen area.
The female officer told him, "Johnny, there's no reason to be scared of us. Just tell us what happened and we can find your friend."
He wasn't his friend, Johnny knew that. But the male officer then asked him, "So, what time did you last see Aidan?"
Johnny mumbled, "I guess around ten past two."
"How can you be so exact?" he raised an eyebrow. Was he trying to trick him?
Johnny put his arm with the watch on the table. "I had a watch. It said ten past two." He had changed it so it matched up with Frank's, just to be on the safe side.
"So why did you ask your friend Frank for the time?" the male officer asked.
Johnny quickly thought. It wasn't a total lie, anyway. "Aidan made me carry a lot of his stuff and my watch had been starting to hurt. So I'd taken it off, but he told me to hurry up so I guess I put it in there by mistake. It was so heavy I didn't want to take it off again when I met Frank and Liam."
The male officer wrote all of this down, before the female one asked, "And you're certain you last saw Aidan at this path?"
She pointed on a map. Johnny squinted. Hand-drawn, it was difficult to tell. But he said, "Yeah, it was at a Y-shaped path with one going downwards."
The male officer told his colleague as she put the map away, "Makes sense. It's the quickest way down." Then he turned back to Johnny. "Thank you for your contribution. We will tell Mike if we have any more information."
That night, as they slept in the rooms set up for them in the campsite, Johnny was just glad he wasn't sharing his. He wept into his pillow.
It wasn't so much the thought that Aidan's death was his fault. It was that if anyone found out, he would be locked away. Never allowed to see Tee. She would have to grow up knowing her brother had murdered someone.
He had nightmares that night and woke up early. He couldn't get to sleep so he just lay there as the sun came up.
For the rest of the holidays, the house was very quiet and nothing really happened. Aidan's room was now empty and the social workers had taken his things. His door remained locked. Police came by frequently to tell Mike and Gina what they found.
Johnny saw Aidan's face on the TV, though he knew this was only newsworthy because there was no evidence he had left the New Forest and had nothing with him, hundreds of miles from his care home.
Police were now calling it a 'possible accident'. They suggested Aidan had drowned in a stream or died of exposure. At least they weren't calling it suspicious yet.
But a few weeks after Aidan had vanished, the children came in from school when Mike called them around the table.
He looked solemn as he explained to them.
"The police found Aidan." That one sentence sent everybody's blood run cold.
Aside from Gus, writing everything down, "Is he dead?"
Mike replied, "He's dead."
Sapphire asked, "Do they know how?"
Mike drew in some breath. "They're not entirely certain, but we'll know after they've examined him."
Johnny stayed up in his room that weekend. Thinking if they'd found anything.
Wouldn't his fingerprints be on Aidan? Or had animals attacked his clothes?
Tee came in one evening. She asked, "Are you all right, Johnny?"
He sighed. "I last saw him. I shouldn't have let him walk down there."
Tee supposed, "It wasn't your fault. He wasn't nice. I don't blame you."
That sentence warmed and stung Johnny at the same time.
If only she knew...
Mike tried keeping information from them, but Liam found an article online.
"It says he was beaten round the head and strangled," he told Elektra as she stood by the computer, "they say it's murder."
Elektra made a face. "Who'd do that?"
Liam replied, "Some sick..."
He saw Johnny come up, realising the boy had heard every word.
He asked, "You won't tell the others, will you?"
Johnny nodded, turning.
It had been a few years before he looked it up. By now, he was in the army and had time to himself.
Looking up, he stared at one article. This one contained a map of Europe. He scoured the paragraphs before he saw Aidan's name.
Aidan was 14 when he vanished in August 2011. Last seen in the New Forest at 2.10pm, his body was found a month later. He had been killed by strangulation and blows around the head. Grunewald frequently visited a farm close to the crime scene. The farmer remembers him coming to deliver something between 15th and 21st August. A social worker from Aidan's care home said that a man driving a white van was in the area at 2.20pm. The identikit matches Grunewald's description.
It had listed Aidan as a definite victim. Johnny knew police had been wrong before and it was likely they would keep the file open.
But Johnny felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
2016
Ryan started to look online at the computer in the hotel. He needed to know about this man.
He didn't know why. He just liked information.
Information could be useful bribing someone, he'd found.
He then looked up. Grunewald, killed nine boys and suspected of killing more, had been until recently imprisoned in the northwest of Germany, by the coast.
Known as the 'Schoolboy Strangler', he had no criminal record when he was picked up in France. His victims varied in race, with one being black and one being Spanish, but all were drugged and transported before being found in woodland. They had all vanished between Scotland and Poland and almost all had been snatched while he delivered authentic German food from a Dresden company.
Ryan looked through and found that Grunewald's friend, Joanne Gottschalk, who had helped dispose of evidence in the last two murders, told police that Grunewald referred to his victims by place or initial. Maybe trying to avoid blame?
Soon, Ryan found all about JW, the only black boy in the group, abducted from a small town some thirty-five miles south-east of Amsterdam; about TG, abducted from a Danish island walking between two houses on a rural path; about FB, a wheelchair-bound boy on holiday in Salzburg and Grunewald's last victim when he spent New Year's on a mountain tour.
He felt revolted when he read that tens of thousands of Euros were spent finding the boys. When he saw an article from a Scottish newspaper, a memory came back.
He remembered this case, when it had happened. He'd only been a boy then, but he swore he remembered.
He remembered Kevin Cunningham's face from the TV.
Kevin had been picked up a few days before Christmas 2008 in Kinghorn, just over the Forth from Edinburgh. Leaving a community centre where he had been in Scouts, seconds had passed before he vanished.
People searched and searched for Kevin. That smiling, blonde boy and his family asking whoever had him to bring him back. The tragedy when his body was found the day after Christmas, in a forest near North Deer Park. How he was found in an isolated area.
His funeral and the flowers by his gravestone.
Ryan looked at notes from the trial. Kevin was described as Grunewald's 'youngest victim', his picture was prominent in newspapers concerning the trial.
Then it mentioned Grunewald's other crimes. Under 'possible victims' it suggested Aidan. Ryan looked closer on information regarding this particular event.
It said that he had been strangled and beaten around the head. But if he was found at the bottom of a hill, couldn't he have been pushed or fell?
Some detectives had questioned that.
But Ryan smiled as he looked at the notes. That a twelve-year-old boy from the children's home had last been with him.
He now had a clue as to who that might be.
Johnny had asked for leave, saying he needed to comfort Tee. He was allowed and now he was in Paris, going up to tee's room where she was waiting.
As he opened the door, she flung her arms around him. "Johnny, I've been so scared!" she wept into his shirt.
He held an arm around her and told her, "There's no need."
She sniffed, "But I was so worried."
Johnny firmly replied, "It's unlikely the guy would come back."
He looked at Tee's roommate, Kazima. Kazima was standing by her bed and watching.
Johnny then asked, "Any news?"
Kazima shook her head. "Not really. But I looked up this Grunewald man."
She sat down with some paper printed from the computer. As Tee lay on her bed, Johnny went to read it.
He looked at what Kazima had written down. Soon, he knew all about EK and JW and GS and how Grunewald travelled miles in his delivery van, sometimes smuggling cigarettes or alcohol or cloth between Poland and Germany. What Joanne Gottschalk told police when he was arrested and she wanted a shorter prison sentence.
She had described things that made Johnny's blood run cold.
In July 2011, two teenagers, DF and JVH, had been in Versallies when Grunewald had driven to a gas station, where the boys were loitering outside. He'd asked the boys for directions, then offered them a lift, as he said he was going to Notre Dame. The boys had got in, but Grunewald offered them drugged burgers and they'd fallen asleep.
The two boys never woke up.
Listed as runaways, they didn't make headline news until Grunewald's arrest. Joanne had buried the boys' backpacks in her garden. Their bodies had only been found that July, in a wood a hundred and fifty miles away near a small village named Moulainville. Some Scouts had come across them when putting tents up and moved brush away.
Johnny read how Joel Wedekind was featured heavily in searches, despite Missing White Woman Syndrome. Joel, a tall, sixteen-year-old black boy (albeit light-skinned) had left the school bus stop and went around town for the day. How he was spotted hanging by a market and eating a peach.
About how Grunewald had driven up and talked to him. How someone had seen the boy being dragged in through the side door, but only remembered it when posters had been put up. How it only became the sensation it was when there was talk of abduction and it was believed connected to the abduction of a twelve-year-old white girl in Amsterdam. The girl was found alive, but the poor missing boy stayed in people's memories.
Joel was found six years later in a wood ten miles north-east. He was found near a hiking path, so there was a theory that he was forced along the route from either a parking lot or the road. The thought made Johnny shiver.
Then he turned the sheet to see some information about Aidan.
Kazima saw his eyes widen and she nodded. "Tee told me you knew him."
Johnny muttered, looking at her for a second before going back, "I did. We didn't like him. Nobody did."
Tee sniffed a little.
Lying on her back, she told Johnny what had happened.
"When Tracy was taking me and Sapphire and Lilly on that hike, we passed a van. Tracy asked the driver for directions. Tracy gave a description when Aidan vanished. It looked just like Grunewald."
Johnny froze.
"Did you look at the driver?" he asked, heart pounding.
"I didn't get a good look." Tee replied, "Lilly and I were on the other side of the road."
Johnny just felt anger. The thought that that man had been a few yards from his sister was just too horrifying. There was no proof that Grunewald had hurt girls, but it was still scary.
Kazima spoke softly to Johnny. "When Tee read about the fact that two boys, Daniel Fromm and Jacques Van Heel, vanished together a month before Aidan, she got really upset. She thought that Grunewald saw you together. She's been really upset about it."
Johnny sighed inside. His stupid mistake was getting worse.
He knew that he'd have to live with this for the rest of his life and he knew he could never forgive himself. But despite that, he had done everything that he could to try and live as close to a normal life as possible.
He sighed as he held his head in his hands. Then he asked to go to the bathroom. But he really wanted to be alone.
As he went out, Ryan's voice almost startled him.
"Not so goody-two-shoes, are you?"
Johnny turned. Ryan was smirking slightly.
He walked up as Johnny moved toward the bathroom. "I read the report. Figured out it was you. Asked Mike about the case pretending to comfort him. Face it. I heard from Carmen that he was a nasty boy. I'd guess that he probably said something about your or Tee and then little Johnny decides he wants revenge on that bully."
Johnny whispered, Ryan standing inches away, "It was an accident."
Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Strangled by accident?"
"He was caught on a log...a stick caught the pull-cord..." Johnny looked up, eyes narrowed, "You have no idea how badly I tried to get on with my life. The nightmares. The fear. Scared every time a police officer came to the house."
"So you let somebody else take the blame?" Ryan asked.
Johnny stood up tall. "When everyone suspects someone in jail, another John Wayne Gacy, they're going to carry on thinking it's the guy unless they find an alibi. It was coincidence he happened to be in the New Forest that day. It was – I was unbelievably lucky."
Ryan sniffed.
Johnny smiled a little. "No-one's going to believe you. The police will always think it was him. But what I can't stand is the thought that he's taken another kid. But I can't do anything. So just let me live with the terrible secret and let me share in my own time."
Johnny locked the bathroom door when he entered. Squeezing his eyes, he tried hard not to cry.
As Grunewald sat in his car, eating some chips and pie, he breathed in the sea air. This was the start of a new life. He was still reasonably young, he could steal cars, live homeless.
And no-one would be able to connect the dots when he abducted children.
He thought about the boy in the back. The news on the radio said he was called Bailey Wharton. Even if Grunewald didn't know the names of the children he took, he definitely tried to find out afterwards.
He remembered some well. Others just blurred into the back of his mind.
But he had told them all to Joanne. That petty, weak Joanne. He'd trusted her and she blabbed! He'd told her all about them. The police were interested to hear about Edward Konig, Maurice Rey, Joel Wedekind, Kevin Cunningham, Gerald Salzwedel, Torvlad Gunvaldsson, Daniel Fromm, Jacques Van Heel and Felicidad Bonaventura.
But Grunewald refused to admit any of the charges. It may have resulted in a harsher sentence, but he didn't know if it really effected the decision. Still, he'd been put to life imprisonment in a German jail.
He smiled as he read the newspaper that he had found by the chip shop. Not the sort he'd read and some words he didn't know, but it was about him.
His ego ever growing, he decided to read.
He sighed and smiled when he read something they'd gotten wrong. Including that stupid Aidan English boy.
Then he read something which surprised him. The boy he had now went to the same children's home as Aidan English. How odd.
It didn't really matter to him. After all, a victim was a victim.
Johnny felt his blood run cold as he sat in the bathroom, reading what he could on Grunewald. There had been a book in a library at the town the army had been stationed in, but he hadn't had the chance to read it.
He had read about Grunewald's cold, harsh childhood. It felt strange thinking that he had lead a similar life to Johnny's. Or at least, had to linger in care. Johnny felt himself lucky that he wasn't bullied. Aside from Denis, that is.
He saw headlines and pictures in the middle of the book. Search on For Missing Antwerp Province Boy. Maurice Believed Abducted.
Pictures of articles were in French, but a caption told Johnny that the happy-looking teen on a bicycle in a black-and-white picture had been seen around town, before talking to a man in a white van.
Sketches of Grunewald from sightings of the Maurice Rey and Joel Wedekind kidnappings were shown next to photographs of him from 2005 and 2006.
There was a photograph of the wood in Limburg Province with police tape. Johnny knew most of the photos here had been put in for effect. They had been rather good ones, as well.
Johnny turned to another chapter, this one about Torvald Gunvaldsson. The seventeen-year-old from Denmark hadn't received much attention in the press. That is, until his body was found in a wood by a small village twenty miles south.
Johnny shut the book. He'd had enough. He had information on this man. It was no wonder they thought he'd murdered Aidan; Johnny would have thought so himself in different circumstances.
Soon Ryan saw an envelope had been pushed under his door. Getting up to look, he read it.
Ryan,
I'm going back to Britain. I have no idea if you'll tell or not, but I am begging you, don't. I know you don't like me, or Tee. But please don't ruin our lives. Plus, why does everyone think you and Tee would be a couple? She hated you, she told me. Repeatedly. I know opposites attract, but that's just ridiculous. Anyway, I'm going back. Good luck in the search for Bailey.
Bailey woke up. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep. Hours? Days? He was really hungry.
He worked out he was still in the boot, but he could see bright light coming through the bottom of the lid. It might be sunset.
He heard groaning from outside and someone walking around. Who was it? His heart pounded.
Could it be the man who took him? He was in no condition to attack. Did the man have a weapon? Bailey imagined a knife or gun or a pipe in the man's hand, ready to kill.
The lid opened.
The man was standing above him. He spoke bad English.
"You are a skinny man." Then he tugged Bailey out by his wrist.
In the slight darkness, Bailey asked, "What time is it?"
The man grinned, his teeth sparkling in the dim light. "It is past six o'clock on the day after I took you. We are in Brittany."
Bailey grumbled, "Can I have something to eat?" he hoped the man did. That meant his kidnapper might want to let him go.
The man shoved a half-eaten bag of chips into Bailey's hand. "Eat," he snapped.
Bailey slowly did so. The man told him, "I am now going to tell you about the boys I have taken. You can assume you are not the first."
Bailey grimaced. "I don't –"
But the man snapped, "You will listen or I will cut off your ears!" then he was calmer. "I will tell you. I first killed back in 2002. I was twenty years old. I next killed two years and three months later, in the September of 2005..."
Bailey tried so hard to ignore everything the man said, but if it even looked like he wasn't, the man would shout right in his face.
He felt faint as the man said what had happened.
"I killed in many countries. Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, Poland, Austria. At least once. The closest I ever killed to home was Gerald Salzwedel. He was from a part of Brunswick."
Bailey had enough. He leaned over and threw up on the ground. Some of it went on the man's shoes.
The man slapped him around the head, swearing all sorts of things in German. He then began dragging Bailey by the collar, close to some trees nearby.
Bailey's heart was pounding. He kept pleading, endlessly, but the man paid no attention.
As the man stopped, he held Bailey's face close to his.
"You were the worst. Because of this, I will make your death worst."
Bailey started screaming. He didn't care any more. But the man was determined.
Pushing Bailey to the ground, the boy pleaded as his hands were wrenched behind him and tied with a thick rope. He kept begging but the man simply held a handkerchief over Bailey's mouth, wrapping tape around his head.
Bailey was shaking as the man, now holding a torch, began digging.
His thought process had stopped. He didn't know what to do.
Johnny was on the ferry, looking out over the dark, endless waves. He breathed out and closed his eyes. He'd had that terrible secret lingering over him for five years. Part of him felt better knowing it was out, but the only person who knew was Ryan.
He didn't know what Ryan would do. But he didn't care. If he went to prison, he just hoped Tee would forgive him. He just wanted her to be all right, to be happy, to be everything he wanted her to be, even if she never saw him again.
Aidan's words echoed in his head as he thought about this. He'd know when he got back to the barracks. He'd know if Ryan told.
Please, don't let Ryan give away my secret.
Klaus Grunewald stood over what he had dug. He just needed to drag it from the car. He'd only be under a minute. Then he could get rid of this pathetic kid and start his new life.
Tugging the canvas sack from the back of the car, he shone his torch as he walked over to the struggling boy.
Throwing the sack down the six foot deep hole, he prodded the edges with the spade.
Bailey was still shaking on the ground, his trainers digging into mud. Grunewald lifted him and he went still.
Grunewald dropped him in, as if dropping a ragdoll. Bailey felt around and then Grunewald pulled the cord tight, before sitting at the edge of the hole, leaning down and tying the knot.
Then he began throwing dirt into the hole.
Muffled screaming came from the hole, but Grunewald just ignored it, playing a scene from a film in his head.
Soon Grunewald had completely covered it in soil, patting the ground with his spade as if planting. He doubted anyone would find the boy. Or if they did it would be too late to identify him.
He trod back to the car, saying a line from the film.
As he sat in and drove to the lights of the village, he put the radio on. He put in a CD. Good, it was one of his favourites.
As he drove into the village, he went up to the pub. Maybe he'd find a room there. Inside, a man behind the counter looked up as he arrived.
"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked.
Grunewald answered smoothly, "I'd like a room please. Just one night."
The man nodded. "All right. Here's a key, breakfast is at eight."
Grunewald thanked him and went upstairs. Soon he was settled onto a bed and had picked up a book.
There was a knock. "Housekeeping."
"Come in." he called. But then the door burst open and five police officers came in, guns ready.
Grunewald was so shocked, he didn't try to fight.
The police had been informed by a tourist at the cliffs that the car was the stolen one, with Grunewald present. Plain-clothes officers had stood all over the road through the village, with a block at the only way out. The landlord had been told that he needed to act normal when an officer there was told Grunewald was in the parking lot.
One officer asked him, "Where's the boy?"
But Grunewald only smiled.
Luckily the police knew enough about Grunewald that when they went to the cliffs they immediately searched the group of trees.
Sniffer dogs found Bailey's scent and began barking at the hole.
As the officers would later tell Mike, when they were digging they were expecting a body.
Despite being buried for fifteen minutes, Bailey was alive.
Johnny was in his barracks when Tee called him.
"Tee?" he asked, as soon as he picked up it.
She sounded overjoyed. "Bailey's been found! Bailey's alive!" she squealed.
Johnny could hear talking in the background. It sounded like the other children.
Johnny asked, "Calm down, what happened?"
Tee explained, "They found the prisoner at the sea and they found Bailey buried in a cliff."
Johnny asked, "But – but you said he was alive."
"He is!" Tee cried, "He's in hospital, but he's alive! Johnny, isn't this great?"
Johnny smiled. "It is."
He sat on his bed. Ryan couldn't have told. He had obeyed Johnny.
Johnny realised that he would always have to live with this. Whether they charged Grunewald with killing Aidan or they wouldn't, he would have to live with this awful thing.
But all Johnny hoped was that he could have a life. A life away from worrying if someone discovered his secret. He just hoped that wherever Aidan and all of the innocent children Grunewald murdered were that they would understand.
A/N: This was actually quite hard to write. I think I partly wrote this because I studied criminology in college. The idea of Johnny accidentally killing someone stems from a story I wrote back in 2011, although I think this story has more depth to it.
Do you think Johnny or Ryan did the right thing?
As for the villain, all place names were chosen at random. I hope I do not offend anyone from Dresden or Moritzburg.