He got up and left the lounge and was shocked to find the front door to the house open. The door was open? Had she gone out and not closed the door? “Jay?” He called up the stairs. “Jemima, are you still here?”
There was no response.
He went to her room. Empty. She must have gone to school and he’d missed… wait… he backed up and looked in again. Her school blazer was hanging over the back of her chair. She wouldn’t have gone to school without her blazer… and her school bag was still beside her desk…
He reached into his pocket and took his mobile phone, his fingers pressing the screen too quickly as he searched for her number. She probably couldn’t answer. She was probably in a lesson and had her phone off or on silent.
The phone rang in her room.
Her phone was here. Her school uniform was here. Her bag was here.
----- X -----
John Henry was in the detective office. His caseload had been cleared and transferred onto other inspectors. Some cases had been resulted. The best was the Betting Shop Pervert, a man with a penchant for following Muslim women wearing hijabs and sexually assaulting them in the street. He liked to grab their breasts and get his hands under their clothes before running away. It got serious when one woman was opening her front door and he forced her inside. He tried to rape her in front of her children but the victim had fought back like a Trojan and kicked him out. It had been a frustrating enquiry as the guy frequented betting shops and they had great CCTV images, but they just couldn’t find him. It seemed his luck had run out when a shop worker recognised him and called in whilst he was still in the betting store. “One less pervert,” Henry mumbled to himself.
Donovan appeared at the door. “John, how keen are you to jump in with both feet?”
“What is it?”
“Uniform are checking on a murder, do you want it?”
John Henry was out of his chair in a flash, grabbing his coat from the rack. “Just tell me where.”
----- X -----
“Hello, Helen Mayhew speaking,” she answered her phone whilst looking over the data trail of Sabina King, Kerry Powell and Danesha Pierce. CEOP had collated all of their emails, social media messages and text messages into a diagnostic timeline. It showed who called whom and when.
“Miss Mayhew?” the man’s voice was croaking, worried.
“It is, how can I help?”
“My name is Steven Collins. We met yesterday with my daughter, Jemima.”
Helen felt the hair on her arms stand. The Collins girl knew more than she was letting on. “Go on, Mr Collins.”
“It’s my daughter Jemima… I think she’s gone missing too.”
----- X -----
Helen walked up the front path of the Collins home. Nice. Smart. A maintained front garden with a path down the middle. The door opened before she reached it. The father, his face was pale.
“Thank you for coming so soon. I tried to call the school but they’re not answering. I don’t know what else to do. Why aren’t the school answering their telephone?”
Helen brought him into the house and took the particulars. She asked the standard questions. When had he noticed she was missing? Did she have any friends she could be with?
“Her best friend is Danesha Pierce,” the father said.
Helen nodded. “I know.”
Three girls in three days. Jemima would make four. The general rule is if something happens once it’s an accident, twice it’s coincidence and three times it’s deliberate… Late last night it was decided to assign six people to piecing the timeline together of the girls. That task was almost complete without a single red flag. Three girls gone. All hell would break loose if Jemima Collins became the fourth.
The girl’s room was typical. Pastel colours, pinks and purples. White furniture. A desk, dresser, wardrobe and drawers. A poster on the wall of baby white tigers. A laptop computer on her desk. Pens in a mug. A green school uniform hanging on the back of the chair. Makeup on the dresser. The letter writing paper…
Oh, my God… There was a pad of lilac coloured writing paper on Jemima’s desk. Helen recognised it immediately. Lilac coloured pages. The same as the Slenderman notes.
“Have you touched anything?” she asked. “The bedding, her clothes?”
“No. Nothing…” the father covered his eyes with his palms. “Oh, God, I can’t do this. Not Jay as well.”
“Have you touched her mobile phone? Have you turned on her computer?”
“No.”
“I’m serious, you didn’t turn on the laptop?”
“No. Listen. Jemima is gone, but I didn’t touch anything.”
Helen held up her hand to silence him and stepped into the room. “Please stay at the door,” she said. “I’m going to grid search the room.”
The father was looking white.
Helen began at the door and moved counter clockwise. The drawers were first. She pulled the top drawer out completely and searched through it. Socks and underwear. A cigar box with printed photographs, kids taking selfies. She went to the next drawer down, more clothing. She pulled out the last drawer against the floor and spotted something under the furniture. She searched the drawer first, more clothes, then she reached under the furniture to see what Jemima had hidden. It was a collection of erotic novels.
“Oh, God.” The father had both hands over his mouth and nose. He was breathing hard.
“This is normal, Mr Collins. Young girls always make hiding holes for their private things.” The father was looking at the books and she could see his eyes were tearing up. The covers were tasteful pictures of women in lingerie but the titles ranged from ‘Temptation’ and ‘Girls on Top’ to the more sinister sounding, ‘Forced to Submit’ and ‘Taken and Used’. “You don’t need to worry about this, Mr Collins.”
“No?”
“Children are sexual creatures. Something adults forget. If you watch young kids from age five to ten they’re playing games like Mums and Dads, or Doctors and Nurses. After ten they’re into kissing and touching… Jemima is twelve, yes? About to turn thirteen?”
The father nodded.
Helen tapped at the cover of ‘Girls on Top’. “She’s curious. This is just part of growing up.” She put the books back where she’d found them and put the drawers back into the furniture.
The father covered his eyes again, physically blocking the sight of his daughter’s sexuality.
She moved on to the desk and tipped out the contents of the waste paper bin. Makeup wipes. A short pencil stub. Some screwed up paper. The first paper ball looked like a poem with lots of crossing out, it was written on the same lilac writing paper. The second piece of paper was…
Helen stared at it... Reading it... Re-reading it.
“What is it?” the father asked. “What? Tell me!” he said more forcefully. Helen looked up knowing that Jemima was now missing girl number four.
“What the hell is happening?” Helen mumbled. Her telephone rang.
“Why won’t you tell me?” the father insisted. “Tell me what it is?”
Helen put the paper down to answer her phone. “Hello, Helen Mayhew,” she said.
A hurried voice from the station. “Helen. You need to get back here. That school with the missing girls, one of the teachers has been murdered.”
“Murdered?” she said aloud. She saw the looming presence of Steven Collins as he stepped into the room. Towering over her. He’d heard the word Murder. He was stressed. He snatched the piece of paper and read the note. It was in Jemima’s handwriting. It said, ‘I’m sorry Daddy, but I have to go with Slenderman now. He is coming for me and I have to go with him.’
----- X -----
Uniformed officers had cleared the whole wing of the school and the kids were now in the assembly hall. “Where’s the body?” Henry asked.
“Woodworking class. It’s a teacher called Hugh Wilfred. Forensics are setting up and they don’t want anybody in the corridor until they’ve been
over it; but you can see through the windows if you’re not too squeamish.”
“Squeamish?” Henry asked.
The uniformed officer motioned his hand towards the windows of the ground floor classroom. “Yeah… squeamish.”
John Henry looked inside to see an older man on his back. There was blood everywhere. It took a moment for him to realise the red mush of what used to be a face had chisels stuck in it. Through the eyes, the mouth, the chest. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Henry said. He cupped his hands and pressed closer to the glass. “Jesus. Jeeeesus. What the hell?” He could see the forensics technicians through the far side in their white suits and masks. A flashgun was firing in the corridor outside the room.
Then Henry saw the lower damage. He hadn’t noticed at first, but the old man’s trousers had been pulled down to expose his penis. He couldn’t see what had been done due to the amount of blood, but something horrible had happened to this old man. There were bloody tools on the floor beside him. Pliers, pincers and hammers. “That’s personal,” Henry whispered to himself. “That’s sexual. Whoever did this had a real personal reason for doing it.”
John Henry stepped away from the window and collected his thoughts. Somebody hurt this old man, hurt him fiercely and killed him by smashing chisels through his eyeballs. Whoever did it must have had a rage and fury beyond compare. “Who discovered the body?” he asked the officer.
“Three boys and a teacher. I’ll take you to them.”
----- X -----
Helen arrived back at the police station carrying Jemima’s laptop and mobile phone. “The Super is looking for you,” the desk officer said.
Helen went to the technician’s lab first. “I need another data dump and footprint.”
The technician, a bespectacled short man called Martin took the laptop from her. “There’s been a murder at that school in Highgate.”
“I heard. This is connected, so it's high priority.”
Martin flipped the laptop, unscrewed the hard drive and slotted the device into a dock to copy. Computers started creating new files from the moment they were switched on so hard discs had to be duplicated to examine, otherwise the contents would be inadmissible in court. “Did you say you need a footprint?” Martin was already tapping away at a terminal.
“Jemima Collins. She was a friend of the girl I asked for yesterday, Danesha Pierce.”
“A friend of Danesha,” Martin whispered. He opened a program that showed data trails on the right and Facebook on the left. He opened Danesha Pierce’s Facebook profile and searched her friends. “Jemima,” he said pointing at the thumbnail image. “Is this her?”
“Yes.”
Martin clicked a few keys and the software began trawling the internet. Jemima Collins. Age 12. Highgate Collegiate School. Facebook, Instagram, Whatsap, Snapchat, Twitter. Uses the alias ‘cutiecollins’, uses that handle frequently on poetryslammer, wattpad and a dozen other websites. “This will be done in ten minutes or so,” Martin said. “If you leave me her mobile phone I’ll have the contents dumped. Do you want me to add it to the timeline with the other girls?”
“Please,” Helen said. “I’d appreciate if you can cross reference with the other missing girls to see if there are any obvious coincidences... Oh, one other thing. Look for the name Slenderman.”
“Slender Man.” Martin said writing it down. “What’s that?”
“It’s the name of the boogeyman.”
----- X -----
Great Uncle Tomaz arrived at Tegel airport by taxi. He’d remembered his passport and money but only now did he realise he had no idea where he was going. England. Did they live in London? He was sure it was London… or was it Liverpool?
He would take the plane to London then telephone home to ask. It would be better he call once in Britain. If he called whilst still in Germany they would think he had finally lost his mind and rush to bring him home, probably put him into care.
London. It was definitely London. He was sure… perhaps.
He realised now he’d packed all of the spell books but he didn’t remember packing any clothes. This was stupid. He couldn’t do this. He should give up now… but how could he. When he tracked Der Gross Man in the nineteen-forties, the demon had taken hundreds of children. When he trapped Der Gross Man in nineteen fifty nine he’d saved hundreds more from a fate worse than death.
He wasn’t that man any more. Now he struggled to remember his own birthday. He wasn’t capable of taking on this horror, not at his age… but there wasn’t any choice.
----- X -----
Chief Superintendent Donovan found Helen in her office. “Anything new on your three girls?”
“I think it’s four, Sir,” she replied. “I brought a kid in yesterday called Jemima Collins but her legal got her out before I could question.”
Donovan took a seat and lowered his voice. “I got a formal complaint this morning about her arrest and de-arrest. The complaint came through the family solicitor.”
Helen shrugged it off. “The girl was hiding something. I asked her about it and she ran. I had to give chase and ended up arresting her. Nothing will come of the complaint as she’s missing and the father is now singing a different tune. What’s the story at her school? The murder?”
“Hugh Wilfred. Product Design teacher has been stabbed to death with chisels. It’s grisly. Whoever did it mutilated his penis and gouged out his eyes.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Helen whispered.
“Three schoolboys are in custody as the most likely suspects. They’re twelve and thirteen years old. They’re covered in blood and say they got it trying to do first-aid. There’s too much weirdness at that school in one week, so I want everything crosschecked with your investigation. John Henry is leading the murder enquiry.”
Helen felt a sudden tensing of her shoulders. “John Henry? I thought he was on suspension?”
“That’s finished with,” Donovan said. “No wrongdoing. It’s all cleared up.”
“But I heard he put his wife and daughter in hospital… That’s what I heard, anyway. He broke his wife’s jaw.”
Donovan shook his head shallowly. “There were domestic issues, but... they’re private and the mitigating circumstances justify what he did. He’s off suspension and there will be no criminal case brought against him. Put it out of your mind.”
“Yes, Sir.”
John Henry? The guy was a thug. He had a reputation for going in hard and made his name on drug raids as the big guy at the front who could tackle the most violent criminals. Then it had all gone wrong. There were a lot of rumours, but no explanation. His wife was hospitalised, he was suspended. Mitigating circumstances? Justification? There are no reasons why a husband should be justified to break his wife’s jaw.
----- X -----
Helen walked to the cells and found John Henry checking in blood stained clothing. “I’m Helen Mayhew, I’m attached to CEOP. Donovan wants us to liaise.”
John Henry gave a kind smile that somehow showed it was worn on the face of a troubled man. Helen thought he looked like a rugby player at the end of a losing match. He held out his hand to shake.
Her eyes drifted to the clear bags of clothing. She recognised the soaked green blazers of the school uniform. “That’s a lot of blood.”
Henry nodded. “They look like they’ve been swimming in the guy’s entrails. We’re getting them showered now.”
“Is there any motive for this? Any clue as to why they would do it?”
“They say they tried to do first-aid, but prima facie they’re the only suspects and I’m guessing it was sexual revenge.”
“Sexual?”
“They hacked the guy’s manhood to mincemeat with woodworking tools. Young boys don’t mutilate a man’s private parts unless there’s a really strong emotion behind it. The school is being closed but the pupils are still there whilst uniform takes statements. Forensics are going over the scene. I don’t have anybody going to the teacher’s home yet, if that in
terests you. Apparently he’s a lifelong bachelor, a bit aloof, old style disciplinarian.”
“I’ll visit the home.” A lifelong unmarried man, a disciplinarian school teacher; nothing unusual in its own right, but when three boys conspire to hurt him sexually there’s every chance they did it because he had hurt them sexually. “One thing. When you question these boys, ask them about Slenderman.”
“Slenderman?”
“Yeah, it’s something I can’t put my finger on. I’ve got four missing girls and when they went missing there were these notes left on their beds that said Slenderman, Slenderman, take this child. The fourth girl left her father a note saying she was going with Slenderman.”
Henry stared at her for an uncomfortable length of time. “I’d say Slenderman is your prime suspect.”
Helen raised her hands as though throwing them in the air. “But the only person who knew anything claimed he was nothing but a fantasy boogeyman.”
“Ask them again,” Henry said.
Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child Page 13