Henry shook his head as he stared into the empty cupboard. “No… Let me see the picture again.”
Helen showed the album to the kneeling Henry who then peered around the corner of the desk. His eyes moved from the book to the cupboard back and forth as though trying to align the two views in his mind. “Those pictures were definitely taken from here.” On his hands and knees he crawled around the desk to look from the other side, pushing the pupil’s desk aside whilst he examined the class-facing side of the desk. “There’s a hole… There’s… Oh, you bastard. You bastard. You evil, pure evil scum.” Henry was onto his feet and to the other side of the room. He grabbed a hammer and screwdriver from a rack and rushed back.
“What is it?” Helen asked.
“A camera, like you said.”
“But where?” Helen asked looking inside the cupboard. Henry ushered her aside and leaned into the space to hammer the screwdriver against the wood at the back of the cupboard. “He’s hidden it. He’s all about woodwork and cabinet making. The evil bastard has hidden it inside the wood.” Henry smashed the hammer fiercely until a sudden cracking noise brought it to a halt.” He reached in and tossed some wood aside. “Take a look,” he said backing out.
Helen got onto her knees and looked in the desk cupboard. There was a false backing that concealed a spy camera about the size of a large coin. A cable came away from it which she pushed and pulled, finding it loose.
“I’ve got it,” Henry called. “There’s a USB cable beside his computer. The bastard. This evil, filthy man.”
“There’s another cable,” Helen called as she followed the wire. It goes out under the desk.
Henry was pushing the desk before Helen could get her head out of the cupboard. She noticed that John Henry was possessed with a sudden anger, a rage that was driving his actions. He practically threw the desk aside to find the cable disappearing into a pencil-sized hole in the floor below the desk. He got to his knees. “There’s a conduit, look!” He ran his finger along the floor. “The floor has been chipped out and re-cemented. He’s run the wire to the wall. Henry grabbed his hammer and rammed the claw into the skirting board, ripping it away fiercely. “It’s here.” He pulled at the board growing angrier, more beast like, imbued with some kind of emotional charge. He was on his knees, crawling along the edge of the wall. “There’s more cemented here,” he said by a machine. “More of the floor has been chipped away.” He pressed his face against the floor and looked into the back of the machine’s pedestal, reaching his hand inside, fighting to touch something. He ripped out a length of cable. The end was attached to another of the coin sized spy cameras. “Here,” he said. The cable was gripped in his fist, the proof poisoning him. Helen walked to the sander and stood with her feet apart. She was glad to be wearing the trousers of a forensics suit, but even so, seeing Henry lay on the floor looking up at her gave her the sense of violation that these young girls would feel when they ultimately learned the truth.
Hugh Wilfred. Schoolteacher and respected disciplinarian had gone to great lengths to hide a camera in the pedestal of this machine. It involved building a fake back to the cupboard. It required pulling off the skirting board, chipping out the floor and repairing it with a hidden conduit. It had taken a great deal of his time, effort and ingenuity, all so he could peek up the skirts of girls aged eleven to sixteen.
John Henry got to his feet and dusted himself down. He threw the hammer onto a table with disgust. “They’re not safe are they? You send them to school thinking they’re safe, but they’re not safe. They’re not safe in the street, or in their school, they’re not even safe in their own homes… Kids aren’t safe anywhere… There are always predators out there, people who want your child as their own sexual plaything.”
CHAPTER SIX
“It was of utmost thrill when Silke introduced me to the stable boy. I had known her appetites were of such lust that she required an ever increased perversion to be sated. However, this day she took her thrill to a greater height. As I finished shaming the boy, Silke exclaimed that the lad should have been born a girl and attacked his manhood with a knife. The lad fought and squealed but Silke took his boyhood in one deft slice then placed his tiny member and sack in her mouth. Despite my seed still wet upon the stable boy’s legs I was so aroused I made love to Silke beside the bleeding eunuch, kissing and passing his flesh between our mouths. So engrossed in our passions, we did not see the boy staggering away to find help until we heard the approaching rabble, clamouring for revenge and screaming Silke’s name.”
The Diary of Maximilian Adalbert
July 19th, 1929
--- CHAPTER SIX ---
Tomaz dragged his trolley bag up the garden path and hammered his fist on the door. He was still holding the piece of paper with the address that he’d shown the taxi driver. The door was opened by a pale looking man who looked like he used to be Anke’s husband. Tomaz began stepping into the house before introducing himself.
“Hey… Excuse me?” Steven said. “What are you doing…” then his eyes settled on the man and looked him over. “You’re Anke’s uncle.”
“Tomaz,” he spat. “I am Tomaz. I come for your girl, your daughter. Where is?” Steven went paler still and stepped back to allow the old man to drag his bag inside. “Where she is?” he asked again.
Steven’s eyes filled with tears and his open mouth trembled. He tried to make a sound but nothing was coming out.
“Der Gross Man searches your daughter. Gross Man wants her.”
“Who? Who is Gross Man?” Steven said switching from lost to desperate, grabbing Tomaz by the shoulders. “Where is she? Do you know where Jemima is? Do you know something?”
“Is she taken?” Tomaz asked. “Is she gone from here?”
“Yes… She is missing. The police are looking for her.”
“Police will not find her,” Tomaz said. “I know where is she. I can show you… Let me show you.”
----- X -----
“Can I have your attention. We’re going to quickly brief you on the situation, for some of us this will be a recap but we now have to put three investigations under one roof.” Chief Superintendent Donovan addressed a room that was now uncomfortably full. Every seat was taken. Police officers leaned against the wall and sat on tables. “We have four missing schoolgirls,” he continued. “A murder; and a child sexual abuse case that have all become connected… Helen, just a brief overview.”
Helen positioned photographs of the girls on the whiteboard and wrote their names beside the pictures. “Four girls vanished from their homes across four nights. Sabina King was the first,” she wrote ‘diabetic’ beside her name. “Followed each subsequent night by Kerry Powell, Danesha Pierce and finally last night, Jemima Collins. They are all pupils of Highgate Collegiate School, all in the same year and about the same age, twelve to thirteen years old. The girls went missing from their homes during the night without taking mobile phones, money, or in Sabina’s case, insulin which she needs to regulate.” Helen looked around the room. They were paying attention. “Sabina has type one diabetes which means within a day her body will have gone into a state called diabetic-ketoacidosis, D.K.A. This will leave her in a confused and weakened state. Without insulin she will die from D.K.A. in anything from two days to two weeks, so whilst all the missing girls need to be found, Sabina is at risk of death.” Helen took a deep breath before moving on. “Now, with most missing children of this age they have normally gone somewhere without telling an adult. If they have been taken against their will it is usually by someone they know. We’re looking for a connection between them and we have timelines built of their movements but there is nothing unexplained and no inappropriate contact has been seen. No emails, text messages or chats with strangers… Nothing.”
Helen looked to Donovan and gave a slight nod to signal she had finished.
“Moving to this morning,” Donovan said, “at the same school a teacher called Hugh Wilfred was found murdered, which l
eads into investigation two.”
John Henry stepped forward and put photographs of the boys onto the whiteboard. “These three kids,” Henry began, “are in the same school year as the girls. They are William Warwick, Christopher Howell and Owen McNally. All bright kids, sporty, come from good backgrounds that we can tell. They were found covered in blood saying they had tried to do first-aid on an injured teacher.” He passed a crime scene photo to the people at the front of the room and motioned them to pass it around.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the uniformed officers said on seeing the images. The photographs began to circulate of Hugh Wilfred with chisels rammed into his eye sockets. The otherwise still room began to shuffle awkwardly as people craned their necks to see then leaned away in revulsion.
“Lauren,” Henry called to a lady at the side of the room.
A suited lady stepped to the front and addressed the room. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lauren Sharp, I work with an outside agency, Forensic Science and Identification Services. At present the forensics has focussed on blood splatter analysis which suggests the three boys were the only people involved. Whoever committed the murder would have been covered in blood yet the only blood trails at the scene were left by the boys themselves. There were no other trails.”
“Can you mention about the boy’s story, the first-aid, please,” Henry asked.
Lauren nodded. “The boys claimed to have tried to do first-aid which would account for them being as contaminated as they were.” She looked back to Henry as though wondering if she was supposed to add something else.
“The three kids were soaked in the man’s blood and claimed they got that way doing first-aid,” Henry added. “That might be true, but it’s unlikely and there is no physical evidence of a third party. The boys are providing alibi’s for one another but there is strong evidence of collusion… However, there is not yet enough evidence to disprove their story.”
“Which brings us on to the third arm of the investigation… I think, Helen, we’re back to you.”
Helen stepped forward. “This morning I went to Hugh Wilfred’s home and discovered a collection of indecent images and personal items of clothing taken from young girls at the school in which he taught.”
“He was collecting their underwear,” John Henry butted in. “Hundreds of them, all sealed up in his pervert collection.”
Helen took a deep breath and held her hand to diplomatically signal she wanted Henry to pause and let her finish. “We have discovered spy cameras that were used to take indecent pictures in classrooms and the girls changing rooms.”
A hand went up from a uniformed policewoman.
“Yes?” Helen asked.
“I was interviewing at the school. Once word filtered to us about this we began asking if Wilfred had any contact with girls and there were a lot of rumours and hearsay. The kids called him Creepy Wilfred and I spoke with three girls who independently say they discovered him in the girl’s locker room during P.E. lesson times. I haven’t had time to report this yet, but the general feeling was this man had an unhealthy interest in young girls, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. I got the impression he would place himself in situations to get close to girls.”
“That’s a common trait of paedophiles,” Helen said. “They will go to extraordinary lengths to engineer situations that put them close to children.” As she said it she heard John Henry snort with derision.
Donovan stepped forward. “Okay, so now we all have an overview we’re going to split into three investigative teams. We need to know everything about the missing girls. Who are their friends, who are their families, who are the friends of their families? Those of you connected to this arm report directly to Helen. Second team under John Henry is likewise, looking at the background of the three boys, their families and friends. Third team is deep history. You’re going to be linked to CEOP to analyse the collection of Hugh Wilfred, identify the girls in his photographs and begin an investigation into his background. There were sexual injuries to Wilfred which suggests a sexual motivation; it’s quite possible that whoever did this is a past victim so those of you on deep history keep this in mind. We’re looking for non-obvious-relationships, so ensure all interviews are recorded electronically for the NORA systems to sift through… If there’s nothing else, I suggest we get to it and meet back here tomorrow morning at eight.”
The room began to move. Chairs scraped across the floor as people stood to leave. Henry held Helen back for a moment and let the room clear. “I’m sorry I interrupted,” he said. “It was unprofessional of me.”
She shrugged it off. “I noticed when we found the cameras that it’s bringing out emotions.”
Henry snorted a laugh then pinched his eyes between thumb and finger as though to shield his face. “You could say that.”
“You can request out if it’s personally upsetting. This isn’t for everyone and if you find the emotional side becoming overwhelming it’s possible to overlook evidence or make mistakes and…”
“My daughter was having sex with an older man,” he blurted.
“Oh,” was all Helen could say.
“She’s thirteen. I found out she had a boyfriend who was in his twenties… It’s recent… I’m being divorced because of it… Like I said to you earlier, kids aren’t safe anywhere. Not at school, not even in their own homes... When I saw a grown man take his sexual gratification from girls the same age as my daughter… it got the better of me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”
But Henry was already out the door.
----- X -----
Tomaz lifted the spell books from his trolley bag and was putting them onto the coffee table. Steven watched him with incredulity. How had this old man ended up here? He was a crazy guy with dementia, yet somehow he’d managed to get on a plane and find him because he thought Jemima was in trouble.
“Der Gross Man,” he kept saying. “Der Gross Man called to her in Germany and she listened.” Tomaz laid out the grimoires. “These books, these are the knowledge of Der Gross Man. They are written by hand… It is old story that goes back many years… One of the book is missing and I think your daughter took when she is in Germany.”
Steven shook his head. “Jay wouldn’t do that,” he said. But as he spoke he realised he’d seen one. Something similar in her room. It was there when the policewoman searched, yellowed leather, metal covers on the corners. “Wait,” he said as he left the room to check. It was there. On her desk, a matching book. He took it back downstairs and showed it to Tomaz.
“This is it,” the old man said. “Mein Gott, she has taken it.”
Steven opened the book. The text was neatly printed in two columns. There were occasional sketches of techniques such as grinding materials with a pestle and mortar, or diagrams of herbs, a skewed face, drawings of beetles and other insects, twisted trees. It was all in German. “What is it, what is this book?”
“Majik,” Thomas said. “This book is Gospels of Gross Man. They are twelve books that are, how you say, immortal books. If one is destroyed then somebody else will write the book again. It took many years to find all twelve and keep them safe… If a child uses majik from these books they can summon Der Gross Man and your daughter stole this book.” He pointed at the book in Steven’s hands. “This book was written by Jewish girl called Renata Natowicz. She was from Dortmund but lived in Berlin. She survived gas chamber at Majdanek two times.” Tomaz took a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his brow with it. “The cover to the book is human skin… Renata Natowicz turned to Der Gross Man when she had lost her family. She was helpless. He saved her, but then… there is a price.”
“What price?”
“She murdered fifteen children. All children of Nazi soldiers. She took the children, tortured them, killed them… All for Der Gross Man.”
Steven closed the book and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “You said you know where Jemima is.”
“Sh
e is with Der Gross Man.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Where do we look? Where do we find her?”
Tomaz pulled out the Nuremberg dial. “She is here.” He opened the dial and pointed. “This shows where Der Gross Man is… But we can only see him when we are very close and we can only see him under moonlight.”
Steven picked up the dial. “What is this?”
“It is very old. Many hundred years.”
Steven examined the dial. Intricate lines and delicate hairline symbols. It was a compass. Except it didn’t point North. He knew which way North was. This was pointing closer to the West. “It is pointing the wrong way.”
“It is pointing to Der Gross Man… We can follow it to him, but we can only see him in moonlight.”
“Is Gross Man… is he... is he the same as Slenderman?”
“Slenderman, Gross Man, Tallman, he can take any name… But whatever name he chose,” Tomaz pointed at the Nuremberg dial, “this is how you find him. And if you find him, you find your daughter.”
----- X -----
Helen went back to the computer lab but heard John Henry call her before she made it. His head was lowered and his body awkward. “Can I have a moment?” he asked. “Just a private chat.”
They took a table in the canteen, far away from anybody else. Henry nursed coffee in a paper cup, turning it around, screwing his face. His brow was furrowed as he wrestled some inner force. “I wanted to apologise if my behaviour was out of line. You’re quite right in what you said about being emotional. I am. It was perceptive of you to notice and I’m thankful you pointed it out with diplomacy.”
Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child Page 15