‘Or his heart stops.’ Catch and throw.
‘And then his phone is turned off a few minutes later and never turns on again,’ Pip said, lowering her head so her hands could take its weight.
‘Well,’ Ravi began, ‘Luke wasn’t exactly quiet about wanting to kill Jamie, because he thinks he’s the one who catfished him. Isn’t it possible he chased Jamie to the farmhouse?’
‘If Luke was the one who hurt Jamie, I don’t think he would’ve talked to us at all, not even for nine hundred quid.’
‘Fair point,’ Ravi said. ‘But he did lie initially, could have told you about seeing Jamie when you first talked to him and Nat.’
‘Yeah, but, you know, he went out there to cheat on Nat, and Nat was sitting in the room with us. Plus, I’m guessing he prefers not to be associated with missing people, given his line of work.’
‘OK. But the words Jamie said to Luke, they have to be important somehow.’ Ravi sat up, squeezing the socks in his hands. ‘They are the key.’
‘Child broomstick? Child brown sick?’ Pip looked over at him, sceptical. ‘They don’t sound very key.’
‘Maybe Luke misheard. Or maybe they have another meaning we can’t see yet. Look them up.’ He gestured towards her laptop.
‘Look them up?’
‘It’s worth a try, Grumpus.’
‘Fine.’ Pip pressed the power button to awaken her laptop. She double-clicked on Chrome, bringing up a blank Google page. ‘OK.’
She typed in child broomstick and pressed enter. ‘Yep, as I suspected, we’ve got a lot of Halloween costumes for small witches and Quidditch players. Not very helpful.’
‘What did Jamie mean?’ Ravi wondered aloud, sock-ball back in the air. ‘Try the other one.’
‘Urgh, fine, but I’m telling you now, I’m not clicking on images for this one,’ Pip said, clearing the search bar and typing in child brown sick. She pressed enter and the top result, as expected, was a website about kids’ health, with a page titled Vomiting. ‘See, I said this was pointle—’
The word got caught halfway up her throat, stalling there as Pip’s eyes narrowed. Just below the search bar, Google was asking her: Did you mean: Child Brunswick
‘Child Brunswick.’ She said it quietly, sounding out the words on her lips. They felt familiar somehow, pushed together like that.
‘What’s that?’
Ravi slid off the bed and padded over as Pip clicked on Google’s suggestion and the page of results changed, replaced by articles from all of the large news outlets. Pip’s eyes skimmed down them.
‘Of course,’ she said, looking to Ravi, searching for the same recognition in his eyes. But his were blank. ‘Child Brunswick,’ she said, ‘that’s the name the media gave to the unnamed kid involved in the Scott Brunswick case.’
‘The what case?’ he said, reading over her shoulder.
‘Have you not listened to any of the true crime podcasts I’ve recommended?’ she said. ‘Practically all of them have covered this case, it’s one of the most notorious in the whole country. Happened, like, twenty years ago.’ She looked up at Ravi. ‘Scott Brunswick was a serial killer. A prolific one. And he made his young son, Child Brunswick, help him lure out the victims. You’ve really never heard of this?’
He shook his head.
‘Look, read about it,’ she said, clicking on one of the articles.
HOME > TRUE-CRIME > BRITAIN’S MOST INFAMOUS SERIAL KILLERS > SCOTT BRUNSWICK ‘THE MONSTER OF MARGATE’
By Oscar Stevens
Between 1998 and 1999 the town of Margate, Kent, was struck by a string of horrific murders. In the space of just thirteen months, seven teenagers disappeared: Jessica Moore age 18, Evie French age 17, Edward Harrison age 17, Megan Keller age 18, Charlotte Long age 19, Patrick Evans age 17, and Emily Nowell age 17. Their burned remains were later discovered buried along the coast, all within one mile of each other and the cause of death in each case was blunt force trauma.[1]
Emily Nowell, the final victim of The Monster of Margate, was found three weeks after her disappearance in March 1999, but it would take police a further two months to track down her killer.[2]
Police zeroed in on Scott Brunswick, a 41-year-old forklift driver who’d lived in Margate his whole life.[3] Brunswick was a close match to a police composite sketch released after an eyewitness saw a man driving late at night in the area where the bodies were later found.[4] His vehicle, a white Toyota van, also matched the witness’ description.[5] Searches of Brunswick’s home uncovered trophies he had kept from each of the victims: one of their socks.[6]
But there was very little forensic evidence tying him to the murders. [7] And when the case was brought to trial, the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence and their key witness: Brunswick’s son, who was 10 years old at the time of the final murder.[8] Brunswick, who lived alone with his only child, had used his son in committing the murders; he directed the boy to approach potential victims in public places – a playground, a park, a public swimming pool, and a shopping centre – and to lure them away on their own, to where Brunswick was waiting in his van to abduct them.[9][10][11]The son also assisted in the disposal of the bodies.[11][12]
The trial of Scott Brunswick began in September 2001 and the son – nicknamed Child Brunswick by the press at the time – now 13, gave testimony that was essential in securing a unanimous guilty verdict.[13] Scott Brunswick was sentenced to life imprisonment. But just seven weeks into his sentence at the high-security HMP Frankland in Durham, Brunswick was beaten to death by another inmate.[14][15]
For his role in assisting the murders, Child Brunswick was charged by a juvenile court to serve a 5-year custodial sentence in a juvenile detention centre.[16] When he turned 18, a Parole Board decision recommended his release on a lifelong licence. Child Brunswick was given a new identity under a witness-protection style programme and a worldwide injunction was imposed on the media, preventing the publication of any details about Child Brunswick or his new identity.[17] The Home Secretary stated that this was because there was a risk of ‘vigilante-type retaliation against this individual if his real identity became known, because of the role he played in his father’s horrendous crimes.’ [18]
Thirty-Seven
Connor stared at them both, his eyes narrowing, darkening, creasing the skin on his freckled nose. He’d come straight here when Pip texted him that she had an urgent update; walked out of school right in the middle of a Biology lesson.
‘What are you saying?’ he asked, nervously swivelling in her desk chair.
Pip levelled her voice. ‘I’m saying that, whoever Layla Mead really is, we think she’s been looking for Child Brunswick. And it’s not just because Jamie said it to Luke. Child Brunswick was ten at the time of the final murder in March 1999, and he was thirteen in September 2001, when the trial began. That means that right now, Child Brunswick would be twenty-nine or recently thirty. Every single person Layla has spoken to, including Jamie at first because he lied about his age, has been twenty-nine turning thirty soon, or recently thirty. And she’s been asking them lots of questions. She’s trying to work out who Child Brunswick is, I’m sure of it. And for some reason, Layla thinks this person is in our town.’