The story of Samantha’s kidnap and heroic escape sparked the hearts and imaginations of the world. To think that a little girl – a little mute girl, no less – managed to outwit one of the most prolific serial murderers in recent British history! Add the fact that the shock probably helped her find her voice, and you had the stuff of legend. The popularity that came with her new found hero status wasn’t something Samantha understood, or enjoyed for that matter, but - what with the constant invitations to play chasey and attend birthday parties, life after The Woodland was annoyingly hectic, but there was an upside to it all.
Guaranteed immunity.
When Rodney Ealand, lunch vandal and general hooligan, went missing a month later, every kid in school was questioned; every kid but Samantha. Headmaster Fourmile and the detectives in charge of the investigation were in agreement that discussing the case with her would only bring to the surface memories that were best left suppressed.
Samantha was sixteen years old and sitting in a parked car next to a boy she didn’t find particularly attractive (not that it mattered), when news came over the radio that an item of the missing boy’s clothing had been found in a disused sewer pipe in a section of the Hibiscus Road Primary School grounds commonly referred to as ‘Frog’s Hollow.’
Samantha smiled.
‘The tattered t-shirt was positively identified by the boy’s parents as one they had given him for his eighth birthday; it bore the name of his favourite rock band - The Stranglers.’
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