73 #OddManOut

Connor was doing some Internet research, sitting in his hotel room systematically working his way through the Twitter feeds from the six names passed to him by Tom O’Neill. The first five fell into the Bible-bashers category. They were all a bit too obvious: either damning Bryce Horrigan to eternal hell and warning he’d pay for his sins, or starting in a biblical vein before moving on to torrents of abuse and threats.

But Connor thought the sixth must have been some sort of mistake – compared to the others, it was relatively tame. Although Geoffrey Schroeder was one of Bryce Horrigan’s ten million followers, his timeline revealed he had had just one major online spat with the TV presenter, which had ended with a very abusive slanging match over Bryce’s pro-abortion stance. It was just heat-of-the-moment stuff, nothing particularly startling compared to the chilling nature of the others on the list. Connor could even track the moment Schroeder calmed down, explaining why he had flown off the handle at Bryce because he lost his wife and unborn to an abortionist. Although his tweets were dripping with emotion, you could tell he was being genuine in his sorrow and beliefs. Schroeder had recently retweeted the pictures of Bryce’s death scene, but that was about it.

Connor checked who followed Geoffrey Schroeder. It was a quick search as he only had a dozen followers. But the last one – Baby Angel – caught his attention. He clicked on the profile, which read, God’s assassin. My mission is to destroy all baby killers. The Twitter profile certainly had a fire-and-brimstone feel to it, but it was the timeline that intrigued the reporter: Baby Angel had first made contact with Schroeder three weeks before Bryce’s death.

Connor thought long and hard before deciding he had no other option but to take a chance. He wrote:

Connor Presley @ElvisTheWriter

@GeoffreySchroeder we may be able to help each other?

Connor posted the innocuous tweet not really knowing what to expect. A minute later, he was notified he had a new follower.

Geoffrey Schroeder was online.