Without Remorse

This is a crime thriller with some romantic sex, and a smidgeon of violent non consensual sex and interesting by-play between various characters whom I hope you'll enjoy.

Ten chapters long it tells the story of an investigation, with many characters weaving in and out the story.

Definition of a Sociopath – someone unconcerned about the adverse consequences for others of one's actions and with a total lack of moral compass.

*

Under the Arches near the Embankment a handful of people started to settle down for the night. Cardboard boxes found thrown out by local shops, and newspapers laid down on the concrete and cobbled ground helped to make more comfortable and warmer beds to lay upon. A girl of about twenty with greasy straight black hair, pierced eyebrows and thick opaque tights on long spindly legs pulled the blanket over her as she leaned back into the shadows of the recess. Hugging her arms around herself she asked the young lad with a shaved head and tattooed neck, "Have you seen Janice?"

"Not since yesterday over in front of Holborn station. She was trying to raise some cash for a bed over at the hostel."

Watching as he lifted the can of extra strong cider up to his mouth she asked him, "Got any for me?"

Passing the can across to her he told her, "Janice is finding it hard to keep warm. I told her to get over to St Mungo's and they'll give her a place for the night if they have space."

"Maybe that's where she is then." And handing back the half empty can she watched as the office workers made their weary way down to the nearest underground station and the journey home. She had been on the street since she had left Local Authority Care with whom she had been looked after since she was three years old, her mother unable to cope with her five kids due to drink. Coming down from Leeds to the Capital City to find a more exciting life she had ended up living on the street, turning the odd trick for a handful of coins, begging and spending them on drink to wipe out the stress of being homeless.

Settling down further into the thin blanket, the absence of her friend Janice floating towards the back recesses of her mind she muttered, "Maybe I'll catch up with her tomorrow."

*

Janice lay in her hospital bed, head wounds stitched, arm in a cast and drips in her other arm feeding her nutrients. Her hair spread across the white cotton of the pillow below her head and her small frame hardly made a dent in the sheet and blanket covering her. Kelly watched her as she moaned and moved a little, her hands grabbing at the material covering her as she rose up into consciousness.

Shouting out in her distress the patient moved fitfully, "No.......stop, please stop......help."

Moving to the side of the bed Kelly leaned down and told the waking girl, "It's ok. You're safe now. You're in the hospital."

Eyes flew open and stared up at the female Police Detective standing next to her.

"Oh God, help me...."

"It's alright, you're safe, I'm a Policewoman. No one is going to hurt you."

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

Glancing around the scared girl seemed to be searching out for someone. "Charlie.......he said his name was Charlie.......he took me to that place and then he.....he.....I couldn't stop him....he hurt me...."

In a calming voice Kelly asked the sobbing girl, "What's your name?"

"Janice."

"Well Janice can you tell me what happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Ok. But who is Charlie, can you tell me who he is?"

"I saw him a few times around, over the last couple of days. I was so cold. He told me he knew a place where we could sleep that was warm. A building that was closed up and other squatters lived. He took me there."

"Janice can you tell me what he looked like or his full name?"

"Charlie. His name was Charlie. I don't know his other name. No one gives their family name on the street."

"What was he like? What did he wear?"

"A big coat."

"Hair colour?"

"I don't know....he always wore this dark grey woollen hat....but I remember his eyes...they were brown. I remember him staring down at me as he hurt me....you know as he....oh God he raped me....I thought I was going to die...." And the girl started to cry again.

Kelly reassured her, probing to try to get more information and slowly she pulled out the story from the girl about the assault. How he had taken her into the warehouse, then suddenly started hitting her, slapping her and calling her names, Bitch, cow, cunt. He had ripped at her clothes and thrown the poor girl to the floor, forcing her legs apart and still hitting her he had forced himself into her before finally hitting her head on the floor knocking her out.

Finally a nurse came and asked Kelly to let the poor girl rest. Walking out the room Kelly pulled out her phone and called her boss filling him in with the description and details of the attack.

"Sounds like our man....similar MO. Takes them somewhere quiet, derelict or waste ground and turns suddenly hitting them and leaving them unconscious to be found."

"Her description pretty much matches that of the one the others gave us. Only difference is this time she had seen him around a few times."

"Jake is getting CCTV footage from around the area. There were no cameras in the immediate area but we can maybe get a picture of them walking towards the site. Getting an idea of what he looks like from that."

"I doubt it. Seems he made sure that his features were covered up most of the time. What about forensics?"

"If it is our man, and I think it is, there will be no sign of him in the database with prints or DNA. The semen gathered from the others didn't give us him, and unless he has been picked up in the last two weeks and been processed for something else there will be nothing to compare the info with."

"Damn. It's as if he's like a shadow. One minute there, the next gone."

"Yeah. Other CCTV shows him going into an area, but not coming out. Get on back here and we'll get a full statement from the victim tomorrow. I need you to go down to where she says he met her and speak to some of the other homeless in the area and see if they recognise his description."

Kelly turned off the handset and left the hospital, leaving the victim laying in her bed, nurses checking on her. She would be better off in the hospital than on the street she thought. At least she would be warm and fed in there.

*

Jake sat pouring over the CCTV footage from the area, trying to find both the route that the victim and her attacker had taken, and how he had left the site of the incident. There on the screen he could see the two walking along, the taller figure of the man, his head down, features obscured by the hat and turned up collar of the coat, the thin woman walking next to him, walking trustingly towards the attack. Footage finished three blocks from the derelict area, and no sign of the attacker was picked up from then on.

It was a mystery.

He must have left the scene, but how? It was as if he had melted into thin air.

Jake sat back staring at the screen. The man shown walking along with the victim was about six foot tall, well built and white, too well built to really be homeless. The beginning of a thought started to form in Jakes mind. Suppose he wasn't a homeless person, suppose he was someone pretending to be homeless?

Jake stood up quickly full of energy.

The bastard wasn't attacking one of his own types through availability he thought; he was targeting the homeless woman deliberately. Planned and not random. Going to his boss's office he laid out his idea.

Sitting back in his chair the CI nodded and told Jake to re look at the incident sites and see if there was a link somewhere. "If it is someone not homeless they would probably know the sites and have chosen them, rather than as we thought just a random opportunity. Could be he even prepared the sites first. Lets look back at CCTV back over the week before each incident, see if anyone turns up consistently."

"I'll get the footage sent over. Should take about a week or so to get it all over and quite a while to look through it all."

"Yeah. But it might be just the lead we need."

*

Kelly watched as the girl with long greasy straight hair came out of dark alley straightening her clothes as her trick walked away without a second glance. She had seen her pick up the middle aged fat man and take him into the alley. Watched as she had pulled down her tights and hiked up her skirt to let him screw her up against the wall and then take the money before emerging minutes later.

Walking up to the girl she showed her badge, noticing the body language of the girl as she hopped from leg to leg in panic at speaking to the Police.

"I ain't done nothing wrong!"

"Don't worry, I'm not vice. I want to ask you if you know anyone called Janice. Blond, green eyes, very slim and about five six?"

"Might do."

"Know someone called Charlie?"

"Might do."

"Look it would really help us if you could be a little more helpful. If you do know Janice it would help us to catch her attacker."

"Her attacker? She been hurt? Where is she? She ok?"

"She's safe. She was raped last night. Can you tell me anything about her?"

"Don't know much.....she appeared about four months ago.....I don't think she was homeless before that....she was a little bit of a lost lamb....did a bit of begging but refused to turn tricks for money....wasn't really made for living on the street."

"Did you see her go off with some man last night? Have you ever heard of a man called Charlie hanging around?"

"No. Didn't see her since yesterday morning...but she was having trouble coping with the cold at night now that winter is setting in. She may have been going over to one of the hostels to see if she could scrounge a bed for the night."

"OK, thanks. By the way what's your name?"

"Hanny."

Giving the young girl her card, Kelly told her, "If you hear anything or remember anything give me a call."

Taking the card and scurrying away the hungry girl went to the nearest café to get herself something to eat with the money she had just earned from screwing the fat man in the alley.

*

The next morning Kelly was walking down the corridor of the hospital. She was going to take a formal statement from Janice, but when she came to the room that the girl had been in she found it empty. Turning around to find a nurse she asked her where the girl had been moved to.

"She's not been moved. She should be there in the bed."

"She's not. The rooms empty."

The nurse walked back with Kelly towards the room and looking in noted that the drip was still there but now the tube that should have been attached to the arm of the raped girl was now hanging loose, the end laying forlornly on the bed, a small puddle of the nutrients spreading onto the white cotton sheet instead of into her veins.

"Shit she's gone."

Indeed the girl was gone. Fled into the mass of millions that made up London.

Kelly hit the doorframe with the palm of her hand, "Damn, damn, damn." Her boss was not going to be happy about this.