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 into a cunning serial attacker running loose in London.
Definition of a Sociopath – someone unconcerned about the adverse consequences for others of one's actions and with a total lack of moral compass.
*
The man sat in his office flicking through a list of empty building sites or waste grounds on his screen that the company he worked for had put in bids to design new buildings on. He was looking for one that they did not get and went to another Architectural firm. One that was fairly isolated and in a part of the city that was close enough to where he knew the flotsam and jetsam of the street hung out and he could find his next victim.
Tomorrow he would pop into a Charity shop where they sold second hand clothes and find something he could wear to scope out the site and the next possible bitch he could rape.
No one really cared about these people, certainly not him he thought.
He cared for no one.
All his life he had felt superior to everyone. Contemptuous. No empathy.
From the moment as a young boy when his stupid weak mother would cower as his drunken bullying father would hit her he had learnt not to feel. And as he grew he had evolved into a self centred and cunning person who was a skilled and pathological liar who enjoyed living on the edge, taking what he wanted, taking a gamble with life and with no remorse.
Leaving his dysfunctional home at the age of sixteen he had moved around, sometimes abroad, sometimes in the UK, but always leaving behind chaos and problems.
Problems for others. Problems for the women he had met, for the people he had conned from and from the past. Always moving on.
Early on in his life he had learnt that others expected to him to act in a certain way, to have emotions that he did not have, to be like them. So he had managed to become what they wanted, feigning those emotions, and pretending to be what they wanted. He had become a manipulative and cunning actor, getting by conning others with a superficial charm.
At thirty eight he was now at his peak, dangerous, practiced and empty.
And he was the person that the newspapers had dubbed the Homeless Rapist.
And a lot more.
*
Jake and Kelly sat with the rest of the team and the Chief Inspector in front of the crime board showing all the victims and photos of the sites. A review of what they knew and what they all were going to do next was taking place.
"Any news on those sites yet? Any links."
"Yeah. Two of the sites, where the latest one and victim number two was found both have the same Architectural firm designing the rebuild." And looking at the notes in his hand Jake told his boss, "Secours and Noble Designs, based over in Battersea."
"Go there with Kelly. Check them out. See if they have anyone that has worked for them in the past or now that could be a likely suspect."
"What about the theory that it isn't a vagrant?"
"We'll re-go over the surrounding CCTV footage of all the rapes, checking to see if the same person turns up walking around the area that is not a tramp. It is going to take a long time as there is so much footage." Turning to another detective he told him, "Paul, I want you to carry on doing the checking. Look out for anyone who turns up more than once. I don't believe in coincidences. If they appear more than once in the footage taken months apart they become a person of interest. Man or woman."
"Any news on the DNA from forensics."
"Too early, should be with us tomorrow. But I don't hold out any hope there. The DNA has turned up clean from the other rapes. No sign in our database."
