Author's Note: This story includes a degree of male/female sex. It also includes a lot of unholy acts which some people may find disturbing. Please accept my apologies in advance and read on, bearing in mind that the battle of good against evil is relentless.
And that good will always prevail.
I hope.
*****
Prologue
The Thames was by no means the biggest river in the world but, as it snaked its way through London, it was majestic, wide and strong. It was also a good way to get rid of things. For countless centuries it had been used as the city's main drain. How many billions of chamber pots had been emptied into it, how many tens of millions of tons of industrial waste?
One more piece of garbage wouldn't go amiss.
The unremarkable panel van was nearing its destination. For a while it travelled parallel to the river at a distance of maybe a hundred yards. Then it took a left into what could only be described as an alley between boarded-up buildings. Moving slowly it headed towards the water, its occupants silent.
The alleyway was in an undesirable part of town. A mile or so away real estate was ranked amongst the most expensive in the world. Here there wasn't a price because nobody wanted to buy.
Under the tyres the road surface changed as smooth tarmac gave way to old cobbles. And they were very old, nothing like the smart ones found in touristy areas. No, these were uneven and out of line. A lot of them had been crushed or crumbled, some were missing altogether.
The driver grimaced as he steered the van through heaps of trash, trying to avoid the larger potholes. The Mayor might very well claim otherwise, but it was hard to believe that any repairs had been made here since the Luftwaffe paid their last overnight visit, sixty-odd years ago.
'Your turn,' he said as he pulled up and killed the lights. As if his accomplice didn't know whose turn it was.
For perhaps ten minutes they sat there in the van, doing and saying nothing, listening to the tick of the cooling engine. They were parked in the very end of the alley. The cobbles continued for ten yards but on an incline, leading down and into the river itself. Once upon a time the locals would have used that incline to launch some shitty little boat. But not nowadays; nowadays nobody ever came here.
The loneliness of the place was why they were there, obviously.
Unromantic as he was, the driver admired the moonlight on the water. This was a wide stretch on a bend. The opposite bank had to be two hundred yards away. Chances of being observed from over there were zero.
And the silence was deafening. Not that a city the size of London could ever be silent at any time of day or night. Even now, after two in the morning, there was a buzz in the air. It was tricky to describe but there nevertheless: the intangible background sound of millions of people rutting, fighting, singing and even sleeping.
Yes, it was intangible but as much there as the sun and the tides.
Talking about tides . . .
Chances of being observed from north of the river were zero too. There was a locked-up timber yard to their right and fuck all to their left, apart from exposed waste land. And even the hardiest of rough-sleepers shunned that waste land. The wind coming off the river was bitter, whatever the time of year.
Nobody in his right mind would pass a thousand sheltered doorways to doss there.
Not with any prospect of surviving the night, anyway.
'Okay,' he finally said, 'let's do it.'
While his accomplice quietly opened the back of the van the driver covered the alleyway. CCTV round these parts was non-existent. The only way they could get caught in the act was by the unlikely event of someone coming down the cobbles. And he wasn't about to let that happen, unlikely or not.
Behind him he could sense his accomplice hefting the garbage onto his shoulder and fireman's lifting it down to the moonlit Thames.
It was two minutes of a job, no more.
Lack of CCTV, lack of witnesses, a seriously strong undertow . . .
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter One
(Friday 28th May 2010)
Mary Rose Archer grinned at herself in the mirror. She was aged twenty-nine and still had the face of a mischievous sixteen-year-old. The rest of her wasn't bad, either. That awful red hair she'd had as a child had become a Titian auburn that most girls would die for. Her eyes were as green as jade and her figure . . .
Well, her figure was that of a twenty-year-old.
'So give it back,' she said aloud, laughing along with her reflection.
As if she would! She worked very hard to keep her body beautiful; very hard indeed. And her efforts paid off. She could favourably compare the results against just about everyone she ever met.
Apart from Hev, of course, and she was a sneaky cheat. Okay, she exercised, but eating and drinking all the wrong things made no difference to her. By rights she should be spotty and fat, but not her. Oh no, she was perfect in every way. It wasn't fair. Nobody should be allowed to go out and about looking even half as sexy as Hev.
Well, not unless they were as readily available as she was.
Briefly toying with the idea of a hint of eye-shadow Mary Rose passed. Unlike most redheads her skin tanned easily. And she worked as hard on her tan as she did on her body. Winter, spring, summer or fall, makeup was wasted on her.
Besides, she didn't want to seem like a tart, did she?
Not on the night of her very first orgy.
And wasn't Hev going to be agog about that when she found out?
Tomorrow, she promised herself. I'll phone tomorrow to make her jealous as heck.
Mary Rose giggled. She was an up-and-coming lawyer with an office "in the City", working some quite crazy hours and playing hard in her free time to compensate. Leastways that was the theory. In reality she hadn't been getting a lot of free time.
Come to that, she hadn't been getting a lot of sex either. Most of her recent "playing" had been of the solitary variety.
And she was usually too tired even for that!
But not tonight; tonight she was as rested and ready as ever. She'd had an early night last night and, after a relatively stress-free morning, she'd taken the afternoon off and treated herself to a massage, manicure, pedicure and sauna.
Indulgent or not, she'd certainly readied herself for the pleasures to come.
A whole night mixing with a crowd of strangers on a no inhibitions, no regrets sort of a basis. Wasn't that utterly wicked!
Still giggling, she examined herself for nerves. Okay, so she was fluttery inside, but with anticipation, not apprehension. No, make that lots and lots of anticipation. Youthful appearance aside, she was a big girl now; she knew everything that went on behind closed doors. Why shouldn't she be thrilled at the prospect?
Not that she was being totally reckless. Although she didn't know who she'd be partying with, she had the venue's address written on a legal pad in her office.
She had written down Bruno's name and address, too, on the same page. More to the point, he knew that she'd written it all down. If anyone tried to white slave her he'd be first person arrested.
Taking the precaution didn't mean she really expected to be abducted, it just meant she didn't know very much about Bruno, even after "seeing" him for nearly six months. She was unsure what exactly he did, but he was apparently "doing things" in the City.
There again, so was half the population of London. If Reggie Kray was still around, no doubt he would say something along the same lines.
"I'm ducking and diving, mate . . . in the City."
Mary Rose balanced her lack of knowledge about Bruno with the positives. He was early thirties, very strong and good-looking, like an Italian film star. He was good in bed. He also drove a state-of-the-art Ferrari and every maître d' in town welcomed him with open arms.
What was there not to like!
And who cared about his gold wedding band? She had asked on several occasions, getting the same answer each time. He'd split from his wife three years ago, childless. She'd moved on but the bastard ring had a mind of its own. One of these days he'd drop by Hatton Garden and have the sodding thing sawn off, once and for all.
Mary Rose hoped he meant his ring rather than his finger. She rather liked his fingers.
But hey, she'd asked the appropriate question and got the appropriate response.
A girl could only do so much, no?
For a moment she debated calling Hev before instead of after. Hev had once jumped in a bath with a whole rugby team, so a bit of an orgy wouldn't particularly shock her. On the contrary, the mention of a bit of an orgy would get her juices flowing.
Maybe they could even snatch a quickie, courtesy of British Telecom.
While she was carefully considering the pros and cons her buzzer went. Bruno had arrived, no doubt double parked outside, wanting her to join him.
Wanting her to go to a party and fuck other guys.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, Mary Rose was cool with the concept. She'd grown to like Bruno and trusted him to a degree, but she had no intention of being stuck with him forever. Limited free time or nay, the last six months hadn't been exactly experiment-free on her part. Probably hadn't been on his, either.
So what the heck! Bring it on!!
Chapter Two
'How's the big case going?' Bruno wondered as he drove them towards St John's Wood.
Mary Rose smiled. While she would happily gossip about her work colleagues she wouldn't usually discuss clients or cases. Her big one was, however, high profile. Everyone knew about it and her part in the proceedings had been reported in the media. There was no denying she was involved.
She wanted to be involved, as well. The client, who she still thought of as "Miss X", starred in a prime-time TV soap opera. Half the adult UK watched her four times a week, falling in and out of love as she met and discarded new lovers, regularly urging her on when she had a catfight outside the local pub and laughing at all her witty put-downs.
Miss X had married a celebrity DJ a few months after she'd made her first soap appearance. That is to say he was a DJ who'd become a major celebrity, not a celebrity who spun a few discs on the side. Their wedding had been a glitzy showbiz spectacular. Tens of thousands of complete strangers had sent them presents, a lot of them ridiculously expensive, and thousands more had turned up outside the church.
Following the script, Miss X had almost immediately got pregnant. By a combination of clever editing and her determination, she hadn't missed appearing in a single episode all the way up to the day she gave birth to twin girls. Then she took a week off.
And then she'd been back, business as usual, slim and sexy, not at all motherly or stretch-marked but with everyone knowing what she'd just been through.
