Senseless, page 1
Senseless
Luke Delaney
Copyright © 2022 Luke Delaney
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The right of Luke Delaney to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2022 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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www.bloodhoundbooks.com
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Print ISBN 978-1-5040-7640-1
Contents
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
A note from the publisher
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Also by Luke Delaney
The Killing Boys
Cold Killing
The Keeper
The Toy Taker
The Jackdaw
A Killing Mind
The Rule of Fear (standalone)
Prologue
Thirty-Two Years Ago
It was a freezing cold Valentine’s Day as the icy, sharp rain fired down from the sky like tiny bullets, while inside the maternity department of St Thomas’ Hospital, eighteen-year-old Chloe Thomas pushed the baby boy from her drug-ravaged womb, into an unforgiving world. If only the child knew what life awaited him, he may have chosen to die before it had even begun, just as her first child had done when it was stillborn to a then sixteen-year-old, crack-addicted mother. But somehow, this one had survived nine months in her drug-poisoned womb and now screamed like something born from hell as his tiny body craved the same drug his mother had been feeding him since his conception. Even the experienced midwife and the two nurses who assisted her, recoiled at the horrific sound of the newborn child’s blood-freezing plea for mercy. But even as she expelled the unwanted burden from her body, Chloe had little or no feelings towards the child and as her own pain eased, her mind soon turned to the things she hoped her new situation would bring – the things that had stopped her aborting the developing baby from her womb in the first place. A decent council flat. Child and other benefit payments, most of which she planned to spend on drugs.
She expected no help from the nameless child’s father, who had left her as soon as she’d told him she was pregnant and was never to be seen again. She wasn’t to know that he’d died screaming in agony only a few weeks later, on the rubbish-strewn floor of a filthy squat in East London, having gorged himself on what turned out to be contaminated crack-cocaine – bought with a windfall of cash he’d found while burgling an old lady’s home with two of his friends as their victim had sat frozen in her chair – too scared to move or speak.
As the child’s terrible screams continued to haunt the maternity department, the midwife quickly began to suspect it might already be addicted to some type of drug. But when she’d asked Chloe if she’d been using during her pregnancy, the teenage mother had screamed in her face to mind her own fucking business. She knew better than to try and reason with the likes of Chloe and instead had the child taken away for specialist intensive care for newborn infants where he would undergo weeks of treatment to keep him alive while also curing his addiction. Chloe discharged herself soon after giving birth, fearful of any potential involvement of the authorities and never visited the child throughout the weeks of treatment – only turning up to take him away after the hospital contacted her to let her know he was well enough to be discharged. They had thought this was little more than a courtesy call and all were shocked when she arrived to take the child with her. None more so than the social service workers who had come to take the boy into care, but who were now powerless to stop the natural mother taking him away with her to a childhood of unimaginable pain and misery. A childhood that years later, the world would pay for.
Chapter One
He sat across her torso – his strong hands clamped around her slender throat as he strangled the last strains of life from her body – her blue eyes as wide as her mouth as she tried to take one last breath. Any final sound she made was drowned out by the passenger jet taking off from nearby Heathrow Airport. Even once he was sure she was dead he kept his hands tightly wrapped around her throat as he studied her still beautiful face, not yet turned grotesque by death. Finally, he released his grip and brushed the soft blonde hair from her forehead before pulling himself from inside her and quickly but carefully removing the condom from himself and placing it in the small rucksack he’d brought along, from which he produced a plastic bottle of water and placed it on the ground next to her body. With his latex gloves still on, he rolled her semi-naked body onto her side and removed the insulating tape from her wrists and also placed it in the rucksack. He’d used the same type of tape to cover her mouth for a while but had already removed it just as the noise of the plane had begun to roar overhead. He had imagined what the sound of her scream would have been like as her mouth opened wide. He looked up into the sky to watch the plane disappearing away to the West and knew silence had returned. Normally he’d have expected another to take its place within a minute or so, blessing him with the cover of deafening noise from above. But the air traffic seemed to have reduced. He wondered if it was something to do with the virus spreading from China he’d heard so much about, making people too scared to travel internationally. If the skies grew much quieter, it could become a major inconvenience he would have to overcome in the future. He didn’t dwell on it. Instead he wasted no time in washing what blood there was from his hands with water from the bottle before placing it back in the sack and fixing his clothing as he prepared to flee the scene but not before covering her body in the fallen branches and leaves that lay close by, left over from winter. It wouldn’t do for her body to be found before he’d managed to put some distance between himself and the scene.
Finally, he stood, a foot either side of the victim as he looked down on her. He’d never seen her before today, although he knew the park was popular with runners of both sexes, having been there several times before to plan for today. He’d been waiting in the treeline from where he could see people approaching. She looked perfect. Probably in her early thirties, average height and slim with medium-length hair. The closer she got, the more he could see she was clearly very attractive. The flame that drew the moth. Quickly he set his mobile phone camera to record and placed it in the transparent holder attached to the front of his top. This way he’d be able to film what was about to happen while keeping his hands free. Later, he would be able to relive her taking whenever he wished.
When she was only a few feet away, he stepped out from his hide directly in front of her, forcing her to stop or collide with him. He smiled to disarm her as confusion swept across her face. Too late she realised the danger as he struck her hard in the side of the face with a looping punch that knocked her down and rendered her semi-conscious. He knew she would recover quickly so he didn’t hesitate for a second, grabbing her under her arms and dragging her deep enough into the trees until he was sure they couldn’t be seen despite the fact it was broad daylight. Quickly and smoothly, he rolled her onto her stomach and pulled her arms behind her before looping the roll of insulating tape he had at the ready around her wrists until he was sure she was secured just as she began to mumble the first signs of recovery. He spun her around and tore another strip of tape from the roll and pressed it hard over her mouth. She began to struggle, trying to get to her feet – her eyes wide in terror and alarm, but his hand clamping around her throat made her instantly passive as she felt his strength and knew trying to flee or fight was pointless.
He pushed her back onto the cold ground, holding her down with one hand as the other hand produced a small flick knife from his pocket – the blade of which magically appeared as he held it close to her face and twisted it from side to side as if giving her the opportunity to appreciate its sharpness before, without warning he used it to split open her running top, exposing her skin. He had no interest in removing her bra and left it in place as he st
When his unknowing accomplice grew smaller in the sky, he dropped the knife next to him and tugged down her tracksuit bottoms and knickers, pushing her legs apart before forcefully entering her – his fingers tightening around her throat to both silence her and maintain his arousal. Only a few seconds later and he had orgasmed into the condom as he now wrapped the fingers of both his hands around her slender neck and tightened his grip until the last of her life was drained.
Now, only minutes later, she was dead and violated and he felt nothing for her. He wouldn’t have even bothered covering her, but for the fear of her too early discovery. She had merely served her purpose. Even her rape had not been an act of sexual gratification. It had been an act of power – of enabling him to feel more alive than ever before. A chance for him to imagine all the things that a cruel early life was now denying him – to hear her scream, to smell her fear and sex – the odour and taste of her blood. Things that were impossible to him in normal life. Things that most other people took for granted. But not him. He would have liked to use the knife to kill her, but while the sight of blood would have been overwhelmingly wonderful, it would have been impossible for him to clean up sufficiently to flee the scene without arousing suspicion and attention if he were to be witnessed. It was regrettable, but there would be other opportunities. He ensured he’d packed everything he’d used, checked the coast was clear and made his way to the footpath, running back to his car that he’d left more than a mile away. He’d been careful not to use any of the close-by car parks, all of which he’d noted were covered by CCTV. He enjoyed the walk back to his car – the warm spring sun on his skin, although he couldn’t feel its heat as much as most others, but thoughts of the woman now dead and covered with leaves, small branches and twigs left him feeling more alive than he’d ever felt before. He already knew, he wanted more.
Chapter Two
Detective Inspector Ruben Jameson sat in a comfortable chair on the opposite side of a large wooden desk in the office of Assistant Commissioner Addis at New Scotland Yard in Vauxhall. It was the first time he’d been to the new headquarters of the Metropolitan Police since returning from his short time in the New Zealand Police. He found the building unimpressive – lacking the stature of the old HQ in Victoria, although Addis’s office was far more opulent than any other police office he’d ever been in before. Either Addis was using his own money to furnish it, or he was sufficiently influential enough to ward away any questions about his personal budget. He decided it was probably the latter.
‘So,’ Addis finally looked up from the file that was his service record, ‘I hear you’ve been assigned to Wandsworth Borough.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jameson confirmed, although he detected a heavy dose of disapproval in Addis’s voice.
‘Overseeing the robbery and burglary units,’ Addis added, his sharp features giving him a vulture-like appearance. Even when sitting, Jameson could tell he was a tall man.
‘Yes, sir,’ Jameson answered.
‘And how are you finding that?’ Addis asked, his intelligent, cunning eyes locking onto Jameson’s.
‘Well, I’ve only been there for a couple of days,’ Jameson replied. ‘It’s fine.’
Addis looked down at the file again. ‘I see that before leaving for New Zealand you were on the Anti-Terrorist Unit.’
Jameson cleared his throat before answering, knowing what was probably coming next. ‘I was.’
Addis leaned back into his large leather chair before continuing. ‘Where you were involved in an operation that led to the fatal shooting of Saheed Sarwar.’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed curtly.
‘A suspected terrorist,’ Addis more told him than asked.
‘Correct,’ Jameson played along.
‘The subsequent investigation said you were only supposed to be keeping an address known to be used by him under surveillance,’ Addis explained. ‘While the rest of your team covered a more significant target address.’
‘They were in the wrong place,’ Jameson argued. ‘My partner and I weren’t.’
‘DC James Clarke,’ Addis continued in his questioning tone, while never actually asking one.
‘Yes,’ Jameson replied bluntly.
‘So, you decided to arrest him on your own,’ Addis accused him.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed, clearing his throat again.
‘Just you and DC Clarke,’ Addis clarified.
‘The intelligence was that Sarwar was planning an imminent attack somewhere in London,’ Jameson explained. ‘If I’d let him get into the underground system, it would have been easy to lose him or if cornered he could have detonated a suicide vest. I wasn’t going to let either of those things happen.’
‘So you tried to arrest him,’ Addis reminded him unnecessarily. ‘Just the two of you. A suspected dangerous, active terrorist.’
‘We were armed.’ Jameson shrugged. ‘We knew what we were doing.’
‘If you knew what you were doing,’ Addis pressed, ‘then how did DC Clarke end up being killed?’
Jameson fidgeted in his chair. ‘Sarwar got the drop on us. I guess he was even more dangerous than we thought.’
‘But he didn’t get the drop on you,’ Addis continued. ‘In fact, it would appear you got the drop on him.’
‘If you’re referring to the shooting, then yes, I shot him,’ Jameson admitted.
‘Shot and killed him,’ Addis elaborated.
‘It was a lawful killing,’ Jameson quickly replied.
‘I never said it wasn’t.’ Addis smiled his reptilian smile, before closing the file on his desk, leaning forward and interlocking his fingers. ‘You did what you had to do,’ he said as sympathetically as he could manage. ‘In fact, I admire what you did. You didn’t hesitate and you took decisive action. You rid the world of a dangerous terrorist. Sarwar won’t be missed.’ Jameson said nothing. ‘The investigation cleared you, but still you decided to move to New Zealand and join the police there?’
‘I just felt like getting away from everything,’ Jameson explained. ‘A change of scenery.’
‘And yet trouble seemed to find you even there,’ Addis told him, leaning back into his chair again.
‘It was just… circumstances,’ Jameson said, trying to dismiss it.
