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Monster - a novella based on the forhcoming thriller by Anne D Morgan
Category: Action/Thriller
A quirky thriller set in modern day London about a serial killer with flashbacks to the criminal underworld in the 1960s.
Chapter One
Reunited in heaven
They rest in peace
Whilst down in the hell fire
The Monster never sleeps.
At 11am on 3rd December 2009 Jenny Mack’s corpse was discovered by the cleaner at her mansion house in St John’s Wood, North London. She was 63 years old.
Lying naked, face down in the marble bath, her wrists slashed with a razor, Deborah let out a piercing scream.
On the black onyx floor tiles laid three empty blister packets of Diazepam and an empty bottle of Cristal champagne. Congealed blood splatters decorated the walls and ceiling.
Blood was dripping from the antique crystal chandelier.
Terrified, Deborah fled from the room, bolted into Jenny’s bedroom next door
and frantically dialled 999.
Exactly two months earlier, Jenny had buried her daughter .The wealthy widow of notorious gangster, Johnny Mack, Jenny was prepared for her husband’s death but never in a million years did she expect to be burying her only child.
Johnny Mack
Johnny inhabited the murky east end underworld. Murder, extortion, thieving, money lending and prostitution were a way of life in the poverty stricken atmosphere of east London in the 1960s.
Ever since he was a teenager, Johnny had been in trouble with the law for shop lifting, possession of a knife, assault, selling dope and other minor misdemeanours. His father ran a grocer’s shop in Cheapside and his mother was a bar maid. His home life was turbulent and unhappy – his father had a violent temper and his mother was never around very much. He had a younger sister, whom he adored, but she died shortly after her seventh birthday. Tragically, she was knocked down by a car outside their house by a hit and run driver. His mother was totally devastated and had a nervous breakdown whilst his father turned to the bottle and the beatings escalated. They lived in a poky terraced house in Whitechapel. Johnny was determined that when he grew up he would live in a big house and never be short of cash!
From a young age, Johnny had been morbidly fascinated with gangsters and guns. He aspired to be like the Pirelli Brothers. His elder cousin Ruby dated the younger son of Franco Pirelli for a couple of years and Johnny met him several times at family get togethers. The Sicilian brothers controlled much of Northern England whilst he was growing up.
And so it was that on the eve of his 19th birthday, Johnny’s gangster career kick started when he formed the Mack Gang. Each of the other four members (all in their mid to late twenties) was carefully handpicked by Johnny for their particular expertise. Although Johnny was young, he was well known and respected in the criminal underworld and each of the chosen men was eager to be a part of his gang. Johnny made a formidable ring leader.
Irish Mick was chosen for his high speed driving manoeuvres as their getaway driver.
East End Dave for his breaking & entering plus alarm disabling skills
Denny the Eastern European, a boxer, was appointed as the gang’s enforcer and lookout for his sharp eyes, together with his beloved guard dog Jess, a German shepherd.
Finally, Jamaican Sam was selected for his brains and safe cracking experience.
The gang quickly became major league players. Likeable rogues, they schmoozed with the stars and patronised several well known kiddies charities. Playing a game of cat and mouse with the Met, they always managed to evade the law and even had several senior policemen on the payroll.
In 1968 the Macks pulled off Britain’s largest heist when they raided a private Arabian bank in Belgravia. After putting pressure on a witness to retract his statement (he had seen Johnny and the gang scarper out the bank into a waiting getaway car) the terrified man duly obliged. As a result, the police never had enough evidence to charge them and once again
they got away with it.
With the proceeds of the million pound haul, Johnny bought a Gentlemen’s club in the West End plus several pubs and clubs in Manchester, Brighton and Southend. He also invested in a five star hotel and luxury villa complex in Marrakesh. He built a vast empire from scratch and became one of the richest, notorious and most dangerous men in Britain.
Johnny was a shrewd ‘business man’ and his personal spending was pretty modest. His greatest extravagance was his Bentley which he bought in September 1969, as well as treating Jenny to a brand new mini, which was her pride and joy.
During his career (spanning nearly thirty years), Johnny pulled off several armed robberies in London, the Home Counties, and Scotland. He raided mansions and country piles, stealing jewellery, antiques and paintings worth millions. He had contacts in America and Europe, who sold the loot for him on commission. He also sold LSD as a nice little sideline, cashing in on the hippy culture of the 1960s.
Because of its hallucinatory properties, LSD was widely adopted by the hippies who claimed it led to higher states of consciousness and helped them search for religious enlightenment.
The Beatles' even wrote a song ('Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds') which allegedly describes the psychedelic effects of LSD.
“Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade sky,
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone.
Lucy in the Sky with diamonds..."
He had his fingers in all sorts of pies including owning a house in Pimlico where several of ‘Johnny’s Angels’ (high class prostitutes) operated from. The girls were all attractive blondes in their late teens to early 30s. They wore a ‘uniform’ for work which consisted of a tiny white bikini with a pink feather boa draped round their neck. On their feet they wore matching pink platforms. The brothel ‘Madam’ was Johnny’s cousin, Linda, who looked after the girls. The punters were all vetted by Linda and, on the whole, were mainly married, middle aged men, who were all filthy rich and treated the ‘angels’ like gold dust, showering them with gifts and obscene cash tips.
Chapter 2
Jenny Mack
Three months earlier....
Her tears, like razor blades
slash her cheeks
in sync with the sleet
like knives,
stabbing the crispy autumn leaves
scattered round her feet.
“Sweet dreams Katie”, Jenny whispered, almost blinded by a waterfall of tears, as she gently dropped a sunflower (Katie’s favourite) onto her daughter’s coffin. Suddenly, to her absolute amazement a tiny white feather fluttered from the sky and landed right in front of her. She stood flabbergasted for a few minutes, open mouthed, before regaining her composure and tenderly picking it up.
The memories came flooding back.
When Katie was a child , Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer and Doctors had feared the worst. She had promised Katie at the time that if she died she would watch over her from heaven. Katie (who was a very bright kid) had asked how she would know that her mummy really was watching over her. Jenny had replied by telling Katie that she would pluck little white feathers from the angels’ wings and scatter them down to earth, where they would land at Katie’s feet.
So heaven REALLY does exist after all Jenny thought, smiling fleetingly.
She cut a solitary figure standing silently by the graveside remembering her beautiful daughter and reminiscing about the past. She only had her memories now. The words engraved on her daughter’s headstone summed up Jenny’s feelings perfectly ‘GONE TOO SOON’. RIP PRINCESS’.
Katie was the spitting image of her mother and they had always been very close. Jenny had been spotted by upcoming celebrity photographer Simon Fennell in the 1960s and she had done some quite lucrative modelling as a teenager. Katie had her mother’s flawless good looks, long limbs and platinum hair. However, much to Jenny’s disappointment she failed to follow in her mother’s glamorous footsteps, despite being spotted by a modelling scout when she was 13.
Jenny grew up on an estate in Peckham. Her father was a bin man and her mother a cleaner. She left school at sixteen to go and work as a seamstress for a small fashion house near Charing Cross. However, her life changed forever the summer she left school in 1961.
She was modelling at a fashion show, whilst on holiday at Butlins with her family, when she caught the eye of celebrity snapper Simon Fennell. Back in the 1950s and 1960s Butlins offered the kind of escapism previously beyond the reach of most ordinary working class families.
She had fond memories of Butlins in Bognor with its 'luxury' chalets, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, entertainment for the kids, free funfair and on-site pubs. Her two brothers and three sisters loved spending their summer holidays there. She remembered thinking that she would take her own kids to Butlins one day! Jenny had always wanted to get married and have a large family from a very young age.
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be and Katie was her only child. Jenny couldn’t have any more children after her daughter was born and it broke her heart. But, she absolutely idolised her daughter and it was Katie who gave her the will to live when she lay hooked up to a life support machine in ITU after major surgery, hanging on by a mere thread.. Johnny couldn’t hack it and it dealt their marriage a terrible blow. That was the year Johnny had begun his womanising and found solace at the bottom of an empty whisky bottle!
Jenny began her own affair with one of her husband’s henchmen, Irish Mick, the following year. When Johnny found out he put a bullet through his head and buried him in Ashdown Forest in Kent. His body was never discovered.
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as she heard car tyres crunching on the pebble driveway leading up to the cemetery gate. Time seemed to have stood still as she was lost in thought but glancing at her Gucci watch, she was shocked to see that it was nearly 1pm. She had been standing by Katie’s grave for nearly 2 hours! She was frozen and shivering to death beneath her flimsy umbrella. Clutching the feather to her breast, Jenny looked up to the sky, where the sun was starting to peek through the thick lead clouds. . A faint rainbow shimmered hopefully against the sheet of slate and for a second she almost forgot her grief. Addressing Katie, she solemnly vowed that the Monster who took her away would pay. An eye for an eye.
Chapter 3
As she left the graveside, Jenny heard a chilling thud as the grave diggers, w ho had been waiting patiently nearby nonchantly tossed fat clods of wet mud onto her beloved daughter’s coffin. It’s just a job to them she thought
Her beautiful daughter
Lies in her grave
Raped and murdered
By a beast so depraved
Her face was buried in a black embroidered (J&JM) silk handkerchief, and glancing back one more time, she stepped into her chauffeur driven car. Tony opened the door for her. He had been a rock since Katie’s death. Uber glam and perfectly groomed, as usual - black Chanel suit, short platinum bob ( ironed to within an inch of its life), killer Jimmy Choos and her signature Gucci sunglasses - except today her usual composed mask had dramatically slipped. Thank god for waterproof mascara she thought to herself as she carefully dabbed hot fat tears from her bloodshot eyes.
Her hands were shaking like a leaf but she still managed to pull out her silver compact from her Fendi handbag and touch up her blotchy, gaunt looking face.
The grave diggers paused briefly and gorped as the silver Bentley accelerated off into the London traffic.
Taking a deep breath, Jenny reached for the mini bar and swiftly knocked back a mini bottle of Glenmorangie whisky to steady her nerves. She then lit a silk cut and took a long hard drag.
Meanwhile, at her daughter’s wake at the plush Belgravia Hotel in Sloane Square the mourners were tucking into mini fish and chip cones, smoked salmon bilinis and mini cupcakes, washed down with Krug..
Katie had always been a party girl and lived life to the full. Jenny knew that it was what her daughter would have wanted. But, she just could not bring herself to celebrate her life. She was still mourning her death.
The funeral service had been beautiful but it had taken all of Jenny’s strength to maintain her composure. Inside she was s silently screaming and her heart felt like it had been shredded with a cheese grater.
Flopping back into the cream leather seat, Jenny closed her perfect almond eyes and drifted into a deep sleep. It had been a harrowing day and she was exhausted.
She had begun to have vivid dreams ever since Johnny’s death some fifteen years earlier. Her husband was shot in the head at point black range outside his favourite haunt, the Coach & Horses, in Bow Lane by old adversary Charlie ‘The Colt’(so named because of his chosen revolver). The shooting was in revenge for Johnny kneecapping his bodyguard some months earlier. Johnny had shot him in a drink fuelled rage at a sleazy east end gambling den.
She was always whisked back to her heyday in the 1960s. She dreamt of the night she met Johnny in Carnaby Street.......the Soho club where they schmoozed with the stars.......eating fish and chips out of newspaper on Southend Pier....dinner at chic French bistro Chez JJ......Joe Lyon’s coffee house in Piccadilly where Johnny took her when they were courting.....the sound of gunfire (Johnny had died in her arms on the pavement outside the Coach & Horses just minutes after the shooting).
Jenny had fond memories of her youth in the swinging 60s – it was all about rock 'n roll and sexual liberation (until she met Johnny of course!) and she especially loved the fashions..So many hip new styles were being introduced all over England, particularly in London. This was now the trendy, in place to be.
Jenny, a skinny size 4 (American size zero), was the epitome of style. She adopted the fashionable slinky boyish look with heavily made up eyes, pale lips and sleek hair in the signature geometric style championed by Vidal Sassoon.
Young Jenny relished spending hours in Carnaby Street on a Saturday morning shopping. There were lots of independent fashion boutiques and designers such as Mary Quant, as well as various underground music bars. With bands such as the Rolling Stones Small Faces and The Who, appearing in the area to work, shop, and socialize, it became one of the capital’s coolest places associated with the Swinging Sixties. She had even spotted a few famous faces there herself including Twiggy and Christine Keeler!
It was three days short of Johnny’s 19th birthday when she had first set eyes on him. She had just turned 17 and was on a night out with the girls –all fellow models at her agency. He was standing at the bar of the Dog and Duck in Carnaby Street, talking to one of the Pirelli Brothers’ henchmen (who was down South for a few days). He was smoking a Havana cigar, drinking single malt and laughing. Although a feared- ruthless gun-toting East End hard man he was also a bit of a joker and had a razor sharp sense of humour. Jenny couldn’t take her eyes off him – he was very handsome and built like a brick shit house. He was also very stylish to boot and was wearing a dapper suit with a narrow tie and sharply pointed shoes.
It was love at first sight and the couple were married less than six months later.
As she floated blissfully in dreamland, her peace was suddenly shattered by Tony’s booming voice shouting her name. The car radio was blaring out the news and from what Jenny could gather in her half comatose state, there had been some sort of major accident. She was totally stunned to hear that there had been a plane crash at Heathrow airport.
A reporter was live at the scene and it sounded like pandemonium with sirens blaring, the sound of raging flames and ear splitting screaming.
Initial reports had said that fire crews did not expect there to be any survivors on board flight BA759 which had crash landed shortly after takeoff due to engine failure.
The following morning however, when Jenny turned on breakfast news on Sky she was stunned to hear the news reader report that miraculously, two passengers had been found alive under a pile of rubble. One of them was believed to be Harry Sinclair, the serial killer who had taken her daughter’s life.
Six months earlier
December 2008
It was early December 2008 when shocking rumours had spread that a serial killer was stalking the streets of the West End. Six women in their late teens to mid thirties had vanished over the course of a two week period in a ten mile radius. The Metropolitan Police had originally tried to dismiss the rumours saying that the women’s disappearances were unrelated.
However, when five mutilated bodies were discovered on 12th December washed up along the Embankment near Charing Cross Station the news headlines spoke for themselves:
Five naked corpses
Have just been found
Dumped in the Thames
Gagged and bound
Cause of death was strangulation and the victims have been raped prior to their death. Body parts had been dismembered, the victims’ faces bludgeoned and their breasts crudely hacked off.
The Met were run ragged frantically chasing leads in the hope of catching the capital’s most frenzied and depraved serial killer since Jack the Ripper. In 1888, between Friday 31st August and Friday 9th November, he savagely murdered and mutilated five women. All the killings involved prostitutes as victims, and all occurred in or near Whitechapel, a squalid, densely populated rabbit warren of a suburb flanking the City of London. By contrast, the West End killer aka ‘The Monster’ preyed on slim, middle class females with long dark hair.
All leave had been cancelled and even the FBI had been called in to help create an offender profile of the suspect. The Press were camped outside Scotland Yard and the city was in chaos.
Agent Kemper, who had flown over from the FBI offices in San Quentin to assist the Met was present at a specially convened press conference called on 14th December. He told the press that from the information provided he believed that the individual responsible for these heinous crimes was likely to be in his mid twenties, personable and not stand out in a crowd. .
According to Kemper, the suspect would probably be employed and fall into what the FBI categorises as the "organised" killer-- someone of above-average intelligence, socially competent, often living with a woman and driving a well-maintained car.
DI Jones from the Met wrapped thing up by appealing to the public for any information and urging women to be vigilant and not to go out alone after dark.
The warning came too late for Sarah Woods. Shortly after the Press Conference wrapped up at 5.30 pm her mutilated body was discovered at a residential address in Knightsbridge, wrapped in bin bags and dumped in the owner’s rubbish bin.
As SOCO combed the scene, office workers were heading out to bars across the city. Despite the fact a serial killer was stalking the streets, it seemed that people were not going to let it dampen their Christmas spirit – after all it wasn’t going to happen to them was it!
Katie Mack
At 6pm in upmarket bar Diamondis, discretely tucked away in a side street in Soho, Katie Mack was meeting friends for drinks after work. It was a Friday night and it had been a long week. Katie had been working round the clock on an advertising campaign for a new SkinKandy perfume, KandyFloss’, which was to be launched in the New Year. She had been in a meeting all afternoon with her Account Director. He had been really impressed with her work and hinted at a promotion. She had been with the agency, URBAN PR for five years, working her way up from a Secretary to an Account Executive. She loved her job and couldn’t wait to share her good news with her friends.
********************
Harry Sinclair sat alone, propping up the bar, sipping his usual – vodka on the rocks. His work mates at City Property Development Inc had just made their excuses and left – meeting the wives and girlfriends, going away to their country bolt holes for the weekend. But the night was still young and so was he! A few feet away he spotted Catherine Mack who was having a night out with her work mates, chatting animatedly and sipping a nice chilled glass of white wine.
As the girls looked around the bar to check out the talent Katie spotted him instantly! She had always had a thing for good looking black men and this creature was stunning!
Harry Sinclair’s eyes were like pools of melting chocolate and his flawless cocoa skin, chiselled cheekbones and buff body wouldn’t look out of place on the catwalk. The boy set hearts a flutter wherever he went.
Less than three hours later they are lying in bed at his apartment in Blackheath bathed in sweat and a warm post coital glow, sharing a line of coke. Little did Katie know that the dismembered body of the sixth missing woman, investment banker Chloe Seymour, was chopped up in the freezer.
As Catherine floated out of his flat the following morning, towards the station, the butterflies in her tummy were doing cartwheels. She was on top of the world. The sex was orgasmic and Harry had even made her breakfast – fresh coffee and handcrafted almond croissants (he had popped to the artisan bakery across the road especially for her while she had taken a quick shower). She felt really touched by his thoughtfulness.
Shortly after Catherine left, Harry made his way to the lock up garage he rented in Blackheath Village. Inside, was a pristine black cab which he had stolen some years earlier. It was all part of the plan. Harry had been fantasising about his killing spree for years but that was no longer enough – he now had to put his evil plans into action. He had swapped the number plates and had a fake ID badge made up. He even used to pitch up at the Cabman’s Shelter in Hanover Square frequented by London cabbies. He would buy a cuppa for 40p and a bacon roll for a quid and chat to some of the cabbies on a break.
It is rumoured that Jack the Ripper visited one of the shelters in the 1880s. He confessed to being the serial killer plaguing the East End then disappeared into the night. Nobody believed him as he had been drinking and the cabbies just dismissed it as the drink talking.
Meanwhile, Harry had arranged to meet up with Katie the following Monday (she had booked the day off) for brunch at a bar round the corner from her flat in Maida Vale and then go for a stroll down by the canal in Little Venice.
He had brought her flowers and a box of exquisite handmade truffles from an exclusive chocolatier that she had just happened to mention in passing. The date went really well and, naturally, they ended up in bed again.
When he finally left her flat early Sunday evening Catherine felt like the cat who had got the cream but she was under no illusion that this was ever going to be anything other than a short fling.
She was 33 and Harry was only 25 and besides she had only recently come out of a long term relationship with Simon. Harry was her rebound guy but she was loving every minute – he made her feel like a teenager all over again.
The affair steamed ahead at fall pelt. Meanwhile, Harry had killed again. On Valentine’s Day 2009 the grisly remains of a putrefying corpse was discovered in the basement of an empty off licence in Carnaby Street after a terrible stench was reported by the owners of the Chinese restaurant next door.
Harry and Katie were curled up on the sofa when their programme was interrupted with a news flash. Harry barely batted an eyelash.
A few weeks later Catherine woke up at dawn one Sunday morning with the mother of all hangovers.. As she padded to the kitchen to get a glass of water and some painkillers she was suddenly projected back to reality with a nasty jolt. Her flat looked like a tip – clothes scattered like litter all over the floor, washing basket overflowing and empty bottles lined up like skittles hijacking the kitchen floor.
It was no use. She was going to have to end it with Harry. She had enjoyed the ride but it was time to call it a day and go out on a high. Harry had been quite moody lately as well and although the sex was mind blowing he seemed distant.
She made a pot of strong fairtrade vanilla bean coffee to steady her nerves and dialled his number. She arranged to meet him at Belinda’s in Little Venice in an hour.
She absolutely adored Belinda’s – it was a vintage cafe with gorgeous fine bone china crockery, wooden floor boards, battered black sofas and vintage black and white prints of Hollywood Movie stars including her heroine Audrey Hepburn. She absolutely adored ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. She loved the shabby chic theme and the coffee and cakes were to die for.
As she took a seat by the window, the sky suddenly became overcast and a few drops of rain started to plop onto the pavement. Harry text to say he was running a bit late so she ordered a latte and flicked through a copy of Marie Claire.
About twenty minutes later a shadow loomed over her table and Harry sunk into the chair opposite her. They ordered coffee and then Katie dropped her bombshell. She thought he had taken it pretty well – a bit too well in fact. However, after a short silence he excused himself and said he needed to make a phone call but had to nip out quickly as he had left his mobile in the car. He asked her to wait. Something didn’t feel right but nevertheless she politely obliged.
A few minutes later Harry returned and sat down again. She was startled as something sharp jabbed into her leg, sending shivers down her spine. .
It was the blade of a knife.
Harry leaned into the table, his face inches away from hers, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her face. He kissed her roughly on the lips then grabbed her head, pulled her left ear towards him and whispered menacingly:
“I have a knife so don’t do anything stupid”. We are going to leave the cafe now so get up, don’t make a scene and everything will be just fine”.
Petrified, Catherine hurriedly grabbed her hand bag, almost sending the heavy oak table flying and left the cafe. It was now tipping down outside. “Walk” Harry demanded and they started to walk down Lauderdale Parade. It was getting dark now and thunder and lightning were crashing round the sky. Catherine felt really frightened. A young couple walked past with their dog and she wanted to scream HELP but Harry was behind her with the blade of the knife firmly pointed into her back, making it clear who was in charge.
After they had been walking for about ten minutes or so they came to the entrance of an old Victorian house that looked like it was deserted An empty black cab was parked outside the house and a big rusty sign erected in the front garden warned:
NO TRESPASSERS KEEP OUT
City Property Development Inc had
So many of the properties around Maida Vale had been sold off to developers who were turning them into swish flats for young professionals.
He opened the creaky, rusty gate and brusquely pushed Catherine in. The side gate to the house was hanging off its hinges and the pathway was littered with used hypodermic needles. Obviously, junkies and squatters had been using the property but there was no sign of life now. There was something decidedly eerie about the place and it smelt of death. As they passed the side of the house Catherine could hear a muffled cry coming from inside and the air temperature seemed to suddenly plummet.
At the bottom of the huge garden there was a dilapidated garden shed. With the knife still digging into her back Harry route marched her down to the shed and kicked the door which swung effortlessly open.
Inside he flipped on the light switch and took the silver hip flask that Katie had given him as a present out of his jeans pocket and took a swig of Vodka.
Catherine swiftly scanned the shed. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. The place was full of cobwebs, smelt musty and was crawling with woodlice. The floorboards were rotten and rat droppings littered the floor. In the corner of the shed she could see a rat’s tail poking out from behind a battered tin of creosote.
The colour drained from her usual rosy cheeks and she looked white as a sheet, as though she had seen a ghost.
“Please Harry”, she begged “Let me go. I know you are angry with me but I don’t deserve this. You are frightening me. I want to go home”.
With that, Harry turned on her and in a flurry of rage slapped her across the face, cutting her left cheek with his signet ring. She winced.
She was starting to feel dizzy now, adrenaline was pumping furiously round her body and she felt dehydrated. Harry leered at her. Things were about to get a whole lot worse.
In utter horror she watched helplessly as he took off his jacket then started to slowly unbuckle his jeans belt before brutally raping her. But he wasn’t done with her yet. Oh no. Not by a long chalk. He took another swig from the hipflask then hurriedly got dressed. Dragging her to her feet, he calmly told her to put her clothes back on then he would let her go.
As Katie ran to the door Harry started to laugh. How dare she dump him. He was going to make her pay. If he couldn’t have her then nobody would.
He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the floor. Next, he pushed her onto a filthy plastic garden chair where he bound her arms behind the back of the chair with rope and secured them tightly to the chair. Next he pulled a huge reel of duct tape from his back pocket and gagged her mouth. She could barely breathe. Harry had enjoyed every moment of this, watching the bitch suffer. Little did she realise that things were about to reach a terrifying conclusion.
Stabbed in the stomach
With a carving knife
Just thirty three
When he took her life
The little heart pendant
She wore round her neck
He tore off her torso
As she took her last breath
He ripped out her heart
And sliced off her breasts
Then raging with anger
He hacked off her head
It would all be over in minutes... Harry will calmly strike a match and drop it into the tin of creosote before disappearing into the night.
Only a few hours from now Forensics will face the gruesome task of recovering Catherine’s charred remains – her skull and a few bones from the smouldering ashes.
An organised killer
He scrubbed himself clean
And no DNA
Was ever left at the scene
3rd June 2009
Over the next few weeks the remains of three more women were discovered. They had all been raped and strangled. All the victims were brunettes like Harry’s domineering white step mother Naomi. How he hated the bitch.
Harry Sinclair
Harry’s grandparents had emigrated to Britain in the late 1950s and settled in Hackney. With high unemployment in the islands and a severe labour shortage in Britain, people from the West Indies were invited and encouraged to work in Britain.
In the 1950's West Indian immigrants started to arrive in London and by 1955 20,000 were arriving each year. The family met with prejudice and hostility and Harry was often insulted and spit at in the street.
After his mother had died in 1990 when he was five, his father had met her in a bar. She was only a teenager and his father was middle aged. She hated kids. She used to beat Harry as he wet his bed and his father never did a thing. He was often drunk and spent little time at home.
They only took notice when he cooked the hamster in the microwave and later poisoned the dog with weed killer when he was 9. He was taken into care when he was 10 and spent the rest of his childhood in a series of children’s homes where he used to start fires and nicked porn mags from the sweetshop after school.
He was a bright kid with an above average IQ. However, he disliked school and often used to mess around. He left when he was 16, had a string of menial jobs until an old school friend gave him a job at his property development company. It seemed that Harry was finally on the straight and narrow. He was earning good money and always had an attractive blond on his arm.
But secretly, he was fantasizing about murder and soon it would become a reality..He used to drive round the West End late at night observing bars and clubs, his hunting ground for potential victims.
It was in the early hours of 3rd June, the police made a breakthrough when a terrified girl ran into the police station at Charing Cross after a man had tried to force her into his black cab. She had scratched him on the cheek and forensics had found his DNA under her finger nails.
By mid morning the police had confirmation that the DNA belonged to Harry Sinclair and were on the way to his house. Harry had been arrested three years previously for the rape of his ex girlfriend but she later dropped the charges. Her remains would be discovered buried in the garden of his basement flat. She had been missing for a year.
Later on the police would also discover the grisly remains of two other victims in the ‘Maida Vale House of Horrors’ – both dangling from chains suspended from the ceiling in a bedroom.. Flesh was also found in the bath. In the cellar, they also found a skeleton.
On the other side of London at Heathrow Airport Harry was parking his stolen black cab in the long term car park. He would soon be boarding a flight to Rio to start a new life.
3rd July 2009
And so it was that exactly a month later, the monster opened his eyes. A stunning middle aged nurse, who looked the spitting image of Katie, was standing at the end of the bed smiling and puffing up a pillow. As he screamed in terror, two nurses came flying into his room but there was nobody there. They told him he had been hallucinating. He was high on morphine.
Shortly afterwards, the nurses left and the monster fell asleep. Jenny scrambled from underneath his bed and made her escape. But she would be back.
As soon as she got home, Jenny put her nurse’s uniform and security pass on the bonfire and lit a match. Returning to the hospital would be too risky. She would have to devise another plan to get rid of the MONSTER once and for all.
3rd August 2009
On 3rd August, the corpse of Harry’s consultant was discovered tucked up in his patient’s bed.
Harry had strangled him then made his escape dressed in the Doctor’s clothes and white coat. The police were alerted but by this time Harry was exiting the tube at St John’s Wood.
At 7.30am, the doorbell rang whilst Jenny was running her bath. A badly disfigured man wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses was standing on the doorstep.
Two hours later, as he crossed the road at Notting Hill Gate, there was a screech of breaks and a loud thud. When the police arrived they discovered a tattered wallet in his jacket containing a tiny lock of long golden blond hair and a champagne cork wrapped in tissue.
The Monster was on his way to hell.
Epilogue
Following the death of Harry Sinclair, the press had a field day. Harry Sinclair is Britain’s most prolific serial killer yet and dispels the myth that there is no such thing as black serial killers. Due to public outrage the Government is now debating bringing back the death penalty. Riots have broken out on the streets and Britain will never be the same again.
Copyright © 2012 Anne D Morgan
Excerpt It was early December 2008 when shocking rumours had spread that a serial killer was stalking the streets of the West End. Six women in their late teens to mid thirties had vanished over the course of a two week period in a ten mile radius. The Metropolitan Police had originally tried to dismiss the rumours saying that the women’s disappearances were unrelated.
Secrets of the Heart D. Mullis
Everyone has secrets of the heart, Follow each character as each one's life is transformed!
"Secrets of the Heart" is a novel which was birthed from Psalm 44:20,21... "If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange
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