Free Hard Girls by Martina Cole

rid of it. Now she was glad about that. Glad she had chosen instead to rent it out. She had loved this house. As she sat on the bed she felt the pull of her old life overwhelm her. Her husband Dan had deceived her, lied to her, and eventually left her for another woman. He had also tried to win her back when he had realised his mistake. By then though, she’d had enough. She had met Patrick Kelly, and he had made her forget how lonely you could be when you were abandoned by the person you loved most.
    It was strange really, how one person could have so much impact on your life. You didn’t even know they existed for years, then one day you met them, and that was it. Your whole life would be changed overnight, you suddenly found you needed someone so much you couldn’t imagine your life without them. Yet you had lived without them for years and years, yo far as he was

Chapter Three
    Kate looked at the girl’s remains, and remains was the only way to describe what was left of her. The acrid stench of acid was still hanging in the air. Janie Moore’s face and genitalia had been slashed and burned like before. The counterpane underneath had melted. It was obvious the girl had not tried to escape.
    ‘Have you looked at the toes, Annie?’
    The girl’s toes were relaxed, so at least they could assume she would not have felt anything. But she may have been conscious on some level of what was happening to her.
    ‘How did he get in?’
    Kate grinned wryly. ‘This is a premises where letting in strange men is the norm. He must be targeting these girls for a reason. Think about it: Danielle Crosby was left like this girl, open-legged, body posed for the maximum shock, horror of whoever found her. Were these girls hand-picked for a reason, or were they just the ones available? Two girls in three days, that’s a lot. It tells me that whoever this is, they have more than a working knowledge of this area. At least when it comes to the girls and where they’re based.’
    ‘You think he’s a local then?’
     
    Kate shrugged. ‘Could be, but then again they might have lived here years back, could even have worked around here. Might even have relatives here. Until we find out something concrete it’s all speculation.’
    Annie looked around the room, it was a typical sex-worker’s paradise. All peach colours, full-length mirrors and sex toys. It wasn’t as seedy as some of the places she’d seen, but it wasn’t exactly the Ritz either. She wondered at the men who frequented these establishments. What possessed them to come into these places? Nine out of ten of them were putting their whole lives on the line for a bit of strange. If their families knew what they were up to there would be murders. No woman in her right mind was going to accept that kind of behaviour, no matter how much she loved her partner. This was what they laughingly referred to in the station as a Jeremy Kyle situation; a man gets caught with a brass, they all know he’s going to get far more of a punishment from his wife than Lily Law. This time though, there was no humour to be found in the circumstances. It was a tragic and violent loss of a young woman’s life.
    Kate looked around the flat with interest. She saw the usual paraphernalia indigenous to Toms, but she also saw that this was quite a homely place outside the bedrooms. The girls who worked here had brought in a touch of normality. She saw the usual mix of make-up and cleansers in the bathroom, the hall cupboard held an array of hooded sweats and warm jackets. There were boots and shoes that were not the usual Tom attire. She had even found a child’s coat and hat in a carrier bag. Her first instinct was to wonder if the place was being used for paedophilia, but the garments still had the price tags on so she guessed they were just the property the sharpest knife in the drawer, asft where the neof one of the girls involved here. There was nothing else to make her think any different. Most