Asphyxia

By Derick Hudson

Detective Jim Bannon is no ordinary detective. With a dress code of anything in black, short leather jacket & blue tinted spectacles, the claustrophobic & asthmatic inner-city, Dublin born detective is on the case of London’s most cunning & perverted serial killer.

A young woman has been brutally slain in a murderous act involving asphyxiaphilia. A connection between the victim & England’s largest online dating site is discovered.It soon becomes a race against time to catch the deviant before the bi-curious & dangerously adventurous Robyn O’Brien, an astrology-loving Harley Street receptionist, falls victim to the killer’s insatiable lust.

Asphyxia is a fast paced thriller, full of unsavoury reality, deception, thrills, twists, warped eroticism & dark humour, that will leave you gasping for breath as you approach its climax!

Asphyxiaphilia: A sexual practice involving the control of oxygen to the brain through suffocation or strangulation with the objective of achieving the ultimate orgasm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781291467802

Book preview

Asphyxia

Asphyxia

by

Derick Hudson

Copyright

© 2013 Derick Hudson

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any methods, photocopying, scanning, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locations, or events is entirely coincidental.

Contents

Asphyxia

Copyright

Reviews

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Also by Derick Hudson

Coming Soon!

Author Interface

Reviews

(from readers on the HarperCollins Authonomy website)

"Dark, decadent, sensual and full of tension."

Terrifying and edgy!

Very disturbing and graphic but it drew me in, evoking a morbid sense of curiosity.

This is one of the best thrillers I have read on this site so far and I have been here for over a year.

Amazing read, brazen beginning. You have a very sinister talent!

Brilliant build up and tension...your descriptive narrative brings the eerie images to life.

Best of luck with your creepy, horrible, revolting, FASCINATING mystery!

A tremendous thriller. Easily as compelling and readable as Deaver and Coban.

A bit gruesome but very scary.

Vivid and erotic-creepy, always a great hook for this type of book.

You do an excellent job in getting my attention from the first sentence and holding it from then on.

Terrific crime story!

A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones.

James Joyce, Ulysses

Prologue

He would let her live. She was blood. The others would not be so lucky…he was sure of that now. Euphoria was within reach, but he was not there yet. His sister, Delta, had taken him only so far, but he knew he could achieve more with her. Tonight they would go further than ever before. His taste buds salivated at the thought, as he strapped a studded leather belt around Delta’s delicate, already bruised throat, tightening it until only a barely audible wheeze could be heard escaping from her restricted larynx.

The red velvet belt around his own neck was fastened to the last notch. It had taken him months of practise to get it that tight. He joined both belts together symbolically by a thin chain. Being inside Delta was never enough. He needed to feel connected to her externally, the chain drawing them close enough for him to taste her pleasure…and her fear.

As Delta’s eyelids fluttered across her bloodshot eyes, which were rolling aimlessly in their sockets as the effects of the oxygen deprivation took control, he entered her. His senses intensified and began to merge. The room started to spin, turning into a hazy kaleidoscope of colour. He closed his good eye, staring instead through a deformed left eyeball to exaggerate still further his state of wild abandon. She moaned as he thrust deeper, his movements getting more aggressive. Delta, whose hands had been securely fastened behind her back, smiled weakly as her skin began to turn an artic blue.

And then he sensed it. Something was not quite right. He was feeling weaker than usual. He liked being in control, trying to push back the pleasure boundaries further, risking everything for that one moment, but tonight it felt different. Tonight he felt…nothing, as the lights went out while he exploded into climax. 

Under his collapsing body, Delta’s eyes flooded with fear as she felt his hot release empty inside her. This was not the way it was supposed to end. He had promised to always be there for her at the climax; to release her yet again from the bindings of this dangerously absorbing, devious act. She attempted to scream to awaken her beloved unconscious saviour, but her oxygen deprived lungs could offer no support. In a room now silent, her last sense was the smell of her deep red lipstick, and belt leather, as she drifted away forever.

Chapter One

Detective Jim Bannon felt uncomfortable. He had allowed himself become sexually aroused staring at the lifeless body, a sense of voyeurism fuelling his libido. He knew this was not morally justifiable, however, he felt it was out of his control; the darker side of his inner psyche was now calling the shots. Hanging in front of him was a young woman’s petite, pale, naked body, her hands bound behind her back with black bondage tape. Held up by the rope around her neck the dead woman appeared to be staring vacantly into space through an opened eye, blood dripping from the other closed socket.

Bannon was not your run-of-the-mill detective. His trademark dress code to cover his toned six foot frame was anything in black, short leather jacket, blue tinted spectacles and the tattoo of a blood-thirsty panther emblazoned across his left shoulder. His oval face was framed by a pair of long, thinly manicured sideburns, which melted into his beard shadow; he was a big fan of designer stubble. The colour of his seductive, chestnut-brown eyes matched his shoulder length, mullet styled hair, which, when alone in the privacy of his apartment, he would tie into a neat ponytail. Unknown to his work colleagues, he was claustrophobic and asthmatic.

Born and bred in Dublin, Bannon had moved over to London when he was sixteen for an unsuccessful football trial with West Ham United. Despite having spent the following seventeen years in London, his inner-city Dublin accent had stayed with him, which sometimes left him at a slight disadvantage, particularly in his dealings with criminal elements from Combat Eighteen and other right-wing fascist groups. Dreams of scoring the winning FA Cup final goal at Wembley Stadium had long since been replaced by the harsh realities of his eventual career, transforming a previously mellow teenage Bannon into a fiery London copper, a copper who liked to live life a little too close to the edge on occasion; he once blew an unarmed, serial child rapist’s head clean off. After four months on the case, Bannon had tracked the beast down to his woodland hideout, had caught him in the act of buggering a terrified toddler, and without any hesitation, after calmly ushering the toddler into another room, aimed his powerful 9mm semi-automatic handgun at the pervert’s sweating neck and squeezed the trigger. Not particularly out of loyalty, but more to do with their abhorrence of the seven brutal child rapes committed by the now slain attacker, Bannon’s colleagues decided to cover up for his vigilante style tactics that day by planting a gun in the dead pervert’s hand and fabricating a story of self-defence.

Twelve months on, Bannon was still creating waves back in the station. The fact that he was now dating Sergeant Mark Creed’s daughter, Sally, had made life even more complicated than usual. These days Bannon felt safer out of the station tackling psychos and perverts than being in the proximity of his boss’s office. Sergeant Creed was a big man with a short temper. No man would ever deserve his daughter. Bannon knew he certainly didn’t. Still, he liked to ride his luck. Sally Creed was worth the hassle. She was gorgeous and she was currently his.

Chapter Two

The hangman’s noose around the dead woman’s neck was secured to an old oak beam. Bannon was puzzled. The woman’s feet were half touching the ground. Strange, if you wanted to strangle someone to have the noose so near to the ground, he figured. Stranger still was a second empty noose hanging from the same beam two feet away.

The many circular bruises on the woman’s neck suggested that death was slow and the hanging orchestrated in a methodical fashion. A horrible thought struck Bannon. He wondered if the victim’s strangulation resulted from her inability to maintain herself on her toes. Perhaps her killer watched on as she inevitably gave in to exhaustion, the noose slowly tightening to squeeze her airways into a deadly submission.

On closer inspection of the body, Bannon noticed some bruising on both shoulders. He also noticed that the blood exuding from the victim’s closed left eye had been smeared around her cheek. He directed his gaze towards a circular bedroom window. Scrawled in blood across the glass was a message 4UIxtab. Bannon guessed the killer had used the victim’s bloodied face as an artist’s palette from which to paint his cryptic calling card. Just then, the hip hop ring tone of his phone added to the commotion in the hotel bedroom. It was Sally Creed. She was missing him. As he stepped out of the room for some privacy he could hear the sniggering behind him. The guys from the station would not let it rest. Bannon was an easy target, particularly now that he was fucking the sergeant’s daughter. They’re just a bunch of jealous assholes, Sal, he told her. Fuck them all.

But Jim, I couldn’t possibly, sure don’t I only have eyes for you? she teased. "I’ve…news for you, but can’t tell you over the phone. Can we meet up, soon?" she asked, a noticeable trace of concern creeping into her tone.

Back inside room twelve, the forensic team were busying themselves. The crime scene was being photographed and combed. Two police constables were stationed outside the open door to secure the room, a room that was about to get even busier. Coroner Judy Ryan had arrived. Glamorous as ever, the coroner greeted Bannon politely in the hallway and proceeded to enter the crowded bedroom. This looks most interesting, she said to no one in particular.

Callous bitch! thought the forensic photographer. 

Bannon ended the call from Sally by arranging to meet up with her for a bite to eat in a small sushi bar nearby. He wondered why she wouldn’t tell him her news over the phone. With a few minutes to kill he