My Bloody Alibi Read online

  Leonard felt a stir inside him when he reached the address. Craning his neck, he peered up and saw someone looking down at him from the fire escape; a fierce looking chick in a blond wig. That must be Sylvana. From the look of her, he reckoned she’d do well dishing out a little cruelty for the fetish market. Never one to avoid a gift horse, he’d check that out while he was here; see if she was interested in making some extra coin from the heavier duty perverts in the district.

  Number seven looked a real dump, but he’d been to fantastic parties in worse looking places. Besides, a haunt like this probably made a great hideout, grim enough to keep any young African spirits at bay, scary enough to keep them cooperative. Leonard licked his lips at the prospect; two boys upstairs right now, young, fresh and muscular, lovely dark skin. He could barely wait to get up there. The padlock on the front door was unlocked. He let himself in and climbed the stairs two at a time, whistling ‘Two little boys had two little toys’. The door at the top creaked open and he walked straight in, rubbing his hands. The smile on his face froze when he saw the room was empty. Marcella looked at his gold-tooth, the same glinting cap that had haunted her sleep all those years. She felt something bad swell inside her.

  ‘Hello Barry,’ she said; then smashed the butt-end of the gun down on his head.

  Cass arrived at The Alley Cat at 8.50pm. Her tall heels clipped rhythmically against the dusty pavements of Berwick Street, as she made her final memorable entrance to the club. The sky above was turning an evil shade of dark-blue, a blanket of sludge cloud stretching to cover London. An air of still menace filled Soho, the smell of hatred lingering in the windless night. Amidst the bemused onlookers and gaping admirers at the door, Cass had no idea that a number of less friendly eyes were also watching her movements…

  When Barry Leonard came to, his hands and feet were tied tightly with cord. The room was bare, apart from a few blankets in the corner and a table with a dark coat on top. There was a blown up photograph on the wall opposite, a headshot of a young kid smiling. The face looked familiar.

  ‘Do you remember him Barry?’ asked Marcella. She towered over him like an angel of death. Leonard looked smaller than she remembered. He was lean and the skin on his face taught, weathered by years of hard living.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he replied. ‘Who are you?’

  His head was aching and sticky with blood.

  ‘Tell me his name.’ She pointed at the picture. Leonard shook his head. He couldn’t remember. ‘Perhaps I’d better remind you. His name was Rico. You killed him ten years ago. I want to know why.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Who the fuck are you? Let me go…’

  ‘Why did you do it Barry?’

  She felt calmer than she thought she would, considering she was now all that stood between Barry Leonard and the painful death she’d been promising to inflict

  upon him.

  ‘Let me go and we’ll talk about this,’ he said. ‘Look, if it’s money you want, I’ve got a pocketful of the stuff and I can get you more, much more…’

  Marcella threw a backhand fist across his face.

  ‘You don’t get it do you? I want to know why he died, why you poisoned him.’ She hit him again.

  ‘Stop…’

  ‘Tell me why you killed Rico and just maybe I’ll let you go.’

  Leonard stared at her, unsure.

  ‘Do you mean that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘I just want to know why?’

  He hesitated before speaking.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, looking up at the picture again. ‘I had to kill him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was blackmailing me.’

  ‘Blackmail?

  ‘We’d been having an affair.’

  ‘An affair…’ Marcella felt her whole body convulse. Rico and Leonard?

  ‘We’d been at it for months and no one knew,’ said Leonard. ‘But Rico threatened to tell everyone about us unless I gave him money. He was only fourteen for Christ’s sake. Free money, free drugs, he wanted the lot. I would have been finished if it had got out.’ He looked at Marcella and tried to reason with her. ‘You’d have done the same. Anyone would in my position. It was nothing personal.’

  She took her shades and wig off. Leonard stared blankly at her for a second, before the realisation crept into his gaunt face.

  ‘It’s you…’ he said. ‘Rico’s psycho sister…’

  ‘Marcella’s the name,’ she said. ‘Mad Marcella to my friends.’

  She felt dead inside after what she’d heard, but not as dead as he was about to feel. Her heart and soul felt like they’d been torn apart, but at least she could finish this dirty ponce off, once and for all. After that, she didn’t care anymore. Life or death didn’t really matter. She pulled a surgical glove onto her right hand and picked up a syringe from the table. It was full of white, powdery liquid. She squirted a little into the air, before gripping Leonard’s right upper arm and sliding the needle deep into his flesh. He screamed with pain, long and hard, as she drove the contents home.

  ‘Like for like Barry,’ she said, as the lethal mixture of liquid rat poison and bleach pumped into his system.

  Cass was pumping and stomping the podium like she was driven by demons, more extreme than ever tonight, thumping her heels, spinning like a tornado, sweat flying from her body and cascading across the punters beneath. The club was fuller than it had been all week; word had got around about “Sylvana”, the crazy dancing bitch with the body of black steel. The floor was heaving, the atmosphere electric. She knew Marcella was dealing with Barry Leonard at that very moment. After that Marcella would enter the club as a normal punter around 9.30pm. They’d meet in the ladies and make the switch. Marcella would become “Sylvana” and Cass would dip out through the fire escape, head for the squat and wait for Jack Thorne…

  25

  Barry Leonard eventually stopped moving. After ten minutes of convulsions, vomiting and foaming at the mouth, his body had seized up; his hands had curled up like talons, his deathly white face contorted with agony. Marcella removed her wig, shades and boots and placed them by the wall as arranged. She rolled Leonard’s body onto a blanket and fastened it tightly with rope; then she dragged him across to the back window, climbed outside and hauled him through onto the fire escape. The giant steel bin that served the businesses beneath was exactly where she’d moved it when she’d arrived that evening; directly below the top of the stairwell. Checking the coast was clear she heaved Leonard’s body over the side. He dropped like a stone, landing with a dull thud, plum in the middle of the rotting vegetables and cardboard. She’d see he was properly submerged in trash before she left.

  Marcella was shaking and covered in sweat. She climbed back inside, covered her semi-naked body with a thin dark Mackintosh coat then took Rico’s picture from the wall; she kissed his young face, before folding up the print. She had to get to the club quickly, but first she just let her head rock back and screamed for all she was worth; so loud that the passers-by in the streets around turned their heads and felt the devil crawl up their spines.

  9.20pm: Cass leapt down off the podium and forced her way through the heaving bodies to the exit. Marcella should be there in a few minutes. She was about to push open the door marked pussycats when a big hand landed on her shoulder. She spun round, ready to attack but froze when she saw the face of Liam Kenny.

  ‘Look Sylvana, is there any chance we could at least talk?’ he said. Liam was the last person she wanted to see right now. She glanced up and around to see if there were any security cameras. Satisfied they weren’t under scrutiny, she whisked him through the door and into the end cubicle.

  ‘Jeez,’ he said, looking at the wall. ‘I should come in here more often. We don’t have pictures this good in the gents.’

  ‘Shut up Liam,’ she said, leaning into his ear and whispering. ‘This has to be quick and then you go, no questions asked. Okay?’ Liam nodded in agreement, but h
e wasn’t sure why. ‘Now listen to me carefully,’ she carried on. ‘Henson wants you killed.’ Liam opened his mouth to speak, but she slammed the palm of her hand against his lips. ‘No questions remember. Don’t ask me how I know this stuff. You really don’t want to know. You’ve got to get away from here now Liam. I mustn’t ever see you again and you definitely mustn’t be seen with me in this club. Otherwise we’re both screwed. Do you understand?’ He continued to stare at her, dismayed. It took him a few seconds and some more prompting before he finally nodded. She wasn’t sure whether he fully got the drift, but he seemed to have grasped enough to know she was deadly serious. ‘Now get the hell out of here,’ she said, pushing him away.

  ‘We can’t leave it like this,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be so goddamned sentimental...’

  His eyes were like a deep blue sea she couldn’t resist diving into one more time, lips first. She kissed him long and hard, burying her forehead in his shoulder afterwards. A minute later she shoved him through the cubicle door and away.

  With Liam out of the way, Cass sat in the last cubicle waiting for Marcella. She hauled her boots off, ready for the exchange. Her blood was racing and her skin soaking. She may have been about to carry out a brutal revenge killing, but she couldn’t get that Irish idiot Liam out of her mind. She could still taste the stout on his lips; feel his thighs pressed against hers. Now she had to deal with the likes of Jack Thorne. Heaven and hell, sex and death, love and hate; a lifetime of extremes compressed into a few days.

  The thumping bass drum beat blurted in and out from the dance floor, as the toilet door repeatedly opened and closed. Time was moving on. Where the hell was Marcella? Ten minutes passed before she finally jumped to a knock at the cubicle door. She’d barely moved the lock before Marcella burst inside.

  ‘Is it done honey?’ she whispered. Marcella nodded. She had a weary look in her eye. ‘And everything was okay?’

  ‘As good as it was ever going to be,’ replied Marcella. ‘I nearly didn’t get in here, the queue was so damn long. Let’s change.’

  Cass gave her wig, shades and earrings to Marcella, taking her coat in return. It was a tight squeeze in the cubicle, but Marcella managed to get the boots on while Cass stood over her and straightened her wig. Lastly Cass gave Marcella her diamond-shaped ring. The switch was complete; every detail of Sylvana had been transferred.

  ‘One thing,’ said Cass. ‘If a big guy, kind of cute in a leather jacket tries to talk to you, don’t hurt him any. Just push the fool away quick and get to your podium. I’ll wait three minutes then sneak out. Now go on honey.’

  They gripped hands for a second then Marcella made for the dance floor.

  Liam sat silently at the bar considering his next move; so the double-crossing slime-ball Cal Henson was out to silence him permanently; no due pay-off coming his way after all, just a deadly dividend. What Henson didn’t know was that Liam had taken out a little insurance of his own. It was nestling against his ribs right now, itching to make an appearance. He turned and looked across the busy dance floor. Sylvana was up on the podium again, dancing like there was no tomorrow. Maybe there was no tomorrow. Right now he didn’t know or care too much either way. He knew one thing for sure though; if he was going down, that bastard Cal Henson was sure as hell going with him.

  The crowd in the club had grown even larger since Marcella started dancing. A sea of bodies swayed around the dance floor and against the base of the podium. She noticed a lot of big guys had appeared in the room in the last ten minutes; a lot of muscle and attitude, but not a lot of hair. Cropped scalps on young guys can mean different things in Soho, but in these kinds of numbers on these kinds of heads? The gang was spreading out evenly around the sides of the room, like they’d been drilled and organised. She looked around at the faces beneath her and felt a tension mounting in the heat and sweat. Marcella had a sixth sense for trouble and right now a storm was definitely brewing…

  26

  Back at the squat Cass was lying in the middle of the floor. Jack Thorne had arrived with a vengeance all of his own. She’d waited for him on the roof and he’d arrived with the beginning of the storm. The second the door was opened he’d taken her by surprise, planting a big fist in the middle of her forehead, splitting her shades in two and sending her flying backwards. He stepped forward and towered over her, breathing hard and heavy, his nostrils heaving in and out like a water-buffalo. She tried to get up, but he slapped her down again, hard. As she lay stunned on the floor he began scrutinising her face.

  ‘You’re not Sylvana,’ he said, grabbing her by the chin, studying her in more detail. ‘You’re not the bitch from the pub…who the fuck are you? Where the fuck is Sylvana?’

  Cass didn’t answer. He looked around nervously, before checking outside the door again; he moved across to the window. The rain was lashing down furiously. Thunder exploded above them. With his back turned, Cass looked across the floor. She splayed her hand out, but the board that covered the gun was too far to reach. Before she could move any further Thorne was on her again. He pulled a knife from his pocket and held it to her throat.

  ‘I think it’s time you told me what the hell’s going on, you little slag…’

  One solid boot was all it took to send the door to the office flying open. Cal Henson froze behind his desk as Liam stood in the doorway, sawn-off shotgun pointed straight at his head.

  ‘So you want to wipe me out of the picture do you?’ said Liam.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ replied Henson. He remained very still, his arms hovering uneasily above his desk like they belonged to a string puppet. ‘There’s really no need for any of this.’

  ‘Keep your hands just were I can see them Cal,’ said Liam calmly. ‘Try anything funny and you’re a dead man. Now very slowly, I want you to turn round and unlock that safe of yours.’

  ‘But Liam, really…’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you that’s a lot of nonsense about my meaning you any harm?’ said Henson, slowly doing as he was told, unlocking the small metal door.

  ‘Of course it would Cal,’ replied Liam. ‘I’ll put this thing away and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea. I’ll bring some of my homemade shortbread. Let me see inside the safe.’

  Henson leaned back in his chair, revealing several different coloured wads of notes behind him: blues, browns, purples and reds.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been talking to that little tart downstairs,’ sighed Henson. ‘She’ll pay dearly for crossing me I’m afraid.’

  ‘This has got nothing to do with anyone else Cal. Now take every last note out of that safe and put the lot in here.’ He hurled a small holdall onto the desk. ‘Start with the reds and work down.’

  ‘My dear fellow, you’ll never get away with this...’

  ‘You’ve managed for long enough, now hurry up.’ Henson placed all the cash in the bag as instructed. Liam guessed there must have been somewhere near a hundred grand; more than his share, but who was counting. ‘Now toss it over here gently,’ he carried on. ‘Remember, one false move and this thing will blow your head clean off.’

  Henson made a big show of gently lobbing the full bag onto the floor. It wasn’t quite near enough for Liam to pick up easily. He leaned forward, eyes on Henson the whole time. Henson was actually smiling at him, a wild glint in his beady green eyes. The storm outside was beating against the roof, as Liam’s hand made contact with the bag.

  ‘Now,’ yelled Henson. The door swung open wide. The immense figure of Eric appeared. He had a gun in his hand. It was pointed at Liam…

  ‘You and your slag friend must think I’ve got the brains of a chocolate fucking mouse,’ said Jack Thorne. He had a knife pressed to Cass’s throat with one hand; the other was twisting her arm behind her back. Thorne was a powerful man; Cass was still a little dazed from the punch. ‘You think I can’t spot a honey-trap set-up when I see one?’ She still didn’t reply. He pulled her arm
further back; the pain was immense. Much more of this and he’d start tearing her muscle. ‘Answer me you tart…what’s all this about? Where’s the slag I met in the Fitzroy?’

  ‘She’s not here,’ replied Cass. ‘Her job was to get you here for me.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  She looked Thorne in the eye.

  ‘The name’s Cass Hall. Ring any bells?’

  He stared back at her, racking his brains trying to remember the name. A shiver ran through Cass, as her memory jolted back those ten painful years…

  Cass was fourteen years old, when her mother Sylvana died of lung cancer. She was devastated at the loss. She had no relatives in the country and was swiftly moved into a care home in Hackney. She hated life in the home so much that after just one week, she ran away and took a bus into Soho. As the day wore into night she began to get hungry, but had no money. Her mother had stolen to feed her over the years, so she figured she might as well do the same for herself now.

  An hour later she was being escorted from a supermarket office to a waiting police van, charged with theft and assault on a store detective. PC Jack Thorne was one of the arresting officers. The police locked her in the back of the van and drove her to a quiet place. When the door opened again she assumed they’d arrived at the police station, but they were actually on a quiet driveway in a deserted industrial estate. The other officer was nowhere to be seen, as PC Jack Thorne climbed in the back...

  27

  No one had moved for the past minute. Henson, Eric and Liam were locked in a deadly triangle. Liam had a holdall full of cash over one arm and his sawn-off shotgun aimed at Henson; Eric had his pistol trained on Liam.