My Bloody Alibi Read online

  ‘If I die, you die Henson,’ said Liam. ‘If Eric shoots, I shoot. I might even blow you both away with one shot. You’d be amazed at the damage one of these can do.’ There was a commotion downstairs in the club. Above the music they could hear shouts and screams.

  ‘I think there’s some trouble downstairs Mr Henson,’ said Eric.

  ‘Never mind that now you complete fool,’ replied Henson. ‘We have our hands full right here, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me a fool in front of other people Mr Henson…’

  ‘Before you two have a domestic,’ interrupted Liam. ‘And as delightful as all this has been, I think I’m going to have to leave you now. Remember, one false move from either of you and we all go to hell together.’

  He edged backwards, feeling for the top stair with his left foot. Henson and Eric inched forward towards him, side by side. Stepping down in reverse wasn’t easy when your life was hanging on an itchy trigger finger, but Liam descended the staircase steadily. Eric had been right; there was some real trouble downstairs. It sounded like the mother of all brawls had just kicked off. Liam was just three steps from the bottom when he heard a yell from behind.

  ‘That’s him with the leather jacket…that’s the bastard from the other night…’

  Marcella was taking a spin, when she heard a shotgun blast. Screams echoed around the dance floor. Punters were running back and forth like frightened rabbits. The Alley Cat was under attack; skinheads were trashing the club; shotguns were raised and fired into the air. The other girls had already left their podiums and fled. Marcella leapt down from her podium and found herself face to face with a pair of meatheads in combats and union jack tee-shirts. So they wanted to fight; this was exactly what Marcella needed right now…

  A trio of skinheads were gawping at Liam; the central one brandishing a sawn-off shotgun, which was hoisted in his direction. He was literally being shot by both sides. The trigger was pulled; he dropped to the ground; a deafening boom resounded up the stairs. He rolled over and looked up. Henson’s mouth, which must have been wide open when the trigger was pulled, had caught most of the pellets. His entire skull had been blown to smithereens, his brain plastered all over the wall behind. His purple velvet-suited body was left semi-upright in the arms of a blood-splattered Eric, like a 1970s manikin without the head screwed on.

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ said one skinhead to the other. ‘You should have let me…’

  Liam leapt to his feet and head-butted the gunman, right-hooked another and pummelled the third into the ground with his knee and elbow. He looked up; Eric was still holding the dead body of Henson. He was shaking; his teeth gritted. Liam figured now was definitely a good time to make an exit. He ran through to the dance floor, which had become a full scale battleground. A big guy with another sawn-off blew the glitter ball into thousands of pieces. A cacophony of screams accompanied the shower of glass that sprayed the bodies beneath. A Molotov cocktail was hurled over the bar and exploded, leaving a torrent of flame in its wake. The stud-faced barman Clinton leapt over to safety and began punching his way through the skinheads. Another group tackled Liam from the side. He kicked one hard in the groin, forearm jabbed another in the chin, smashing his jaw and flattened the other with a full arm smash across the neck. He had to get out of here. Henson was dead and he had his money. There was no other reason to stay, or was there? He paused a second and looked around the room; through the centre of the melee he caught sight of Sylvana. She was fighting with such ferocity that a circle had cleared round her. She was launching punches and killer kicks into the faces and bodies of anyone who came near. He just had to see that girl again. Eric appeared at the bottom of the stairs, covered in Henson’s blood and brain, pistol in hand, roaring like a maniac. Liam gripped his bag, turned and ran from the club.

  ‘I remember now,’ said Thorne, a glint of recognition in his pig eyes. ‘I had you in the back of the van.’ His memory had finally caught up with him, but it had taken a while. If he found her so hard to remember, Cass wondered how many others had suffered a similar fate at his hands.

  ‘You raped me,’ she said. ‘You fucked my life up that day.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he scoffed. ‘I didn’t do anything that wasn’t going to happen sooner or later.’ He began to smile. ‘If it wasn’t me who broke you in, it would only have been someone else. So that’s what all this is about, is it? Were you luring me here to have some kind of revenge? Is that it?’ His face changed again. ‘What were you going to do slag? Fucking kill me?’ She said nothing; just stared back at him. ‘Well let me tell you what’s going to happen.’ He started unzipping his flies. ‘I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice at this over the last ten years Cassie, or whatever your name is, so right now you’re going to make Jack a really happy man…’

  Liam stuffed the shotgun into his bag and ran out onto Berwick Street. Eric was just a few seconds behind him, waving his pistol and screaming. The Saturday crowds were pressed to the inner edges of the pavements, seeking shelter from the storm, further exposing his escape. The rain battered Liam’s face, as he turned onto Wardour Street. He didn’t know yet where he was going, but then had an idea; the squat he’d been to with Sylvana; that would make a perfect hideout. He could sit tight for a while, wait for the right moment then disappear off into Piccadilly Circus. Drenched with rain, he turned onto St Anne’s Court and burst into number seven. He swiftly slammed the door closed behind him and paused a second to catch his breath. The torches on the stairs were all turned on. If he’d had time to think, he might have wondered why. He vaulted quickly up the stairs until he reached the top flat. Once there he opened the door…

  28

  Jack Thorne had pulled his trousers down around his thighs. He’d twisted Cass round so her face was smack against the floor, arm behind her back. He was pumped up, erect and on the verge of making good his threat, when the door burst open.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Liam. ‘What the hell…’

  ‘Liam,’ screamed Cass. Thorne let loose his grip in surprise. She pulled free, rolled over and in one movement flipped the floorboard up, grabbed the gun hidden beneath, swung round and pulled the trigger. She was side on to Jack Thorne, but there was plenty to aim at nevertheless. She shot low expecting the gun to jolt upwards when she fired, but her aim was better than she thought. The bullet blew Thorne’s erect penis clean off and sent it spinning through the air like a boomerang. He squealed like a bitch with a burning bush. Blood cannoned out of his crotch like a red hosepipe, splattering against the wall opposite and narrowly missing Liam. He fell to his knees and keeled over, the blood still surging out of his gaping wound. He sank down further, twisting and quivering. Cass held the gun up again, firing a little higher this time. The bullet blew half his head off. His fat body jerked a couple of times then fell still.

  Liam ran across and picked her up.

  ‘What the hell is happening here Sylvana?’ he yelled. ‘I don’t understand…you were at the club just now…’

  ‘He was raping me Liam. He’s done it before, when I was a kid and he was about to do it again...’

  Eric had followed Liam only so far. He was out of shape and couldn’t keep up with the pace, but he knew the Irishman must have turned off the main street somewhere. Liam had a fortune in that bag; Eric wanted it badly. He stood on the corner of St Anne’s Court to recover his breath, when he heard a gun blast from behind him; then another. He raised his gun in the air and grinned. A bunch of Japanese tourists, who had been eyeing him warily, began screaming and running away in different directions. The hysteria quickly spread; others joined in the panic, most without knowing what the hell was going on. Eric ran down the alleyway and a few seconds later through the door of number seven. A minute later a handful of uniformed police arrived on the scene and tried to calm down the overwrought tourists. It didn’t take them long to establish where Eric had headed; within seconds an armed response unit was call
ed…

  Cass told Liam as much as she figured he could take in about the plan. He listened, shell-shocked and breathless until it began to make some sense. She wiped the gun clean of her prints and threw it on the floor beside the now lifeless and largely bloodless body of Jack Thorne. They heard a noise from the lower staircase.

  ‘Eric,’ said Liam. ‘Shit.’

  ‘This way,’ said Cass.

  She opened the window and climbed onto the fire escape. Liam followed, carefully side-stepping the pool of blood. Soho was in the eye of the storm, the thunder and lightning cursing their every move, as they climbed the shaky ladder onto the roof.

  ‘Where the hell do we go from here?’ shouted Liam.

  ‘Get the ladder,’ replied Cass. ‘Pull it out of the wall. It’s loose enough.’ Liam leaned back over the side and yanked one of the bolts out. The other took a little more persuasion, but he prised it out after a few seconds. He hauled the ladder up, out of sight from below. ‘At least no one can follow us,’ said Cass, as they ran across to the other side of the roof. The street below was quickly filling with police vans, cars and bodies. Ladder or not, the cops would be up there soon.

  ‘Liam…’ screamed Eric. He burst into the squat, pistol in hand, ready to do battle, but not ready for a floor covered in blood. He skidded across the boards and tumbled down on top of the corpse of Jack Thorne. He rolled off in horror, his hands now smeared in blood. There was a gun lying on the floor. He picked it up and looked at it; this wasn’t Liam’s gun. Liam had a sawn-off. There was something else on the floor. He picked it up. It looked like the dead guy’s cock. Jeez, he thought, hurling it away in disgust, like it was, well, like it was some dead guy’s cock. What kind of sick mother-fuckery was going down in this place? And where the fuck was that Irish bastard? He looked up; the roof. Liam had to be on the roof. He clambered up, away from the bloody corpse and made for the window. Rumbling noises were coming from below; boots on the stairs, bodies running upwards; the law had arrived.

  Marcella hammered fist and boot into one skinhead after another, as The Alley Cat battle raged like the thunder and lightning outside. Half the club was on fire. The dance floor was awash with battered bodies, blood and bone, as she expelled every last vestige of hatred and frustration on the racist scum. And she wasn’t alone; news of the battle had spread like an urban forest fire. The Soho counter movement was ready for action. Dozens of defiant locals from the bars and clubs raced into the melee carrying clubs, bats, anything they could lay their hands on. The right-wing scum were being pummelled and driven out of Soho. The police sirens were bearing down, as a scar-faced Oily Boy spotted Marcella crashing yet another fist through yet another face; the same bitch, or so he thought, who’d gouged his face and humiliated him so the other night.

  ‘You’ll regret that now, black bitch,’ he said, as he loaded up his sawn-off and pushed his way through the carnage towards her. The law had arrived inside the club; they were barging on through, batons crashing down on anyone in their path. Oily Boy’s gun was trained on her now. A pair of bruisers in riot gear powered towards him, but too late to stop him pulling the trigger…

  Liam and Cass could see The Alley Cat going up in flames. Fire engines crammed through the thin streets of Soho and honed in on the scene. Squad cars had blocked the ends of St Anne’s Court, the area now full of uniforms and the sound of police radios. They made for the back of the roof, where they couldn’t be seen. Some ten yards across was the top of the neighbouring building. It was way too far to jump. Gunfire erupted from the flat below. Eric. Several more shots were fired. If they wanted to go anywhere, they’d have to act fast.

  Liam stood the ladder up at the edge of the roof and let it slowly drop towards the building beyond. It clanged down on the edge of the guttering, bounced a few times then came to a standstill. He edged it on a little further. It reached but only just. This was more than a little risky, but at least offered the slim possibility of escape. In a few minutes the ground, and probably the sky, would be swarming with cops. It was now or never.

  ‘Are you sure you want to risk this?’ asked Liam. Cass looked at the ladder and drop beneath.

  ‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘But then I’d rather die right now than in prison in forty years time.’

  She crawled out slowly; he held the ladder firm. If the corroded metal gave way she was gone. It wobbled and bent slightly as she inched across, but she kept her nerve and didn’t look down once. Once she was over halfway he picked the ladder up and moved it gently forward, pushing it further onto the building, easing her to safety. A few seconds later she was on firm ground again, breathing a major sigh of relief.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouted. Liam just looked back at her.

  ‘It’s not happening,’ he said.

  ‘Liam, come on,’ she shouted.

  ‘Look,’ he said, counting on his fingers. ‘One, I hate fucking heights. Two, this thing will never take my weight and three, I should hate your final memory of me to be lying in a heap down there. Go on now. Before the cops get here.’

  He picked up his holdall and hurled it across the open space, straight into her arms. She looked in the bag open-mouthed.

  ‘You’ll find a gun in there,’ he shouted, as he pulled the rusty ladder back towards him. ‘Ditch it. It’s not been fired. And spend that cash wisely. I spent over five years earning it.’ He waved and walked back across the roof. ‘Goodbye Sylvana.’

  ‘We’ll spend it together,’ she shouted. He looked back at her through the driving rain, but it was too dark for her to be able to tell what he was thinking. He shrugged and sat down on a chimney block, waiting for the law to arrive. ‘And the name’s Cass,’ she shouted. ‘Sylvana was my mother’s name. That’s why I’ve got the tattoo.’

  ‘They do say all women end up like their mother,’ he shouted back. ‘Now go on and get the hell out of here.’

  29

  Three weeks later

  Cass stood alone in the cemetery, watching the early autumn leaves fall and scatter across the freshly-laid marble. In a day or two they’d fade and crumple; something the occupant of the grave certainly never had a chance to do, not that she would have had it any other way. The inscription was simple, name and date; nothing fancy or elaborate, which felt right to Cass. If anyone had been able to see beneath the shades, they might have seen a tear well up for a moment, but no more than that.

  She hadn’t been out of the hotel much for the past three weeks, choosing to lie low and keep tabs on matters through the local rags and radio news. She made hooded trips to the local supermarket and off-license, but otherwise kept herself well under wraps, living on a diet of tequila and takeaway pizza. Every last vestige of “Sylvana” had already been wrapped in a sack, weighed down with bricks and dropped into the canal down the Kingsland Road. She’d taken care of that within a few hours of her escape from Soho.

  At some point arrangements had to be made. When she figured the time was right Cass cleaned herself up, checked out of the Sun Hotel and took a cab to Knightsbridge. Two hours later, now wearing a short Prada number in black silk and stilettos, she checked into a Park Lane hotel. Over the next few days she did what she figured was necessary. Now she was a defiant figure standing over a lonely grave, feeling a cool autumnal breeze brush against her skin.

  The heat wave died a violent death that crazy Saturday three weeks back. The sky tore itself to pieces, while the rain thrashed the dust and filth down the drains, back into the bowels of the earth. If the Sunday redtops were to be believed, World War Three had broken out that night and for once they wouldn’t have been far off the mark. It took thirty-six hours to get the blaze under control at The Alley Cat Club and the cops had to bring every available body in to deal with the aftermath. Quite apart from the ongoing mystery surrounding the grisly fates of Jack Thorne and Barry Leonard, the remnants of The Alley Cat Club had become an iconic symbol of the fight against fascism. Some of the arrested gang members had squealed loudly once
they were in custody, giving up key players and details of the operation. A couple of well-publicised dawn raids later, the cops were claiming full credit for defeating the movement, but everyone knew the right-wing scum would be back one day; you can never completely kill off cockroaches.

  By the time the armed response unit had finished with Eric at St Anne’s Court, he had more lead in him than the roof at Westminster Abbey. When the storm abated enough for the police helicopter to scour the area, the pilot spotted Liam waving cheerily from the roof of number seven. He was in custody before the rain stopped and back in a Wormwood Scrubs cell before the Soho pavements had even dried.

  Cass managed a clean getaway, thanks to an open skylight in one of the roofs on Greek Street. She dropped down onto a bed covered in coats, slipped down the stairs of the flat and through an orgy, where everyone assumed she was another hired whore. Some over-sexed bitch’s mink went mysteriously missing that night. Once outside she strolled down to Oxford Circus and train-hopped her way out of zone one. It was only when she turned on the television later that she’d heard the news about Marcella and nearly collapsed.

  Cass left the graveside and wandered back towards her waiting cab. She figured the time was right to move on. She could now. When she reached the gate she made a call on her mobile.

  ‘Alright you lazy-assed bitch,’ she said, when her phone was answered. ‘Are you about ready to kick-start this shit-heap of a life?’

  30

  ‘So just where the hell do we go from here?’ asked Marcella. They were sitting on the balcony of their Park Lane hotel, watching the endless stream of traffic flooding down towards Hyde Park. A bottle of champagne was keeping cool in an ice bucket between them. Marcella’s leg was raised on a stool, still bandaged, but in good working order. The doctors reckoned her Sylvana boots had saved her leg, but there were plenty of flesh wounds above, including a whole bunch in her hips and stomach; some meaty scars, but nothing a blood transfusion couldn’t fix. Today was the day the doctors had finally agreed to her discharge. Cass had left her mother’s grave earlier that morning, complete with its new headstone, to collect Marcella from the hospital.