The Alibi Read online

  I was now civil to him whenever we met and that made life easier all round. There were never any arguments over maintenance payments and he was usually willing to help out when I needed certain favours.

  Naturally my mother hated him with a vengeance, and when he called at the house she made a point of retreating to her bedroom to avoid seeing him.

  It wouldn’t be an issue today because he’d taken Rosie out on Thursday and wasn’t due to see her again until Wednesday, when he’d pick her up from the nursery.

  Today it was my turn to spoil her – if I didn’t have to go to work. And that was a bloody big if.

  I turned away from the mirror, picked up my robe from the chair next to the bed and peered through the curtains. The bright sun made a change since we were in the middle of one of the wettest and coldest Novembers for years.

  My bedroom was at the front of the house and the view was of a row of almost identical terraced houses opposite. All of them were worth in excess of half a million pounds, which seemed extraordinary to me given that Peckham used to be one of the grimiest and most dangerous parts of south London. But having undergone massive regeneration and steady gentrification, the area was now considered a trendy place to live, attracting families and city workers alike.

  For me Peckham was both familiar and convenient. The house was a short walk from the railway station and from there it was just a ten-minute train ride to London Bridge and the offices of the The Post, the evening newspaper that served the capital. I’d worked there for the past five years.

  Peckham Rye Common was also close by and that was where I’d planned to take Rosie today. I really didn’t want to disappoint her because Mum was right about me not spending enough quality time with her. I definitely needed to make more of an effort, put Rosie before everything else and stop jumping to the tune of the newsdesk.

  I came to a decision suddenly. If the newsdesk asked me to go to work I’d tell them it wasn’t possible. I’d say I’d already made plans and they couldn’t be changed.

  They’d no doubt be surprised because I loved the job and could usually be relied on to come in at short notice. But this time they’d just have to call up someone else, assuming they hadn’t done so already.

  ‘You took your time getting back to me,’ Grant Scott said. ‘I was about to get someone else to cover a story that we’ve just got wind of.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s what you’ll have to do, boss,’ I said. ‘It’s my day off and I’ve made plans.’

  ‘Well, I suggest you change them or else you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This is huge.’

  ‘That’s what you always say when you’re short of people.’

  ‘I mean it this time, Beth. You’ve got first call on this because you’re the paper’s crime reporter. So I want you on it from the start. And trust me it’s right up your street.’

  Grant was The Post’s senior news editor and an expert in the art of manipulation. He was an old-school newspaperman who knew there was one sure way to get a reporter – any reporter – to do his bidding, and that was to dangle the carrot of a cracking yarn.

  ‘So just out of curiosity what’s the story?’ I said.

  I could imagine him smiling on the other end of the line, thinking he’d got me hooked and that all he had to do was reel me in. He’d been my mentor after all, helping nurture my career since I got the job at The Post. He was also the one who had nicknamed me The Ferret, because of my uncanny ability to ferret out stories.

  Three years ago he appointed me to the position of the paper’s first-ever female crime reporter. And in the pub afterwards he told me: ‘You got the job because like me the news is embedded in your psyche, Beth. It’s part of your DNA. You can’t resist the excitement that comes from being the first to tell people what bad things are happening all around them. It’s like the rush you get from a sniff of the white stuff.’

  He’d been right, of course. From an early age I’d been fascinated by the news and how it was covered and disseminated. Before I left school I knew exactly what career path I wanted to follow. It wasn’t easy, given my background, but I’d managed to pull it off, and like every other hack I knew I was now addicted to the chase.

  ‘There’s been a murder,’ Grant was saying. ‘And the victim is none other than Megan Fuller.’

  It took a second for the name to register.

  ‘Do you mean the actress?’ I said.

  ‘Yep, although as you know that’s not her only claim to fame. As well as being a former TV soap star she was also the ex-wife of a well-known London gangster.’

  ‘Christ,’ I blurted. ‘Danny Shapiro.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Grant said, as though he’d scored a point. ‘Danny fucking Shapiro – the villain with the film-star looks who took over a huge criminal empire after his notorious father got banged up.’

  I felt a surge of adrenalin. Grant wasn’t far wrong in saying the story was huge. Danny Shapiro was one of the country’s highest-profile criminals. His gang operated south of the Thames and was involved in drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion, money laundering, and even kidnapping. He and Megan Fuller had been tabloid fodder throughout their three-year marriage which had ended in divorce fourteen months ago.

  ‘Megan was found stabbed to death at her home in Balham earlier this morning,’ Grant said. ‘We had a tip from a paramedic who attended. So we’ve got the jump on everyone else.’

  I was suddenly oblivious to the ache in my head as my mind filled with a flood of questions that I doubted Grant would know the answers to. I was certain the story would have created a buzz in the newsroom. The headline writers would already be focused on the paper’s early edition front page, and the online team were probably about to publish something on the website. Then it’d be out there, leading to a full-blown media firestorm.

  ‘So do you still want me to pass the story on to one of your colleagues?’ Grant said. ‘Only I can’t piss around. We need to move on this.’

  From where I stood in the kitchen I could see Rosie at the table in the adjoining dining room. She was busy drawing pictures on a pad with big colourful crayons. My mother sat next to her, but her eyes were on me and her brow was scrunched up in a frown. I could tell she knew what was coming.

  I felt my resolve dissipate and the guilt rear up inside me again as I turned away from them and said into the phone, ‘Okay, give me the details and Megan Fuller’s address. I’ll get right on it.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Grant said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.’

  2

  Ethan Cain

  The girl had said she was 18, but Ethan Cain wasn’t sure he believed her. She looked younger. Much younger.

  It hadn’t stopped him spending the night with her, though. She was mature enough to know exactly how to please him.

  Even if she was underage there was no danger of anyone in authority ever finding out. The girl would be too scared to let slip that she’d been shagged by a 34-year-old man at his flat in Wandsworth.

  She was still asleep on the bed and she hadn’t stirred when he’d got up just now to have a piss. It didn’t surprise him. Last night she’d consumed copious amounts of vodka and had sniffed at least five lines of coke. So she’d probably be comatose for a while yet.

  But that was okay because he wasn’t in a hurry to get shot of her. It was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work. Besides, he was already aroused at the prospect of fucking her again, maybe a couple of times this morning if he could manage it.

  After emerging from the en-suite bathroom, Cain sat naked in the armchair next to the bed and lit his first cigarette of the day. It was always the best, the most satisfying, and he savoured the acrid warmth that filled his throat.

  He knew he wasn’t a pretty sight. He looked far better with clothes on. At least they concealed his paunch and the man boobs that had begun sprouting up after he’d stopped working out. He wasn’t grossly overweight, just bigger and softer than he wanted
to be.

  The girl, on the other hand, looked good enough to eat. The duvet had been pushed aside to reveal her lying spread-eagled on her back. It was all he could do not to get back on the bed and feast on her bare flesh.

  She had lush black hair, small pert tits, and skin as smooth as porcelain. It struck him that she was a picture of innocence. This made him smile because she was far from innocent.

  Ania Kolak – if that was her real name – was among the thousands of Eastern European sex workers who had poured into London in recent years. She was Polish and had told him that she hoped one day to embark on a career as an actress.

  He’d heard it all before. Most of them believed that selling their bodies was a means to an end and that after a few years they’d have enough money saved to be able to fulfil their dreams. But in most cases that never happened. Instead they ended up as drug addicts or pathetic zombies drained of every last drop of self-respect.

  Not that he gave a toss. As far as he was concerned it served them right. They didn’t deserve his or anyone else’s pity.

  He did have some sympathy for those who were forced into sex slavery, though. Their plight was indeed tragic. But all the women and girls he’d been with had clearly become prostitutes out of choice. Many of them had told him they actually enjoyed being on the game. It meant they had enough cash to live well in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

  It still amazed him how much some of them earned. The high-class escorts who worked the West End often raked in thousands of pounds in a single night. Ania wasn’t in that league, not yet anyway, and her fee for an entire night was five hundred pounds. Cain was just glad he didn’t have to pay her and the others out of his own pocket. He would never have been able to afford it.

  As it was he was lucky. The girls and drugs were the perks he enjoyed for being on Danny Shapiro’s payroll. Danny, like his father before him, ran the biggest prostitution racket this side of the Thames. But it was only part of his empire, an empire that stretched across the whole of south London.

  He was without doubt the shrewdest villain in the capital and the most feared. Even the Russians, who controlled the West End, and the Albanians, who ran most of north London, knew better than to try to muscle in on his territory. They did attempt it a couple of years ago and quickly came to regret it. Two of their top people were shot dead outside their homes in Kensington, and one of the casinos they operated up west was set on fire.

  It was widely accepted that Danny was just as ruthless as his old man, Callum Shapiro, who was doing a twenty-five-year stretch for a raft of convictions including murder.

  Cain’s relationship with Danny was purely professional. He didn’t actually like the man, let alone trust him. But the arrangement they had was mutually beneficial. And to be fair Danny had always treated him with a modicum of respect – unlike Frankie Bishop, Danny’s second-in-command and the gang’s most brutal enforcer.

  Bishop, a career criminal, had earned his ferocious reputation on the south coast where he was groomed by a gangster named Joe Strickland. He’d managed the security arrangements at Strickland’s pubs and clubs in and around Southampton. One night he attacked a punter who ended up with a fractured skull and ruptured spleen. For that he went down for three years. While in prison he met a couple of Danny’s lads and they urged him to move to London if he wanted to see more action and more money. So after his release he dropped in on Danny and offered his services, and Danny jumped at the chance to take him on.

  It was Bishop who handed Cain his monthly cash retainer and supplied the girls and drugs. But dealing with him was never a pleasant experience. In the underworld he was known as ‘The Nutter’ because it was obvious to everyone that he was a grade-A psychopath. Still, Cain reckoned it was a small price to pay to indulge his passions for drugs, gambling, and sweet young things like Ania.

  She was still out cold, her chest rising and falling with every breath. It occurred to him that he ought to take one of his little blue pills so that he could make the most of her before she left. It would take at least thirty minutes to kick in so he decided to wash it down with a cup of tea.

  He crushed what was left of his fag in the ashtray on the floor and rummaged in the bedside drawer for a pill.

  In the kitchen he opened the blinds and reached for the kettle to fill it with water. That was when he noticed his mobile phone on the worktop next to the sink.

  As soon as he picked it up he saw that he had two unopened text messages and three missed calls.

  ‘Shit.’

  At some point last night he’d put the phone on silent and had forgotten to take it off. It had been careless of him. Downright stupid.

  He checked the times of the messages and the calls. They had all come in during the past hour, which was a relief. He would say he was asleep in bed and hadn’t heard it ringing.

  It wasn’t until he phoned the office that he discovered why they were anxious to reach him. It was bad news.

  He wasn’t going to have a day off, after all. And there would be no time for even a morning quickie with Ania.

  Cain didn’t know what to make of it. Megan Fuller had been murdered in her own home in Balham.

  Jesus.

  He had never met the woman but he knew all about her. She’d appeared in a soap that had aired on the BBC for about five years, playing the glamorous wife of a cantankerous factory owner. In real life she’d been married to Danny Shapiro, and by all accounts it had been a tumultuous relationship.

  The word on the street was that she’d fallen on hard times since the Beeb dropped her from the soap over a year ago as part of a character shake-up. She’d been struggling to find other work ever since and had recently been threatening to write a tell-all book about her life.

  Danny was among a number of people who were apparently not happy about it. He feared she might reveal a bit too much about their life together in order to secure a lucrative publishing contract.

  As Cain stood under the shower, he realised that Danny would most likely be in the frame for her murder because the book thing meant that he had a motive. If so, then things could get tricky. He thought about phoning Danny to find out what he knew, if anything. But he decided against it. Maybe later when he had a better idea about what was going on.

  After the shower, he towelled himself dry and had another go at waking Ania. She hadn’t responded to the first attempt, but this time her eyes flickered open and she looked up at him.

  ‘I said get your arse out of bed and get dressed,’ he told her. ‘Something’s come up and I have to go out.’

  She licked her lips and cleared her throat. ‘Can’t you just leave me here? I’m tired and I don’t feel well.’

  ‘Like I give a shit,’ he said. ‘Your clothes are over there. Put them on and scram. I’ve left a thirty-quid tip on the chair.’

  Suddenly he was no longer interested in her. He was in such a hurry to get going he didn’t even look at her as she got out of bed and sauntered naked into the bathroom to use the toilet.

  By the time he’d put on his grey suit and a white shirt he was flustered. He didn’t bother with a tie because he hated wearing them.

  He told Ania she would have to have a shower when she got home and while she put on her clothes he called her a cab.

  ‘Charge it to my account,’ he told the operator. ‘The name’s Cain. Detective Inspector Ethan Cain.’

  After hanging up he grabbed his wallet and warrant card from the dressing table and slipped them into his pocket. Then he checked himself in the mirror one last time and decided that nobody would guess he’d been up half the night shagging a teen prostitute and snorting coke. That was a relief. It meant he was ready to report for duty.

  He checked his watch. Seven forty-five. Balham was only a couple of miles away and with luck he could be at Megan Fuller’s house in less than half an hour, traffic permitting.

  3

  Danny Shapiro

  ‘We’re getting reports that
the British actress Megan Fuller has been found dead at her home in south London. Police say she was stabbed late last night. Her body was discovered this morning. Scotland Yard has confirmed that Murder Squad detectives are at the scene. We’ll bring you more when we have it.’

  Those words from the BBC newsreader hit Danny Shapiro like a cattle prod. His eyes snapped open and he struggled to focus on the TV screen fixed to the wall in front of his bed.

  For a few seconds it was just a blur, and by the time his vision cleared the newsreader was talking about something else. But the caption scrolling across the bottom of the screen told him that he hadn’t been dreaming.

  Breaking News: Soap star Megan Fuller found murdered in her home.

  Danny sat bolt upright and shuddered from a fierce intake of breath. He had turned the telly on twenty minutes ago to help him shake off his slumber before getting up. Since then he’d been dozing on and off and hadn’t taken any notice of it.

  Now though he was wide awake and the morning news had his full attention.

  Megan Fuller. His ex-wife. Murdered. Stabbed. In her own home.

  Fuck.

  Surely it can’t be true, he told himself. It must be a ghastly mistake or some sick joke. After all, he was at her house last night and she had been very much alive. As spiteful and as mouthy as ever. They had argued and there’d been a shouting match. He remembered threatening her and recalled the fear on her face as she’d backed away from him in the kitchen.

  She had really pissed him off with her crude ultimatum, and he’d told her that he wouldn’t allow himself to be blackmailed. But she’d laughed in his face and had said he would have to pay up or suffer the consequences.

  Afterwards he’d come straight home and had drunk himself into oblivion because he’d been so angry. That was why his head was bunged up now and there were things he couldn’t remember: such as whether he’d given her a slap – or worse – before storming out. If he had then it would have been the first time. During their three years together he’d never once laid a hand on her, even though he’d come close to it on numerous occasions.