The International Assassin A Sexy Times Crime Thriller (3 page)

“No luv. I’m in the musik industry innit.”

“Ah. You own a market stall selling records?”

He laughed with a raucous bren-gun chatter.

“No, I’m like a rapper innit. I iz on the TV and everything. Like proper.”

It was hard to decipher, I couldn’t quite decide if he was simply ill-educated or mentally retarded from his drug consumption.

“Lovely,” I replied as Johnny pulled out my chair. “Well Charlotte has always been a fan of the arts,” I added.

“nice. Innit. She’s my bitch innit.”

“Yes. She is definitely that,” I replied tartly. Charlotte shot me an icicle glare.

Of course the minute the scrote opened his mouth I had understood he was the musical performer that Johnny had referred to. Quite why Johnny had decided Charlotte’s father was an important enough individual to require Johnny to have him whacked was the real question.

“So what you innit then luv?” he asked.

“Well there’s a question,” I replied not sure what the question actually was. 

“Is he your homeboy?” he asked referring I presumed, to Johnny.

“No he’s from Surbiton,” I replied.

“Safe. South landan crew innit. Whats your gig then chap?” he asked Johnny.

“Public relations,” replied Johnny tactfully.

“For real. That’s like PR?”

“That is PR.”

“Nice. Nice. I got one of dem ting-tings. Nice. Safe. Real.”

It was like listening to
Stephen Hawkin’s
voice machine with a software malfunction.

“So what kind of music do you make then?” I asked politely.

“Gangsta rap innit. Like about life on the streets with my homies n shit.”

“Oh I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise you were a homeless person,” I replied.

“No luv, I’ve got a crib like.”

“You’re a little large for that. How do you fit?” I asked.

“Eh?”

“Into a child’s crib? Don’t your sort of people usually sleep in cardboard boxes?”

“No what I is saying like is I has a crib, like a pad. In my manor.”

“Oh you have a
title
. One would never have guessed, but I suppose since New Labour they are trying to make the Lords more accessible for
your
sort.”

Charlotte glared at me. The musical tramp merely laughed and snorted as he gobbled his mange-tout with pesto drizzle.

“This isn’t my usual sort of place innit, it’s like all Ramsay stylin ting-tings.”

“Well I’m sure they will do you a kebab if you ask nicely,” I retorted.

“You’re funny innit. You’re a funny bird. Chas never told me you was a funny bird. Safe innit.”

To say the evening’s engagement was the most painful dinner one has experienced would be a gross understatement. He regaled us with his endless tales of council estate thuggery and minor criminal adventures before insisting on breaking out into an expletive laden rap to the tune of a children’s nursery rhyme - which somewhat inappropriately for the under sixes, he had reworded to describe an encounter between two gentleman and a girl with a predilection for fellating strangers in the back of Volkswagen Golf GTI’s.  

At the end of the meal he insisted we take a trip back to his ‘manor’ for canapés - although he could have said cannabis. His accent was somewhat hard to decipher especially given the amount of alcohol he had imbibed and his frequent trips to the smoking terrace to inhale something that clearly wasn’t sold in a packet of twenty by the local newsagent.

Normally I would have declined such an offer but since he had annoyed me intensely with his lack of education and constant reference to bitches n hoes I decided to kill the urchin at the first opportunity.

“Good idea,” said Johnny. “I always wanted to see what that side of town looked like.”

With some luck I could take out Charlotte at the same time.

We took a taxi over to Hackney. Despite the lack of planning or discretion and the unfortunate attendance of both Johnny and Charlotte I was at least glad I didn’t have to make such a journey into skid-row unattended. We arrived at the rundown social-housing project a little after midnight. The local residents of which could have easily passed for
Night of the Living Dead
extras. 

“Homes innit,” he told us as Johnny paid the twenty-two pound taxi fare.

“You like?” he asked me.

“It’s very
Bohemian
,” I replied wondering for the life of me what had possessed Charlotte to consort with such a gentleman of questionable standing other than a desire to propagate her position into the ranks of Z-list tabloid celebrities. 

I looked up at the tower block and wondered which episode of
Die Hard
it would most likely feature in. ‘
Die Hard with a Housing Benefit Cheque & Wrap of Smack
’ I expect.

“We’re on the 14th floor innit,” he told us pointing up at his undesirable residence.

“That’s handy,” I replied. A long enough fall for him to consider his failings as a human being before he hit the concrete.

He led us into the vestibule of the tower block. The bare concrete walls were scrawled in graffiti and stank of stale piss, sick and human misery.  Having enjoyed the many splendours of the world’s duty-free perfume counters it was not a scent I imagined any major fashion house would be releasing into the fall season. 

We headed for the lift, a nasty stainless steel affair that had probably been host to more than its fair share of violence against the person. 

The doors cranked open with the grace and finesse of a car crusher waiting to swallow an untaxed Vauxhall Astra. He gestured us into the lift which was a tight squeeze and added the noxious fume of working class sex and stale sweat to the already heady concoction the vestibule had offered to ones nasal senses.  He stabbed the button for the fourteenth floor and the doors creaked close sealing us inside the stinking coffin of benefit-trapped misery. As the lift creaked its way to its final destination his head nodded like a dog as if listening to some music only he could hear. He also kept rubbing his crotch probably due to some nasty STD. I remember thinking how much I hoped he had passed it on to Charlotte or perhaps she had gave it to him - more than likely as was clear from her current romantic choice of partner she would screw anything, human or otherwise.

I tried to hold my breath in the lift as I felt the salmon with lemon jus gently swimming in a bath of
Veuve-Clicqout
attempting to return to sender and was thankful when the doors creaked open. Even in the confines of the lift Charlotte’s man smelt like a tramp. It looked like the sort of building that didn’t have running water let alone a
Starck
fitted wet-room. We departed the lift to the slightly less aromatic hallway that mostly stank of strong ganja.

“Welcome to my pad.”

He gestured us into the badly decorated dingy hellhole that passed for his domestic accommodation. Having never actually ventured into social-housing before it was somewhat shocking, a living room adorned with pictures of half naked ladies and a sixty-inch plasma TV that was probably stolen in the riots.

“Nice innit. You likin my style Bitch?”

“It’s vintage,” I replied. 

“Yes yes check dis,” he replied which was possibly some sort of acknowledgement of my interior design critique.

“You wanna see the view lady?” he asked me gesturing me to what I presumed would be the bedroom. “I got a nice balcony,” he added.

Perfect, I thought. I could throw him off it and be out within five minutes.

“Yes that would be delightful,” I replied with the feigned excitement of a child off to visit the funfair.

“Fix us a drink, I got some Malibu and shit,” he told Charlotte.

“Just the Malibu,” I said.

Charlotte might like to drink shit but I prefer a decent quality vintage of French origin.

He led me through to the bedroom. The bed where he had I presumed, fornicated with Charlotte reminded me of a certain artists piss-stained attempt at a
Turner
Prize
installation piece. I don’t imagine he changed the sheets more than once a year. He opened the balcony and we both stepped out.

“Check dis view man!” he told me doing some sort of weird shaking hand gesture.

Taking out my lipstick I leaned over the balcony and deliberately dropped it on to the ledge below.

“Oh dear! It’s my favourite. YSL.”

“No problem sistah. I can sort dis,” he replied leaping over the balcony railings with ease clearly from years of practice burgling neighbours residences. 

With one hand clutching the balcony he leaned down to grab my lipstick.

“Mind you don’t fall off,” I said quite loudly to ensure Johnny and Charlotte heard.

“I got dis,” he said. “No worries.”

“No, I don’t think you have old chap,” I told him as I punched him squarely on the nose. 

His face was a look of pure shock as he lost his grip on the rail and fell backwards - some hundred or more feet downwards landing squarely into a badly body-kitted pink Renault parked below triggering the car alarm as his body smashed into the roof and windscreen.

“Oh
dear
!” I remarked. “Are you okay?” I shouted for good grace as Charlotte and Johnny came running in.

“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s my Sean?” 

“Well he seems to have jumped off the balcony,” I said as politely as possible.

“Why the fuck did he do that?” asked Charlotte in horror.

“It appears he became despondent with his lifestyle choices and felt he had no option but to end it all,” I said with a innocent shrug of the shoulders.

Charlotte looked over the balcony, screamed and started crying as she spotted the scruffy muso plastered on the modified French shit-box.

“Baby!” she yelled.

A small crowd was now gathering around the car - which wasn’t ideal.

“What have you done?” she screamed then she looked at me accusingly.

“Don’t look at me. If I lived here I would probably jump too.”

“He was fine a minute ago! What did you say to him you bitch!?”

“I didn’t say anything. I asked him how the new album was coming along. He became mournful, questioned his musical integrity and self-worth then jumped,” I explained. “Can’t say I blame him. His music is shit.”

“You evil bitch! You did this to him! You don’t want me to be happy!”

“Charlotte please, if this is happiness for you then I wish you every bit of it.”

“I’m calling the police! You evil bitch! Call an ambulance Johnny!”

“I should call a car valet as well.He has made a terrible mess of some chaps jalopy,” I replied with a casual shrug. Charlotte slapped me. “Oh it’s like that is it?” I scornfully yelled at her whilst rubbing my sore cheek.

“Murderer!” she yelled back.

“Do you want to join him?” I asked her politely before punching her in the face and smashing her expensively reconstructed nose into a bloody mess.

“You bitch!” she cried before turning to Johnny crying. He put his arm around her and scowled at me.

“Really. There is no need! There is
no need
!” he said looking at me disappointed.

It never dawned on me that having asked me to dispatch the stinking oxygen-thief that Johnny would have me arrested so it came as quite a shock when he quite brazenly sat comforting Charlotte and told the police on arrival I had done it.  

Of course there were no witnesses to validate such a wild claim but unfortunately I still had my Beretta in my handbag so when the police searched me I was duly arrested.

As they led me away Johnny stopped me in the hallway and gave me a pitying look shaking his head.

“Really. I’m so disappointed in you. So disappointed. I knew you were a jealous girl but this really is something else.”

Unfortunately for Johnny I hadn’t been handcuffed since I had agreed to come quietly. I punched him in the face with all the ferocity I could muster knocking the smug twerp clean off his feet.  The police immediately restrained and handcuffed me. I gave him a final scornful look.

“I’ll get you for this Johnny. And your little bitch Charlotte.” 

Chapter 3

THE POLICE
always harp on that there is no such thing as victimless crime and I tend to agree with them. 

Where our views on the matter diverge is on who the victim is, the presumption being the person who is deceased must be the victim by virtue of being, well, deceased. 

Given his life of criminal wrongdoing and equally criminal warbling’s as far as I was concerned I had done the world a favour ridding us of this menace to the audible art-form and reducing societies miscreants by a count of one. Unfortunately this was not likely to hold much sway with the beak no matter how well Daddy’s lawyers would spin it.

No, if there was a victim then it was most certainly me. Johnny was the scheming perpetrator of this comedy of errors and I was merely a means to conduct his plot. Johnny was the villain - possibly Charlotte too, although I don’t credit her with the intelligence to actually have any motivation beyond dropping her
La Perla’s
for any man she liked the look of. Clearly Johnny’s demeanour after the event suggested I had been setup.

Quite why I went along with such a preposterous notion as to turn a scruffy east-end rapper into a cadaver still keeps me awake at night.  

Since the whole notion of why I would throw someone I had only met once off a balcony was such a nonsense I wondered what story Johnny would spin to cover up his wicked antics.

“Cup of tea?” asked the detective.

“Lapsang Souchong?” I inquired.

“No we have tea. With milk, and sugar.”

“Hmmph,” I replied. 

I could see this would not go well. I had never actually been arrested before and the police station seemed only a minor step up in smell and décor from the hellish tower block my victim had resided in.

“Can I order in? They deliver twenty-four hours,” I asked. 

It was now three-o-clock in the morning. Having been ‘
booked in
’ and fingerprinted, luckily by some new electronic device rather than with the nasty ink that would have wrecked years of good manicures and hand-cream then photographed, which in itself was a indignity since they wouldn’t even allow me a make-up artist or hair-stylist, at least two hours of bureaucratic police nonsense had elapsed before anyone decided to interview me. I was not optimistic I would be in bed before sunrise.