C.J. Skuse - The Alibi Girl

‘This darkly comic novel…has the potential to become a cult classic’

DAILY MAIL

‘This isn’t a book for the squeamish or the faint-hearted … think Bridget Jones meets American Psycho ’

RED

‘Filthy and funny… a compulsive read’

SUNDAY TIMES

‘You MUST read this book especially if you like your (anti) heroes dirty-mouthed, deadly dark, dark dark. I adored it’

FIONA CUMMINS, AUTHOR OF RATTLE

‘This anti-hero is psychotic without doubt… incredibly funny’

SHOTS

‘Brutal, bone-crunching, enthralling and entertaining… as brilliant as it is shocking, and marks a fascinating turning point for a young and vibrant author’

LANCASHIRE POST

‘If you like your thrillers darkly comic and outrageous this ticks all the boxes’

SUN

‘Makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mary Poppins… this is going to give me a serious book hangover’

JOHN MARRS, AUTHOR OF THE ONE

C J SKUSEwas born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare. She has two First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Young People, and aside from being a novelist works as a Senior Lecturer at Bath Spa University.

Sweetpea

In Bloom (Book 2 in the Sweetpea series)

For Young Adults:

Pretty Bad Things

Rockoholic

Dead Romantic

Monster

The Deviants

C J Skuse

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © C J Skuse 2020

C J Skuse asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008311407

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008311391

For my excellent friend, Laura Myers

Alibi Clock (n):

a clock which strikes one hour,

while the hands point

to a different time,

the real time being neither one

nor the other.

E. COBHAM BREWER 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable . 1898.

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Present Day

Chapter 1: Ellis

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

24 Hours Later

Chapter 16: Foy

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

December 23rd One Year Later

Chapter 28: Ellis

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Extract of Sweetpea

About the Publisher

Curl Up and Dye,

Spurrington-on-Sea,

North-West England

Monday, 21st October

I can’t read this Hello! magazine again. There’s only so many times I can admire Brooklyn Beckham’s left armpit. It’s not as though there’s anything else to read either. There’s a Vogue with dried snot on the contents page. And Charlize Theron is on the cover of Cosmo so I can’t even touch that one. I’ve been afraid of her since Snow White . Keep thinking she’ll come out of the page and bite me.

So, in the absence of reading material, I’m squinting at a cockroach scuttling across the floor with a clump of shorn hair on its back like some tiny game show host. My own hair sits lankly around my ears – it can’t wait another day. I’ll give it another five minutes before I go back to the flat and dye it myself over the bath with a kit.

And now the baby’s grizzling. I’ve tried sticking my knuckle in her mouth but she’s hungry. I’m not feeding her here. How can you talk to a perfect stranger quite politely one moment and then flop your boob out the next? How do women do that? And what is the stranger supposed to do? Not look at it? A boob is my third most private part after my feet and my noo-noo. I’d look. Not for long, but I would look.

After fifteen-and-a-half full minutes, a short Roseanne Barr-ish woman scuffs through the beaded curtain. She has Hobbit feet wedged into mint-green flip flops and tattoos up and down both forearms – Tom Hiddlething as Loki all up her right, Chris HemWhatNot as Thor all up her left.

‘Hiya, I’m Steffi. Is it Mary?’ Her eyes don’t smile.

‘Yes. Mary Brokenshire.’

Steffi’s in a washed-out Gryffindor T-shirt and her hair is spare rib coloured, parted and shaved severely up the side.

‘If you’d like to come this way …’

Steffi leads me through the beads, across the glittery black floor tiles and through a grubby woodchip archway, towards the sinks but not quite at them. We swerve over to a side chair with a mirror in front of it and she sits me down and places her hot hands on my shoulders. She gives me an unnecessary chat about what I want done even though she already knows because I came in last week for a patch test and we went through it all then.

‘Right, black it is then. Have you been offered a tea or coffee?’

‘No.’ I don’t like tea or coffee. I’d prefer a juice but they don’t have juice, only some value squash which I only have to look at to feel my teeth rotting at the roots. Even I know asking for a milk would be too childish in this environment so, for appearances sake, I say, ‘I’d love a tea, thanks.’

Steffi disappears and returns with a cape but no tea. She waits for me to take Emily out of the papoose and transfer her to the pushchair, hoping to catch a glimpse. I get it: people love babies. I tuck her into the buggy and drape a muslin over the opening. I don’t like people looking at her, or me, for too long. Just in case.