Lenny was drunk and full of camaraderie. He had enjoyed taking that cunt out, and he had enjoyed explaining it all to Jack Johnson too. He loved Jack more than he could have ever thought possible. He loved his Reggie too, but tonight he needed a bit of strange to round off the excitement. Unlike Reggie, who he knew loved him and him alone, Lenny had found he liked a bit of a cottage – a good, faceless fuck – sometimes.

There was a place in Ilford where like-minded men would converge to partake of their certain brand of sex, with no questions asked and definitely no fucking morning-after remembrances. Lenny parked his car carefully – the last thing he needed was a fucking parking ticket. He walked past Tiffany’s and took a short cut through to the big car park behind the club. At this time of night it was full of men just like him – men who were looking for a quick connection. He knew it was dangerous – that was half of the excitement as far as he was concerned – but he always took precautions. It was the whole concept of the strange that appealed; the different smells and tastes were the big draw for Lenny, something Reggie would never understand or even suspect.

He stopped as a large man came out of the shadow of the bins and smiled easily. He was big, dark and hard-looking – just his type. The man was smiling now as he walked over, and Lenny instinctively moved to meet him, craving the darkness and all that he knew it contained. As the man drew closer Lenny smiled back at him. Then the man brought up his hand and, before he could react, Lenny was on his knees, a terrible pain shooting through his body, and he knew that something was radically wrong. He was lying on the floor, unable to move even a finger, when the man knelt down and said softly, ‘I just paralysed you, Lenny, but you will feel every cut and blow I give you. This is payback, you cunt. Eye out first, I think.’

Lenny lay there incapacitated and, as the man used the same sharp instrument to slice into his eyeball, he could not even scream out in pain. In the distance he could make out the sounds of traffic and people talking, the occasional shout and the high-pitched laughter of girls making their way into the clubs. The man was calm and collected and he took his time, inflicting the maximum pain and damage, so that when he finally started beating him with a metal bar Lenny Scott was almost relieved. He felt grateful that his ordeal was finally over – even if it meant his death. His last thoughts were for his boys, who would have to grow up without him.

Chapter Seventy-Five