Eddie Mitchell was glad Vinny had finally found love. Rumours were rife in the underworld, and Eddie was not impressed by the way Vinny had treated prostitutes back in the day. In his eyes, those poor girls were only trying to earn a crust and did not deserve to be violated and treated brutally. ‘You told your family about her yet?’
‘Little Vinny met her briefly when he popped round unexpectedly yesterday. Other than that, the only one I’ve told is Michael. Too embarrassed to tell my mum or Ava, to be honest. It’s the age gap, ain’t it? Neither will be impressed. Ava had an inkling a while back and called me a nonce-case.’ Felicity was half Vinny’s age.
About to ask Vinny if he was going to move in with Felicity, Eddie was interrupted by his sidekick, Stuart. ‘I don’t know how long you’re planning on staying, Ed. But I’m gonna have to leave soon. Just had a phone call from Frankie – Harry is playing her up big time.’
‘Today isn’t about Harry or Frankie, Stu. We are here to remember and pay our respects to the lovely Vivian Harris. For once in her life, my daughter is going to have to cope without our help. Serves her right for stabbing me in the back and getting involved with the O’Haras in the first place, eh, lad?’
Stuart sighed. Eddie had been on the Scotch today and it had a tendency to make him argumentative and arrogant. Harry had apparently smashed to pieces the new computer he had paid a lot of money for only yesterday, and Frankie was incredibly upset about it. ‘OK. I’ll give it another hour or so. Tired, I am, to be honest though, Ed.’
‘Always remember, I call the shots, Stu. It ain’t the other way round, kiddo,’ Eddie cockily reminded his employee.
Aware of Vinny smirking, Stuart said no more and stormed back inside the restaurant.
Still reeling that her granddaughter would soon be running a club that was no more than a knocking shop, Queenie Butler had just received some more shocking news. ‘Abroad! What do you mean, they’re not coming home?’
‘I got a letter from Lee, but didn’t want to tell you until after the funeral,’ Michael explained. ‘It was only a short note, he just said that he was going abroad to start afresh with Daniel. Dan must have jumped on a plane soon after the wedding fiasco, I imagine.’
‘But what about Beth? Lee’s got responsibilities, and a mortgage. He can’t leave that poor girl in the lurch.’
‘Well, he has, Mum. Between me and you, since they found out Beth couldn’t have kids, the marriage was on the rocks anyway. Drove him up the wall, she did.’
‘So where the bloody hell are they living?’
Michael shrugged. ‘The letter didn’t say, but my guess would be Spain. They’re bound to be in touch again soon. Once the dust has settled.’
‘That’s not good enough, Michael. I love my grandsons and I’m certainly not getting any younger. I want you to find them and bring them back home where they belong. You can find Roxanne as well, while you’re at it. You might have chosen to forget that poor girl is your daughter, but I bloody well haven’t. She’s fifteen years old and all alone in this world. Poor little cow must be petrified, and for all we know she might still be carrying Daniel’s baby. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? So best you get your head from up your arse and do something about it.’
Michael nodded dumbly. He’d been planning on dropping the Bella bombshell today as well, but the mood his mother was in, that would just have to wait.
Mehmet handed Hassan the rubber Bill Clinton face mask. His own was that of Colonel Gaddafi. Both men were broad, tall, dressed in black tracksuits and trainers, and looked terrifying enough without the masks on, let alone with them.
Mehmet and Hassan’s sister, Asli, was a professional make-up artist and she’d done a wonderful job of disguising Deniz, who was driving. She’d reinvented his face in such a way that he still looked human, but like a completely different man.
‘How far away are we?’ Hassan enquired.
‘Five minutes, if the traffic would move. We’re at a standstill. I hope there has not been an accident,’ Deniz replied.
Feeling beads of sweat forming on his forehead, Hassan rubbed frantically at his mask. This was all going wrong. He could feel it in his bones.
Ava Butler tapped her father on the shoulder. ‘Nan’s got the right hump. She was none too happy when I told her about my job at the club, then Michael said something to upset her even more. They looked like they were arguing, Dad.’
Excusing himself to Eddie Mitchell, Vinny walked over to the food area. His mother was standing alone, eating a bowl of jellied eels. ‘This was one of Auntie Viv’s favourite songs, eh, Mum?’ he said jovially, referring to Teddy’s rendition of Jim Reeves’s ‘He’ll Have to Go’.
Spitting an eel bone into a piece of tissue, Queenie wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. ‘Disgusted with you, I am – and your brother. What sort of fathers are you?’
Trying to shift the focus off himself, Vinny replied. ‘Told you he’s back with Bella then, I take it? I knew you wouldn’t be pleased. But Michael’s a grown man and if Bella makes him happy, so be it.’
Queenie looked at her eldest in astonishment. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! How could he? After everything that Italian whore has done to this family. Where is the silly bastard? I’ll give him “back with Bella”!’
‘He’s outside. I’ll go get him. Sorry, Mum. I thought he’d already told you.’
‘What’s up now?’ Eddie Mitchell asked, grabbing Vinny’s arm as he went to walk past him.
‘I’ve just put me foot in it that Michael’s seeing Bella again. Best he deals with it himself now. Let him pander to my mother’s wrath and we’ll get out the way. There’s a boozer nearby. She’s proper on the warpath, me mum.’
Eddie Mitchell smirked. ‘And I thought my mob were the most dysfunctional family ever to step out of the East End of London.’
Having battled through the traffic, the Turks finally arrived at their destination.
‘I cannot park outside. There are no spaces,’ Deniz informed his partners in crime, who were seated in the back of the van.
Urging Deniz to drive past the venue, then turn the van around, Mehmet leaned across to peep out the passenger’s side window. It was dark now, so he wouldn’t be spotted. ‘There’s a shop nearby with a space on the pavement. Reverse on to that and we’ll leap out there. Make sure nobody blocks you in though, OK?’
Feeling slightly nauseous, Hassan began mumbling a prayer in his native Turkish.
Standing with a few of her and Vivvy’s old neighbours, Queenie Butler was well and truly on her soapbox. Albie was singing another of Vivian’s favourite songs, this time Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Please Release Me’; annoyed by the attention he was getting, Queenie was doing her utmost to redress that by slagging off her absent grandchildren. ‘I can fully understand Camila not being here as she is appearing in an important West End musical at present, but Tommy and Tara should be bloody ashamed of themselves. Spent plenty of time with Vivvy when they were young. It’s rude and so bloody wrong, that’s what it is. Selfish they are, just like their mother was.’
Their mother was Queenie’s only daughter, Brenda, who’d been an alcoholic and an embarrassment to the family in more ways than one until her untimely death. In her heart, Queenie would always love Brenda and her kids, but it annoyed her greatly that Tara, who’d recently had a baby, had never bothered visiting her grandmother. She’d even posted a lovely present for the child and not received as much as a thank you card. Both Tara and Tommy lived in Leeds now and seemed to have forgotten their nan existed.
‘Were Daniel and Lee at the church, Queen? I didn’t see them,’ Mouthy Maureen enquired.
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