Having never seen her dad cry before, Millie was frightened. ‘Where’s Sammi-Lou and the boys? Is it Little Vinny? Has something bad happened to him?’
Gary Allen put one arm around his wife, and the other around his daughter. ‘There was a shooting at the wake. Two masked men burst in. Oliver didn’t make it, and Sammi-Lou is critical. Her heart stopped, and …’
Meg Allen pushed her husband away. ‘Oliver didn’t make what? A shooting at a wake! Where is Sammi now?’
‘Surely you don’t mean Oliver’s dead, Dad? That’s ridiculous. And Sammi’s heart can’t have stopped,’ Millie Allen shrieked.
When Little Vinny suddenly appeared, his white shirt covered in blood and a doctor in tow, the realization suddenly hit Meg and Millie Allen full in the face. It was then Meg became hysterical.
Frankie Mitchell wasn’t daft. She knew when Joey had turned up out of the blue earlier, demanding to take her and the kids out for something to eat, that her father must have told him to do so. No doubt her dad had enticed Stuart to get rat-arsed at the wake and now he was feeling guilty, trying to put her in a good mood so she wouldn’t bite Stuart’s head off when he rolled home. Or at least, that’s what she’d assumed.
‘No. Don’t put the TV on,’ Joey shouted, snatching the remote out of Brett’s hands.
‘But Mum says I’m old enough to watch The Simpsons now,’ Brett complained.
Frankie snatched the remote out of her brother’s hand. ‘You’ve been acting bloody weird ever since you got here. I reckoned Dad sent you because him and Stuart are bladdered, but you’re so twitchy it’s starting to freak me out. So come on, Joey, tell me: what’s going on?’
All Joey knew was that there had been a shooting at the funeral his father had attended, and Stuart had been wounded. When his dad had rung back again, about an hour or so ago, he’d offered no more information. His orders were to keep Frankie away from the TV and radio; Eddie promised he would explain all when he arrived at Frankie’s himself.
‘I’m not acting weird. It’s just me and Dom. He went mad when I told him I’m going to be working for Dad. Stormed out, and I think it’s all over between us, for good.’ Joey was telling the truth to a degree. Dominic had gone ballistic when he broke the news he was giving up his high-flying career as a broker to go and work for his father.
Harry nudged Georgie. In the travelling community, homosexuality was extremely frowned upon. Rumour had it that Old Man Macca’s grandson had been gay, and he’d disappeared without a trace. ‘Uncle Joey, can I ask you something? I know I don’t call Frankie muvver, but it’s OK to call you my uncle, ain’t it?’
Knowing whatever the horrible child said was bound to be crude and also a dig at him, Joey’s response was, ‘Call me whatever you like, Nephew.’
‘I wanna know if it hurts when Dom sticks his cory up your bum? Only, sometimes when I have a crap it’s painful – and that’s going out the normal way, ain’t it?’
Frankie was speechless for a moment, but when Georgie burst out laughing she turned on her children and yelled: ‘Get back upstairs now, the pair of ya. I’ve had enough of you two for one day and if you don’t get out of my sight, I’ll swing for you. No way are you going out with Calum again until you learn how to behave in the correct manner. And I bloody well mean that!’
Georgie giggled as she playfully pushed her brother up the stairs. ‘We’ll be nice to her tomorrow, behave ourselves. Bet she does let us see Calum.’
‘Yeah. The dinlo will fall for it an’ all, she’s that desperate,’ Harry grinned.
‘Mum, if Stuart doesn’t come home, can I sleep in your bed with you tonight?’ Brett asked Frankie. The last couple of mornings Harry had crept into his room and been really nasty to him before anybody else in the house had woken up.
‘Stuart will be coming home, love. But if Granddad has got him very drunk, we’ll make him sleep on the sofa, shall we?’ Frankie replied jovially. So far, Brett hadn’t picked up on the terrible sayings and language Georgie and Harry used, but Frankie was worried he would in the long run. Brett certainly wasn’t his usual self lately, and that did concern Frankie immensely. Her youngest had always been a bubbly little chap before Georgie and Harry came on the scene.
‘Nooooo,’ Joey yelled, snatching the remote off Frankie and turning off the TV the second she turned it on. His dad had said there was bound to be something about what had happened today on the news.
Frankie put her hands on her hips. ‘Right! Tell me the truth now. What the fuck is going on, Joey?’
The buzzer sounded in the nick of time. Joey Mitchell was relieved to fling open the front door and see his father and Gary step out of a black cab. He ran outside to greet them. ‘Frankie knows something’s up. Have they kept Stuart in hospital? He’s going to be OK, isn’t he?’
One look at his father and half-brother’s sombre expressions told Joey all he needed to know.
Minutes later, Frankie Mitchell’s screams of unbridled anguish could be heard half a mile away.
It was ten p.m. when Michael and Albie Butler arrived at the hospital in Bethnal Green. Little Vinny had rung up in a terrible state, and aware that Vinny had left the hospital, Michael had insisted his nephew needed some family around him.
‘They won’t tell us anything,’ Little Vinny bellowed, eyes bulging with a look of sheer terror.
Gary Allen glared at Michael and Albie, mumbling, ‘I’m going to find Meg and Millie,’ before stomping off. Unlike his wife, who’d been quite at ease with Sammi-Lou’s relationship with Little Vinny from the very beginning, Gary had always seen the danger signs. He was a self-made millionaire through pure hard graft, and a family of notorious gangsters did not impress Gary in the least. Especially one that seemed to have a personal bond with the Grim Reaper.
‘You sit with your granddad and I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on,’ Michael said.
‘Gary hates me now. He’s blaming me for what happened. I only went to Auntie Viv’s funeral, so how is all this my fault?’ Little Vinny told Albie. ‘Dad’s the one to blame, if anybody. It was him they came to shoot. Why did they have to turn the gun on Ollie and Sammi? Why would anybody do that to an innocent woman and child?’
Albie had no answers, all he could do was put an arm around his distressed grandson’s shoulders. Little Vinny had lived with him when his father had gone to prison, and they’d been extremely close ever since. It was an awful feeling to lose a son; Albie could remember Roy’s death as though it were yesterday, and all he could do was say a silent prayer that Sammi-Lou would pull through. With Sammi by his side, Little Vinny would cope with the loss of Oliver in time, but without her Albie feared for his grandson’s future. Sammi was the strong one in their relationship. It was she who had turned Little Vinny into the good man he was today.
‘Gary upset Meg and she stormed out. He was really nasty to her, said some proper shitty stuff. Aimed at me being a Butler it was. He was insinuating that our family is rotten to the fucking core. I’ve always been a good dad and husband, haven’t I? The man’s a cunt, Granddad.’
‘Don’t be taking no notice of Gary, boy. It’s grief and worry making him say such stuff. Michael will have a chat with him – put him straight, so to speak. What happened with your father? Did you two have words?’
‘He’s a cunt an’ all. All him and Nan are bothered about is themselves, so I told ’em where to go. They make me sick. How