‘Nah. Gina reckoned it wasn’t suitable for everyday use with the kids. She has got a point, I suppose. I was bloody tempted though. You should’ve seen the interior. It’s the bollocks of a motor and a dream to drive.’
When the men started chatting and bantering about motors, Gina moved next to Felicity. She was very beautiful, classy and reminded Gina of a younger version of Bella, Michael Butler’s other half. Gina knew that Vinny had once had a fling with Bella when she and Michael weren’t together. They’d even produced a child, and Gina could not help wonder if that was what had attracted Vinny to Felicity in the first place. She could remember Eddie telling her a while back that Vinny had once had a fixation with Bella.
‘Is it always like this, people looking over? I know when I worked at the club, Vinny was seen as some kind of god, but I didn’t expect him to be so well known in a restaurant in Ongar,’ said Felicity.
Gina smiled. Smith’s restaurant was a favourite haunt of hers and Eddie’s, and it was her husband who’d suggested coming here when Vinny rang up earlier. ‘You’ll get used to it. I think Eddie and Vinny are reasonably well known wherever they go. It can be a pain in the butt at times, especially if the children are with us. I remember going to a restaurant in Brentwood a few years ago and Eddie got pestered left, right and centre. Aaron was only young then and the attention scared him.’
‘Vinny doesn’t take me out much, to be honest. You’re the first friends of his I’ve dined with. That lady with the short blonde bob we spoke about earlier is looking over again at your Eddie. Does that not bother you, Gina?’
Gina laughed. ‘Not at all. For a start, Eddie is well aware I’d chop his testicles off if he even thought about messing me around. And secondly, there are some sad, lonely women in this world. The amount of times I’ve seen women try to chat Eddie up or pass him their phone number is far too many to count.’
‘Really! I don’t think I would like that at all. It’s very disrespectful to do such a thing in front of you.’
Having been half-earwigging, Vinny turned to Felicity. ‘What’s disrespectful?’
‘Nothing important. We’re just having a girlie chat.’
‘Come on, I wanna hear it. Otherwise that’s disrespectful, isn’t it? To be sitting on the same table as your bloke, who’s treated you to a top night out, and whispering behind his back.’
Gina glanced at Eddie while Felicity spilled the beans. She knew her husband wouldn’t be bothered about anything they’d spoken about, so why was Vinny?
Eddie moved seats and kissed Gina on the cheek. ‘Can’t help being a handsome bastard who regularly attracts menopausal old birds, can I?’ he joked.
Aware of the angry glint in Vinny’s eyes as he grilled Felicity over something she’d said, Gina leaned towards her husband’s ear. ‘I know he’s your business partner, but I feel sorry for that poor woman. Vinny’s not like you. He’s possessive and arrogant.’
‘More like nosy and pissed. Vin’s OK, Gina. He’s got a good side, very loyal – he’s offered to watch my back many a time if I needed him to. You’ll get used to him in time. He’s just not used to being with a woman. Jo died years ago and this dating lark is all new to him,’ Ed whispered back.
Gina wasn’t a big drinker as a rule. She was devoted to being a mother these days, an odd glass of wine occasionally once the children were in bed was all she consumed. Forgetting to whisper, she blurted out, ‘I don’t care what you say, Felicity won’t be happy with him.’
Vinny smashed his glass against the table. ‘Sorry, Gina. I didn’t quite catch that, love. If you’ve got something to say to me, I’d prefer you to say it to my face.’
Eddie Mitchell leapt out of his chair, grabbed Vinny by the arm and marched him out to the toilets.
‘Don’t be getting bolshie with me, Ed,’ Vinny spat, his eyes blazing. ‘It’s your old woman you want to be having a word with. I heard every fucking thing she spouted,’ he added, releasing his arm from Eddie’s grasp like a petulant child.
Once inside the men’s a furious Eddie Mitchell grabbed hold of Vinny’s lapels and pushed him against the wall. ‘You need to man up, you do, and start acting like a gentleman. We’ve all had a skinful tonight, but that doesn’t excuse your lack of respect. Gina isn’t a “love”, as you so nicely put it; neither is she an “old woman”. Gina is a Mitchell. My wife and the mother of my kids – and don’t you ever forget that, Vinny. Because if you do, me and you are gonna fall out big time. Under-fucking-stand?’
‘I think it might be three, six, four, Harry. Keep those numbers firmly in your head and as soon as we get a chance, we’ll try them,’ Georgie O’Hara said.
Desperate to return to the family that had raised her, Georgie O’Hara had been racking her brain for weeks trying to remember her boyfriend Ryan’s phone number. She knew it started in 07973 and ended in 187, but the middle numbers she could not seem to fathom.
‘I reckon Dad and Granddad Jimmy are dead ya know, Georgie. They would have come and rescued us by now if they were still alive. Eddie telling us they went back to Scotland is a load of bollocks. No way would Dad go back to Scotland without us.’
Eyes welling up, Georgie squeezed her brother’s hand. She feared the same but prayed she was wrong. She knew her father and Granddad Jimmy had followed her and Harry on the day they’d been abducted because she and her brother had heard the mumblings of Eddie and the others. ‘I’ve got a plan. Why don’t we say sorry to Mum for being bad yesterday, then beg her to take us to Joycie’s birthday party. We can’t use the phone here ’cause the numbers will show up on the bill and we’ll get into trouble like we did before. But we can use Joycie’s. She must have a phone upstairs. Most gorgers have phones in their bedrooms.’ Joyce Smith was their great-grandmother, their dead Nanny Jessica’s mum, but neither Georgie nor Harry really remembered her from the past. Neither did they like her very much, which was why they called her ‘Joycie’ rather than ‘Nan’.
Harry shrugged. ‘I ain’t saying sorry to Frankie though. I wish she’d die.’
Backcombing her dyed-blonde hair into a bouffant, Joyce Smith repeatedly yelled her husband’s name.
Stanley Smith puffed out his cheeks as he ambled up the stairs. Today would be the first time he’d been forced to socialize with the man who had murdered his daughter since she’d died, and Stanley was dreading being in close proximity to Eddie no-good Mitchell.
Jessica’s death had been a tragic case of mistaken identity, but that didn’t lessen Stanley’s hatred towards the man who’d snuffed out her life. Eddie had thought it was Frankie’s gypsy boyfriend hiding under the bed in a trailer in Tilbury when he’d manically fired that machine gun. Jessica had been pregnant at the time with her and Eddie’s third child, so Mitchell had two lots of blood on his hands. In Stanley’s eyes, a judge and jury should have locked Eddie up for life, but they didn’t. He got found guilty of only the firearms offence and was let out of prison far too soon.
‘You’re not wearing that, Stanley. You look like a bundle of shit tied up ugly. Go and put your blue suit on, and wear that new tie I bought you.’
‘I’m not wearing a suit and bloody tie indoors. I’ll look like a poxy doctor’s clerk,’ Stanley complained.
‘I bet you wore a suit for the old slapper. Now go and get changed. Chop, chop.’ Joyce had been equally appalled and devastated when Stanley had once left her and moved in with that brazen old bag, Pat the Pigeon. To this day, Stanley insisted they’d been just good friends and their relationship was platonic, but Joyce wasn’t