When Vinny glanced back as he walked towards the car, Ahmed winked at him. Even though there were personal belongings scattered all over the flat, the not-so-bright Karen had fallen hook, line, and sinker into their web of deceit.
Terrified of being spotted, Albie Butler hung around outside the London Hospital in the long tan raincoat and big brown hat his sons had made him wear to visit Queenie. Rumours spread like wildfire in Whitechapel, and Albie knew without a doubt that his little white lie would now be common knowledge. His evil son had put the boot in good and proper once again, which is why Albie had had no choice than to leave the East End on the same night Roy had been shot. He hadn’t wanted to, of course. He had been desperate to go to the hospital with the rest of his family, but Vinny had pulled him to one side and all but told him that if he came near any of the family ever again he would end up in a coffin.
Albie crouched down against a nearby wall. He had been ringing the hospital daily, but even though he had sworn he was Roy’s dad they had still refused to update him on his son’s condition. The only thing they would tell him was that Roy was still alive.
When Albie had quickly packed his few belongings and left Whitechapel, he had luckily still had the two hundred quid that Vinny had stuffed in his jacket pocket as a bribe. Not knowing where to go, Albie had returned cap in hand to Becontree Heath and as luck would have it, Pauline had snatched a hundred quid out of his hand, proclaimed she had missed him, and welcomed him back into her home with open arms.
Albie put his hand inside the pocket of his raincoat and checked that the letters were still there. He had spent all yesterday evening writing them in the Matapan pub, and although he had never been a man of words, for once he felt he had done himself proud. For all Queenie’s faults, she deserved to know the truth, not only about how she had made him feel over the years, but also that her eldest son was out of control. He had to warn her if only for Roy and Colleen’s sake. As much as Albie hated to admit it, his sperm had produced a wrong ’un, and he would wait at the hospital for as long as it took. Michael was the only one he could truly trust, which is why he had written him a separate letter. His family were entitled to know what they were dealing with, and Albie was determined that they read the truth from him. Whether or not they believed it was another matter.
Nancy was incredibly anxious as she walked over to her brother. Rhonda had told her he was standing by the till, and apart from her father, Christopher was the last person she wanted to see. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, as casually as she could. She then gestured for her brother to follow her outside the shop.
‘I would rather say what I have to say here, thank you, Nancy. I feel your colleagues might be able to help me make you see sense,’ Christopher stated, hands on hips.
Clocking both her colleagues’ and the customers’ awkward glances, Nancy grabbed Christopher by the arm and tried to lead him outside the shop. ‘Don’t you dare show me up. We’ll speak outside,’ she hissed.
‘Oh, no we won’t,’ Christopher said in a loud voice while waving the
East London Advertiser
in the air and pointing at the front page. ‘You see these people on the front page, everybody? The gangsters who were shot at? Well, this is the family my stupid sister has left our own family home for and moved in with. My mother is devastated, my father is distraught, and all I want is my sister back.’
Feeling herself blush the colour of crimson, Nancy first looked at Rhonda, then her manager Steven, and then the queuing customers. ‘I am so sorry about all this, everybody,’ she said apologetically.
‘And so you should be, Nancy. Mum, Dad and I have been out of our minds with worry. So, are you coming home with me after work? Or not? I am willing to wait for you if you wish.’
Nancy had never ever felt so humiliated in her whole life. ‘No, Christopher. I am not coming home with you. Now, please get out of my shop and leave me alone. And if you come back here again and jeopardize my job, I swear I will tell Michael about it, OK?’
Unable to believe his ears, Christopher sneered at Nancy, his face a picture of disgust. It was too late to save his sister. She was already a Butler.
After dropping Karen home, Vinny headed to the club. Out of respect for his brother, Vinny hadn’t opened up since the shooting.
Checking that everything was just as it should be, Vinny was about to leave the premises when he heard the shrill ring of the phone, and so he dashed behind the bar to answer it.
‘That you, Vinny?’
Even though he hadn’t heard the voice for a long time, Vinny recognized it immediately. George Geary was the now retired chief inspector Vinny had had in his pocket for many years. ‘You all right, George? What’s up?’
‘Just heard a bit of inside info, boy, which I thought you might be interested in. Obviously, I will expect a drink in return. Fifty quid, shall we say?’
‘Go on,’ Vinny replied.
‘My old mob are just about to charge a man with the attempted murder of your brother. They caught him the same night it happened, but wasn’t allowed to question him immediately, because he’d been involved in a road accident.’
‘Who is it, George?’ Vinny asked, his heart beating like a drum.
‘Johnny Preston.’
Shocked to the core, Vinny told George to pick up his dosh the following day and slammed the phone back on its cradle. He then smashed his fist against the bar. Johnny Preston would pay for what he had done in the very worst way possible. What that was yet, Vinny did not know. But, what he did know was that by the time he had finished with him, Johnny cunting Preston would wish he had never been born.
The following morning, Queenie and Vivian arrived at the hospital at eight a.m. and soon realized that even though she had promised to go home and get some sleep, Colleen had stayed at Roy’s beside again all night.
Queenie sat down next to her future daughter-in-law and squeezed her hand. ‘Look, sweetheart, I know how much you love Roy, we all do, but sitting here nigh-on twenty-four hours a day isn’t the answer. You need to eat, kip, and start looking after yourself. You heard what the doctor said yesterday: they have no idea when Roy will wake up, so you must get a grip, darling. Every human being needs food and sleep. We can’t survive without it.’
‘Queenie’s right, Colleen. You look ill, and your Roy ain’t gonna want to wake up to a skeleton, is he?’ Vivian added.
‘You OK, love?’ Queenie asked, as Colleen stood up and stared blankly at her and Vivian.
‘No, I feel a bit …’ Colleen mumbled, and then collapsed before finishing her sentence.
Unaware that the police were currently at the hospital talking to his mother, Michael was on his way there. Since Roy had been shot, apart from the first night, Michael had barely seen or spoken to his eldest brother. Unlike the rest of the family who had visited Roy on a daily basis, Vinny had stayed well away, his excuse being that it broke his heart to see his brother in a coma, and it was pointless being there until he actually woke up.
‘Michael, why do they call this area the Waste?’ Lenny asked.
Michael couldn’t help but smile. Ever since the lad had started work at the club, he seemed to ask questions all day long. Last week, Michael had spent the whole day trying to explain why elephants had trunks to his young cousin.
‘Michael, why are you living at Auntie Queenie’s now? Why ain’t you living with Vinny no more? Have yous two fallen out?’ Lenny asked, without even waiting for the first answer.
Putting a protective arm around Lenny, Michael led him safely across the road. ‘No, ’course me and Vin haven’t fallen out. He’s been staying with his Turkish mate in Camden, and I’ve been stopping at your Auntie Queenie’s house because Nancy has now moved in with me.’
‘Do you love Nancy? Are you going to marry her?’ Lenny asked bluntly.
‘Yes, I love Nancy, Champ, and one day if she is lucky, I might just marry her,’ Michael said, with a wink.
Lenny chuckled, but Michael missed his inquisitive cousin’s next question, as he had just spotted his father standing by a wall, waving frantically at him.
Over in Dagenham, Karen had spent the past hour deciding what she was going to take to her lovely new home. Vinny had sworn her to secrecy about her new gaff. He had insisted he wanted her to surprise her mum and friends by organizing a little flat-warming for them.
Desperate to tell somebody about her stroke of good luck all the same, Karen debated whether to inform her next-door neighbour, Debbie. Guilt stopped her from doing so, as she knew her mother would never forgive her if it came out that she wasn’t the first to hear the good news. Karen couldn’t afford an indoor phone, so she picked up her purse and headed off towards the nearest phonebox.
Not wanting Lenny to spot his father, Michael had taken him inside the hospital, then pretended he had left his wallet at home. ‘Go and sit with your mum and Auntie Queenie. I won’t be long, Champ,’ he said.
Dashing back down the corridors, Michael ran out of the entrance and around the side of the building, where by a flick of the head he had gestured to his father to wait.
‘Hello, son. I’m so glad you came back. I didn’t know whether you were telling me to sod off, or meaning for me to wait here,’ Albie said.
‘You’ve got some brass neck coming here, Dad, after what you did. How could you pretend you were dying?’
‘I did it because I knew it was the only way I would get to see or talk to yous. I’m really sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.’
‘You can fucking say that again! Now, what do you want?’ Michael asked.
‘Well, obviously I want to know how Roy is? I’ve been ringing the hospital, but they won’t tell me anything. Worried sick, I’ve been.’
‘Roy’s in a coma. He’s very lucky to even be alive, so the doc reckoned.’
‘Do the doctors think he will make a full recovery?’
Michael shrugged. ‘Nobody knows until he actually wakes up. There was bleeding to the brain which might result in permanent damage. We just have to keep our fingers crossed. The quack we saw yesterday said that most patients in comas wake up within a month.’
Albie’s eyes welled up. ‘Why couldn’t it be Vinny lying in a coma instead of poor Roy? There’s something I need to tell you, Michael, and I want you to listen carefully to me.’
‘What?’
When Albie began to explain about Vinny’s evil plan to split up Roy and Colleen, Michael’s face went white and he leant his back against the brick wall for support. Part of him wanted to believe that his father was spinning another of his yarns, but in his heart Michael knew that Albie wasn’t lying. The pieces of the jigsaw seemed to fit too well. ‘So, what did you actually say to Colleen’s parents?’
‘Well, I started to tell them what Vinny had asked me to, but then I backtracked. Roy and Colleen look so happy, I just couldn’t go through with it, boy. Then Vinny came and threatened me, said if I didn’t do what he’d asked, he was going to jump up on stage and tell everyone I had lied about my cancer. Vinny ain’t right in the head, Michael. He has real problems and I’m worried he will start on you next. He won’t like you being with that Nancy. He doesn’t want to lose you and Roy, therefore will stop at nothing to get his own way. He wants to be in total control.’
Michael put his head in his hands and sank to his haunches.
Albie crouched down next to Michael, took a small bottle of brandy out of his raincoat pocket and swallowed a large gulp. He then handed the bottle to his son, who did the same. ‘You ain’t got to tell your mum, boy. I’ve written everything down in a letter for her to save you the task.’
‘Where is it?’
Albie handed him two envelopes. ‘The bigger envelope is the letter I wrote for you. Now I’ve told you all this, I think Vinny will try and finish me off. If I disappear or die, hand your one over to the police. Can I trust you to do that for me, son?’
‘Oh, don’t say shit like that. Vinny might not be your greatest fan right now, but you’re still his dad. He wouldn’t harm you.’
Albie took another swig of his brandy and screwed the top back on the bottle. ‘Do you remember that time I was in hospital with two broken legs and broken ribs?’
‘Yeah, ’course I do. You were mugged and it was while you were in hospital that Mum found out about that Judy Preston bird, weren’t it?’
‘Yeah. Your mother came to visit me and bumped into Judy. The thing is, I never got those injuries through being jumped. There was no mugging. Vinny beat me up.’
‘No! You’re lying, Dad.’
‘I swear I ain’t, boy. Roy knows. He turned up just after Vinny had nearly killed me. Your mum and Auntie Viv know too. Ask them if you don’t believe me. You and your sister were quite young at the time, so the truth was hidden from you.’
‘I weren’t that young. That all happened around my sixteenth birthday. I remember it clearly as when I found about about you and that tart, I went for a long ride on my moped to clear my head.’
‘Well, I don’t know why you wasn’t told. Perhaps it was because I was always closer to you than your brothers. You and Brenda were always the apple of my eye. Your sister wouldn’t even talk to me at her engagement party, you know. I tried to wish her good luck, but she all but told me to eff off.’
‘So, where are you living? I know you’re not at the bedsit as I popped round the other day and the bloke downstairs said you’d moved out,’ Michael asked, changing the subject.
‘I had to, didn’t I? That’s why your brother leapt on the stage and outed my lie. He knew I would never be able to stay in Whitechapel after that. You know what people are like around here. I’d have every bastard gunning for me and rightly so, I suppose. I’ve had to move back in with Pauline for the time being, but I can’t stay there for much longer. Once you give your mother that letter, I need to get away. I have to go somewhere where Vinny won’t find me.’
‘Dad, you know we were talking about that Judy Preston? Did she have your kid? Or, do you truthfully not know?’
‘On my life I don’t know, son. I swear I ain’t ever seen or heard a word from her since that day she visited me in hospital.’