Choosing the right person to help him had been Roy’s biggest bugbear. There was no way he could chance his request reaching unwanted ears, that would spell disaster. After toying with involving Michael in his plan, Roy had decided against it and had opted for Paul instead. Paul had been his best pal at school, and had worked the door on both clubs of his. He still worked for Vinny now, but Roy was sure he could be trusted.
Roy wiped his brow with a tissue, then dialled Paul’s number. ‘Hello, mate. It’s me, Roy. I need a favour, but you have to swear to me that what I ask you will go no further. I don’t even want you to tell Pete. Can you promise me that?’
‘Roy, we go back a long way. You can trust me, you know that. It’s so good to hear from you, pal. I was gutted when you didn’t want me to visit you again. Are you OK?’ Paul asked. This was the first time he had spoken to Roy since he had moved to East Ham and even though it broke Paul’s heart to hear his lifelong friend sound a shadow of his former self, he was still pleased to hear from him.
‘I want you to visit me, Paul, but I need you to bring me a gun as well. Can you do that for me?’
‘What do you want it for? You ain’t gonna shoot yourself, are ya?’ Paul asked, with alarm in his voice.
‘No. I plan to shoot somebody else. I’m not in the mood to play games, Paul, so can you help me or not?’
Paul’s mind wandered back to when he and Roy were young. His pal had always looked out for him and if it wasn’t for Roy, Paul wouldn’t be living in a decent house and earning the good wage he was now. ‘OK, Roy. I’ll sort it for you. Who are you planning on shooting though, mate?’
Roy smirked. ‘Nobody you know, Paul, I swear.’
Vinny was the first to notice Denise Thompson walk into the restaurant with Michael’s kid and a tall dark-haired geezer in tow. Denise had given birth to a boy called Lee. ‘Fuck me. It’s all gonna go off in here in a minute,’ Vinny whispered in Ahmed’s ear.
‘Why?’
‘Michael’s ex and his kid have just walked in. Nancy won’t have him around her or the boys, will she? I don’t even think that Daniel or Adam know that Lee exists,’ Vinny explained, smirking.
When Queenie walked out of the toilets and came face to face with her second-eldest grandson, she had no alternative other to pick the boy up and hug him tight to her chest. She rarely saw Lee. At the most, Michael brought him around twice a month for a short visit.
‘All right, Queenie? Didn’t expect to see you here. This is Glen, my boyfriend,’ Denise said politely.
Queenie said a quick hello and, seeing the arrival of a birthday cake, made her excuses then dashed back to the table. ‘Michael, Lee’s over there with Denise and her fella. Now, whether you like it or not, Nancy, Michael is going to have to go over there and speak to his son. I won’t allow him to blank him,’ Queenie told her daughter-in-law.
Nancy immediately felt her hackles rise. She knew that Michael supported Lee financially, and that he saw him a couple of times a month, but there was no way she wanted her own sons confused by finding out they had a half-brother. They were too young to understand and it wasn’t fair on them. She also hated the thought of sitting in the same restaurant with another woman her husband had made love to. She felt physically sick. ‘I want to take the boys home now, Michael. Can you drop us off, please?’
Before Michael could even answer, he heard a child yell ‘Daddy’ then saw Lee run towards him with his arms outstretched.
Nancy stared at Lee. She had never seen the child before, and couldn’t help but hate him on sight. Stifling a sob, she grabbed Daniel’s hand, picked up Adam, and ran from the restaurant as though their lives depended on it.
‘Are you going to watch me blow my candles out now, Michael?’ Lenny asked, prodding his cousin’s arm impatiently.
‘You stay with Lee and watch Lenny blow his candles out and I’ll check if Nancy’s OK for you,’ Dean said, as he stood up.
‘No, you fucking won’t,’ Brenda spat.
‘Shut it, you, and mind your bloody language,’ Queenie said, wagging a finger of warning in her drunken daughter’s face.
Brenda, who’d been necking white wine all through the meal, sat there seething as the whole of the table sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Lenny. She was sure Dean fancied Nancy. She could see it in his eyes.
‘Can I have me cake now, Dad?’ Little Vinny asked.
‘Yeah, in a minute, son,’ Vinny said, snatching the bottle of wine out of his sister’s grasp. Brenda had topped up her glass three times in the last ten minutes and Vinny knew if she drank any more she was bound to kick off. If it had been just his own family present, he’d have found it hysterical, but he didn’t want Brenda to create havoc in front of Maureen and Rose. For obvious reasons, he always liked to make a good impression in front of those two.
Seeing Dean lead Nancy back inside the restaurant with a comforting arm around her shoulders, Brenda lost the plot completely. ‘You no-good fucking cuntbag,’ she screamed, forcing all the other diners to look round at her.
‘Brenda, sit back down now,’ Queenie ordered, totally embarrassed.
Brenda was now beyond control. She picked up Lenny’s cake and marched towards Dean.
‘That’s my cake, Bren. Give me it back,’ Lenny yelled.
‘Do something, Vinny,’ Vivian demanded.
‘Too bloody late,’ Queenie mumbled, as her daughter plunged the cake into Dean’s face.
When Lenny burst into tears and Nancy ran out of the restaurant again, Michael stood up. ‘This is my problem and I’ll sort it.’
A couple of hours later, Queenie and Vivian were sitting side by side on the sofa with a glass of sherry.
‘Weren’t it a terrible day, Queen?’ Vivian said.
‘Bleedin’ awful.’
‘Give them boring old trouts Maureen and Rose something to talk about, eh? Felt sorry for my Lenny though.’
Lenny had been extremely upset that his birthday cake had been ruined and in an attempt to cheer the lad up, Vinny had said he could stay at the club with him for the night.
‘Did you hear what my Vinny said about Roy moving?’ Queenie asked.
‘No.’
‘Reckons he’s found him a nice place by the sea. Vinny’s going to view it on Tuesday.’
‘Whereabouts is it?’ Vivian asked.
‘Eastbourne. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if he moves that far away, Viv. We ain’t gonna be able to visit him much and say Roy don’t like it when he gets there? It could be a shithole for all we know.’
Vivian squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘Why don’t we go for the ride with Vinny to view it? We know a nice, friendly, clean place when we see one, don’t we? In fact, why don’t Roy come with us? The four of us can fit comfortably in Vinny’s car. If it’s Roy that’s gonna be living there, he should be the one to decide if it will suit him or not.’
Queenie nodded. ‘That would make me feel a lot better if we all went and I knew my Roy liked it. I can tell when he’s lying, even now.’
‘Well, let’s do it then. Ring Vinny now. Ask him how my Lenny is as well. I hope he ain’t still upset over that bleedin’ cake.’
Queenie picked up the phone. The club didn’t open on a Sunday evening, so it was unusual there was no answer.
‘Leave it. Ring him tomorrow. I’m sure my Lenny’s having a good time with Vinny anyway. He always bloody does.’
Over in a seedy bar in Dalston, Vinny grinned as he saw Lenny’s face light up. ‘Well, what do you think, Champ?’
‘I can’t believe all the women are showing their titties,’ Lenny gabbled, excitedly.
When his cousin had burst out crying because his birthday cake had ended up splattered all over Dean’s face, it had been Ahmed’s idea to bring Lenny to his pal’s strip club. ‘He needs to get laid,’ were Ahmed’s exact words.
Vinny couldn’t agree more. As much as he loved his mum and Auntie Viv, they did wrap Lenny in cotton wool and treat him like a child in some ways, and it was doing the lad no good. Ordering Ahmed to get the drinks in, Vinny led Lenny to the back of the small club. ‘You see them stairs there?’
‘Yeah,’
‘Well, them women on stage go down them stairs a bit later. If you choose what one you like, then I will make sure you have sex with her.’
Lenny looked at Vinny open-mouthed. ‘But, say my mum finds out?’
Putting an arm around his cousin’s shoulder, Vinny led him outside the club. ‘I won’t tell no-one, but neither must you. It will be our little secret.’
‘Is it like that other secret when I gave Karen that drink when I was little?’ Lenny asked, innocently.
Vinny couldn’t help but smirk. Lenny had never mentioned that incident to anyone since Vinny had told him not to many years ago, and he was amazed his cousin still remembered it. At least it proved the boy could be trusted. ‘Yep. It’s a bit like that, Champ. Now, do you want me to sort you out with a bird, or not?’
Finally making his mind up, Lenny nodded excitedly. ‘Yes please, Vinny.’
Back in Whitechapel, Queenie and Vivian were in deep conversation about the family.
‘I do like Nancy, but didn’t she make herself look a fool when she stomped out that restaurant, Queen? I mean, she knows Michael has nothing to do with Denise, so why won’t she just accept Lee as part of their lives?
‘Nancy ain’t strong enough, Viv. I said that to you on their wedding day. Lovely girl and all that, but she weren’t meant for our world. My Michael reckons she’s been struggling to cope ever since she gave birth to Adam. He says she’s suffering from depression, but I think that’s a load of old toffee. Look what we went through during the war. If anyone should have been fucking depressed, then we should. Soppy little mare needs to get her act together if you ask me.
Lenny was as nervous as hell when the girl sat on the bed next to him.
‘I’m Layla,’ the girl said rubbing Lenny’s thigh. She really didn’t want to be in the room any more than he seemed to, but she had just been paid fifty pounds to entertain this simple looking chap.
Lenny’s erection felt as though it was going to burst through his trousers. The only naked women he had ever seen in the past were the ones in the pornographic magazines he used to buy. His mum had gone mental when she had found a stash of them under his mattress. She had been even more horrified when she tried to look through them and noticed that most of the pages were stuck together. She had told him he was a pervert, just like his father had been.
Naked, apart from a pair of tiny lacy red panties, Layla forced a smile. ‘Shall I take them trousers off for you?’
‘Can I touch your titties first?’ Lenny asked, bluntly.
Layla put Lenny’s hands on her breasts, then winced as he squeezed them roughly, poked his tongue out of the side of his mouth, and began to pant like a thirsty dog.
Just the thrill of Layla undoing his zip sent Lenny’s senses into overdrive, and when she put her hand on his todger, unable to hold back any more, Lenny shot his load.
Relieved that it was all over so quickly, Layla stood up. ‘What you doing?’ Lenny asked, when Layla put her panties and bra back on.
‘Getting dressed, love. Why don’t you do the same?’
‘Because my cousin paid you a fifty quid so I could bang you, and I haven’t banged you yet. Have you heard of my cousin? His name is Vinny Butler.’
Layla all but froze. Vinny had a terrible reputation on the circuit. One brothel in Soho had even banned Vinny from their premises, and had then had their property mys-teriously burnt to the ground a few weeks later. Lenny sat up with another massive hard-on and a big grin on his face. ‘Well?’ he asked.
Too scared to now refuse, Layla got undressed again and sidled up next to Lenny on the bed. When his sloppy mouth connected with hers and his tongue nigh on shot down the back of her throat, Layla couldn’t help but gag. What followed was the worst shag and the longest ten minutes of her miserable life.
Johnny Preston excitedly ripped open his letter. He knew it was from his ex-wife as she had such distinctive handwriting.
When Johnny had first got banged-up, he and his wife had fallen out big-time. Appalled by his affair and the crime he had committed, Deborah had divorced him, but over the past couple of years, they had become really good pals once again. Deborah even came to visit him once a month now.
In prison, letters were the main link to the outside world, and Johnny liked to take his time reading his so he could savour every word and imagine every event in them. Johnny Junior was sixteen now and had just got his first job in a restaurant in Colchester. He was a trainee chef, and Johnny knew that he got his love of cooking from his mother’s side of the family, as he himself could barely boil an egg.
Johnny’s relationship with his son was an awkward one. The boy had very few communication skills, dressed like a freak, and walked about in eyeliner at times to emulate his hero, David Bowie.
When Johnny got to the part of the letter where Deborah described how his daughter Joanna was having the time of her life, he smiled but then frowned.
Joanna had gone to a holiday camp for an Easter break earlier in the year with her best pal Chloe, and Chloe’s parents. The girls had fallen in love with the place and had decided to give up their boring jobs working side by side in a factory to work at the holiday camp for the summer season. They had wanted to be bar staff, but were too young. So instead, both girls had taken jobs as cleaners.
Joanna working at a holiday camp miles away from home worried Johnny greatly. With her long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, ample breasts and tall, lithe figure, Joanna was a real head-turner. In prison, your mind tended to work in overdrive, mainly through boredom, and many a night Johnny had lain awake tormenting himself with the thought of young lads trying it on with his pride and joy. He was at it like a rabbit when he was seventeen and he just hoped Joanna had more sense than to fall for the spiel like he used to dish out on a regular basis.
Joanna had had a boyfriend before leaving Tiptree, but that had now fizzled out, thankfully. Deborah was adamant that their daughter had her head screwed on and he was worrying unnecessarily, but Johnny couldn’t help the way he felt. What father wouldn’t worry about his stunning young daughter living miles away from home in a chalet with three other young girls?