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.
Big Stan discreetly nudged Maureen. Rumours had been rife about the fiasco that had occurred at Daniel and Roxanne’s wedding. The Butlers had of course denied they were brother and sister, saying it was all a terrible mix-up. But Queenie wasn’t in the best of moods and Stan didn’t want to rile her further.
Treating Mouthy Maureen to a look of pure hatred, Queenie was just about to tear into the trappy tart when she heard a kerfuffle going on behind her. People were screaming and Queenie thought a fight had broken out until she spotted a man in a Bill Clinton face mask waving a machine gun. ‘What the hell! Are they armed robbers? Where’s my Vinny?’ she shrieked.
‘Get down!’ Big Stan bellowed, grabbing hold of Queenie and Maureen and shoving them to the floor. His disabled wife had attended the funeral, but he’d taken her home before coming to the wake. As he crouched behind a table, he whispered a prayer. He was thankful that if the worst happened and he didn’t make it out of this, his wife would still be around to watch their grandkids grow up.
Teddy Chapman was too wrapped up crooning Tony Bennett’s ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ to realize exactly what was occurring, but at the sound of the first gunshot, he dropped his microphone and literally ran for his life.
‘Billy! My Billy’s been shot,’ a woman screamed.
Waving his gun in the air, Mehmet ran over to Hassan. ‘That’s not Vinny, you fucking fool,’ he spat. Billy, the guy who’d been shot, was Fat Brenda’s son. Though he bore a passing resemblance to Vinny, he was a lot shorter.
Hassan could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he bellowed, ‘Where is Vinny Butler?’ He prodded his gun into the chest of a terrified woman. ‘Fucking answer me, otherwise this lady dies.’
When his mother screamed, Michael Butler instinctively darted towards her, positioning his body on top of hers to try to protect her. Placing his hand over her mouth, he whispered, ‘Shhhh.’ He could see his father hiding under a table, and knew Vinny had sloped off somewhere with Eddie.
‘Nan, Nan! Where are you?’ Ava cried. She was petrified, couldn’t believe what was happening.
Fearing for the life of the woman being held at gunpoint, Big Stan stood up and bravely wagged his finger at the lunatic in the mask. ‘You’ll rot in hell for this, you no good bastard.’ Seconds later, he was shot with such venom, the bullets seemed to push him backwards before he fell to the ground in a bloodied, crumpled heap.
‘Not Stan. Noooo,’ a voice shrieked.
People were sobbing and screaming. Some fled in terror; others stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move through sheer fright. The masked men had only been in the restaurant for a matter of sixty seconds, but for the terrified mourners it felt like sixty minutes.
‘Someone has to do something,’ Little Vinny spat.
‘No, Vin. Stay here,’ Sammi-Lou pleaded.
Ignoring his wife’s sound advice, Little Vinny crept towards the figure wearing the Colonel Gaddafi mask. The bloke had his back to the table Little Vinny had been sitting at.
Desperate to stop her husband from doing something daft, Sammi-Lou leapt out of her chair.
‘Don’t, Mum. Come back,’ shrieked the terrified Oliver Butler.
Little Vinny lunged at the guy and all hell seemed to break loose.
Mehmet fired a shot at the ceiling. ‘You tell Vinny Butler we’ll be back for him. This is for our brothers Ahmed and Burak,’ he shouted, before spraying the room with random gunfire.
Calum Butler screamed as he was splattered by a huge amount of blood. ‘Ollie, Ollie,’ he wept helplessly. He immediately knew his brother was dead; his face was all but obliterated by the bullet. He didn’t even look like Oliver any more.
Instinct told Calum to duck under the table, and as he did so, a man’s body fell on top of him. It was Stuart. He’d been shot too. ‘Mum! Dad!’ Calum screamed in absolute terror. Stuart was a dead weight and Calum could barely breathe, let alone move. He was crushed.
Overcome by sheer fright, and unable to breathe properly, the last thing Calum Butler heard before he lost consciousness was his dad scream out his mum’s name and a man’s voice shout,
