CHAPTER THREE

      Bored with doing the washing up and spending their lives confined to the café, young Nancy and Christopher Walker begged their parents to allow them to go out to play.

      ‘You’re to go no further than a short walk away and you are to be back here by five at the latest,’ their father ordered them.

      Missing her friends from Stoke Newington dreadfully, Nancy tagged along reluctantly behind her brother. All day, Christopher had been harping on about the rich men with the posh cars whom he had seen the previous day when he had taken a trip to the sweetshop, but Nancy wasn’t car-mad like her brother. She wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between a Sunbeam Tiger and an Austin Healey.

      ‘This is it,’ Christopher said, plonking himself down on a doorstep opposite the snooker club.

      ‘But there ain’t no rich men here, nor is there many cars,’ Nancy complained.

      ‘Well, there was yesterday. That Jaguar Sedan is the car that I want when I’m grown-up.’ Christopher pointed to the shiny black car that belonged to Vinny Butler.

      Nancy took a strawberry bonbon out of the paper bag and popped it into her mouth. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up, Christopher? I think I would like to be a hairdresser and do famous people’s hair like Twiggy.’

      Sucking on a Kola Kube, Christopher wanted to laugh, but didn’t. Twiggy would never have let his sister near her hair, but it was good Nancy had dreams, because he was determined to fulfil his. ‘I’m gonna be a policeman and catch people like Jack the Ripper. He killed loads of women round ’ere, you know.’

      ‘What’s that man doing, Christopher?’ Nancy asked, bemused.

      Christopher had no idea who the Italian-looking man was, but when he punched a nearby wall and then glared at him and Nancy, the boy’s intuition told him it wasn’t safe to be there. He grabbed his sister’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the café.’

      Michael Butler entered his mother’s house wearing his trademark green parka and a big grin on his face. ‘Urgh. What’s that smell?’

      ‘Lavender bags. Dotted them all over the house, including that stinking bedroom of yours,’ Queenie informed her son.

      Michael screwed up his nose and plonked himself on the Dralon sofa. His mother was the most house-proud woman that he knew. Years ago, their lounge had looked like anybody else’s. But since Vinny had been earning good money, it had had a complete transformation. The new floral wallpaper now matched the mustard three-piece suite, and the rest of the room featured dark teak furniture, a posh rug and floor lamps, a modern round coffee table and, his mother’s pride and joy, a glass ornament cabinet which was now full to the brim with expensive pieces of china that Vinny was forever bringing home.

      ‘So, how was Carnaby Street?’ Vivian asked excitedly. She had never been there herself, but knew it was all the rage at the moment for the youngsters.

      ‘Yeah, hip. Met a nice bird, and Kev got himself a well ace pair of two-tone shoes. If my brothers give me money for my birthday, I wanna go back up there and get a pair too,’ Michael replied.

      Knowing full well that Vinny and Roy had clubbed together to buy Michael his much-wanted moped, Queenie winked at her sister. ‘Don’t know what they are giving you, son, you’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.’

      ‘I wish I was going to be sixteen tomorrow. I hate being eleven. It’s so boring,’ Brenda piped up.

      ‘I wish I could be eleven all over again, sweetheart, and know what I know now. I certainly wouldn’t make the same bleedin’ mistakes again,’ Vivian told her niece.

      ‘By saying mistakes, she means my dad,’ Lenny said casually.

      Michael looked at his mum and aunt. Knowing that a truer statement had never been spoken, all three burst out laughing.

      Roy was shocked to see Vinny sitting on the concrete steps of the club looking extremely dishevelled. ‘Whatever’s happened?’ he asked, staring at his brother’s ripped blood-splattered shirt.

      Vinny took a long drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt onto the kerb. ‘I’ve given Dad a good hiding,’ he admitted bluntly.

      ‘What! You fucking promised me that you weren’t gonna touch him, Vin. I thought we’d agreed that we was gonna confront him together at the restaurant tomorrow?’

      ‘That’s before I knew he’d got his young bit of skirt up the spout,’ Vinny spat.

      Gobsmacked, Roy sat on the step next to his brother. ‘For fuck’s sake. Mum’s gonna go off her rocker when she finds that out. Where is Dad now?’

      ‘Lying on the floor in the club. Mum can’t find out that it was me who done him over. We tell her nothing now, do you hear me?’

      Roy nodded. ‘What about the bird he’s knocked up? I take it she is getting rid of it?’

      Vinny stood up. ‘Me and you will have to pay her a little visit to help her make her mind up.’

      Roy followed Vinny inside the club and bolted the door. ‘What about her brother, Johnny? He’s meant to be a bit handy, ain’t he?’

      ‘There’s two of us and one of him, but that’s another reason why everything that’s happened just stays between me and you now. You say nothing to no-one, not even Michael, because if Johnny Preston does start playing up, we might have to get rid of him.’

      ‘I’m in agony. I think I’m dying. I can’t breathe properly,’ Albie Butler cried out.

      Roy gasped when he saw the state of his father. His face was covered in blood where his nose had caved in and Roy could tell immediately that