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, ‘They’ve gone. Call the police and an ambulance. Hurry up, for fuck’s sake!’
Eddie Mitchell plonked his drinks on the table. He looked extra suave today in his black Armani suit and he’d finally got around to having his hair cut yesterday. ‘The barmaid wouldn’t stop talking. She’s got the hots for me,’ he chuckled. ‘Nice-looking sort. But you know me, Vin. Only got eyes for my Gina.’
When his phone started to ring again, Vinny turned it off. ‘Me and my big mouth. It’s deffo all kicked off at the wake. Five missed calls from my mum in the space of two minutes. Michael’s probably on the warpath, searching for me as we speak. Let’s hope he don’t get his hands on a cricket bat again, eh?’ Vinny joked. When his brother had originally found out about his fling with Bella, Michael had stormed inside the Blind Beggar and taken a cricket bat to his head.
‘Did you tell Michael you’d put your foot in it?’ Eddie asked.
‘Nah. I said Mum needed to speak to him urgently. We’ll shoot back there in half an hour or so. Hopefully, he might have calmed down a bit by then.’
Every head in the place turned as the pub door crashed open and a white-faced man staggered in. ‘There’s been a shooting,’ he stammered, ‘down the road. It’s carnage out there – loads of people dead.’
Vinny leapt up. ‘What’s happened? Where?’
‘Nick’s restaurant – two masked men ran in there and started shooting. Ring the police and call some ambulances,’ he told the barmaid. ‘I’m going back there to see if I can help in any way.’
Vinny’s face turned a deathly shade of white. So did Eddie’s. Seconds later, the two of them bolted from the pub.
‘Sammi! Talk to me. Open your eyes. Please, keep awake, babe.’ Little Vinny’s tears dripped on to his wife’s cheeks as he gently cradled her head while pleading with her to speak to him. She’d said his name just now, and whispered Oliver’s, so she’d definitely been alive then. But now her eyes were shut, and as much as he pleaded, she wouldn’t open them again.
‘Move out the way. I’m a first aider,’ a female urged.
Little Vinny did as he was told. Punching the wall in frustration, he sank to his haunches, put his head in his hands and cried. He already knew Oliver was dead. His handsome first-born’s face now resembled something out of a horror movie. Nobody could have survived that, let alone a sixteen-year-old lad. As for Sammi-Lou, she’d been shot twice, in the chest and arm. This could not be happening, surely? Was it a bad dream? A fucked-up nightmare?
‘The police are here,’ a voice yelled.
‘Cover Oliver up. Put a coat over him or something. I can’t bear to look at him like that,’ Queenie wept, trying to comfort Ava at the same time. Her granddaughter was in trance-like shock, most people were. The atmosphere was completely surreal and Queenie was petrified that Vinny had also been caught up in the crossfire. She hadn’t been able to hear much with Michael lying across her as a human shield, but she’d caught enough of what the masked men had said to know they were after her eldest’s scalp in some warped form of retribution for Ahmed Zane.
‘The paramedics have arrived. Move away from the injured,’ a male voice bellowed.
Mouthy Maureen sobbed as Big Stan was covered over. He’d been a great neighbour, so kind, and Whitechapel certainly wouldn’t be the same without him. His family would be devastated, especially his poor wife, who was completely dependent on him due to her own health problems. She struggled to walk these days.
Totally beside himself, Calum Butler repeatedly smashed his forehead against the wall.
‘Stop that. You’ll hurt yourself,’ Michael said, grabbing hold of