Free Payback by Kimberley Chambers Page B

marched the boy round to the Patels’ shop to make him apologize in person and offer his services to do any odd jobs on a Saturday for the next year.
    ‘Dad, please can I go out and play? I won’t go far and I’ll behave myself, I promise,’ Little Vinny begged.
    ‘No, son. I have to pop out in a bit and I need you to stay here and look after Jo for me. The baby might come anytime now, and Jo can’t be left alone.’
    ‘But I don’t want to stay ’ere with Jo, and I’m sick of hearing about the baby. I don’t like living here. I want to live with Nan again.’
    ‘Well, you should have thought of that before you robbed Mr Patel’s shop. Your nan won’t have you back, so best you get used to living here and start treating Jo with a bit more respect. Fucking rude you were earlier when she made you that sandwich. I want you to apologize to her.’
    Unable to control his temper, Little Vinny punched the wall. He and his dad used to be so close once upon a time. Not any more though, and Little Vinny rued the day his dad had met Joanna Preston. In fact, he wished she would die.
    Ahmed Zane met his cousin at their restaurant in Tottenham. Being Sunday lunchtime, the gaff was packed, so Ahmed followed Burak into the small office.
    ‘What’s that?’ Ahmed asked, clocking an unlabelled bottle.
    ‘Raki. I found us a new cheap supplier. Taste it.’ Burak poured a glass and handed it to him. ‘So, how’s it going with Vinny?’
    ‘OK. Since I started making more of an effort to spend time with him, he’s more like his old self. He still won’t touch any cocaine though, which is a damn shame. He was a lunatic on that stuff and would have had a really bad habit by now. It would have been so much easier to pull the wool over his eyes if he was permanently high like in the old days.’
    ‘Why don’t you try snorting in front of him?’ Burak suggested. ‘Lay a big mound out so he can’t help but be tempted. Once an addict, always an addict.’
    ‘I’ve already tried that. Reckons he won’t touch it because he promised his dead brother he wouldn’t. He’s acting all saintly at the moment and doesn’t even want to visit the whorehouses. He says it isn’t right because he has a new baby due any day.’
    ‘And what about his surprise gifts? Has he received any more of those?’
    Ahmed shook his head. Vinny had not told him about the pistol-shaped flower arrangement until two weeks after the event. That was how Ahmed knew that his pal was wary of him now. Had the incident happened before the car crash, Vinny would have told him immediately.
    The flowers had sod all to do with Ahmed, which meant somebody other than himself obviously had it in for Vinny. His car had recently been vandalized too, and the front of his club daubed with threatening and obscene graffiti. ‘I think it is time to put our real plan into action. As soon as the baby is born, I will make a fuss of the child. Then, we will start stitching its cunt of a father up good and proper. Those who sin must pay for their wrongdoings, Burak.’
    ‘Get away from us. Go on, go away,’ Vivian ordered. Mad Malcolm had a habit of staring at her and Queenie while trying to listen in on their conversations.
    ‘Gives me the fucking willies, he does,’ Queenie said when Malcolm slunk away like a scolded puppy.
    Vivian laughed. She still missed her Lenny like mad, always would, but it was so nice to be able to smile and feel normal again. Some parts of the past seven months were a complete blank to Viv, especially around the time she tried to kill herself and first arrived at Goodmayes. There was no point crying over spilt milk, but Viv could never forgive herself for certain things. How could she have put Queenie through her attempted suicide and chucked all Lenny’s things away? She must have been really ill to do either.
    ‘I’ve been thinking, Queen. Can we go down to Kings on the first weekend I’m out? I would love a game of bingo and an hour or two