Kimberley Chambers 3-Book Butler Collection

by Kimberley Chambers

  Michael stared his brother in the eye. ‘I want to believe you, Vin, but I don’t know if I can.’

  ‘I will make myself become a better person, I promise. Mum needs us to be united, not at each other’s throats. Don’t you remember Mum’s old saying when we were kids? She always used to say that Butlers stand strong together through thick and thin. Well, I have just been through a thin patch, and I really need you to forgive me for my sins. Now Roy and Champ are dead, we need one another, Michael. Watching Roy blow his brains out right in front of me will haunt me for the rest of my days. It was horrific, bruv,’ Vinny said, his eyes filling up with tears.

  Michael held out his right hand. ‘Vin, I’ll stand by you for now but if you don’t keep to your promises and change, I swear your life won’t be worth fucking living.’

  Vinny hugged his brother and smirked as he did so. Michael was a gullible chap and had always been easy to talk around. Good job really, because if Ahmed woke up and started talking, Vinny needed Michael to silence him.

  Ahmed Zane opened his eyes. The smell of disinfectant and the sight of tubes poking out of his arms and his wife Anna sitting by his bedside immediately alerted him that he was in some kind of hospital. But, the mystery was, how did he get there?

  ‘Ahmed, can you hear me? Thank God you are awake. I must go and get the nurse,’ Anna said, both tearful and relieved.

  ‘No. No nurse. Just tell me what’s happened?’ Ahmed croaked.

  ‘You were involved in a bad car accident. I’ve been so worried, Ahmed. Your friend Lenny didn’t make it, and the police said you were driving. Had you been drinking? They won’t send you to prison if you were drunk, will they?’

  The mention of Lenny immediately jogged his memory and Ahmed shut his eyes again as he tried to recall exactly what had happened. He could remember going to the whorehouse in Dalston with Vinny and Lenny, but Vinny had insisted on driving home, he was sure of that. ‘You no-good cunting motherfucker,’ Ahmed mumbled to himself.

  Anna squeezed her husband’s hand. ‘Whatever’s the matter? Have you remembered that night? I’ve asked the police loads of questions, but apart from saying that you were found in the driver’s seat of the car, they won’t tell me anything.’

  Ahmed felt physically sick as he pictured Vinny Butler’s face. He remembered everything now, including trying to grab the steering wheel when Vinny dramatically swerved after being stunned by the beam of an oncoming vehicle.

  ‘Ahmed, are you OK? Talk to me,’ Anna pleaded.

  Ahmed was anything but OK. Not only had Vinny left him for dead, his so-called best friend had obviously tried to cover his own tracks by moving his body into the driver’s seat.

  Angry and appalled by such an act of betrayal by someone he had trusted so much, Ahmed felt the bile rise to the back of his throat. If Vinny Butler imagined that he was going to get away with the stroke he had pulled, he really did have another think coming.

  Grassing to the police was a non-starter. Ahmed would rather seek his own revenge. Two could play at Vinny Butler’s games, and nobody played them quite as well as he did. Ahmed Zane was the fucking master of games.

  EPILOGUE

  Mary Walker was thrilled when she received an early-morning phonecall from her daughter saying she was ready to see her dad now. Nancy sounded so much chirpier than she had the previous day. ‘Oh Donald, I’m so happy. Don’t you dare say anything to upset her, will you?’ Mary warned her husband.

  ‘Of course not, dear,’ Donald replied, with a hint of sarcasm. He was actually just as worried about their daughter as Mary was, but Donald had always had difficulty in expressing his feelings.

  ‘Now, go and put your nice shirt and trousers on. The hospital said Christopher can be discharged today as well, so perhaps we can all visit Nancy together? Tina can handle the café alone,’ Mary assured her husband.

  ‘OK, my love. I will go and get changed right now.’

  Nancy Butler felt happier than she had in ages. The old lady who was opposite her had befriended her and, although she seemed slightly crazy, had cheered Nancy up no end. ‘So, where do you live, Freda? I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before,’ Nancy remarked.

  ‘Whitechapel. Lived there all my life. Where do you live, darling?’ Freda asked, acting as though she didn’t recognize the girl. She actually quite liked Nancy. She was a sweet girl, and nothing like her parents. Freda remembered them as well, especially the father. He was right up his own arse he was.

  About to reply, Nancy was left open-mouthed when Dean Smart strolled into the ward. ‘What you doing here, Dean?’

  ‘I need to speak to my nan in private for five minutes. I will speak to you afterwards, Nance, if that is OK?’

  ‘Oh my god! Is that your nan?’ Nancy exclaimed. She had thought Freda looked familiar, but she’d had no idea she was Dean’s nan.

  Dean nodded, sat on the edge of his grandmother’s bed and tenderly hugged her. ‘Nan, I have to go away. I cannot be part of that Butler family for one minute longer. I have already spoken to the doctors, and they say you are going to be just fine. I will keep in touch with you always, and when I sort myself out somewhere to live and you are back on your feet again, you can come and visit me.’

  Freda held her grandson’s head in her hands and cried with relief. ‘That is the best news I have heard in ages, boy. Get away from them no-good fuckers while you still can. I had visions of you one day propping up a flyover like your poor old dad probably did.’

  Dean hugged his nan tightly and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I love you, Nan. I’ll be in touch soon, OK?’

  Dean reluctantly turned his back on the old woman who had raised him and meant the world to him, and walked over to Nancy’s bed and sat down beside her. ‘I’ve been so worried about you, babe. Are you OK?’

  ‘No, Dean. I’ve been ill. I was found in an alleyway by a man, and I don’t even know how I got there. I feel like I’m going mad.’

  Dean held Nancy in his arms and stroked her beautiful blonde hair. ‘I know I shouldn’t be saying this, Nance, but I love you and I always will. I know we can never be together, but I can’t help the way that I feel about you. Now listen, I have to go away. I can’t spend one minute longer with Brenda, or her family. If you’ve got any sense, you should do the same. Your Michael is the best of the bunch, but the core of the family is rotten. If I were you, I would run for the hills. You were never cut out to be part of the Butler clan, and neither was I.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Nancy asked, with tears in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know yet, but get my nan’s phone number, and I will keep in touch with you via her, OK? I know I can trust you never to repeat this conversation.’

  Nancy nodded. ‘But what about Tara?’

  ‘I would love to take Tara with me, Nance, but I can’t. If I do, the bastards will hunt me down. I have lived a life of hell with Brenda. Having sex with her turned my stomach, but I did it on the odd occasion just to keep the peace. She has just announced she is pregnant again, which is another reason I need to get away. Leaving one child is bad enough, and if I stayed to love the other, I would be stuck with Bren for life. Look, I really do have to go now. Take care of yourself, sweetheart,’ Dean said, giving Nancy a short but tender kiss on her lips.

  When Dean ran off down the ward, Nancy got out of bed, and walked over to Freda’s.

  With Christopher now formally discharged from Upney Hospital and desperate to visit his sister as well, Mary gave her husband and son one last warning not to say anything that might upset Nancy.

  ‘I won’t, Mum, I promise. I’m just glad to have Nancy back in our lives again,’ Christopher replied, honestly.

  ‘I feel the same way too,’ Donald admitted.

  Mary Walker was horrified when she walked into the ward. Mad Freda had one of those faces that was impossible to forget. She also had her arm around Nancy’s shoulders. ‘Leave my daughter alone. What have you done to her?’ Mary shrieked.

&nb
sp; Freda grinned. Nancy and Donald had always seen themselves as the perfect parents, but they were sadly mistaken.

  ‘Get away from Nancy now, you mad old bat,’ Donald demanded.

  ‘Calm down, Dad. Let’s not make a scene,’ Christopher said, grabbing his father’s arm. He had also recognized Freda immediately.

  ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t the know-it-all couple who I warned about the Butlers many years ago. You thought I was mad when I walked into your posh café in 1965 and told you the score, didn’t ya? Bet you don’t think so now? Told you those bastards set a trap for people like us, didn’t I? They caught my Dean in that trap and your Nancy. Do you still think I’m mental now?’

  Donald Walker glanced at his wife before answering. ‘No, you are not mad, Freda. In fact, I would describe you as anything but. You were right about everything. Smart by name and even smarter by nature.’

  Acknowledgments

  A big thank you to my lovely editor Sarah Ritherdon, and to all the team at HarperCollins for their hard work, advice and dedication. It is truly a pleasure to be part of a company who has so much faith in me.

  Thanks also to the best agent I could wish for, Tim Bates, and my brilliant typist Sue Cox. To Rosie de Courcy for helping me to get where I am today, and to Lady Heller for cheering up my working day with her truly dysfunctional text messages.

  I had never been one for the social networking until I became a writer, and it is only through Facebook and Twitter that I have got to know and become fond of so many of my readers. What a great bunch you are! And I can’t thank you enough for all the loyalty and support you have shown me. Writing can be a lonely old job at times and your posts and tweets certainly do brighten up a dull day..........x

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

  Copyright © Kimberley Chambers 2014

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

  Cover design by Nick Venables/nick-venables.co.uk

  Cover photographs © Getty images (main woman); Shutterstock.com (woman); Henry Steadman (man, left); Cultura RM/Alamy (man, right); Johnny Ring (background)

  Kimberley Chambers asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007435050

  Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007435067

  Version: 2015-09-04

  Dedication

  In memory of a true gentleman

  Richie Mitchell

  1932-2009

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Whistling ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’, Trevor Thomas felt as happy as a pig in shit as he walked the mile-long journey from the pub to his mother’s house.

  As a lad, Trevor had never truly appreciated the sights, smells, atmosphere, or community spirit of the East End of London. But after years of living in Yorkshire, he sure did now. Had it not been for his good fortune on the football pools, Trevor would probably still be stuck in a loveless marriage in Leeds. Twenty-four thousand pounds was a hell of a lot of money and there was no way that miserable, greedy, nasty bitch he had got saddled with was going to get her mucky paws on his windfall. Leaving his four kids behind was a small price to pay if it meant him keeping all the money to himself. Only his mum knew about it. She had hidden it under her floorboards to keep it away from prying eyes.

  What Trevor did not realize as he stopped to chat to an old pal before continuing his journey was that his run of good luck was about to come to a very abrupt and gory end.

  Vinny and Michael Butler were sitting in a white Ford Transit van. Michael was in the back, Vinny in the passenger seat as though he were waiting for the driver of the vehicle to return. Both were wearing dark hooded tracksuits to hide their identities, and seeing as they only ever wore the finest designer suits and drove top-of-the-range cars, Vinny doubted even their own mother would recognize them.

  ‘This could be him now, bruv. Nope. Hold your horses, it isn’t.’

  ‘I hope he fucking hurries up, Vin, because our alibi will be blown sky high if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Stop panicking. We’ve got stacks of time. Like I told you, you’ve no need to get your hands dirty at all, Michael. Hold up! Speak of the devil and it appears.’

  Still whistling the song he could not get out of his head, Trevor spotted the two tall men in hooded tracksuits leap out of the van. Apart from wondering if they were boxers who had been training at the gym, he thought little of it until they grabbed him from behind.

  Before Trevor could shout for help, tape was placed over his mouth and he was chucked into the back of the van like a roll of old carpet. As one man expertly tied him up, the other leapt into the front and drove the van away.

  Eyes wide with a mixture of fear and shock, Trevor now wished he had listened to his mother’s words of wisdom. ‘As much as I love and miss you, it’s not safe for you to be living back in the East End, son. That Vinny Butler is a real force to be reckoned with now, and he won’t have forgotten what you did to him. He isn’t the type of man to let bygones be bygones.’

  As the van trundled along, Trevor shuddered as his abductor took his hood down. Vinny had been fifteen, Trevor nineteen, when he had eloped to Leeds with Yvonne. But even at such a young age, Vinny had already carved out a fearsome reputation back then. That was why Yvonne had insisted they left the area. How Trevor now wished he had never clapped eyes on Yvonne Summers.

  ‘Not the greatest choice of song for you to be whistling, was it, Trevor? Because, my oh my, your day is going to be anything but fucking wonderful,’ Vinny chuckled as he ri
pped the tape from his victim’s mouth.

  It was quite dark inside the back of the van and it wasn’t until Vinny switched on a big static torch like the ones workmen used that Trevor could properly see the man whose girlfriend he had stolen all those years ago. With his mop of thick black hair Brylcreemed back, and his menacing eyes that were a piercing shade of bright green, Vinny looked even scarier in the light than the dark.

  ‘What you gonna do to me? Please don’t hurt me, Vinny, I beg you. I know what I did was wrong and I am very sorry, but I swear if you let me out of this van, I’ll do anything you say. I’ll even move away again, if that’s what you want. On my mother’s life, I will.’

  Vinny could not help but grin. He had waited years for this moment, and intended to enjoy every second of it. Trevor had lost all of his hair, had yellow teeth, and reminded Vinny of a fly stuck to one of those sticky tape traps his mum had in her conservatory that was desperately trying to untangle itself. ‘If I was a forgiving man, I would let you jump out of this van right now. Unfortunately for you, Trevor, I am not.’

  ‘Please, Vinny, I’m beggin’ you not to hurt me. It will be the end of my mum if you do. She has a lot of respect for your mum and aunt, you know. She was gutted over Roy and Lenny’s deaths – she’s ordered some lovely flowers for their funerals. And I remember your dad well. I used to buy my cigarettes and booze off him once upon a time,’ Trevor gabbled.

  ‘So, where is the slag now? Did you marry the manipulative deceitful whore?’ Vinny spat. Yvonne Summers had been his first and only true love. Two years older than him she was, but even at fifteen, Vinny had known how to earn a bob or two and had treated that girl like a princess. Jewellery, clothes, hats, shoes – he had lavished Yvonne with expensive gifts. And how had she repaid him? By running off with the skinny little weasel of a man who was currently snivelling while resembling a trussed-up turkey.