Our Vinnie (37 page)

It was a different sound that next jolted her out of her reverie. A sharp angry rapping on the front door.

‘Jesus Christ!’ she yelled to Jock, who began stirring in the bed behind her. ‘Who the fuck’s on the doorstep at this hour?’

He rolled over. ‘At this hour? It’s fucking gone eight, you stupid mare! Let’s see. The postman? The leccy man? A pair of Jehovah’s fucking Witnesses? It’s not going to be the postman is it? He’ll be fucking long gone!’

June went to slap him but just as she was about to, the rapping started up again, even louder. ‘It’s fucking Sunday!’ she snapped instead, grabbing her dressing gown from the back of the door. ‘Alright!’ she yelled down. ‘Whoever you are, hold your bleeding horses! You’d better have a good fucking excuse, you hear!
Christ
!’

She rattled down the stairs, doing up her dressing gown as she went, feeling her head thudding painfully with every step.
There should be a law against this
, she thought, hitting the bottom step and feeling her head swim. She clutched the newel post to steady herself. She must have drunk more than she’d thought.

And that’s when she saw it. The bundle on the sofa. Except that when she looked again it resolved itself into a more human-shaped lump. And, hang on – wasn’t that Vinnie’s Crombie slung over it? Ignoring the door for the moment – and, Christ, now they were banging the bloody letter-box – she went instead into the living room to see.

The lump was stirring now.

‘Shut the fuck up – I’m coming okay?’ she yelled into the hall. Then she lifted the coat and felt the blood start to drain from her.

It was Vinnie. Christ, her
son
. That much was clear immediately. Though if you’d chanced upon him in an alley you’d run a mile before you’d got that far. He was in such a state – matted hair, a powerful metallic smell about him that made her nose wrinkle – and no wonder. What the fucking hell had happened to him? Shit, he was
covered
in blood. No, more than that – he was caked with it, in fact. It was congealing all over him, great sticky gobs of it. And the more she looked the more she recoiled from it.

She poked him, terrified, feeling an almost irresistible urge to vomit. Fuck – was he
dead
? ‘Vinnie, son!’ she hissed, swallowing her nausea as he moved slightly. Oh, God, thank the lord. He was alive still. ‘Vinnie,’ she hissed again. ‘What the fuck has happened to you? Are you okay?’

He grunted slightly. Opened an eye and then closed it again, scowling. Just like he used to do when he was a nipper and she was trying to get him up for school. ‘Vinnie!’ June snapped now, her terror now turned to anger, ‘What the hell is going on? Is that the bizzies outside?’ She turned to look but couldn’t see into the road because of the nets. And she wasn’t going to the window and showing herself. Not yet.

Vinnie stirred again and rolled over. Then his eyes snapped fully open. And he stared at her for so long she thought he might have lost his senses. Then he seemed to focus, and there was something in his expression that made her blood drain from her face.

‘Vinnie!’ she said slowly. ‘What the fuck
have you done
, you stupid bleeder?’

The raps on the door became increasingly urgent bangings. They’d have the door in if they went on much longer.

‘Mam –’ Vinnie started, rubbing the streaks of God knew what across his face.

‘Vinnie, look at the
state
of you! Have you been in another fight? Christ, look at the
state
of you!’

He swung his legs around and ran his palms vigorously over his face. Then lowered them slowly and exhaled as he placed them on his knees. ‘Mam, just answer the fucking door, okay?’

Josie arrived at her mother’s to find the police car parked outside. They hadn’t left it with the doors hanging open like they did in
Starsky & Hutch
, but you could see they’d been in a hurry because it was parked all askew, with half of one wheel listing off the pavement. In any other circumstance, she’d have found that amusing. But now she just had a horrible leaden feeling in her stomach. She turned into the path and pushed the pram along it.

The front door to her mam and dad’s was yawning open. Won’t bother knocking then, she thought ruefully as she manhandled the pram over the threshold and squeezed it into the hall. It was a squash but she could just about park it and squeeze carefully past it. Now Paula was asleep she didn’t want to risk her waking up again.

The low voices she could hear from the living room resolved themselves as she entered. Her mam and dad, Vinnie, looking – Christ, the
state
of him! She had to blink to believe it – and two stony-faced police officers in uniform. There were no screams or shouts and when they looked up and saw her, only Vinnie seemed to register her presence with more than a brief acknowledgement that she was even there.

He said nothing, but then he didn’t have to.

Her mother did though, belatedly. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Go and put the kettle on, will you, Titch?’

Josie gawped. She was expecting her to make tea at a time like this?’

‘What’s happened?’ she asked, looking more towards her brother than anyone else. And in response, one of the officers stood up.

‘Come on, lad,’ he said to Vinnie, placing a hand under one of his elbows. ‘Let’s be having you. No point making this any harder than it needs to be.’

Vinnie stood up obligingly. He looked a bit unsteady on his feet. Josie couldn’t stop staring at him. How did he
get
like that? ‘Hang on,’ June snapped. ‘Look at him! At least let him have a fucking cup of tea!’

‘He can have a cup of tea down at the station,’ the policemen answered mildly. ‘Come on lad,’ he said again. ‘Let’s be off.’

‘What’s he done?’ Josie persisted. ‘Why are you arresting him? Vinnie?
Vinnie
?’ She felt a lump form in her throat as he approached her. Still he said nothing. She was in the way now, and what with the pram, too, they’d be unable to get past. She stood her ground. ‘What’s he
done
?’ she asked again.

‘Can you let us get by, love?’ the other policeman said, the one who hadn’t spoken yet. But, still transfixed on her brother, all she did was stare.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ she heard her mam say then. ‘Just get out of the fucking way, Titch!’

Which made her start. And woke Paula up as well. She felt the tears pricking at her eyes. God, she was just so, so
tired
. ‘See what you did!’ she yelled at her mother. Was she just going to let this happen? ‘See what you’ve done? I only just got her off to sleep, only just got her off to
sodding sleep
! And see what you’ve done?’ She snatched Paula from beneath her blankets.

She felt a light touch on her arm then, just after the first policeman squeezed past her, muttering apologies. It was Vinnie. And close up, he
really
looked like shit. She could hardly even think about how he’d come to look like he did. Which was like a wild man, his face stippled with blood, his hair slick with it – a deeper red in cloying lumps among the ginger. He lifted his little finger – the only digit that wasn’t red-brown and sticky – and touched it very lightly to Paula’s cheek.

‘Oh, Vinnie,’ Titch began, before a sob racked her body. Her
stupid
fucking brother. Her stupid, idiot, crazy, fucking moron of a fucking brother!

‘You’ll be safe now, kiddo,’ he said to Paula, his voice barely a whisper. Then he squeezed past and followed the policeman out to the car.

Josie pulled Paula close to her and moved out of the way so the other policeman could get past them both as well.

‘Stupid little bleeder,’ Jock was saying from the living room.

‘Shut yer fucking cake-hole, before I give you a slap!’ June snapped back.

Josie could imagine the pair of them looking out, the grubby net curtain lifted, and had no desire to go in there and join them. She stayed on the doorstep and planted a soft kiss on Paula’s head. She was wide awake now, but settled. Perhaps it had just been colic after all.

Josie watched one of the policemen help Vinnie into the back seat before going round to the front passenger seat and climbing into the car himself. Vinnie was looking straight at her now, out of the window. So she took one of Paula’s tiny hands and pumped her arm up and down.

‘Wave bye-bye,’ she said softly. ‘Wave bye-bye to your Uncle Vinnie. Say “Safe journey, Uncle Vin! See you soon!”’ She felt her tears soaking into the downy hair on Paula’s head. ‘He’s a Canterbury Warrior, he is,’ she whispered.

Then the car rumbled into life and he was gone.

Epilogue

In February 1980, Vinnie was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He was sent to a new prison, HMP Wymott, which had been open for less than a year and which, ironically, had a VPU – a Vulnerable Prisoners Unit, which housed the very kind of prisoners that he despised most.

Despite all the damning evidence against him, Vinnie refused to testify and maintained his innocence throughout his trial. No witnesses from the estate would testify against him either. In fact there was a queue of people willing to provide an alibi for Vinnie’s whereabouts on the night Melvin was murdered.

When sentencing, the judge made a somewhat controversial statement. He told the court that, sadly, in his opinion, Vinnie was a ‘product of the system’. He believed that borstals were a breeding ground for bullies and psychopaths. He pointed at Vinnie, who was grinning after hearing his ‘life’ sentence, and said, ‘Look at this man. Look carefully, for we are all responsible for what lies under the mask. Throughout this hearing, he has shown a distinct lack of empathy and displayed strongly amoral conduct. I would suggest that if this man is not a psychopath, he is at the very least bordering on criminally insane.’

In 1981 Vinnie took part in prison riots following the inner-city riots in the UK. For this, he lost the chance of parole. He served 12 years for his crime and was released in 1992.

Lyndsey died the same year, of a heroin overdose, and her former boyfriend Robbo’s whereabouts are unknown. Her son, Robbie, sadly, went on to live a life of crime and has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life. Her daughters, Lou and Sammy, however, managed to avoid their brother’s fate. They both went on to have children of their own and still live just off the estate.

June and Jock both died peacefully in their late sixties, still together, but Josie is alive and well. She and Eddie are still together to this day, happily married and now with four grown-up children of their own.

After his release, Vinnie kept out of prison for a while, though unfortunately, the lure of easy money was always too tempting and he spent another ten years in and out of his second home. He did, however, settle for long enough to marry and have a family, and enjoyed many years of being a bit of a celebrity on the estate on which he’d been born. And to some, more than that even. He was – and still is – a legend.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my agent Andrew Lownie for this wonderful opportunity to tell my stories, and the team at HarperCollins for putting their trust in me every step of the way. I also want to thank the wonderful Lynne Barrett-Lee for helping me turn my dream into reality. Without her help, these stories would still be in the box in my garage, gathering dust.

I would like to dedicate these books first and foremost to my parents Keith and Shirley Hudson. They made me who I am today, and have loved and supported me all my life. And to my gorgeous husband Ben, who has had to endure me practically ignoring him for two years while I worked on my writing, and who learned how to cook, clean and work the washing machine while I was in my ‘zone’. I also need to mention my brother Glenn and sister Paula, who have giggled along with me as I decided what material to use and what most definitely needed to stay buried, and my cousin Susan Taylor (our Nipper), who has been on hand whenever I needed her for historical accuracy or juicy snippets. All of my family deserve a mention, but they are legion and mentioning them all would fill a book. They know how much I love them.

Finally, I also dedicate all these words to my favourite ever cousin, Willie Jagger. Rest in peace, Willie. You know how much you’re loved and no doubt you’ll be laughing your arse off up there at the thought of me being an author. Every time I see our Pauline it makes me so happy because she reminds me of everything you were.

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Our Vinnie
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Chapter 1

Bradford, April 1919

8 April 1919 was a defining day in history for the city of Bradford. It also marked the end of an era. The First World War had brought many social changes. With millions of young men called up to serve their country at its outset (with many more to come, to replace the injured and fallen) millions of women had stepped in to fill the employment gap.