When Clare Longrigg saw two Mafia clans tie the knot it was meant to end the feuding - but far worse was to come. Outside a church in the centre of Naples, on a sunny September day in 1996, a teenage bride heaved her huge crinoline out of a massive black limousine. She was visibly pregnant as she swayed towards her husband-to-be, a spotty youth in a white tuxedo. The groom looked nervous, as well he might. This wedding represented the union between two Naples mafia dynasties: the Giulianos and the Mazzarellas, who had fought each other in the struggle for domination of the drug trade, and were now joining forces. I had crept in unnoticed, and slipped into a back pew. I sat, rapt throughout, taking in the fabulous outfits from Versace and Valentino, the couple's teenage friends clad mostly in fashionable, if funereal, black. At the same time I was on edge, not knowing if this gunshot wedding would end in gunfire, given that the two families had previously sent killers after each other
Outside a church in the centre of Naples, on a sunny September day in 1996, a teenage bride heaved her huge crinoline out of a massive black limousine. She was visibly pregnant as she swayed towards her husband-to-be, a spotty youth in a white tuxedo.
The groom looked nervous, as well he might. This wedding represented the union between two Naples mafia dynasties: the Giulianos and the Mazzarellas, who had fought each other in the struggle for domination of the drug trade, and were now joining forces.
I had crept in unnoticed, and slipped into a back pew. I sat, rapt throughout, taking in the fabulous outfits from Versace and Valentino, the couple's teenage friends clad mostly in fashionable, if funereal, black.
At the same time I was on edge, not knowing if this gunshot wedding would end in gunfire, given that the two families had previously sent killers after each other
