THE DOMINO BOYS (a psychological thriller) (8 page)

‘Sure,’ said Alfie, ‘but it working doesn’t make it right.’

‘What’s wrong, what’s right? That’s a very personal viewpoint. Me, I don’t see anything wrong in the survival of the fittest, that’s how nature operates. Hell, it’s the very basis of our free market economy, laissez faire and all that.’

‘The two aren’t the same,’ said Alfie.

Donnie Craddick raised a brow. ‘Suddenly the expert?’

‘The free market principles and practices laid down in the eighteenth century and perpetuated today are a bastardisation of the theories of the economist Adam Smith from his book
The Wealth of Nations
. He was appalled at the brutality and poverty endured by the lowest classes in society and suggested that everybody, including the poorest, might benefit from freer, properly managed markets. Instead, it was big business, the factory owners, those in power, who interpreted it to mean profit at any cost, by any means – they used their version of laissez faire as an excuse to do what they wanted to maximise profit, at the expense of people if necessary, and blamed bigger forces at work. And that bastardisation is still with us. Look around you if you want to see what that means in practice. Look at Overthorpe. Look at you.’

Craddick clapped slowly. ‘Well, Alfie, quite the bookworm, aren’t we? I’m surprised.’

‘I may clean carpets, Donnie, but I’m no idiot. I see what you’re doing.’

‘I’m carrying out a little mercantile expansionism of my own, that’s all. Filling a void left by my father. Building on his empire.’

‘And you don’t care who you crush to get it, right?’

‘Survival of the fittest.’ he said. ‘But I suppose you have something profound to say about that too, eh?’

Alfie shook his head. ‘I’ll let you read up on the subject for yourself. They did teach you to read, didn’t they?’

Donnie Craddick’s face fell deadly serious. ‘Watch your mouth. I’ll warn you now, this particular book is dedicated to you, Alfie,’ he said. ‘And just as the British Empire was forged with redcoats, this small pile of little red books in the drawer is my red-coated army in Overthorpe.’ He closed up the small red book, raised it dramatically. ‘Alfie Parker, this is your life! Remember that old programme on telly, Alfie?
This is Your Life
. Eamon Andrews, and was it Michael Aspel later that used to host it? The stars being surprised by the host and then having to endure all those blasts from the past as they filed in to revisit them. That must have been excruciating at times, seeing people you’d probably never want to see again. All your past life in a big red book. Makes you shudder. I was too young to have seen it, of course, but my father liked the idea that each person he had – how shall we phrase it? – special relationships with, had to have their own little red book. This one is yours. Not a great deal in it, but enough, eh, Alfie?’ He opened the drawer, tossed the book inside with the others. He locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket. ‘This key stays close to my heart always,’ he said, patting the pocket lightly. ‘It’s very important. The key to my ambitions, you might say.’

‘That supposed to scare me?’

‘You’re here, aren’t you?’ he countered. ‘I want every carpet in every room cleaned. You’ve got a week to do it in.’

‘They look clean enough,’ said Alfie, stiff-lipped. ‘And do you know how many carpets you’ve got in this place? It’ll take me longer than a week.’

‘I don’t care how many there are, and I want them cleaner than clean,’ he said. ‘My fiancé is coming up to visit me tomorrow and it looks like a brothel as it is. I’ve got to be going; I’ve got a meeting with your friend, Barry Stocker.’

‘Why?’

‘Sorry, I make it a rule not to fraternise with tradesmen. One has a certain position to maintain.’ He made as if to leave the room.

‘You aren’t going to hurt him, are you?’

Donnie Craddick stopped. ‘My, my, Alfie, I do believe you care about him. I hope it won’t be necessary to hurt him.’

‘So what do you want with him?’

His smile lacked any warmth. ‘Time to tell him
, This is Your Life, Barry!
’ His face hardened. ‘Now don’t be annoying, Alfie. Just clean my carpets, there’s a good man.’

*  *  *  *

When things look like they can’t get any worse, invariably they do.

There was a loud and very insistent knocking at Barry Stocker’s front door. When he answered there was a loud and very insistent man telling him he had to come for a ride in a fancy red Jag parked outside.

‘Sod off – do you think I’m taking a ride with a complete stranger in a strange car? My mother used to tell me about blokes like you,’ said Barry, slamming the door closed.

Except it didn’t slam, or close. The man put his foot in the crack, followed by an iron-hard fist that snaked through the opening, grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close to the door. ‘Don’t mess with me,’ snarled the man. ‘Donnie Craddick wants to see you.’

‘I don’t want to see Donnie Craddick.’

‘Tough.’ He looked down at Barry’s feet. ‘You aren’t wearing any socks and shoes.’

‘So? What business is it of yours what I do?’

‘So put them on, you slob, and get your arse in this car. Make it fast. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

‘So where are you taking me?’ he asked from the back seat as the Jag growled through the streets of Overthorpe.

‘Mystery tour,’ he replied.

‘Who are you?’

‘Your tour guide.’

They came to a large patch of weed-strewn wasteland comprising the concrete remnants of a once thriving but demolished factory laid out in faintly recognisable rooms and yards, nothing remaining but their ghostly outlines. The car bounced across the uneven surface and came to halt beside a man who was standing with his arms behind his back, facing away from them. Barry immediately recognised him as Donnie Craddick, though he could easily have been the ghost of Mickey Craddick.

The man marched Barry across to Donnie. ‘He’s here, Mr Craddick.’

‘Thanks, Roche,’ said Donnie. He didn’t turn to face Barry. ‘You’ve met Steve Roche already, so I won’t introduce you. Needless to say he works for me and if he tells you to do something it’s me that’s telling you. Got that?’

‘Sure,’ said Barry.

‘My father got his first job here, as an apprentice engineer, did you know that?’

‘I knew that.’

‘Now it’s all gone.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Barry. ‘What do you want?’

‘You’re going to work for me.’

‘I don’t want to work for you.’

He turned to face Barry. ‘You didn’t hear me right. You’re going to work for me. You don’t have a choice.’

Barry Stocker sighed heavily. ‘I’ve finished with that kind of thing.’

‘You don’t finish with anything until I tell you you’re finished. You used to be a gopher for my father, right?’

‘You could say that. I needed the money…’

‘Drove cars, made deliveries, picked things up…’

‘I don’t want any trouble, Mr Craddick.’

‘Life’s been shitty for you, hasn’t it?’ said Donnie, coming up to him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

‘It’s been shitty for a lot of people.’

‘I’ll look after you and give you a good job with good money.’

‘I ain’t a no-hoper, if that’s what you think,’ he said, his brows lowering.

‘A man’s got his pride, Barry. How old are you now, fifty-six, fifty-seven?’

‘Fifty-five,’ he said indignantly.

‘And what have you got to show for it, huh? On the dole, cast aside. It’s doubtful you’ll ever find another job, you know that, Barry?’

‘I’ll get by. But not working for you.’ He spun on his heel and began to walk away.

‘That security guy ended up in a wheelchair, didn’t he? The one that worked here, in this very factory, when it was a factory.’

Barry stopped dead. Closed his eyes. ‘What guy?’

‘The same guy that couldn’t take not being able to walk, so he topped himself.’

‘I had nothing to do with that raid,’ said Barry. ‘I was just the driver. I never knew what I was driving them to. I didn’t ask questions.’

‘You try telling that to his widow and kids.’

‘You can’t lay that crap on me!’ he said, his face colouring.

‘Admittedly, father wasn’t always the best man to choose his employees wisely. But in his defence the wages raid did appear relatively straightforward. The factory wages were in the safe, they had the safe keys copied from one of the guards, who’s going to make it easy for them, and all they had to do was waltz in and take the money from under their noses. But they change guards at the last minute and the new one puts up a fight, gets himself shot in the spine.’

Barry remembered it well, though he had tried to blot out the memory. Something Mickey Craddick was adamant he shouldn’t do.

It was close to midnight. He’d been told by Mickey Craddick to pick up and take three men to wherever they told him to go, to sit and wait in the car while they saw to business, then drive them back home, nothing more. He got a little worried when he parked up in a lonely country lane near a business park and the men put on balaclavas.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Shut your mouth, Stocker, and stay put. We’ll be back in half an hour.’

The man lifted a leather bag onto his lap and Barry saw through the rear-view mirror the dull black shape of a saw-off shotgun being lifted out, like it was the birth of a grotesque black serpent.

‘That’s a gun!’ he said. ‘I don’t want anything to do with any guns. Nobody told me about guns! Look, I only did this for a bit of extra cash, that’s all…’

The man put the end of the barrel to the back of Barry’s head. ‘You want me to blow your skull off your shoulders?’ He pressed hard.

‘Barry shook his head. ‘No…’ he whimpered.

‘Then you know what to do.’

The men piled out of the car and ran into the dense undergrowth.

He sat there, nervous, shaking, thinking he should get the hell out of there. But fear had him transfixed. He only took the jobs for Mickey Craddick because he was desperate for cash and Mickey paid well for doing not very much. Now he was beginning to regret accepting Mickey Craddick’s offer of a bit of cash-in-hand work to help pad out piss-poor wages.

He was so nervous he had to get out and take a piss in the bushes. As he zipped up his fly he was in two minds about whether he should simply scarper and face Mickey’s wrath, or stay and take the hundred pounds he’d promised him. He should have known. That was a fair whack for a simple driving job.

But any thoughts of flight were crushed when the three masked men came stampeding back, throwing themselves into the back of the car, screaming, ‘Get the hell out of here! C’mon, c’mon!’

Barry didn’t hang about. He threw himself into the driving seat and gunned the engine. In a cloud of gravel and earth the car sped away.

The next day he found out about the factory raid that had gone wrong, the security guard who’d been shot in the back. Barry knew the man. He came into the Coach and Horses. He played football for Overthorpe Town and was their leading goal scorer. He was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

They never fingered who carried out the raid. They believed it to be a gang from out of town.

It was from that moment on that Donnie Craddick had his claws well and truly sunk into him. He could never refuse anything for him now.

‘I need a gopher and you’ve got a good CV,’ said Donnie Craddick. ‘Look, you want money, don’t you? Respect? Where else are you going to get it?’

Respect? He’d lost that a long time ago, he thought dully. ‘You get whatever you want, Donnie,’ he said quietly.

‘There’s a good man, Barry. I knew you’d see sense. I want you to start working for me straight away. I need you to take us somewhere.’

‘Where?’ he said tiredly.

‘You remember some time ago, just before father got ill, you made a delivery for him. Seven large wooden crates.’

‘Yeah, I remember. What of it?’

‘Lung cancer gets you real quick – he was hospitalised in a matter of days, and dead before he could make arrangements to have the crates moved, and what’s more he was very cagey about where their location was. They’re still where he left them. Where you took them, according to his journal. I want you to take us to that place, Barry.’

‘Journal?’ he said.

‘I’ll explain on the way.’

‘So what’s in the crates?’

‘You’re only the driver, Barry, don’t overstep your boundaries. Get in the car and take us there.’

‘Now?’

‘Now. Don’t look so glum, Barry, I’ll make it worth your while.’

Steve Roche was grinning like mad. ‘Who the hell is this annoying guy?’ said Barry.

‘Like I say, you drive, I pay, let’s keep it at that.’

Reluctantly, Barry got into the jag, took his place behind the wheel and adjusted the seat and mirrors. ‘It’s about twenty miles away,’ he said.

‘That’s fine, just take us there,’ said Donnie.

*  *  *  *