THE DOMINO BOYS (a psychological thriller) (9 page)

Barry Stocker turned the car into a sprawling business park, the kind where it’s easy to get lost, he thought. Lots of small-time businesses from plumbing to garages, each having their own lockup units, a lot of them having recently closed due to the recession. It looked deserted, not a lot going on. He circled the park a couple of times, taking a side road, then another. They all looked the same, he thought, getting worked up.

‘What the hell are you doing, Stocker?’ said Donnie Craddick impatiently.

‘I can’t remember where it is exactly.’

‘Well you’d better remember fast,’ he warned.

‘This all looks the same…’ He brought the car to a halt. ‘Let me think…’

‘What are you doing? Don’t stop here.’

‘I’m trying to remember the goddamn number.’

‘If you’re pissing up my back, Stocker…’

‘Sixty-something,’ he said. ‘Five or six, or maybe seven…’

Steve Roche reached from behind Barry and grabbed him by the neck, yanking him back, choking the breath from him. ‘Do as the man says, Stocker. Don’t waste time.’ He released him and Barry massaged his throat.

‘Sixty-seven,’ he croaked, driving off.

He found the unit, parked outside and the men got out. There was a considerably hefty shutter and a door, both locked. ‘Where are the keys?’ said Craddick.

‘I thought you had them,’ said Barry.

‘Jesus,’ said Craddick. ‘Take me to the site office.’

Barry drove them to a small hut-cum-office. Craddick got out and Barry saw him talking to a stout-looking man, his massive stomach ballooning out his shirt. It was only a matter of minutes before Craddick emerged, grinning. He got back in the car, tossed the keys at Barry.

‘It was number sixty-five, you pillock,’ he said. ‘Seems the bloke in there knew my father quite well.’ He laughed. ‘He was pissing himself when he saw me. Only too glad to let me have the keys to my father’s lockup.’

It wasn’t surprising, thought Barry; Mickey Craddick used either threats or money to get whatever he wanted, sometimes a subtle combination of both. Barry noticed the security guard, peering intently through the office window, looked terrified as he watched the car speed away.

Locating lockup number sixty-five Barry was made to unlock the door. He led the way in. The tiny office was empty with no evidence of use. They passed through another door and into the body of the unit itself. It was square, its walls made of bare brick, with an oil-soiled concrete floor underfoot. At the far end, pushed against the back wall, was a tarpaulin-covered stack.

‘That’s it,’ said Barry.

Donnie Craddick went over to the stack, grabbed the tarpaulin and hauled it away. There were seven wooden crates underneath, resting on a blue wooden pallet. ‘Get me something to prise this lid off,’ he said, running his hand slowly across one of the crates.

Steve Roche looked at Barry. ‘What are you waiting for? There are tools in the car’s boot.’

Grunting, Barry went back to the car, returning moments later with a canvas bag of tools.

‘This one,’ ordered Craddick eagerly, his eyes alight.

Barry took out a large screwdriver and began to lever off the lid. The nails gave an agonised squeal as the wooden lid came away. Donnie pushed him aside, reached inside and peeled back the cloth that covered the contents.

Craddick laughed. Roche went to his side, laughed too.

Barry leaned forward, peering over their shoulders to see what they were getting so excited about.

The crate was filled almost to the brim with neatly bound bundles of money.

‘Christ!’ he breathed. ‘Is that money?’

‘Of course it’s money, moron,’ Craddick returned. ‘But it isn’t real money.’

‘It looks real to me,’ said Barry.

‘That’s because this is quality stuff,’ said Steve Roche, reaching in and taking out a bundle. He held it to his nose. ‘It even smells like the real thing. Mickey told me he’d be taking a shipment of counterfeit notes, said they were quality. If I didn’t know better I’d say they were the real deal.’

Craddick took the bundle off him, peeled out a fifty-pound note, held it up to the light. ‘Christ, this is good,’ he said. ‘So, you think we can offload this safely?’

‘No problem, Mr Craddick,’ said Roche. That’s why your father employed me. It’s what I do best.’

‘There has to be thousands of pounds here…’ said Barry in a daze.

‘A million, give or take,’ said Craddick, throwing the money back inside the crate and putting on the lid. ‘Hammer it closed,’ he said.

‘A million… Jesus! That’s what a million pounds looks like.’

Donnie Craddick grabbed Barry by the collar and threw him against the crates. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a gun, put it under Barry’s chin. ‘You don’t breathe a word of this to anyone, you hear?’

‘You’ve got a gun…’ Barry stammered.

‘No kidding?’ said Craddick. ‘It belonged to my father. Do you like it?’

‘It’s OK…’ he said, closing his eyes as he pressed the metal harder into his flesh.

‘Here, it’s yours,’ he said, slapping it into Barry’s hand and letting him go. ‘I’ve got another. My father had a little collection.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Barry replied, holding it out. ‘Take it back. I don’t know how to use a gun. I don’t want to learn either.’

‘Keep it,’ Craddick insisted. ‘You might need it one day.’

‘Never. I’ll never need this bloody thing.’

‘No?’ Donnie Craddick put an arm around barry’s shoulders and led him away from the crates. Roche began to hammer the lid back on and cover the crates up with the tarpaulin. ‘Let me tell you something, Barry; something that you might find enlightening.’

‘It’s a gun, Mr Craddick. ‘I don’t feel easy with this. Driving you around, being a gopher, that’s one thing; but this…’

‘You miss your sister, don’t you, Barry?’

He stopped, shrugged off Craddick’s arm. ‘What’s Sophie got to do with anything?’

‘A tragic death, I believe. Tell me how it happened.’

Barry stared at him but couldn’t work out what was going on behind Craddick’s calm eyes. ‘She was on holiday, went swimming…’

‘And she drowned.’

‘Yeah. She drowned.’

‘An accident.’

‘Yeah, an accident. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You really think that? Think it was an accident?’

‘Course it was.’

‘Did you know Duncan Winslade was being blackmailed?’

Barry frowned deeply. ‘You’re having me on.’

Craddick crossed his heart. ‘I swear I’m not. I’ll not go into detail, suffice to say that Mr oh-so-holy Winslade wasn’t as squeaky clean as he’d like to have you believe. He was as bent as they come.’

Barry shook his head vehemently. ‘Never. Not Duncan. He was a good and honest cop.’

‘And because an unscrupulous someone had discovered his indiscretions he was being tapped for a great deal of money. Money he simply didn’t have. So what could he do to get his hands on a goodly amount? Let’s see, your sister was heavily insured…’

Barry grew angry. ‘Are you saying he killed my sister to get his hands on the insurance money?’

Craddick shrugged. ‘Work it out for yourself. Her body was never found, was it? Just her clothes on the beach. No witnesses to what happened. We’ve only his word for what happened.’

Barry shook his head. ‘He loved her.’

‘If that’s what you want to believe. Bought himself a nice villa in Spain, too.’

‘That was something they both worked towards, for when they retired…’

‘Sure. Except she never did reach retiring age, did she? And now he’s sitting pretty. Going to shoot off to Spain to live out his life in his expensive little villa, while you – well, let’s say the roll of the dice has not been kind to you, eh, Barry?’

Barry looked at the gun in his hand. ‘He said he tried to save her. Swam out, couldn’t find her.’

‘Sure he did. He would, wouldn’t he?’ Craddick laid his hand on top of Barry’s, folding his fingers so they clamped around the gun tightly. ‘Keep the gun, Barry. Like I say, you never know when you’re likely to need it.’

Barry quietly put the gun into the belt of his jeans.

‘What’re we going to do with this lot, Mr Craddick?’ Roche called.

Craddick smiled at Barry. ‘Call the gun a gift,’ he said. ‘Leave it here for now,’ he said to Roche. ‘We’ve got to arrange sale and delivery with your contacts. And I’ve got my fiancé coming up to see me tomorrow so I’m going to be busy with her.’ He turned to Barry, whose expression was solemn. ‘I want you to pick her up from the railway station tomorrow at 1.20 p.m. You’ll like her; she’s a sweet little thing. Too good for me,’ he said. ‘Have you got a suit?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, the only one he possessed. Bought to attend his sister’s funeral.

‘That’s good. I don’t want you working for me looking like a slob.’

Barry nodded dumbly. The gun felt hard, weighty and insistent.

He knocked hard at Duncan Winslade’s door. He heard a distant voice calling out to hang on a minute. Eventually a shadow appeared behind the frosted glass of the door, followed by the sound of the Yale lock opening.

‘Barry, I didn’t expect to see you,’ said Duncan.

Barry grunted. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure,’ said Duncan, stepping aside to let him through into the hall. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not my usual self,’ he said, squeezing his eyes closed as he said it, the pain shooting through his midriff. ‘Go through, sit down. I’ll join you as soon as I can, but it may take some time!’ He noticed how Barry’s face remained glum. ‘Something wrong, mate?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said. ‘I heard about Donnie Craddick paying you a visit.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘callers like that I can do without.’ Duncan shuffled through to the sitting room and eased himself into a chair. Barry remained standing by the fireplace. ‘You OK? You don’t look well.’

‘He beat you up real bad,’ Barry said. ‘Alfie told me you had broken ribs, a split on the head.’

‘Yeah, well…’

‘Why’d he do that?’

‘Because the guy’s like his father, a thug. Guess he thought he needed to pay me back for what I said in the pub.’

‘So are you gonna go to the police?’ His face was straight, unemotional.

Duncan studied him. The way he was fidgeting. ‘No.’

‘No? He beat you up.’

‘I have my reasons,’ he said. ‘Look, is something wrong, Barry? I’m under the impression this isn’t a social call.’

‘Tell me about the day Sophie died.’

Duncan looked surprised. ‘No, I won’t. I’m not dragging all that back up again.’

‘Tell me,’ he insisted. ‘So she went swimming and you swam out, right?’

‘You know that’s what happened. Why go over it again.’

‘Nobody saw her, though, going for a swim. It was a deserted cove.’

Duncan blinked, his jaw stiffening. ‘She went for a swim, Barry. She liked to swim. I couldn’t stop her – she was as pig-headed as you when she wanted to be. I told her it looked a bit rough, but she pooh-poohed the idea.’

‘They never found her body. Surely she would have been washed up on some beach or other, eventually.’

‘Not necessarily, Barry. I’ve known cases where a drowned person has never been seen again. Stop this, man; you’re getting yourself all upset.’

Barry placed his hand behind his back, touched the gun at his waistband. ‘I hear you needed money real bad at the time, Duncan.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Sophie was insured, right?’

Duncan’s eyes widened. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

‘I looked up to you. At least Duncan is a rock, I’d say. You know where you are with Duncan. As straight as the day is long. But you were bent, Duncan. As bent as they come.’

‘I don’t know what you mean…’

‘You know full well what I mean. You were being blackmailed, you needed the money.’

‘Who’s been telling you that crap?’ Then his nodded slowly. ‘That slimeball Donnie Craddick, right?’

‘Does it matter? It’s true, ain’t it?’

‘Tell me you’re not working for him, Barry, not like you did with Mickey.’

Barry pulled out the gun and dashed towards Duncan, aiming it at the man’s chest. ‘Did you kill her, Duncan? Tell me, don’t lie; did you kill her?’

Duncan Winslade held up his hands, staring incredulously at the gun in Barry’s shaking hand. ‘Bloody hell, Barry, where’d you get that thing? You’d get time if they caught you with that. Put it away and don’t be so damned foolish.’

‘I don’t care about myself anymore, Duncan. I’m a nobody. No job, no wife, no sister, nothing. But you, you’ve got everything. And you know why? Because you’re the kind of guy who’d not think twice about killing someone to get the insurance money, paying off whoever was blackmailing you and buying yourself a nice villa in Spain with the remainder.’