THE DOMINO BOYS (a psychological thriller) Read Online Free PDF

‘So-so.’
    ‘Carpet cleaning doing OK?’
    ‘Could be better, but can’t complain. How’s the job market?’
    ‘Crap.’
    Alfie noticed how his friend had his hand down by the pocket of his jeans, counting loose change. ‘Look, here…’ he said, pulling out his wallet and opening it.
    ‘What’re you doing?’ said Barry, quickly putting the change away.
    He handed over a banknote. ‘For when it’s your round…’
    ‘I don’t need your money,’ said Barry sullenly, looking up to the door. ‘Put it away.’
    ‘Christ, come on, Barry, I know you haven’t got anything. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Take it.’
    ‘You need it.’
    ‘I’ve got enough. C’mon, mate, I owe you.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘I dunno. Plenty.’
    Barry Stocker sighed heavily, reluctantly took the note and put it into his pocket. ‘I’ll pay you back.’
    ‘No need.’
    Duncan Winslade breezed into the room bearing a tray laden with their drinks. ‘Here we are,’ he said, setting it down on the table. He sat down, scraped a chair up to the table. He raised a glass of beer. ‘Here’s to the early though much anticipated death of Mickey Craddick!’ he said brightly.
    The other two grabbed a glass each and they brought them together with a sharp tinkle over the centre of the table.
    ‘God rot you, Mickey,’ said Alfie, grinning.
    ‘Goodbye to bad rubbish,’ joined Barry.
    Silence descended as they drank down half their beers, another ritual, before plonking down the glasses, almost in unison, on the scarred and dented table. Duncan took the box of dominoes out of his coat pocket and started laying them out ready for their game.
    The click of the dominoes against the wood was somehow comforting. It was a calm, quiet, age-old game, hardly played by the younger generation. Not like it used to be. The Coach and Horses had been noted for its hotly-contested competitions, drawing eager men from all over the county, whose position on the league table was viewed as vitally important. There were photographs of the proud winners of the trophy hung in the room where they now played, the very room that hosted the finals, year after year. The last one was played in 1989, the year the mine eventually folded and people had more pressing things on their minds. And anyhow, fashions began to change. It was considered an old man’s game. Duncan, Alfie and Barry were the last of them regularly playing dominoes in the Coach and Horses.
    ‘The funeral must have cost a fortune,’ said Alfie. ‘I dropped by the graveyard to check it out this morning, before I went down to the allotment. You should have seen it; he had a hearse pulled by four black horses, with these great black feathers on their heads. And the headstone… I heard it was still being made. Marble exported from Italy, nearly ten feet high.’
    ‘I heard that, too,’ said Barry. ‘He came across a lot of opposition to it, not least because he was a bent bastard and people objected to it, but that the thing was going to be one of the tallest structures in the graveyard, like he was taunting everyone even after his death. But he was on the council, and he got his way like he always did; they allowed it.’
    Duncan was turning the dominoes face-down. ‘The amount of people he had in his pockets made sure he would always get his way,’ he said. He thumbed over his shoulder. ‘You know, even Pete was paying some kind of protection money to him.’
    ‘Get away!’ said Alfie. ‘Pete? Surely the brewery would have had something to say about that.’
    ‘They didn’t know. Mickey had blokes regularly coming in and causing trouble, starting fights, smashing the place up. You remember what it was like. Either Pete scraped a bit off the takings to stop them or he’d lose the pub.’
    ‘Why didn’t he go to the police?’ asked Barry.
    Duncan looked up at him. ‘Why did nobody else ever think to go to the police?’ he said.
    Barry averted his eyes. ‘Bastard,’ he