Mickey picked up a long piece of wood, indicated for others to do the same. Dickie Sugden had seen them and was staring at them with trepidation. He knew he had to pass the gang to get off Black Dolly.
Alfie did as he was told and bent down to seek out a stick. ‘What do you want me to do, Mickey?’ he said.
‘You’ve got to get Dickie to give us his eggs. He’s bound to have some in that bag. He’s good at bird-nesting. You do that and you can be in the gang.’
He didn’t want to. He liked Dickie. But he called out all the same. ‘Hi, Dickie, what have you got in that bag?’
Dickie Sugden came closer, trying to avoid eye contact with the group of bigger boys. ‘Nothing.’
‘Sure you have. You’ve got eggs,’ said Mickey. ‘Hand them over.’
‘No!’ said Dickie defiantly. ‘They’re mine. I found them.’
‘Make him,’ said Mickey to Alfie. ‘Make him give them to us.’ He pushed him towards Dickie.
‘Give us the bag, Dickie,’ he said quietly. ‘Please.’
‘No,’ said Dickie, attempting to push by them, but they cut him off, encircled him. ‘Let me go.’
‘Give us the eggs, Sugden,’ snarled Mickey.
‘Sod off, Craddick!’ he fired back, and made as if to run away.
Mickey Craddick grabbed him, and the other two boys pounced onto the boy with wolf-like howls of laughter. ‘Hit him, Alfie!’ Mickey cried, holding onto the struggling Dickie.
Alfie lifted his stick, paused for a second or two as he stared deep into Dickie’s terrified eyes. Then he struck him on the arm with his stick and Dickie yelped in pain, dropping the bag of eggs.
It was as if a switch flicked, because, led by Mickey Craddick, the three captors started to lay into Dickie’s unprotected body with their sticks, driving the yelling boy to his knees. He cowered there with his hands over his head.
‘Leave him alone!’ said Alfie, dropping his stick. ‘Leave him alone!’
But they didn’t listen. The blows came down harder, Dickie collapsing to lie on the ground. Mickey Craddick’s face was a twisted, puce-coloured mask of rage and delight as he raised his hefty stick and sent it crashing against Dickie’s unprotected head. Blood splashed up onto Alfie’s face and he screamed, tossed away his stick and ran away. Ran till his chest was afire and he could run no more. He threw himself under the cover of a towering hawthorn, hiding in a thick bed of weeds and grasses, the buzzing of the bees in the tall grasses coalescing with the buzzing of the blood that pumped through his ears. He wailed softly and wished he’d never agreed to being a member of the horrible Slag Gang.
‘So you’ve felt guilty ever since, haven’t you, Alfie?’ said Donnie Craddick. ‘That’s why you’ve looked out for the retard all this time. Trying to make amends. Ever thought about what people would say if they ever found out? What would old Ma Sugden say if she knew you were involved in beating up her little Richard, turning him into Thickie Dickie?’
‘It was your father that did it,’ he said, but his legs were threatening to give way beneath him.
‘You really want it to come out, after all these years?’
‘Your father held that over me, I’m not letting you do the same.’
‘No? You haven’t got a choice.’ He nodded at his companion and the man took a knife from out of his pocket.
‘What are you going to do, Donnie?’ he said uncertainly as the man advanced on him.
But Craddick veered away, went over to the canvas set and slashed it twice with the knife.
‘I want you to clean my carpets,’ he said. ‘Like you used to do for my father. For now, at least. I think I can come up with some creative ways of working with you.’
‘What if I say no?’
The man slashed the canvas again.
‘OK, OK, leave that alone,’ said Alfie. ‘I’ll clean your bloody carpets.’
‘Every last one of them, all through the house. Free of charge, of course, me being a friend. Come to the house tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ve got a client’s carpets to clean tomorrow.’
‘Tough. Cancel it. Be there, Alfie, for your own good. We’ll take it from there, eh? Discuss our future working relationship.’ Donnie Craddick jumped off the stage, landed agilely on his feet, walked over to Dickie Sugden. The frightened man shrank before him, put a hand protectively to his temple and whimpered. ‘Hark you, Guildenstern,’ Craddick said dramatically, ‘and you too; at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.’ He laughed and patted Dickie on the top of his head. ‘Come,’ he called to his companion, who followed him out of the hall.
* * * *
6
Roach by Nature
Duncan Winslade stared at his wife’s photograph, taken when she was about thirty – in her prime, she used to say. He took the back off the frame and removed the photo, placing it in between the pages of a book. This he put into the cardboard box carefully marked ‘BOOKS – LIVING ROOM’ and decided it was full and closed the lid. There were similar boxes strewn about the room. And black plastic bin bags filled with stuff to take to the charity shop. Including Sophie Winslade’s old clothes, finally whipped off the coat hangers in the wardrobe where they’d hung untouched since the day she died. But now, he guessed, was as good a time as any to clear the way for a new life.
He plonked down on the sofa, exhausted emotionally more than physically, and he sipped at the glass of wine, wincing at the pain he still felt in his side. He’d been having too many glasses of late and had made an effort to give it up, but Donnie Craddick’s appearance had helped bring out the chardonnay again. He looked about him at the boxes and bags, a lifetime’s collection that at one time had meaning.
It was late. The streetlamp was casting its sulphurous glow into the living room. The TV was playing to itself, more as a comforting voice in the background than anything. Made the place seem less empty, less cold. He really ought to get up and close the curtains against the night, but there were many trivial things he should do and didn’t. Couldn’t be bothered. He used to cook all manner of meals for the pair of them, got quite adventurous with it, and he once had a bookshelf crammed to overflowing with recipe books and books on fine wines. The books had all gone now, taken to the charity shop.
He wondered whether the loss of appetite was not having Sophie around, or whether it was just growing older. Perhaps a combination, he thought, downing the wine. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have even thought to touch this cheap plonk, but these days he didn’t even seem to taste it.
The doorbell rang, loud and insistent, puncturing the quiet. He rose to his feet, somewhat unsteadily, glancing at the empty bottle on the coffee table. Had he really got through that in just over an hour? That wasn’t like him, not even on a bad day.
He opened the door and was bundled quickly inside by a man who charged at him. The same guy who had been in the Coach and Horses and laid into him. It took Duncan by surprise and he almost toppled to the floor. He steadied himself and balled his fists, but relaxed them on seeing the lethal-looking knife held to his chest.
‘Go ahead, copper; make my day,’ he said.
Another figure came into the hallway and closed the door. It was Donnie Craddick. ‘Good evening, Duncan,’ he said. ‘Sorry to burst in on you like this uninvited.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Craddick?’ Duncan said. ‘Get out of my house.’
Craddick looked around him. ‘Nice place you have here. What is it – 1920s, 1930s? I do so like the Art Deco period. Glad to see you’ve kept some of the period features.’
Duncan lunged forward instinctively, but the knife pressed into his chest and he backed off. ‘What do you want?’
‘Shall we go through to the living room, Duncan?’ He motioned with the flat of his hand, and reluctantly Duncan turned and did as he was told. Craddick told him to sit down, make himself comfortable. He stood before the fireplace, looking about him. ‘Planni
ng on going somewhere, Winslade?’ he said, studying the boxes.
‘None of your business,’ he returned.
‘Dear me, you’ve been at the bottle,’ he said, bending forward and lifting the empty bottle off the coffee table. ‘Not sure about your taste, though.’ He kept the bottle in his hand, holding it by the neck. ‘I know what it’s like, going through old things, sorting them out. I’ve only just touched the surface of my father’s pile of junk. Now there’s another man who didn’t know the meaning of taste. I’ll be lucky to salvage anything valuable out of it. Wasn’t a man for the arts, for fine furniture, my old man. But you know that already; my father and you had rather a close relationship, didn’t you?’
‘Get to the point, Craddick.’
‘Still, his house is going to be worth a pretty penny, and his BMWs.’
‘Then sell up and get out of Overthorpe. We’ve thrown out the trash once already. You’re messing it up all over again.’
He chuckled. ‘Messing it up? Have you seen this place? It’s the epitome of mess. What a dive! Don’t worry, I won’t be staying here permanently, just long enough to suck out of it what I can. Maybe a year, maybe two, maybe three or four.’
‘You Craddicks are parasites,’ he said, glowering at the man with the knife. He was standing near the door, blocking any exit. ‘Your family has been a festering sore on this town for decades.’
‘Very evocative. And here you are, the lance to slash the boil, release the puss, eh, Winslade? High-and-mighty police officer, a regular upstanding Dixon of Dock Green. Don’t give me that crap, Winslade. Don’t make yourself out to be any better than I am.’
‘I don’t know what you mean…’ he said uncertainly.
Donnie Craddick bent down again, staring unflinchingly into Duncan’s eyes. ‘Oh, but I think you do, copper. I think you do.’ He straightened. ‘I came to Overthorpe a few weeks before he died. My father and I never really got on, but he had this crazy desire to mend old rifts, so I played along. He told me there were things that I needed to destroy – you know, certain incriminating papers and the like he’d not had time to sort out before his illness all but crippled him. So I said yes, and it was while I was going through some of this crap that I came across his journals. Not very pretty to read – God, the spelling was atrocious! – but the details – ah, the details! See, they related all the holds he had over a good many people of Overthorpe and beyond. Lists of names, interesting facts about them, what they were paying him, what they’d done for him, what he made them do. Guess it gave the old man some kind of perverted pleasure to get these journals out and see just how much of a hold he had on everyone. You’d be surprised whose name’s are in there. Needless to say you figure quite large.’
‘That’s finished with,’ said Duncan quietly. ‘Mickey said it was finished.’
‘Sure that’s what he said. But I’m not Mickey Craddick, am I? I have my own motivations. A man has to get by in life, you know. These are tough times.’
‘Mickey said he’d put the journals on the fire.’
‘He intended to, that I can’t deny. Luckily I came along at the right time. They’re in my safe keeping now.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Duncan. ‘You’re bluffing.’
Donnie Craddick nodded at the man by the door. ‘Let him in.’ The man stepped into the hall, opened the front door.
Duncan said, ‘Let who in?’
‘You have a surprise visitor. A friend from way-back-when. Let’s not be the ungracious host, eh?’
A thick-set man wearing a rather heavy overcoat for the time of year stepped into the room. He was in his mid-forties, balding, his eyes set deep into his skull, dark shadows beneath them on thin-looking skin betraying years of bodily neglect. His nicotine-yellowed teeth were bared in a mocking smile.
‘Well look who it is…’ the man drawled.
‘Roche!’ said Duncan, rising to his feet. The man with the knife warned him to sit back down. ‘Steve Roche. What’s this slimeball doing here?’
‘That’s no way to treat an old mate, Duncan,’ he replied. His voice was slow and almost monotone, his words lacking in colour.
‘Roche by name, roach by nature. Get out of my house,’ said Duncan, the muscles in his jaw working away like children scrapping under a duvet.
‘See, I told you I wasn’t bluffing,’ said Donnie Craddick, swinging the bottle lazily. ‘Roche works for me now. Isn’t that so, Roche?’
‘Sure is, boss,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time, Duncan.’
‘Not long enough.’ He was attempting to sound confident, but inside he was quaking with the ramifications of all this.
‘Everyone’s got their secrets, haven’t they, Winslade?’ said Craddick. Even blemish-free police officers like you. Except you’re not as blemish-free as you’d like everyone to believe. Turns out you slipped up, just the once. But that’s all it takes, isn’t it?’
‘You’re talking balls,’ Duncan said, his lips clamping tight.
‘Am I? Seems you’re suffering from slight memory loss. Let me jog your memory, eh?’ he said, tapping Duncan’s temple firmly with his finger. ‘Let me take you back to your time in the Met. Your wife comes home one night, distraught. She’s hit someone with her car, but being scared she foolishly drives away. But now it’s hit-and-run. So you rush out to the scene; there’s an ambulance there already. The young woman had been riding her bicycle, no lights as it turned out, and she looks in a bad way. You should have said something there and then, but you keep quiet. You find out the woman has no recollection of the car that hit her. There’re no leads as to who did it, no CCTV footage, no witnesses, and, as she’s on the mend with no serious injury except bruising you foolishly decide to keep your mouth shut to protect your wife.
‘Except there was one witness. Someone who saw the entire thing, followed your wife in his car. Remember his name, Winslade?’ Duncan remained quiet, staring unblinking at Craddick. ‘Memory still giving you trouble? Rob Fowler, a low-life, petty thief, bit of a druggie. He follows your wife all the way home, sees you leave, then eventually finds out that no one is in the frame for the hit-and-run and decides to blackmail the occupants of the house. Well, Fowler thinks his lottery numbers have come up when he discovers the man who is married to the driver is a copper. A copper that visited the scene of the accident and didn’t own up to who was responsible. So he pumps you for money. You pay up. He wants more, you pay up. Then Fowler threatens to shop you to the police unless you pay him an amount you simply don’t have. That’s the trouble with some people – they get greedy, never learn about killing the golden goose. Coming back to you now, Winslade?’
Steve Roche stepped forward, clearly getting some enjoyment out of seeing Duncan squirming, wanted to have his part in things. ‘You and me went back a long time, didn’t we Duncan? I felt I owed you a favour for helping me get an easier time with a GBH charge. So when you asked me to rough this guy Fowler up, teach him a lesson and scare him away for a couple of hundred, I said yes, for an old mate.’
‘Don’t push it, Roche,’ Duncan snarled. ‘We were never mates. And you were only supposed to put him in hospital. You weren’t supposed to kill him.’
Roche shrugged. ‘It was an accident. The knife slipped.’
‘But at least he was out of the way, eh, Winslade?’ said Craddick. ‘Only my father had many dirty contacts and leads in the Big Smoke, and one of those leads went straight to Steve Roche here.’
‘He paid well for the information,’ added Roche. ‘Mickey kept me on his books, too, for his London work.’
Craddick grinned. ‘So just when you think it’s all sorted along comes my father and starts his own round of blackmailing. And like a fish on a hook you’ve hung on his line ever since, haven’t you, Winslade? In the end it was my father that forced you to get a transfer north, so he could work more closely with you, build a special relationship with the cops, so to speak. And with every crime you helped to cover you went deeper into t
he shit. And it all started with you failing to shop your wife. A line of dominoes, the one crashing inexorably into the other. Rather fitting, don’t you think, Mr Domino Boy? There, memory fully restored.’
Duncan Winslade sighed heavily, bowed his head. ‘What is it you want, Craddick?’ he said, feeling crushed.
‘I don’t know, just yet,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t yet figured out how you might be of use to me.’ He looked around him. ‘This house of yours would fetch a good price; maybe I’ll take that for now.’
‘You bastard!’ he said.
‘There’s the pot calling the kettle black,’ Craddick said.
‘And maybe I don’t want to play along with your game.’
‘Then the sordid facts about your past will come out. An accessory to murder – what’s the going rate for that these days?’
‘You’re as perverted as your father…’ he said. ‘It’s time someone put a stop to it once and for all.’
Craddick bent down, his face inches away from Duncan’s. ‘So who’s going to see to that? You, old man?’
‘I’m young enough still to give you a thrashing, you jumped-up little gobshite.’
Donnie Craddick smashed the bottle against Duncan’s temple and he fell to the floor, grabbing his head. Blood gushed out of a wound, seeping through his fingers. Craddick nodded at Roche. The man sent his boot into Duncan’s side, then followed it up with another three. Finally he sent a fist crashing between Duncan’s unprotected shoulder blades and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. Roche stood back, rubbing his fist, his lips twisted in a wet leer.
Craddick got down to his haunches, dropped the broken neck of the bottle by Duncan’s head. ‘Nobody makes me look small. Nobody,’ he said. ‘And especially a tired old bent copper like you. Let’s say that’s for starters, Winslade. We’ll discuss terms and conditions at a later date. For now, I’d get that head seen to. It looks like you might need stitches.’
THE DOMINO BOYS (a psychological thriller) Page 5
