Mark Finney’s footsteps echoed as he walked across the rusty, metal railway bridge. A steely fog was spreading itself across the town and he could no longer see the trains creeping slowly below him. He walked carefully down the steps and paused at the bottom. Smudges of streetlamps trailed off into the distance down Lothian Road. Finney headed off along the cobbled street, past the rows of partially demolished terraced houses that looked like broken teeth.   Continue reading THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 2… Because The Night by Paul D. Brazill →

Seatown train station was certainly a lot better looking than I remembered it but it still smelled of puke. And shit, And sweat. Well, it did now that Smiffy was there. He’d spruced himself up a bit, slicked back his hair, put on a double-breasted pinstripe suit. But his rancid stench still oozed out. I hadn’t really seemed to notice it when we were boozing together in The Cobble Bar but out here in the fresh air it seemed overpowering. Continue reading TRAIN IN VAIN By Paul D. Brazill →

Pauline Williams really hadn’t wanted to talk to her brother. Not for a while, anyway. She’d been giving him the cold shoulder recently. She’d had more than enough of Billy’s shenanigans over the years, so she started to ignore his text messages and calls. She’d even unfriended him on Facebook. But when she found out he’d been in an accident, her resolve soon wilted. Family was family, after all. Continue reading Yesterday’s Wine by Paul D. Brazill →

Chloe left the money and took the guns. She couldn’t carry everything and she knew that cash would be a hell of a lot easier to come by than a couple of AK47s that was for sure. Continue reading Chelsea Girls by Paul D. Brazill →

‘I’m just a walking cliché,’ growled Rector.

He sat at a table in a dark corner of The Essex Arms. His black clothes melded with the pub’s shadows. His bony hand reached out of the darkness and scratched his unshaven face.

He took a sip of whisky. Continue reading Spectre vs Rector by Paul D. Brazill →

The thing is, I didn’t particularly care whether she was lying to me or telling me the truth, since most of what I’d told her had been dug up from some murky hinterland somewhere on the outskirts of honesty, but whatever I did I had to get my hands that guitar. 

*  Continue reading A Tissue of Webs by Paul D. Brazill →

Hinkson’s tired, dog tired, but he can’t fall asleep. Can’t let himself drift off into the warm, comforting womb of his unconscious. It’s seven minutes to midnight and the brothers will be here at the witching hour, for sure. Same as last night and the previous night.

Continue reading Seven Minutes To Midnight By Paul D. Brazill →

Ginger Ronny had told Burkey about the murder towards the bitter end of one of their occasional raucous Tuesday night drinking sessions, as the dawn had desperately begun to grasp for life and Continue reading Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Paul D. Brazill →