There was a thunk as it tumbled into the pocket. Tyler’s arms, which had remained raised, fell to his sides. A hand large enough to crush his head patted him on the shoulder.

“Better luck next time, wee man,” his opponent told him. “Good game, but hard luck at the end there.”

Another of the men pointed to where Logan stood in the doorway. “Looks like your dad’s here to pick you up.”

“Eh? Oh! Alright, boss?” Tyler called over. He took a sip from a can of Irn Bru. The proper stuff, too, none of your knock-offs up here. “That us ready to go, is it?”

Logan hadn’t quite known what to expect when he’d come up the stairs to collect the DC. It was safe to say, though, that it had not been this.

“Aye. That’s us,” he confirmed. “You, eh… You alright?”

“Grand, boss. We’ve just been playing pool,” Tyler said, indicating the table like he thought Logan might not have noticed it. “There’s another bar up here, too. They gave me free juice!”

“Don’t forget your crisps,” one of the men said, tossing Tyler a bag of Quavers.

Tyler caught it, then gave a thumbs-up. “Nice one. Cheers, Marty!” he said. “I’m starving after that horrible bloody Chicken Kiev.”

The atmosphere in the room changed in an instant. For a moment, the only sound was the creaking of a floorboard beneath Tyler’s feet, then Marty, the man who had thrown the crisps, emerged from behind the bar.

“What?” he asked.

“The Chicken Kiev I had for lunch,” Tyler said, oblivious to the change in tone. “Or that I didn’t have for lunch, I mean! It was completely inedible.”

“I made that,” Marty said. He stood there, looming. Not over Tyler, specifically, just doing a general sort of loom that made what had, until then, been quite a large room seem significantly smaller. “I do the cooking at lunch.”

Tyler swallowed. A number of times, in fact. “Did you?” he asked, but the words came out embarrassingly high, so he cleared his throat and tried again, this time too low, if anything. “Did you?”

Marty was just drawing himself up to his full terrifying height when the first crack in his act appeared, and a smirk proved impossible to hold back. “Nah, no’ really,” he said. “And you’re right, it’s shite. We don’t touch any of it.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tyler wheezed.

“Got you there though, eh?” Marty laughed. “You were shiteing yourself.”

Tyler tried to dismiss this suggestion while not outright contradicting it, in case this led to them kicking the living shit out of him. They’d been surprisingly nice lads so far, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

“Don’t forget your jacket,” said another of the men, indicating where Tyler had draped it across a table before they’d started playing pool.