‘When I remembered who your father was, I knew you’d been stringing me along. I had a feeling you might come out here to talk to Bobby. Didn’t expect to see you when I walked in here, right enough. Thought I might get here before you — to warn him.’
‘Why would he need to be warned?’ Narey asked, becoming acutely aware that the raised voices were drawing a crowd, including the two Neanderthal farmers who had stood either side of her at the bar.
‘Bobby’s a good friend of mine,’ Johnson told her. ‘But he’s… well, sorry Bob, but you’re a nervous sort these days — not that I blame him. Never been quite right since he found that poor girl, you see. It’s been nineteen years but I don’t think that day’s ever left him. I knew how he’d react if he knew someone was poking around, asking questions after all this time.’
‘I’m only trying to find out what happened, Dick.’
‘Why?’ The old man was shouting now. ‘Why after all this time?’
She ignored his question and asked one of her own.
‘What about you, Dick? Where were you when it happened?’
‘Home in front of the fire because… Wait a minute. How dare you ask me that? What are you suggesting?’
‘Nothing. I just need…’
Kenny and Dazza were suddenly standing over Narey, glowering down at her.
‘What’s going on here?’ Dazza shouted. ‘Why are you asking all these questions, upsetting folk?’
The man’s ruddy face was red with anger now, having no doubt eventually managed to work out that she had been lying to him too. He was leaning in aggressively towards her, his burly frame just inches from her much slighter figure.
‘Yeah, who are you?’ Kenny joined in, his beery breath in her face. ‘Making out you didn’t know about the murder. Were you taking the piss out of us?’
Narey took a step back, trying to put a bit of distance between herself and the belligerent, half-drunk pair. Suddenly, the space between her and them was filled with another body — Tony.
‘Back up,’ he ordered Kenny and Dazza, his hands up in front of them. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘Get out of the road before I move you,’ Dazza snarled at him.
‘Try it,’ Tony growled back, his eyes blazing. ‘You go near her and I’ll kill you — both of you.’
Kenny and Dazza hesitated, looking at Tony and sizing him up. He was about the same height as Kenny but half as wide and nowhere near the size of Dazza. They were probably wondering whether, since he was prepared to square up to both of them, he had more about him than was obvious.
‘There’s no need for this,’ old Dick Johnson was saying. ‘Everybody calm down.’
‘No chance,’ Kenny spat at them. ‘This bitch has been lying. She made arses out of us.’
‘I’m sure you managed that just fine yoursels,’ Tony snapped back, moving forward so that he was toe to toe with both men, his eyes wide and unblinking. ‘Now piss off afore I have to make you.’
Kenny and Dazza looked at each other and scowled back at Tony. Dazza pushed a meaty paw into Tony’s chest but he responded immediately by thrusting his own hand hard into Dazza. Narey pushed herself into the tiny gap between them, her bag held up seemingly for protection. Dazza’s arm, aiming to knock Tony’s to the side, caught Narey instead and knocked her bag from her hand, sending it tumbling to the floor.
The men glared furiously at each other as they stepped back slightly, the few contents of the handbag between them on the floor. Chief among them was her police warrant card, sticking out like a sore thumb among a lipstick, car keys, a hair band and a packet of chewing gum. Dick Johnson stepped between them and picked the identity card from the floor, continuing to hold it as he put the rest of Narey’s things back into the bag. He handed her the bag and finally the card, making sure that both Kenny and Dazza had noticed it.
‘Like father, like daughter, eh?’
‘Something like that,’ she agreed.
Kenny and Dazza were backing off, maintaining a staring session with Tony but retreating quickly to the safety of the bar. Dick Johnson stood, shaking slightly but with a comforting hand on the shoulder of his friend Heneghan, who looked distraught.
‘I think you should go too, don’t you, Miss… Narey?’ Johnson suggested.
She nodded, grabbed Tony’s elbow and guided him to the door.
‘You do know that those big lumps would have snapped you in two?’ Rachel mocked gently when they were driving out of Callander on the road back to Port of Menteith.
‘Of course I do. But the important thing was they didn’t know it.’
‘True,’ she laughed. ‘And was that also why you did that thing with your accent?’
‘What thing?’
‘Oh, come on, you know fine well. When you squared up to them, you sounded more “Glesga” than I’ve ever heard you.’
He grinned. ‘Works every time.’
‘Thanks. Seriously. It was getting a bit hairy before you stepped in. My hero.’
‘Don’t take the piss,’ he smiled. ‘You made sure they spilled your bag deliberately, didn’t you? To save me from getting a doing.’
‘Well…’ she shrugged apologetically. ‘Tony, you’re a lover, not a fighter. Maybe you could prove that later…’
He smiled again. ‘I could and I will but I thought there was maybe something else we could do after dinner?’
‘What’s that then?’
‘Hm. Came to me while I was watching the game. Rangers were winning so I had nothing better to do than think. Have you seen the rowing boat that’s tied up in front of the conservatory? I saw it at breakfast this morning.’
She had seen it: a little white boat that bobbed on the lake beyond the frosted green expanse of lawn.
‘What about it?’
‘Well, how about, once it’s dark and the bar is empty, we go for a little sail? To the island.’
She smiled and nodded again. Her hero.
CHAPTER 10
The further the hotel slipped into the distance, becoming one with the trees and the church and the night, the worse an idea it seemed. The lake was inky black beneath them, the mist an icy chill rising from the surface and eating into their bones. Tony paddled them quietly towards the island while Rachel tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
They’d stolen through their bedroom window and across the lawn where Tony freed the rowing boat from the wooden stake that it was attached to. He let Rachel sit down in the back of the little boat before carefully joining her. There were no oars but he had liberated a kayak-style paddle from the darkened dining room and used it to push them silently from the shore and onto the lake. As he did so, it struck him that the boat was placed there more for decoration than practical use and it might not be entirely sound. He swallowed his reservations down, letting them settle on top of the three glasses of whisky that were stopping him from worrying and reasoned they would find out soon enough.
Tony’s camera bag lay on the floor of the boat and he was much more worried for its safety than theirs. They could always swim for it if the worst happened but the bag wasn’t going to save his cameras from the murky depths of the lake. It also contained a torch and flash guns that they were going to need when — if — they got to Inchmahome. Rachel looked at the lake. Maybe for the first time, she understood his sgriob, her sense of anticipation was tingling just as much as his.
Something flew just over their heads but neither of them could see what it was; they just felt the rush of air and saw the silent shadow slip into the gloom. They were over halfway now and there was no turning back. As Tony propelled them forward, Inchmahome rose out of the mist and darkness and emerged menacingly before them. More by memory than sight, he headed for the right-hand side of the island, knowing that was where the small jetty was with the boathouse behind it. Rachel turned as they got nearer, causing the boat to wobble, as she desperately sought a closer look at the place that had filled her thoughts for so long.