The old fellow tilted his head to one side and puffed out his cheeks.
‘Narky stuff. Very bad.’
‘We’re hearing that he’s got himself in with some heavy criminals,’ Jered grudgingly explained from behind Baillie. ‘Sam was always handy with his fists when he was growing up but, if what we’re told is right, then he’s using more than his fists now. The family in Glasgow say that he’s being paid to hurt people. We don’t even know where he’s living now but we know that he’s not with his own.’
‘So how have you heard this?’ Winter asked, curious despite himself.
‘Sam’s cousin Noah met him in a pub in Possilpark,’ Jered continued. ‘Said that Sam had a cut on his neck, a recent one that looked bad. He asked about it and Sam had joked that “it came with the territory”. Course Noah asked him what he meant but he wasn’t for saying. But Noah said Sam had a pile of cash on him and was flashing it about. Noah did some asking around and was told that Sam was paid to make sure people coughed up or cut them if they’d got out of line.’
‘What pub were they in?’
‘A place called The Brothers on Saracen Street. You know it?’
‘Aye. Lovely place,’ Danny answered with more than a hint of irony. ‘So I’m guessing there’s a reason you’re telling us all this, Mr Baillie.’
The old man smiled sweetly.
‘I can see why you used to be a polisman, Mr Neilson.’
‘I didn’t say I was a policeman. I only said I wasn’t one now.’
‘Oh, I know,’ Baillie smiled again. ‘But if you live as long as I have, you tend to have a nose for these things.’
The old guy was sharp, that was for sure.
‘Fair enough,’ Danny nodded. ‘So, the reason you’re telling us this…’
‘Like I said, it’s my job to protect the family and the traveller way of life. Young Sam’s not a bad lad, just a bit… headstrong. If he keeps doing what we hear he’s doing, then he’ll get himself killed. And he’ll also bring lashav on us: shame. The traveller reputation is bad enough already with all the lies people tell. Thing is, I can’t go to the polis even if I thought they’d be interested. There’s not what you’d call a mutual trust there and I’m trying to keep Sam out of the jail as well as out of the grave. I also need to stop Jered here and the others from going into Glasgow and making things worse. What I need is someone else: someone who knows Glasgow and would know how to find things out. A person like that would be useful and I’d certainly owe them a debt.’
Winter and Neilson looked at each other.
‘So you would be able to offer something in return, Mr Baillie?’ Danny asked.
‘It would be the honourable thing to do, Mr Neilson. Our clan is many and wide. I think there may be something in what you say about a young girl who disappeared. I’d be prepared to find out more and tell you what you need to hear.’
Winter snapped at the man.
‘If you know something, maybe you should just tell us now. The girl was murdered, for fucksake!’
Jered pushed himself in front of Baillie, squaring up to Winter until they were standing nose to nose.
‘I told you to mind your manners,’ he growled.
‘No. You told him to mind his manners,’ Winter corrected him.
‘Now, now Jered,’ Tommy Baillie soothed. ‘Come away from the young man. I’m sure Mr Neilson realises the way these things work. Young folk, eh, Mr Neilson? All that hot blood isn’t good for them at all.’
‘Right enough, Mr Baillie. You’re right enough. Here’s what we’ll do for you: we’ll make some discreet enquiries about your boy Sam. I can’t make any promises about what happens to him though. If he’s as full of that hot blood as you say, then he’ll have to make that decision himself.’
Baillie nodded sagely.
‘So very true, Mr Neilson. We can show the young the paths they should take but only they can walk them. You are a gentleman. And I will make… how did you put it now, “discreet enquiries” about the young lady.’
Danny put an arm between Tony and Jered, separating them and forcing both to take a step backward.
‘Okay. We’ll be on our way, Mr Baillie, but we’ll be back. One last thing: do you know anything about a man who lived near here by the name of Laurence Paton?’
‘No. Never heard of him. How about you, Jered?’
Jered shook his head, still scowling at Winter.
‘No. Like Uncle says, never heard of him.’
Winter and Neilson emerged into the travellers’ site, the cold immediately attacking them after the warmth of the caravan. As they negotiated the icy steps into the yard, they saw Peter and two other young men standing watching them. The three of them took a few steps towards their visitors but stopped in their tracks when Neilson gave them a cheery wave. Instead, they settled for glaring at the incomers and making a show of seeing them off the premises.
As they were about to exit the site, Winter looked back over his shoulder and nudged Neilson.
‘Old Tommy said he didn’t own a television set, right? So how come there’s a TV aerial stuck on the top of his caravan?’
‘I know, son. I saw it on the way in. The lying old bugger was pulling our chain from the moment we walked in there. He either knows a whole lot more or a whole lot less than he’s telling us.’
CHAPTER 22
The road to Dundee took Narey past Stirling. As the motorway cruised above the ancient capital, the castle resplendent high on the rock but still below her, she couldn’t help but think of Laurence Paton. Her dad had been right about him all along. His nose had told him Paton was involved. No one had been able to prove it back then but she was determined she would now. She would also deal with anything else that crawled out from under the same stone Paton had been hiding under.
The drive north wasn’t one she took often but this point in the road, towering above the Highland fault line, with the sweep of the Ochils to her right, Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument ahead of her and the mountains of Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich and Ben Ledi beyond, was her favourite. That day, with seemingly every inch of the Bens covered in snow against an icy blue backdrop and frozen fields below, it looked even more spectacular than usual. They used to call Stirling the gateway to the Highlands and high on the M80 you could see why. Narey hoped it would prove to be a gateway of sorts for her too.
Professor Kirsten Fairweather had sounded friendly enough on the phone and certainly seemed intrigued by the little Narey had told her. She’d been unwilling to commit herself to getting involved until she’d heard the whole story so Narey was on her way north to convince her face to face. The whole sorry mess and all its implications were too much to attempt over a telephone.
It wasn’t the easiest of drives with snow by the side of the motorway and so much buzzing through her head; she tried to clear the latter by turning the car’s CD player up to full blast. Even the contrasting efforts of Kings of Leon, Take That and Plan B couldn’t dismiss thoughts of Paton and his blackmailer or the wretched remains of Lily of the Lake — or her dad. The guilt of him being in the home was eating away at her. Narey also felt for Tony, remorseful about dragging him and Danny into this and knowing she should never have persuaded them to break into Paton’s house. What the hell had she been thinking? There was just too much bloody guilt flying around and little of it seemed to be attached to those who deserved it.
Somehow, she managed to negotiate the M80 and the M9 safely and a little less than an hour and a half after she’d left Glasgow behind, Dundee loomed into view. She’d never really been one for going along with the usual Glaswegian habit of ridiculing Dundee, making gags about unmarried mothers and it being stuck in the eighties.