When Danny had his jacket back on, he glanced at his watch and forced himself to pace round the scrubland for a few minutes, keeping warm and marking time until they went after Dunbar. Finally he nodded at Winter and they warily started down the towpath, knowing full well that the samurai could be waiting for them at any point on the unlit path. They edged along, Winter somewhat uncomfortably in front, his eyes straining in the dark for any sign of Dunbar. In the end, they almost fell over him.
They were no more than a yard from his prone body when Winter’s leading foot brushed against the blade of the sword, causing it to sing sadly and for Winter nearly to soil himself.
‘Jesus,’ he gasped, stepping back and forcing Danny to walk straight into him.
Dunbar was out cold, the sword abandoned by his side. The GHB had taken its toll at last and, along with the cocaine and the vodka, was going to give Dunbar a long sleep and a monstrous hangover. Danny reached into his jacket pocket with his good arm and produced plastic bindings.
‘Put these on him,’
As Winter tied up Dunbar, Danny managed to fish his mobile out of his trouser pocket. After a few seconds, his call was answered.
‘Jered Dunbar? It’s Danny Neilson. I’ve got something for you.’
CHAPTER 46
It took an hour and a half before Jered and two of his fellow travellers from the Stirling site managed to make their way to Maryhill but Sam Dunbar hadn’t stirred. Winter and Danny had managed to keep him off the snow so he didn’t freeze to death and had marched him back and forth to keep his circulation flowing as well as theirs.
They heard the gypsies coming before they saw them, the three figures finally emerging from the snow and advancing on them. Danny had his jacket zipped to his throat so they couldn’t see he was shirtless beneath it, not wanting to give any hint he was injured and he and Winter were at a distinct disadvantage.
‘What have you done to him?’ Jered demanded when he saw that his cousin was unconscious.
‘Saved his life probably,’ Danny replied.
Jered looked doubtful.
‘How do you reckon that?’
‘He was strutting round Glasgow slicing into people with that sword. He wouldn’t have lasted more than a year before someone killed him. It was prison or the grave for him — no other choices. You realise that?’
Jered pursed his lips but nodded sullenly.
‘Who was he working for?’
‘You don’t want to go there, Jered. The guy is heavy duty. He’ll be pissed enough that Sam has gone missing without you going in there and making it worse. Stay away.’
‘Okay, but tell me what you know. Why was he doing it?’
‘Money,’ Danny answered flatly. ‘He was earning big style but he also needed it to pay for his new habit.’
Jered looked confused.
‘Cocaine,’ Danny explained. ‘You’ll need to get him off it and it will be painful. I think that stuff was what made him start using the sword. He faced us down with it but he gave us the chance to back off. That’s the only reason he’s going back with you rather than inside. You understand me?’
‘Okay…’ The words stuck in Jered Dunbar’s throat. ‘Thanks. We’ll deal with him from here.’
‘Not quite so fast, Jered. We have a deal.’
Jered looked to his two companions, both shorter than Winter and Danny but one wiry with flinty eyes and the other broad and muscular. With one and a half sets of arms between them, it was going to be a struggle to take these three on the tight confines of the towpath, particularly as the good pair of arms belonged to Winter. Jered moved in close on Danny, nose to nose like they had been back in the caravan when Danny had head-butted him.
‘I don’t like you much,’ Jered told him, his accomplices now tight to his shoulder. ‘No respect. And don’t think I’ve forgotten what you done to me.’
Danny didn’t blink, just stared back at Jered, noticing how the bridge of his nose was still swollen and slightly misshapen.
‘And this is our business not yours,’ Jered continued. ‘Uncle shouldn’t have got you involved. Sam is family.’
Winter moved forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with Danny, joining in the staring contest as best he could.
‘If it was down to me, then we’d be breaking the ice on that canal and you’d be going in it. But Uncle says different.’
‘Your uncle is a wise man,’ Danny told him. ‘Just saved you from a broken neck. Where’s Bradley?’
Jered’s lip curled back as he inched closer to Danny, his head bobbing slightly as if he were making his mind up whether to butt him.
‘We don’t know yet. We’re looking and we’ll find him soon enough. You’ll have to trust us on that.’
Danny held his ground, his head against Jered’s.
‘Not good enough. Where is he?’
‘All we’re sure of is that he’s in Scotland, somewhere in the west. Uncle is a man of his word. When we know, we’ll call you.’
‘You better.’
Danny looked down at Sam Dunbar, still out cold at their feet.
‘Take your rubbish and get going back to Stirling. But Jered? I don’t give a damn if you take him to Riverside or Russia. If he comes back to Glasgow, then he goes to jail. No second chances. Understood?’
‘Pick him up,’ Jered told his mates. ‘I’ll take this sword if it’s his.’
Winter put his boot firmly over the blade of the sword. ‘No chance. That’s going nowhere. It’s done enough damage.’
Jered looked from Danny to Winter and back again before giving up the ghost.
‘Hurry up, you two. Let’s get out of this place.’
They watched the three travellers go down the towpath until they disappeared into the snow, the sound of their labours soon waning as the night swallowed them up.
Winter looked at the samurai sword at his feet and tried to figure out the best way to pick it up without inflicting further damage on the fingerprints and DNA it held on its surfaces.
‘Think that will be enough to keep Aaron Sutton happy?’ Winter asked him.
‘That and knowing the sword and its user are off the street. Anyway, it will have to be.’
‘How’s your arm?’
‘Nearly falling off.’
‘Let’s get you to hospital.’
‘Aye, whatever. Jered and his bloody uncle better not be buggering us about. Bradley is the key to all this. But something isn’t right — all those rumours about Barbie being a gypsy bride and now Bradley living as a traveller. You know how I feel about coincidences. Something’s wrong here and I just can’t see it.’
CHAPTER 47
Narey was up before nine and had worked her way through a stodgy fry-up in the hotel restaurant while flicking through the newspapers. She read both a tabloid and a broadsheet but soon discovered she didn’t have much of an appetite for either. What passed for news in both of them seemed to pale beside the things that were going on in her own life.
She had been tempted to go straight over to CAHiD to see how Kirsten was getting on but knew it wouldn’t do much good for her to be standing over the professor’s shoulder while she worked. Hard as it was, she would stay away until she got the call to say that the job was done. It didn’t stop her thinking about it, mentally filling in the gaps in Barbie’s broken skull just as the computer reconstruction system was doing, seeing the girl become flesh in her mind.
There was still maybe half a day until the model was completed and there was no way she could hang about in her hotel room until then but, equally, she couldn’t venture far or do anything worthwhile in case the call came through. It was snowing again but, despite that, she decided to go for a walk — anything to take her mind off what was happening. She found herself wandering down towards the river, the silvery Tay as McGonagall put it, shining under a wet sun and looking icy cold. To her right, the rail bridge snaked out into the river and across to Fife, and across to her left, the road bridge did the same, the ends of both disappearing into misty clouds of snow.