Cold Grave by Craig Robertson Page A

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