No Holds Barred (29 page)

Jenny took his hands in hers. ‘Thanks for coming. It means a lot. I know how busy you are.'

The vet muttered something about old friends being more important than work, kissed her cheek and hurried from the room.

‘He looks tired,' Jenny said with concern. ‘It's such a shame he and Phillip fell out. It's a busy practice for a man of his age to cope with alone.'

‘It must be hard,' Daniel agreed.

Eight o'clock on Friday evening found Daniel and William sitting in William's car in the shady lane outside Boyd's Salvage Spares once more, watching the image transmitted by the spy camera to Daniel's laptop. They had been there for half an hour, and so far there had been no movement on the screen to lift the tedium.

‘Even a stray cat wandering past would be something,' William complained. ‘I can't believe I let you talk me into sitting here again after last week, and especially with that hairy creature of yours breathing hot doggy breath down my neck.' He looked over his shoulder to where Taz was sitting on the back seat and was rewarded with a wet nose thrust at him. For some reason, the shepherd seemed to have developed a fondness for him. ‘As if it wasn't warm enough in here without him fugging it up,' he added.

‘Jenny's taken the kids out this evening, and I didn't want to leave him on his own for hours at the farmhouse,' Daniel explained. ‘Anyway, you never know when he might come in handy.'

‘What for? Blowing out candles on a birthday cake?' William replied dryly.

Daniel ignored him, and after a few more uneventful minutes, the young editor closed his eyes and gave all the appearance of being asleep.

Forty minutes later, Daniel was fighting the urge to follow suit when a movement on the monitor brought him wide-awake in an instant. He shook William's shoulder.

‘What? What is it? Have we got a stray cat at last?' he asked, stretching his back muscles and sitting up.

‘Better than that. Norman Boyd. In fact, all the Boyds
and
Dek.'

‘Who's Dek?'

‘One of the drivers at work. Remember, I told you – very pally with Taylor Boyd.'

‘Do you think there's going to be a fight tonight, then?'

‘I'm not sure.' Daniel answered abstractedly, his eyes glued to the screen. ‘Now, what's going on here?'

The slightly distorted image provided by the camera showed the back of Norman Boyd's head and the front view of the three other men, with Dek standing between and slightly in front of the two Boyd siblings. Although there was nothing overtly threatening about Ricky's or Taylor's body language, something in the positioning of the three made Daniel's eyes narrow. Dek didn't appear to notice anything amiss; he looked relaxed and was apparently listening closely to what Norman was saying.

Moments later, the mood had totally changed. Norman turned and pointed up towards the camera lens.

Dek looked bewildered and then deeply alarmed as he realized the significance of the device and what he was being accused of. He shook his head and protested vehemently. Behind him, the two brothers closed in, Taylor's face grimly intent, Ricky's wearing an unpleasant grin. Norman then held up a small device towards the camera and the picture fizzed into oblivion.

‘Oh, shit!' Daniel muttered.

‘What did he do?'

‘Scrambled it. Jammed it.'

‘But they think this Dek character planted it,' William observed with amusement. ‘So, that's all right, isn't it?'

‘It's not good news for him.'

‘Why does that matter?'

Through the open window of the car, they heard a crash of metal and a sudden outbreak of shouting. Daniel couldn't hear what was said, but it wasn't hard to guess what had happened. Faced with the evidence against him, false though it was, Dek had decided to cut his losses and run for it. The trouble was that the salvage yard was a secure premises with the gate the only way in – unless you knew of the hole in the fence that Daniel had engineered. Unfortunately, Dek wouldn't, and if the Boyds had blocked his exit, it would only be matter of time before they hunted him into a corner.

Daniel wrenched the car door open. ‘I'm going in,' he told William.

‘What?' He was astounded. ‘Are you mad?'

‘It's my fault they're after him. Call the police. Get them out here as quickly as you can.'

‘But what do I tell them?'

‘I don't care, just get them here!' Daniel said, shutting the door in Taz's eager face. ‘No, Taz. Not this time, mate. It's too dangerous. Stay there.'

‘You're not taking the dog?'

‘There's too much sharp metal,' Daniel explained. ‘Call the police, then wait here. I'll try and get Dek out this way, if I can.'

‘But I don't understand.
Why?
'

‘Tell you later.'

‘Daniel!'

Ignoring him, Daniel sprinted the short distance up the lane to the hole in the fence, bent the corrugated panel back and squeezed through, scraping his back painfully. As he straightened up on the inside and looked round at the maze of heaped metal and alleyways, he wondered if he'd been overprotective in leaving Taz behind. His tracking ability might have come in very useful before this business was over. However, it was an injury sustained while searching a scrapyard that had ended the dog's police career, and although he had eventually made a full recovery, it had been a close run thing for a while. Daniel wasn't prepared to put him at that kind of risk again if he could help it.

Running down the clearway between two heaps of scrap, Daniel was aware that this time the CCTV cameras were likely to be fully operational. He could only hope that there was no one free to man them and his presence would remain undiscovered for as long as possible.

At the junction between alleyways, Daniel paused, straining his ears to make out what was happening from the sporadic shouts and sounds of metal shifting. Someone shouted away to his right, and then Daniel jumped as there came the boom of a shotgun, shockingly close and quickly followed by a second.

‘For fuck's sake, Ricky, are you mad?' That was Norman's voice, away to Daniel's left.

‘I saw Edwards,' came Ricky's reply.

‘Did you get 'im?'

‘Nearly.'

‘Nearly's not good enough! Keep that bloody thing quiet till you're sure, or we'll have the fuzz down on us,' came the furious retort. ‘Go and cover the gate like you were told.'

Daniel hesitated. Should he head in the direction that he'd heard the shotgun, on the basis that Dek must have been nearby? But surely, if he had any sense, he'd now be heading the opposite way, as fast as he could. The salvage yard was a maze of piled-up metal junk and interlinking passageways. He could, potentially, bump into Dek around any corner, but he could also just as easily bump into one of the Boyds, which was not a prospect he relished.

It was a sobering revelation that Papa Boyd's only worry about his son shooting someone was that the police might have heard the gun. And what kind of man would let a borderline psycho like Ricky loose with a firearm in the first place?

Moving cautiously, Daniel made his way to the end of the alleyway he was following and paused. The air was still and humid, and he could feel perspiration trickling down his back under the grey T-shirt he wore. Grey was a lucky choice, for although the sun had slipped below the horizon, covering darkness was still a fair way off, and grey blended reasonably well with the background mass of metals, painted, rusty and bare.

He had come to a crossroads. Glancing quickly to right and left, he crossed the broader alleyway and continued in his original direction, keeping his ears open for any tell-tale conversation between Dek's pursuers.

Suddenly, closer than was comfortable, Daniel heard the jingle of a pop song on someone's mobile and a voice answered, ‘Yes?'

He froze, listening, and after a moment or two Norman Boyd said ‘Is he now?' then raised his voice and called out, ‘Hey, lads. Whelan's in here, too. Melody's just seen him on the cameras.'

Daniel cursed silently. How much had she told her father? Did Norman know where he was? He glanced around but could see no covering CCTV. As he waited, he could hear Boyd's heavy footfalls continuing up the adjacent clearway and decided to backtrack.

Reaching the junction once more, Daniel paused, half-hidden behind a pile of rusting oil drums, to scan the available options. As he did so, he caught sight of Taylor Boyd approaching down the alleyway to his right. His heart rate stepped up a notch. There was a one in three chance that Taylor would choose to turn left at the crossroads, and those were odds he didn't especially like, but it was too late to move.

Just as he reached that decision, he glanced behind and saw something that changed the odds completely. Dek was making his way down the same alleyway behind him, entirely unaware that in a matter of moments he would come practically face to face with his erstwhile mate, Taylor. At the moment, Dek probably couldn't see Daniel, concealed as he was, but when he did, would he recognize him as an ally? Daniel had a feeling that in the heat of the moment he would be reluctant to trust anyone, for which he couldn't blame him.

In the absence of any better idea, Daniel picked up a lump of twisted metal from the ground at his feet, rose up from concealment and lobbed it as far as he could into the piled up metal behind Taylor.

Risking a quick glance to see if his unoriginal ploy had worked, he saw that Taylor had indeed stopped and turned. It might not trick him for long, but it might have gained them a few precious seconds.

Unfortunately, upon seeing Daniel, Dek had taken to his heels and was now sprinting in the opposite direction for all he was worth. Wishing he could yell out to him, Daniel set off in pursuit.

Running blindly felt all wrong. Playing cat and mouse in a labyrinth was scary enough, without scuttling willy-nilly towards the waiting paws of the cats.

Ahead of Daniel, Dek swung left and disappeared from view. Sod's law that he should turn away from the potential escape route provided by the hole in the fence. Running after him, Daniel wondered if William was having any luck with motivating the authorities. He had no illusions that it would be easy, especially in such a rural area where there would be little manpower available at the best of times.

Turning the corner in pursuit of Dek, Daniel ducked just in the nick of time as an oil drum flew at his head. The drum bounced off his shoulder and he straightened up to find his quarry coming at him with a length of angle iron raised high to strike.

‘No, wait! Dek!' Daniel gasped, ducking again as the metal swished past. ‘I'm here to help you.'

Missing Daniel, the bar crashed into the door of a rusting white van behind him. He dodged to one side, trying to put space between himself and his misguided attacker, saying urgently as Dek whirled to face him, ‘Listen to me! I'm not the enemy. I can show you another way out.'

Dek took no notice, raising the angle iron for a second attempt.

Bending low, Daniel launched himself in a rugby-style attack at the other man's midriff, throwing him off balance and back against the van with a hollow boom. The metal bar dropped, ringing on the hard earth.

Taking advantage of his moment of dominance, Daniel tried once again to convince Dek of the benevolence of his actions, but he wasn't in a listening frame of mind and began to struggle violently against the armlock Daniel had placed on him.

Suddenly, the July evening air was split asunder by the deafening roar of an engine. Not Ricky's quad bike – this was something much more powerful and it wasn't far away. Even Dek stopped, struggling to listen.

‘What the  . . . ?' Daniel breathed.

‘They've got this massive bulldozer-type thing,' Dek gasped, panting. ‘German. Taylor was showing it off yesterday. It can go through absolutely anything. If they catch us with that, we're dead meat!'

‘Well, I'm getting out of here,' Daniel yelled as the roar grew even louder. ‘Come with me if you want. It's up to you  . . .'

He released the lock on Dek's arm and stepped back, trying to gauge where the machine was in relation to their own position, but the racket it made was all-encompassing and it was difficult to pinpoint. With no idea of the Boyds' whereabouts, the only strategy that suggested itself was to head for the hole in the fence and the waiting car as directly and quickly as he could.

Turning, Daniel headed back the way they had come, not stopping to see whether Dek was following. At the first junction, he caught sight of Taylor approaching from his right at a run and sprinted forward down the only clear route. After a short distance, he became aware of Dek running at his shoulder.

The alleyway swung left, away from his target, and Daniel cursed inwardly. They traversed two more intersections, turning first right and then left, before coming face to face with the white transit van beside which the spy camera had been placed. With no sign of Taylor behind them, he slowed to a halt.

‘Shit!' Dek exclaimed, stopping beside him. ‘Back where we bloody started!'

‘At least I know which way is out from here,' Daniel told him. ‘I just wish I knew where that bloody machine was.'

The noise of the engine seemed louder than ever, and suddenly the reason for this became obvious. Dek shook Daniel's shoulder and pointed behind them.

Turning into the end of the clearway, a scant fifty yards distant, was the biggest construction machine Daniel had ever laid eyes on, bar none. Liveried in green and white, the wheels were as tall as a man and the bucket, which at the moment was raised like the head of some huge alien insect, looked big enough to accommodate a minibus. The machine's width was such that its wheels were crushing the edges of the piles of scrap that bordered the trackway as it started to advance towards them.

For the space of several heartbeats, both Dek and Daniel gazed in frozen fascination before their survival instincts cut in again and they turned and ran with one accord.