Hot Seat

by Simon Wood

  ‘But the team is factory backed now. Honda is giving us the cars for free and donating technical support, so the budget is low.’

  ‘But Rags has been spending big money for years with no major sponsor underwriting him.’

  ‘So what? He’s spending big. What has that got to do with anything?

  ‘It’s a sign that Ragged Racing is bent.’

  ‘Bent how?’

  Ronson was silent. I took that to mean he didn’t know.

  ‘What did Jason suspect?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never gave me any details, but he thought something wasn’t right. Our whole team does.’

  ‘Because Honda switched support from you to us?’

  ‘Hey, fuck you.’

  ‘No, fuck you. You haven’t told me anything that doesn’t sound like petty, professional jealousy.’

  ‘Yeah, believe what you want.’

  Ronson jumped from the car and slammed the door.

  I clambered from the car. ‘I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. You say someone from Ragged killed Jason, but you’ve got nothing to back it up.’

  ‘Like I said, believe what you want. Just know that your team doesn’t play fair and when it catches up to Rags, you’ll suffer the consequences,’ Ronson said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘When your team gets caught out, you’ll all get painted with the same brush. You’d be wise to get out while you can.’

  Ronson got behind the wheel of his Civic and churned up the field as he pulled away.

  I slipped back into my car and pulled out the envelope Crichlow had left for me containing Jason Gates’ door keys. I looked at the address written on the envelope. Northampton wasn’t exactly on the way home, but it was close enough. I programmed the address into the sat nav and set off.

  Just as I reached Cambridge, my mobile rang. It was Dylan.

  ‘How did your first day as a hotshot racing driver go, matey?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ I answered, focusing on my track performance instead of Ronson’s spying.

  ‘You want to celebrate?’

  ‘I can’t. I’m tied up here.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dylan said. ‘That’s OK.’

  Disappointment shaded his reply and I felt bad. As racing asked more and more of me, I’d be disappointing my friend more and more often.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ I offered.

  ‘Sure, I’m not working tomorrow. You want to do a pub for lunch?’

  ‘Sounds good. Meet me at Archway.’

  ‘See you at noon,’ Dylan said and hung up.

  I arrived in Northampton just before seven in the evening. The address led me to a housing development on the edge of town. It was a typical, modern development consisting of narrow streets and every type of housing option from flats to large, detached houses. Jason had lived on the top floor of a three-storey block of flats. I let myself into the building using the security code written on Gates’ note.

  Despite having the permission to enter – sort of – from the family, I felt like a thief. I raced up the stairs to the top-floor landing and quickly let myself in with the key.

  The acrid tang of smoke, like a fireplace left to burn itself out, hit me before I flicked on the light.

  ‘Not good,’ I said to myself.

  I followed the smell down the hallway and flung open the doors to the living room, bedroom and bathroom. The story was the same in each. Someone had ransacked them. Furniture was overturned. Drawers had been yanked out and the contents dumped. Cupboards and wardrobes had been flung open and cleared out. The smoke detector in the living room clung to the ceiling with its cover and battery missing. I guessed that the police didn’t know about this carnage or there would have been crime-scene tape or something to mark their presence. That probably meant the ransacking was very recent.

  The smell of burning was strongest in the bathroom. Flakes of ash and soot stained the sink. A half-arsed attempt to clean the sink had resulted in a grey-black swirl. The sink might have served as the makeshift fireplace, but the toilet bowl had served as the disposal for the ashes. Fortunately, not every fragment wanted to do as it had been told. Small pieces of singed paper floated on the water in the soot-stained bowl.

  The smart move for me would be to call the police. That notion fell apart when I pictured myself trying to explain why I was in the home of a murder victim I’d discovered. Instead, I sighed, reached down and fished out the charred paper fragments with my hand. The biggest piece I recovered was a thumbnail-sized corner piece. I flicked on the strip light over the sink and peered at it. Even through the charring, it was easy to tell it was a photograph, but being a corner piece, it provided no useful detail. The other pieces were in worse shape. Two of them dissolved in my hand. The firebug might not have done the neatest of jobs, but he’d sufficiently destroyed whatever he needed to destroy. I scooped up the remaining pieces, dropped them in the toilet and flushed, sending them to a watery grave.

  The evidence might have been destroyed, but it did leave behind one useful fact. The thumbnail-sized scrap had been a photo, but it had been printed on ordinary paper and not on photo stock. That meant it had come off a printer. So where was the computer? I searched the living room and found a printer in the wreckage, but there wasn’t a computer attached.

  Whatever was worth finding was probably gone, but continuing the search wasn’t a waste of time. Jason Gates was a ghost to me, but you can learn a lot about a person from their belongings. I sifted through the mess in the living room and discovered that he had a subscription to Pit Lane. He didn’t cook much, judging from all the ready meals in his fridge and freezer. He owned a very nice set of Snap-On tools that he kept in his bedroom and he had a number of framed motor-racing prints and action shots of Townsend Motorsport cars in action from the ESCC. I found a second toothbrush in the bathroom, but I didn’t detect a girlfriend’s presence. The place smacked too much of a man cave. It felt a little like my room at Steve’s house.

  I froze at the sound of a key slipping into the door lock. If this was the killer returning to clean up, I was buggered. There was only one way out of the flat – past the killer.

  I stared at the twisting doorknob, raced into the kitchen and grabbed a knife, then stopped halfway down the hallway. The lock snapped back into place.

  My plan was simple. The second this tosser made an aggressive move, I was charging him with the knife. I didn’t care if I cut him, just as long as I broke free.

  The door eased open and my grip on the knife tightened. I controlled my breathing by taking long and deep inhalations.

  C’mon, you prick, I thought.

  The door swung open and a blonde woman no older than twenty-three stood in the doorway. She froze at the sight of me, her key still outstretched.

  I dropped my knife and raised my hands. Her gaze flicked past me to the mess in the living room.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ I blurted.

  My words must have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way. Her expression tightened, distorting her attractive face into something ugly, as if I’d promised to kill her and her family. She reached into her shoulder bag and charged at me.

  I kept my hands up and retreated into the living room.

  ‘Really, it’s OK.’

  I tripped on something and fell backward. In the time it took me to land on a CD player that caught me across my kidneys, the blonde was upon me. She sprayed me in the face with something that smelled floral but burned my eyes like acid. I yelled out and clutched my face as she delivered the coup de grâce by kicking me in the balls.

  So much for my escape plan.

  Lap Eight

  My vision was in shreds, but I recognized the beeping sounds of buttons being pressed on a mobile phone.

  ‘Stop,’ I choked out. I palmed at my eyes, but it did nothing to clear my vision or stop the burning. ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Do you want another kick in the nut
s?’

  ‘Jason’s brother, Andrew, sent me to check in on his place.’

  She stopped dialling. ‘What?’

  I looked her way, but she remained a blur. I fished for the door key Gates had given me and held it out. ‘I came by and found this place turned over. I heard the door and thought it was the burglar coming back.’

  She was silent for a long moment. I hoped she was deciding not to call the cops and kick me in the balls again.

  ‘You’re a friend of Andrew’s?’ A heavy note of contempt edged the question.

  ‘Not really, but he’s not the kind of guy to take no for an answer if he asks you to do something.’

  ‘That’s for sure.’

  ‘Look, can you help me up? That crap you sprayed me with is melting my eyes.’

  I held out my hands and felt hers take hold. She guided me to the kitchen sink, where I doused my eyes. I groaned as the pain ebbed away and my vision returned.

  ‘What was that crap?’

  She held out a small can of extra hold hairspray. ‘Pepper spray is considered an offensive weapon. Hairspray isn’t and works just as well.’

  ‘Good to know,’ I said wiping my face with a paper towel. ‘How’d you discover that nugget?’

  This time she smiled. ‘A cop told our self-defence class about it and how it wouldn’t be classed as a weapon if we used it.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Carrie Russell. Jason’s girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘Ex?’

  ‘We broke up three months ago. His idea. Not mine.’

  The break-up hadn’t been serious enough for him to take his door key back. That explained the second toothbrush in the bathroom.

  ‘I’m Aidy Westlake,’ I said and offered my hand.

  She eyed it for a moment before taking it. I’d yet to fully earn her trust. I needed to give her something to win her over.

  ‘I suppose you know about Jason.’

  She nodded when the word yes wouldn’t come.

  ‘Could I talk to you for a minute? Please. I’d really appreciate your help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With what happened to Jason. I was the one who found him that night.’

  She paled and put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Let’s sit down.’ I righted the sofa and we sat on its slashed and shredded cushions.

  ‘I talked to the police,’ she said. ‘They said someone from another team found him.’

  I nodded. ‘I drive for Ragged.’

  ‘Did he say anything before .?.?. y’know?’

  ‘No. I tried to save him. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just trying stuff I’d seen on TV. I felt so useless.’

  ‘You aren’t a doctor.’

  ‘I know, but I should know the basics. We all should.’

  ‘We should know a lot of things that we don’t.’

  Tears clouded my vision and I palmed them away in some lame attempt to hide the fact from Carrie.

  ‘So why are you here? And more importantly, how are you involved with Andrew Gates?’

  ‘He wants me to find out what happened to his brother.’

  ‘Why? Did you know Jason?’

  ‘No, but I found him next to the Ragged Racing team transporter. That and the fact that I drive for them was enough for Andrew to decide that I’m the person that can find something out. He doesn’t trust the police.’

  ‘Typical of him.’

  No love lost between Carrie and Andrew. I thought that could help me. ‘I think Jason was looking for something when he was killed.’

  Carrie’s eyes flashed recognition.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Obviously, Jason was on to something and whatever it was got him killed. Whatever he had or knew, he didn’t give it up, so someone came here looking for it. I think they found it. Someone burned up printed pictures from a computer in the bathroom. Jason’s printer is here, but I can’t find a computer.’

  Carrie jumped up and clambered over the wreckage to the corner of the room where the cheap office desk rested on its side. ‘His laptop’s gone?’

  I followed her. ‘What’s going on? What was Jason up to, Carrie?’

  ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.’

  She sifted through the cast-aside papers, books and belongings.

  ‘It’s gone, Carrie.’

  ‘I know. I’m looking for a picture. Help me find it? It’s a print of Nigel Mansell racing in the rain.’

  I knew the picture. It depicted Mansell’s second-place finish at the 1988 British Grand Prix in the vastly underpowered and temperamental Williams Judd. It has to be one of the top ten drives of the modern era. I found the framed print, or what was left of it, by the kitchen. The glass had been broken and the back ripped from the frame.

  I held up the ruined picture. ‘Found it.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ She scrabbled across the room and snatched the frame from me. ‘It’s gone. They’ve got it all.’

  ‘What’s gone? Who’s got it all?’

  She let the frame slip between her fingers and hit the ground. ‘Jason wouldn’t tell me what he was doing. I just know something happened with his team.’

  ‘Townsend Motorsport?’

  ‘No, Ragged Racing. It was why he left. He wouldn’t talk about it, but he was very upset.’

  Ronson thought Ragged was cheating. Had Jason caught Rags in the act a year ago? Gates claimed that Jason was straight. If that were true, he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with cheating. If Jason was trying to get evidence, it explained why he’d been trying to break into the transporter that night. If he’d gotten it, that would have been a problem for Rags. It’s easy to deal with a spy or blackmailer. You slap one around and pay the other off. An honest man is different. There is no paying off that kind of person. Rags’ reputation was massive. He couldn’t risk seeing that destroyed. Jason’s murder would make sense under those circumstances, which seemed like a stretch at this point.

  ‘Jason has been digging into Ragged Racing for a year?’

  ‘No. Only the last few months, I think.’

  So, Jason walked out on the team a year ago, did nothing for months, then went on a private crusade. Why the time gap? I tried to make sense of that. Rags could have promised to be a good boy, then when Jason found out he wasn’t, he made it his aim to expose the truth. It was a nice theory, but that was all it was – a theory. I needed something to back it up. If I told any of this to Gates, it would be Rags hanging from an engine hoist.

  ‘And you don’t know what set Jason off?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say. He cut me out of his life, saying it was for my own safety. I hated him for it, but it looks like he was right. Silly sod.’

  ‘Jason had been gathering evidence. Did you ever see any of it?’

  ‘Not really. I knew he took some pictures and hid them in the frame. I walked in on him and that was when he said it was over between us.’

  ‘I didn’t find a camera.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have. He didn’t have one. He used the one on his phone.’

  Jason should have had his mobile on him when I found him. ‘Did the police give you Jason’s belongings?’

  ‘No. I’m not next of kin.’

  But Andrew Gates was.

  ‘OK, thanks for your help. I have to go, but do you want a hand tidying up?’

  She reclaimed her purse and pulled out her mobile. ‘I’m calling the cops.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t. I’m sure Andrew wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘No. Andrew definitely wouldn’t. Are you going to scurry back to him to tell him all you learned?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Just leave my name out of this.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What did he tell you – that he sacrificed his life so Jason could live an honest one? Don’t believe it. If he told you they were close, he’s a bloody liar. They hadn
’t spoken in a year. Are you really going to find Jason’s killer?’

  ‘Yes. In spite of Andrew.’

  Carrie smiled and raised her phone. ‘I’m calling the cops, but I won’t tell them you were here.’

  I headed for the door.

  ‘Word of advice, Aidy. Jason loved his brother, but he didn’t trust him. And you shouldn’t either.’

  Lap Nine

  I had Archway to myself the following morning since Steve had gone out on a parts run. The problem with maintaining cars thirty and forty years after production has ceased is that replacement parts are a rarity, but luckily Steve had Grant Smith. Grant was a classic-car parts dealer. He was the Indiana Jones of lost car parts. If he didn’t have it, he’d make it his quest to track it down. He was worth his weight in gold to Steve.

  The Brabham was finished and back in the loving arms of its collector, so I cleaned up the workshop, sweeping the floor and returning tools to their rightful places. The task helped me think and I had plenty to think about. Yesterday’s revelations had served only to muddy my situation. I was wedged firmly between a rock and a nutcase. Rags could be dirty and so could Andrew. That left me in an ugly position. I had to watch myself with both of them. I could throw myself at DI Huston’s feet and plead for mercy, but she didn’t seem like the merciful type.

  I had my back to the workshop door when it creaked on its old hinges. I turned expecting to see Steve, but a uniformed police officer stood in the doorway instead.

  He smiled. ‘Hello. I’m Sergeant David Lucas, Surrey Police. I’m looking for Mr Stephen Westlake. Is that you?’

  I leaned the broom against a bench and picked up a rag to clean my hands. ‘No, that’s my grandfather. He’s out at the moment. Can I help?’

  ‘Maybe you can. Does he own a white Ford Transit van?’ He flipped open a slim file folder and read off the number plate.

  ‘Yes. Is there a problem?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. The vehicle was involved in a traffic incident.’ Sergeant Lucas studied me for a second then referred to his notes. ‘The incident occurred last Friday evening at approximately four thirty p.m.’

  Suddenly, I understood the meaning of the curious look. ‘Where did the incident take place?’