‘I’ll survive.’
Dylan covered the phone. ‘He sounds bad, mate.’
‘Keep him talking.’
Dylan nodded. ‘What happened, Steve?’
‘I was working on the car for the Festival. I’d put the ratios in the gearbox and was setting the car up with the factory settings.’
‘We were going to do that tomorrow,’ I said.
‘I was enjoying myself and I wanted to get a jump on tomorrow. I heard a car pull up. I thought it was you coming back. I called out your name, but I didn’t get an answer. Nothing happened for a minute. I called out again. This time the door opened and a man in a balaclava came in carrying a petrol can. He opened it up and started splashing it about. I rushed him and he knocked me down.’
‘Jesus,’ I said.
‘He thought he’d dealt with me and went straight for Alex’s car. He yanked the drop cloth off and started looking the car over as if he wanted something off it. When he didn’t see what he wanted, he shoved it off its stands and came back for his petrol can. I think he was going to torch it, but that’s when I got him back.’ Steve coughed out a laugh. ‘I lamped him with the adjustables. Got him good in the ribs. I had to have broken one. He turned on me after that, but that was just so I wouldn’t follow him. Once he had me out of the way, he made off.’
Dylan kept Steve talking. He asked him how the Mygale was shaping up against my old Van Diemen and got little anecdotes out of him. Each story helped eat up the miles.
I kept my speed around a hundred. It was easy to do at that time of night. The first signs for Reading flashed by and my fear began to subside. We were only twenty miles away.
Steve was talking when he suddenly trailed off in the middle of a sentence.
‘Steve?’ Dylan asked. ‘You there, Steve?’
Steve didn’t answer.
‘Shit, Steve, you’re scaring me,’ Dylan said. ‘Talk to me.’
Still, Steve didn’t answer.
Dylan checked the phone. ‘The call might have dropped.’
We both knew he was trying to find an excuse not to scare us.
‘Call him back.’
Dylan redialled Steve’s number. ‘I’m not getting through.’
‘Call an ambulance.’
Steve punched in 999. The call got picked up after twenty long rings. ‘Hello. Yes. I need an ambulance out to Archway Restoration, Six Goswell Arches. There’s a man there. He’s been assaulted. We had him on the phone and he lost consciousness. Thank you.’
‘Christ, I hope he’s OK,’ I said.
‘He will be.’
I pushed the Subaru to its limit. The speedometer needle hovered near the hundred and twenty mark. We were travelling at two miles a minute and it still felt slow. I wanted more out of the car, but I wasn’t getting it.
‘Aidy, slow down,’ Dylan pleaded. ‘You’re going to get us killed. And what good would that do Steve?’
I shot him a glance. Dylan had purposely pressed one of my buttons and I bottled the urge to lash out at him. I had no tolerance for reckless driving because of my parents. I drove fast on the roads, but never stupid. I always left the high speed stuff for the racetrack. I took my foot off the gas and the needle dropped down to ninety. It was as slow as I was willing to go.
We covered the rest of the distance in less than twelve minutes. I threw the Capri into the service road behind the Archway units. The ambulance hadn’t arrived yet. The Capri slithered on the loose surface and Dylan grabbed the handhold over the door to steady himself. I stamped on the brakes and the car slithered to a halt outside the workshop entrance. Dylan jumped out of the car before I did and yanked open the shop door.
The acrid stink of spilled petrol burnt the back of my throat the moment I raced through the doorway. A five gallon can lay on its side in a pool. It was a lethal hazard, but I ignored it.
Steve lay on the ground propped up against a workbench, a large adjustable spanner in one hand. He wasn’t conscious.
Dylan got to him first, but I shoved him aside. I was sick with fear and my mind was in a panic. I didn’t know whether to check Steve’s pulse, lift him up, leave him where he was or kick a hole in the wall and I was too frightened to do any of these things in case I made it worse.
‘Steve, it’s me.’
He stirred. His eyes opened, searched the room, failed to lock onto anything, then closed again.
God, it was a relief to see even that small response. I got my arms under his shoulders to lift him.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t move him,’ Dylan said.
‘Steve, come on, mate. Wake up.’
He came around, this time more alert. He tried to sit up. I got behind him and guided him into a sitting position.
‘Take it easy,’ Dylan said.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
‘Get me up,’ he said. His voice sounded cracked and broken.
‘An ambulance is on the way,’ Dylan said.
‘No hospital. Just get me up.’
‘No, you’re going to hospital, Steve,’ I told him. ‘You don’t have a choice.’
‘We’d better check you out,’ Dylan said.
Dylan and I got Steve up onto his feet. He groaned.
‘Just get me to a chair. Anything’s better than being stretched out on a concrete floor.’
We carried him to one of the two ratty armchairs we kept in the workshop. They were dirty, greasy things we kept around for when we took a break from working on the cars. They were hardly the most sanitary place for an examination, but Steve would be comfortable.
I helped Steve to sit forward while Dylan helped him off with his shirt. His chest and stomach were mottled with palm-sized, red bruises. Many overlapped to make one big bruise. Steve looked so old and frail there in the armchair. He’d always seemed so invincible to me. It was frightening to see how easily he could be dethroned.
‘I’m sorry, Steve. I’m so sorry.’
Dylan took over. He pushed me aside and looked Steve over as best he could. He was fantastic. I was useless. I was shaking, but I didn’t know if it was from rage or fear. Probably both. Derek had struck too close to home. This was far too personal for me. Now I understood why doctors rarely treated family members. It wasn’t an ethical boundary, but one of objectivity. They couldn’t view the patient as just a patient, or a set of symptoms or an injury that needed fixing. It was a loved one. One screw up on their part could make it worse. I stepped back and gave Dylan the space he needed.
Sirens wailed outside before becoming deafening.
‘They don’t need all the details,’ Steve said. ‘As far as the world knows, this was a bungled robbery. No mention of Derek, Alex or anyone. You got that?’
‘Steve, no,’ I said.
‘Yes, Aidy. We can’t trust the cops yet. This stays between us. Promise me.’
I didn’t like it, but understood it. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘What about the petrol?’ Dylan asked. ‘How do we explain that? A burglar wouldn’t be throwing it around.’
‘Shit,’ Steve mumbled. ‘I’ll tell them I used it as a weapon to scare the tosser off.’
Two uniformed police officers called out to us as they barged their way into the workshop. Naturally, the 999 call had brought the police.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘Quick.’
They raced over and shoved Dylan and me aside to get to Steve while tossing out questions. I had no problem letting them take over. One of the officers gave Steve a cursory examination and asked him how he was doing.
The other officer distanced Dylan and me from Steve so his colleague could question Steve alone. He asked us who we were and what had happened then called for a detective and a scenes-of-crime team.
The ambulance arrived before we were through explaining. The paramedics rushed in. They worked on Steve for a minute before loading him onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.
The officer who’d checked Steve out said, ‘I’m going with the victim to get his statement.’
Dylan and I went to leave too, but the second officer stopped us.
‘I need someone to stay here.’
‘I’ll stay,’ Dylan said.
I followed the first officer out. He pointed to his patrol car and I got in with him. He introduced himself as Officer Luke Pine. The ambulance roared off and we followed.
The ambulance took us to King Edward VII hospital in Windsor. The second we arrived at the hospital, the paramedics rushed Steve into the accident and emergency centre. The doctors pumped me for details and Steve’s medical history, then eased me into the waiting room.
Officer Pine remained with Steve and the doctors but emerged a few minutes later. He was in his forties and he radiated the type of assuredness that came with experience. He sat next to me.
‘Your grandad is going to be alright,’ he said.
I exhaled. ‘Thank God.’
‘It’ll be a while before the doctor is out to talk to you. OK if I get your statement?’
‘Sure.’
‘Any idea why someone would do this?’ Officer Pine asked.
‘Archway is well known. There are a lot of expensive tools there and the cars are valuable.’
Pine swallowed our cover story of a random break-in gone wrong and filled out an incident report. It didn’t take long to get my meagre account down on paper.
When he had it all down, he said, ‘Well, it sounds like your grandad gave the bastard a crack in the ribs. If he seeks medical attention, that’s as good as a confession.’
I hoped the police did pick up balaclava man. His identity could prove interesting. Depending on who it was, it might put Derek in an awkward position.
Pine excused himself to report in and left me alone.
Knowing Steve was going to be OK dissolved my fear, but anger replaced it. Derek had actually done it. He’d come after me, but his thug had gotten the wrong person. Well, the stunt had backfired. Instead of destroying Alex’s car, it was now under the police’s watchful eye. There wouldn’t be a second chance at the car. Not tonight.
The doctor came to see me after a couple of hours. She smiled at me as she approached.
‘Your grandfather is going to be OK. Nothing’s broken. He’s just banged up. He took a pretty big knock to the head resulting in a mild concussion and because of that I’ll be keeping him in overnight for observation.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Of course.’
The doctor showed me into Steve’s room. He looked drained, clinging loosely to consciousness. I pulled a chair up to his bedside and sat before picking up his hand and gripping it. He squeezed back and fixed me with a lazy stare. A tear rolled down my cheek.
‘Hey, kiddo.’ Steve’s voice was thick with fatigue.
‘You’re a daft old bugger, do you know that?’
He smiled.
‘Who do you think you are playing the sodding hero?’
‘Steve McQueen. Everybody says we share a certain likeness.’
‘You stupid git.’
‘That’s no way to talk to your grandfather.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m only playing, kid. Don’t take it personally.’
‘I’m not talking about that. I’m sorry because I nearly got you killed.’
‘You didn’t do anything. Don’t you feel bad about this, OK? We knew this could happen.’ He gripped my hand tight. ‘No one comes between us. You know that, right?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Good.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Now piss off, I want to have a dirty dream about that doctor.’
I palmed away a tear and left Steve to sleep. Officer Pine was waiting for me when I left Steve’s room and he drove me back to Archway.
Dylan was standing in the doorway talking to a detective when we pulled up, while other officers and crime scene technicians gathered and catalogued evidence in the workshop. Pine introduced me to the detective and handed him my statement. The detective took me up to the crow’s-nest and we went over the statement. Just like Pine, the detective accepted my account without question. He thanked me and rejoined his colleagues in the workshop.
Dylan came and joined me in the crow’s-nest and we watched the police work.
‘How’s Steve?’ Dylan asked.
‘He’s alright,’ I said. ‘He’s got a mild concussion. They’re keeping him in for the night.’
‘That’s good. It could have been worse.’
‘Thanks for everything, Dylan. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
Dylan smiled. ‘It’s nothing. You know I’d do anything for Steve.’
We had things to discuss but we couldn’t do it with the cops milling around, so we waited.
It was four in the morning when the police packed up and left. As the detective departed, he said, ‘Don’t worry, son, we’ll catch this guy.’
I didn’t believe him. I knew as well as he did that they didn’t stand much chance of catching balaclava man. He’d had more than enough time to escape. The only way they’d catch him was if he screwed up, but Derek’s people had proved themselves more than competent so far.
It might have been four in the morning, but I wasn’t ready to go to sleep. With the police gone, Dylan and I set about cleaning up. We got Alex’s car back onto stands and soaked up the spilt petrol with Oil-Dri absorbent granules.
Dylan scooped up a shovelful of petrol soaked Oil-Dri and dropped it in a waste bin. ‘They’ll try again.’
I finished checking out Alex’s car and covered it with the cloth. The fall had damaged the wreck even further, but did nothing to hide what Derek had done. ‘I know. That’s why I’m not leaving here tonight.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but if they want Alex’s car – and they do – they’re going to come back for it.’
I sighed. ‘I know.’
It was dawn before we had the workshop back in one piece and sleep was worming its way into us. We made ourselves comfortable in the office. I tossed a pillow and blanket at Dylan from a stash Steve kept in a closet. It wasn’t the first time we’d pulled an all-nighter at Archway, but those were usually for better reasons than this. Dylan took the sofa and I dropped into my chair at my desk and stretched out with my feet on the table.