‘Aidy, what are your motor racing aspirations?’ Mr Baker asked.
‘Yeah,’ Hancock said. ‘Do you hope to emulate your old man?’
‘I just hope to be half as good as him one day.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short,’ Alison said.
‘I’m not. Dad was an amazing driver, a rare breed – a natural. I’m not.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mr Baker asked.
‘I remember when I was little and Dad took part in a Formula Three race at Spa in Belgium to cover for an injured driver. He’d never driven an F3 nor had he driven at Spa. The first time he set foot on the track was when he went out for morning practice, but he secured pole position.’
‘And he won the race,’ Hancock said.
I nodded. ‘Put Dad in any car at any track and within five laps, he had the measure of both. I can’t do that.’
‘And your dad couldn’t tell you how he did what he did,’ Steve said. ‘Rob was a great instinctual driver, but he was a terrible test driver. He had no idea how to help the pit crew make the car better. You’re different, Aidy. You have a good engineering head on you. You know exactly what has to be done to improve the car.’ Steve patted me on the back. ‘You’re not your dad, but you’re just as good as your dad.’
‘To the Westlakes,’ Hancock said, raising his glass. ‘Father and son, may they keep burning rubber.’
‘To the Westlakes,’ everyone said, completing Hancock’s toast.
The dinner broke up after that. Hancock paid the bill after a swarm of protests and we filed out into the car park.
‘We have to go,’ Alison said.
‘My wife will be wondering where we’ve gotten to,’ Mr Baker said. ‘We’ve had a great day and thanks for letting us help. We chatted in the car over here and we’d like to continue helping you. It would make for a nice tribute to Alex.’
‘Sure. Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll probably test the car again midweek before official testing for the Festival. I’ll let you know where and when.’
Everyone said their goodbyes and we watched Alison and her dad drive off before following Hancock back to the salvage yard. He opened up again and parked behind the trailer as we climbed from the car.
The yard was silent. Rusting hulks sat atop each other. Dismantled doors, bonnets, boot lids and hatchbacks hung off racks divided up by make and model. With all the surrounding businesses closed for the night, the silence stretched beyond the confines of the yard. I felt that if I screamed, no one would hear.
‘Well done, Aidy,’ Hancock said, ‘and I’ll see you soon.’
‘Do you think you could give us a tour while we’re here?’
‘What, now?’
‘We are here and it would help me.
Pit Lane
magazine is going to be interviewing me about the Festival.’ They weren’t but it was a plausible lie. ‘It will be good if I can sound knowledgeable about Hancock Salvage.’
My appeal to Hancock’s business side worked. He locked the yard gates and led us into the offices inside a large warehouse. We stood in a spacious waiting room while Hancock disappeared inside the building to deactivate the alarm system.
‘What are you doing?’ Dylan asked.
‘I want to see what happened to those cars Derek transported out here on Saturday. OK?’
‘Last night almost had you on your way to prison,’ Steve said. ‘Can’t you leave it alone for one day?’
I felt the weight of Steve and Dylan’s disapproval squeezing me, but I wouldn’t be dissuaded. ‘This is different. We’re not in Derek’s territory. Brennan isn’t acting as his eyes and ears. Hancock is the weak link out here. He’s vulnerable and that’s good for us.’
Neither Steve nor Dylan said anything. Their silence spoke volumes. They knew I was right.
‘I won’t need to do much. I just need to find something on those cars Derek transported. Just follow my lead, OK?’
‘I’m with you,’ Dylan said.
‘OK,’ Steve said, ‘but on one condition. The second I don’t like what’s happening, I’m pulling us out.’
‘Thanks.’
Hancock appeared in a doorway. ‘Come through here and I’ll show you how everything works.’
We followed him into an open plan office filled with workstations.
‘Essentially, I buy write-offs from the insurance companies and low end trade-ins from car dealerships. I break the vehicles down for parts and classify them so individuals and repair shops can buy the parts. What can’t be salvaged is crushed and sold for scrap.’
‘You auction cars too?’ Dylan said.
‘Yeah. We act as auctioneers for dealerships, municipalities and individuals who want to offload their unwanted vehicles.’
‘Do you ever auction the write-offs?’ I asked.
‘We have. Half the cars classified as write-offs are totally good cars. The damage is cosmetic but the parts and labour make it cost-prohibitive for the insurance companies to repair them. We can fix them up. The down side is we have to register the cars as recovered vehicles and we can never get their real value at auction. We do it from time to time, but not often.’
‘Could you walk us through the process from write-off to salvage?’ I asked.
Hancock didn’t look keen but he agreed. He fired up a computer and launched an inventory program that logged the cars entering Hancock Salvage.
‘Has anything good come through recently?’ Steve asked.
‘Got any 7-series BMWs?’ Dylan asked. ‘I’ve had my eye on one of them.’
I thought Dylan was pushing a little too hard to the point of cluing Hancock in to our motives, but he played along. He ran a search for BMW 7-series and four popped up. I looked for the one I’d taken pictures of in Bristol. It was there, third one on the list.
‘Take your pick,’ Hancock told Dylan.
‘I like that one,’ Dylan said and pointed to a red one and not the one I’d seen. ‘Complements the colour of my eyes.’
Hancock double-clicked on the red BMW’s details. It listed all that had happened to the car since Hancock had received it. ‘It’s gone, my friend. You wouldn’t have wanted it. It was a wreck according to this.’
I didn’t want to fixate on the BMW too much or we might alert Hancock. ‘So what happened to that car then?’
‘This way,’ Hancock said and led us out of the office and into an area of the warehouse with clean and well-equipped service bays. ‘The car would have been brought here and my guys would have stripped it for everything we could get – engine, headlamps, mirrors, seats, steering wheels, bumpers, doors. Basically, anything that wasn’t damaged. The small stuff goes into our warehouse and the big stuff goes out in the yard. You saw the racks with doors and bonnets on them.’
Hancock ran a very smooth operation. It was easy to picture the salvage business as a dirty business run by guys covered in grease and dirt, but Hancock had a twenty-first century grasp on the business. He’d taken the supermarket approach to selling scrap. It was pretty impressive.
‘That’s how you deal with the meat,’ Dylan said, ‘but what do you do with the bones?’
‘We crush them.’
‘You have a crusher here?’ Dylan asked with boyish enthusiasm. ‘I’ve always wanted to see one of those things.’
‘Well, let’s go see it. It’s not anything special, so don’t get too excited.’ Hancock walked over to one of the bay doors and hit a button. It rolled up into the roof.
‘Don’t spoil it. It must have some awesome force to squash a car into a three foot cube.’
Dylan played the dopey friend to a tee. It gave me the opening I needed.
‘I’ll give it a miss,’ I said. ‘Can I use your toilets?’
‘Sure. They’re back in the office, next to the reception area where I brought you in.’
The second Hancock, Steve and Dylan were out of sight, I sprinted back to the offices. I ignored the men’s toilet for the computer Hancock had left on. I closed the file he’d opened and double-clicked on the dark blue BMW I’d seen Derek drive out of here. The notations on the file said the car couldn’t be salvaged and was crushed in ‘as-purchased’ condition.
I searched for the other cars I’d seen transported from the warehouse. They all had the same notation: Unsalvageable condition. Crushed in ‘as-purchased’ condition.
I stared at the innocuous sounding statement. It sounded so believable. But none of it was. It was a deception. Was I looking at the information that got Alex killed? If I was, then I’d just made myself a bigger target.
‘You’re a big fat liar, Vic.’
Lap Twenty-One
O
n Friday night, Steve, Dylan and I got dolled up in suits and ties for the Clark Paints Formula Ford Championship banquet. The banquet was being held at the Priory House, a fairly plush hotel a few miles from the Stowe Park circuit. The championship trophy was being officially presented along with the other awards. As a top ten finisher in the overall standings, I would be receiving an award and prize money. Also, Myles was going to announce how much money had been raised for the safety fund. These were all good reasons to attend, but I had a different reason for going. I wanted to dangle a fresh carrot in front of Derek to draw him out. It had to be something big enough to lure him out from under the umbrella of Brennan’s protection. It was about time he came after me on my terms.
We took the Capri. Steve drove with Dylan alongside him while I rode in the back. Nobody talked. We were getting to the sharp end of things and we knew it. Everybody was lost in their own thoughts, which was fine with me. I wanted to think and I spent the drive staring out the small window on my side.
Hancock had been on my mind since we’d visited his scrap yard. He’d given me another piece of the puzzle. He was fixing up high end cars written off by the insurance companies, then selling with new identities. Derek was transporting the cars and his mates were doing the makeovers. Brennan provided protection. The last part of the puzzle was how these cars were getting sold. For that, I needed to follow the cars when they left Morgan’s workshop.
I wondered how much money was at stake. A lot, if this operation was a regular thing. If Alex knew what I knew, it could be the reason Derek killed him. Hancock couldn’t afford to risk his business empire. Brennan had his career to lose. So, if Derek was the bullet, who’d been the trigger man?
Steve pulled into the hotel’s car park.
‘Everybody knows their cover stories?’ I asked.
‘You realize how dangerous this is going to be if Derek goes for this?’ Steve said.
‘I do.’
‘Then we just get in there and do it before I lose my bottle,’ Dylan said.
‘Then let’s do it. We have a job to do.’
The banquet was being held in the hotel’s ballroom and we followed the signs to it. It was a big room that contained a stage, thirty or so circular round tables, dance floor and a bar. A banner hung above the stage announcing, ‘Congratulations on another great year of racing.’
We’d arrived early, but the room was already bustling with people. I recognized not only drivers and mechanics, but their wives and girlfriends. Circuit officials, timekeepers, scrutineers and marshals were also in attendance. It was fun to see these people decked out in suits and evening dresses. You won’t see anyone in their Sunday best on race days. I never thought they could clean up so well.
Some had taken to the dance floor where a DJ provided suitable mood music and commentary from his setup. Some had taken their seats, but most were clustered around the bar set up in the far corner.
Myles was on the stage arranging the trophies with his wife, Eva, when he spotted me. He jumped down, cut across the room and snagged my arm. ‘OK, I have you and your guests at table four in the front. I need you close for announcements.’
He didn’t give me a chance to answer before rushing off to bend someone else’s ear.
‘I don’t see Derek around, so let’s mingle,’ I said, ‘and spread the word.’
I set my sights on the bar and cut across the dance floor. Dylan took a lazy route to the bar, while Steve headed towards the tables to hit up people there. I scanned the faces for someone to home in on, but I checked for the enemy too. I didn’t see Derek or any of his friends, making it the perfect time to get the word out.
I wasn’t planning to confront Derek directly. Instead, I thought I’d take a page out of his book and let the community do it for me. The viral effect worked well for him when he wanted to spread gossip and incite rumour, so it should do the same for me.
I spotted Paul standing at the bar and I worked my way over to him. He looked pretty good compared to the last time I’d seen him. The swelling had gone down and his bruising had faded to a sickly yellow-green, which the muted ballroom lighting hid well. The barman placed an open bottle of Guinness and a brandy in front of him and he handed over cash.
‘Hey, Paul. How are you doing?’
Paul told the barman to keep the change and walked away without acknowledging me. I guessed he’d be somebody else who wouldn’t be sending me a card this Christmas.
I asked the barman for a lager that I didn’t want and watched Paul walk over to Chris. Chris took the brandy and listened to Paul before cutting me a nasty look and ushering him away. I wouldn’t be receiving the friendly service I was used to getting from Chicane’s anymore.
Graham Linden moved in next to me. Graham was the perfect person to get a rumour going. He’d been oh so eager when Derek wanted everyone to know about his intention to kill Alex. I expected him to show me the same level of affection he’d showed me at Stowe Park when Derek appeared, but he was the first person to show any signs of being pleased to see me. He patted me on the back.
‘Good to see ya, Aidy,’ he said and ordered a round of drinks.
‘You seem happy.’
‘I am. Got a new sponsor today, so I’m back in business for the new season.’
‘Very nice.’
The barman lined up Graham’s drinks and I helped him carry them through the crowd.
‘I’ve got some news,’ I said, more than a little conspiratorially, but Graham failed to pick up on my tone. He seemed to be riding a beer haze.