Hot Seat (7 page)

‘Don't prang that car on your first day,' Nevin said over my headset.

‘It's not a real racecar if it doesn't have some dents.'

A glint of something caught my eye. Off in the field, someone was watching us with binoculars. It could be just a race fan, but a spy wasn't out of the question. Rags was top dog and naturally other teams would be interested in his progress.

‘C'mon, get your arse in gear,' Nevin said.

I grabbed first and stamped on the accelerator. ‘Hey, we've got a spy out by the Bentley Straight.'

‘What?'

‘There's a guy with binoculars watching us.'

‘Don't spook him. Keep driving.'

I did as I was told. I kept racing. Every time I came around, I checked for the spy. He was there for the next two laps. On the third time around, I saw three of my pit crew manhandling him into Rags' Mercedes.

Rags called us in a lap later. I brought my car to a halt in front of my pit garage. I couldn't park it inside because Rags had the spy suspended from a mobile engine hoist with his hands duct taped together. His feet dangled a clear six inches above the ground.

‘Boys, you've arrived just in time,' Rags said to Haulk and me. ‘Do you know who we have here? Nick Ronson, a grease monkey from Townsend Motorsport.'

And a grease monkey from the same team as Jason Gates. Maybe I was looking at a motor-racing espionage angle here.

‘I don't like spies,' Rags said, then drove a fist into Ronson's stomach. Ronson folded up and swung like a heavy bag. ‘Tell Russell Townsend that if he wants to know what I do, come ask me and if he wants to know how to beat my cars, be more inventive. Am I clear?'

Ronson coughed, then nodded.

‘I can't hear you,' Rags said and drew back his fist.

I grabbed his wrist. ‘I think he got the message.'

Rags whirled around on me. ‘This is my team. I'll decide when he's had enough. Not you. All right?'

‘Yeah. I just don't want anyone getting hurt.'

‘Listen, son, this tosser is getting off light. If the tables were turned, my guy would be coming back with broken fingers. Cut him down and everyone get the hell out of here.'

Rags walked off in disgust.

Nevin dragged me out of the garage by the bicep. ‘Don't do that again,' he said. ‘He makes the rules and we follow them.'

One of the techs tried handing Rags a pile of printouts, but Rags just knocked them away, sending them scattering to the ground.

‘You're in the big leagues now, Aidy,' Nevin said. ‘We play fair, but we play serious. Take that home as today's lesson.'

T
he crew worked in silence as they loaded the racecars on to the transporter. I gave them the space they needed to work and went to change. As I wriggled out of my overalls, I watched Nick Ronson trudge across the paddock. Rags emerged from the pits and climbed into his Mercedes. He churned up mud as he pulled away.

‘Oh, shit,' I murmured.

Rags was cutting across the paddock straight for Ronson. My heart skipped as I imagined him mowing Ronson down. Instead, he dropped two wheels off the paddock road and sprayed Ronson with dirt as he passed.

Rags had proved he wasn't someone to be messed with.

Considering the sombre mood that had descended over the team, I got into my car and left without saying my goodbyes. I followed the paddock road and crossed over the bridge that separated the paddock from the spectators. On the other side of the bridge, I found Ronson. If he and Jason had been working together, then he'd have a pretty good idea of what got Jason killed. I pulled up next to him and powered down my window.

‘Need a lift?'

‘Piss off.'

I frowned. I should have expected that reply. ‘Do yourself a favour, swallow your pride and get in the sodding car.'

‘Bollocks,' Ronson mumbled to himself and got in.

‘Where are you parked?'

He pointed at a field used for spectator parking that ran along the newly renamed Bentley straight. A lone car, a Honda Civic hatchback, sat at the end. As a spy, my passenger was no genius at the art of concealment. I drove across the field, bumping over the damp, uneven surface.

‘Nick, right?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Aidy Westlake. I hope Rags didn't hurt you too much.'

Ronson rubbed at his wrists where the tape had burned them. ‘I've had worse.'

I pulled up next to his car. ‘Who sent you – Russell Townsend?'

Ronson sneered at me. ‘Thanks for the ride, but that's as far as my gratitude stretches.'

He reached for the door and I hit the central locking button, locking us in.

He whirled on me. ‘You want to take your shot at me? Give it a go and we'll see how far you get.'

I raised my hands in surrender. ‘I just want to know why you're here. It doesn't go any further.'

I unlocked the doors. Ronson made no move to leave.

‘You found Jason?'

I nodded.

‘Did you see who did it?'

‘No, but I think I heard the killer running away.'

‘Did Jason say anything to you?'

‘Hey, I'm the one questioning you. Not the other way around. Now, who sent you?'

‘No one sent me. I came on my own.'

‘Why?'

‘Why do you think? I want to know which one of you fuckers killed Jason.'

‘You think one of us did it?'

‘Stands to reason, doesn't it? Jason was killed next to your transporter.'

‘Yeah, but what was he doing hanging around our truck in the first place – spying, stealing?'

‘Fuck you. Jason wasn't like that. Not everyone is a cheat.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Take a look at your team. There's something very wrong there.' Ronson pointed at the Ragged Racing fleet of transporters and support vehicles heading towards the exit. ‘What's wrong with that picture?'

I shrugged.

‘Sponsorship.'

‘We've got sponsorship.'

‘Not enough to explain the amount your team is spending.'

‘How do you know?'

‘You lot have just rented Snetterton to yourself for the day and you do it all the time. Every square inch of your cars should be covered with sponsors' logos to cover those running costs, so something bent is going on.'

Ronson had a point. The surface of a racecar was advertising real estate. Some locations were better than others and to get into those good neighbourhoods, you had to pay. Getting your company's name or product splashed down the side of the car cost more than it did on the back bumper.

I watched Ragged's transporters go by with the outline of the cars painted on the sides. Rags' major sponsor was a men's antiperspirant. Their sponsorship cash got them the rear door and quarter panel, boot lid and bumper.
Pit Lane
magazine had the front bumper and the Honda symbol covered the bonnet. I guessed that there was around a hundred thousand pounds in unused ad space on each car. Compared to the rest of the field, Ragged Racing looked like the poor relation. Ronson was right. The team shouldn't have been in a position to be so lavish with its spending.

‘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.