Hot Seat (25 page)

That was about as risk free as tonight's adventure was going to get.

‘Does anyone suspect you?'

Dylan grinned and flung his arms wide. ‘You're joking, aren't you? I'm the flavour of the month. They love me here.'

The plan had worked. Dylan's role was to play the over-eager apprentice. In an effort to suck up knowledge, he'd asked to stay late so he could get the jump on the next day. Nevin had warmed to Dylan's enthusiasm and assigned him tasks to do after hours. Dylan had been working until nine on a regular basis for over a week now.

‘They haven't seen anyone as dedicated as me since Jason,' Dylan said.

The significance of what Dylan had said hit us all hard and Dylan's grin withered.

‘How do you want to do this, Steve?'

‘A quick metallurgy test,' he said and produced a magnet.

I immediately got it and I smiled at my grandfather's simple brilliance, but Dylan looked confused.

Steve went up to Haulk's car and put the magnet next to the door panel, where it stuck tight. If Rags had wanted to lighten the cars, getting the bodywork reproduced in aluminium would be a great way of doing it. Once the paint was on, who'd know the difference?

‘You wily old git,' Dylan said.

‘Wily, yes. Old, no.'

Steve brought out a couple of other magnets and tossed them to Dylan and me. We ran them over every body panel on both cars. Everything that was supposed to be steel was steel. Round one went to Rags.

‘OK, it's time to get out our measuring sticks,' Steve said. ‘Aidy, put a car on the lift.'

I fired up my racecar and manoeuvred it on to a hydraulic lift and raised it up. It wouldn't be hard to manufacture wishbones that gave the car a couple of inches more width. It might not seem like much, but motor racing is a sport of degrees. A slight edge is all that's needed to get ahead and stay there. If Rags had made a couple of illegal tweaks that gained his cars half a second a lap, that would equate to fifteen seconds over a thirty lap sprint race. Depending on lap speeds, a fifteen-second lead could work out to be between a quarter to a half-mile lead. That's quite a cushion to have during a race. We measured the track, the wheelbase and the location of the suspension pickups. Everything conformed with the measurements on the design drawings. The story was the same with Haulk's car.

‘Rags is playing it straight,' Dylan said.

‘So far, he is,' Steve corrected. ‘Now for the big test: let's check their power.'

You could make a car go faster a million different ways, but the number one method was to add more power. Things in the ESCC were very controlled. To keep the racing close, the engines were limited to three hundred brake horsepower and were sealed with a metal tab to prevent tampering. If someone removed the cylinder head, they'd have to break the seal. ESCC scruntineers inspected the seals before and after each race. It was as foolproof a system as humanly possible, but the human element was always the weakest link. If Rags had bribed or coerced the right people, he could get his hands on his own supply of ESCC seals and replace them at will. For what it was worth, I checked the ESCC seals and they showed no signs of tampering.

I brought Haulk's car around to the rolling road in the workshop. A rolling road is like a treadmill for cars. The driving wheels drop on to a set of rollers so the car can drive as fast as necessary and not travel an inch. In the meantime, a computer records everything from its speed and power output to its star sign. Steve and Dylan removed the plates covering the rollers and I dropped the car into place. I waited while Steve hooked the engine up to the computer and Dylan hooked an extraction hose to the exhaust. When Steve flashed me a thumbs-up, I pressed down on the accelerator. The car climbed up the rollers as its front wheels spun faster and faster. The whine of the engine was deafening in the enclosed workshop. Unfortunately, we weren't in a position to open the doors to let the sound out.

‘More gas,' Steve said and I pressed down on the accelerator even harder.

It was disconcerting to see the digital readout in front of me state I was travelling at the equivalent of a hundred miles an hour while the car was stationary. If the car jumped out of the rollers, it would fly straight into the brick wall in front of me.

Steve waved his hand under his chin in a throat-cutting gesture. ‘Kill it and bring me the other one.'

The result after two nerve-racking runs on the rolling road was that both cars produced the regulation three hundred break horsepower.

‘It appears that Russell Townsend is talking a lot of bollocks,' Dylan said.

I was finding it hard to disagree. Townsend's belief that Rags was cheating was turning out to be nothing more than sour grapes. I'd already had my fill of that with Chloe Mercer bitching about my unworthiness.

Our discoveries pleased me, because Ragged wasn't cheating, but the downside of the cars being straight was that I didn't have a motive for Jason's murder.

‘So far, we've just eliminated the obvious,' Steve said. ‘Now it's time to see if Rags has indulged in some creative thinking.'

We spent the next hour examining the cars, checking everything against the design specifications and championship regulations. The cars checked out in every respect. They were straight.

‘Er, I think we've got a problem,' Dylan said.

He had Haulk's car up on Steve's portable scales.

‘This car is heavy.'

‘How heavy?' Steve said.

‘Close to forty kilos heavy.'

I was expecting an underweight car, not an overweight one. ‘That can't be right.'

‘Come double-check it.'

Steve and I helped Dylan reweigh the car. He was right. Haulk's car was forty-one kilos heavier than it should be. We weighed mine and found it to be thirty-eight kilos overweight.

‘Are we living in Bizarro world where heavier cars go faster than light ones?' Dylan asked.

‘Nope,' Steve said.

We combed the cars for a source of the additional weight and didn't find it. There was no way of hiding it inside the cars because the interior and seats had been removed. My thought was it was sealed up in the bulkheads but without cutting those open, there was no way of knowing. Dylan found the source when he removed a wheel from my car to check under a wheel arch. The wheel slipped from his grasp, but failed to bounce.

‘Be careful,' Steve said, offering Dylan his hand.

‘It's the wheel. It weighs a ton.'

‘Someone needs to work out a little harder in the gym,' I said.

‘OK, Mr Muscles, you pick it up.'

I chased after the wheel, which was still rolling drunkenly towards the workshop door like it was trying to escape. I stopped its progress with my foot and lifted it. It was heavier than I expected. I remembered the flat bounce when Dylan had dropped it, so I dropped it again. There was little bounce to the wheel.

I rolled it back to the car. I heard a rubbing sound as it rolled.

‘There's definitely something up with this wheel,' I said.

Steve grabbed it and popped the tyre off one side of the rim. It should have been loose on the rim now, but something inside the wheel was keeping it in place.

‘There's something inside this tyre,' Steve said.

Steve and Dylan were both big men with big hands. I was the little guy who bought women's socks because they fit my size-six feet better. Steve and Dylan held back the edge of the tyre from the wheel rim and I slipped my hand inside. My stomach turned when I touched one of what had to be dozens of plastic bags from the feel of them. I grabbed one and pulled it out. It was a package of white powder. I had an uneasy sense of déjà vu taking me all the way back to a Belgian police station.

I pulled out my mobile and dialled Claudia's number. She answered on the third ring despite it being after midnight.

‘Claudia, we have a problem.'

I
met with Claudia and Barrington the following morning at the Holiday Inn next to Heathrow Airport. The room overlooked the airport road and the drone of passing cars penetrated the windows. There was coffee and a collection of notepads on a circular table, with an empty chair for me. The whole affair came over more like a sales-rep meeting than a clandestine meeting for HM Customs. It made me wonder how big an operation Barrington was running. It seemed pretty small-time, but it could be the iceberg approach, where I got to see the tip and nothing more.

Claudia brought out a digital recorder and placed it at the centre of the table. ‘Tell us everything you discovered last night.'

I outlined every detail. Barrington hung on my every word. For once, he didn't mock me or exert his power. I guessed I was being useful to him.

‘Now you're sure it was drugs inside those tyres?' Barrington asked after I was finished.

‘As sure as I can be,' I said. ‘The tyres were packed with bags of white powder.'

‘Didn't you open one?'

‘No way. I wasn't touching that stuff. And I wouldn't know cocaine from caster sugar.'

‘It better not be caster sugar.'

‘Who packs tyres with caster sugar?'

That silenced Barrington.

‘Hiding the coke in the tyres is genius,' he said. ‘I have to give the crafty bugger that. There's no chopping the car up or hidden panels and the drugs come gift wrapped in an easy to transport package. They're hidden in plain sight. There are dozens of wheels and tyres flying around, so everyone is going to ignore them.'

‘I bet these loaded wheels get put on at the end of the race and taken off when the cars are back at the workshop,' I said.

‘Have you seen anyone take the tyres?' Claudia asked.

‘Probably, but I haven't been paying attention.'

‘Who's responsible for changing them?' Barrington asked.

‘No one special. All the guys are capable, from Rags on down, but Dylan's part of the furniture now and he hasn't seen anyone acting shady when it comes to the tyres. Which isn't surprising.'

‘What makes you say that?' Claudia asked.

‘If all the guys were involved, they'd either be cutting Dylan in or excluding him. Whoever's switching wheels must be doing this after hours when no one is watching.'

Barrington got up from his chair and paced up and down in front of the window. He flicked his thumbnail against his index finger as he paced. I thought I heard the gears turning.

‘We could go in now,' Claudia suggested. ‘We'd have enough to bury Rags. He'd give up his connections for a deal.'

Barrington turned his back on the mundane view. ‘No, I don't want the mule, I want the network. I don't want to risk Rags not talking.'

‘He'll talk,' Claudia said.

‘I'm not so sure,' I said. ‘Rags isn't a pushover.'

‘I agree,' Barrington said. ‘You say the wheels with the drugs in them are on the cars?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Where are the cars going?'

‘We're testing at Zandvoort in Holland next Wednesday.'

‘Why Zandvoort?' Claudia said. ‘The ESCC has no scheduled race there.'

‘I know.'

‘Then why?'

‘After catching a rival spying, Rags says he wants to test somewhere with a little privacy. Kurt Haulk has connections at the circuit and got us in.'

Claudia and Barrington looked at each other.

‘So let me get this straight. Ragged Racing will be travelling to mainland Europe with almost a hundred kilos of cocaine to a secluded place where you have no business being,' Barrington said.

‘Pretty much.'

‘You want to catch them during the exchange?' Claudia asked.

Barrington grinned. ‘Oh, yes.'

My emotions got stuck between floors. I'd be happy if Barrington wrapped up his investigation on Wednesday because it would mean our association was at an end, but so would my time with Ragged Racing. I'd told Russell Townsend I wouldn't torpedo my drive for him, but it looked as if I'd be doing that for Barrington.

I drove back to Archway to fill Steve in on the next phase. Instead of finding him hard at work, I came back to find half a dozen police cars and a police van filling the parking area. My stomach sank. This was it. Sergeant Lucas was finally here to arrest me. The heavy police presence seemed like overkill, but I supposed he was still pissed off over the van theft. I stopped the Honda behind a cop car, blocking it in.

I climbed out and a uniformed officer came rushing at me with hands out.

‘You can't go in.'

‘I think I'm the person Sergeant Lucas is expecting.'

The cop gave me a confused look. ‘Wait here.'

He disappeared inside Archway and a moment later, Steve and DI Huston emerged. Her presence confused me.

Steve broke away from her and got to me first. ‘It's going to be OK,' he whispered.

‘What did he say?' Huston demanded.

‘He told me it was going to be OK. What's going on?' I asked.

‘We've been led to believe that you're in possession of the weapon used to kill Jason Gates, Mr Westlake.'

‘What are you talking about? Is this is a joke?'

‘No joke. Please come with me. I'd like you to explain this.'

I looked to Steve for answers. He just shook his head in bewilderment.

We followed her back into the workshop where half a dozen officers were ransacking tool cabinets and emptying toolboxes. Others were pawing over the cars Steve was restoring for Gates. It was like watching wild dogs tearing apart a defenceless animal.

‘I'm so sorry,' I said to Steve.

‘I'd like your opinion on this,' Huston said and pointed at the situation room.

I groaned.

She stopped in the doorway where a couple of officers were removing the whiteboards, using Steve's tools. ‘What are these?'

‘What do they look like?'