Did Not Finish

Lap Eleven

‘We are so out of this,’ Dylan said. ‘We are so fucking out of this. Shotguns, Steve. They had shotguns. They weren’t for show. One word from Derek and we would have been dead. No ifs, ands or buts. Dead.’

Being held at gunpoint had been a sobering event for me, but not for Dylan. In the hours since the hijacking, he’d been storming up and down the workshop, bouncing off the walls and workbenches like a pinball reliving Derek’s roadside detour. I made no attempt to calm him. This was his way of dealing with the situation.

Steve had ignited Dylan the moment we got back to Archway when he asked, ‘How’d it go?’ Any chances of a calm and collected explanation went out the window.

Like me, Steve let Dylan rant. He wasn’t interested in an account from Dylan. He was waiting to hear it from me.

When Dylan finally ran out of steam, Steve asked, ‘You done?’

‘No, I’m not done.’

‘Well, I say you are. Take your foot off the throttle and get over here. I want to know what happened.’

Steve and I were standing around Graham Hill’s 1967 F1 Lotus. Steve was restoring it for ridiculous money for a collector in America. Dylan muttered something under his breath and trudged over to us.

‘Right, then,’ Steve said. ‘What happened?’

‘Someone took Alex’s car,’ I said.

‘Tell him what happened after that,’ Dylan chimed in. ‘That wasn’t the bad part.’

‘I get that,’ Steve said.

‘Will you let me finish?’ I said to Dylan.

Dylan put his hands in the air in surrender.

I filled Steve in. Dylan chipped in whenever I attempted to play down any part of our roadside encounter.

When I finished, Steve blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. ‘What do you want to do now?’

It was a damn good question. I’d attempted to come up with some information quietly in order to help kick start the police investigation, but somehow my actions had gotten loud and drawn too many people’s attention. People were shutting me out and I didn’t even have the luxury of the police to run to for help. I was pretty much buggered. Trying to do the right thing had thrust me into dangerous waters that were washing me down river, far from safety.

‘I can’t let this drop. Derek’s stunt has given me even more reason to keep pushing. I’m getting close to an answer. I have to be, or Derek wouldn’t be trying to shut me down.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Dylan said. ‘You’re going to get yourself killed and us with you. I’d be safer working on a ten-storey building in a gale than playing detective with you.’

‘Alex was murdered. Are you OK with that?’

‘Aidy, he could have killed us in that field,’ Dylan shouted.

‘But he didn’t.’

‘And that was our lucky break. I think we should embrace it and forget all about this,’ Dylan said.

Steve called our bickering to an end when he pushed himself off the workbench he’d been leaning against and stepped in between us. ‘OK. That’s enough. Cool it. The both of you.’ He turned to Dylan. ‘You’re panicking. You’ve got every right.’

‘Damn right, I’m panicking. Aidy, you weren’t stuck in that van with that animal. He played with the trigger to experiment with how much pressure it would take to fire the gun. A squeeze too hard and I was dead, Aidy.’

‘Enough,’ Steve barked.

Dylan sucked in a deep breath and released it. It slid from him in an untidy exhale. He crossed his arms tight across his chest and jammed his hands under his armpits.

‘The two of you had a frightening experience, but it’s over,’ Steve said. ‘You’re safe now. Nothing can erase what has happened, but we need to move on.’ Steve aimed his gaze directly at me. ‘Are you sure about this? You want to continue?’

‘I’m sure. I’ll be damned if Derek will scare me off.’

Neither Dylan nor Steve showed any enthusiasm for my stance.

‘Look, I’m not asking for your help. I don’t want you getting hurt. I can do this alone,’ I said.

‘But you’d prefer help,’ Steve said.

‘Yes, I would.’

‘Then you have mine,’ Steve said.

Dylan spun the Lotus’s front wheel. ‘You’ve got mine too. I’d be a crappy friend if I didn’t stick by you.’

‘From now on, we work under the radar,’ Steve said. ‘We don’t give anyone a clue as to what we’re doing.’

‘It’ll force them to come out of the shadows,’ I said.

Steve smiled. ‘Good. Then it’ll force them into mistakes.’

I have to admit, Derek’s shotgun party had put me in a bit of a daze, but having Steve and Dylan say they were still with me brought me into sharp focus. I had direction and meaning again. I couldn’t help but smile. All that was happening to my little group should have been breaking us up, but it was bringing us closer together. The more Derek tried to hurt us, the tighter our bonds. I felt confident for once.

Finding out what happened to Alex’s car was my starting point. Derek had said to look outside of the racing community. That didn’t help. I couldn’t imagine who outside of the racing community would want the car. The cops? I didn’t think so. If Brennan had taken the car on Derek’s behalf, Derek wouldn’t have been trying to hijack it for himself. The best person to pry an answer from was Myles Beecham. All roads led back to him. I called him twice on Sunday and once on Monday morning, each time getting voicemail. Obviously, he wasn’t getting back to me until he was good and ready.

Myles rediscovered how to use the phone on Monday afternoon. He gave me a song and dance about why he’d been incommunicado, but I didn’t much care about his excuses. I just wanted to know where to find the car and who took it. Myles gave me an address where I could find it, but warned me I’d have some explaining to do.

‘To whom?’ I asked.

When he told me, the reason why the car had been taken made a whole lot more sense.

So that night, I drove out to Ashford on the edge of London. It’s a nice drive from Windsor along the Thames, past Runnymede and the JFK memorial. The light traffic and cool, still night left me feeling good about life. I had no real reason to feel this way after the events of the weekend, but I had the backing of my friends and family and I was on my way to collect Alex’s car.

I followed the A30, the main drag into London from the south-west. An airliner glided into Heathrow airport to my left as I reached the outskirts of Ashford. I turned off the A30 into a residential maze and followed the directions Myles had given me until I reached a quiet street of semi-detached houses. The sizeable houses were bunched together on either side of a narrow road filled with parked cars. The cramped conditions made everything look smaller than it really was. I parked on the street a few houses away from the address Myles had given to me.

I picked up my mobile and called Steve. I wasn’t to go anywhere alone, but this was an exception considering who I was meeting.

‘Everything OK?’ Steve asked.

‘Yeah. No problems. I’ve arrived and I’m just going in.’

‘Call me as soon as you’re finished.’

‘Will do,’ I said.

After hanging up, I went up to the door and rang the doorbell. Alison answered.

‘Come in,’ she said and led me along a long hallway into the kitchen. ‘I was making coffee. Want some?’

I said yes instead of asking why she’d taken Alex’s car.

The kitchen was filled with the scent of a warm dinner being eaten. I liked the way the heat and smell wrapped itself around me. I sat at the dining table and watched Alison make the coffee. She wore jeans and a tee shirt, but they looked like so much more on her. She sat opposite me and slid a coffee mug over to me.

‘I thought you lived in London,’ I said.

‘I do, but I don’t have a garage at my flat. This is my parents’ place.’

We were alone in the house. ‘Where are your parents?’

‘Out. Giving us space to talk.’

‘About what?’

‘About what you’re doing.’

Myles had said I’d have some explaining to do, but I wasn’t the only one. ‘Why’d you take Alex’s car?’ I asked.

‘For protection.’

‘Whose?’

‘Alex’s.’

Her gaze was unflinching. Her eyes were the colour of storm clouds and shone bright under the kitchen lights.

‘I’m not trying to hurt Alex or disgrace his memory.’

‘How do I know that? I don’t know you at all. And as far as I can tell, neither did Alex. So, I’m confused. You’re taking a lot of interest in Alex’s death and I don’t understand why.’

‘I told you at the railway station.’

‘Yes, you did. You think Derek killed Alex.’

‘Don’t you?’

She was silent for a moment. The tough façade she was putting on cracked under the pressure of the belief we both shared.

‘What are you hoping to get out of all this, Aidy? Your fifteen minutes? Your name in lights? A leg up in your racing career? Or are you trying to settle a score with Derek? Tell me.’

The remarks hurt, but she was hurting. She was striking out at the world for an injustice and I made a convenient target. I was going to have to take some body blows if I wanted Alex’s car. I thought I’d made an ally in the railway car park, not an enemy. I felt my grip on Alex’s car slip. ‘I think you’re being unfair.’

‘Am I? I don’t know, but I’m willing to listen. Explain to me why you’re sticking your neck out for a person you hardly knew.’

‘I just want to prove Alex was killed. That’s all.’

‘So you’re on this crusade for justice?’

‘I wouldn’t call it a crusade.’

‘Have you considered the damage your actions will have on the people who really knew Alex? Eric and Laura want to move on. You’re not helping.’

‘They only want to move on because they believe his death was accidental. Don’t you think their attitude would change if they believed otherwise? You think Derek killed Alex. Do you just want to move on? Are you willing to let Derek go unpunished?’

She was silent for several moments. I’d gone too far and I regretted the remark.

‘Alex meant the world to me. I want to remember him for who he was and not for the bad aftertaste left by others. If I asked you to drop it, would you?’

The incident with Derek in the field filled my head. ‘No, I don’t think I can. It’s gone too far for that.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The investigating officer in Alex’s death is friends with Derek.’

Her eyes went wide and the hard as nails act collapsed. ‘What?’

‘When I tried to talk to him, I found him drinking with Derek. Then, on Saturday, when I went to Stowe Park to collect Alex’s car, Derek forced me into a field at gunpoint and told me to stay out of his business, or else.’

‘My God,’ she said.

‘People are doing their damnedest to prevent Alex’s murder from coming to light. I can’t let that happen.’

‘And where does Alex’s car fit into all this? Please don’t tell me you just want it so that it can’t be raced again, because I don’t believe you. You don’t get the car until I get a truthful answer.’

‘It’s evidence. I think the car could prove how Derek killed Alex. I’ve taken photographs of the crash site and, in combination with Alex’s car, they’ll paint a picture. It’ll reopen the investigation.’

She stared at me. I didn’t flinch from her gaze. I wanted her to see I was speaking the truth.

‘No one asked you to get involved.’ There was no malice or accusation in her remark.

‘No, they didn’t.’

‘Then why do it?’

‘It was the right thing to do. If any of us at The Chequered Flag that night had stepped in, Alex would be alive.’

‘You honestly believe that?’

‘I do.’

‘OK, then I want to show you something. Hold on a second.’ She left the table and returned a few moments later with a framed photo. She placed it before me. I expected it to be of Alex. It wasn’t. It was of a girl in her early twenties. She looked like Alison, but it wasn’t her. The hairstyle dated the picture back to the nineties.

‘That’s my sister, Jennifer. She died four years ago. I wish I could say she looked that happy when she died.’

‘How’d she die?’

‘Drug overdose.’ She picked up the frame to stare at the picture more closely. ‘Jen was Nick Jensen’s girlfriend. Do you know who he is?’

I did. Nick Jensen was a Brit Pop superstar for all of two albums in the late nineties. I had both in my CD collection. He would have gone on to bigger and greater things if he’d stayed off heroin. When the drugs sang louder than his lyrics, a string of arrests and trips to rehab followed. Incoherent live performances and well-publicized fights at sell-out gigs killed his career. He tried a comeback a few years back, but the fan base wasn’t there anymore.

‘Nick and Jen went to school with each other. If I’m being kind, she got hooked on drugs when he did. If I’m being honest, Nick got Jen hooked on drugs and got her killed because of it. Our family tried to help her, but she wasn’t interested. When Nick’s fame deserted him, Jen didn’t, but we deserted her. I understand loss and I understand guilt, just like you do. We could have done more. We should have done more. Sometimes, you have to accept you’re not God. You can’t save everyone.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’ I asked, still not sure that I could.

She shook her head. ‘No. If you can prove Derek killed Alex, do it. I just can’t help you. It’s too much for me.’

I nodded. ‘That’s OK.’

‘I want to stay informed, though.’

‘Sure.’

She smiled and raised her coffee mug. She was close to tears, but her determination kept them from spilling. I guessed she’d free them after I left. Her strength moved me. I smiled back and clinked coffee mugs with her.

‘Are you OK with answering some questions for me?’ I asked.

She sipped from her mug. ‘Ask away.’

‘Tough one first, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘Did you see the satellite TV footage of the crash?’

Her hands tensed around her coffee mug.

‘I hate to ask, but it was cut from the broadcast.’

‘No, I didn’t. Couldn’t. The TV people assured me there was nothing traumatic in their footage, but I couldn’t watch it knowing I was watching Alex’s last moments.’

‘Did anyone see the film? Your parents?’

‘Alex’s dad.’

‘Does he have a copy? I’m hoping the cameras caught the crash. That’ll prove whether Derek intentionally forced Alex off the track.’

Alison shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just want this to be over.’

‘I do too and it will be soon. I’m sorry about this. I just have a few more questions. Is that OK?’

She nodded.

‘I was told the satellite people destroyed the master recording by request. Any idea who asked for that?’

‘Why would the recording be destroyed?’

‘I’m guessing you didn’t request it, then.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Could Mr Fanning have requested it?’

‘I suppose, but I don’t know. I’ll ask him. But if the recording has been destroyed, there’s no way anyone can prove Derek killed Alex.’

‘Not quite. Redline wasn’t the only one to record the crash. Do you know Paul at Chicane Motorsport?’

Alison shook her head.

‘He records all the races and he captured the crash. He’s going to let me see his tape. The quality won’t be as good as the TV coverage, but I’m hoping it will be good enough for what I need.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

I’d pushed her to her limit for one night and I quickly finished up my coffee. ‘Can I see the car?’

Alison pulled out a set of keys from her pocket and put them on the table. ‘It’s in the garage. I can’t look at it.’

I nodded.

Alison picked up our mugs and took them to the sink. I took that as my signal. I walked out the back door and over to the detached garage towards the rear of the garden. I unlocked the doors and swung them open, then I flicked on the light. Alex’s crumpled car sat on a pair of sawhorses.

A set of headlights lit up the garage and me. I put a hand up to shield my eyes from the light. A car rolled down the long driveway next to the house and stopped a car length from me. Alison’s parents stepped into the light.

‘You’ve come to take the car?’ Mr Baker asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I’ll help you.’

‘I’ll check on Alison,’ Mrs Baker said.

Alison’s dad pulled his car back onto the street while I brought the van over. He guided me down the narrow driveway while I reversed the van up to the garage. A racecar isn’t that heavy in the scheme of things, but shifting the wreck was tough with just the two of us lifting. Having the car on sawhorses helped. It was at the perfect height for the van’s cargo bed. We slid the car off the sawhorses and manhandled it inside. We loaded the boxes of broken components and bodywork next. I wanted every scrap of the car so I could reconstruct it to prove what happened to it. Call it a crash post-mortem.

I closed up the van while Alison’s dad locked the garage. We stood in the red glow of the van’s taillights. I put out my hand to him.

‘Thanks for your help, Mr Baker.’

He glowered at me instead of taking my hand.

‘Now that you’ve got what you wanted, I’d appreciate it if you left my daughter alone. Is that clear?’

It was more than clear.