Hot Seat

Lap Twelve

I left Gates’ house in one piece. He’d just smirked at my threat. Crichlow hadn’t. Maybe he recognized the dangers of dealing with a cornered person.

As I drove back, I thought about Jason’s mobile phone. That phone held a lot of potential in its memory. Any pictures or video could explain a lot of things. If there were ever any calls between the killer and Jason, the phone log could also prove damaging.

I played over the possibilities as I drove back to Archway. The noise of the road and existing in the limbo between places always soothed me. No matter how big the problem, there was always a big enough road to solve it.

So where was Jason’s phone? Neither DI Huston nor Gates had it. The killer might have taken it after he’d cut Jason’s throat, but I had my doubts. There hadn’t been much time for searching Jason between the time his throat was cut and I found him. Another factor at play was the ransacking of Jason’s flat. If the killer had the phone, there would have been no reason to turn the place over. Of course, this was all dependent on the phone being valuable. Was that why his flat was ransacked? If Jason knew he was going to be attacked, he could have ditched it before the killer got to him. I thought about Jason pointing just before he died. I thought he’d been pointing in the direction of his killer. What if he was pointing at something else?

I left the car at Archway, then took the train into London and the tube over to Earls Court. While driving helped me think, driving into London didn’t. It was a bottlenecked fortress.

The exhibition centre was between events, so the place was closed. Without the hubbub, the monolithic building resembled a forgotten ruin. I slipped unnoticed into the parking area. Despite not having the rows of vehicles from that night to guide me, I located the spot where Jason had died. I could have found the place with my eyes closed. Some moments in time are indelible.

I stared down at the ground where I’d done what I could to save a dying man. Blood no longer provided an epitaph. It had either been removed by the Earls Court staff or washed away by the rain. I dropped to one knee and touched the asphalt. It was cold and unfeeling, like the murder itself.

I stretched out on the ground, positioned myself like Jason and pointed in the same direction that he had. I looked beyond the end of my arm for my aim to strike something. I hit nothing but the street beyond. That wouldn’t have been true the night of the murder. My aim would have struck vehicle after vehicle. I closed my eyes to bring that picture to my mind’s eye. Cars, vans and transporters appeared, but the vision failed to take on a definite outline. I remembered some of the landscape that night, but I couldn’t be certain about what had been parked where. If Jason had ditched his phone under someone’s car or truck, I wouldn’t know which one. Parking was first come first serve, so I couldn’t rely on assigned parking.

‘Bollocks,’ I said and opened my eyes.

I realized I’d been wrong about my assumption. I was pointing at something — just not something above ground.

I jumped to my feet and jogged over to the drain cover. It was one of many unassuming grates littered across the car park. I peered into its depths. The drain ended in a sediment trap filled with silt, leaves, rubbish and something resembling a phone.

‘Sorry it took me so long, Jason.’

I dropped to my knees and yanked on the grate, but the cast-iron cover failed to budge. It was welded in place with dirt and months of neglect. I heaved and felt muscles ping in my back. Each tear burned, but I kept pulling and received my reward. The grate slipped an inch, then another and another, finally popping up on its hinge.

I dropped on to my chest and reached down and pulled the phone from the soupy concoction of wet litter and dirt.

‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ a voice said from behind me.

I turned to find a security guard standing over me. I held up the dirt-covered phone.

‘I dropped my bloody phone, didn’t I?’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Couldn’t drop it on the ground. No, I had to drop it down the drain.’

For an on-the-spot cover story, I thought it was inspired. So inspiring, it immediately disarmed the guard’s suspicions. The crossed arms and stiff stance relaxed.

‘You should have gotten one of the crew to pop the grate. Look at you. You’re covered in crap.’

I didn’t care. I had Jason’s phone. ‘These things are too expensive to leave down there.’

‘If it’s been down there in that cesspool, I doubt it works.’

That was my fear. I pressed the on button. Nothing happened. ‘Shit.’

‘No joy?’

I shook my head.

‘Yeah, thought as much. Did you take the insurance option?’

‘No. No insurance.’

‘You should think about it. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who end up dropping their phones down the bog at this place.’

‘It could just be the battery. Any phone shops around?’

The guard named one.

I thanked him and headed for the street. I didn’t get ten feet before he called me back.

‘What were you doing here anyway?’

‘Taking a shortcut to the tube.’

‘Let that be an expensive lesson. In life, there are no shortcuts.’

Didn’t I know it.

As soon as I was out of sight of the guard, I opened up the phone and removed the battery. The phone wasn’t waterlogged, but droplets of water clung to the inside of the battery compartment. I did my best to dry it out with my shirt.

I found the phone shop and held up the component pieces to the guy behind the counter. ‘Can you help?’

Obviously I wasn’t the first person to drench a phone because Mick, according to his nametag, knew exactly what to do. He produced a hairdryer and ran it over the phone’s internals.

‘This doesn’t always work, but you never know. I suppose your life is in here.’

More than you know, I thought.

After five minutes of warming the phone into life, the shop guy installed a new battery. ‘Moment of truth,’ he said and pressed the on button.

The phone burst into life, but that was as far as it went. Either the keypad or the electronics were fried, because I couldn’t access any of the phone’s functions. I couldn’t even make a call.

So much for technology. Just like paper, once it got wet, it was ruined. It held the answers to why Jason was killed. I was convinced of that, but it was all gone, washed away by the rain. I couldn’t believe I was this close to the truth only to have Mother Nature destroy it for me.

‘Sometimes you get lucky,’ Mick said.

And sometimes you don’t, I thought.