Road Kill

Nine

I sat on a paint-splattered chair in the middle of Gleet’s workshop, shaky hands wrapped round a mug of tea so sweet I could feel my teeth loosening with every mouthful.

“Get that down yer neck,” Gleet’s sister said with gruff approval. “Do you the world of good.” Close to she was a hulking woman, so near a match in build to her brother that if I hadn’t seen them both together at the same time I’d suspect it was one person in drag. She’d put on a dirty green waterproof jacket in deference to the rain. It was ripped in places and tied round the middle with bailer twine.

I smiled at her, though it had no obvious effect. “Thank you,” I said, heartfelt, and meant not just for the tea.

I didn’t need to say anything else. I got the impression words embarrassed her and, just in case I was planning on coming out with any more, she nodded sharply and stamped out of the workshop, rolling her gait to compensate for her knackered knees.

She’d hustled me inside the moment the Transit had gone, with an angry instruction to her brother and the others to stop gawping and do something useful. I’d spotted Sam hovering anxiously on the outskirts of the crowd and fractionally shaken my head. He’d hesitated, torn, then nodded his agreement and withdrawn. No point in him revealing his allegiances and getting chucked out, too. Particularly not when that van was still on the loose.

For a moment I sat alone in silence, waiting for my system to reboot. The realisation of what had so nearly happened, coupled with the memory of what had actually happened to Clare and Slick, was stark in my mind. The adrenaline was dissipating, leaving me trembly and lightheaded.

I’d got away with it. But only just.

I concentrated on my surroundings. The workshop was in half of the big barn, partitioned off with slatted planks at one side. There was probably a hayloft above and someone had lined the ceiling with pegboard that was sagging in places and had come down altogether in others. Above it were layers of black plastic and what looked like sheep fleeces. Insulation, I guessed. Even allowing for the stone barn’s natural thermal qualities, it must be bitter working out here in the winter.

The place was full of bikes and bits of bikes. It smelt of oil and paint and thinners and, very faintly, of sweet meadow hay. A partially completed bike frame stood on a low bench in the centre, surrounded by off-cuts of tubing. A TIG welder was nearby. In the corner a small area had been closed off with sheets of heavy clear plastic to make a paint spray booth. It might all look a bit scruffy but the tools on show were good quality and Gleet clearly knew what he was doing with them.

I got to my feet and did a quick circuit while I finished my tea, walking the wobbles out of my legs. At the back, behind a huge Snap-On tool chest, were piles of dead bikes and engines, stacked one on top of another. Either discarded parts of Gleet’s old projects, or future ones he hadn’t got around to starting yet.

It was darker back there, the light from the bank of fluoro tubes strung across the ceiling hardly penetrating. I stuck my head round the tool box and peered into the gloom, reluctant to venture much further in case of rats. I shuddered. Why did I have to go thinking about rats?

Then something caught my eye. A little flash of colour among the oil stains and the grime. I glanced behind me but the door to the workshop was still closed, so I dumped my empty mug on top of the tool box and stepped over a cracked crankcase, bending to pick up what I’d seen.

It was a small piece of broken fairing, not quite the size of my hand and jagged at the edges. It was dull white on one side but sprayed partly metallic blue, partly gold on the other. Distinctive colours that were instantly recognisable.

Slick’s bike.

I was so caught up in my discovery that I didn’t immediately hear the growling.

It started low and quiet over to my right, building until it sounded like a diesel engine running. A big diesel engine at that. I slipped the piece of broken fairing inside my jacket but kept the rest of my body very still, turning my head slowly to find a pair of wide-spaced eyes glowing at me from the dark, less than a couple of metres away.

The dog was massive. I didn’t realise just how big until it stood up. Up until that point I’d thought it was already on its feet. I began to back away, moving carefully, not straightening up in case the animal took me as more of a threat than it did already.

I kept moving backwards until I was just about in the centre of the workshop. The dog followed me out, head low, hackles up, still growling. As it came out into the light I could see it was a Rottweiler bitch wearing a chain collar around its enormous neck. She moved with amazing delicacy for her bulk, hinting at speed and agility as well as sheer muscle. The eyes gleamed with a shifty intelligence.

I backed past the partly constructed frame and snatched up a section of tubing, just in case. The dog shook its head just once, jangling the collar, as if to tell me that such a puny weapon wasn’t going to do me much good.

Behind me, the main door opened suddenly. I half turned so I could still keep my eye on the Rottweiler as Gleet stepped through. He stopped, saw me poised to take on his guard dog and almost smiled. Just for a moment it crossed my mind that he wasn’t going to call her off, then he clicked his fingers.

It was like he’d flicked a switch. The dog forgot all about me and trotted over to his side, butting against his thigh with her mammoth flat skull.

“I see you’ve met my Queenie,” he said, leaning down to ruffle her ears. The dog squeezed her eyes shut and yawned in pleasure, leaning against him. Even Gleet had to brace himself to take her weight.

I slowly put down the tubing and allowed myself to uncoil.

“We were just getting acquainted.”

“There’s no harm in her,” Gleet said, “if you don’t cause no trouble, like.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said dryly.

Gleet gave a grunt in reply and pushed the door all the way open. The dog sat down where she was and watched me carefully, just in case, barely turning her head as William and the tall Aprilia rider in the race-replica leathers half-pushed, half-dragged the remains of my bike into the workshop.

The gallant little Suzuki was looking pretty sorry for itself. Ignoring Queenie I hurried across for a closer look. The left-hand side of the fairing was wrecked, half of the clutch lever was broken off and one mirror was dangling. The whole of the plastic bodywork around the rear lights was smashed away, too. But that hadn’t happened out in the yard.

“It’s stuck in gear,” William said, waving a hand towards the locked-up rear wheel. “The gear-lever must have snapped off when you hit the wall.”

“Shit,” I muttered. Until then I’d fostered the vain hope that the Suzuki might still be rideable.

Gleet leaned across the seat and had a look. “Give me five minutes and I’ll cobble you something together,” he said, brusque. “It’ll get you home, if nothing else.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised. Expressing my gratitude to his family was getting to be a habit, so while I was at it I added, “Your sister’s a bit handy with that crossbow.”

Gleet shrugged as he wheeled the welder over. “Yeah, well. They took away her shotgun licence,” he said, like that explained it.

He moved around the workshop, rooting through a box of spare bits for some square-section tubing he could graft on, then choosing clamps to hold it in place while he tacked it all together.

Meantime, I was aware of the scrutiny from the tall biker I’d seen with William and Paxo earlier.

“So you’re Charlie Fox,” he said. He had a soft voice that seemed given easily to mockery.

I didn’t reply to that one. There wasn’t much I could say other than to agree with him.

He flicked his eyes to the bike, then back to me. They were very blue, and intense with it. “Somebody doesn’t like you, Charlie,” he said.

“Hmm,” I said, thinking of my earlier ejection, “I get a lot of that.”

He almost smiled. “So who have you been upsetting?” he asked. “Or do you just have a confrontational personality?”

“Well, look on the bright side,” I threw back, reckless. “I haven’t hit you yet.”

William’s face creased into a big smile. “I like this girl,” he said.

The other biker glanced across at him, frowning. “Yes, but that’s no reason,” he said, cryptic.

“True,” William agreed gravely.

I didn’t ask what they were discussing and they didn’t seem inclined to expand. At that moment the workshop door opened again and Paxo walked in. He took his helmet off and shook himself like a dog, scattering water off his leathers in all directions. Even his normally spiky hair looked bedraggled.

“Pigging weather! There’s no sign of him, Daz,” he said to the tall biker. “We’ve been a few miles in every direction but he’s long gone.”

“Never mind,” Daz said. “Perhaps it’s just as well.”

“Considering it’s probably the same van that went after your mate Slick, I don’t think chasing after it on bikes was a good idea to start with, do you?” I said mildly. “What were you planning on doing if you caught up with it, anyway?”

Paxo scowled at me, but Daz silenced whatever snappy comment he’d been about to make with a single look.

“We don’t know who was chasing you,” he said carefully, “and we don’t know what hit Slick, either – or why. It could just be one of those freak accidents and freak coincidences.”

“Come off it,” I said, letting the frustration show through. “What was Slick up to the day he died, Daz? If he was racing then why the hell was he doing it with a pillion passenger? You running a handicap system all of a sudden?”

“Of course not.” Daz’s eyes flicked in the direction of the others as he hurried to cover the slip. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“Of course you don’t,” I agreed tiredly. “Funny that, when it’s not exactly a secret that the Devil’s Bridge Club have been road racing up and down the Lune valley all year. Are you planning on disbanding now that Slick’s dead, or are you just going to wait until the cops catch up with you?”

Daz looked startled for a moment, then he took a deep breath, letting it out down his nose. The silence was broken by Gleet belting something with a lump hammer on the far side of my bike. I thought of the Suzuki’s delicate aluminium alloy engine and tried not to wince.

“Slick wasn’t supposed to be doing anything on Sunday,” Daz said when Gleet stopped hammering. He spoke with low precision, like he was speaking through tightly clenched teeth. “He was just picking up your friend and bringing her along to Devil’s Bridge, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Daz opened his mouth, frowned sharply and closed it again. “I don’t know,” he said, too quickly. He gave me a slightly cold-edged smile. “Maybe he got lucky.”

I mentally ducked under the jibe and kept coming. “I don’t think so. Why was he knocked off?”

“Hell, I don’t know!” he tossed back. “That’s what William and Paxo were trying to find out when they came to the hospital, wasn’t it? And it could just have been an accident. Who says it was deliberate?”

“I would have thought tonight proves it wasn’t.” I nodded to where Gleet was fiddling with my bike. “Besides, I spoke to Clare just before she went into theatre,” I said, not adding that she’d since changed her mind. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with this Irish trip Slick was running, would it?”

Gleet chose that moment to strike an arc on the other side of the Suzuki. The workshop was abruptly bathed in an intense blue-white light. So it might have been my imagination or something bright and quick might really have flashed across behind Daz’s eyes.

He and William and Paxo had tensed, I saw, and that had nothing to do with the welding process going on nearby. Daz’s face closed down. He moved in, got right in my face and loomed over me.

“You want to back up a little, Charlie, and look at this from another direction,” he said tightly. “What makes you think that Slick was the target, huh? It could have been your mate who was the one they were after and Slick just got in the way.” He stepped back and delivered his parting shot. “And I’d watch my step if I were you, Charlie, because it looks like you’re next.”