I was well and truly buggered. I should be scared, but I just couldn’t summon up the emotion. Since finding Jason Gates’ body, I’d taken too many body blows from too many quarters to feel much of anything.
‘You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?’ I said.
Barrington grinned. ‘Just a humble civil servant doing his job.’
‘Nice. Why me?’
‘Ragged Racing is a tight unit. Everyone there has been part of the team for years. You’re the new boy. That makes you the only one I can trust.’
‘You could have just asked for my help.’
‘And would you have agreed?’
I was a second too slow to answer.
‘That’s why I needed a little leverage. I know it doesn’t seem fair, but it’s for the greater good and all that tosh.’
Cornered with no escape route, I conceded. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I have an undercover officer operating within the ESCC as we speak. Your instructions will come from that person. You won’t see me again if you do your job correctly.’
‘That’s something to be thankful for.’
Barrington belted out a laugh and gathered up everything he’d brought in with him. ‘So can I assume you’re on board?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Not really.’
Lap Eighteen
Barrington watched me get back into my car from the steps of the police station. My hands shook on the wheel. I was running on empty. I blamed that on a heady cocktail of fatigue and fear. The smart thing would be to find a hotel and crash for the night, but I didn’t feel safe here. I needed to get home.
I drove as far as the next town and pulled into a petrol station. Barrington had planted something on me once. Would he do it a second time? I wouldn’t put it past him. While I refuelled the Honda, I searched it, but didn’t find any other surprises. That gave me the confidence to keep going.
I crossed into France without any problems. In some ways, I hoped for problems. I’d take anything to get me out of this situation. Life was difficult enough with Andrew Gates cracking the whip for his aims. Now I had Barrington doing the same. Both demanded results and I got the feeling they didn’t care what happened to me in the process. Neither seemed like a good guy, despite one of them being on the right side of the law. I didn’t see how their investigations were connected, but Ragged Racing was the common denominator in both. I realized that getting to the truth meant I would have to go over the same ground as Jason had. Considering his fate, I needed an escape route. Maybe I should plead guilty to Lucas’ reckless-driving charges. I’d be no good to anyone locked up in jail, but it seemed to be the lesser of many evils.
It was late by the time I reached the terminal for the Channel Tunnel, but that meant no wait. Less than an hour later, I was back in Britain and it never felt so good to be on home soil.
The morning rush hour slowed my return to Windsor, so it was eight by the time I reached Archway. I was very shaky and needed sleep, but I needed help more. Steve and Dylan were already at work on Andrew Gates’ car collection. Dylan had his head under the bonnet of an MGA and Steve was up in the crow’s-nest.
‘Hey, it’s podium boy back from his travels!’ Dylan yelled across the workshop, more to Steve than to me.
Steve leaned on the crow’s-nest’s railing. ‘Good job, son. We were expecting you back later.’
‘Hey, you OK? You look like crap,’ Dylan said.
‘I’m in trouble.’
‘Yeah, we saw the interview,’ Dylan said. ‘It’ll blow over. We know there’s no case.’
‘No, that’s the least of my problems. I’m in real trouble and I don’t see a way out without your help.’
‘You’d better get yourself up here,’ Steve said.
Dylan followed me up into the crow’s-nest. He sat at my desk and I took the sofa. Steve handed me a mug of coffee. I let its warmth soak into my hands.
‘Talk, son,’ Steve said.
‘Jason’s death has taken on a new wrinkle,’ I said and told them about fun and games with Barrington.
‘This Customs guy sounds like a nasty piece of work.’
As bad as Gates, I thought, but I supposed you needed nasty men to fight nasty men.
‘Do you think Barrington will make good on his threat?’ Steve asked.
‘I do.’
‘Shit,’ Dylan said. ‘This crap keeps getting deeper and deeper.’
‘Then we deal with it,’ Steve said.
‘So Jason’s death is connected to drugs?’ Dylan asked.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But his murder isn’t big on Barrington’s radar as far as I can tell.’
‘Did he mention Andrew?’ Steve said.
‘No.’
‘Who’s Andrew?’ Dylan asked.
‘Jason’s brother. He’s press-ganged me into service to find Jason’s murderer.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell us earlier?’ Dylan watched the look I exchanged with Steve. ‘Oh, it seems that I’m suffering from Last To Know Syndrome. Maybe I should change that to why didn’t you tell me earlier?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Bollocks to sorry. Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’
‘Hey, that’s enough,’ Steve said.
‘Like fuck it is. How could you two keep me in the dark about something like this? I thought we were family.’
In my attempt to protect the people who meant the most to me, I’d made everything worse. ‘We are family,’ I stammered.
‘Well, it doesn’t fucking feel like it.’
‘That’s enough,’ Steve said. ‘You’re right. We’re family. And family doesn’t turn on itself. Not when it counts and it counts now. Got me?’
The fight went out of Dylan. With all sincerity, he said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘This whole thing feels completely out of control,’ I said.
‘Then we need to dial it back in,’ Steve said. ‘Go home, Aidy. Get some sleep. Get some food. Clean yourself up. I’ll fill Dylan in. Then get back here and we can work out what to do next.’
I loved the sound of the word ‘we’. Disaster got averted and tyrants got defeated with the word ‘we’.
I made it home in minutes. I didn’t realize how close I was to sleep until I stretched out on the sofa. This was the first time I’d stopped moving since yesterday’s race and my body wasn’t used to it. It tingled as my every molecule fought to keep moving. My desire overwhelmed my body and I was asleep in moments. I’d planned to doze for an hour, but it was late afternoon before I awoke. I stood in the shower for longer than I needed to, then cobbled together breakfast, lunch and early dinner with what I found in the fridge. It was after five before I was driving back to Archway.
I walked into the workshop to find the contents of the storage room filling the hallway out to the front entrance. Dylan emerged from inside. ‘Hey, you’re back.’
He came over and slung an arm around my shoulders. ‘Sorry about earlier.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘You’re a twat for not telling me.’
Name calling. The universal sign that all is good between two friends. I smiled. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Join us in the situation room.’
I followed Dylan into the storage room-cum-situation room. The storage room was actually an unused office filled with spare parts, but now it was an office again — sort of. Steve and Dylan had been busy while I slept. They’d removed everything that wasn’t nailed down and pushed the storage racks to one end of the room to open up the space. On one wall, they’d mounted two classroom-sized whiteboards next to each other, pretty much covering the wall.
‘What’s all this?’ I asked.