‘I hear some fancy cars come in and out of there.’
The teen stared at the cash. ‘Yeah, racing cars.’
‘Yeah? What kind?’
The boy described Ragged’s Honda Accords.
‘Sweet.’
‘Not sweet if they catch you over there. The wankers gave me a kicking for just looking. They won’t like it if they find out you broke in there.’
‘Hopefully they won’t. There aren’t any racing cars in there now.’
‘No, they just use the place now and again. They bring the cars in, work on them for a few hours then leave.’
‘They do this during the day?’
‘No. Always at night.’
‘How often are they here?’
‘They usually come every few weeks or so.’
‘Really, that often? When’d you see them last?’
‘A couple of weeks ago. Look, you going to give me that cash or what?’
The second he snatched the money from me, he stormed back towards his house.
‘I was never here, right?’ I called after him.
‘Never seen you before, mate. Just like the other bloke.’
I watched him disappear inside the house before I turned back to Rudolph’s Repair. Carrie was right about one thing — why would Rags bring his cars to this dump when he had a modern workshop? The answer was he wouldn’t, unless he had something to hide. Maybe Rags was cheating after all. I would have loved to have gotten some alone time with the cars, but they were leaving for Germany in the morning.
Lap Twenty-Eight
The ESCC was a support race at Germany’s Norisring with the German Touring Car Masters as the feature. It was going to take the team two days to drive over there. I flew in to meet the team for the race on Friday. I was excited for this race since I’d never raced on a street circuit before. After the complexity of Spa, the Norisring is a relatively simple eight-turn lap around the streets of Nuremberg. For a street circuit, it’s fast with plenty of overtaking opportunities. What makes the race notable in an odd way is that it takes place on what’s left of the former Nazi party rally grounds.
Mike Whelan was here and I needed to speak to him, so I’d scoped out his team’s location in the paddock. But as much as I needed to talk to him, I had my race to focus on, so I stuck close to my team during morning qualifying on Saturday. The team did well. I claimed fifth on the grid, while Haulk grabbed second place. A G-Tek BMW 3-Series claimed pole position, pipping Haulk by three one-hundredths of a second. The Townsend Motorsport Accords split Haulk and me. Naturally, Rags had wanted us to claim the front row and let us know about it in no uncertain terms. I wasn’t sure what needled him more, the fact that the German BMW team had taken pole or that Russell Townsend’s cars were matching our times. I wasn’t particularly bothered. I always drove better in the race than I did in qualifying.
Rags’ bear-with-a-sore-head routine gave me the excuse to put some distance between the team and me. Dylan caught me before I went in search of Whelan.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asked.
‘No, this’ll go better as a one-on-one. Just keep your ears and eyes open. Call me if anything interesting happens.’
‘You got it.’
I combed the paddock for Whelan’s team. Since leaving Ragged Racing, he’d flitted between various sports-car championships. He’d done a couple of seasons in sports prototypes, but for the last season, he’d taken part in the Porsche Cup. The Porsche teams were corralled in the paddock next to a stadium. I caught Whelan as he was walking out of the team trailer.
‘Mr Whelan, could I speak to you for a minute?’
He eyed me for a moment, but the racing overalls told him I wasn’t an over-eager fan in need of an autograph. He put out a hand and I shook it.
‘I’m Aidy Westlake.’
He tapped the name embroidered into my racesuit. ‘I know who you are. I hear good things about you, and a few bad.’
He said this last part without malice. I wondered what paddock gossip had attached itself to my name.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like your advice. It has to do with Ragged Racing.’
Whelan pursed his lips and scratched under his chin. ‘I was going to get something to eat. Why don’t we have a bite together?’
‘I think we should talk in private.’
‘You’re probably right. Let’s take a walk.’
We circled around to the far side of the stadium away from the throng surrounding the pits. It was a dry, overcast day. Without transporters, lorries and awnings acting as a barrier, the wind cut across the paddock. I felt my body temperature drop a couple of degrees.
‘What do you want to know?’ Whelan asked.
‘I wanted to ask you about your experiences with Ragged Racing.’
‘Having problems?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Kurt Haulk is your teammate. I’m sure he can be of more help than I can.’
‘It’s kind of delicate and not something I can discuss with anyone at Ragged.’
‘You’ve intrigued me now, so ask away.’
If I was wrong about the reasons why Whelan left Ragged, I couldn’t afford to expose what I knew and risk tipping Rags off. I needed to ask a question that would touch a nerve in Whelan and I thought I had one.
‘You gave Rags his first championship title, but instead of defending your title, you left. Why?’
I caught Whelan’s flinch. It was a small reaction — just a hunching of his shoulders. It could be explained away by the biting wind, but only if you believed in fairytales.
‘No mystery to that. I signed a one-year lucrative deal to drive for him. It was somewhat of a gamble for both of us at the time. Rags was small-time back then, but I saw something in what he was doing with the cars. He thought bringing in a name driver would attract sponsors and I saw that he was giving me the potential to win a title.’
That all sounded reasonable enough, but I didn’t believe a word of it. ‘You two proved you were a good combination. Why leave?’
‘Better opportunities.’
More bullshit. ‘So you call driving Corvettes in the American Le Mans series a better opportunity? Kilgore Motorsport was a three-wheel team at best, barely able to finish a lap let alone a race. I also find it interesting that you put an ocean between you and Rags.’
Whelan grabbed my arm, jerking me back. ‘Watch your mouth. If you’ve got something to ask, I suggest you do it. If not, I’m hungry.’
‘What you did doesn’t make sense. Just tell me why you left the team.’
‘I get the feeling you already know. So why don’t you tell me why I left the team?’
‘I’d say it had something to do with how Rags financed it.’
‘Shit,’ Whelan murmured, more to himself than to me. ‘Is it happening again?’
‘Is what happening again?’
‘Aidy, don’t piss me around. I’m trying to help you out.’
I held up my hands. ‘OK, I’m sorry. Rags was paying for the team with money he borrowed from a loan shark, wasn’t he?’
‘Yeah. He was. I didn’t know when I signed on. I wouldn’t have joined the team if I had, regardless of how the good the cars were. I thought he was burning through his own money because he didn’t have any sponsors. It became obvious about halfway through the season where it was coming from. By the end of the season, these heavy types were hanging around. One time, I walked in on these two blokes holding Rags down and slicing through his arm with a knife. After that, I wanted out, but those guys and Rags convinced me to stick around until the end of the season. It’s the only time I’ve been truly scared in all the years I’ve been racing. Is Rags on the hook with those people again?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but I think he’s into something else. Beyond the loan sharks, did you ever see anything else going on?’