“Can you tell him it’s on the house?” I pleaded with her. “I don’t want him to have to go into Entwistle’s office to pay and see that photo of me there!”
She glanced at Tony. “He doesn’t know she works here.”
“I’ll pay out of my own money if necessary…” I suggested.
Tony looked at Jo. “It’s barely anything. Just tell him it was so simple to fix, you’re not charging him anything…”
“Thanks, Tony,” I said gratefully and I retreated back into the shed until he’d returned and safely driven away. This time I forced myself not to look out of the knot. I shouldn’t want to see him. It felt indecent to want to look. When he was definitely gone, I texted Nick to say I’d retrieved the pen and would upload the content tonight, and it would be up to him to make any sense of it.
Jo came back in. She looked a bit shaken up herself. “Was that really him?” She asked.
I nodded. “What did you think?”
“Not what I expected,” she admitted. “He seemed really – I don’t know – polite and cultured.”
“Respectful?” I queried.
She frowned. “No. But I don’t know exactly what I mean when I say that I didn’t like the way his eyes looked at me. They didn’t fit his manner and his words. But maybe I’m just saying that because you told me who he was?”
“Could be,” I agreed. But I knew what she meant.
I uploaded the recording from the pen, hours of the stuff, and made no attempt to try to listen to it. Nick got back to me. “We have to get translators in for parts of it, and when the car was moving rather than parked up we have to enhance the voices because you can barely hear them, but there’s bound to be something useful on it, bound to be… we’ve just got to find it.”
I didn’t envy the guys who were having to trawl through it.
World of Shale Qualifying round at Kings Lynn. Now the main Championship season was over, we were back into the build up to World of Shale, the final leg of the race for the National Points top spot, the climax of the season long Grand National series and the end of season Shoot Out at Birmingham. I did my bit at Kings Lynn, then I went on to Northampton.
I was still ahead in the points. Patterson had fallen out of the running a while back now. Devlin hadn’t been doing so well recently. So it was between me and Horrocks now. But with the highest number of points up for grabs at one meet being fifty if you managed to win everything and then doubled your points in the Grand National, it would only take one of us missing one or two race days and the other to do really well in the other’s absence to upset the order.
At Northampton, Horrocks and I sat on the bonnet of his car, with Harry yackety yacking on between us, and had a laugh about a few things. He really was just like Tony. Really sweet. We were both determined to get that Silver, but we didn’t see why that should come between us.
“I hope he hasn’t got a lisp with a name like that,” I remarked suddenly, looking down at the lad beside us. “Hawee Howoxth..?”
Harry looked up, his eyes were just a little squinty behind his little round glasses. “Hawee Howoxth,” he echoed and then grinned as though he liked the sound of it. “Hawee Howoxth!”
Horrocks groaned. “You’ve started something now! It’ll take me weeks to stop him saying it now…”
“Oops, sorry!” I said, slipping down from the bonnet. Having worked in the Learning Disabled College, I knew from experience that he wasn’t exaggerating. Harry would be repeating it ad nauseum until Horrocks could come up with something else to replace it. As I walked guiltily away, Harry was dancing around in front of the car trying it out for size in his mouth over and over again. At least I could hear his Dad laughing as he tried to divert his attention. Me and my big mouth!
The following weekend there was only Cowdenbeath running. Very unusual to have no other venue running at all on a weekend in the season. So Zanna actually suggested she come up with us to see what happened when we raced. And then we stayed over and had a fun day out on Sunday seeing the sights round Edinburgh. Zanna seemed impressed with the level of skill exhibited in the racing. And I was impressed with Edinburgh. So all parties got something out of it.
The first week of October arrived, and the ITV series started. They took the first five minutes reminding the viewer who we were with key clips from the Thrills and Spills series from a couple of years ago. Eve McGinty, at the time having just won Novice of the Year title, now at the age of twenty is the first ever female Formula Two Stocks English Champion, European Champion, World Champion and National Points Champion. No mention of World of Shale, I noticed, no-one ever knew what it was. The other titles sounded important. World of Shale sounded like a rather disappointing third rate theme park, or a shop for the building trade on the lines of Toys’R’Us. They showed a clip of Tyler which made my heart beat faster. Jo glanced warily at my face as I watched. Nat Tyler, multiple World Champion at the time of the series, and Eve, got engaged a year later, but Nat Tyler was tragically killed shortly after while attending an accident on the motorway. I wasn’t sure why they were bothering with that, guess they were just pissed off that they’d missed all the excitement because it had happened after their series had finished. Plus, I had a horrid feeling they were going to leave in all that stuff Quinn said to me about Tyler when we were dancing.
The skiing one. I was fully dressed during the day but in the après ski sequences I was in a dress with bare arms. A horrid thought suddenly occurred to me and I stared hard at my left arm to see if anyone might notice the mark. God, if Mohammed saw even just the distinctive knife scar he’d be bound to know for sure. But why would he watch a trashy series like this? I bet he never could be bothered. And to my relief I noticed that they kept cutting the footage to show me only on the right side. They were trying to avoid showing the offending defect.
Jo agreed with me afterwards. “People see what they expect to see. He has no inkling that you’re not a fourteen year old schoolgirl in Care. He won’t connect you with that person on the screen, even if he sees a trailer for it. Bet all blonde white girls look the same to him…” She finished with a dismissive sniff.
We were taking Cody over to her first Whites and Yellows Final at Barford. She chattered on about the TV series. Admiring Quinn’s amazing voice when he was called up on stage in Ishgel and how good a skier I’d turned out to be.
“So how are you planning to drive this race?” I asked.
She looked at me blankly as though she’d never even thought about making a plan for a race.
“You’ve got to win something over the next three weekends you know.”
She looked glum.
“So this is what I want you to do,” I said. “You’re still a white roof, so you’re still at the front. And I just want you to pay complete attention throughout. I want you to stare really hard at that Starter and the flag, and as soon as it goes down you’re to stamp your foot on that accelerator and keep it to the floor all the way round. It doesn’t matter if you crash. It doesn’t matter if you completely trash the car. You just get round in the fastest time you’ve ever done. Get it?”
She nodded.
Before the race I pulled out the neck support that we’d ordered, but somehow never quite managed to institute despite our agreement. She meekly allowed me to put it on her.
Jo stared at me. “Seriously?” She queried.
I nodded. “She has her orders, don’t you Cody?”
She nodded, wordlessly for once.
“And now it won’t hurt so much if you have a smash,” I told her, and got her into her car.
We went up on the stands to watch.
“Well!” Jo said, half way through, almost speechless herself. “What the hell did you say to her?”
I frowned. “Dunno…” I thought about it. “Maybe it was just that I told her that it was alright to crash and completely trash the car?”
Jo gave me a less than enamoured look.
“I remember I was scared to drive too har
d when I was in Pete’s loaned car,” I said. “Just in case I smashed it up.”
Cody won it. Her face was picture. I’m sure ours were too. “I’d say I’m ready to faint with the shock of it,” Jo observed. “Except I’ve never fainted in my life. That’s your forte, Eve.”
We gave her big hugs all round and she was so made up she was leaping up and down and squealing her head off.
“Do they bother to scrutineer Whites and Yellows?” I asked Jo.
“Never noticed,” Jo said. “Guess we’ll find out…”
“So now we expect to see more of the same next week at Buxton,” I lectured. “Now you’ve got the taste for how it feels when you win! Your Dad’s eyes are just going to pop when he sees you walk back in the door with that cup!”
“Oh Lord,” Jo groaned suddenly. “I’ve just realised that this has doomed us to another whole year of this! My poor eardrums… My poor sanity…” She tottered dramatically away.
Cody stared after her, bewildered, clutching her piece of silverware to her chest, while I just sat down on the steps and gave way to gales of laughter.
Episode two and the horse riding. I was fully dressed the whole time. No flesh on display whatsoever, so I could relax. The whole family watched this one particularly closely of course, laughing their heads off and reminiscing. Sue was watching especially carefully and narrow eyed. Paul, I noticed, was watching Sue rather than the TV.
“Damn she’s good!” Pete said admiringly as he watched my final performance.
“You can’t see her giving any signals at all,” Jo marvelled.
“She’s wasted on Stock cars!” Pete said. Then winked at us when both our heads turned sharply to rip him to shreds.
“It wasn’t anything to do with me,” I said quickly. “It’s all Sue’s brilliant work with Horse. She’s trained her to behave absolutely perfectly!”
“Shame someone’s never achieved that with you,” Pete teased sarcastically.
We watched Paul lifting me down from Horse after the competition and saying something quietly and intensely to me with his hands on my shoulders. I was looking up into his eyes. I caught sight of Sue’s expression as she sat beside me on the sofa. Uh oh, I thought.
On my way out to my bike in the dark, I could see the outline of the stables against the moonlit night sky with the scudding clouds behind. I glanced back at the house. No sign of anyone. I diverted down to the stables and went to the far end box. Horse looked up from where she was browsing with her head down. She gave a slight snicker as she came over to the door and thrust her head out. We exchanged huffs and then I put my arms up and around her neck and rested my forehead into her warm, slightly greasy, rich smelling, muscular neck. We didn’t say anything to each other. We were content to stay interlocked.
I heard a slight sound at the entrance and so did Horse. She threw up her head and I let go and looked. Sue was standing there, hands on hips, saying nothing, her face in shadow.
I moved away from Horse and walked towards the exit. It meant passing her, but it was the only way out and I knew she’d want me to leave. She stepped back as I got level with her. I stopped, expecting to exchange a few words, even if they were grumpy ones. But she turned her head pointedly away from me.
Behind us, Horse gave a bit of a warning stamp. I walked on past, back to my bike, and got on, the rich organic smell of Horse still in my nostrils. Zanna’s right, I thought. She so jealous of me and Horse that she can’t even bear to speak to me.
Saturday we went all the way down to Stoke, and had to come back the same day to be ready to take Cody on her second Whites and Yellows outing to Buxton.
“Ok, Cody,” I instructed her. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Let’s see a repeat performance. Same strategy, same outcome!”
Jo watched completely gobsmacked as Cody won again, by a big margin. We glanced at each other and high fived.
“I think I actually need to learn how to faint,” Jo said sarcastically. “I’m sure that would be the only appropriate response to this turn of events!”
The third episode of the series and I watched a bit more tensely. Yes, dammit. Of course. I was in a swimsuit for most of it. And yes my knife scar was on show. Not the mark though as my arms were always bent with the inner elbow away from the camera as I hung back on the sail thingy, or moving fast through the water as I paddled my way back to the board when I fell off.
I still had my head in my hands after my ‘everyone in the family has seen me naked’ gaff, when Pete started teasing me about the World Championship day.
“I reckon Dad already copped quite an eyeful when you helpfully bent over during your striptease act!” He laughed.
“It was better pointed at you and Paul than all those bloody drivers with their phone cameras poised!” I protested.
“Oh yeah, and I meant to say,” Jo put in, “you should take a shufti at the latest Unloaded!”
I groaned despairingly.
“Yep, there’s a couple of crackers in that!” Pete confirmed with a subversive grin.
I’d already had to put up with some kidding commentary on the whole affair on Stoxradio. Jonny and Steve reminisced about other occasions when drivers had turned up in unusual clothing such as the famed occasion when number 647 had turned up, driven the first heat in his normal overalls, then disappeared off to be best man at a nearby wedding before returning to drive the Final and Grand National in full tuxedo and buttonhole, then headed off back to the reception. “But I reckon this is a first for a driver turning up in thong and stilettos, don’t you, Steve?” Jonny teased delightedly.
“I sure hope so,” Steve had agreed with a meaningful laugh.
Unloaded turned out to have gleefully put a full sequence in. Me stripping off. Me bent over showing rather a lot of boob as I got into my overalls and me giving everyone the finger afterwards. And now I’d get the shit ripped out of me about this latest nudist stunt. I sighed. The Stocks guys were going to absolutely love this…
But I had relaxed too soon about the scars. After the adverts, during which Sue got up and walked out without saying anything and didn’t come back, it was the climbing sequence.
“What are they on?” Jo said to me as the climbing instructors got more and more hilarious about the colour naming of ropes. Topping each other with each call. Slack on Viridian, take in on Mackerel Grey! Slack on Taupe, take in on Sheep Shit Brown!
I rolled my eyes.
And then I looked on in shock as they screened a sequence that I hadn’t even known they were filming or had been near enough to hear. I’d thought we were talking in private. Quinn asking me directly about the marks and showing that he knew what it meant to have a second one – talking about changing groups. I went hot and cold. Even if none of the men were watching such an anodyne series, some of those girls would be. And they’d be sitting there now, staring frozen at the screen, trying to work out how come a person like me had those marks. They’d start talking about it to each other, and then they’d start telling the men. Once Mohammed saw that sequence he’d know instantly that this was Ellie. He’d know for sure. I ran over my conversation with Quinn with a fine tooth comb. It was clear I was up to something but we hadn’t mentioned a thing about cameras, GPS locators, investigative journalism or the police. It wouldn’t alert anyone to anything much, except for Mohammed I thought. He’ll go apeshit. I started to shake inside. He’d come after me for sure, I thought. Just as soon as he heard about this and had streamed this episode online to check it out for himself. He’d hunt me down.
I glanced at Jo. Her face had paled too. “I’m going in to talk to Entwistle first thing tomorrow,” I said grimly. “He needs to know.”
Entwistle looked gravely at me. “You should have told me this right at the start.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It just never occurred to me that it would have any effect on the business.”
“So, let’s get this straight, you’ve been going undercover to expose a dangerous criminal
gang for one TV company, and the other TV company has just blown your cover with something that was shown on the episode last night?” He said.
“Yep,” I confirmed. I hadn’t told him what the subject matter of the investigation was, just referred to it as ‘criminal’. “The journalism team are going to take it to the police very soon from what I understand,” I promised him. “But they were hoping to get the case watertight first…”
He sat back in his chair. “We’ve already had this garage vandalised once – something to do with Quinn.”
Actually it was something to do with me, but no-one, not even Quinn knew that. “I know,” I said.
“And then we had you nearly killed on the premises,” he pointed out. Yes, he didn’t need to remind me of that. One of those attackers had been Hussein, come to think of it. The one that Mohammed purportedly got on with. So if Mohammed couldn’t immediately find out where I worked just by googling me, Hussein could certainly tell him.
Entwistle sighed. “We need to have a strategy meeting with the men,” he decided.
They all stared at me.
“So that guy in the green Porsche?” Tony established. “He’s the leader of a criminal gang, is very dangerous, and now has a vendetta against you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Right…”
There was a long silence.
“I’ve rung up the CCTV company that we use, and they’re coming tomorrow to put several more up,” Entwistle said. “Eve must never be left completely on her own anywhere on the premises. And she needs to step down for now from her role as the one who comes out to greet all the customers. And she must always leave first every evening. Ok?”
Back in our flat, I asked Zanna if she could Google my name on her own computer.
“Because computers store caches of what you’ve looked at before, don’t they? So I want to know what a stranger would get if they put my name in…”
Purgatory Is a Place Too Page 32