Hot Seat

by Simon Wood

  Rags laughed again and pushed past me on the way to his office. ‘Now, let’s write up that contract.’

  I was prepared for this eventuality. I let him reach the door to the offices before I called to him. ‘I still want my five grand a month. I don’t care how you come up with it. Just make it happen or I’m going to the cops and you can explain yourself to them.’

  ‘Tell them. See how far that gets you. They won’t find anything and if you do, I’ll tell them you’re a mean-spirited little prick trying to screw me over because you can’t hack it in the big time. Trust me, I can sell that and the cops will buy it. Goodnight, Aidy. See you next week.’

  ‘Call your boss. I want to speak to him.’

  ‘No. You’re getting out of your league now. These people won’t buckle to your threats.’

  ‘I’m not threatening him. I have an offer for him.’

  ‘What have you got to offer?’

  ‘A new pipeline.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The cops are on to you, but they’re not on to me. Steve is receiving and shipping cars from all over the world. Why can’t there be something inside of those cars?’

  ‘You want to drag your grandfather into this?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know. I can make it part of his personalized service. Who wouldn’t want their restored car delivered to them by up-and-coming racing driver, Aidy Westlake?’

  Rags was silent for a moment. I hoped my bait was enticing.

  ‘I’ll cut you in. You’ll keep Ragged Racing on the track.’

  How could Rags turn down an offer like that? The chance to recover a hopeless situation had to be irresistible.

  ‘Do you really want to follow through on this?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Rags was silent. He was thinking about it. It was there on his face. He was looking into the future and he saw himself there.

  ‘Come into the office.’

  I followed him in. He punched a number into his mobile, but no one picked up. I didn’t think anyone would. He didn’t have anything to offer, until now. His call went to voicemail.

  ‘Hey, it’s me. Aidy Westlake knows everything, but he wants to make us an offer. He has an alternative to what we’re doing. I think you should listen to him.’

  Rags hung up and tossed the phone on his desk. We didn’t say anything to each other. There was nothing to say.

  It was an hour before his mobile burst into song.

  Rags answered. He was cool, calm and collected with his explanation. He wasn’t the same Rags I’d witnessed at the factory, coming apart one piece at a time when his calls went unanswered. He was back in the game.

  He listened to his boss for several minutes before hanging up.

  ‘Be back here at ten tomorrow night. Make sure you have all your facts straight. You won’t get a second shot at this.’

  Lap Thirty-Seven

  Since my meeting with Rags wasn’t until tonight, I had the day to kill, so it was time to kill Jenni Oglesby’s blackmailing scheme stone dead. I had Rags to deal with. I didn’t need Jenni’s scam distracting me. I called her over a late breakfast.

  ‘You got the money?’ Jenni Oglesby asked.

  It was just a phone call, but my heart was banging away in my chest. I glanced at Steve and Dylan sitting across my desk at Archway for some comfort. They looked just as wound up as I did. So much for a problem shared is a problem halved.

  I tapped the envelope with the fifteen grand in it. ‘Yeah, it’s here in front of me.’

  ‘Good. Meet me at the Englefield Green Town football ground. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘No.’

  I wrote down the directions she gave me.

  ‘I’ll be waiting,’ she said and hung up.

  ‘You ready for this?’ Steve asked me.

  ‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘He’s got nothing to worry about. He’ll have me there backing him up,’ Dylan said. ‘Jenni’s had the upper hand until now. Her taking a payoff changes everything. The second she takes the money, it’s over. She’s a blackmailer and Aidy is the victim. Done and dusted.’

  Steve took the pad with the directions written on it from me. ‘She wants to meet at a football field?’

  I nodded. ‘On the centre spot.’

  ‘A big, open space. That makes it hard for you to get close,’ he said to Dylan.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get it all recorded,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s go then. She wants to meet now.’

  Dylan rode with me. I didn’t see the need for two cars. It was going to be a straightforward exchange.

  As I drove, Dylan downloaded an app called Dictaphone to my mobile. It effectively turned my phone into a digital recorder. He checked and double-checked the function. With the phone in my jacket pocket, the recording app captured my voice with little loss of quality. The beauty of turning my phone into a recording device was that no one would think twice about me having my phone with me.

  Englefield Green was a short drive from Windsor. The football pitch’s stand came into view, sticking up over the neighbouring houses. I pulled over at the side of the road.

  ‘Do you think she’s got anyone watching?’ I asked.

  ‘Out here? If someone’s put her up to this, I’d expect her to have friends with her.’

  Outnumbered and outgunned, I thought.

  ‘OK, game time,’ Dylan said. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to get into position then do your thing.’

  I nodded.

  He jumped out of the car and jogged ahead.

  A few minutes later, Dylan called me. ‘OK, I’ve got a good spot with a clear view of the pitch. Jenni’s waiting for you. And she’s alone. I like how this is shaping up. Go get her.’

  I hung up on Dylan, turned on the Dictaphone app and pocketed the phone. At the stadium, I stopped next to Jenni’s Ford Fiesta. It was the only other car in the car park. To call the Englefield Green Town’s ground a stadium was an exaggeration. It was home to a non-league club several tiers down from anything close to a professional club. There was only one covered stand, running the length of the field. The other three sides were exposed to the elements and had no seating. I got out of my car and walked through the main gate on to the pitch.

  Standing on the centre spot, Jenni Oglesby turned to face me. She was smart. She’d brought me out to a place I didn’t know. Insisting that I meet her here gave her the upper hand. The Achilles heel in all this was the money exchange. She could take as many precautions as she liked, but taking the money left her exposed. It made her a blackmailer.

  ‘Got the money?’

  I pulled the envelope part way from my jacket pocket. A smug smile spread across her face at the sight of it. She held out her hand for it.

  ‘Not quite yet.’

  Her smile changed to a frown. ‘I’m not here for games.’

  ‘I need assurances.’

  ‘What assurances?’

  ‘That you’ll drop the claim against me. I’ve got the Surrey Police breathing down my neck.’

  ‘I’ll make sure they leave you alone.’

  ‘How? If I give you this money like you asked, what assurances do I have that you’ll do it?’

  The smug smile returned. ‘You don’t. Money, please?’

  I removed the envelope and held it out to her. She took it, but I maintained my grip.

  ‘Don’t piss about,’ she said. ‘Let me have it.’

  ‘Not yet. I need to know why you did this. Why me?’

  ‘Why not? Now give me the money.’

  ‘You know I didn’t crash into your car.’

  ‘That’s what you say.’

  Her playing coy wasn’t getting me anywhere. I imagined Dylan listening in on the conversation, willing Jenni to incriminate herself.

  ‘You orchestrated this. You wanted to crash, but I stopped in time. You rolled the car instead, but you knew the charge wouldn’t stand up.’

  ‘
Give me the money.’ She yanked on the envelope, but I held on.

  ‘You stole my grandfather’s van, didn’t you? With no damage on the van, you had to take it, before the police saw it wasn’t involved in a crash.’

  She loosened her grip on the envelope and smiled.

  ‘Yes. Tell your grandfather that he should watch his mirrors. Then he might know when he’s being followed.’

  I had an admission of guilt at last. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t everything, but it was a start and enough to get Sergeant David Lucas off my back and on to Jenni’s. But I wanted more.

  ‘I wasn’t some random victim, was I? You singled me out. Who put you up to this?’

  Before I could get an answer, Jenni snatched the envelope from me and bolted for the car park. I chased after her across the pitch. My feet slid on the sodden ground, but I ate into her lead.

  Just as I caught up to her, she held up the envelope and screamed, ‘I got it!’

  My breath caught in my throat. Jenni had set me up. I expected cops to appear from every corner, but none did. I caught a flash of someone bursting from the coach’s dugout and racing towards the car park. I kept running.

  ‘Don’t let her get away!’ Dylan yelled.

  He was racing across the pitch from the far side, but was too far away to provide any help.

  I followed Jenni into the car park, closing on her with every stride. She’d never get to her car in time, but someone already had. It shot back, spitting dirt and stones as it spun ninety degrees. The passenger door flew open and Jenni dived in.

  I jumped in front of the car’s path and spread my hands. I stared at the driver and I couldn’t speak. It was Tim Reid.

  As surely as shock was on my face, embarrassment was on his. He revved the Fiesta’s engine.

  For a second, the pieces failed to fall into place. Then they did.

  ‘Get out of the car, Tim.’

  He lifted the clutch and the car surged forward, stopping at my feet.

  ‘Go!’ Jenni screamed.

  Reid just stared at me, his foot still on the accelerator, the engine screaming.

  ‘Get out of the car,’ I said again, this time with disappointment in my voice.

  Dylan slammed into the side of the Fiesta and yanked open Jenni’s door.

  What happened next was a reflex action. I knew what was going to happen before it did, but I was too close to change it. Reid’s foot came off the clutch and the car leapt forward. There was no getting out of the way. The car scooped me up. I rolled up the bonnet and bounced off the windscreen. The world spun for a brief, disorientating moment before I struck the ground on my hip.

  Dylan was at my side before I knew which way was up. ‘Christ, you OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Reid hadn’t hit me with any great speed and that had saved me from serious injury.

  We both whipped our heads around at the sound of the car’s brakes locking up on the dirt. Two police cars blocked Reid and Jenni’s escape. Sergeant David Lucas emerged from one.

  ‘Turn off the bloody engine!’ he shouted. ‘You lot have some explaining to do.’

  Lucas separated us when we reached the station. I sat alone in an interview room with a cup of now cold coffee. I’d been there for over ninety minutes. I took my long-term neglect as a sign that Lucas wanted everyone else’s account before he got mine. I found that unnerving, but took comfort from the fact that I hadn’t been charged with anything. For the moment, anyway.

  Lucas opened the interview-room door just after the two-hour mark. He came in carrying my envelope that contained the blackmail money, my mobile and a video camera. He laid them out on the table between us.

  ‘Well, you’ve had an interesting morning.’ He picked up the mobile phone. ‘I’m especially impressed by your cut-price James Bond gadgetry.’

  I said nothing. No answer was the right one at this point.

  ‘What I’m not impressed by is your attempts to interfere with an ongoing police investigation and pervert the course of justice.’

  I could have said, ‘They started it,’ but I didn’t think Lucas was in the mood to hear that defence.

  ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I didn’t crash into Jenni Oglesby’s car, but I couldn’t prove it. After your investigation got leaked to the media, I knew someone was acting out of spite, so I tracked Jenni down.’

  ‘I’d really like to know how you did that.’

  I ducked the request and kept on talking. ‘I asked what it would take to make her drop the charges. She said fifteen grand. My friend and I recorded the exchange because I knew if I could get her to admit anything, I had her.’

  Lucas picked up the video recorder. ‘She had a similar idea. Her video showed you paying her off. Without the sound, she could have inserted any story she liked. Luckily, you were a little smarter. You got audio.’

  My arse was saved? I wondered why Lucas was suddenly being so forthcoming after he’d been so closed off. ‘Are you dropping the charges against me?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m considering bringing others.’

  That sounded like a hollow threat to remind me of how lucky I was.

  ‘It seems these two in our custody were out to discredit you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Professional jealousy, by all accounts.’

  Professional jealously? Tim Reid being jealous of me made even less sense than Chloe Mercer, who I’d thought was at the root of all this.

  ‘So this is all over?’

  ‘For you, yes. For the other two, it’s just beginning.’

  ‘How did you know about today? Did you follow me?’

  Lucas leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms and frowned. ‘Yes, Mr Westlake, we’ve had you under surveillance over a traffic offence because we have that kind of manpower. No, police work led us to today’s conclusion. Your intervention wasn’t necessary. My investigation was centred on Miss Oglesby. Cracks were appearing in her story. I found her claims suspicious.’

  ‘And today brought it to a head.’

  ‘Yes, but we would have gotten to the truth in our own time.’

  Not before it had well and truly dragged my name through the mud. I didn’t care what Lucas thought. It was over and now I could repair the damage.

  ‘Who is Jenni Oglesby and how’s she connected to Reid?’

  ‘She’s his niece. Now, I’ll need a full and frank statement from you.’

  I nodded. ‘Could I speak to Tim?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I just need a minute. I’m not interested in gloating. I just want to understand.’

  Lucas mulled my plea over. ‘I’ll ask. You can speak to him if he agrees.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Lucas left the interview room and returned a minute later. He leaned through the doorway and beckoned to me with a finger. I followed him to another interview room two doors down.

  Reid smiled sheepishly at me when Lucas swung the door open.

  ‘You two have got two minutes and I’m leaving this officer with you.’ He nodded at the officer in the room. ‘Those are my terms. Take ’em or leave ’em.’

  I answered by taking a seat opposite Reid. Lucas closed the door.

  ‘You want to know why,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, because I don’t get it, Tim. Why’d you do this? I never did anything to you.’

  He leaned back in his seat. ‘You did. You won the shootout. You took my job.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pit Lane was sounding out teams to partner up with on this Young Driver thing. Rags liked the publicity it would bring and struck a deal. I thought we’d be running a three-car team. I found out after the shootout that my contract wasn’t being renewed. Rags dumped me over a gimmick. Dumped me for you.’

  There was acid behind that last remark. It made my skin prickle. It saddened me to see someone I hardly knew have such vehement feelings.

  ‘Who cares if Rags dumped you? You�
�re Tim Reid. You have your pick when it comes to drives.’

  Reid shook his head. ‘You don’t get how things work. Ten years ago, I might have had the pick of the bunch. I’m forty-eight now. This is a young man’s sport, and it’s getting younger. Look at how many drivers in the ESCC are under thirty. If you haven’t made it by the time you’re twenty-five, you never will.’

  He dropped his head in his hands. ‘I just wanted my drive back.’

  He wanted his drive back. That was it. I wanted a bigger reason than that to justify putting me through all that he had over something so petty. ‘Jesus Christ, you were trying to kill my career so that you could have your old drive back?’

  ‘Keep it civil,’ the police officer in attendance said.

  I let my anger bleed off for a minute. ‘And you used Chloe Mercer to do it. Why bring her into this? What were you hoping, that I’d deck her or something?’

  Reid looked up. ‘Sure, if you’d done that it would have been a bonus. I just needed someone to play the bad girl for me and she fit the bill. Look, if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t personal. I went after you because you won the shootout. If the results had been different, I would have gone after someone else.’

  ‘So the idea was to discredit me so Rags would welcome you back.’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘That was never going to happen. Rags was talking to Chloe about replacing me.’

  Reid rolled his eyes. ‘I suppose that’s what I deserve.’

  I wanted to feel sorry for Reid, but I couldn’t. I was too close to it. He’d tried to throw me under the bus to save his career. It was hard to be generous under those circumstances.

  The door opened and Lucas appeared. ‘Time’s up.’

  I stood up. I had nothing more to say.

  ‘I’m sorry, Aidy. Truly, I am.’

  ‘It’s a little late for that.’