The Way to Dusty Death (3 page)

Neubauer, with compressed lips and cold pale-blue eyes glittering, was clearly a very angry man and his humour wasn’t improved when MacAlpine moved his massive bulk to block his way. Neubauer had no option other than to stop : big man though he was MacAlpine was very much bigger. When he spoke it was with his teeth clamped together.

‘Out of my way.’

MacAlpine looked at him in mild surprise.

‘You said what?’

‘Sorry, Mr. MacAlpine. Where’s that bastard Harlow?’

‘Leave him be. He’s not well.’

‘And Jethou is, I suppose? I don’t know who the hell or what the hell Harlow is or is supposed to be and I don’t care. Why should that maniac get off scot-free? He
is
a maniac. You know it. We all know it. He forced me off the road twice today, that could just as well have been me burnt to death as Jethou. I’m giving you warning, Mr. MacAlpine. I’m going to call a meeting of the GPDA and have him banned from the circuits.’

‘You’re the last person who can afford to do that, Willi.’ MacAlpine put his hands on Neubauer’s shoulders. the last person who can afford to put the finger on Johnny. If Harlow goes, who’s the next champion?’

Neubauer stared at him. Some of the fury left his face and he stared at MacAlpine in almost bewildered disbelief. When his voice came it was low, almost an uncertain whisper. ‘You think I would do it for that, Mr. MacAlpine?’

‘No, Willi, I don’t. I’m just pointing out that most others would.’

There was a long pause during which what was left of Neubauer’s anger died away. He said quietly: ‘He’s a killer. He’ll kill again.’ Gently, he removed MacAlpine’s hands, turned and left the pits. Thoughtfully, worriedly Dunnet watched him leave.

‘He could be right, James. Sure, sure, he’s won five Grand Prix in a row but ever since his brother was killed in the Spanish Grand Prix — well, you know.’

‘Five Grand Prix under his belt and you’re trying’ to tell me that his nerve is gone?’

‘I don’t know what’s gone. I just don’t know. All I know is that the safest driver on the circuits has become so reckless and dangerous, so suicidally competitive if you like, that the other drivers are just plain scared of him. As far as they are concerned, the freedom of the road is his, they’d rather live than dispute a yard of track with him.
That’s
why he keeps on winning.’

MacAlpine regarded Dunnet closely and shook his head in unease. He, MacAlpine, and not Dunnet, was the acknowledged expert, but MacAlpine held Dunnet and his opinions in the highest regard. Dunnet was an extraordinarily shrewd, intelligent and able person. He was a journalist by profession, and a highly competent one, who had switched from being a political analyst to a sports commentator for .the admittedly unarguable reason that there is no topic on earth so irretrievably dull as politics. The acute penetration and remarkable powers of observation and analysis that had made him so formidable a figure on the Westminster scene he had transferred easily and successfully to the race-tracks of the world. A regular correspondent for a British
national daily and two motoring magazines, one British, one American — although he did a remarkable amount of free-lance work on the side —he had rapidly established himself as one of the very few really outstanding motor racing journalists in the world. To do this in the space of just over two years had been a quite outstanding achievement by any standard. So successful had he been, indeed, that he had incurred the envy and displeasure, not to say the outright wrath, of a considerable number of his less gifted peers.

Nor was their minimal regard for him in any way heightened by what they sourly regarded as the limpet-like persistency with which he had attached himself to the Coronado team on an almost permanent basis. Not that there were any laws, written or unwritten, about this sort of behaviour, for no independent journalist had ever done this sort of thing before. Now that it had been done it was, his fellow-writers said, a thing that simply was not done. It was his job, they maintained and complained, to write in a fair and unbiased fashion on
all
the cars and
all
the drivers in the Grand Prix field and their resentment remained undiminished when he pointed out to them, reasonably and with unchallengeable accuracy, that this was precisely what he did. What really grieved them, of course, was that he had the inside track on the Coronado team, then the fastest burgeoning and most glamorous race company in the business : and it would have been difficult to deny that the number of off-track articles he had written partly about the team but primarily about Harlow would have made up a pretty fair-size volume. Nor had matters been helped by the existence of a book on which he had collaborated with Harlow.

MacAlpine said: ‘I’m afraid you’re right, Alexis. Which means that I know you’re right but I don’t even want to admit it to myself. He’s just terrifying the living daylights out of everyone. And out of me. And now this.’

They looked across the pits to where Harlow was sitting on a bench just outside the shelter. Uncaring whether he was observed or not, he half-filled a glass from a rapidly diminishing brandy bottle. One did not have to have eyesight to know that the hands were still shaking: diminishing though the protesting roar of the crowd still was, it was still sufficient to make normal conversation difficult: nevertheless, the Castanet rattle of glass against glass could be clearly heard. Harlow took a quick gulp from his glass then sat there with both elbows on his knees and stared, unblinkingly and without expression, at the wrecked remains of his car.

Dunnet said: ‘And only two months ago he’d never touched the hard stuff in his life. What are you going to do, James?’

‘Now?’ MacAlpine smiled faintly. ‘I’m going to see; Mary. I think by this time they might let me in to see her.’ He glanced briefly, his face seemingly impassive,
around the pits, at Harlow lifting his glass again, at the red-haired Rafferty twins looking almost as unhappy as Dunnet, and at Jacobson, Tracchia and Rory wearing; uniform scowls and directing them in uniform directions, sighed for the last time, turned and walked heavily away.

Mary MacAlpine was twenty-two years old, pale complexioned despite the many hours she spent in the sun, with big brown eyes, gleamingly brushed black hair as dark as night and the most bewitching smile that ever graced a Grand Prix racing track: she did not intend that the smile should be bewitching, she just couldn’t
help it. Everyone in the team, even the taciturn and terrible-tempered Jacobson, was in love with her in one; way or another, not to mention a quite remarkable number of other people who were not in the team : this Mary recognized and accepted with commendable aplomb, although without either amusement or condescension: condescension was quite alien to her nature. In any event, she viewed the regard that others had for her as only the natural reciprocal of the regard she had for them: despite her quick no-nonsense mind, Mary MacAlpine was in many ways still very young.

Lying in bed in that spotless, soullessly antiseptic’ hospital room that night, Mary MacAlpine looked younger than ever.. She also looked, as she unquestionably was, very ill. The natural paleness had turned to  pallor and the big brown eyes which she opened only  briefly and reluctantly, were dulled with pain.. This same pain was reflected in MacAlpine’s eyes as he looked down at his daughter, at the heavily splinted and bandaged left leg lying on top of the sheet. MacAlpine stooped and kissed his daughter on the forehead.

He said: ‘Sleep well, darling. Good night.’

She tried to smile. ‘With all the pills they’ve given me? Yes, I think I will. And Daddy.’

‘Darling?’

‘It wasn’t Johnny’s fault. I know it wasn’t. It was his car. I know it was.’

‘We’re finding that out. Jacobson is taking the car down.’

‘You’ll see. Will you ask Johnny to come and see me?’

‘Not tonight, darling. I’m afraid he’s not too well.’

‘He-he hasn’t been-’

‘No, no. Shock.’ MacAlpine smiled. ‘He’s been fed the same, pills as yourself.’

‘Johnny Harlow? In shock? I don’t believe it. Three near-fatal crashes and he never once —’

‘He saw you, my darling.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll be around later tonight.’

MacAlpine left the room and walked down to the reception area. A doctor was speaking to the nurse at the desk. He had grey hair, tired eyes and the face of an aristocrat. MacAlpine said : ‘Are you the person who is looking after my daughter?’

‘Mr. MacAlpine? Yes, I am. Dr Chollet.’

‘She seems very ill.’

‘No, Mr. MacAlpine. No problem. She is just under heavy sedation. For the pain, you understand.’

‘I see. How long will she be —’

Two weeks. Perhaps three. No more.’

‘One question, Dr Chollet. Why is her leg not in traction ?’

‘It would seem, Mr. MacAlpine, that you are not a man who is afraid of the truth.’

‘Why is her leg not in traction?’

Traction is for broken bones, Mr. MacAlpine. Your daughter’s left ankle bone, I’m afraid, is not just broken, it is — how would you say it in English? — pulverized, yes I think that is the word, pulverized beyond any hope of remedial surgery. What’s left of the bone will have to be fused together.’

‘Meaning that she can never bend her ankle again?’ Chollet inclined his head. ‘A permanent limp? For life?’

‘You can have a second opinion, Mr. MacAlpine. The best orthopaedic specialist in Paris. You are entitled —
^‘

‘No. That will not be necessary. The truth is obvious, Dr Chollet. One accepts the obvious.’ ‘

‘I am deeply sorry, Mr. MacAlpine. She is a lovely child. But I am only a surgeon. Miracles? No. No miracles.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. You are most kind. I’ll be back in about say —two hours?’

‘Please not. She will be asleep for at least twelve hours. Perhaps sixteen.’

MacAlpine nodded his head in acceptance and left.

Dunnet pushed away his plate with his untouched meal, looked at MacAlpine’s plate, similarly untouched, then at the brooding MacAlpine.

He said : ‘I don’t think either of us, James, is as tough as we thought we were.’

‘Age, Alexis. It overtakes us all.’

‘Yes. And at very high speed, it would seem.’ Dunnet pulled his plate towards him, regarded it sorrowfully then pushed it away again.

‘Well, I suppose it’s a damn sight better than amputation.’

There’s that. There’s that.’ MacAlpine pushed back his chair. ‘A walk, I think, Alexis.’

‘For the appetite? It won’t work. Not with me.’

‘Nor with me. I just thought it might be interesting to see if Jacobson has turned up anything.’

The garage was very long, low, heavily skylighted, brilliantly lit with hanging spotlights and, for a garage, was remarkably clean and tidy. Jacobson was at the inner end, stooped over Harlow’s wrecked Coronado, when the metal door screeched open. He straightened, acknowledged the presence of Mac Alpine and Dunnet with a wave of his hand, then returned to his examination of the car.

‘ Dunnet closed the door and said quietly: ‘Where are the other mechanics?’

MacAlpine said: ‘You should know by this time. Jacobson always works alone on a crash job. A very low opinion of other mechanics, has Jacobson. Says they either overlook evidence or destroy it by clumsiness.’

The two men advanced and watched in silence as Jacobson tightened a connection in the hydraulic brake line. They were not alone in watching him. Directly above them, through an open skylight, the powerful lamps in the garage reflected on something metallic. The metallic object was a hand-held eight millimetre camera and the hands that held them were very steady indeed. They were the hands of Johnny Harlow. His face was as impassive as his hands were motionless, intent and still and totally watchful. It was also totally sober.

MacAlpine said: ‘Well?’

Jacobson straightened and tenderly massaged an obviously aching back.

‘Nothing. Just nothing. Suspension, brakes, engine, transmission, tyres, steering-all OK.’

‘But the steering?’

‘Sheared. Impact fracture. Couldn’t be anything else. It was still working when he pulled out in front of Jethou. You can’t tell me that the steering suddenly went in that one second of time, Mr. MacAlpine. Coincidence is coincidence, but that would be just a bit too much.’

Dunnet said : ‘So we’re still in the dark?’

‘It’s broad daylight where I stand. The oldest reason in the business. Driver error.
^’

‘Driver error.’ Dunnet shook his head.-’Johnny Harlow never made a driver error in his life.’

Jacobson smiled, his eyes cold. ‘I’d like to have the opinion of Jethou’s ghost on that one.’

MacAlpine said : This hardly helps. Come on. Hotel. You haven’t even eaten yet, Jacobson.’ He looked at Dunnet. ‘A night-cap in the bar, I think, then a look-in on Johnny.’

Jacobson said : ‘You’ll be wasting your time,
sir.
He’ll be paralytic.’

MacAlpine looked at Jacobson consideringly, then said very slowly and after a long pause: ‘He’s still world champion. He’s still Coronado’s number one.’

‘So that’s the way of it, is it?’

‘You want it some other way?’

Jacobson crossed to a sink, began to wash his hands. Without turning he said: ‘You’re the boss, Mr. MacAlpine.’

MacAlpine made no reply. When Jacobson had dried his hands the three men left the garage in silence, closing the heavy metal door behind them.

Only the top half of Harlow’s head and supporting hands were visible as he clung to the ridge-pole of the garage’s V-roof and watched the three men walk up the brightly lit main street. As soon as they had turned a corner and disappeared from sight, he slid gingerly down towards the opened skylight, lowered himself through the opening and felt with his feet until he found a metal crossbeam. He released his grip on the skylight sill, balanced precariously on the beam, brought out a small flashlight from an inner pocket — Jacobson had switched off all the lights before leaving-and directed it downwards. The concrete floor was about nine feet below him.