The Way to Dusty Death (4 page)

Harlow stooped, reached for the beam with his hands, slid down over it, hung at the full stretch of his hand, then released his grip. He landed lightly and easily, headed for the door, switched on all the lights then went directly to the Coronado. He was carrying not one but two strap-hung cameras, his eight millimetre cine and a very compact still camera with flashlight attachment.

He found an oily cloth and used it to rub clean part of the right suspension, a fuel line, the steering linkage and one of the carburettors in the engine compartment. Each of these areas he flash-photographed several times with the still camera. He retrieved the cloth, coated it with a mixture of oil and dirt from the floor, swiftly smeared the parts he had photographed and threw the cloth into a metal bin provided for that purpose.

He crossed to the door and tugged on the handle, but to no avail. The door had been locked from the outside and its heavy construction precluded any thought or attempt to force it: and Harlow’s last thought was to leave any trace of his passing. He looked quickly around the garage.

On his left hand side was a light wooden ladder suspended from two right-angle wall brackets —a ladder almost certainly reserved for the cleaning of the very considerable skylight area. Below it, and to one side, lay, in a corner, the untidy coil of a towrope.

Harlow moved to the corner, picked up the rope, lifted the ladder off its brackets, looped the rope round the top rung and placed the ladder against the metal cross-beam. He returned to the door and switched off the lights. Using his flashlight, he climbed up the ladder and straddled the beam. Grasping the ladder while still maintaining his grip on the rope, he manoeuvred the former until the lower end hooked on to one of the right-angle wall brackets. Using the looped rope, he lowered the other end of the ladder until, not without some difficulty, he managed to drop it into the other bracket. He released one end of the rope, pulled it clear of the ladder, coiled it up and threw it into the corner where it had been previously lying. Then, swaying dangerously, he managed to bring himself upright on the beam, thrust himself head and shoulders through the opened skylight, hauled himself up and disappeared into the night above.

MacAlpine and Dunnet were seated alone at a table in an otherwise deserted lounge bar. They were seated in silence as a waiter brought them two scotches. MacAlpine raised his glass and smiled without humour. ‘When you come to the end of a perfect day. God, I’m tired.’

‘So you’re committed, James. So Harlow goes on’ Thanks to Jacobson. Didn’t leave me much option, did he?’

Harlow, running along the brightly lit main street, stopped abruptly. The street was almost entirely deserted except for two tall men approaching his way. Harlow hesitated, looked around swiftly, then pressed into a deeply recessed shop entrance. He stood there immobile as the two men passed by: they were Nicolo Tracchia, Harlow’s team-mate, and Willi Neubauer, engrossed in low-voiced and clearly very earnest conversation. Neither of them saw Harlow. They passed by. Harlow emerged from the recessed doorway, looked cautiously both ways, waited until the retreating backs of Tracchia and Neubauer had turned a corner, then broke into a run again.

MacAlpine and Dunnet drained their glasses. MacAlpine looked questioningly at Dunnet. Dunnet said: Well, I suppose we’ve got to face it some time.’

MacAlpine said : ‘I suppose.’ Both men rose, nodded to the barman, and left.

now moving at no more than a fast walk, crossed the street in the direction of a neon-signed hotel. Instead of using the main entrance, he went down a side alleyway, turned to his right and started to climb a fire-escape two steps at a time. His steps were as sure-footed as a mountain goat, his balance immaculate, his face registering no emotion. Only his eyes registered any expression. They were clear and still but possessed an element of clear-eyed and concentrated calculation. It was the face of a dedicated man who knew completely what he was about.

MacAlpine and Dunnet were outside a door, numbered 412. MacAlpine’s face registered a peculiar mixture of anger and concern. Dunnet’s face, oddly, showed only unconcern. It could have been tight-lipped unconcern, but then Dunnet was habitually a tight-lipped man. MacAlpine hammered loudly on the door. The hammering brought no reaction. MacAlpine glanced furiously at his bruising knuckles, glanced at Dunnet and started a renewed assault on the door. Dunnet had no comment to make, either vocally or facially.

Harlow reached a platform on the fourth-floor fire-escape. He swung over the guard-railing, took a long step towards a nearby open window, negotiated die crossing safely and passed inside. The room was small. A suitcase lay on the floor, its contents spilled out in considerable disarray. On die bedside table stood a low-wattage lamp, which gave the only weak illumination in the room, and a half empty bottle of whisky. Harlow closed and locked the window to the accompaniment of a violent tattoo of knocks on the door. MacAlpine’s outraged voice was very loud and clear.

‘Open up! Johnny! Open up or I’ll break the bloody door in.’

Harlow pushed both cameras under the bed. He tore off his black leather jacket and black roll-neck pullover and thrust them both after the cameras. He then took a quick swill of whisky, split a little in the palm of his hand and rubbed it over his face.

The door burst open to show MacAlpine’s outstretched right leg, the heel of which he’d obviously used against the lock. Both MacAlpine and Dunnet entered, then stood still. Harlow, clad only in shirt and trousers and still wearing his shoes, was stretched out in bed, apparently in an almost coma-like condition. His arm dangled over the side of the bed, his right hand clutching the neck of the whisky bottle. MacAlpine, grim-faced and almost incredulous, approached the bed, bent over Harlow, sniffed in disgust and removed the bottle from Harlow’s nerveless hand He looked at Dunnet, who returned his expressionless glance.

MacAlpine said: The greatest driver in the world.’

‘Please James. You said it yourself. It happens to all of them. Remember? Sooner or later, it happens to them all.’

‘But Johnny Harlow?’

‘Even to Johnny Harlow.’

MacAlpine nodded. Both men turned and left the room, closing the broken door behind them. Harlow opened his eyes, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His hand stopped moving and he sniffed his palm. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

CHAPTER
THREE

As the crowded weeks after the Clermont-Ferrand race rushed by there appeared to be little change in Johnny Harlow. Always a remote, withdrawn and lonely figure, remote and withdrawn he still remained, except that he was now more lonely than ever. In his great days, at the peak of his powers and the height of his fame, he had been a man relaxed to the point of abnormality, his inner self under iron control: and so, in his quietness, he seemed to be now, as aloofly remote and detached as ever, those remarkable eyes — remarkable in the quality of their phenomenal eyesight, not in appearance — as clear and calm and unblinking as ever and the aquiline face quite devoid of expression.

The hands were still now, hands that bespoke a man at peace with himself, but it would seem likely that the hands belied and did not bespeak for it seemed equally that, he was not at peace with himself and never would be again for to say that Johnny Harlow’s fortunes steadily declined from that day he had killed Jethou and crippled Mary one would be guilty of a sad misuse of the English language. They hadn’t declined, they had collapsed with what must have been for him — and most certainly for his great circle of friends, acquaintances and admirers — a complete and shattering finality.

Two weeks after the death of Jethou — and this before his own home British crowd who had come, almost to a man, to forgive him for the dreadful insults and accusations heaped upon him by the French press and to cheer their idol home to victory —he had suffered the indignity, not to say the humiliation, of running off the track in the very first lap. He had caused no damage either to himself or any spectator but his Coronado was a total write-off. As both front tyres had burst it was assumed that at least one of them had gone before the car had left the track: there could not, it was agreed, have been any other explanation for Harlow’s abrupt departure into the wilderness. This agreement was not quite universal. Jacobson, predictably, had privately expressed his opinion that the accepted explanation was a very charitable assumption indeed. Jacobson was becoming very attached to the phrase ‘driver error’.

Two weeks after that, at the German Grand Prix — probably the most difficult circuit in Europe but one of which Harlow was an acknowledged master—the air of gloom and despondency that hung like a thundercloud over the Coronado pits was almost palpable enough, almost visible enough to take hold of and push to one side-were it not for the fact that this particular cloud was immovable. The race was over and the last of the Grand Prix cars had vanished to complete the final circuit of the track before coming into their pits.

MacAlpine, looking both despondent and bitter, glanced at Dunnet, who lowered his eyes, bit his lower lip and shook his head. MacAlpine looked away and lost himself in his own private thoughts. Mary sat on a canvas chair close beside them. Her left leg was still in heavy plaster and crutches were propped up against her chair. She held a lap-time note-pad in one hand, a stop watch and pencil in the other. She was gnawing a pencil and her pale face held the expression of one who was pretty close to tears. Behind her stood Jacob-son, his two mechanics, and Rory. Jacobson’s face, if his habitual saturnine expression were excepted, was quite without expression.
His
mechanics, the red-haired Rafferty twins, wore, as usual, identical expressions, in this case a mixture of resignation and despair. Rory’s face registered nothing but a cold contempt.

Rory said: ‘Eleventh out of twelve finishers! Boy, what a driver. Our world champion — doing his lap of honour, I suppose.’

Jacobson looked at him speculatively.

‘A month ago he was your idol, Rory.’

Rory looked across at his sister. She was still gnawing her pencil, the shoulders were drooped and the tears in her eyes were now unmistakable. Rory looked back at Jacobson and said: That was a month ago.’

A lime-green Coronado swept into the pits, braked and stopped, its crackling exhaust fading away into silence. Nicolo Tracchia removed his helmet, produced a large silk handkerchief, wiped his matinee-idol face and started to remove his gloves. He looked, and with reason, particularly pleased with himself, for he had just finished second and that by only a car’s length. MacAlpine crossed to him and patted the still-seated Tracchia on the back.

‘A magnificent race, Nikki. Your best ever —and on this brute of a course. Your third second place in five times out.’ He smiled. ‘You know, I’m beginning to think that we may make a driver of you yet.’

Tracchia grinned hugely and climbed from the car.

‘Watch me next time out. So far, Nicolo Tracchia hasn’t really been trying, just trying to improve the performance of those machines our chief mechanic ruins for us between races.’ He smiled at Jacobson, who grinned back : despite the marked differences in the natures and interests, there was a close affinity between the two men. ‘Now, when it comes to the Austrian Grand Prix in a couple of weeks — well, I’m sure you can afford a couple of bottles of champagne.’

MacAlpine smiled again and it was clear that though the smile did not come easily its reluctance was net directed against Tracchia. In the space of one brief month MacAlpine, even though he still couldn’t conceivably be called a thin person, had noticeably lost weight in both body and face, the already trenched lines in the latter seemed to have deepened and it was possible even to imagine an increase in the silver on that magnificent head of hair. It was difficult to imagine that even the precipitous fall from grace of his superstar could have been responsible for so dramatic a change but it was equally difficult to imagine that there could have been any other reason. MacAlpine said:

‘Overlooking the fact, aren’t we, that there’ll be a real live Austrian at the Austrian Grand Prix. Chap called Willi Neubauer. You
have
heard of him?’

Tracchia was unperturbed. ‘Austrian our Willi may be, but the Austrian Grand Prix is not his circuit. He’s never come in better than fourth. I’ve been second in the last two years.’ He glanced away as another Coronado entered the pits then looked back at MacAlpine. ‘And you know who came in first both times. ‘

Yes, I know.’ MacAlpine turned away heavily and approached the other car as Harlow got out, removed his helmet, looked at his car and shook his head. When MacAlpine spoke there was no bitterness or anger or accusation in either voice or face, just a faint resignation and despair.

‘Well, Johnny, you can’t win them all.’ Harlow said: ‘Not with this car I can’t.’ ‘Meaning?’

‘Loss of power in the higher revs.’ Jacobson had approached and his face was still without expression as he heard Harlow’s explanation. He said: ‘From the start?’

‘No. Nothing to do with you, Jake, I know that. It was bloody funny. Kept coming and going. At least a dozen times I got full power back. But never for long.’ He turned away and moodily examined his car again. Jacobson glanced at MacAlpine, who gave him an all but imperceptible nod.

By dusk that evening the race-track was deserted, the last of the crowds and officials gone. MacAlpine, a lonely and brooding figure, his hands thrust deeply in the pockets of his tan gaberdine suit, stood at the entrance of the Coronado pits. He wasn’t, however, quite as alone as he might justifiably have imagined. In the neighbouring Cagliari pits a figure clad in a dark roll-neck pullover and dark leather jacket stood hidden in a shadowed corner. Johnny Harlow had a remarkable capacity for maintaining an absolute stillness and that capacity he was employing to the full at that moment. But apart from those two figures the entire track seemed quite empty of life.

But not of sound. There came the deepening clamour of the sound of a Grand Prix engine and a Coronado, lights on, appeared from the distance, changed down through the gears, slowed right down as it passed the Cagliari pits and came to a halt outside the entrance to the Coronado pits. Jacobson climbed out and removed his helmet.