“It’s OK,” I said. Not brilliant, I thought, but OK.
I took some painkillers for my throbbing head, and then Caroline and I went by taxi to Kentford to see my car.
As the man from the towing company had said on the telephone, it wasn’t in great shape. In fact, I had to be told which one of the wrecks was mine since I didn’t recognize it. The roof was missing completely, for a start.
“What on earth happened to it?” I asked one of their men. My pride and joy for so long was now just a mangled heap.
“The fire brigade cut the roof off to get the occupant out,” he said. “The car was on its side when I got there with my truck and the roof was already gone. Maybe it’s still in the ditch, next to where the car was.”
It didn’t matter. Even to my eyes, the car was a complete write-off. Not only had the roof disappeared, the front fender was completely ripped away and the wheel beneath was sitting at a strange angle. That must have happened, I thought, when I hit the bus.
“Has anyone been to inspect it?” I asked him.
“Not that I’m aware of. But it’s been sitting here since yesterday morning, and I don’t exactly keep guard.”
“Here” was down the side of the workshop, behind a pair of tow trucks.
“I was the driver,” I said to him.
“Blimey, you were lucky, then. I thought it was a fatal when I first arrived.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Fire brigade and ambulance spent ages getting you out. That’s never a good sign. Had you in one of those neck-brace things. You didn’t look too good, I can tell you. Not moving, like. I thought you were probably dead.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.
“No,” he said. “I’m glad you’re not, like. Easier for me too.”
“Why?” I said.
“If it had been a fatal,” he said, “I would have to keep this pile of garbage here for the police inspectors, and they take bloody ages to do their stuff. Since you’re OK, I can get rid of it, off the premises, just as soon as your insurance bloke looks at it. Also,” he added with a smile, “since you’re alive I now can send you a bill for recovering it from the roadside.”
I made a mental note to phone the insurance company, not that they would give me much. I suspected that car was worth little more than the policy’s deductible, but it just might pay the wretched man’s bill for getting rid of the wreck.
“I think the accident occurred because my brakes failed,” I said. “Is there any way of checking that by looking?”
“Help yourself, it’s your car.” He turned away. “I’ve got work to do.”
“No,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t know what to look for. Could you have a look for me?”
“It’ll cost you,” he said.
“All right,” I said. “How much?”
“Usual labor rates,” he replied.
“Can you look at it now?” I said. “While I’m here?”
“Suppose so,” he said.
“OK,” I said. “Usual rates.”
He spent about twenty minutes examining what was left of my car, but the results were inconclusive.
“Could have been the brakes, I suppose,” he said finally. “Difficult to tell.”
I assured him that it definitely was the brakes that had failed and caused the accident.
“If you were bloody certain it was the brakes, what did you want me to check it for?”
“I want to know if the brakes had been tampered with,” I said.
“What, on purpose?” He stared at me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what I want you to tell me.”
“Blimey,” he said again. He leaned back over the car.
“Look here,” he said. I joined him in leaning over what had been the front bumper. He pointed at a jumbled mass of metal pipes and levers. “The brake system on this old Golf was a simple hydraulic, non-power-assisted system.” I nodded. I knew that. “What happens when you push the brake pedal is you force a piston along this cylinder.” He pointed at what looked like a metal pipe about an inch in diameter and about an inch and a half long. “The piston inside pushes brake fluid through the pipes to the wheels, and the pressure causes the brake pads to squeeze the brake discs. That’s what slows the car down.”
“Like a bicycle brake?” I asked.
“Well, not exactly. On a bike, there is a cable going from the brake lever to the brake pads. In a car, the pressure is transmitted through the fluid-filled pipes.”
“I see,” I said. But I wasn’t sure I did completely. “So what caused the brakes to fail?”
“Brakes will fail if air gets into the pipes instead of the brake fluid. Then, when you push the pedal, all you do is compress the air and the brakes don’t work.” He spotted my quizzical look. “You see, the brake fluid won’t compress, but air will.” I nodded. I knew that from my school chemistry.
“So all someone needed to do,” I said, “was to put some air into the pipes and the brakes wouldn’t work.”
“Yes,” he said. “But it’s not that easy. For a start, there are two brake systems on this car, so if one failed the other should still work.”
“There were no brakes at all when I pushed the pedal,” I said.
“Air must have got into the master cylinder,” he said. “That’s very unusual, but I have come across it once before. That time was due to the pipe from the reservoir to the master cylinder coming loose.” He had lost me.
“But can you tell if it was done on purpose?” I asked him.
“Difficult to tell,” he said again. “Might have been. The joins are still tight, so someone would have had to split the metal pipe.” He pointed. “It could have been done by flexing it up and down a few times until it cracked open due to fatigue. You know, like bending a wire coat hanger until it snaps.”
“But wouldn’t that make the brakes fail immediately?” I asked him.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “It might take a while for the air to seep from the cracked pipe into the master cylinder.”
“Can you tell if that is what happened here?” I asked.
He looked again at the jumble of broken pipes. “The accident seems to have smashed it all. It would be impossible to tell what had been done beforehand.”
“Would the police accident investigators have any better idea?” I asked him.
He seemed a bit offended that I had questioned his ability. “No one could tell from that mess what it was like before the accident,” he said with some indignation.
I wasn’t sure that I totally agreed with him, but I didn’t think it was time to say so. Instead, I paid him half an hour’s labor cost in cash and used my cell phone to call a taxi.
“Do you have the keys of the car?” I asked the man.
“No, mate,” he said. “Never seen them. Thought they were still in it.”
They weren’t. I’d looked. “Never mind,” I said. “They wouldn’t be much use now anyway.” But they had been on a silver key fob. A twenty-first-birthday present from my mother.
“Can I send it off to the scrap, then?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “Wait until the insurance man has seen it.”
“Will do,” he said. “But don’t forget, you’re the one paying for the storage.”
What a surprise.
“WELL, THAT WASN’T very conclusive,” said Caroline as we sat in the taxi taking us back to Newmarket. “What do you want to do now?”
“Go home,” I said. “I’m feeling lousy.”
We did go home, but via the supermarket in Newmarket. I sat outside in the taxi as Caroline went to buy something to eat for supper, as well as a bottle of red wine. I was pretty sure that the painkillers I was taking didn’t mix too well with alcohol, but who cared.
I lay on the sofa and rested my aching head while Caroline fussed around in the kitchen. Once or twice, she came and sat down next to me, but soon she was up and about again.
“Relax,” I said to her. “I won’t eat you alive.”
She sighed. “It’s not that. I’m restless because I haven’t got my viola here to play. I usually practice for at least two hours every day, even if I’m performing in the evening. I haven’t played a note since the day before yesterday and I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I need my fix.”