‘You think one of us did it?’
‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Jason was killed next to your transporter.’
‘Yeah, but what was he doing hanging around our truck in the first place — spying, stealing?’
‘Fuck you. Jason wasn’t like that. Not everyone is a cheat.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Take a look at your team. There’s something very wrong there.’ Ronson pointed at the Ragged Racing fleet of transporters and support vehicles heading towards the exit. ‘What’s wrong with that picture?’
I shrugged.
‘Sponsorship.’
‘We’ve got sponsorship.’
‘Not enough to explain the amount your team is spending.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You lot have just rented Snetterton to yourself for the day and you do it all the time. Every square inch of your cars should be covered with sponsors’ logos to cover those running costs, so something bent is going on.’
Ronson had a point. The surface of a racecar was advertising real estate. Some locations were better than others and to get into those good neighbourhoods, you had to pay. Getting your company’s name or product splashed down the side of the car cost more than it did on the back bumper.
I watched Ragged’s transporters go by with the outline of the cars painted on the sides. Rags’ major sponsor was a men’s antiperspirant. Their sponsorship cash got them the rear door and quarter panel, boot lid and bumper. Pit Lane magazine had the front bumper and the Honda symbol covered the bonnet. I guessed that there was around a hundred thousand pounds in unused ad space on each car. Compared to the rest of the field, Ragged Racing looked like the poor relation. Ronson was right. The team shouldn’t have been in a position to be so lavish with its spending.
‘But the team is factory backed now. Honda is giving us the cars for free and donating technical support, so the budget is low.’
‘But Rags has been spending big money for years with no major sponsor underwriting him.’
‘So what? He’s spending big. What has that got to do with anything?
‘It’s a sign that Ragged Racing is bent.’
‘Bent how?’
Ronson was silent. I took that to mean he didn’t know.
‘What did Jason suspect?’
‘I don’t know. He never gave me any details, but he thought something wasn’t right. Our whole team does.’
‘Because Honda switched support from you to us?’
‘Hey, fuck you.’
‘No, fuck you. You haven’t told me anything that doesn’t sound like petty, professional jealousy.’
‘Yeah, believe what you want.’
Ronson jumped from the car and slammed the door.
I clambered from the car. ‘I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. You say someone from Ragged killed Jason, but you’ve got nothing to back it up.’
‘Like I said, believe what you want. Just know that your team doesn’t play fair and when it catches up to Rags, you’ll suffer the consequences,’ Ronson said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘When your team gets caught out, you’ll all get painted with the same brush. You’d be wise to get out while you can.’
Ronson got behind the wheel of his Civic and churned up the field as he pulled away.
I slipped back into my car and pulled out the envelope Crichlow had left for me containing Jason Gates’ door keys. I looked at the address written on the envelope. Northampton wasn’t exactly on the way home, but it was close enough. I programmed the address into the sat nav and set off.
Just as I reached Cambridge, my mobile rang. It was Dylan.
‘How did your first day as a hotshot racing driver go, matey?’
‘Pretty good,’ I answered, focusing on my track performance instead of Ronson’s spying.
‘You want to celebrate?’
‘I can’t. I’m tied up here.’
‘Oh,’ Dylan said. ‘That’s OK.’
Disappointment shaded his reply and I felt bad. As racing asked more and more of me, I’d be disappointing my friend more and more often.
‘How about tomorrow?’ I offered.
‘Sure, I’m not working tomorrow. You want to do a pub for lunch?’
‘Sounds good. Meet me at Archway.’
‘See you at noon,’ Dylan said and hung up.
I arrived in Northampton just before seven in the evening. The address led me to a housing development on the edge of town. It was a typical, modern development consisting of narrow streets and every type of housing option from flats to large, detached houses. Jason had lived on the top floor of a three-storey block of flats. I let myself into the building using the security code written on Gates’ note.
Despite having the permission to enter — sort of — from the family, I felt like a thief. I raced up the stairs to the top-floor landing and quickly let myself in with the key.
The acrid tang of smoke, like a fireplace left to burn itself out, hit me before I flicked on the light.
‘Not good,’ I said to myself.
I followed the smell down the hallway and flung open the doors to the living room, bedroom and bathroom. The story was the same in each. Someone had ransacked them. Furniture was overturned. Drawers had been yanked out and the contents dumped. Cupboards and wardrobes had been flung open and cleared out. The smoke detector in the living room clung to the ceiling with its cover and battery missing. I guessed that the police didn’t know about this carnage or there would have been crime-scene tape or something to mark their presence. That probably meant the ransacking was very recent.
The smell of burning was strongest in the bathroom. Flakes of ash and soot stained the sink. A half-arsed attempt to clean the sink had resulted in a grey-black swirl. The sink might have served as the makeshift fireplace, but the toilet bowl had served as the disposal for the ashes. Fortunately, not every fragment wanted to do as it had been told. Small pieces of singed paper floated on the water in the soot-stained bowl.
The smart move for me would be to call the police. That notion fell apart when I pictured myself trying to explain why I was in the home of a murder victim I’d discovered. Instead, I sighed, reached down and fished out the charred paper fragments with my hand. The biggest piece I recovered was a thumbnail-sized corner piece. I flicked on the strip light over the sink and peered at it. Even through the charring, it was easy to tell it was a photograph, but being a corner piece, it provided no useful detail. The other pieces were in worse shape. Two of them dissolved in my hand. The firebug might not have done the neatest of jobs, but he’d sufficiently destroyed whatever he needed to destroy. I scooped up the remaining pieces, dropped them in the toilet and flushed, sending them to a watery grave.
The evidence might have been destroyed, but it did leave behind one useful fact. The thumbnail-sized scrap had been a photo, but it had been printed on ordinary paper and not on photo stock. That meant it had come off a printer. So where was the computer? I searched the living room and found a printer in the wreckage, but there wasn’t a computer attached.
Whatever was worth finding was probably gone, but continuing the search wasn’t a waste of time. Jason Gates was a ghost to me, but you can learn a lot about a person from their belongings. I sifted through the mess in the living room and discovered that he had a subscription to Pit Lane. He didn’t cook much, judging from all the ready meals in his fridge and freezer. He owned a very nice set of Snap-On tools that he kept in his bedroom and he had a number of framed motor-racing prints and action shots of Townsend Motorsport cars in action from the ESCC. I found a second toothbrush in the bathroom, but I didn’t detect a girlfriend’s presence. The place smacked too much of a man cave. It felt a little like my room at Steve’s house.