‘Get him up.’
Crichlow lifted me back up on to my feet and held me up by bracing my arms behind me.
‘Dawn is a long way off and I can keep this up all night, because I am a very angry and upset man. I don’t think you can, so you need to talk. Someone killed my little brother and I want to know why.’
Gates underlined his point by slamming his fist into my stomach a second time. I dry-retched against the impact and sagged, but Crichlow kept me from collapsing.
‘Did you kill my brother?’
‘No. I tried to save him.’
‘You did a shitty job,’ Gates said and punched me again.
I anticipated the blow and tightened my stomach, but it didn’t do me any good and I folded. This time, Crichlow released his hold on me and I dropped to the ground.
My stomach was red hot from the punishment.
‘Talk to me while you still can,’ Gates said.
He disappeared into the shadows and returned with a toolbox. Panic knifed through me. Tools could be used to build things but, in the right hands, Gates’ hands, they could be used to destroy things.
He pulled out a five-pound mallet and smashed it against the concrete floor. Concrete chips flew into the air from the impact.
‘Hands are important to a driver, aren’t they?’
Crichlow pushed me forward and kept me pinned with his knee on my neck. He yanked one of my hands out and pressed it to the ground.
‘Look, I don’t know what you think happened, but I don’t know anything!’ I yelled.
Gates pressed down on my wrist and raised the mallet. ‘Did you kill my brother?’
‘No!’ I injected every ounce of honesty and truth into that one word.
Gates froze as he tried to read me and I willed myself to be as transparent as possible so he could see the truth.
Then he brought the mallet down. It struck the concrete millimetres from my outstretched fingers. The shockwave travelled through my hand and up into my shoulder.
‘I’m going to ask you some questions. Answer truthfully and I won’t hurt you. Lie and I’ll make sure you’re never able to pick up a spoon let alone hold a steering wheel. Am I clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get him up, Dominic.’
Crichlow helped me to my feet and had to support me. The emotional toll had robbed me of my strength.
Gates reclaimed the chair Crichlow had thrown aside and I fell into it. He found himself another and sat it down opposite me. Only Crichlow stood, like a hawk ready to take down its prey should it decide to run.
‘How well did you know my brother?’
‘I never met him.’
‘You would have liked him. Everyone did, didn’t they, Dominic?’
‘They did,’ Crichlow said.
‘He was an honest, decent person. Everything I could never be.’ Gates’ eyes shone with tears and pride. This sign of his humanity failed to relax me. His brother’s death had left him wounded. That made him dangerous.
‘Tell me what happened.’
I replayed it for him the same way I had for the police. That I’d returned to the transporter to see my name. How I’d found his brother, how I’d tried to save his brother’s life and how I’d heard footsteps of someone running away.
The details of Jason’s death tore into Gates. I watched how my words blew holes in him. I understood the pain of losing a loved one. I’d been lucky in comparison. I was a child when my mum and dad died. I wasn’t able to understand the enormity of that mammoth loss then. My loss was drip-fed to me as I reached the various milestones of my life — they weren’t there at school sports day and PTA meetings, when my first girlfriend dumped me, when I passed my driving test, when I took part in my first race, or today when I stepped on to the stage for my interview. I’d suffered incremental awareness of what it was to be an orphan. The pain of losing them was cushioned by having my grandfather, Steve, raise me. Andrew Gates wasn’t so lucky. His loss had been delivered both barrels full in the face. I pitied the poor sod. Almost.
‘What did the cops say?’
‘Not a lot. They asked the same questions as you.’
‘You were in the cop shop a long time,’ Crichlow said.
It was the first time Crichlow had gotten in on the questioning. Maybe he saw the cracks forming in his boss.
The cop shop question brought up a big point. They had to have been watching the police station to know that I was the one the police were questioning about Jason’s murder. Maybe they had someone on the inside feeding them information. If so, it certainly wasn’t Huston or O’Neal or anyone connected to the investigation or Gates would already know the answers to these questions.
‘Are you a witness or something more?’ Crichlow asked.
The question snapped Gates out of his sorrow. His body stiffened. I had to tread carefully around this point. The bloodlust was back in his eyes.
‘They treated me like a suspect.’
Gates’ words came out cold and hard. ‘Are you still one?’
‘You’ll have to ask them.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘They didn’t hold me and they didn’t tell me not to leave town.’
Gates and Crichlow exchanged a look and Crichlow nodded. I didn’t know if it was one of approval or disapproval.
‘Did they mention me?’
‘No. Should they have?’
‘Do they have any suspects?’
‘Other than you,’ Crichlow chipped in.
Snide remarks like that were going to get me killed. ‘They didn’t mention any, but I doubt they would.’
No one said anything for a long while. Gates stared through me while he thought. Crichlow stood in sentry-like silence. Nothing could be heard except the harsh splat of rain pouring through a hole in the roof and striking the concrete floor in the far distance.
‘Someone from the racing world killed my brother.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He was killed next to one of your trucks, wasn’t he? That’s why you’re going to find the killer for me.’
I groaned inside. I should have seen this coming. ‘You don’t know that this had anything to do with motor racing. You said yourself that you’ve got a shady past. Jason’s murder could be the result of someone getting back at you.’
Gates ground his teeth. That possibility had to be tearing him up. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll be looking into that side of things myself. You look into your side of things.’
‘I’m not the person for this. The cops are better equipped to look into this than I am.’
‘I disagree. The cops will blunder their way through and we can’t investigate this without causing waves, but you can. You can hide in plain sight.’
‘I know nothing about your brother.’
‘You’ll learn. I’m not taking no for an answer. You will do this for me. And just as an incentive.?.?.’ Gates let his words hang for me to pluck from the air.
‘Incentive?’
Gates picked up the mallet. I flinched. He smiled.
‘Calm yourself. Hurting you doesn’t help me. Hurting someone important to you, that is a real incentive. Refuse to help and I’ll take out my disappointment on that grandfather of yours.’
Gates knew a lot about me — that I raced, that Steve was my grandfather, that the police had held me — and he’d found it out in a hurry. He had connections that stretched further than just having Crichlow as his muscle. That scared me more than the five-pound mallet.
‘Have I made myself clear?’
He had. I understood Gates’ need for revenge and justice. His brother hadn’t deserved to die. But fuck him for taking it out on me and now Steve. Gates might have been out of the bad-guy business for a decade, but he hadn’t let any rust build on his skills for intimidation. ‘Yes,’ I forced out between gritted teeth.