“What’s up?” I asked.
“They want me to go out with the fucking novices,” he said, his flash of temper surprising me. “Like they don’t think I can hack it with the big boys.”
“We’re only in the intermediates,” I said, hoping to mollify him but he only glowered all the harder.
“I know,” he snapped. “If you were all in the top group at least that might mean I could move up one.”
“Just go out and give ‘em hell in whatever session,” I said, aiming to be encouraging. “Better to be way out in front than getting lapped.”
Jamie didn’t reply to that one, just disappeared into the office looking ready to pull the arms and legs off somebody’s teddy bear.
“They’ve been pushing him to keep up all the way here,” Sean said, watching Jamie go with narrowed eyes. “I wonder why the sudden attack of conscience now?”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “At least it means we don’t have to worry about him while we’re out on track.”
***
“Bloody hell,” I said half an hour later. “It’s going to rain.”
We were sitting in one of the stands overlooking the track, watching the early novice session warm up. The smell of two-stroke oil was heavy in the air.
William eyed the clouds overhead. “How can you be so certain?”
“I can feel it in my bones,” I said, rubbing at the dull ache in my left arm. “The pressure’s dropping.”
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow but didn’t contradict me outright. “Should make life more interesting, if nothing else,” he said and his eyes slid to the track as Jamie’s Honda came ripping into view.
Jacob’s genes were showing big time out on the track. Jamie zipped round the outside of another two stragglers as he came past us, riding like a man possessed, eyes locked on the next corner, totally in the zone.
“The kid’s got some talent,” Paxo admitted, watching him disappear.
“Mm,” I agreed. “Too much to be in with this lot. It makes it look like he’s just showing off. He ought to be up a group.”
Daz shrugged. “Well, he can always move up this afternoon,” he said casually. He checked his watch. “You two ought to be getting ready for your session. As soon as they’ve finished scraping those baby Aprilias out of the gravel trap they’ll be starting on the intermediates.”
Dismissed, Sean and I went to reclaim our bikes, lining up with around twenty others in the pit lane. Once the last group was all safely back in, they started letting us go out onto the track two at a time to avoid carnage in the first corner. Sean and I edged up towards the front of the group. My heart started to pump harder. Two more pairs in front of us, then one.
I clicked my visor down and started to let the ‘Blade’s clutch out until it was almost biting, upping the revs, holding it with two fingers tucked round the front brake. The bike felt as though it was bunching its muscles underneath me. The marshal waved us away.
Show time.
***
I must admit there was a part of me that had wondered how hard Sean would ride, bearing in mind I knew just how fiercely competitive he could be. It was something of a surprise, then, when he slotted in behind me at the first bend and stayed there.
After a few corners it became apparent that he had no intention of overtaking me, so I stopped worrying about him tangling me up and concentrated on reeling in the guys ahead.
I had the feel of the bike now, and the advantage of being about two-thirds the weight of most of the other riders. By the time we were halfway through the twenty-minute session, we were only four away from leading the pack.
And then the rain started.
I did my best to overlook the first few splashes on my visor, but once the track had turned dark with it I couldn’t ignore it any longer. The contact patch with the road on a bike is so much smaller than a car’s that you really have to have ultimate faith in the compound of your tyres to go balls-out in the rain. I really didn’t have that kind of confidence.
I backed off the throttle and felt rather than saw Sean ease off behind me. Hard on our heels was a guy on a Yamaha R1 who’d been very upset when we’d carved past him a lap earlier. Now he was only too happy to regain his track position. For a second I debated on contesting his challenge, then let him go.
When the marshals brought out the chequered flags to signify the end of the session, we’d dropped back another two places. But, we were still up on our starting position and at least we hadn’t suffered the indignity of ending up in the kitty litter, as someone had, big style, with what had begun the day as a very nice Ducati 999.
Sean finally came up alongside me on the cooling-down lap, tipped his visor open and grinned at me through the gap.
“What happened to you, you wimp?” he shouted across. “We were right up there ‘til you chickened out.”
“Hey, I was just giving you a way out with honour,” I retorted. “You’re the one who’s on a borrowed bike.”
We cruised back into the pits and carried on through back into the paddock, along with the rest of our group. The rain was coming down harder now, the wind picking up restlessly under it.
We left the bikes parked up and took shelter in one of the open pit garages, listening to the inevitable post-session post mortem. The guy who’d dropped the Ducati took some good-natured stick but didn’t seem unduly bothered by the prospect of going home by recovery truck with what remained of his pride and joy.
There was no sign of any of the other Devil’s Bridge Club members, but I assumed Daz, William and Paxo would be getting ready for their turn on the track. As for Jamie, he was obviously still sulking and was nowhere to be seen.
The rain eased back to a light spit, enough that our leathers were adequately waterproof to venture out in it. Sean and I grabbed a coffee and a burger and found a seat in the stands to watch the boys do their stuff.
As expected, Paxo and Daz went through their grouping with single-minded determination, riding too aggressively for most of the other riders to cope with. In fact, they were so clearly racing each other – despite all the warnings that this was not a race – that I was amazed they didn’t get themselves black-flagged.
William was more circumspect but he still cut through the field with an efficient lack of drama. Despite the fact that this was supposed to be the session for the most experienced riders, the standard varied a lot. By the end of it Daz was just coming up to lap some of the tail-enders for the third time. He cut round one so close that he frightened the poor guy into a shimmy that nearly sent him off the track altogether.
Even Paxo didn’t have the stomach for that kind of suicide. He dropped back and the two of them finished with one other bike in between them. William was two places further down the order.
We strolled down to meet them as they came in. I half expected Jamie to be there, too, but he was still absent.
“I haven’t seen him either,” Sean admitted when I voiced my concern. “And there’s been no sign of Tess practically since we got here.”