Road Kill

the crash site this morning but it had already been lifted.” He nodded to the fairing. “This would seem to indicate that Gleet might have it. What we’ve been trying to work out is why.”

“Supposing the rumours are right and he did have his eye on Tess,” I put in. “What better way for him to get rid of the competition than a nice convenient road accident? Everybody knew Slick rode like he’d left his brains in a box under the bed. Right on the edge. Gleet could have sabotaged the bike easily enough – hell, he built it. It wouldn’t have taken much.”

“So now he’s nicked it back to stop the police finding whatever it is he’d done,” Sam murmured. “Bit risky, isn’t it? What if Slick had spotted it? And what if the cops had carted the wreckage straight to their own impound yard?”

“On a Sunday?” I shook my head. “It would have been a good guess that they wouldn’t come for it until today.”

“OK,” Sean said slowly. “Let’s run with that for a moment. If Gleet fixed Slick’s bike in some way, why was Clare so convinced that someone in a Transit van had run them off the road?”

I shrugged. “Like you said, she might not have been thinking clearly when she said it. Christ, she was in tremendous pain, doped up to the eyeballs—”

“That wasn’t your gut feeling at the time, Charlie,” he cut in. “She told you the van had come after them and you believed her. You’ve got good instincts – trust them.”

“Yeah, but she also told me the reason she was out with Slick in the first place was because the Ducati wouldn’t start,” I said with just a touch of bitterness, “and I believed her about that, too.”

I had a sudden painful recall of my conversation with Tess just before I’d left Gleet’s. It would seem there were a lot of things Clare wasn’t telling me the whole story on. Even so, something stopped me from speaking out about her possible relationship with Jamie. I couldn’t do it in front of Sam.

“Hang on,” Sam said now, sounding puzzled, “if you’re saying Slick’s accident might have been down to Gleet, then who was after you tonight?”

“Good question.” Sean’s face was grim. “Here’s another one for you, Charlie – will they try again?”

Our eyes clashed and locked. “I’ll be more careful.”

“And just how do you intend to do that on a bike?”

Sam cleared his throat nervously. “Erm, maybe someone’s just trying to scare you off, you know?” he suggested, ducking his head. “I mean, maybe not you personally, but there’ve been a lot of complaints about the road racing up and down that valley every weekend. Could be that someone’s decided to take the law into their own hands, so to speak.”

“So why go after a bike on the Wray road, on a Monday?” I said, still looking at Sean.

Sam shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, Slick’s wake wasn’t any secret,” he said. “It would have been obvious that there were going to be loads of bikers up at Gleet’s farm. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I shook my head, still doubtful. “I didn’t get the impression that it was a random thing,” I said. “Whoever the guy driving that van was, he was waiting for me.”

“Or somebody like you – small bike, on their own, going dark, just starting to rain,” Sam said, ticking off the points on his fingers. “You were a perfect target.”

“Was Slick a perfect target, too?” I wondered. “Big bike, two-up, on a dry road in broad daylight.”

“We don’t know that it was the same van,” Sean said. “I don’t suppose you got the number, by any chance?”

I shut my eyes for a moment and a vision of the Transit sprang into my head, towering over me where I’d fallen in the yard. I remembered the black bull bars on the front end, the oval Ford badge on the bonnet, the blaze of the headlights. I saw again the way the van had slewed wildly out of the gateway, the rear door with the disintegrating window. But no registration number. Nothing. I opened my eyes again. “He must have taken the plates off.”

“Serious boy,” Sean said.

“I, erm, don’t suppose this might have anything to do with, erm, your work?” Sam asked.

“I’m not working at the moment,” I said automatically, then paused.

Clare had wanted to hire me as Jamie’s bodyguard and I’d agreed to do it. At the time I’d thought it was misplaced maternal instinct that had motivated her. Now I wasn’t so sure.

But even so, wanting me to stop the kid from riding himself into the ground – or the nearest telegraph pole – on this trip to Ireland was hardly the same as protecting him from a determined outside threat. And besides, there was no reason to assume the mysterious van driver had been after anybody but me. Unless he was following the basic rule of assault on a principal: first kill the bodyguard.

I looked up and saw from Sean’s face that he was thinking about Clare’s urgent request, too. I saw his eyebrow lift when I shook my head a fraction. I’ll tell you later.

“What do you know about this trip to Ireland?” I asked.

Sam gave a short bark of laughter as he reached for his mug again. “The Devil’s Bridge Club outing?” he said. “Biggest bunch of loonies going. Half of that lot will come back in body bags, the way they ride.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he realised what he’d said and shut up abruptly, taking a guilty gulp of coffee.

“I take it from that, you’re not a member,” Sean said.

Sam shook his head. “Oh no,” he said. “On my old Norton? They wouldn’t have me – even if I was quick enough.” His lips twisted in self-derision and he waved a hand at his battered black leather jacket and oil-stained jeans. “I’m nowhere near trendy enough for that lot.”