The Way to Dusty Death, Page 3

  MacAlpine left the room and walked down to the reception area. A doctor was speaking to the nurse at the desk. He had grey hair, tired eyes and the face of an aristocrat. MacAlpine said: ‘Are you the person who is looking after my daughter?’

  ‘Mr MacAlpine? Yes, I am. Dr Chollet.’

  ‘She seems very ill.’

  ‘No, Mr MacAlpine. No problem. She is just under heavy sedation. For the pain, you understand.’

  ‘I see. How long will she be – ’

  ‘Two weeks. Perhaps three. No more.’

  ‘One question, Dr Chollet. Why is her leg not in traction?’

  ‘It would seem, Mr MacAlpine, that you are not a man who is afraid of the truth.’

  ‘Why is her leg not in traction?’

  ‘Traction is for broken bones, Mr MacAlpine. Your daughter’s left ankle bone, I’m afraid, is not just broken, it is – how would you say it in English? – pulverized, yes I think that is the word, pulverized beyond any hope of remedial surgery. What’s left of the bone will have to be fused together.’

  ‘Meaning that she can never bend her ankle again?’ Chollet inclined his head. ‘A permanent limp? For life?’

  ‘You can have a second opinion, Mr MacAlpine. The best orthopaedic specialist in Paris. You are entitled –’ ‘No. That will not be necessary. The truth is obvious, Dr Chollet. One accepts the obvious.’

  ‘I am deeply sorry, Mr MacAlpine. She is a lovely child. But I am only a surgeon. Miracles? No. No miracles.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor. You are most kind. I’ll be back in about say – two hours?’

  ‘Please not. She will be asleep for at least twelve hours. Perhaps sixteen.’

  MacAlpine nodded his head in acceptance and left.

  Dunnet pushed away his plate with his untouched meal, looked at MacAlpine’s plate, similarly untouched, then at the brooding MacAlpine.

  He said: ‘I don’t think either of us, James, is as tough as we thought we were.’

  ‘Age, Alexis. It overtakes us all.’

  ‘Yes. And at very high speed, it would seem.’ Dunnet pulled his plate towards him, regarded it sorrowfully then pushed it away again.

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a damn sight better than amputation.’

  ‘There’s that. There’s that.’ MacAlpine pushed back his chair. ‘A walk, I think, Alexis.’

  ‘For the appetite? It won’t work. Not with me.’

  ‘Nor with me. I just thought it might be interesting to see if Jacobson has turned up anything.’

  The garage was very long, low, heavily skylighted, brilliantly lit with hanging spotlights and, for a garage, was remarkably clean and tidy. Jacobson was at the inner end, stooped over Harlow’s wrecked Coronado, when the metal door screeched open. He straightened, acknowledged the presence of MacAlpine and Dunnet with a wave of his hand, then returned to his examination of the car.

  Dunnet closed the door and said quietly: ‘Where are the other mechanics?’

  MacAlpine said: You should know by this time. Jacobson always works alone on a crash job. A very low opinion of other mechanics, has Jacobson. Says they either overlook evidence or destroy it by clumsiness.’

  The two men advanced and watched in silence as Jacobson tightened a connection in the hydraulic brake line. They were not alone in watching him. Directly above them, through an open skylight, the powerful lamps in the garage reflected on something metallic. The metallic object was a hand-held eight millimetre camera and the hands that held them were very steady indeed. They were the hands of Johnny Harlow. His face was as impassive as his hands were motionless, intent and still and totally watchful. He was also totally sober.

  MacAlpine said: ‘Well?’

  Jacobson straightened and tenderly massaged an obviously aching back.

  ‘Nothing. Just nothing. Suspension, brakes, engine, transmission, tyres, steering – all OK.’

  ‘But the steering – ’

  ‘Sheared. Impact fracture. Couldn’t be anything else. It was still working when he pulled out in front of Jethou. You can’t tell me that the steering suddenly went in that one second of time, Mr MacAlpine. Coincidence is coincidence, but that would be just a bit too much.’

  Dunnet said: ‘So we’re still in the dark?’

  ‘It’s broad daylight where I stand. The oldest reason in the business. Driver error.’

  ‘Driver error.’ Dunnet shook his head. ‘Johnny Harlow never made a driver error in his life.’

  Jacobson smiled, his eyes cold. ‘I’d like to have the opinion of Jethou’s ghost on that one.’

  MacAlpine said: ‘This hardly helps. Come on. Hotel. You haven’t even eaten yet, Jacobson.’ He looked at Dunnet. ‘A night-cap in the bar, I think, then a look-in on Johnny.’

  Jacobson said: ‘You’ll be wasting your time, sir. He’ll be paralytic.’

  MacAlpine looked at Jacobson consideringly, then said very slowly and after a long pause: ‘He’s still world champion. He’s still Coronado’s number one.’

  ‘So that’s the way of it, is it?’

  ‘You want it some other way?’

  Jacobson crossed to a sink, began to wash his hands. Without turning he said: ‘You’re the boss, Mr MacAlpine.’

  MacAlpine made no reply. When Jacobson had dried his hands the three men left the garage in silence, closing the heavy metal door behind them.

  Only the top half of Harlow’s head and supporting hands were visible as he clung to the ridgepole of the garage’s V-roof and watched the three men walk up the brightly lit main street. As soon as they had turned a corner and disappeared from sight, he slid gingerly down towards the opened skylight, lowered himself through the opening and felt with his feet until he found a metal cross-beam. He released his grip on the skylight sill, balanced precariously on the beam, brought out a small flashlight from an inner pocket – Jacobson had switched off all the lights before leaving – and directed it downwards. The concrete floor was about nine feet below him.

  Harlow stooped, reached for the beam with his hands, slid down over it, hung at the full stretch of his hand, then released his grip. He landed lightly and easily, headed for the door, switched on all the lights then went directly to the Coronado. He was carrying not one but two strap-hung cameras, his eight millimetre cine and a very compact still camera with flashlight attachment.

  He found an oily cloth and used it to rub clean part of the right suspension, a fuel line, the steering linkage and one of the carburettors in the engine compartment. Each of these areas he flash-photographed several times with the still camera. He retrieved the cloth, coated it with a mixture of oil and dirt from the floor, swiftly smeared the parts he had photographed and threw the cloth into a metal bin provided for that purpose.

  He crossed to the door and tugged on the handle, but to no avail. The door had been locked from the outside and its heavy construction precluded any thought or attempt to force it: and Harlow’s last thought was to leave any trace of his passing. He looked quickly around the garage.

  On his left hand side was a light wooden ladder suspended from two right-angle wall brackets – a ladder almost certainly reserved for the cleaning of the very considerable skylight area. Below it, and to one side, lay, in a corner, the untidy coil of a towrope.

  Harlow moved to the corner, picked up the rope, lifted the ladder off its brackets, looped the rope round the top rung and placed the ladder against the metal cross-beam. He returned to the door and switched off the lights. Using his flashlight, he climbed up the ladder and straddled the beam. Grasping the ladder while still maintaining his grip on the rope, he maneuvered the former until the lower end hooked on to one of the right angle wall brackets. Using the looped rope, he lowered the other end of the ladder until, not without some difficulty, he managed to drop it into the other bracket. He released one end of the rope, pulled it clear of the ladder, coiled it up and threw it into the corner where it had been previously lying. Then, swaying dangerously, he managed to bring himself upright on
the beam, thrust himself head and shoulders through the opened skylight, hauled himself up and disappeared into the night above.

  MacAlpine and Dunnet were seated alone at a table in an otherwise deserted lounge bar. They were seated in silence as a waiter brought them two scotches. MacAlpine raised his glass and smiled without humour.

  ‘When you come to the end of a perfect day. God, I’m tired.’

  ‘So you’re committed, James. So Harlow goes on.’

  ‘Thanks to Jacobson. Didn’t leave me much option, did he?’

  Harlow, running along the brightly lit main street, stopped abruptly. The street was almost entirely deserted except for two tall men approaching his way. Harlow hesitated, looked around swiftly, then pressed into a deeply recessed shop entrance. He stood there immobile as the two men passed by: they were Nicolo Tracchia, Harlow’s team-mate, and Willi Neubauer, engrossed in low-voiced and clearly very earnest conversation. Neither of them saw Harlow. They passed by. Harlow emerged from the recessed doorway, looked cautiously both ways, waited until the retreating backs of Tracchia and Neubauer had turned a corner, then broke into a run again.

  MacAlpine and Dunnet drained their glasses. MacAlpine looked questioningly at Dunnet. Dunnet said: ‘Well, I suppose we’ve got to face it some time.’

  MacAlpine said: ‘I suppose.’ Both men rose, nodded to the barman, and left.

  Harlow, now moving at no more than a fast walk, crossed the street in the direction of a neon-signed hotel. Instead of using the main entrance, he went down a side alleyway, turned to his right and started to climb a fire-escape two steps at a time. His steps were as sure-footed as a mountain goat, his balance immaculate, his face registering no emotion. Only his eyes registered any expression. They were clear and still but possessed an element of clear-eyed and concentrated calculation. It was the face of a dedicated man who knew completely what he was about.

  MacAlpine and Dunnet were outside a door, numbered 412. MacAlpine’s face registered a peculiar mixture of anger and concern. Dunnet’s face, oddly, showed only unconcern. It could have been tight-lipped unconcern, but then Dunnet was habitually a tight-lipped man. MacAlpine hammered loudly on the door. The hammering brought no reaction. MacAlpine glanced furiously at his bruising knuckles, glanced at Dunnet and started a renewed assault on the door. Dunnet had no comment to make, either vocally or facially.

  Harlow reached a platform on the fourth-floor fire-escape. He swung over the guard-railing, took a long step towards a nearby open window, negotiated the crossing safely and passed inside. The room was small. A suitcase lay on the floor, its contents spilled out in considerable disarray. On the bedside table stood a low-wattage lamp, which gave the only weak illumination in the room, and a half empty bottle of whisky. Harlow closed and locked the window to the accompaniment of a violent tattoo of knocks on the door. MacAlpine’s outraged voice was very loud and clear.

  ‘Open up! Johnny! Open up or I’ll break the bloody door in.’

  Harlow pushed both cameras under the bed. He tore off his black leather jacket and black roll-neck pull-over and thrust them both after the cameras. He then took a quick swill of whisky, split a little in the palm of his hand and rubbed it over his face.

  The door burst open to show MacAlpine’s outstretched right leg, the heel of which he’d obviously used against the lock. Both MacAlpine and Dunnet entered, then stood still. Harlow, clad only in shirt and trousers and still wearing his shoes, was stretched out in bed, apparently in an almost coma-like condition. His arm dangled over the side of the bed, his right hand clutching the neck of the whisky bottle. MacAlpine, grim-faced and almost incredulous, approached the bed, bent over Harlow, sniffed in disgust and removed the bottle from Harlow’s nerveless hand. He looked at Dunnet, who returned his expressionless glance.

  MacAlpine said: ‘The greatest driver in the world.’

  ‘Please James. You said it yourself. It happens to all of them. Remember? Sooner or later, it happens to them all.’

  ‘But Johnny Harlow?’

  ‘Even to Johnny Harlow.’

  MacAlpine nodded. Both men turned and left the room, closing the broken door behind them. Harlow opened his eyes, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His hand stopped moving and he sniffed his palm. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As the crowded weeks after the Clermont-Ferrand race rushed by there appeared to be little change in Johnny Harlow. Always a remote, withdrawn and lonely figure, remote and withdrawn he still remained, except that he was now more lonely than ever. In his great days, at the peak of his powers and the height of his fame, he had been a man relaxed to the point of abnormality, his inner self under iron control: and so, in his quietness, he seemed to be now, as aloofly remote and detached as ever, those remarkable eyes – remarkable in the quality of their phenomenal eyesight, not in appearance – as clear and calm and unblinking as ever and the aquiline face quite devoid of expression.

  The hands were still now, hands that bespoke a man at peace with himself, but it would seem likely that the hands belied and did not bespeak for it seemed equally that he was not at peace with himself and never would be again for to say that Johnny Harlow’s fortunes steadily declined from that day he had killed Jethou and crippled Mary one would be guilty of a sad misuse of the English language. They hadn’t declined, they had collapsed with what must have been for him – and most certainly for his great circle of friends, acquaintances and admirers – a complete and shattering finality.

  Two weeks after the death of Jethou – and this before his own home British crowd who had come, almost to a man, to forgive him for the dreadful insults and accusations heaped upon him by the French press and to cheer their idol home to victory – he had suffered the indignity, not to say the humiliation, of running off the track in the very first lap. He had caused no damage either to himself or any spectator but his Coronado was a total write-off. As both front tyres had burst it was assumed that at least one of them had gone before the car had left the track: there could not, it was agreed, have been any other explanation for Harlow’s abrupt departure into the wilderness. This agreement was not quite universal. Jacobson, predictably, had privately expressed his opinion that the accepted explanation was a very charitable assumption indeed. Jacobson was becoming very attached to the phrase ‘driver error’.

  Two weeks after that, at the German Grand Prix – probably the most difficult circuit in Europe but one of which Harlow was an acknowledged master – the air of gloom and despondency that hung like a thundercloud over the Coronado pits was almost palpable enough, almost visible enough to take hold of and push to one side – were it not for the fact that this particular cloud was immovable. The race was over and the last of the Grand Prix cars had vanished to complete the final circuit of the track before coming into their pits.

  MacAlpine, looking both despondent and bitter, glanced at Dunnet, who lowered his eyes, bit his lower lip and shook his head. MacAlpine looked away and lost himself in his own private thoughts. Mary sat on a canvas chair close beside them. Her left leg was still in heavy plaster and crutches were propped up against her chair. She held a lap-time note-pad in one hand, a stop watch and pencil in the other. She was gnawing a pencil and her pale face held the expression of one who was pretty close to tears. Behind her stood Jacobson, his two mechanics, and Rory. Jacobson’s face, if his habitual saturnine expression were excepted, was quite without expression. His mechanics, the red-haired Rafferty twins, wore, as usual, identical expressions, in this case a mixture of resignation and despair. Rory’s face registered nothing but a cold contempt.

  Rory said: ‘Eleventh out of twelve finishers! Boy, what a driver. Our world champion – doing his lap of honour, I suppose.’

  Jacobson looked at him speculatively.

  ‘A month ago he was your idol, Rory.’

  Rory looked across at his sister. She was still gnawing her pencil, the shoulders were drooped and the tears in her eyes were now unmistakable. R
ory looked back at Jacobson and said: ‘That was a month ago.’

  A lime-green Coronado swept into the pits, braked and stopped, its crackling exhaust fading away into silence. Nicolo Tracchia removed his helmet, produced a large silk handkerchief, wiped his matinée-idol face and started to remove his gloves. He looked, and with reason, particularly pleased with himself, for he had just finished second and that by only a car’s length. MacAlpine crossed to him and patted the still-seated Tracchia on the back.

  ‘A magnificent race, Nikki. Your best ever – and on this brute of a course. Your third second place in five times out.’ He smiled. ‘You know, I’m beginning to think that we may make a driver of you yet.’

  Tracchia grinned hugely and climbed from the car.

  ‘Watch me next time out. So far, Nicolo Tracchia hasn’t really been trying, just trying to improve the performance of those machines our chief mechanic ruins for us between races.’ He smiled at Jacobson, who grinned back: despite the marked differences in the natures and interests, there was a close affinity between the two men. ‘Now, when it comes to the Austrian Grand Prix in a couple of weeks – well, I’m sure you can afford a couple of bottles of champagne.’

  MacAlpine smiled again and it was clear that though the smile did not come easily its reluctance was not directed against Tracchia. In the space of one brief month MacAlpine, even though he still couldn’t conceivably be called a thin person, had noticeably lost weight in both body and face, the already trenched lines in the latter seemed to have deepened and it was possible even to imagine an increase in the silver on that magnificent head of hair. It was difficult to imagine that even the precipitous fall from grace of his superstar could have been responsible for so dramatic a change but it was equally difficult to imagine that there could have been any other reason. MacAlpine said:

  ‘Overlooking the fact, aren’t we, that there’ll be a real live Austrian at the Austrian Grand Prix. Chap called Willi Neubauer. You have heard of him?’