Алистер Маклин: The Way to Dusty Death

‘What did you say just now?’

‘I know you heard what I said.’ Henry was still splendidly unperturbed. ‘You know that he’s driving like a madman and that all the other drivers are getting terrified of him. In fact, they are terrified of him. He shouldn’t be allowed on a race track again. The man’s shot, you can see that. And in Glasgow, when we say that a man’s shot, we mean–’

Dunnet said: ‘We know what you mean. I thought you were a friend of his, Henry?’

‘Aye, I’m all that. Finest gentleman I’ve ever known, begging the pardon of you two gentlemen. It’s because I’m his friend that I don’t want him killed – or had up for manslaughter.’

MacAlpine said without animosity: ‘You stick to your job of running the transporter, Henry: I’ll stick to mine of running the Coronado team.’

Henry nodded and turned away, gravity in his face and a certain carefully controlled degree of outrage in his walk as if to say he’d done his duty, delivered his witch’s warning and if that warning were not acted upon the consequences weren’t going to be his, Henry’s, fault. MacAlpine, his face equally grave, rubbed his cheek thoughtfully and said: ‘He could be right at that. In fact, I have every reason for thinking he is.’

‘Is what, James?’

‘On the skids. On the rocks. Shot, as Henry would say.’

‘Shot by whom? By what?’

‘Chap called Bacchus, Alexis. The chap that prefers using booze to bullets.’

‘You have evidence of this?’

‘Not so much evidence of his drinking as lack of evidence of his not drinking. Which can be just as damning.’

‘Sorry, don’t follow. Can it be that you have been holding out on me, James?’

MacAlpine nodded and told briefly of his duplicity in the line of duty. It was just after the day that Jethou had died and Harlow had shown his lack of expertise both in pouring and drinking brandy that MacAlpine had first suspected that Harlow had forgone his lifelong abstention from alcohol. There had been, of course, no spectacular drinking bouts, for those would have been automatically responsible for having him banned from the race tracks of the world: a genius for avoiding company, he just went about it quietly, steadily, persistently and above all secretly, for Harlow always drank alone, almost invariably in out of the way places, usually quite remote, where he stood little or no chance of being discovered. This MacAlpine knew for he had hired what was practically a full-time investigator to follow him but Harlow was either extremely lucky or, aware of what was going on – he was a man of quite remarkable intelligence and must have suspected the possibility of his being followed – extremely astute and skilled in his avoidance of surveillance, for he had been tracked down only three times to sources of supply, small Weinstuben lost in the forests near the Hockenheim and Nurburgring circuits. Even on those occasions he had been observed to be sipping, delicately and with what appeared to be commendable restraint, a small glass of hock which was hardly sufficient to blunt even the highly-tuned faculties and reactions of a Formula One driver: what made this elusiveness all the more remarkable was that Harlow drove everywhere in his flame-red Ferrari, the most conspicuous car on the roads of Europe. But that he went to such extraordinary – and extraordinarily successful – lengths to escape surveillance was, for MacAlpine, all the circumstantial evidence he required that Harlow’s frequent, mysterious and unexplained absences coincided with Harlow’s frequent and solitary drinking bouts. MacAlpine finished by saying that a later and more sinister note had crept in: there was now daily and incontrovertible evidence that Harlow had developed a powerful affinity for scotch.

Dunnet was silent until he saw that MacAlpine apparently had no intention of adding to what he had said. ‘Evidence?’ he said, ‘What kind of evidence?’

‘Olfactory evidence.’

Dunnet paused briefly then said: ‘I’ve never smelt anything.’

MacAlpine said kindly: ‘That, Alexis, is because you are not capable of smelling anything. You can’t smell oil, you can’t smell fuel, you can’t smell burning tyres. How do you expect to be able to smell scotch?’

Dunnet inclined his head in acknowledgment. He said: ‘Have you smelt anything?’ MacAlpine shook his head. ‘Well, then–’

MacAlpine said: ‘He avoids me like the plague nowadays – and you know how close Johnny and myself used to be. Whenever he does get close to me he smells powerfully of menthol throat tablets. Doesn’t that say something to you?’

‘Come off it, James. That’s no evidence.’

‘Perhaps not. But Tracchia, Jacobson and Rory swear to it.’

‘Oh, brother, are they unbiased witnesses? If Johnny is forced to step down who’s going to be Coronado’s number one driver with a good chance of being the next champion? Who but our Nikki. Jacobson and Johnny have never been on good terms and now the relationship is going from bad to worse: Jacobson doesn’t like having his cars smashed up and what he likes even less is Harlow’s contention that the smashes have nothing to do with him which brings into question Jacobson’s ability to prepare a car thoroughly. As for Rory, well, frankly, he hates Johnny Harlow’s guts: partly because of what Johnny did to Mary, partly because she’s never allowed the accident to make the slightest difference in her attitude towards him. I’m afraid, James, that your daughter is the only person left on the team who is still totally devoted to Johnny Harlow.’

‘Yes, I know.’ MacAlpine was momentarily silent then said dully: ‘Mary was the first person to tell me.’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Dunnet looked miserably out on the track and without looking at MacAlpine said: ‘You’ve no option now. You have to fire him. For preference, today.’

‘You’re forgetting, Alexis, that you’ve just learnt this while I’ve known it for some time. My mind has been made up. One more Grand Prix.’

The parking lot, in the fading light, looked like the last resting place of the behemoths of a bygone age. The huge transporters that carried the racing cars, spare parts and portable workshops around Europe, parked, as they were, in a totally haphazard fashion, loomed menacingly out of the gloom. They were completely devoid of life as evinced by the fact that no light showed from any of them. The car park itself was equally deserted except for a figure that had just appeared from out of the gathering dusk and passed through the entrance to the transporter parking lot.

Johnny Harlow made no apparent attempt to conceal his presence from any chance observer, if any such there had been. Swinging his little canvas bag he made his way diagonally across the parking lot until he brought up at one of the huge behemoths: written large on the side and back was the word FERRARI. He didn’t even bother to try the door of the transporter but produced a bunch of curiously shaped keys and had the door open in a matter of a few seconds. He passed inside and closed and locked the door behind him. For five minutes he did nothing other than move from window to window on either side of the transporter checking patiently, continuously, to see if his unauthorized entrance had been observed. It was apparent that it had not been. Satisfied, Harlow withdrew the flash-lamp from the canvas bag, switched on the red beam, stooped over the nearest Ferrari racing car and began to examine it minutely.

There were about thirty people in the hotel lobby that evening. Among them were Mary MacAlpine and her brother, Henry and the two red-haired Rafferty twins. The sound level of the conversation was notably high: the hotel had been taken over for the weekend by several of the Grand Prix teams and the racing fraternity is not particularly renowned for its inhibitions. All of them, mainly drivers but with several mechanics, had discarded their workaday clothes and were suitably attired for their evening meal which was as yet an hour distant. Henry, especially, was exceptionally resplendent in a grey pin-striped suit with a red rose in his buttonhole. Even his moustache appeared to have been combed. Mary sat beside him with Rory a few feet away, reading a magazine, or at least appearing to do so. Mary sat silently, unsmiling, constantly gripping and twisting one of the walking sticks to which she had now graduated. Suddenly, she turned to Henry.