Stuart Pawson - Chill Factor

“One take, beginning to end, starting and finishing with the time?”

“That’s it.”

“You goddit, no problem.”

“Do we have sound recording?”

“Sure do.”

“Right. In that case, I’ll do the talking. Let’s go.”

I felt Burgess-Jones tug my sleeve and turned to him. “Nobody goes anywhere without some protection for their eyes,” he said, placing a pair of safety spectacles in my hand. I put them on and the film crew found their Oakleys.

“OK, gentlemen,” Grateful Dead said, taking over the role of director because he realised that it was the only way to get things done, “let’s have you all together, at the side of the car. Take one, of one.”

Burgess-Jones picked up the angle grinder and we stood there as the camera zoomed in at the watch and then encompassed us all in its impartial gaze. I introduced myself, feeling foolish, and invited the others to do so. Burgess-Jones’s assistant was called Raymond, and he said he was chief mechanic and brother-in-law of the proprietor. He’s married well, I thought.

“We will now lift the bonnet and attempt to establish its original colour, before any restoration work was done on it,” I said, and Raymond reached inside the car and released the catch.

We all stepped back to allow him to walk round to the front of the car. He poked his fingers inside the front grill for the lever and lifted the bonnet. I could see pipes and wires, a drive shaft and exhaust pipe, all pointing towards a big void where most cars have an engine.

“There’s no fuckin’ engine!” Denver gasped. He turned to Burgess-Jones. “Hey! There’s no fuckin’ engine. You never said it didn’t have an engine.”

“I told you it was a museum piece,” Burgess-Jones replied.

“Six fuckin’ grand!” he ranted. “I just gave six fuckin’ grand for a car with no fuckin’ engine.”

“Let’s have a look at the underside of the bonnet,” I said, and Raymond held it upright so the camera could zoom in. Burgess-Jones pressed the trigger on the angle grinder and applied it to the paintwork.

He moved it gently back and forth and we watched as the scarlet paint shrivelled and flew off in a spray of debris and smoke. First a grey undercoat was revealed, then a dark colour and then more primer. He stood back and the machine in his hand whined to a standstill.

“That should do it,” he declared. “BRG, I’d say. British racing green.”

Raymond stooped to look under the bonnet. “Yep, BRG,” he confirmed.

Denver and I looked and agreed that the original colour was green. Prendergast declined.

“OK,” I said. “Now lets have a look at the outside.” Raymond slammed the bonnet shut and Burgess-Jones stepped forward, brandishing the Black and Decker.

Denver restrained him with an extended arm and positioned himself in front of the MG, facing the camera. “This,” he began, “is a simple test upon which the life, the freedom, of a man depends.”

I was standing alongside Grateful Dead, who glanced sideways at me. Had I tried to stop Denver it would be captured on film, and he knew it. “Keep filming,” I told him through gritted teeth.

“Tony Silkstone,” Denver continued, “stands accused of a series of crimes — rape and murder — going back eighteen years. Some would say the police have been over-zealous in their pursuit of Silkstone, their enquiry based entirely on the suspicions of one officer. Whilst we wish our police to be diligent and thorough, there comes a point when these qualities become vindictive and mean spirited. Hounding the innocent should not be part of the police’s role.”

I thought he’d finished, and took a step forward. Denver shot me a glance then looked back at the camera. “The bonnet of this car might hold the clue to the killer who murdered and raped sixteen-year-old Caroline Poole back in 1983, and who had sexually assaulted young Eileen Kelly two years previously. Eileen says her attacker drove a Jaguar car. The police, or, more accurately, one police officer with a reputation for irresponsible action, say that the car was an MGB, similar to this one behind me…” he stepped to one side and gestured, “…that belonged to Tony Silkstone at the time in question. This officer says that Silkstone had fitted a Jaguar mascot to the bonnet of the car, thus causing Eileen to believe the car she was abducted in was of that make. Silkstone denies it. The proof, ladies and gentlemen, is awaiting discovery. If this car ever had the Jaguar mascot fitted, there will be evidence of two holes, somewhere about here.” He touched the appropriate place. “Let’s see, shall we?”

I thought about going out in a blaze of glory. They’d have put it down to post-traumatic stress, or something, and given me a full pension. And it would certainly have made good television, as I demonstrated how to reshape the front of an MG by battering it with a journalist’s head. They might even have given me my own chat show. Instead, I just turned away and took a few deep breaths. I’m growing either old or soft, or both.

Burgess-Jones stepped forward again and the grinder in his hands leapt from zero to three thousand revs per minute with a yelp like a kicked dog. “About there,” Denver instructed him, pointing to a spot just behind the MG badge. I walked forward to have a closer look.

He moved the spinning wheel across the pristine surface, barely skimming the top layer away. We smelt burning paint and saw flakes of it melt and then fly off. He gradually enlarged the patch, revealing the grey undercoat and a darker primer edging the scar, like woodgrain, or an aerial view of a coastline.

Sparks flew when he touched metal. The patch of bare metal grew as he moved the wheel across it. Silver steel, that’s all. “Back a bit,” I shouted to Burgess-Jones above the whine of the grinder, and he expanded the area he was attacking. The patch grew longer, but it was blank and inviolate.

There was one aesthetically pleasing spot where you could fix the jaguar, and we’d covered that. Anywhere else and it would have looked wrong. Too far forward and the cat would have been leaping downhill, too far back and it would cease to be a bonnet mascot. But Silkstone knew nothing about aesthetics, and I clung to that fact.

“Keep going,” I said.

Denver gestured to Grateful Dead for him to move in with the camera and get a good close-up of the metal. Burgess-Jones was nearly halfway back to the windscreen when I saw him tense and stoop more closely over the car. “There’s something here!” he cried.

There it was. A dissimilar metal, to borrow a phrase from my schooldays, peering out from under the paint and growing by the second. First one brass-coloured disc was revealed, then another an inch behind it, like twin suns blazing in the silver sky of a distant planet. Burgess-Jones enlarged the sky, gave it a neat finish, then stepped proudly back.

“You did it,” I said to him. “You did it. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, a big smile across his face.

Denver looked at where the holes had been, before some craftsman had filled them with braze and made the bonnet as good as new. “Are they the right size?” he asked.

“Yes,” Burgess-Jones told him. “About a quarter inch diameter at one inch centres. Exactly right, I’d say.”

“Wow!” Denver exclaimed, recovering his equilibrium and doing a U-turn that would have overturned a Ferrari but didn’t make his conscience even wobble. “Wow! Do I have a story! Do I have a fuckin’ story!” He patted his pockets, feeling for his phone, then remembered it was in his car, being recharged.

Grateful Dead zoomed in at my watch and asked me if that would do. I nodded and he said: “Cut!” and stopped the camera.