Hot Seat by Simon Wood Page B

she got anything to back this up?’
    â€˜Her word and her car. It’s a write-off.’
    â€˜But you never made contact with her car?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then you’re golden. Did you show them the van?’
    â€˜Couldn’t. Steve was out in it. The cops are coming back to check it out in the next week or so.’
    â€˜Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, mate. The second they see the Transit hasn’t got a scratch, this bird is screwed.’
    It was nice to have someone believe in me. My recent run-ins with the police showed they had little faith in anything I said.
    â€˜Have you told Steve?’
    â€˜Not yet. I’m not looking forward to that.’
    â€˜Steve will have your back; you know that,’ Dylan said. ‘Let’s forget that crap. How’d testing go yesterday? Tell me all about it. I want to hear.’
    â€˜It’s amazing, mate. I have five guys working on my car alone. If something needs replacing, it gets replaced. No scrambling for loose change to pay for it. You wouldn’t believe how many sets of tyres we burned through.’
    Dylan beamed. ‘You are in a different world. You’re not trying to compete with the big boys – you are one of the big boys. I’m so proud of you.’
    Dylan drove us out to one of his favourite haunts, The Coach and Horses. It was a pub restaurant where the local AC Cobra owners’ club held their meetings. Drive by the last Sunday of the month and the car park would be chocka with the king of muscle cars.
    We ordered food and drinks at the bar. We grabbed a table by the window and Dylan went quiet. He fiddled with the beer mats on the table, stacking a bunch together, shuffling them, turning them around in his hands, only to shuffle them again.
    â€˜You OK?’
    â€˜If I say no, is that a problem?’
    â€˜No. What’s up?’
    â€˜It’s a weekday and I’m not working, and I’m not likely to be any time soon.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜Can you say economic downturn and housing slump? The building trade has dried up.’
    Dylan was a bricklayer and plasterer.
    I felt bad. I’d been so wrapped up with my own life over the last few months that I hadn’t kept up with Dylan’s situation. ‘I thought you were working on that housing development in Bracknell.’
    â€˜They’ve finished with me and there’s little else going on right now. I’m trying to see if I can get on some plumbing or electrical crews, but that doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to be a bricky all my life.’
    â€˜What do you want?’
    â€˜To ask a favour.’
    Last year, Dylan and Steve put their lives on the line to save me. Whatever he needed, I’d do my best to make it happen.
    â€˜Look, I’m done with the building trade. My heart isn’t in it anymore. I want to work the pits. All I need is a break. Do you think you could ask Rags to give me a job?’
    It seemed like a simple request, but it wasn’t. The days were gone where you could just be a good mechanic to get into motorsport. Technology was so ingrained in the sport, you needed to be junior rocket scientist and that meant qualifications, which Dylan didn’t have. He could claim that he’d worked alongside Steve, which carried some weight, but I doubted it was likely to sway Rags, especially since I’d pissed him off yesterday when I’d told him to leave Nick Ronson alone.
    â€˜I can ask, but I’m the new guy. I don’t have any sway.’
    â€˜I know you can’t make promises, but please do what you can. If I get on with a team, it’ll be my break from the building trade.’
    That bittersweet feeling that I’d felt at Earls Court returned. If my motor racing continued on the upswing, I’d be forced to leave my friends behind. There was only room for one person in the cockpit, literally and