Read Online Hot Seat by Simon Wood - Free Book Online Page B

useful detail. The other pieces were in worse shape. Two of them dissolved in my hand. The firebug might not have done the neatest of jobs, but he’d sufficiently destroyed whatever he needed to destroy. I scooped up the remaining pieces, dropped them in the toilet and flushed, sending them to a watery grave.
    The evidence might have been destroyed, but it did leave behind one useful fact. The thumbnail-sized scrap had been a photo, but it had been printed on ordinary paper and not on photo stock. That meant it had come off a printer. So where was the computer? I searched the living room and found a printer in the wreckage, but there wasn’t a computer attached.
    Whatever was worth finding was probably gone, but continuing the search wasn’t a waste of time. Jason Gates was a ghost to me, but you can learn a lot about a person from their belongings. I sifted through the mess in the living room and discovered that he had a subscription to
Pit Lane
. He didn’t cook much, judging from all the ready meals in his fridge and freezer. He owned a very nice set of Snap-On tools that he kept in his bedroom and he had a number of framed motor-racing prints and action shots of Townsend Motorsport cars in action from the ESCC. I found a second toothbrush in the bathroom, but I didn’t detect a girlfriend’s presence. The place smacked too much of a man cave. It felt a little like my room at Steve’s house.
    I froze at the sound of a key slipping into the door lock. If this was the killer returning to clean up, I was buggered. There was only one way out of the flat – past the killer.
    I stared at the twisting doorknob, raced into the kitchen and grabbed a knife, then stopped halfway down the hallway. The lock snapped back into place.
    My plan was simple. The second this tosser made an aggressive move, I was charging him with the knife. I didn’t care if I cut him, just as long as I broke free.
    The door eased open and my grip on the knife tightened. I controlled my breathing by taking long and deep inhalations.
    C’mon, you prick, I thought.
    The door swung open and a blonde woman no older than twenty-three stood in the doorway. She froze at the sight of me, her key still outstretched.
    I dropped my knife and raised my hands. Her gaze flicked past me to the mess in the living room.
    â€˜It’s not what you think,’ I blurted.
    My words must have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way. Her expression tightened, distorting her attractive face into something ugly, as if I’d promised to kill her and her family. She reached into her shoulder bag and charged at me.
    I kept my hands up and retreated into the living room.
    â€˜Really, it’s OK.’
    I tripped on something and fell backward. In the time it took me to land on a CD player that caught me across my kidneys, the blonde was upon me. She sprayed me in the face with something that smelled floral but burned my eyes like acid. I yelled out and clutched my face as she delivered the
coup de grâce
by kicking me in the balls.
    So much for my escape plan.

Lap Eight
    M y vision was in shreds, but I recognized the beeping sounds of buttons being pressed on a mobile phone.
    â€˜Stop,’ I choked out. I palmed at my eyes, but it did nothing to clear my vision or stop the burning. ‘I can explain.’
    â€˜Do you want another kick in the nuts?’
    â€˜Jason’s brother, Andrew, sent me to check in on his place.’
    She stopped dialling. ‘What?’
    I looked her way, but she remained a blur. I fished for the door key Gates had given me and held it out. ‘I came by and found this place turned over. I heard the door and thought it was the burglar coming back.’
    She was silent for a long moment. I hoped she was deciding not to call the cops and kick me in the balls again.
    â€˜You’re a friend of Andrew’s?’ A heavy note of contempt edged the question.
    â€˜Not really,