"Guy N. Smith - Blood Circuit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

Series I Land Rover, more vehicles following on behind, bumping their way across the uneven stubble.

'Here's Clyde,' he said, and added, 'and the police, too.'

Lee Hammerton stood watching in a daze as the Land Rover and three cars came to a halt, figures
getting out, the engines maybe left running purposely so that she wouldn't be able to hear what was being
said. John Clyde was pointing towards the baler; she knew what he was saying. 'He's in there, baled into
a neat little square so that you wouldn't recognise what he was. He'll have to be scraped out.'

She turned away, retched, shook off Kilby's hand and he didn't clutch at her again. She was the boss
now and if she wanted to go across there and look nobody could stop her. But she didn't want to look.
Jesus, it wasn't as though she and the old man were close. If you looked at it realistically he had been a
right bastard most of his life, long before her mother had died fifteen years ago. All he'd ever thought
about was women, the flat slob! And motor-racing, a kind of prestige symbol. He'd wanted to win the
IROC and put the name of Hammerton amongst the elite, that way the women would fawn around him.
But he didn't have to go out there on the circuit and risk his neck. Instead he sent Justin. And now maybe
Kilby, except that Steve wasn't quite in that class. Lambs to the slaughter, sacrifices to the Hammerton
idol. Oh Christ, it was bloody funny when you thought about it, the great Craig Hammerton ignominiously
sliced up and compressed into a chunk of unrecognisable raw meat, going out as small as he had come
into the world. She hadn't loved him, she'd hated him, feigned adoration because in the end she knew it
would bring her what she had now. And Justin hadn't been any better. She started to laugh aloud, heard
herself above the drone of the idling engines.

'Stop it!'

Lee recoiled, almost lost her balance as the flat of Steve Kilby's hand hit her across the face.

'Damn you. Damn you, Steve Kilby!' Subconsciously she tasted blood in her mouth. 'Don't you ever dare
touch me again, for any reason!'

The hands reaching out for her checked. Surprise on his face because he suddenly realised that she
wasn't hysterical, just coldly ruthless. Even the fear in her eyes was temporarily gone, replaced by a fury
that had him backing off.

'I'm sorry. I . . . ' He licked his lips, glanced away and saw a number of figures had clambered up onto
the stationary baler.

'If I want to laugh I'll bloody well laugh.' She spoke softly, words that were loaded with venom yet barely
audible. 'You've had it too easy, Steve, and from this moment on there are going to be a number of
changes around here. And don't go pushing your luck. I'm going to win the IROC, not because Craig
Hammerton would have wanted it that way but because that's the way I want it. And remember you're a
driver, not the driver. I'll find the man I want to win the championship, you mark my words. Now I'm
going back to the house. It's well past midnight and I need my sleep. Tell Clyde I'm not to be disturbed
until morning.'

Steve Kilby stood and watched her walk away until she was lost in the darkness beyond the glare of the
headlights. Now it was his turn to feel the nausea rising up in him, and not just because of what had
happened to Craig Hammer-ton. In those few moments Lee Hammerton had undergone a frightening
change, almost as though the girl whose bed he had shared had died alongside her father in the baler and
a reincarnation had materialised in her shapely body without any physical change.