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  Spillage

  Advanced Smash Repairs

  Episode 1

  by Dave Cornford

  Copyright © 2014 Dave Cornford

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked statues and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Other titles:

  Advanced Smash Repairs (Episodes 1-6): Spillage, Impact, Scratch, Hammer, Shatter, Burn

  Live Fiction: 15 Civic Square, Performance Anxiety, Pick Me! Pick me!, Prank!, Botox Apocalypse

  Cracks in the Ceiling, The Queensberry Rule, Warm Honey

  The Diary of the 17th Man (Books 1-5)

  Nanna's Travel Tips, Nanna's Driving Tips, Nanna's Cooking Tips

  Too Bright to See, Too Loud the Hear - Jonty Cornford

  Introduction

  Spillage is the first book in the Advanced Smash Repairs Series - the quirky tale of a smash repair business that “knows too much.” Manager Craig runs a small workshop, and with the help of his staff – lead mechanic Pavel, over-keen apprentice Clint and the enigmatic test driver Boris – he fixes cars in unconventional ways, and solves a few mysteries along the way.

  In Spillage, a damaged and mysterious BMW and an over-enthusiastic ex-customer challenge Craig’s patience and skill in a tough week at Advanced Smash Repairs.

  Dave Cornford

  Contents

  Introduction

  Spillage

  FREE OFFER

  Acknowledgements

  Spillage

  Chapter 1

  Craig Comino sat in the front passenger seat of the ailing Alfa Romeo with his eyes gently closed, breathing in the aroma of the leather interior. As the car barked through the gears, there was a gentle shuffling noise from the friction of the driver's wash-and-wear covered legs rubbing against each other.

  The driver brought the car to an idling standstill, awaiting instructions.

  Craig opened his eyes. "Again."

  With a nod, Boris Batmanov revved the car awake, turned it around, and drove back over the same three kilometre circuit they had already covered twice. Craig had his eyes closed as usual, but this time leant forward and rested his craggy hands on the stitched leather dash. About half way through the circuit, he snapped out of his trance, and sat back in the seat.

  "OK, that's it, back to the workshop, Batman." Craig reached for his mobile, turned off "Flight Mode", and his fingers danced across the screen.

  "So, what is it, boz?" Boris was the test driver, not the mechanic, but he was always curious about the result of Craig's diagnoses. He'd long given up on the "how".

  Craig didn't look up from his tapping. "Umm, it's the cruise control. Causing interference with the injection system somehow, which is why it's cutting out sometimes."

  Boris just kept driving. He was sure that the intermittent fault that had plagued the owner's life for months had not shown itself during their test drive, and he was pretty sure that amongst the usual array of incomprehensible but gorgeous looking knobs and dials, this car didn't have cruise control.

  Craig's phone rang, and he immediately regretted not checking the caller ID.

  "Hi, Craig, it's Melinda, Melinda Heise."

  Melinda was as perky as the little red VW that Craig had raised from the dead two weeks earlier. She'd hit a kerb-side bollard while swerving to avoid an elderly lady who was zig-zagging across the road, propelled by a fully laden tartan-covered shopping trolley. Undriveable, the car had been towed away and fixed by a large repair shop run by her insurance company. Afterwards they had refused to acknowledge that they'd messed up the job, in spite of Melinda's protesting for weeks that it "doesn't drive right."

  She'd brought it to Advanced Smash Repairs in desperation, and Craig had been able to zero in on the problem before he and Boris even reached their test circuit. With the VW back in the workshop and up on the hoist, they started poking around in the front suspension, and it was Clint the apprentice who found the culprit. What looked like the remains of an iPod and some headphones wrapped around a small shifting spanner, presumably the former property of an apprentice at the large workshop, were jamming things up, affecting the left front just as Melinda had described.

  Since then, Melinda had become increasingly insistent on taking Craig out for a drink as a thank-you, as he hadn't billed her for the work - he'd decided that the fun of pursuing direct payment from the insurance company and exposing the incompetence of their workshop was all the recompense he needed. Even though he looked like he was going to get the money after a few frank exchanges with their assessor, it had been a hollow victory now he was being stalked by Melinda.

  "Oh, hi Melinda. How's the Volksy?"

  "Perfect, thanks to you. Perfect," she replied. "Perfect, just like you," was what she thought.

  "Craig, you must let me take you for a drink after work tonight. I won't take "No" for an answer!"

  Craig looked across at Boris in desperation. Boris just raised an inscrutable eyebrow.

  "OK. Look, we should be finished by 5.30 - why don't you drop into the workshop about then."

  "Fantastic! I'll see you then!" Too excited for small talk, she hung up.

  "Aye!" Boris spat as he touched the brakes and swerved expertly to avoid a large BMW as it cut across in front of them, then lurched off in another direction squatting as the power threw it forward.

  They looked at each other briefly. Boris just shook his head, while Craig was confident that something would come up before 5.30 to avert disaster.

  A few minutes later, Boris coaxed the Alfa into the narrow driveway, and launched it up the ramp to the workshop at just the right speed. He took the sharp left at the top and navigated the car into a spare space behind several other cars. Before he could turn it off, the engine coughed and died indignantly. They looked at each other and laughed.

  Craig squeezed out of the car, careful to avoid inflicting any more damage on the sad old Honda parked beside them. He was wearing his blue "Advanced Smash Repairs" polo shirt, and a pair of khaki chinos that had seen better days, with too-long legs scrunched down on his work-boots.

  He made it through the maze of parked cars to the workshop proper. The entire end wall of the double height warehouse space was south-facing frosted glass. It filled the workshop with a fantastic even light for most of the year and was the main reason Craig had chosen this site for his business.

  Two pairs of legs were poking out from underneath a multi-coloured Toyota. The front of the car had non-matching panels of white and red, while the rest of the car was a rather unappealing rust colour. It looked ready for respraying, but there was some rather indelicate percussive therapy going on underneath.

  Craig waited for the hammering to draw breath. "Hey, this Alfa . ."

  Pavel the head mechanic slid out into the light. He didn't need to speak, knowing that Craig was about to pronounce the diagnosis without being prompted for it.

  "It's something to do with the cruise control and electrical interference."

  Pavel knew the answer to his own question, but had to ask it anyway. "Does the Alfa have cruise control?"
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  Craig didn't answer. After a moment, he walked over to the frightened and grease covered computer that huddled on the desk in the middle of the wall of tools. In three clicks he had the number of the Alfa owner, and he rang him on speaker phone.

  "It's Craig from Advanced Smash Repairs here . . ."

  "Have you fixed that heap of shit yet?"

  "We're working on it today . . ."

  "WELL???"

  "I just wanted to ask you a question. Did you order cruise control when you bought the car?"

  There was a tense silence. The owner finally spoke through what sounded like clenched teeth.

  "I didn't order cruise control. When they rang to say the car had arrived, they said it actually had cruise control, and I could have the car immediately if I was willing to pay the extra thousand bucks for the "option". I politely declined their offer of blatantly ripping me off. They found another car and it was delivered two days later."

  Pavel jumped up, grabbed a screwdriver and skipped over to the Alfa.

  "OK, leave it with us, . . ." Craig was cut off by the owner hanging up.

  A moment later, Pavel was standing next to the Alfa, waving a small plastic rectangle.

  "The dumb bastards just broke the cruise control stalk off, then put this cover over the hole in the steering column. Left the cruise module in there with wires hangin' out like a . . ."

  "It might be hard to charge for disabling something that's not there, but he should be happy," said Craig

  "I'll get it sorted after we get the Toyota into the paint shop."

  Craig waved an acknowledgement and wandered into his office. He'd have shut the door behind him if there was one.

  Boris sat at his desk in the corner outside Craig's office. The desk was pristine, and he sat there resplendent in freshly laundered man-made fibres from top to toe. His helmet of greying hair never seemed any different from one day to the next, but it was all his own.

  As usual, Boris was flipping through a magazine without giving it his full attention, only sometimes stopping to read an article at any length. His taste in reading material ranged from Popular Mechanics to something that arrived by airmail every month, with a title that translated roughly as "Babooshkas Can Cook."

  Boris' mobile phone vibrated quietly on the desk so only Boris knew it was ringing.

  "Da."

  Boris nodded a few times, then hung up. He stuck his head into Craig's office.

  "Any driving for next few hours?"

  Craig quickly looked at the job list on his PC, and shook his head. "No, but there are two going out tonight, so we'll need to take them for a run about 4."

  "No worries," said Boris in his resurgent Russian accent.

  Boris walked through the grimy parked cars without brushing up against any of them. His shiny little Lada sedan hid near the top of the ramp, always able to exit without moving any of the parked cars. "In case of emergency," Boris argued. "In case of having to drive a hit man to an urgent job," Pavel had said under his breath, unsure of what Boris actually did to support himself apart from part-time test driving for Craig.

  The gleaming off-white box of a car started first time, as miraculous as always, edged down the ramp and slipped quietly into the lunch-time traffic.