The Tesla Legacy Read Free Page B

right-hand corner was a dilapidated wooden shed that badly needed another coat of white, and on the left the garagewas in the same condition. There was a roller door on the front; Mick followed the old lady as she shuffled towards a door on the side.
    ‘That bloody Bronwyn,’ grunted Mrs Hedstrom. ‘She put me in hospital you know.’
    ‘Yeah? What happened?’ asked Mick.
    ‘I hurt my leg. Nngrhh! Bloody hospitals. They do illegal experiments on us oldies in there you know.’
    ‘Really?’ said Mick.
    ‘My word they do. Especially that slimy bloody Pommy doctor. The bastard. But I knew what they were up to. I was onto them. Bloody Bronwyn. Conspiring against me. The bitch!’ The old lady glared up at Mick. ‘I’m eighty-eight you know.’
    ‘Yes. You told me,’ smiled Mick.
    ‘But they still don’t fool me. The bastards!’
    ‘No,’ said Mick.
    They arrived at the side door and the old lady gave it a rap with her walking stick. ‘It’s in here,’ she said.
    Mick tried the door knob. ‘The door’s locked,’ he said.
    ‘Well of course it’s locked,’ snapped the old lady. ‘You don’t think I’d leave it open do you? The place is full of thieves.’
    ‘No. Of course not,’ agreed Mick. ‘So can I have the key?’
    ‘The key?’
    ‘Yeah. To the door.’
    ‘There’s no key. It opens from the inside,’ barked the old lady.
    Mick looked at Mrs Hedstrom and shook his head. ‘I don’t mean the roller door,’ he said. ‘I mean this door.’
    The old lady took a key tied to a piece of red string from her dressing gown and waved it under Mick’s chin. ‘Well, what do you think this is? God! Make up your mind. You’re as stupid as that bloody Maxine.’
    ‘Sorry,’ replied Mick. ‘I’m having a slow day.’
    ‘Nnngrhh!’ grunted the old lady. ‘You should get to bed early, instead of going out galavanting around all night.’
    ‘You’re right,’ said Mick. ‘It’s just that I come from a long line of galavanters.’
    Mick took the key from Mrs Hedstrom’s bony hand and put it in the lock. The lock opened all right, but the door itself was tight. Mick pushed with his shoulder and under great protest it scraped open.
    Inside the garage the tepid air was a gloomy mixture of must and grime. The only other lightwas a few bars filtering through a small window at the end, thick with dust and cobwebs. In the middle, an oblong of rigid grey tarpaulin covered in cracks and hardened oil stains took up most of the room. Mick found a switch near the door, clicked it on and a light bulb dangling from the ceiling filled the garage with a sickly yellow glow.
    Mick ran his eyes around a number of crooked wooden shelves haphazardly stacked with grimy jars of nails and rusty tins of paint. An old hurricane lamp sat amongst the tins, along with several small tools and other junk and, like the window, everything was thick with caked-on dust and cobwebs. Mick turned to the tarpaulin, and with Mrs Hedstrom watching from the doorway, took one end and yanked.
    ‘Holy shit!’ exclaimed Mick, as the tarpaulin fell stiffly to the floor in a cloud of dust. ‘What the…’
    Parked nose first to the driveway was a dark blue, two-door, four-seater sedan with the headlights mounted on the mudguards. It had a black canvas roof, the windows were rectangular and the top half of the windscreen was wound out. The tyres were all flat while the wheels were solid metal rims without hubcaps and narrower than normal. Mick wiped the passenger sidewindow and peered inside at the matching leather upholstery. It was cracked in parts, but still in good condition and the ceiling fabric was only peeling back in the corners. A long metal gearshift poked up from the floor and a spoked wooden steering-wheel stuck out from a crimped metal dash that consisted of little more than a speedo, petrol gauge and ampmeter. There was no key in the ignition and when Mick stepped back, he noticed the number plates were missing as well. But