CATALYSTS

“If you touch that ECU map before the turbo spool is sorted, you’re basically paying me to blow up your engine,” Leo said, not looking up from the laptop screen. The garage was a drafty, corrugated iron shed tucked into the grey sprawl of an industrial estate in the West Midlands. It smelled of old coolant, burnt rubber, and the kind of dampness that settles into your bones by November. Outside, the sky was the color of a bruised plum, casting a flat, oppressive light over the rows of warehouses and dormant loading bays. It was the kind of place where people came to work eight-hour shifts in logistics, but for a small, tight-knit circle of drivers, it was a sanctuary for mechanical heresy.