Chapter 1
ADRIAN HUNTER never saw his final sunrise.
The wind reached down from a glowering sky and slapped
drizzle across his face. He shivered, stamped his feet, watched tiny waves
radiate across streaming concrete. The rain had a mind of its own, he thought.
It clawed under the hood of his marshal’s parka, no matter how low he pulled
it.
Behind him the empty grandstands rattled to the
tune of a thousand beer cans. Between wet gusts he caught the shuffle of feet
on a walkway above. A cleaner, he supposed – sweeping up yesterday's memories. Triumph
and tragedy, a blur of colour and noise. If he breathed in deep, he could taste it – tortured rubber and
singed carbon, the sickly-sweet tang of burned fuel.
The British Grand Prix. Same as it ever was.
His marshal’s post overlooked the southern tip of Silverstone
Circuit. Before him, the Hangar Straight rose to meet its famous corner, named
for the nearby village of Stowe. This swept into a dogleg as it crested the
rise, dropping away towards the Vale chicane to his left. A veil of fog cut his
domain off from the world, the truncated strip of track prompting an old memory
and a half-smile. Like a stray bit of Scalextric.
Sounds came at him from beyond the veil. A clang,
the muted shriek of a wheel gun. Seemingly close by, but the fog was playing
its favourite trick; the noises
emanated from the pitlane,
half a mile away.
He pictured it: funereal compared to the ordered
chaos of race day, twenty-four hours earlier. Engines silent, burned-out
mechanics dozing in the garages. Drivers huddled in oversized jackets, wishing
themselves on faraway yachts or private jets.
Off to his left, the diffuse glow from the paddock
buildings faded in and out as curtains of rain blew across the infield. The
weather looked to be worsening – puddles linking to form streams across the
tarmac, the red-and-white striped kerbs glistening.
What had they said in the safety briefing? He shut
his eyes, forced his mind back. Minimum
visibility. Yes. Surely that was marginal now. Not for the drivers, but for
the medical helicopter. No chopper, no cars allowed on track. The teams would
be packing up by mid-morning, the post-Grand Prix test session over before it
began-
All at once the sweats came again and his knees
buckled, ice melting down his spine. He gripped the railing and rode it out,
told himself to focus.
Be strong. For Caroline.
His earpiece squawked, making him jump. Pitlane open. Chest thudding, he glanced
at his watch as the numerals ticked onto nine o’clock, felt a familiar tingle
at the nape of his neck. Five seconds later a new sound carried through the
fog.
The hollow scream of a Formula One engine.
He took shallow breaths, listened to the car make
its way around the circuit. Distance and the restless wind diluted its savagery
to an undulating wail; the melody calmed him. The nausea tightened its grip but
he ignored it, clamping his gloved hands together.
It was all right. There would always be the
circuit, the cars. Another race. A reason to bear the pain.
And out there in the rain, Penelope Jane Aston was
dancing.
Chapter 2
The circuit unfolded like a ribbon of
glass, mirroring the pewter sky.
In tarmac and steel, in earth and grass, it lived
and breathed and lay in wait for the foolhardy. One false move and the beast
would pounce, swallow you whole. Spit the pieces into gravel traps or tyre
walls.
But if you showed due respect, ventured through
the looking-glass, it would relinquish its secrets. Ripples and pocks in the soaking
tarmac, roughened areas where the changing seasons had taken their toll. Precious
nuggets of grip.
With fingertip feel and the seat of her pants,
Penny Aston searched for these.
The car was skittish, clumsy on cold tyres. She
guided it into Silverstone’s Chapel corner at what felt like walking speed, pressed
the throttle pedal with a feather touch. The rear wheels spun, skipped the tail
sideways; her hands flicked the steering wheel a half turn to the right.
Controlling the slide, keeping the beast at bay.
She slithered out to the striped kerb,
straightened up, finally dared to give the car its head. Eight inches behind
her seat, the engine shrieked up at the sky; she held on tight as her stomach
and kidneys tried to swap places.
Beyond a hundred miles an hour the aerodynamics
squashed the car into the road; with stability came a transient calm. The wind
dragged ever-smaller raindrops from her visor, the treaded wet weather tyres mopping
up a bathful of water every four seconds and shooting it into a fifty-foot rooster
tail of spray.
The hulking crescent of grandstands at Stowe
loomed ahead, dwarfing the corner beneath. She counted off the distance marker
boards, the hundred metre board missing a jagged chunk of polystyrene and its
1. Yesterday’s memory intruded.
She banished it, aiming the car into Stowe with a
single sweep of the wheel, trying to keep all four tyres keyed into the
streaming surface-
-too fast-
The front snapped away first, the rear following
as she tried to correct, the car writhing like a poked cobra over the kerbs onto
the tarmac run-off area. She swore, double-clicked the left paddle behind the
steering wheel to drop two gears and rejoined the circuit.
A familiar voice crackled in her head. “How’s the car, Pen?”
Penny grimaced. Her mistake would show as a lurid
spike on his monitor.
“Crap…” The chicane at Vale was next; this lap’s
first real test of the brakes. She trod the left pedal; saw, out of the corner
of her eye, the blurred tread on her right front tyre stop dead. The car
slewed; she sawed at the wheel and tapdanced the brake pedal, trying to avoid a
mortifying visit to the scenery.
“There’s no grip. No
traction…” She sucked in a breath as the car hit a lake at Club and more or
less floated through the final corner.
Back on the start-finish straight, paddock
buildings towering on her right; along the pit wall stood a row of covered
enclosures, one for each team. All dark except the fifth; she glimpsed a face, palely
lit by the screen before him.
Bruce Docker. Race engineer, punchbag, waterproof
shoulder.
Despite the wet she was past a hundred and sixty miles
an hour by the end of the straight, jaw clenching, lifting the throttle for the
high-speed entry to Abbey… through without drama; the car was better at speed.
“…and no brakes,” Penny grouched.
“Well, it’s bloody wet…” Bruce Docker, purveyor of priceless
wisdom. “Try going two clicks back on the
brake balance.”
“Won’t do any good, I- need a bloody… parachute.”
This while barrelling into the tight left-hander at The Loop with only one
wheel turning.
“Copy that… we’re showing low
tyre temps. Give it two more laps then bring her in.”
“Okay.”
You shouldn’t be out there in
the first place, he
hadn’t said. On the back straight, she winced as the ache in her thigh spiked.
They were learning nothing, wasting fuel and tyres and putting the car at risk.
In this weather, nobody else would bother taking to the track.
But I need to be out here.
Through the slow left-right of Brooklands and
Luffield, the fast kink at Woodcote, the car twitched and shivered and scorned her
attempts to keep it pointed in the right direction. The driver, at least, was
coming to life, the Monday-morning fog clearing from her head.
Copse came next. Old school, warp speed. Deep
breath.
Scream if you want to go
faster-
The wind gusted, sent the car chattering over the waterlogged
exit kerbs; the beast licked its chops. She sidestepped it, steadied the car;
blasted up through sixth gear before slowing for the Becketts complex. Together
they danced through the sequence of Esses, the engine playing a staccato riff
as she balanced power, grip and traction.
Back on the Hangar Straight, she keyed the radio.
“It’s better… tyres starting to come in, brakes are okay-”
Something’s wrong. Instinct prodded; she glanced at the
mirrors, the readout on the steering wheel. Nothing. The Stowe marker boards
flashed past.
300… 200… 00-
She lifted at ninety metres, massaged the brake
pedal for half a second and turned in. The front skittered, then bit, the car’s
nose arcing towards the crest of the rise-
A smudge of movement, bright orange, rushing
across her path from right to left. Her hands wrenched the wheel right, aiming
for the widening gap as her right foot jumped off the throttle. But the car, starved
of grip, began to loop around as its rear tyres gave up-
A thud, a lurch, and the orange blur was gone, over
her left shoulder. In slow motion, the red-white stripes rotated ninety
degrees; she watched an eerie glow sail across her field of view.
Paddock lights, she thought – as time speeded up and her
shattered front left wheel assembly speared into the earth beyond the kerb. The
world upended.
Fire shot through her from skull to hips-
Then all was silent black.
Chapter 3
Wish I had a fast forward button.
Penny stared into the mirror and imagined, for a blissful
second, that it was Saturday. Tomorrow. Qualifying day. The second passed; she
gritted her teeth, leaned closer, clamped the tweezers in place and yanked.
“Ow!” A jingle of metal on porcelain. “Sod it-”
“What on earth are you doing?” Kat Hartwell paused
with nail brush in mid-stroke, met Penny’s eyes in the mirror.
“It’s no good.” Penny looked away. “I’m not
going.”
She felt iron fingers grasp her shoulders and spin
her around.
“I’ll hear no more of that.” Kat retrieved the
tweezers from the washbasin. “We are
going, and we will enjoy ourselves.”
She zeroed in on Penny’s left eyebrow. “Now hold still.”
“Why – ouch – do we put ourselves through this?”
Kat sighed. “To make you – and by association, me
– look good. A little more Grace Kelly, a little less Einstein.” She examined
her handiwork. “Good thing we haven’t done your makeup yet. You’d have washed
it right off.”
“It bloody hurts.” Penny wiped tears from her
cheek.
“You didn’t cry when you crashed at Valencia and a
piece of suspension went through your leg.”
“This hurts more.”
“And I thought racing drivers were the real
gladiators.” Kat set down the tweezers. “That’ll do. Right, you get on with
your makeup, and I’ll lay out the dresses.”
Penny sat down on the edge of her bed, shoulders
slumped. “Can’t I say I’m sick, or something?”
Kat raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You know you can’t,
Pen. Frank and Merrick expect you to be there. And those fans that won the
competition… you’re a star. People want to see you.”
“Balls. No-one sees me when you’re there.”
To call Kathryn Jane Hartwell a knockout was to
call Michael Schumacher a moderately successful pedaller. At five foot ten,
with porcelain skin, a mass of golden curls and legs to shame a supermodel, she
made the hordes of nubile beauties that flocked to the Formula One circus look
faded and artificial.
“Should I stay behind, then?” Kat’s face had
clouded, the Canadian twang in her hybrid accent more pronounced.
“God, no. It’s just…” Penny blew out a breath. “If
one more bloody journalist asks if we’re sisters, I am going to lamp him.”
“I know. The thought keeps me awake at night.” Kat
turned away, stepped across to the built-in wardrobe and slid open the door. “We
do look alike, though.”
“Yeah? Like Cameron Diaz and Ann Widdecombe, you
mean?”
“We both have blonde hair and our colouring is
similar.” Kat pulled a plastic-shrouded dress from the wardrobe and laid it on
the bed. She fixed her clear grey gaze on Penny. “And I’m tired of hearing
this. You have good skin and great cheekbones.”
“And a nose like Cyrano de Bergerac and thighs
like a rugby forward.” Penny saw her friend’s beautiful jawline clench in
frustration. “I’m sorry, Kat. I shouldn’t care. I don’t care, but… I’m a racing
driver, for Christ’s sake. Not a pinup girl.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen. I turned Playboy down, remember?”
Two months before, a titillating rumour had rocked
the paddock: allegedly Penny had accepted a huge sum of money to appear in a
raunchy photo shoot. Pure fantasy, but they were still dealing with the
fallout.
Something out of a nightmare tried to force itself
to the surface. Penny shivered.
Watching her, Kat had paled. “That was tasteless.
I’m sorry.”
Penny shook her head, dredged up a smile. “They
should put it to the male drivers. Full Monty, F1 style.”
“Ugh.” Kat shuddered. “Can you imagine?”
Penny stood and walked to the window of her
motorhome. They were parked at the fringes of the secondary paddock behind the
main pit area, on what had once been a runway. Evening sunshine streamed across
the open grassland of Silverstone’s infield, flashed off the turning rotor
blades of a helicopter as it began to spool up. Thirty or more aircraft stood
in two long rows on the tufty grass; as the first lifted off, the blades of a
second began to move.
It was seven o’clock on Friday evening. The first
day of practice for the British Grand Prix had ended with a team debrief an
hour before. Four days of hard work stretched ahead: final practice and
qualifying on Saturday, the race on Sunday; car and tyre testing on Monday and
Tuesday.
For the next forty-eight hours, time in the
cockpit would be golden. Precious snatches of calm amongst a wall-to-wall
barrage of fake smiles, over-firm handshakes and stupid questions. Penny rested
her head against the cool glass.
“Some days I’m not sure I’m up to this.”
As she said the words, she felt their echo from a
dozen previous occasions. She heard Kat sigh behind her.
“Look. You are Formula One’s only female driver.
You’re bound to attract a different kind of attention. It comes with the
territory. If you want to be World Champion, you’re going to have to deal with
it.”
The second chopper was larger than the first; the window
rattled as it rose twenty feet in the air, pivoted through ninety degrees and lifted
away to her right. She glimpsed a familiar logo, a red-on-white scrawl along
its flank.
“I wish you could be me when the helmet was off. I
could drive the car, and you could play the media darling. You’d be brilliant.”
“Penny…” When she turned from the window, Penny
was struck by the expression on Kat’s face. There was resignation, as usual,
and… something else.
Kat seemed to shake herself. “You need to focus on
the goal. Don’t let the circus get to you. Take the frustration and turn it
around, use it as fuel. You know this.”
Pull yourself together. Penny exhaled, nodded. “I’m sorry, Kat, I
just get so… I’m just no good at pressing the flesh.”
“You’re a lot better than you think. You just need
to relax, learn to enjoy it.”
Penny snorted. “Snowflake’s chance in hell of
that.”
Kat wagged a finger. “Pessimism will get you
nowhere, honey.”
“You should tell Frank.”
“I do,” said Kat. “Frequently. You two are as bad
as each other.”
She unzipped the plastic shroud and lifted out a
shimmering cocktail dress. Penny blinked as the sunlight caught a swirl of aquamarine
sequins, flickering fire across the ceiling, leading her eye to the teak-framed
print on the wall opposite.
The painting lent a sliver of character to her temporary
home. Two grey wolves on a snowy hilltop; one stood guard while the other lay
curled on a flat rock nearby. Penny focused on the savage beauty of the
animals, the setting. Wished herself on a snowy hilltop.
Kat held up the dress, looked Penny up and down. Her
guts clenched. Oh God, she wants me to
wear that-
Kat narrowed her eyes, anticipating the protest.
Penny bit her lip.
“I know I rant whenever we… whenever there’s
eyebrow plucking involved. It’s like a warmup routine, I think. Helps me get through
it.”
Kat blanched. “You mean we have to go through this
every time?” Penny nodded. “Can I wear earmuffs?”
Penny laughed. “Of course. As long as you nod and
smile.”
“Deal.” Glancing at the digital clock on the
bedside table, Kat wound the Scottish half of her accent up to full strength.
“Now then, Penelope. Stop being a Jessie and get your clobber on. The Vodafone Summer
Ball waits for no woman.”
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