Pole Position (24 page)

Jordan loaded his daughter into a gleaming silver Jaguar and strapped her into a complicated looking restraint in the back seat. Over her wails of annoyance, he spoke to us. “I’ll wait here, pull up behind me and follow me. It’s only about a mile, but more than madam here can walk at the moment.”

Jon made no comment when I settled behind the wheel again. “Are you sure you don’t mind about this?” He kissed my hand. “His company was one of the sponsors for my Indy Car team, and when I moved back to the UK they continued to follow me, but I always thought he might become a friend too. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, and then it was in a business meeting. I’ve only ever seen him in a pin-stripe suit. I barely recognized him in jeans and T-shirt.”

“What’s his wife like?”

“Dunno, I never met her. Probably some glossy American. Jordan’s a nice guy though.”

I thought fleetingly of Jon’s own glossy, American wife and pushed the uncomfortable image away. I wondered if Jordan knew Jon’s wife. Jon had introduced me by name, not as his girlfriend. I guess he’d hardly introduce me as his mistress. I didn’t want to ask him how he defined our relationship. I was scared of the answer.

We soon drove through a pair of crumbling stone gateposts and up a winding drive. I parked behind Jordan, awestruck at the house in front of us. It loomed over us like a gothic mansion, perched on a slight rise with sweeping lawns falling away in front of it. Scaffolding was erected to one side, and bricks were stacked neatly under a tarpaulin.

Shy now, I climbed out of the car after Jon, and clutched his hand.

He squeezed my fingers. “Don’t worry, we won’t stay long.”

Jordan released the wriggling Poppy from her car seat, and she set off in a fast but wobbly run toward the house. “Go find your mom.”

I watched in amusement as she careered toward an open door, shrieking “Mommy,” as she went.

“She runs like she’s drunk,” said Jordan. He watched her until she disappeared inside, and turned back to Jon. “Nice car, is it yours?”

“I borrowed it from my old man, but I think you’d like what I normally drive.” Jon’s eyes sparkled. “Sixth Generation ‘Vette, three sixty-four cubic-inch V8, four hundred BHP, generating four hundred pound foot of torque.”

“Whoa. The sports coupe or the convertible?”

“Coupe. Four-speed auto box.”

Their car talk was incomprehensible to me, and I stood there, fidgeting. Poppy emerged from the house, towing a young, pretty woman. She was curvy, with shoulder-length, dark-brown hair, and casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with flour splashed all across her front. She looked friendly and walked up to Jordan, slipped her free hand in his back pocket, and gave him a kiss while still hanging on to Poppy.

“You going to introduce me?” she asked. “Poppy says we have friends here.”

“Sorry.” He bent down and picked up their daughter, holding her upside down while she squealed in delight. Tossing her gently over his shoulder, he turned back to us. “Kate, this is Jon Craigowan, and Anita. Guys, this is my gorgeous wife, Kate.”

Jon instantly stuck out his hand to shake hers, while I gawped for a moment. Not only was she not the typical glamorous American that I had expected, but she had a slight Manchester accent.

Her eyes widened. “
The
Jon Craigowan? Hello. I’m really pleased, and surprised, to meet you. Please come in and have a drink or something.” As Jordan had done, glanced up and down his body, resting finally on his smiling face. “We saw the crash on TV. It’s a great relief to see you in one piece.”

Kate turned to me, her cheeks pink. “I’m sorry, my manners are dreadful. Did Jordan say your name was Annie?”

“Anita. It’s nice to meet you. Your daughter is very beautiful.”

She beamed with pride. “Headstrong too.”

“I wonder where she gets that from.” Jordan spoke lazily, prompting Kate to nudge him in the ribs.

“Mommy.” Poppy wriggled in Jordan’s arms, but he held her easily, obviously used to her writhing.

“It’s Mummy, darling, not Mommy.” She gave Jordan a mock glare. “We live in England, where I’m called Mummy.”

He just shrugged and gave her an innocent look. “Come inside and have a look around. We don’t often have visitors.”

As we trooped into the house, I spoke to Kate. “This makes me think of Manderley, you know, from
Rebecca
?”

“Oh yes, I guess it does. I never thought of it like that before.” Her brown eyes sparkled, and she walked beside me. Jon walked with Jordan, talking cars again, and Poppy danced along between us all. “I inherited this from my Gran. I’ve known it since I was Poppy’s age. It was in a bad state of repair when I came to live here though, and we’re in a constant state of renovation, hence the pile of bricks at the front.”

While Jordan propelled Jon to his study to look at something, Kate took me into a long, cool kitchen. It looked like a family room, with garden flowers in jam jars, and violets in a pot along one windowsill. Brightly colored paintings were affixed to a giant fridge with magnets, and a corkboard was covered with newspaper clippings and handwritten notes. I spotted a picture of Jon on a podium and went to look closer.

“This is Jon.” I was excited to see his picture.

“Yes, Jordan’s been following his season. He looks good for the championship, doesn’t he?”

I didn’t really know. I kept blocking out his racing from my mind, unwilling to think about it.

Kate bent down to pick up Poppy, and efficiently strapped her into a high chair, giving her some paper and crayons to play with. “Jordan often mentions him.” She paused and gazed with interest at me. “Have you been together long?”

“Only a few weeks.”

She smiled, she was really very pretty. “I must be getting confused. I thought he was married.”

My cheeks burned. “He is, or was. He’s separated from his wife.”

“Oh.” Her embarrassment looked as great as mine. “Talk about putting your foot in it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

The men came back in, laughing and joking about something. Kate glanced at them, and then back at me. “We’ve plenty of food, would you like to stay for dinner? That is assuming Jordan remembered to buy the potatoes he went out for.”

“In the trunk. I’ll get them.” He disappeared outside and Kate ushered us both to the table.

“Seriously, would you like to stay? It’s nothing fancy, just steak and chips.”

Jon looked at me, his eyes twinkling, and I shrugged, unable to resist his good humor. “I need to feed the animals,” I said. “Why don’t I go and do that, then come straight back? It’ll only take me half an hour.”

“Animals?” Poppy looked up from her drawing.

Kate rolled her eyes. “She adores animals. Our poor cat gets no peace from her.”

“We’re looking after my parents’ place while they’re away. They’ve a manic border collie and two cats. And horses in the fields next door, but they’re with the riding school.”

“Cats, Poppy.” She spoke to the child. “Anita has pussy cats.”

Jon ran his knuckles down my cheek. “Are you sure you don’t mind, sweetheart? I’d love the opportunity to look through Jordan’s work without you getting bored. He’s a design engineer.”

I kissed him briefly. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

I returned as planned, bringing a bottle of wine and a bowl of fresh-picked raspberries, and arrived in time to say goodnight to Poppy. Kate went to settle her in bed while I hung back listening to Jon and Jordan talk in their weird shorthand. They appeared to get on amazingly well. This was the first time I’d seen Jon with anything approaching a friend, but we’d only been together a matter of weeks, and so wrapped up in each other that everyone else became unimportant.

Dinner was fun. Kate, in particular, went out of her way to make me feel at home. We sat round the kitchen table and talked easily, music playing softly in the background. As we dawdled over coffee, the talk turned, as I suppose it had to, to Jon’s crash. He was short and reluctant to talk about it, and Kate told us about an accident that had happened to Jordan, when he’d been attacked in a case of mistaken identity and beaten round the head with a baseball bat. She spoke of the horror of waiting in hospital, not knowing if he’d live or die. We were both shocked and horrified, but worse was to come. Kate mentioned that if she ever saw Rob Allerton again, she’d have to be restrained. Otherwise she’d kill him, to pay him back for the pain he’d caused her. The blood rushed so fast from my head I went dizzy. The cup slipped from my fingers, and I rushed to mop up the spilled drink.

“Did you say Rob Allerton?” My voice came out as a croak. They all looked at me with surprise. “Can you describe him?”

Kate looked puzzled. “Cropped hair, good-looking face, stocky, your typical Manchester thug. Do you know him?”

I could hardly speak. I swallowed hard and looked at Jon for help. He just stared back, not understanding. “I used to go out with him.” I stared down at the table, suddenly close to tears.

Jon made a shocked noise. “Christ, is it the same bloke?”

I nodded. He put his hand over mine but I couldn’t stop trembling. I knew Rob was a thug, after how he’d behaved with me, but to attack someone with a baseball bat?

Jordan sat back in his chair, a strange expression flitting across his face. “Any more psychos in your closet?”

Kate rounded on him. “Enough, can’t you see she’s upset? And besides, my friend Jenny
married
him. He treated her badly, and it was because she walked out on him that he came looking for her.”

“He treated me badly too,” I whispered. I took a deep breath and looked up at Jordan. “I never thought he was capable of something like that. It makes me feel sick to think about him.”

An awkward silence fell.

“Well, that proves the two degrees of separation theory,” drawled Jordan.

Kate looked at him, puzzled for a moment. Then her brow cleared. “Of course. Anita is linked, unfortunately, to Rob Allerton, and Rob is linked to Jordan.”

Jordan spoke again. “There’s a theory you can connect any two people in the world, anywhere, by just six degrees of separation. We’ve just proved I’m only two degrees apart from you.” He nodded at Jon. “And I’m also two degrees apart, via Jon here.”

I was grateful to him for changing the subject. Jon squeezed my hand and gave me a kiss. The ugly moment had passed.

When Jordan opened the wine, Anita suggested I have some and she’d drive home, and I was fine with that. It was a good evening, and refreshing to spend it with somebody else. Kate had been a revelation to us both. I’d been expecting a Susie-clone but instead, she was delightfully down to earth, and besotted with her husband.

As Anita drove back, negotiating the dark, narrow lanes with the ease of someone long familiar with the roads, I reflected on Jordan’s question. He asked if she had any other psychos in her closet, and I’d immediately thought of Danny. Was Anita drawn to bullies and thugs? And if so, what did that make me? Another bully? Or her savior?

I made love to her slowly and tenderly in bed, wanting to eradicate any lingering thoughts of her ex. Kneeling over Anita, and sliding easily into her while she writhed and moaned beneath me, was heaven itself. It’d be hard to go back to using a condom after this. The closeness we shared made our lovemaking the best I’d known with any woman. Afterward, as I gathered her to me, I whispered to her. “I love making love with you.”

She gazed back at me with her soft, luminous eyes and just kissed me in reply. I momentarily felt cheated. I’d opened up my heart to her. I was falling in love with her for God’s sake, and I didn’t know if she felt the same way about me.

****

I was in the car again, back at Spa. I took Pouhon wide, cursed as Pedro started to inch alongside me on the inside. The track held water. I couldn’t get any traction. I battled to hold my line and saw the tangled mess of cars tumbling toward me again.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, yet so slow. I had time to look across at Pedro—not clear yet. He had a narrow strip of grass on his inside and then a solid barrier. He should be fine. The sparking wall of metal headed straight for me. I braked, slammed the car down through the gears, and heard the engine and tires screaming over the immense noise outside the cockpit. And then, with no other option, I pointed my car into the back of Pedro’s. It jerked him into the carnage. He fought it, yawed left, right, and veered across—right into its path.
No.
That shouldn’t have happened.

I couldn’t break free. My front was tangled in Pedro’s rear. I was pulled in too. Steering was useless, the pedals were dangling lumps of metal. We flipped end over end, once, twice… I blacked out as my head collided with something solid, then I heard something screaming again. It was me. I was being dragged, helpless, into the wall of fire on Pedro’s tail.

It felt as though I had stepped outside my body. I saw myself wriggling out of the wreckage, picking my way through the scattered debris on the track and staring into the inferno.
Pedro was in there
. I’d forced Pedro in there, to save myself. I couldn’t live with myself if I survived at the cost of his life, but I was frozen. Terror, bone numbing, unadulterated fear held me fast and forced me to watch as he burned. I smelled singed hair, burning flesh, but still I could not move. Someone else scrambled through the tangled remains of his car, dodging the flames, while I stood shaking like the coward I was. Pedro’s face, lifeless. His hands and arms burning through his suit. I could only watch.

“
Noooo
.” I lurched awake, gasping for breath. My ribs complained at the sudden movement, and my lungs labored to draw air. I could smell the fire, smell the burning flesh, hear the metal scraping on metal. I put my hands over my ears to block out the noise and gasped painfully for breath. Sweat poured down my face. My whole body shook, and still I struggled to breathe.

Anita rubbed her eyes. “Jon?” Her voice was sleepy. “What is it?”

I blinked, swallowed, and took my hands off my ears. Apart from the rasping of my lungs and the frantic pounding of my heart, all was silent. I sniffed cautiously. I could smell Anita’s perfume, the faint musky smells of our recent lovemaking.
No fire
.

I lay back, shivering violently, my teeth rattling, and Anita wrapped her arms around me. “What is it? Are you ill? Do you need a doctor?” Her voice rose. “Talk to me Jon.”

Her embrace reminded me of the safety harness in the car. I shook her off. The harness cut into my shoulders as the car flipped, held me fast as I plunged headlong into the terror. I only just remembered that now.

“
Jon
.” She looked petrified.

“Nightmare,” I rasped. I took a slow breath, then another. I needed to force myself to be calm, get some air into my lungs. I swung my legs out of bed, reached for my boxers and T-shirt on the floor where I dropped them earlier.

Anita flicked on the bedside lights and I blinked in the sudden brightness. “Babe, are you okay?” Her voice was low and scared. I’d frightened her.

“I’m fine.” Fear made my voice curt. Even as I spoke, I knew I was being unfair. She reached for a bathrobe, but I didn’t want company at the moment. “I’m going to get a drink.” I forced my voice to be steady. “Stay here, I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll come. I can make you some cocoa— “

“
Stay
here. I just want a few minutes by myself.”

She heeded my warning and shrank back down in bed, her eyes huge and scared as they watched me. Well that answered my earlier question. I was just another bully.

I recalled seeing a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and I headed down there. With shaking hands, I poured myself a generous measure, and lifted the glass to my lips. I gulped the alcohol. Heat seared the back of my throat. I was instantly nauseous, but I forced myself to drink it all. As the warmth spread through my veins, I poured a second glass, and sat down at the table with it. I massaged my temples. It was just a nightmare. A fucking freaky nightmare, but it was over.

I closed my eyes and probed the fleeting memory I was on the verge of uncovering. Until now, I only remembered up to the point of climbing free from the car. Although the accident had taken three, maybe four seconds at most, it seemed to have expanded in my mind and there were huge swathes of it still locked away, unremembered.

I’d only just recalled the sensation of the harness tearing into my shoulders, locking me into what I thought would be my coffin. After that, everything was blank until I awoke in the hospital with Mum weeping beside me. Even then, for a chilling moment, I thought I lay dead in the morgue, unable to move or respond to her.

But my mind played tricks on me. My harness had held me tight, before I climbed free, so was that a real memory, or just some composite my brain had conjured up? When I stood at the side of the track and watched Pedro burn, that was real. When I’d been frozen and unable to move—unable to help him, after I put him there—to my eternal shame that was also real.

Maddie whined softly by my side, and I reached down to fondle her ears. She grunted and lay down sprawled across my feet. It was strangely comforting. I couldn’t face the prospect of going back to bed yet, so I folded my arms on the table top, rested my head on them, and eventually fell asleep.