Driven

by Toby Vintcent

  It was enough.

  Now! screamed Sabatino to herself.

  With the Mercedes’s loss of pace at the element of surprise, she herself ducked inside, following the leading Ferrari – through the middle arch. Having taken that initiative, the Ferrari would still be travelling at top speed. Getting in behind him would be quicker for Sabatino than following the Mercedes who was probably still reacting from being wrong-footed.

  She fought the wheel to keep the car heading straight through the incredibly tight fit under the middle arch. Applying the power – while still under the building – she emerged the other side, and, thrillingly, found herself drawing level with the wider-going Mercedes to her left.

  She’d got past one of them already.

  Now she had the Ferrari – only four lengths ahead of her.

  Sabatino was quickly on terms – the Benbecular kicking out ten or so more horsepower – the difference beginning to show encouragingly soon.

  They screamed on up The Mall, the scarlet Ferrari in front, the turquoise Ptarmigan behind. Two Formula One cars racing through London in front of the world-famous backdrop of Buckingham Palace.

  As the Ferrari prepared for the chicane, Turns Seven and Eight, it pulled left, gingerly, so as not to open the door for Sabatino.

  She couldn’t challenge him there.

  Up Constitution Hill, their line-astern formation resumed.

  Turn Nine, onto Hyde Park Corner roundabout. She couldn’t challenge him there.

  Down the hill to Turn Ten and into Grosvenor Place. She didn’t challenge him there, although encouragingly the Ferrari ran slightly wider and a little ragged. Was the pressure of her pursuit beginning to get to him?

  She hoped so.

  Up past the Lanesborough Hotel, to the right-hander – and she was still on his tail. She didn’t challenge him there.

  Round Apsley House and through the Queen Elizabeth Gate they raced. Nose to tail. Still no challenge.

  Entering Hyde Park, Sabatino timed her moment to strike. The Ferrari ran a little wide on the exit of Turn Fourteen. Into the broad and straight Serpentine Road, Sabatino powered rapidly up through the gears, revs and speedometer until she was running flat out.

  The gap started to close.

  The crowds were treated to a five-hundred-yard head-to-head as the Ptarmigan mounted its inch by inch challenge to the Ferrari.

  They swept up to and started rounding the lake as the battle fought on.

  Sabatino pulled level.

  By the time they passed the fake wattle and daub boathouse, she had gained the advantage – just about getting her wheels in front. There! She’d cleared the scarlet Ferrari. But she was pounding down to Turn Fifteen.

  Losing shape into the right-hander, she breathed deeply as she fought to stabilize her line up and onto West Carriage Drive.

  She’d done it, though – and made it stick.

  She radioed Treadwell in the pits. ‘Where’s Paddy?’

  ‘Well played with those two. He’s gained two seconds on you since you pitted.’

  ‘Damn that Ferrari. Any clue when Aston’ll pit?’

  ‘Can’t be more than two laps from now.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Sabatino pushed hard. With the advantage, now, of a clear track in front of her, she gave the circuit everything.

  Two laps on, she was rounding the Duchess of Cambridge Hairpin when Treadwell radioed her: ‘You’ve shaved off a second. Keep pushing hard.’

  There was a brief pause, then: ‘Wait … wait … he’s coming in! Aston’s coming in!’

  Sabatino didn’t even reply. She dug deeper and hammered the Ptarmigan.

  Screaming along North Carriage Drive across the top of Hyde Park towards Cumberland Gate and Marble Arch, she had to get round there – round the corner by Oxford Street, back into Park Lane and still get down to the Dorchester – in the time it would take the Lambourn to pit and re-emerge on the track.

  Round Cumberland Gate, Turn Seventeen.

  Up towards Bayswater Road.

  Round Turn Eighteen, the back end was trying to step out despite the massively favourable camber – she was pushing the car that hard.

  Up towards Oxford Street past the Odeon.

  Hanging left, she soon sliced right through Turn Nineteen hammering on the power.

  Into Park Lane.

  She screamed up the gears. With Park Lane’s slight kink to the left, she couldn’t yet see its second half.

  ‘Where is he?’ she yelled into the radio.

  ‘Coming to the cut-through.’

  ‘I see him.’

  She was four hundred yards back up the road and travelling, now, at over one hundred and eighty miles an hour. Aston was accelerating fast – up through ninety, hundred, hundred and ten.

  The gap between them was closing.

  Would it close fast enough? Could she get in front?

  He was still inside the white line – the exit from the pits.

  She powered on, willing her car to go faster. She hit the rev limiter.

  Aston was accelerating all the time. But he was on cold rubber.

  Their closing speed, though, was now slowing.

  Down Park Lane towards the Hilton she screamed.

  Aston was getting faster all the time.

  She was just about pulling level, on the left – he to her right.

  She powered on.

  She was nudging past.

  Was there enough of Park Lane left? She needed to be half a car length in front to have a legitimate claim to the line.

  Hyde Park Corner loomed into view.

  Had she done enough?

  To be sure, Sabatino was going to have to be the last of the late brakers. If that threw her out of shape, she knew Aston would capitalize immediately. He would inevitably pounce, slip past, and take the lead.

  She pushed on – with absolutely no let-up – nothing less than full commitment.

  NOW – she hammered the brakes – as late as she dared. She had no time to look around her, to look in her mirrors.

  She pounded into the double apex, the car sliding badly through the middle. A massive yaw. She fought to keep control.

  Sabatino was in Piccadilly.

  Where was he? Where was Aston?

  She looked either side of her – couldn’t see anything. She looked in her mirrors.

  Couldn’t see anything there either.

  Then suddenly – there! There! She saw a wheel. He was back there! She’d done it. She was back in the lead.

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ screamed Treadwell in raw Australian over the radio. ‘Fantastic driving. Magic stuff.’

  ‘Phew!’ she yelled back as she raced up the gears and revs along Piccadilly towards the Ritz. ‘Let’s hope I can keep him back there for the rest.’

  The crowds around Hyde Park went wild.

  Twenty laps later, with Aston still breathing down her neck every foot of the way, Sabatino rounded Marble Arch for the last time.

  She sliced into Park Lane and accelerated hard.

  Moments later she saw the chequered flag.

  It was waving for her.

  She’d done it. Monaco, Singapore and now London. What a feeling.

  Sabatino savoured the adulations from the crowds all the way round on her victory lap. She pulled up into Parc Fermé.

  The very first to come over and congratulate her was Paddy Aston. ‘Great drive, Remy. Great stuff,’ he said. ‘You are, undeniably, the street-circuit queen.’

  The celebrations were immense.

  Crowds of people flooded into Park Lane to watch the prize-giving on the podium set up outside and level with the first floor of the Dorchester Hotel. Both the Prime Minster and the Mayor of London were involved in handing out the numerous trophies.

  The crowds loved anything that prolonged this moment.

  Sabatino, once again, had captured everyone’s imagination.

  The win in London kept Sabatino in the lead for the Drivers’ Ch
ampionship, her ten points bringing her season tally now to 81.

  Aston, in second, scored eight points, putting him on 78 – meaning Sabatino’s lead had actually been widened to a still incredibly modest three points. Luciano, scoring six points for third, was up to 72. It was all extraordinarily close. Any one of the top three in the Drivers’ Championship could still win the title.

  Formula One was in for a spellbinding showdown in Brazil in two weeks’ time.

  In the Constructors’ Championship it was a very much clearer story … or was it?

  Helli Cunzer’s five points for fourth in the other Ptarmigan were all the team needed. Their combined points were enough – potentially – to win the Constructors’ Championship. With only Brazil to run, Ptarmigan could not now be beaten.

  At least, not on the track.

  Despite all this triumph – not to mention the edge-of-your-seat excitement during the first running of the sensational London Grand Prix – the Ptarmigan Team were far from jubilant. Their Championship win was not a given. They were not celebrating.

  They were mightily distracted.

  Particularly Sabatino.

  All were haunted by the spectre of the FIA hearing, to be held in London the very next day.

  Would she – or the team – even get to keep the Championship points she had just driven so hard to win?

  SIXTY

  Straker couldn’t sleep that night. The threat of injustice kept him awake. What if the FIA system failed? What if Ptarmigan weren’t able to clear their name at the hearing?

  Waking before five, annoyingly unrefreshed, Straker set out on a run, despite the residual discomfort from his attack in Leamington.

  Turning right at Putney Bridge, and following the towpath along the Thames to the west, he tried to distance himself from everything – the saboteurs, the hearing, and even Remy Sabatino.

  Straker wanted to blank everything from his mind.

  The weather helped. It was one of those special summer mornings – absolutely still, not a breath of wind, already warm, hazy, with the sun barely visible through the mist and a spectacular day promising to burst through. Even the air smelled warm.

  Straker ordered his thoughts for the hearing. He deconstructed and challenged the case they would make in front of the FIA later that day. Despite his exertion running, and the occasional distraction of an extra sprint or a bit of tricky navigation through a twisty or impeded section of the towpath, he went over and over their arguments. Would they be enough? How could he be sure?

  An hour and a half later, running eastwards back along the south bank for home, Straker reached the end of the gravel track into Putney. Up ahead were the rowing club boathouses, enjoying the sun that had just starting burning through the haze.

  It was quite a scene.

  Down the wide slipway, a crew was carrying an inverted eight above their head to the water’s edge – wearing body-hugging Lycra in the livery of their club and, incongruously, wellington boots. A coxless four was already out on the river, as well as several sculls – all gliding effortlessly along on the mirror-like surface of the Thames.

  Putney suddenly seemed so restful, particularly for central London. Straker found himself dropping down to a walk to breathe it all in.

  Everything about the place seemed different. Most obvious was the offer of a view – impossible in most parts of the capital. He could see for quite a distance in both directions along the river, inducing a relaxing feeling – a feeling of open space.

  The multi-arched stone road bridge across the Thames also played its part, making the place seem more like a county market town, than the suburb of a frenetic metropolis. Adding to this impression, the architecture along the waterfront had a distinctive unregimented style, too, which suggested it was somewhere other than central London. And then, with the prominence of the boathouses, there was the very obvious devotion of the place to leisure and an altogether different focus of life. Straker realized for the first time how much Putney was content to live at its own pace, irrespective of whatever hubbub chose to go on around it.

  He found it utterly calming.

  He looked the place up and down, drinking in as much of the space and atmosphere as he could.

  Catching his eye was a For Sale board in front of a stylish Georgian villa, right on the waterfront. Walking up to the front of the house, Straker took in its façade: fanlights over a heavy panelled door; large well-proportioned windows; and an elegant first-floor balcony edged by a set of ornate railings. Then, peering in through the windows, he tried to get an idea of the inside.

  Straker was immediately hooked – on the house, its architecture, its outlook, position, the Thames – everything.

  He ran on down the waterfront to cross Putney Bridge, making his way back to the flat in Fulham.

  But as he ran across the bridge on the upstream side, he couldn’t stop himself looking back across the river – to the slipway, to the row of boathouses, to the houses along the waterfront – and to that Georgian villa with the For Sale board out front. He found himself pulling out his phone and typing in the name and number of the estate agent.

  The follow-up hearing of the Ptarmigan industrial espionage case was held at noon that day in the spectacular Edwardian clubhouse of the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London. Outside the RAC, there was the familiar press mob crowding the entrance.

  As the Ptarmigan party arrived, they were met with the same baying and shouted questions – challenging, as earlier, the team’s ethics and integrity. The excitement of Sabatino’s drive and victory the day before did not seem to count for anything. Even so, she and Nazar chose, once again, to stand calmly in front of the journalists, allowing them to take their photographs – hopefully reflecting some dignity – before they went in.

  Sabatino, Nazar, Treadwell, Straker and Brogan were met by an FIA official inside the RAC and ushered through the magnificent rotunda and up the stairs to the right. Around the gallery on the first floor, they were led to the south of the building and into the library. There, they were asked to wait until being called into the committee room next door.

  To Straker, Brogan seemed almost agitated this time. It was unnerving. What did that mean? Was the barrister’s demeanour giving away his true thoughts on the strength of their case?

  Sabatino continued to express her fear of having points deducted because of the FIA inquiry, and harming her Championship chances. The expression on her face clearly showed that such anxieties were weighing heavily on her mind, completely overriding any buzz from her drive through the streets of London the day before.

  Finally, the Ptarmigan party was called in.

  The surroundings for this hearing could hardly have been more different than the last: there was none of the clinical starkness of the décor in the Paris Council Chamber. Here was London clubland at its finest. The committee room was magnificent. A high ceiling. Intricate and elaborate plasterwork. A marble fireplace. Portraits, in oil, of grand-looking men around the walls. In the centre of the large room was a highly polished antique table, across which were numerous silver models and statuettes of famous cars and their drivers since the dawn of motoring and motor racing. Directly above this was an eye-catching crystal chandelier. And incongruous to the Ptarmigan team’s mood, bright sunshine poured into the room through the open double doors from the conservatory.

  This time twenty people – including the thirteen voting members of the Council to make the meeting quorate – were sitting around the table for the follow-up hearing.

  The President of the FIA, the Marquis of San Marino, as before, rose as the Ptarmigan party entered the Council hearing. ‘Ms Sabatino, gentlemen. Please take a seat at the table.’ The Massarella contingent was already seated, across the table to their left.

  As proceedings began, San Marino said: ‘Mr Brogan, may I assume that you accept this as a continuation of the FIA hearing, on 25th July in Paris, to assess Massarella’s allegations of industrial espionage aga
inst Ptarmigan?’

  ‘You can, Mr President. May I confirm that you have now received our revised statement of facts and that, on this occasion, you will also admit our counter-claim against Massarella’s conduct this season?’

  ‘You may. Now, Mr Brogan. We had established, in Paris, that an employee of your client, a Ms Charlotte Grant, had been in contact with Massarella. Would you care to comment on this – now that your client has had some time to consider it?’

  Brogan opened up his notebook and straightened his pen on the RAC-embossed leather blotter in front of him. ‘Indeed, Mr President. Can I first explain that Ms Grant was indeed an employee of Quartech, Ptarmigan’s owner. She was on secondment to the team. I do not wish to slander the dead, but I need the Council to be aware she had already behaved in a disloyal fashion within Quartech – leaking top secret blueprints for a cutting-edge rifle system to a German rival. Mr President, I am prepared to elaborate further, but only to you, personally, in private session. I do not feel comfortable discussing her conduct, or the impact on Quartech’s defence business, any further in a public forum. Quartech International is, after all, a publicly quoted company.’

  San Marino’s face registered some surprise at the revelations. Even so, he nodded his acceptance of Brogan’s request.

  ‘In summary, we would describe Charlotte Grant, therefore, as a rogue employee, Mr President.’

  Straker looked over at the Massarella people. Van Der Vaal clearly looked disquieted. He wondered whether the South African was going to challenge either the description of Charlotte Grant or the imposed limit on discussing her any further.

  Van Der Vaal seemed to be keeping quiet. For now.

  ‘Mr President,’ Brogan went on, ‘this description of Ms Grant is offered to the Council to indicate that she had already attempted to do Quartech and its interests serious harm in one area. We contend that she was out to do my client serious harm in another. If I may, I’d like to refer, now, to my client’s revised statement of facts in the light of this news. Under the new Tab 10, there are transcripts of some text messages we’ve recovered from Ms Grant’s mobile phone.’