Tom watches the race in Melbourne live, even though it means that he has to stay up all night. Well, he does not have to get up early, anyway. The victory goes to Mori Motors, which is no surprise. They had been his team, before the accident. Mori had never let him feel that he had lost the world championship that year through him. Tom had felt bad about it all the same. But he had been replaced quickly, and in the next season Mori Motors had been back on track.

  The performance of Claymore is a disaster. Both drivers are young and inexperienced and drop out early on. Tom sees the stony faces of Faith and Strathairn on the screen, and he listens to the somewhat ironic commentary of the reporter who also prophecies doom for Claymore. It does not look good. Tom decides that he needs some air. Maybe walking will calm him down. He cannot say what exactly has got him so riled up.

  He wanders through the streets to the Grand Canal. The rain had stopped, the streets are empty. Looking at the water calms him down. With a clearer head, he realises that something has to happen in his life again. The past is the past. He has to let go of it. He has to do something with his future.

  When he nears his flat again, the streets are still quiet, except for a noisy group of people in front of one of the more stylish restaurants. There must have been a lock-in, but the party is over and everyone is getting into their cabs. A couple is having a fight on the pavement. Tom crosses the street; this is none of his business. When the last cab rushes past him, he looks back to cross the street again. The woman is sitting on the curb, her head buried in her hands.

  Shit. Something has gone wrong here. Tom hesitates. This is still none of his business, but it is starting to rain again, and the woman does not rise. She does not have a coat. He approaches her slowly, stopping three metres away from her so as not to startle her.

  “Hello”, he says. “Are you okay?”

  The woman just sighs. Then she raises her head. Her make-up is blurred, she is crying. She is young – about as young as Faith, maybe. “What does it look like?”, she says.

  Tom has never heard a sexier voice in his life. It is deep and raspy and does not match the delicate face with the grey eyes at all. Wow.

  “It does not look okay.”

  “The bastard dumped me.”

  She has an accent. Scandinavian, he would guess.

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  “I’m Tom”, he says. “Can I help you in any way?”

  She laughs bitterly. “How? Would you beat him up?”

  “Would that help?”

  She sighs. “I’m Liv. Help me up.” She holds out her hand.

  Tom pulls her up and has to steady her. She is drunk, and she might have done other stuff as well. She looks fairly done.

  “My flat is just around the corner. Let’s get out of the rain. You can have a coffee.”

  Liv looks at him with her head tilted sideways. Then she looks around, shivering. She shrugs. “Okay.”

  Tom leads her to his flat. She falls asleep on the sofa before he can bring her the coffee. He covers her with a blanket and lies down on his bed.

  In the afternoon, they talk. Her story is absolutely astonishing. The man who had dumped her is a musician, he has heard of him, Kenny Payne. He had played a concert last night, and then they had celebrated. Tom had witnessed the aftermath of the party. Liv is Swedish. She had followed Payne around, from gig to gig, and at some point he had taken her home. Now she is without money or plan. When she had called the hotel they had been staying in, she had been told that he had left. She is surprisingly calm, considering that she has just been dumped in a foreign country.

  “It’s not the first time”, she says. “But it has never been quite so bad. Usually everything is fine again after a day or two.”

  Tom is blank in these matters. This does not sound good. But who is he to give relationship advice? He offers her to stay a few days and sort things out, but she just wants to go to London, where she can stay with some friends.

  He books her a flight and takes her to the airport.

  She hugs him when they say good bye. “You’re a prince, Tom. Thank you so much.”

  “Take care. Call me if you need anything.”

  She grins. “I will.”

  In the evening he finds an email from Daijiro Mori, asking him to come to Melbourne. He wants to offer him a job. Tom sighs. Is this what he wants? To be back with the circus? But then he does not have anything else lined up. He writes back that he can be there in two days.

  He has to change planes in London, of course. Stupid. If he had found the email two hours sooner, he could have accompanied Liv.