Daijiro Mori reads Tom’s reply in the car that takes him to the race track. Good. Tom cannot drive any more, but he knows the circus. There has never been another manager at Mori Motors before, but this is about to change. He needs someone to take some of the load off of him. That is what his doctor had said, and he feels it himself, too. He is having a hard time concentrating, especially when the days are long, and he is getting impatient very quickly. He does not want to make wrong decisions because he is feeling off. Before any mistakes could happen, he wants someone he trusts, and that someone is Tom Healey.

  Tom is going to find his footing again, no doubt. His duties and responsibilities would be clearly lined out. The overall aim was to take away some of the pressures of the day-to-day business, giving himself space to work on the larger things. And on that other thing that had arisen.

  Mori unfolds Faith’s note once more, straightening the sheet of paper out between his fingers. He looks beyond it, seeing her image before him, once again wondering whether she is a beautiful woman at all. He does not know these things. He is in his mid fifties, but he has never yet paid attention to female beauty.

  Ever since he had been a boy, there had only been cars and engines. There had never been women in his world. Faith had entered this world. At the meeting, she had made a good point, and one that had easily been remedied. The track management had put up tall and stable steel fences behind the barriers, which were see-through from the stands, and although they had not been put to the test during the last weekend, they were a safety improvement. But it had been her acknowledgement afterwards, her personal expression of gratitude that had really shaken something up within him. He thinks of her often now, and it is a distraction, yes, but he finds it to his liking. He does not know what to make of that. He closes his eyes, allowing his thoughts to follow that road, until the car reaches the race track.

  Faith and Strathairn have been in the pit lane for an hour already, looking at the data from yesterday’s race. It is not much they have to look at, since both drivers had dropped out by lap fifteen. Strathairn sums it up succinctly. “Completely useless.”

  They sit on stools in front of their computers by the wall of the pit lane. The spring morning is cool for now. Faith longs for another coffee but does not dare to interrupt the lecture Strathairn is administering to her.

  “The boys need to be told off”, he says, talking about the drivers. “This cannot go on. You have to tell them that they have to get a grip and that there is a team they have to work for.”

  Faith sighs. “I know.” She knows. The different leadership approach she has tried to establish has failed. The will have to revert to a more hierarchic mode. She will have to be boss. This is what Strathairn is telling her. This is what everybody seems to expect. She stares at the empty stand across the final straight. Meeting expectations. She has never exactly excelled at that. It is depressing.

  Behind them, the pit lane comes to life. Garage doors are rolled up, computers and monitors are wheeled over to the wall, sun sails are being hoisted up. Three more days of testing. Usually, these are good times. Sociable times, with a bit of espionage on the side, but the atmosphere is generally relaxed. Faith does not feel it right now.

  When Daijiro Mori walks past them, she smiles and raises her hand in a minimalistic sort of wave, as if she and Strathairn are sitting on their front porch. Mori nods and walks on. Strathairn goes, “Tsts.”

  “What?”

  “He never does that.”

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  “He was just being polite.”

  Strathairn shrugs. “There are the boys.” He gets up and carries his stool into the garage. Faith follows him. Time to be boss.

  Sandro and Deniz hold out a coffee mug for her. Faith can feel her resolve melting already. She would like to sit the two men down and talk with them instead of to them, as George Strathairn has requested. She puts the mug down.

  “I believe”, she begins and immediately realises her mistake. “We have seen”, she rephrases helplessly, “what happens when you are not considering your surroundings. I can understand”, another mistake, she can feel Strathairn frown without looking at him, but she carries on, “that you are nervous, first big race and so on. But this cannot go on. Deniz, you cannot lose it in the throng. What happens behind you also matters. Sandro, keep your eyes on the track. Everybody could see there was debris on the track, why did you go over it anyway? The flat was unnecessary. I expect both of you to pay attention and be more careful.”

  There was no ‘or else’, not right now. Both drivers had come with solid sponsoring. She was not in a position to threaten them. They were stuck together.

  “We are going to work on tuning the next few days. Use the time to find some chill for the upcoming races, please. And now get to work.”

  The drivers, both about the same age as herself, turn away. Faith can feel them exchange glances. Strathairn is indeed frowning. This has not gone well. She wishes for the day to be over.

  She only wants to go to bed when she arrives at the hotel in the evening. She feels relieved when the doors of the lift start closing, but then they are held open at the last second and Daijiro Mori enters the cabin.

  Automatically, she smiles. He does not speak nor look at her. It is only when the cabin stops on her floor and she is about to exit that he says, “Miss Casadoro, if you need help, please talk to me.”

  Faith is so surprised that she lets the doors close again. She stares at Mori, who does not return the look. The cabin starts moving and she presses the button for her floor again. Then she says, “Thank you, Mr Mori. I’m trying to figure out how all of this works, that is all.”

  At last he glances at her. “I can see that.”

  The sentence hangs in the air for a few seconds. Faith is still trying to find her footing. “We are not really any competition, are we?”, she jokes halfheartedly.

  “No.” Mori does not smile. “This is why I’m offering you my help.”

  The cabin stops. His floor. He moves into the door, preventing it from closing again. He is turned towards her, but his eyes are fixed on something to the right of her head. He holds out his hand. Faith takes it simply because it is offered.

  “Good night”, he says, lifting her hand to his lips and lightly brushing them across the tips of her fingers.

  Then the doors close and the cabin moves down.

  Faith stares at her fingers. What has just happened?

  It is not before she is safely in her room that she actually connects what has happened to her message from a few days ago. She tries to brush the thought off, but it persists. But this cannot be. A man like Mori would never feel encouraged by a stupid little note like the one she had sent him. Or would he? She had only been nice, had she not? She had not tried to start anything!

  Later, in bed, she does some research on her colleague. No personal life, apparently, just racing. He owns the tuning firm and is able to choose whom he works with. There are no interviews. He never makes headlines. No women. A robot.

  Faith puts her phone down and groans. Please, no. She had not been in that lift with a robot.