“Fuck you!”, the man shouts. “Are you crazy? What are you doing?!”

  The path along the cliff and down to the beach is too narrow. Too narrow for the girl on horseback and the man on the motocross bike. He has swerved aside at the last moment, falling hard against the rock side. The horse shies and she just manages to stay in the saddle. Then the horse dances past the man and his bike. The girl turns around to flip him off.

  He curses some more and restarts his bike.

  “Thomas, my boy”, the old man says, turning off the baroque music he has been listening to. “Good to see you. Come right in, straight through to the fire. Will you have a sherry?”

  Tom Healey shakes Wallace Burns’ hand and says that one sherry should be okay. He feels nervous enough. The old man has invited him, which could only mean one thing. It is fair to be nervous.

  Wallace Burns does not talk business, though. He seems to enjoy Tom’s jittery attentiveness. He hands him the drink, and while they are sitting down in front of the large fireplace, he enquires after his family and the testing sessions for the endurance cars he has been doing lately.

  Tom knows that the old man is well informed about his career. There would not be a career without him. He had met Burns seven years ago, when he had been looking for a mechanic and co pilot for a vintage car rally. He had been eighteen then, believing that he knew everything about cars and engines. He had seen his chance to become something other than a poor mechanic in County Armagh. He had scraped together his money, set off for Scotland, and he had been lucky to pass Burns’ test – finding a clipped capacitor and a damaged distributor arm. Half a year later, they had set off, from the North Cape to the Cape of Good Hope, in a Maybach from 1927. They had got to know each other rather well, and Burns had paid for his racing licence afterwards.

  Friendship aside, there had never been any doubt about one thing: The old man saw him as an investment. Motor racing was an unforgiving business with no room for weakness or mistakes. Tom had been given time to develop his skills, but he was obliged to perform, and ultimately he would have to deliver.

  Twenty minutes go by and Tom has told Burns about his mother and two sisters – nothing new here; they are still living in County Armagh – and his view on the sports car racing team he is working for as a test driver. Then the butler appears to announce that dinner is ready.

  “Very good, Ben, thank you,” Burns says. He gets up from the armchair, groaning involuntarily.

  Tom is shocked; he does not recall Burns being quite so frail. When he rushes to offer his assistance, the old man shakes his head. “It’s fine, my boy. The weather doesn’t agree with my bones, that’s all. Today was the first fine day in weeks. Maybe I ought to move to Monaco, what do you think?” Then he turns to the Butler. “Ben, have you informed my granddaughter? Is she back yet?”

  “Miss Casadoro has returned half an hour ago, sir. She is already in the dining room.”

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  “Ah, good. You know, Tom, my granddaughter is staying with me at the moment. I don’t believe you have met.”

  Tom had not even known that Burns had a family at all, let alone grandchildren. He follows his host through the Tudor hall into the dining room. Across the beautifully laid table, decorated with blue flowers, he sees the girl he had encountered on the coastal track. He instantly remembers the insults he had yelled at her. This is not good. Faith Casadoro, as her grandfather introduces her, is sixteen at best.

  If she recognises him as well, she does not let it show. Tom’s “Pleased to meet you” does not get a reply. She turns away to take her seat. Burns just smiles.

  “Faith has been kicked out of boarding school. Again. This is the second time in thirteen months. She does not appreciate elitist educational institutions. Is that right, child?” Faith shrugs. Her grandfather continues. “She was in Lausanne, and then in Bruges. We can’t wait to see what her mother is going to pick next. Some place closer to Scotland would be nice. So you don’t have to hitchhike across the continent all the time.”

  Burns, despite his words, is unmistakeably proud of the girl. Tom looks at her, but she is unmoved. Strange girl. One spoilt brat. If only she does not tell her grandfather about the incident on the cliff.

  Then she looks up from her soup and straight into his eyes. Tom is shocked to see that she has the same blue eyes as her grandfather – they are clear, not watery like those of the old man, but of the same bright blue, and with the same unfathomable expression, switching in an instant from irony to sympathy to anger. Burns’ eyes were famous in the racing circus. When negotiating with him and the blue eyes were fixed upon the opponent, one moment of hesitation was too much. The blue eyes had seen it all. Burns had never been taken advantage of. So his granddaughter had inherited the eyes. When Tom looks away, he was sure they had seen through him all right.

  Burns does not mind the girl’s silence. “She has walked into my life almost in the same way as you, Tom,” he says. “In Monaco, last season, she suddenly turned up at the gates to the paddock and did not go away. She insisted on seeing me, although she had never met me. A grandfather cannot be worse than a Swiss boarding school, I guess.” He chuckles.

  Faith smiles, but briefly. When she sees that Tom had noticed, she narrows her eyes. Maybe the old man’s enthusiasm is not altogether misplaced. Then the conversation turns towards motor sports, and Tom is left hoping that he might get another chance to rectify the bad impression they had got of one another.

  After dinner Burns rises and reaches out his hand towards the girl. “Child, Tom and I have to discuss business matters. It will take awhile. If you will excuse us.”

  Tom almost laughs. Wallace Burns treats the brat like a lady, the same brat who had flipped him off a short while ago. But his grin dies when he sees how well it works. Faith rises, embraces her grandfather and says, “That’s fine. Do you mind if I play the piano?”

  “Not at all, child. Good night.”

  She kisses him on the cheek. Then she turns her blue eyes to Tom once more. “Good night, Mr Healey.” Her voice is warm and soft, despite the American accent.

  “Good night, Miss Casadoro”, Tom replies, with a half ironic little bow. This is not lost on her. She grins when she walks away.

  Tom turns back to Burns and sees that he had been watched. This is embarrassing.

  Walking back to the library and the fireplace, they hear music from the sitting room next door. “Ah”, Burns remarks. “Brahms. We’re lucky. Sometimes she plays awful modern stuff.” They stop to listen. The music sounds tentative, wary, it was nothing Tom would recognise as a melody. He was not into classical music anyway. Then Burns taps his arm and says, “Let’s go, Tom. You have been very patient so far.”