The Chairman In The Garage

Chapter Three: What The Car Saw

Cressida buttered her toast as if she were sharpening it. "I'm not dropping the charge," she said. "He took my car out of my garage without a word, in front of a guest. If I let that go, what does he take next?"

Juliet hadn't slept. She sat at the end of the table in yesterday's makeup with her coffee going cold, and watched her mother avoid looking at the garage door.

Camille had come over with pastries and opinions. Hayden's video had gone round the family group chat twice before midnight, and Camille had clearly watched it more than that. "Honestly, he'll be fine," she said, tearing a croissant in half. "Prisons have cars. He'll make a lovely prison car-washer."

Hayden laughed into his coffee. Juliet set her cup down hard enough to slop it over the saucer, picked up her keys and left without a word.

At the station, the desk sergeant didn't bother checking his screen. "No bail, Ms. Rothwell. Detective Garvey's orders. Vehicle theft, assault on two drivers, and he's asked for more time."

"Those drivers kidnapped me."

"Then make a statement," the sergeant said, and slid a form across the counter as if she'd asked for directions.

She was still filling it in on a plastic chair at half past ten when the front doors opened and a woman in a charcoal suit walked in with two men carrying hard grey cases. She didn't wait at the counter. She held a folded document up to the sergeant long enough for him to read the court's seal, then asked for the station commander by name.

Twenty minutes later Juliet was standing in the commander's office, because the woman from Sable's legal department had insisted the victim be present. One of the engineers opened a laptop on the desk. "Every Sable records its cabin," he said, "for the owner's protection. With a court order, we can pull the footage."

The first clip came from her own car. Juliet watched herself stop at the lights on Marrow Street, watched both doors open at once, watched a man drop into the driver's seat and shove her across into the passenger side while the second climbed in behind her. The camera caught the knife clearly, a short blade pressed into her ribs through the green dress. She had felt it all the way down the coast road, but seeing it made her hands go cold.

The second clip came from her mother's car, and it showed the thief. Grayson was alone at the wheel with his jaw set, never once checking his mirror, driving without a single wrong turn straight to the place where she stood barefoot on the gravel.

Nobody spoke. Garvey, leaning by the window, stared at the frozen screen and said nothing at all. Within the hour the commander had signed Grayson's release and issued warrants for both men, but they were long gone.

***

Grayson signed for his belt and shoelaces under a television bolted above the front desk. A news anchor was reading a statement from Sable. The company was relieved its dealer was safe, and proud that its safety system had stopped the vehicle and protected her. Sable had no such system. Grayson knew, because it would have needed his approval.

Juliet was waiting on the station steps with her phone pressed to her ear.

"Yes, Mum, Sable," she was saying. "No, I don't know why." She lowered the phone and looked at him. "She thinks they stepped in because we're one of their dealers. Hayden agrees. She's already told three of her friends that Sable rang her personally." For a long moment she studied his face, as if there were a question she couldn't quite bring herself to ask. Then the dealership called, and she was gone without offering him a lift.

A car with dark windows was idling at the kerb. The rear door opened as he reached it.

Renata Solberg sat inside in a navy coat with a tablet on her knee. She was the face the world pictured when it thought of Sable, and she was the only person alive who knew both the Chairman's face and his marriage.

"Your code was used at fourteen minutes past nine last night," she said, before he had closed the door. "I guessed the rest. The footage was the cleanest way to get you out without anyone asking about you."

"And the safety system?"

"The press needed a story, so I gave them one." She turned the tablet toward him. "Now the part you won't like. On Saturday we launch the Solace, and at the end of the night the board announces whether Rothwell Motors keeps its franchise. They want it closed and handed to Bexley. Most of them have already made up their minds."

Grayson read the page twice. "Laurent knows."

"Laurent has been telling the Rothwells for a month that he has a friend on that board." Renata's voice stayed perfectly level. "If you overrule them, the first thing every director will ask is why the Chairman cares about one showroom in Larkhaven. You know what the second thing will be."

Who his wife was. He handed the tablet back without answering.

***

That afternoon he was mopping the showroom floor at Rothwell Motors, between a pearl-grey Sable and the sales desk, when Camille walked in to collect Juliet for a late lunch. She stopped at the edge of the wet tiles and looked him up and down.

"Out already? Shame." Then she raised her voice so the sales staff could hear. "Here's a promise, Grayson. If Sable renews this place on Saturday, I'll wash your car in the front window with a toothbrush."

The salesmen laughed. Everyone in the building knew the car-washer didn't own a car.

"I'll bring the car," Grayson said, and went back to mopping.

By evening, the television in the staff room was showing a police launch rocking in the harbour, its searchlight on the black water by the ferry terminal. One of the two men from the coast road had been pulled out of the harbour. The other, a twenty-year-old driver named Yannis Petrakis, had vanished.