Whiteout(46)

The concrete apron in front of the garage was covered with a smooth layer of snow. There was a clump of bushes at the near corner of the building and a large tree on the far side of the apron. Craig simply had to avoid those and slot the car into its bay.

More confident now, he moved the gearshifit into the notch for first gear, touched the accelerator, then released the clutch. The car moved forward. He turned the steering wheel, which was heavy at low speed, not being power-assisted. The car obediently turned left. He depressed the throttle another millimeter, and it picked up speed, just enough to feel exciting. He swung right, aiming for the open door, but he was going too fast. He touched the brake.

That was his mistake.

The car was moving quickly on snow with its front wheels turning right. As soon as the brakes bit, the rear wheels lost traction. Instead of continuing to turn right into the open garage door, the car slid sideways across the snow. Craig knew what was happening, but had no idea what to do about it. He spun the steering wheel farther to the right, but that made the skid worse, and the car drifted inexorably over the slippery surface, like a boat blown by a gale. Craig stamped on the brake and the clutch at the same time, but it made no difference.

The garage building slid away to the right of the windshield. Craig thought he would crash into Kit's Peugeot, but to his blissful relief the Ferrari missed the other car by several inches. Losing momentum, it slowed down. For a moment he thought he had got away with it. But, just before the car came to a complete stop, its front nearside wing touched the big tree.

"That was great!" Sophie said.

"No, it bloody was not." Craig put the stick in neutral and released the clutch, then sprang out of the car. He walked around to the front. The impact had felt gentle but, to his dismay, he saw by the light of the lamps on the garage wall a large, unmistakable dimple in the gleaming blue wing. "Shit," he said miserably.

Sophie got out and looked. "It's not a very big dent," she said.

"Don't talk bollocks." The size did not matter. The bodywork was damaged and Craig was responsible. He felt a sensation of nausea deep in his stomach. What a Christmas present for Grandpa.

"They might not notice it," Sophie said.

"Of course they'll bloody notice it," he said angrily. "Grandpa will see it as soon as he looks at the car."

"Well, that might not be for a while. He's not likely to go out in this weather."

"What difference does that make?" Craig said impatiently. He knew he was sounding petulant, but he hardly cared. "I'll have to own up."

"Better if you're not here when the shit hits the fan."

"I don't see—" He paused. He did see. If he confessed now, Christmas would be blighted. Mamma Marta would have said, There will be a bordello, by which she meant uproar. If he said nothing, but confessed later, perhaps there would be less fuss. Anyway, the prospect of postponing discovery for a few days was tempting.

"I'll have to put it in the garage," he said, thinking aloud.

"Park it with the dented side right up against the wall," Sophie suggested. "That way, it won't be noticed by anyone just walking past."

Sophie's idea was beginning to make sense, Craig thought. There were two other cars in the garage: a massive Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon off-road car with four-wheel drive, which Grandpa used in weather like this; and Luke's old Ford Mondeo, in which he drove himself and Lori between this house and their cottage a mile away. Luke would certainly enter the garage this evening to get his car and drive home. If the weather got worse, he might borrow the big Land Cruiser and leave his Ford here. luther way, he had to enter the garage. But if the Ferrari were hard up against the wall, the dent would not be visible.

The engine was still running. Craig sat in the driver's seat. He rngaged first gear and drove slowly forward. Sophie ran into the garage and stood in the car's headlights. As it entered the garage, she used her hands to show Craig how close he was to the wall.

On his first attempt he was no closer than eighteen inches from the wall. That was not good enough. He had to try again. He looked nervously in the rearview mirror, but no one else was around. He was grateful for the cold weather that kept everyone indoors in the warm.

On his third attempt he managed to position the car four or five inches off the wall. He got out and looked. It was impossible to see the dent from any angle.

He closed the door, then he and Sophie headed for the kitchen. Craig felt jangled and guilty, but Sophie was in high spirits. "That was awesome," she said.

Craig realized he had impressed her at last.





7 PM

KIT set up his computer in the box room, a small space that could be reached only by going through his bedroom. He plugged in his laptop, a fingerprint scanner, and a smart-card reader-writer he had bought secondhand for ￡270 on eBay.

This room had always been his lair. When he was small, they had had only the three bedrooms: Mamma and Daddy in the main room, Olga and Miranda in the second room, and Kit in a cot in this box room off the girls' room. After the extension was built, and Olga went off to university, Kit had the bedroom as well as the box room, but this had remained his den.

It was still furnished as a schoolboy's study, with a cheap desk, a bookshelf, a small TV set, and a seat known as the sleepchair, which unfolded in to a small single bed and had often been used by school friends coming to stay. Sitting at the desk, he thought wistfully of the tedious hours of homework he had done here, geography and biology, medieval kings and irregular verbs, Hail, Caesar! He had learned so much, and forgotten it all.