‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ Larry encouraged. ‘You know what, we’re only here for a short while. Live the dream! If you can afford it, why not?’
It was that phrase, ‘If you can afford it’, that hooked them, he had learned. Oh yes!
And he could see that the words had struck home.
‘Imagine gliding away from your wedding reception in this beauty! And there are very good finance deals at the moment,’ Olson said, pushing at temptation. ‘Might even be able to get you zero interest for the first twelve months.’
It was the generous terms he had to offer from finance companies, enabling customers to buy something they thought would be beyond their reach, that usually clinched it. And who would dare to admit they couldn’t afford it?
‘You’re asking for £89,500?’ Sophia said, looking at the price displayed on the windscreen. ‘What would be your best price, if we were interested?’
‘Let me talk to my boss and see if we can do anything.’ Larry winked. ‘Give me a couple of minutes.’
‘Sure.’
He walked to the rear of the showroom and through the door into the empty double garage at the rear, closing it behind him. There was a kitchenette in there. He sat on a stool at the table for a carefully timed five minutes, reading the paper, then he went back into the showroom and approached the couple with a beam.
‘My boss says he would take £88,000 and throw in a year’s tax and warranty.’
‘What about servicing charges?’ Goodman asked.
‘I’m sure we could do something on that, too.’
Sophia knelt and studied the tyres.
‘All replaced three months ago, I understand,’ Larry said.
She stood back up and looked at her fiancé. He was nodding enthusiastically. She turned to Larry. ‘OK, we’ll think about it.’
Quoting one of his favourites, from Robert Browning, Larry Olson’s parting words to the couple had been, ‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’
It had been no surprise to him when Christopher Goodman called, later that afternoon, asking first if the car was still available, and then, sounding very relieved it was, to book a test drive. Could Larry hold the car until Tuesday morning?
He’d given him the usual patter that he had someone else who was interested coming back on Monday, but for a £5,000 deposit, fully refundable, he’d hold it until midday, Tuesday. And he would need to see on Tuesday either a bank statement showing he was good for the finance or a reference from his bank manager, along with his driving licence.
Goodman had replied that he would bring both. And the deposit had been paid minutes later.
Larry walked across the showroom floor shortly after 7.30 a.m. with a spring in his step. He already had a selection of financial options printed out to show the punter just how incredibly affordable it was.
He only had one slight concern, and that was the weather. It was dry at the moment, but rain was forecast for a little later. Electric cars, especially this BMW, had phenomenal acceleration, and even this BMW with its sure-footed handling could easily catch out the inexperienced driver on a slippery, wet road. But hey, hopefully it would still be dry for the test drive.
And he was confident that, once he had driven it, Goodman would be smitten.
Suddenly he felt a tightening in his chest and a pain, like indigestion. The pain shot acutely down both his arms. It was another angina attack coming on. His heart specialist had been trying to fix a date to book him in for a triple bypass, but Olson didn’t have time for that, not at the moment, when he had to focus on keeping his business afloat. Maybe if he got this sale he could then afford the time.
He dug his hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out the vial of tiny white nitroglycerine tablets and popped one under his tongue. Within half a minute or so the pain began to subside. Shit, the symptoms were coming on increasingly frequently now.
You’d better buy this car, Christopher Goodman. You won’t just be saving my business, you might be saving my life.
And with his lovely, caring Irish girlfriend, Shauna, life was really good for him again, after the trauma of his health scares. He would have the op and afterwards he would do his damnedest to get fit again. He had promised her that.
Manoeuvring some of his other stock out of the way, he slid open the showroom doors, grabbed the BMW’s keys off the hook on his office wall and decided to take it for a quick spin round the block to check everything was working fine, after a few weeks of it sitting idle in the showroom. Unplugging the charging cable, he then, mindful of his bad back, eased himself gently into the driver’s seat with a pained grunt, glided the car silently out of the showroom, drove north up to Church Road, Hove, and turned left. It was 7.45 a.m.
32
Roy Grace turned his Alfa Romeo right into New Church Road. Bruno, hair neatly brushed as ever, dressed in his red school blazer, white shirt and striped tie, grey trousers and black shoes, sat beside him, silent and stroppy. It was 7.45 a.m.
Bruno was in a particularly strange mood this morning, barely saying a word during the half-hour drive in the early rush-hour traffic. In response to his father’s question about what he had on at school today, he just tut-tutted loudly, intently studying his phone. From the sounds coming out of it, Grace guessed he was looking at TikTok.
Attempting again to engage, he asked if he was playing any sport this afternoon, but all he got in response was Bruno sighing loudly in an irritable ‘leave me alone’ fashion.
For a while, Grace turned up the volume on the radio, tuned to Radio Sussex, listening to the news and traffic reports. He’d been hoping to have a good chat in the car with Bruno, but so far that hadn’t happened. He’d learned that ignoring the boy was sometimes the best tactic to get him to speak. The tactic worked now.
‘Why do you think school is so important?’ Bruno asked suddenly.
Roy turned down the radio. ‘You don’t think it is?’
‘Most teachers I have are useless. I know more than them,’ he said.
‘You do?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I don’t think, I know.’
‘You do?’ The small boy’s confidence — and arrogance — at times was breathtaking, he thought.
‘Yeah, I tested my Geography teacher yesterday. I asked him what the capital of Kazakhstan was. He didn’t know.’
‘I don’t know either,’ Grace said.
‘You’re just a police officer, you’re not paid to know the capital of countries. Mr Maitland is.’
‘So what is it?’
‘Nur-Sultan.’
‘Nur-Sultan?’
‘Yes. I know the capital of every country in the world. Mr Maitland doesn’t even know how many countries there are. I asked him, he said there were one hundred and eighty-seven.’
‘How many are there?’
‘One hundred and ninety-five.’
A sleek BMW i8, a car Grace had always quite fancied, travelled past in the opposite direction at what seemed to be over the speed limit. ‘There are one hundred and ninety-three that are member states of the United Nations and just two, the Holy See and the state of Palestine, which are not. Taiwan, the Cook Islands and Niue should also be on the list, really, in my opinion.’
They were approaching the school. ‘You know what I think, Bruno, you should go on Mastermind with your specialist subject as Geography,’ he said, trying to lighten his son’s intense seriousness.