How to describe it, at the moment I first became aware of its existence? A haze, I suppose. A thin, translucent haze just detectable through the oil-smeared screen. It’s the sort of thing you might otherwise dismiss as a trick of the light, but you can’t. Not here. The truth is it wasn’t there a second ago and it is now. So that means it’s something, and the only thing it can be, out here in the pitch dark of the Mulsanne Straight at two in the morning is another car.
As datum points go, it’s not much. The other information required – where it is, how fast it’s going and how fast I’m approaching it – is not yet available and the question du jour is whether it will be too late when it is. The haze is splitting now like a single cell dividing to start a new life. It’s no longer a haze, but two amorphous blobs of dim, uncertain light.
But now we have something to work with. By judging their height, the rate of separation and, most importantly, the speed with which they are enlarging I can determine a few crucial facts: it is not just another car, but a very small car going one hell of a lot slower than me. My guess is something like an Austin 7. If it’s going well it might be doing 65mph, which is inconvenient for me, as I’m flat chat at 115mph and about to smash into the back of it.
