Rupert Thomson - Soft

‘There are fifty of us and we have to do three figures each,’ she said. ‘It’s going to take a while.’

‘I know. I’ve got the programme.’

‘You don’t mind?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

They sat in silence for a moment. He looked down at her hands, which lay folded on her lap. He noticed the small round bone on the outside of her left wrist, how prominent it was, and how the vein curved past it, towards the knuckle on her little finger.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re good, are you?’

She smiled. ‘You didn’t see me do that figure?’

‘Yes, I did. But I can’t tell.’

‘Last year I had a trial for the Olympic team,’ she said. ‘They take twelve girls. I came thirteenth.’ She looked at him quickly, almost defensively. ‘I’m not bad.’

‘Why didn’t you get in?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think my legs were long enough.’

He laughed.

‘Really,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it comes down to that. The look of things.’ She glanced at the clock again, then stood up and tightened the belt on her robe. ‘I should be going back.’

‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I don’t think your legs are short,’ he said.

She smiled again. ‘Nobody said they’re short,’ she said. ‘They’re just not long enough, that’s all.’ She turned and climbed the steps towards the door, a muscle flexing just above the tendon in her heel.

Jimmy peered down into the pool. The figure had changed. The new name on the board was PORPOISE SPINNING 180°. He leaned forwards, trying to see the difference between one girl’s execution of the figure and the next. He couldn’t, though. Not really.

At four-forty-five, his mobile phone rang. He pressed TALK and put it to his ear.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, James?’

There was only one person in the world who called him James. With the phone still pressed against his ear, he climbed the steps and stood by the open window.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘it’s me.’

Outside, black clouds jostled one another in the sky. The air seemed to be changing shape.

‘James,’ and there was a pause of three or four seconds, ‘we’ve got ourselves a situation …’

A situation? Jimmy thought. Wasn’t that American for disaster?

By the time he walked out of the Leisure Centre, thunder was rolling across the rooftops and the first drops of rain were beginning to darken the car-park asphalt. He thought it would probably take him at least an hour to reach Chelsea, which was where Raleigh Connor lived. Driving north, through the wet streets, he remembered the way Karen’s leg had appeared, perfectly motionless and vertical, above the surface of the pool. Her foot first, then her calf, then her knee and, finally, her thigh. The figure had been so controlled — there wasn’t a single ripple, not even a drip — that, for a few moments, the water became solid. Seeing her leg rise into the air had seemed magical, almost supernatural — like seeing a sword being drawn, smooth and gleaming, from a stone. He thought of how her skin had shone.

At the next traffic-lights he took out his mobile phone and rang the Leisure Centre. He asked the woman who answered if he could leave a message for Karen Paley.

‘Tell her I was called away,’ he said, ‘an emergency at work. Tell her I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll try.’ The woman sounded doubtful.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘It’s very important.’

‘I said I’ll try.’

Jimmy found Connor’s street without any trouble, parking on a meter about a hundred yards beyond the house. As he walked back he saw the front door open. Lambert crossed the pavement and bent down to unlock a black BMW. He was wearing a different coat — hip-length, waterproof, pale-grey. As before, Jimmy was struck by Lambert’s ordinariness. If aliens ever landed and they wanted to take a human being back to their own world, they would have to choose someone like Lambert. He was so typical. He was practically generic.

‘Lambert,’ Jimmy said.

Lambert looked round, showed no surprise. ‘Are you going in?’

Jimmy nodded. He watched Lambert ease himself into the car and close the door behind him. After a moment the electric window slid down. ‘This thing,’ Lambert said, ‘it’s moved to a whole new level.’ He twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared. ‘A whole new level,’ he said and, glancing over his shoulder, pulled smoothly out into the road. He drove to the junction, indicator flashing, then turned the corner and was gone.

Standing on the pavement, Jimmy remembered how the girls had smiled when they appeared before the judges. A smile that, in his memory at least, was now beginning to resemble the ghastly, exaggerated smile of the dying, or the dead.

Connor met Jimmy at the door. Though Connor was dressed in casual clothes — a navy-blue cardigan, slacks, a pair of well-worn leather slippers — he looked less relaxed than usual; his skin seemed paler, his lips thinner. Jimmy followed him down the hallway and into a large, open-plan living-room. Two white sofas faced each other across a floor of polished wood. A black Labrador lay sleeping on the rug by the fireplace, its hind legs twitching as it dreamed. Through the french windows hollyhocks and roses could be seen, and a lawn with a stone birdbath in the middle. It occurred to Jimmy that he had never tried to imagine Connor’s life outside the office.

‘Nice dog,’ he said. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Earl.’ Connor bent over, stroked the dog’s sleek head. ‘I just got him back. He was in quarantine for six months. Out at Heathrow.’

‘Did you visit him?’

‘Every Friday.’

Jimmy nodded. He thought he remembered Connor leaving early on Friday afternoons. He didn’t know what else to say, though. He had never owned a dog, or even liked them particularly.

‘I saw Lambert outside,’ he mentioned after a while.

Connor straightened up. ‘I’ve told him to shut down the operation. As of today.’

‘What happened?’

‘There’s been some kind of leak.’ Connor turned, the garden dark behind him. ‘Lambert says it’s watertight his end. I said the same.’ He faced Jimmy across the room. ‘Was I right?’

‘There’s only you and me,’ Jimmy said, ‘and I’ve said nothing.’

‘Well, there’s a journalist out there who’s got the idea that there was something,’ and Connor paused for a moment, ‘something illicit about the launch of Kwench!.’

Later, sitting on the sofa, he explained that he had set the appropriate wheels in motion and Jimmy knew better than to ask him to elaborate. Presumably this was what Lambert had meant when he referred to ‘a whole new level’. They were going to have to bring Communications in, Connor said. Maybe somebody from Finance too. Debbie Groil and Neil Bowes would have to be briefed on the project, otherwise they’d be in no position to handle media curiosity.

Jimmy nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ He took a deep breath, let it out again. ‘They’re not going to like it.’

Connor ignored the remark. ‘I’ve called a meeting for Monday morning. Eight-thirty. I want you there.’ He rose to his feet, showed Jimmy to the door. ‘I’m sorry to break into your weekend like this.’

They stood on the front step for a moment, looking out into the street. The storm had moved away. There was a dripping in the trees and bushes, and the smell of rain on grass. A car drove by, house music pumping from its open windows.

‘By the way,’ Connor said, ‘where were you when I phoned? It sounded strange — the background …’

‘Crystal Palace,’ Jimmy said. ‘I was watching the synchronised swimming.’