Soft by Rupert Thomson Page B

got to meet someone.’ Ray dragged on a cigarette. ‘Must be big, though. There’s six grand in it.’
    Six grand?
    â€˜So why aren’t you doing it, Ray?’
    â€˜That’s what I’m asking myself. Why aren’t I doing it?’
    Barker laughed despite himself. He knew Ray wasn’t trying to be funny. It was just the way things came out. Ray used to have a girlfriend called Josie. A big girl – forearms the size of legs of lamb. One lunchtime Ray was sitting over his pint, scratching his head, when something fell out of his hair. Landed on the table, kind of bounced. Bright-red it was, shiny, slightly curved: a woman’s fingernail. Ray looked at it for a moment, then he looked up.
Me and Josie. We had a fight this morning
.
    â€˜Seriously, though,’ Ray was saying, ‘you think I wouldn’t do it if I could? I mean, six grand. Jesus.’
    â€˜So why can’t you?’
    â€˜I’m out on bail. I can’t risk it.’
    â€˜You’re a fucking menace, you are.’
    â€˜Yeah.’ Ray sounded resigned. ‘Listen, you’ve got to help me out on this one. I’m counting on you.’
    Barker stared at the blank wall above the phone. You shouldn’t ever let someone do you a favour. You shouldn’t get into that kind of debt.
    â€˜Barker? You still there?’
    â€˜I’m here.’
    â€˜They’re going to phone you. Probably tonight.’
    Barker couldn’t believe it. ‘You gave them my number?’
    â€˜Well, yeah. I thought you needed the money.’
    â€˜That’s great, Ray. That’s fucking great.’
    â€˜How else are they going to phone you, for Christ’s sake?’
    Barker stood in his narrow hallway with the receiver pressed against his ear. Tiny white-hot holes burned in front of his eyes. It wasn’t that Ray was stupid. No, he just saw things from a different angle, that was all. Barker could hear Ray’s voice raised in his own defence.
I was only trying to help you, Barker. Thought I’d see you right. It’s not my fault
. Ray was always only trying to help, and nothing was ever his fault.
    When the phone rang again two hours later, Barker could have ignored it. Equally, he could have answered the phone and said he was unavailable; there were any number of excuses for not getting involved. And yet he had the sense that something was beginning, something that he was part of whether he liked it or not, something that couldn’t take place without him. Afterwards, he would remember his right hand reaching for the receiver as the decisive moment, the point of no return.
    He listened carefully to the voice on the other end as it provided him with details of the meeting-place, a Lebanese restaurant near Marble Arch. No accent, no inflections; it might have been computer-generated to give nothing away. And the man’s face when he saw it, at one o’clock the next day, had the same lack of individuality. The man was sitting at a table in the corner with his back against a wall of shrubbery;lit by miniature green spotlights, the foliage looked rich and fleshy, almost supernatural. The man introduced himself as Lambert. It seemed an unlikely name. Barker took a seat. In the space between his knife and fork lay a pale-pink napkin arranged in the shape of a fan. He picked it up, unfolded it and spread it on his lap.
    â€˜Thank you for coming,’ Lambert said.
    They were the only people in the restaurant. Soothing music trickled from hidden speakers, instrumental versions of famous songs: ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’, ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’, ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’. Barker noticed that there were colours in all the titles and he wondered if that was deliberate, if it had some kind of significance. Then he recognised the old Rod Stewart favourite, ‘Sailing’, and his theory collapsed. A waiter appeared at