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‘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.

‘Seriously, though,’ Ray was saying, ‘you think I wouldn’t do it if I could? I mean, six grand. Jesus.’

‘So why can’t you?’

‘I’m out on bail. I can’t risk it.’

‘You’re a fucking menace, you are.’

‘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.

‘Barker? You still there?’

‘I’m here.’

‘They’re going to phone you. Probably tonight.’

Barker couldn’t believe it. ‘You gave them my number?’

‘Well, yeah. I thought you needed the money.’

‘That’s great, Ray. That’s fucking great.’

‘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.

‘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 his elbow.

‘Please order,’ Lambert said. ‘Anything you want.’

Barker chose two dishes randomly and closed the menu. Lambert told the waiter he would have the same, then he opened the briefcase that was lying on the seat beside him. He took out a brown envelope and, moving a small silver vase to one side, placed the envelope on the tablecloth between them.

‘It contains everything you need to know,’ he said. ‘It also contains half the money in advance. Three thousand pounds.’

Barker reached for the envelope, thinking he ought to check the contents, but Lambert rested one hand on his sleeve. ‘Not now. When you’re at home,’ and Lambert paused, ‘in Bermondsey.’

‘You’re not going to tell me what the job involves?’

‘It’s nothing you can’t manage.’

‘And if I decide not to do it?’

‘You’ve already decided. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

‘But if I change my mind,’ Barker persisted.

‘Then you’ll be here tomorrow at the same time. With the envelope, of course.’ Lambert looked down at the pale-pink tablecloth and smiled almost wistfully. ‘But I don’t think you’ll be here tomorrow.’

Barker stared at the envelope, the brown paper seeming to expand, to draw him in. When he looked up again, the food had arrived and Lambert was already eating.

‘This is good.’ Lambert pointed at his plate.

‘It’s not your first time, is it,’ Barker said.

Lambert looked at him.

‘You often come here,’ Barker said. ‘To this restaurant.’

Lambert was eating again. ‘You know, this really is very good.’ A few moments later he glanced at his watch, then touched his napkin to his mouth. ‘I must go.’

He pushed his chair back. Barker half-rose from the table.

‘Please,’ Lambert said. ‘Finish your lunch.’

Afterwards, Barker couldn’t recall his face at all. His eyes, his nose, his hair had vanished without trace. Lambert was the kind of man who had no habits. Who did not smell. Of anything. When you had lunch with him, time passed more quickly than it did with other people. Not because you were having fun. Not for any reason you could think of. It just did. Perhaps it was a technique Lambert had mastered — part of his job, his brief. Later, it felt as if you’d only imagined meeting him. It had never actually happened. You’d eaten lunch alone, in a restaurant somewhere just off Edgware Road. It was the shrubbery that you remembered. Those leaves. Too big and shiny. Too green.

At home that evening Barker took a shower. As always, he noted the contrast between his legs, which seemed too thin, and his torso, which was almost as deep as it was wide, his ex-wife’s name tattooed in muddy grey-blue capitals across his chest. Mostly he chose to see the shape of his body as representing some kind of efficiency. The type of work he’d done in the past, legs didn’t matter. It was the other people who needed legs. To run for it. To scarper. He dried himself thoroughly, then put on a black T-shirt and a pair of faded black jeans, pulling a thick leather belt through the loops and fastening the Harley Davidson buckle. He smoothed his hair down with his hands till it lay flat against his skull. In the kitchen he opened a can of lager, which he carried into the lounge. He sat on the settee with the TV on. The red numbers on the video said 7:35.

After his meeting with Lambert, Barker had returned to work. He had asked Higgs for a three-hour lunch-break that day. He hadn’t bothered to invent a reason, an excuse, and the old man had been too discreet to ask for one. Once, though, when the shop was empty, Higgs had looked across at him and asked him if everything was all right. Barker nodded, but didn’t speak. Outside, the sun was shining, which made the interior seem gloomier than usual. Bad news? Higgs said quietly. Barker didn’t answer. Later, he walked home under a bright-blue sky and lifted weights until his skin glistened.

The brown envelope lay on the table by the wall, its surface blank, its contents still unknown. If he thought he still had a choice he was fooling himself. You’ve already decided. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. He had answered the phone and he had appeared at the restaurant. He had eaten a meal. Most ways you looked at it, he was already in. As he reached for the envelope he heard the man’s voice again, dispassionate and neutral. When you’re at home, and then a pause, in Bermondsey. The bastards. They even knew where he lived. He tore the envelope open lengthways, almost carelessly, and emptied it on to the cushion next to him.