He’d done a parachute drop once, overseen by the military. Low opening, they called it: pulling the cord at the last possible moment. River still remembered his feet hitting the ground; it was a memory stored in most of his bones, including those in his ears and thumbs. This was similar. There was also an old joke here somewhere.
River buried his face for a moment in the soft mass, then tore it from its casing. It deflated with a Lamb-like noise.
‘You bloody maniac!’
The other driver was standing next to his door.
‘Sorry,’ River mouthed.
‘I’m calling the police. I’m calling the police. You bloody—’
‘Sorry.’
‘—bloody stupid
River nodded, because it was the least he could do. He was a bloody bloody stupid maniac: pointless to argue the toss. Or to waste more time. He tried to recreate his sudden turnaround, which proved a lot more complicated when done consciously, with an angry man providing the chorus. But it got done and then he was away again, still driving too fast down a narrow dark lane, but conscious of something having shifted inside him shortly before he didn’t crash; some realisation he’d arrived at, the way you might put your hand inside a crowded wardrobe, and pull out exactly the thing you hadn’t known you were looking for.
The end turned out to be a clearing by the side of the road; a small parking space among trees, from which, Sid guessed, a footpath would lead somewhere picturesque, or interesting, or historical. She was not in the mood for any of these things. But it didn’t seem likely that her preferences would count for much.
‘Nearly there,’ said Jim, as Jane parked in the far corner.
What now? Sid asked, then realised she’d done so without making any noise. She cleared her throat. ‘What now?’
‘Nothing to be alarmed about.’
‘No. But what?’
Jane spoke for the first time in a while. ‘There’s a lake through the trees. Well, a large pond. Looks nice on the map.’
‘Area of natural beauty,’ said Jim. ‘One of those phrases you hear.’
‘We’ll take a look, shall we?’
There’s a word for questions that don’t require an answer.
Sid provided one anyway. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
Jim laughed. ‘You’ve come this far. What’s a hundred yards more?’
‘It’s dark.’
‘We have a torch. And it’ll be lighter by the lake. Water reflects.’
‘You know what?’ said Jane. ‘I think a dip would sharpen us all up. What do you say to that?’
She’d directed this at Jim, who said, ‘Nightswimming – why not? It’ll only be cold for a few moments. After that, it’ll feel quite normal.’
‘I don’t have a costume,’ said Sid. She seemed to be having trouble with her volume control: the words came ballooning out of her mouth, as if she’d taken helium. This was what happened when you got near the end: everyday things slipped away. The last time she’d died, it had happened suddenly, so she hadn’t been nervous. This time, there was too much warning. These people were going to kill her. She didn’t know why, but didn’t feel she’d find any reason acceptable, even if it were carefully explained.
‘Skinnydipping,’ said Jim. ‘Why not? We’re all adults.’
He reached over and released Sid’s seat belt. The strap brushed her breasts as it spooled back into its cavity. ‘Or,’ he said, and for the first time his voice became his own: no longer the jolly vicar but the ice-toned intruder. ‘We could finish it here in the car. Which will be messier, but we can do that if you prefer.’
His head was right up against Sid’s, their eyes inches apart. Sid stared into them, and nothing stared back.
‘All right,’ she said.
Jim tilted his head slightly: a question.
‘Let’s finish it here in the car,’ Sid said, adjusting her sleeve.
Lamb said, ‘You realise, if this goes on much longer, I won’t have two spooks to rub together.’ He in- then exhaled, a thin cloud that drifted away across the canal. ‘Not that they won’t enjoy that,’ he added. ‘Last time Ho experienced friction, someone was giving him a Chinese burn. Well, just a burn in his case.’
‘You’ve gone dark,’ Diana said, a refrain she’d played earlier. ‘Stay that way. All of you. Another few days, a week at most, and you can safely graze again. We’ll find this hit-team, send them home in a padded envelope.’
‘I love it when you talk stationery.’ Lamb turned to look at her. His face was the moon’s: craters and hummocks and random patches of grey. ‘White and Loy, I can live with. But Sid Baker was in that file too. And that’s a different story.’
Diana said, ‘She’s dead,’ but didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it.
‘She was dead,’ he agreed. ‘That’s the official line. But you needed it on record that she actually wasn’t, in case it came back to bite you. I mean, it was your fuck-up that nearly got her killed. So you buried the truth in Molly’s archive, where no one was likely to look. Because everything goes straight to digital now, right?’
‘Except you.’
‘Pretty much a last resort where I’m concerned, yeah.’
