‘You see, that’s the real beauty of it,’ he went on eagerly. ‘There are people doing it already. Only they do it of their own free will, of course; they choose what product they’re going to talk about. All we’d be doing is guiding them a little. Prompting them. So it would be Kwench! they’d talk about. And though you’d be creating word of mouth, no one would think it strange. Our people wouldn’t look any different to anybody else. Wouldn’t behave any different. The whole enterprise would be invisible. Disguised. Because it’s based on human nature …’
‘Yes, I see that,’ Connor said slowly. ‘My problem is, how do you plant the images?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jimmy frowned. ‘It has to be done in the same way that drug companies do it. Afterwards, the subjects have no idea what drugs they’ve taken, no notion of what the side-effects, or long-term effects, might be. They’re paid their hundred pounds, and that’s the end of it. It’s possible they might even be required to sign some kind of contract, waiving the right to sue.’ Once again, he noticed Connor nodding. This time he allowed himself a smile; he had known that last point would appeal to an American. ‘Having said all that, I’m not sure how you plant the images.’ His smile dimmed. ‘In the end, it’s only a concept. An idea.’
He waited for a reaction, but none came. The air in the office seemed charged, glassy. For a moment, he found it hard to breathe.
‘Leave it with me,’ Connor said at last.
‘You think it’s got potential?’
‘I’ll keep you informed.’ Connor rose to his feet, showed Jimmy to the door. ‘And, by the way, James, I’m treating this document as confidential. You should probably keep the contents to yourself.’
Outside the office, Jimmy pushed his hands into his pockets and walked towards the lift, head lowered, a wide grin on his face.
James.
Tact
For three weeks Jimmy waited for Connor to respond to his proposal. During the regular Wednesday meetings of the project team he would study the American’s face for some clue as to his intentions. He learned nothing. Nobody referred to Jimmy’s suggestion that the advertising agency should be fired – nobody except Tony Ruddle, that is, whose disdain was visible in the twist of his thick, chapped lips.
Then, one afternoon in late November, Jimmy’s phone rang and when he picked it up, he heard Connor’s voice on the other end.
‘We’re going ahead with Project Secretary,’ Connor said. ‘I thought you’d like to know.’
‘Project Secretary?’ It took Jimmy a few moments to understand the full implication of what Connor was saying, that his proposal had been given the status of a project, and that it already had a name.
At five-thirty that afternoon Connor spoke to him in private in his office. ‘The Wednesday meetings will continue as before,’ he said, ‘only now, within the project team, there will be another, smaller team, a cell, if you like, which nobody will know about. It will have three members. You, me – and Lambert.’
‘Lambert?’ Jimmy said.
‘Lambert is our external supplier.’
Jimmy didn’t follow.
‘It’s the same as any other promotion,’ Connor explained. ‘We’re going to need someone on the outside to set the programme up and run it for us, someone with the right level of expertise …’
So Ruddle would not be involved. Jimmy’s heart began to dance.
‘Are we going to advertise?’ he asked.
‘I think we have to,’ Connor said, ‘if only as a front.’ He paced up and down, his shoulders rounded, his hands pushed into the pockets of his trousers. ‘If we don’t advertise at all, we’ll arouse suspicion. And besides, without advertising, I’m not sure we can guarantee distribution …’
‘I had a thought,’ Jimmy said.
Connor waited, the grey blinds vibrating behind him, like the gills of some enormous, primeval fish.
‘It might be good to advertise in a very basic, almost old-fashioned way. I’m talking about posters, really. Half teaser, half mnemonic. All they would say is Kwench!. The word itself. Or maybe not even that. Maybe just the colours. It would intrigue the people who haven’t heard of Kwench! yet. It might also prompt our new sales force, our ambassadors –’
‘Ambassadors?’ Connor said.
It was Jimmy’s turn to explain. ‘That’s what I’m calling the people who’ll be going through our programme. Because that’s the role they’ll be playing. If you look up ‘ambassador’ in the dictionary you’ll see that there’s an archaic definition. An ambassador is quote ‘an appointed or official messenger’ unquote.’ He paused. ‘In more recent definitions, the word ‘mission’ is often mentioned …’
Connor nodded. ‘There is also, is there not, the sense of someone acting on someone else’s behalf –’
‘Exactly.’
‘Ambassadors.’ A smile appeared on Connor’s face, a smile that seemed to rise from underneath, slowly but steadily, like spilled liquid being soaked up by a paper towel.
From where he was sitting, on the other side of Connor’s desk, Jimmy watched the smile spread. He had the curious feeling he had just witnessed some kind of product demonstration, though he didn’t think he could have said exactly what the product was.
The first meeting with the external supplier took place on neutral ground at the end of the month. The location had been kept secret, even from Connor’s PA – according to Connor’s diary, he was visiting distributors in Middlesex – and, as they crossed the city that morning, Connor had once again stressed the highly confidential nature of the undertaking. ‘What is required here,’ he said, ‘as I’m sure you understand, is tact.’
Jimmy glanced out of the window. Dawn had brought very little light with it. A dark, bitter day. Leaves rattling against the taxi’s hubcaps as it swayed into Park Lane. The hotel Connor had chosen for the meeting lay just to the north of Marble Arch. With its stark, pale-grey façade, it looked suitably anonymous. Jimmy waited on the pavement while Connor paid, then followed him up the steps and into the lobby. He could have predicted the decor. Potted plants, brass fittings. Upholstery the colour of Thousand Island Dressing. He could have predicted the hotel guests as well – air hostesses with matching luggage, businessmen from out of town. But there were things he could not predict, the day itself, what it might hold, and this uncertainty fed into his muscles until they thrilled and sizzled like the wires on an electric fence.
‘And the name, sir?’ The girl behind reception had a wide, improbable smile, and wore her dark-blonde hair in a frisky pony-tail.
‘Connor.’
Once Connor had registered, the girl handed him a Ving card, which he immediately passed to Jimmy. Jimmy studied the piece of rectangular grey plastic. Ving cards always reminded him of props from Star Trek: though they had only just been invented, they seemed oddly primitive, antiquated – out of date.
Upstairs, on the fifth floor, he slid the card downwards into the lock. The light altered from red to green. He opened the door and walked in. It was a hotel room like any other – a double bed, a TV, air that smelled of dry-cleaning.
‘What time’s Lambert due?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Eleven,’ Connor said.
They were early.
Connor drank a bottle of sparkling water from the mini-bar. Jimmy took a seat at the round table, a blank notepad in front of him. He didn’t really know what to expect. Connor had told him that Lambert was being flown in at the company’s expense. From Europe, he had said. Would Lambert take his proposal literally? No doubt that was one of the aims of the meeting – to discuss tactics, to identify a strategy. Jimmy glanced at Connor who was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back. Outside, it had begun to drizzle.
At five to eleven the phone rang. Connor picked it up and listened for a moment, then he said, ‘Yes, 506.’ He put the phone down and turned to Jimmy. ‘Lambert’s here,’ he said. Rather unnecessarily, Jimmy thought. Perhaps Connor was nervous after all.
&n
bsp; The man who walked into the room had thick but neatly parted light-brown hair and wore a biscuit-coloured overcoat. Though the rain was now beating against the window, neither his hair nor his overcoat were wet, which only added to the mystique surrounding him, lending credence to the idea that he might be capable of extraordinary things.
‘Lambert,’ Connor said. ‘James Lyle.’
The palm of Lambert’s hand felt dry, slightly gritty, as though it had been dusted with chalk. Jimmy watched as Lambert removed his coat, folded it lengthways and laid it across the bed. Lambert’s hands were gentle and nurturing, almost chivalrous, so much so that Jimmy found himself imagining that the coat was not a coat at all, but a woman who had been turned into a coat – as a punishment, perhaps, or even by mistake. The idea seemed both absurd and possible, and Jimmy suddenly felt giddy, a little faint, as if he’d smoked too much grass. He poured himself a glass of water and drank half of it. Rain was tumbling past the window now. The bare branches of the trees shone like polished stone, and the sky was so dark that they had switched the lights on in the offices across the street.
Lambert sat down at the table, his briefcase on the floor beside his chair. If Jimmy had been asked to describe him, he would have found it difficult. He would have been tempted to generalise. Clean-cut, he would have said. Classic features. Clichés, in other words. He thought Lambert looked more like a doctor than anything else, an impression that was reinforced when Lambert began to speak. He had a voice that was quiet and firm, a voice tailor-made for diagnosis. I’m sorry, but you have cancer. Jimmy could hear him saying it. If Lambert had a sense of humour, he kept it hidden under layers of discretion and professionalism.
After talking for almost half an hour about unconscious information processing, what he called ‘perception without awareness’, Lambert suddenly tightened the focus.
‘Basically,’ he said, ‘you’re looking at a three-month programme. April to June.’
Connor’s head lifted slowly, as if it weighed much more than other people’s. ‘That’s the earliest start-date you can give us?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Connor jotted something on his notepad.
‘The drug-trial scenario won’t work,’ Lambert said. ‘I’m recommending another route. I’m recommending a sleep laboratory.’ He waited, expecting another challenge, perhaps, but neither Connor nor Jimmy spoke. ‘It’s less high-profile,’ he explained, ‘less contentious. It’s got the same things going for it, though. You define the parameters – obstructive sleep apnoea, polysomnography, whatever – then you advertise for subjects to fit that profile. You pay them a fixed sum. After that, they’re yours.’
‘And you can set that up?’ Connor said.
‘Yes, I can.’
‘How would you go about it?’
Lambert was staring at the surface of the table. ‘Let’s just say I’m affiliated to a university.’
‘But there are dangers if it gets too medical, aren’t there?’ said Jimmy, speaking for the first time. ‘I mean, if doctors are involved?’
Lambert didn’t raise his eyes from the table. ‘My feeling is, you stay abstract. You focus on research, sleep studies. That way you get to choose exactly who your subjects are. Your target market.’ He grinned mirthlessly. The speed of it reminded Jimmy of lizards catching insects with their tongues.
‘And the technology?’ Connor asked.
‘The technology’s all taken care of,’ Lambert said. ‘However, I should warn you. We’ve carried out some tests and the results are not conclusive, not by any means.’ He took a breath. ‘This project is experimental. No money back, no guarantees.’
Jimmy glanced at Connor, but Connor was nodding.
‘Talking of money,’ and Lambert started drawing noughts on his notepad, ‘this is not going to be cheap …’
‘I’m aware of that.’ Connor rose to his feet and spoke to Jimmy. ‘You’ll have to excuse us for a few minutes.’
When the two men had left the room, Jimmy leaned back in his chair, hands locked behind his head, and for a few moments his mind was completely blank. The wind and rain had died away. Through the wall to his right came the monotonous buzz of an electric razor. His eyes drifted round the room and came to rest on Lambert’s coat. He stood up, walked over to the bed. He hesitated, then lifted the collar on the coat and peered inside. No label. The coat was high-quality – cashmere, by the feel of it. He let the collar go. Would Lambert know that somebody had tampered with his coat? He heard voices outside the door and froze, still bent over the bed, but the voices passed on down the corridor. Bolder now, he slipped a hand into the outside pocket of the coat. It was empty. In the other pocket he found a grey-and-yellow Lufthansa boarding pass, the small piece that passengers retain. LAMBERT/D MR, it read. From MUC to LON. MUC – that was Munich, presumably. Jimmy noted the flight number and the date, then put it back. Sitting at the table again, he reached for the remote and switched on the TV. He watched CNN until he heard Connor and Lambert outside the door, then he turned the TV off and stood up. Lambert only stayed long enough to collect his coat. He shook hands with Connor, nodded at Jimmy, then he was gone. Connor opened the mini-bar and took out a small bottle of sparkling water.
‘So what did you think of Lambert?’
‘Impressive,’ Jimmy said. ‘No wasted words, no promises he couldn’t keep.’ Jimmy paused, thinking back. ‘Actually, he reminded me of someone from a soap opera.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘No.’
Smiling, Connor finished his water and placed the glass on the table. ‘I imagine that’s the way he likes it.’
‘Have you known him long?’
Connor’s eyes lifted, collecting bleak light from the window. ‘What makes you think I know him?’ Connor reached for his raincoat and put it on. ‘There are things I’m keeping from you,’ he said, ‘for your own protection.’
Jimmy was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘I do have one concern.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Doesn’t it worry you that what we’re attempting is actually impossible, that we might be spending all this money for nothing?’
‘What’s advertising,’ Connor said, ‘if it’s not a risk?’
*
Outside the hotel they climbed into a waiting taxi. As it joined the flow of traffic, Connor spoke again.
‘You understand, of course, that we’re going to have to hide the financing.’
Jimmy turned to look at him. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, obviously we can’t route the financing through the usual channels.’ Connor stared through the window at Hyde Park, its trees slowly dissolving in the mist. ‘I can authorise the expenditure, but I’ll still need something on paper, some kind of evidence, to account for it.’ Connor paused. ‘I want you to think about that.’
Jimmy thought about it as they rounded Hyde Park Corner. He got nowhere. They passed Harrods, its huge dark bulk made delicate by strings of lights. He watched the people streaming along the pavement, down into the tube, heads bobbing, like shallow water running over pebbles.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I like the name.’
‘Project Secretary?’
Jimmy nodded. ‘I like the way it’s got the word secret built into it. I didn’t see it right away.’
Connor was silent for a moment, then he turned and smiled at Jimmy. ‘You know, I didn’t even realise.’
That night, at ten-past twelve, Jimmy’s phone rang. He pressed MUTE on his TV remote and reached for the receiver.
‘Jimmy? Is that you?’
He recognised the voice. It was Plane Crash. He had met her at a music-business party Zane had taken him to. Her real name was Bridget.
She wanted him to come over to her place.
Her place. He remembered her bedroom, how it was littered with open suitcases, dirty clothes, unpaid bills, odd shoes – things scattered everywhere, and sometimes unidentifiable. It looked as if a plane had c
rashed in it. That was why he’d given her the nickname.
She was telling him to jump into a cab. It would take him twenty minutes, door to door.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve got to be up early.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to you.’
‘That’s not a good idea.’ He thought quickly. ‘How about dinner tomorrow?’
She hesitated.
‘I’ll meet you in that bar on Ledbury Road,’ he said. ‘At eight.’
‘You’ll cancel on me,’ she said.
‘I’ll be there,’ he promised.
When he walked into the bar the following night, Bridget was sitting in the corner, drinking Tia Maria on the rocks. He apologised for being late. Bridget shrugged, as if she was used to it, and just for a moment Jimmy felt they were a couple who had been together for years, a couple who were weary of each other – so weary, in fact, that they couldn’t do anything about it. He almost turned around and left. Instead, he sat down and lit his first Silk Cut of the evening. Bridget lit a Cartier. She was wearing black – a tailored jacket and a tight, thigh-length skirt. Her dark hair was shorter than he remembered it, shaped into a kind of bob.
‘I like your hair,’ he said.
She touched it with a hand that seemed uncertain. ‘The weirdest thing,’ she said. ‘The man who cut it cried the whole time I was there because his mother had just phoned up and told him she’d only got six months to live.’ She touched her hair again. ‘Didn’t do a bad job, considering.’
‘You’re terrible,’ Jimmy said, but he was laughing.
His drink arrived, the tonic bubbling over deliciously clumsy chunks of ice. He lifted the glass, drank greedily. And felt the vodka begin to wrap his brain in silver. Bridget was telling him about a band she wanted to sign – she’d seen them play at the Astoria the night before – but he found that his mind was wandering. That afternoon, while briefing the advertising agency on Kwench! creative strategy, he had thought of a possible answer to the problem Connor had given him, the problem of how to hide the financing of their secret project. Why not ask someone at the agency to bill ECSC UK for services that had never been provided? Someone, yes – but who? His eyes had come to rest on Richard Herring, his opposite number. Of course, he would have to wait until the time was right, until he had some leverage. A surplus of goodwill, for instance. A debt that was commutable. On returning to the office, he had explained his idea to Connor.
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