Solo

by William Boyd

  Bond sought out Sheila and said goodbye, thanking her warmly and kissing her on the cheek, then a taxi was summoned and he was driven to Edinburgh. In a bank in George Street he withdrew £300 in cash. He next went to an oyster bar off Princes Street where he ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a dozen oysters and smoked salmon and scrambled egg. At Waverley Station he bought a first-class sleeper ticket to London and boarded the train. He took a sleeping pill and slept all the way through the night as the train thundered southwards. A steward woke him at six in the morning with a cup of strong British Rail tea and two digestive biscuits. Bond ignored the tea – he didn’t drink tea – but gladly ate the biscuits.

  He booked himself a room in a clean but somewhat decrepit bed and breakfast near King’s Cross under the alias of Jakobus Breed and considered his few options. As far as he was concerned everyone would think he was convalescing in the Hebrides for a month. The address he’d given to the hospital and to Minty was that of Donalda’s uncle. The key factor, Bond thought, was that nobody knew he was in London. He had plenty of cash and he had plenty of time – somewhere in the city he would pick up the ghost of a trail that would lead him to his quarry and he had a good idea where to start. But first of all he needed some essential equipment and information that were hidden in his Chelsea flat.

  Bond sat in a booth at the rear of the Café Picasso on the King’s Road, a carafe of Barolo and a plate of spaghetti amatriciana in front of him, his eyes on the door. He’d finished his spaghetti when Donalda entered and he waved her over. She sat down at the table, unable to conceal how pleased she was to see him as they greeted each other.

  ‘The flat’s all finished, sir,’ Donalda said. ‘And they did a grand job. It’s a shame you haven’t been here to enjoy it.’

  ‘I’ve been abroad,’ Bond said.

  ‘Have you no been very well? You look a bit pale, sir.’

  ‘I got some kind of bug.’

  Bond supposed that May had told Donalda the bare minimum about her employer’s unusual job. The less she knew and the fewer questions she asked, the better.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to know I’m back in London,’ Bond said, choosing his words carefully. ‘That’s why I’m meeting you here – I think someone may be watching the flat.’

  ‘I’ve seen nobody suspicious in the square,’ Donalda said. ‘And I’ve been popping in every two or three days – just to check, like, and gather up the post.’

  ‘Good. So you could pop in again, now, and unlatch the big window that looks on to the back garden.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then leave, and come back as usual in a couple of days.’

  ‘All right, sir.’ She couldn’t help a small smile of excitement at all this subterfuge.

  ‘And your uncle knows what to say if anyone comes looking for me.’

  ‘You’ve gone to Inverness. Fishing trip.’

  ‘Perfect. Thank you, Donalda.’ Bond poured himself another glass of Barolo. ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’

  ‘I’ll just have one of those wee frothy coffees, if you don’t mind, sir.’ She opened her handbag and took out some envelopes. ‘There’s a few bills need paying and I ran out of cheques.’

  Bond gave her the necessary cash and ordered a cappuccino.

  ‘What do I do if I need to get hold of you?’ Donalda asked.

  ‘Call the usual number and leave a message for me. Then I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Fine,’ Donalda said and smiled brightly. ‘Delicious coffee, here.’

  After Donalda left to go to the flat Bond waited ten minutes then walked down the King’s Road to the street adjacent to Wellington Square. There was a covered passageway off the street that led to a small mews where the former stables and coach houses had been converted into workshops and tiny flats. It was possible to ascend a flight of stairs and shin over the wall and drop into the garden that belonged to Bond’s basement neighbour. It was an easy matter to gain access to his rear window – there was a stout trellis and a convenient drainpipe. It was a route that Bond had occasion to use from time to time when he wanted to leave his flat clandestinely. His neighbour – a flautist in a symphony orchestra who was often away on tour – was both incurious and happy with the arrangement. He left his spare set of keys with Bond for safe keeping.

  Bond stood on the trellis and pushed up the big sash window then, stepping on to a horizontal length of drainpipe, he climbed easily into his drawing room.

  The flat still smelled of paint and builder’s putty. He needed to smoke a few cigarettes in the place, he thought, make it his own. He went into his study and lifted the false radiator off the wall by the desk. There was an airbrick behind it that pulled out to reveal a small cavity that contained a spare Walther PPK automatic, extra clips of ammunition, some cash, a set of keys to a bedsit in Maida Vale that he rented as a safe house, and a list of crucial telephone numbers and addresses.

  Bond was after some essential contacts and he jotted the telephone numbers down that he might need. He slipped the gun and a clip into his pocket and debated about the Maida Vale bedsit. He decided that the King’s Cross bed and breakfast was more anonymous – he didn’t want to encounter any other occupants in the house and have to start making up stories about his long absence.

  He replaced the brick and rehung the radiator and went to look at his new bathroom. Doig and his team had done a good job. The marble tiling was laid faultlessly, the grouting and the mastic professionally smooth, and the new shower’s chrome fittings gleamed invitingly behind its plate-glass door. Bond slid it open and turned on the shower: he heard the pump kick in quietly in its concealed housing beneath the bath. Ordered from America, the pump boosted London’s water pressure fourfold. He turned the tap off. There would be plenty of time for domestic pleasures later. Still, he thought, maybe he would make himself a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette in his new streamlined kitchen. He switched off the lights and padded along the recarpeted corridor and pushed the kitchen door open.

  Donalda lay face down on the floor, the hair on the back of her head matted with fresh blood. Bond crouched down beside her and for a ghastly second thought she was dead – then she gave a little moan. Bond gently rolled her on to her side and she opened her eyes – and winced.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Bond whispered. ‘Just lie there.’

  He took the Walther from his pocket and quickly searched the flat again, finding no one and no trace of intrusion. But someone must have already been inside when Donalda arrived to unlatch the window. Someone looking to see if James Bond had returned from abroad . . . ?

  He returned to the kitchen and carefully sat Donalda up. He found a dishcloth, soaked it in warm water, wrung it out, and dabbed the blood off the back of her head where he could see she had a nasty two-inch cut. She still seemed very dazed.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said.

  Bond managed to grab a saucepan out of a cupboard before Donalda vomited.

  ‘That’s good,’ Bond said. ‘You’re always sick after you’ve been knocked out. It’s a good sign.’

  He put the pan in the sink and helped Donalda to her feet, sitting her on a kitchen chair. Then he made her a cup of tea.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did you see or hear anyone?’

  ‘No. I came in – everything was just as I’d left it. I put the post on the hall table, unlatched the window, came in here and everything went black.’

  ‘Must have been in here behind the door, hoping you wouldn’t walk in. Then left.’ Bond was thinking: they know where I live. They entered with a key. This was no burglar casually thieving in a Chelsea flat. At least they didn’t kill Donalda.

  He looked at her as she sat there shivering, both hands cupping her mug of tea, drawing off the warmth. Then she wiped away a tear. The gesture reminded him – Kobus Breed? Could it have been Kobus Breed in his house? As he speculated, Bond felt an unreasoning fury mount in him, not so much at this violation of his pers
onal space but at the fact that Donalda – his Donalda – had been so brutally attacked. Do not prey on my people, Bond said to himself, the consequences for those who do tend to be fatal . . .

  He told Donalda he was going to call a taxi to take her to hospital, where her head wound could be examined, cleaned and stitched. She was to say only that she had slipped and fallen – and then to go home and rest in bed for a full twenty-four hours. Then he had a better idea – he called May, who said she would be with them in thirty minutes. Bond relaxed: everything would be taken care of now. While he waited, he packed a few clothes in a suitcase, thinking further. So someone was checking on his movements – was James Bond back in his London flat? Any traces of his presence? If he was truly going solo then he wouldn’t be returning here, he felt sure, until this business with Kobus Breed, or whoever else it might be, was fully resolved.

  May arrived and took over, telling Bond crossly that he looked ‘awfy peely-wally’ and that he should take better care of himself, eat three square meals a day and so on. Bond agreed, and promised to do his best. She watched him throw his suitcase into the back garden, say goodbye and climb out of his drawing-room window as if it were the most natural way in the world of leaving your house.

  3

  AfricaKIN

  The AfricaKIN sign had been removed and the poster had been replaced with a ‘TO LET – ALL ENQUIRIES’ notice in the grimy window, now barred with a sliding iron grille. Bond stood across from the parade of shops in Bayswater feeling frustrated. This had been his key line of investigation; he recalled the shock he’d experienced on seeing the AfricaKIN logo on the nose of the Super Constellation at Janjaville airstrip. He had felt sure that Gabriel Adeka would – unwittingly or not – be the route to Hulbert Linck and then to Breed, or whoever else was behind the whole plot. Bond paced around. With the AfricaKIN door closed maybe Blessing – or Aleesha Belem – was the person to search for, but where would he begin to pick up that trail?

  Then the door to the shop opened and a young man came out – a young black man – carrying a typewriter. He chucked the typewriter on the back seat of a Mini parked outside and was about to climb in and drive away, when Bond stopped him with a shout and crossed the road to introduce himself – without giving his name – as a friend of Gabriel Adeka and a long-time donor to AfricaKIN.

  The young man – who said his name was Peter Kunle – spoke like an English public schoolboy. He let Bond into the shop so he could have a look around. Everything had gone on the ground floor, even the linoleum, leaving just an empty expanse of noticeably clean concrete amidst the general grime, almost as if it had been freshly laid; and upstairs in Adeka’s former office there was only a curling yellowing pile of posters that signalled the place’s previous function.

  ‘So did Gabriel close everything down when the civil war ended?’ Bond asked Peter Kunle, who had followed him up the stairs.

  ‘Oh, no. AfricaKIN still exists. He’s just moved everything to America.’

  ‘America?’ Bond was astonished.

  ‘Yes,’ Kunle said. ‘He’s set the whole charity up there – AfricaKIN Inc. He’s got major backers, apparently, very big sponsors.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’ Bond paced around, picking up a poster and dropping it – a starveling fly-infested child, all too horribly familiar now.

  ‘Maybe a few weeks or so ago,’ Kunle said. ‘Maybe a bit longer, actually. We all had this round-robin letter explaining what was happening.’

  ‘So everything changed just as the war was ending,’ Bond said, trying to get a sense of a narrative.

  ‘Yes. The charity now focuses on the entire continent. Not just Zanzarim – or Dahum, as was. You know, famines, natural disasters, disease, revolutions, anti-apartheid. The whole shebang.’

  Bond was thinking hard. ‘Where’s he gone in America? Do you know?’

  ‘I think it’s Washington DC,’ Kunle said, adding, ‘I didn’t know Gabriel that well. I used to help out as a volunteer a little in the early days but there was too much harassment. It was quite frightening sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, he told me,’ Bond said.

  ‘He forgot that I’d lent him the office typewriter,’ Kunle said. ‘That wasn’t like Gabriel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was very scrupulous,’ Kunle laughed. ‘Self-destructively honest. He even offered to rent the typewriter off me – one pound a week. I said no, of course. So it was odd that he just left it here and didn’t tell me. I had to ring up the landlord to get the keys and retrieve it.’

  ‘So, it’s now called AfricaKIN Inc.’

  ‘Yes . . . I suppose the offer was too good to refuse. Too much money on the table – a bright shiny future. A shabby rented shop in Bayswater hardly impresses.’

  Peter Kunle could tell him little more and apologised as he locked up the place. Bond shook his hand and thanked him for his help.

  ‘Sorry – what was your name again?’ Kunle asked as he opened his car door.

  ‘Breed,’ Bond said. ‘Jakobus Breed. Do tell Gabriel I called round if you ever speak to him.’

  They said goodbye and Bond wandered off up the road, pondering his options in the wake of all this new information. So: Gabriel Adeka had upped sticks for the USA and reinvented AfricaKIN in Washington DC as a global philanthropic concern overseeing the entire continent. Perhaps it was all perfectly legitimate and full of charitable integrity. He recalled his meeting with Gabriel Adeka and how impressed he’d been with the force of his quiet zeal and humanity . . . But Bond needed to ask him one pressing question: why was his charity’s name on the side of an aeroplane delivering weapons and ammunition to a war zone? What had that to do with his African kinsmen? If he couldn’t answer the question he might be able to point Bond in the direction of someone who would.

  Bond paused to light a cigarette and noticed he was standing outside the cinema where Bryce Fitzjohn alias Astrid Ostergard’s vampire film had been playing the last time he’d been here in Bayswater. What had it been called? Oh, yes: The Curse of Dracula’s Daughter. It seemed like a year ago, not weeks, Bond thought, smiling to himself as he pictured Bryce’s unknowing, innocent striptease for him that night he’d broken into her house. Bryce Fitzjohn – yes, he’d be very happy to see her again, one day.

  He wandered on, up towards Hyde Park, still ruminating. There was a trail, thankfully, but it led to America, to Washington DC . . . And thereby lay a major problem. He could buy a plane ticket but could hardly use his own passport to travel. He was meant to be convalescing in South Uist, not taking international flights across the Atlantic. One way or another word would get out and he’d be in trouble.

  Bond crossed the Bayswater Road and strolled into Hyde Park. What he needed was a fake passport and he needed it fast – in a day, two days, maximum. This was the major disadvantage about going solo – lack of resources. Normally, he’d call Q Branch and have a perfect used passport – full of stamps and frankings from foreign journeys – with his new name in an hour. He thought about the numbers he’d jotted down from the contact list in his flat. No, there was no one who could do a complete job like that in the short time necessary. Bond sauntered on. Maybe he could steal someone else’s? He started glancing at passers-by, looking for men of his age who vaguely resembled him and then realised that most people didn’t conveniently carry their passport on them, unless they were foreign visitors. Perhaps he’d need to go to an airport. No, it wouldn’t be—

  He stopped. It had come to him like a revelation. All you had to do was give your brain enough time to work. A solution always presented itself.

  4

  VAMPIRIA, QUEEN OF DARKNESS

  Amerdon Studios was situated on the banks of the Thames between Windsor and Bray and consisted of a large rambling red-brick Victorian country house with a couple of sound stages built on what had been a parterred garden modelled on Versailles. Around the sound stages there was the usual cluster of wooden shacks and Nissen huts tha
t contained storage rooms for props and equipment and the various technical workshops that a modern film studio required.

  He told the surly man supervising the visitors’ car park that he was Astrid Ostergard’s agent and was sent to sound stage number two, where Vampiria, Queen of Darkness was shooting.

  Bond headed over, briskly, a man with purpose, on important business. A couple of phone calls – one to the distributor of Bryce’s last film, The Curse of Dracula’s Daughter, and then to the office of her talent agent, a company called Cosmopolitan Talent International – had elicited the information that Astrid Ostergard was not available to open Bond’s new department store in Hemel Hempstead because she was busy filming Vampiria, Queen of Darkness at Amerdon Studios. No, absolutely impossible, thank you very much, Mr Bond, nothing you can say will make any difference, goodbye.

  As Bond approached sound stage number two he saw groups of extras in dinner suits and evening dress lounging around chatting and drinking tea out of wax-paper cups. One of them left her folding canvas chair and Bond swiftly purloined the script that she’d neglected to take with her. He asked a fat man coiling lengths of electric cable where he could find the production offices and was directed to a long caravan parked beside the sound stage.

  Bond knocked on the open door and a harassed-looking woman glanced up crossly from an adding machine into which she’d been ferociously tapping figures.

  ‘Yes?’ she said. Tap-tap-tap.

  ‘Randolph Formby,’ Bond said in a patrician accent, holding up his script distastefully. ‘Equity. I need to see Astrid Ostergard. She’s two years behind on her payments.’