Free Solo by William Boyd Page A

‘He won’t bother us further – he’s not feeling very well.’
    ‘My knight in shining armour,’ Blessing said. ‘Did you administer retribution?’
    ‘Powerful retribution,’ Bond said, draining his whisky. ‘I despise those types – pond life. They need to be taught a sharp lesson from time to time. Shall we go? Busy day tomorrow.’
    Bond silently walked Blessing to her car. He felt the tremors of adrenalin slowly leave him and smiled, imagining Letham being gleefully doused by buckets of water. A cooler breeze had got up and a fat yellow moon had risen above the poolside apartment blocks.
    Bond gestured at the moon, wanting to break the silence between them.
    ‘Doesn’t quite seem the same,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve been up there. Lost something of its allure.’
    ‘I don’t agree,’ she said. ‘It seems to belong to us more, now – not some distant symbol.’
    ‘
La lune ne garde aucune rancune
,’ Bond said.
    ‘Who’s that?’ Blessing said.
    ‘Can’t remember. Something I learned at school as a boy.’
    ‘You’ve a very good accent,’ she said.
    ‘I spent a lot of my childhood in Switzerland.’
    ‘Classified information, Commander Bond.’
    They had reached her car.
    ‘You didn’t need to do that, you know,’ Blessing said, opening her car door and turning to him. ‘Creeps like that don’t bother me. I know how to deal with them.’ She shrugged. ‘But thank you all the same. I appreciate it.’
    ‘I’m sure you do know how to deal with them – but he was getting on my nerves.’
    They looked at each other.
    ‘Goodnight, James,’ she said and slipped into the driving seat.
    ‘See you tomorrow at the office,’ Bond said, closing the door for her. ‘Nine o’clock.’

·7·
     

ON THE ROAD
     
    After his breakfast – a pint of freshly squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon and fried plantain – Bond wandered out to the front portico of the hotel and, after some requisite haggling, bought a bag. It was a grip of black leather with the Zanzarim flag – a banded quincolour of red, white, yellow, black and green – appliquéd to the side. It was unlined and smelled strongly of recently cured leather. The handles were long enough to be slipped over his shoulder if required.
    Back in his room, Bond packed with some thought, deciding to wear an olive-green safari jacket over khaki trousers with suede desert boots on his feet. Into the Zanzarim grip went three dark blue short-sleeved Aertex shirts, three pairs of underpants and socks, a rolled up panama hat in a cardboard tube, his antimalaria pills and his pigskin toilet bag. It was odd and a little unsettling not to have a gun on him: he felt strangely undressed, almost wilfully vulnerable. He decided to leave all his other clothes in his suitcase – and he’d deposit that in Blessing’s office for her to ship home at some stage. He who travels lightest, travels furthest, Bond supposed, and that included weaponry. Into a war zone with a can of talcum powder and some aftershave. He walked down to reception with his suitcase and his new grip, ready to check out and settle his bill. Having done that he had an idea and went into the bar and bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky. For medicinal use – you never knew when it might be needed.
     
    Christmas dropped Bond off at the OG offices where he found Blessing standing on the roof of a cream-coloured Austin 1100 with a pot of black paint in her hand. She was painting the word ‘PRESS’ on the roof in two-foot-high letters and Bond saw, as he circled the car, that the passenger side of the windscreen and the rear window had been similarly inscribed in letters of white sticky tape.
    ‘Couldn’t we get a better car?’ Bond asked, thinking that this was the sort of vehicle a mother might use to pick up her kids from school or collect the groceries.
    ‘It’s perfect,’ Blessing said, stepping down. ‘We don’t want anything showy – we don’t want to