Free Solo by William Boyd

first thing in the morning. Come over to the office and we’ll hit the road. One thing,’ she added. ‘I would travel light. Just one small bag or a rucksack or something. You may have to hike a bit once you get into Dahum.’
    Bond had been thinking about that, feeling the heart-thump of excitement that gripped him whenever a mission was imminent and all the cosy securities of everyday life were about to be cast aside. He took out his cigarette case – empty. Blessing saw this and reached into her handbag for her pack of Tuskers.
    ‘You’ll have to go local,’ she said, offering the pack. Bond took a cigarette.
    ‘You’re Bond, aren’t you?’ a slurred male English voice said.
    Bond turned. A drunk white man swayed there gently. He was wearing a crumpled pale blue drill suit with darker blue sweat patches forming at the armpits. His jowly face was flushed and sweating. Bond recognised him from the press briefing at the barracks: a fellow journalist – one who’d asked a question.
    ‘That’s right,’ Bond said, flatly. He wanted this encounter to end. Now.
    ‘Geoffrey Letham,
Daily Mail
,’ the man said. ‘You’re with APL, aren’t you? Saw you were a new boy today so I checked the accreditation list.’ He leaned forward and Bond smelled the sour reek of beer. ‘D’you know old Thierry? Thierry Duhamel?’
    ‘I’m working out of London,’ Bond said, improvising. ‘Not Paris.’
    ‘No, Thierry’s in Geneva. Head office. Everybody at APL knows Thierry. He’s a bloody legend.’
    ‘I’ve only just started. I’ve been in Australia the last couple of years. Reuters,’ he added, hoping this would shut the man up. Blessing leaned forward with her lighter and clicked it on, as if to signal that the conversation was over. Bond turned away from Letham and bent his head to light his cigarette. He sat back and exhaled. But Letham was still there, staring at Blessing as though in a trance of lust.
    ‘Hello, hello,
hello
,’ he said, with a caricature leer, and then turned to Bond. ‘Pretty little thing. After you with her, old chap.’
    Bond saw the offence register on Blessing’s face and felt a hot surge of anger flow through him.
    ‘Send her round to room 203 when you’re done with her,’ Letham said, out of the side of his mouth. ‘They can go all night, these Zanzari bints.’
    Before Blessing could say anything Bond stood up.
    ‘Actually, could I have a discreet word, outside?’ Bond said, laying his cigarette in the ashtray and, taking Letham’s arm by the elbow, steered him firmly through the crowded bar. ‘Man to man, you know,’ Bond said, confidentially, in his ear.
    ‘Got you, old fellow,’ Letham said. ‘Forewarned is forearmed in the young-lady department.’
    They stepped out of a side door into the warm darkness of the night, loud with crickets. Bond looked around and saw the back entrance to the bar – dustbins and stacked empty crates – and led Letham towards them.
    ‘She’s not expensive, is she?’ Letham said. ‘I refuse to pay these Zanzari hookers more than ten US.’
    Bond turned and punched Letham as hard as he could in the stomach. He went down with a thump on his arse, mouth open like a landed fish, gaping. Then he vomited copiously into his lap and fell back against the wall making breathy whimpering noises.
    ‘Mind your manners,’ Bond said, though Letham wasn’t listening. ‘Don’t speak to respectable young women like that again.’
    Bond strode round to the front of the hotel and into the lobby, where he found a porter.
    ‘There’s a drunk Englishman been sick – at the back behind the bar,’ Bond said, indicating. ‘I think you should chuck a couple of buckets of water over him.’ He slipped a note into the porter’s hand.
    The porter smiled, eagerly. ‘We shall do it, sar,’ he said and hurried off.
    Bond returned to the noisy bar and joined Blessing at their table, ordering another whisky on the way.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.