Forever and a Day Page 12

  ‘Are you?

  ‘What do you think?’

  Bond couldn’t help himself. He grabbed hold of her and pressed his lips against hers, his hand clamped on the flesh of her upper arm, holding her tight. He didn’t know how she would respond. At that moment, he didn’t care.

  Finally, he released her. She took a step back. Her dark hair had tumbled across her eyes, which glinted with anger but also amusement. ‘Well, well, well,’ she exclaimed. ‘The British spy can’t get what he wants by consent so he has to try force.’ She touched her hand to her lip. ‘Is this how you treat your women? Given a choice, I think I prefer Irwin Wolfe.’

  For a moment neither of them spoke. The swimming pool stretched out behind them, the long strip of water glowing in the darkness. The jazz band had struck up another tune. It sounded a long way away.

  ‘I invited you here because I like you and I’m interested in you,’ Sixtine said. ‘But you’re going to have to take it one step at a time, James, and I want to make it clear that you are never to touch me again without asking. Come to the Mirabelle tomorrow and afterwards we’ll have cocktails and see if we can come to a business arrangement that satisfies us both.’

  ‘Is that all it is with you?’ Bond asked. ‘Business?’

  ‘Why else are we here?’

  She brushed past him and he watched her return to the house. Irwin Wolfe had stepped onto the terrace and was looking for her. Bond saw the two of them meet. The older man put his arm around her shoulders and swept her indoors. She took one look back as if trying to find Bond in the darkness and then she was gone.

  12

  Le Grand Banditisme

  Bond had been wrong about Monique de Troyes, the girl who worked at Ferrix Chimiques and whose first name and telephone number he had found on the back of a postcard. She did not live in a two-bedroom flat on the edge of Marseilles, but in a two-storey house, with her parents, in the neighbouring town of Aubagne. Every morning she took the train to Marseilles and then a bus to the port area and every evening she did the same in reverse. But he’d been right about her age. She was twenty-seven. And she was pretty.

  It had been easy enough to trace her address through the telephone number and Bond was sitting in his car outside the house at eight o’clock the next day. It was a Saturday so she would not be at work and he hoped she had not gone away for the weekend. Aubagne was a pretty enough town, baking in the August sun but cooled, at least, by the breezes from the mountains that surrounded it. Parts of it dated back to the Middle Ages and those were where the streets were at their narrowest, the buildings at their most charming. A church steeple and a clock tower jealously fought for attention but they were largely wasting their time as few tourists ever found their way here. It was typical of so many French towns and villages set back from the sea, existing in its own little world. Dogs would bark and cats would stretch out in the street. Old ladies would sit outside their homes wrapped up in their own thoughts and in clothes too warm for the weather. Everyone would know everything about each other but at the end of the day there wouldn’t be all that much to know.

  Monique’s father was a butcher, a lifelong communist who had only ever visited Paris once. He had travelled there to fight the fascists in the riots of 1934. It didn’t bother him that his daughter didn’t share his views. In his opinion, women shouldn’t interest themselves in politics. A small, round-shouldered man with a heavy moustache, he had a home that exactly suited him, stuck on the corner, as if it had always been there, with its back to the village and the traffic rumbling past. It was a deep red with three white shutters and a narrow front door. There were two bedrooms side by side on the top floor with a kitchen and a bathroom below. The house had no garden apart from a small concrete space at the front, which was so ill-defined that it was often mistaken for the pavement and, sipping his Ricard before dinner, Monsieur de Troyes would find himself in serious conversation with anyone who happened to pass.

  Bond had been waiting an hour when Monique finally appeared – alone, fortunately. She had discarded her smart office clothes for a simple skirt and blouse and carried a basket, obviously on her way to the morning market that had opened just after dawn in the street named after Maréchal Foch. Bond got out of the car, closing the door behind him, and the sound of it slamming shut must have attracted her attention because she glanced across the road and then, without hesitating, swerved away and began to walk quickly uphill. She had recognised him. Bond smiled to himself and quickened his pace. He caught up with her outside a dusty chapel with two angels looking down on him, palms held up as if warning him to stay away.

  There was nobody else in sight. Monique was making no secret of the fact that she had been hurrying to separate herself from him and not because she needed to be somewhere else, but suddenly she stopped and swung round. With her sandy hair tied back and her blue eyes staring, she looked even younger than he remembered from the office. She was angry or perhaps afraid. Or both.

  ‘What do you want?’ she demanded, speaking in French.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Bond said.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you. Go away.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Monique. I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you but you knew a friend of mine and I have to talk to you about him.’

  ‘Is this about Richard Blakeney?’ She spoke with an accent that split the surname into three syllables and it took Bond a moment to remember that this was the alias the dead man had used.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him. There is nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘You remember me.’

  ‘Of course. You came to Ferrix. You shouldn’t have gone there.’ She clutched her basket as if she could use it for self-defence. ‘Please, monsieur. My parents have sent me to the market. I will get into trouble if I don’t do as they say.’

  ‘Let me come with you …’

  ‘No!’ She blurted out the word and it occurred to Bond that being seen with a strange man in a small, closed community might cause her all sorts of problems.

  ‘All right. I don’t want to make any trouble for you.’

  ‘Then go away! If I am seen talking to you, they will kill me. If they even knew you had come here, they would kill me.’

  ‘Nobody knows I’m here and nobody is going to hurt you.’

  She looked up and down the street as if challenging him. But they were still alone apart from the stone angels. She seemed to notice them for the first time and drew strength from them as if they were watching over her. Perhaps this foreigner was right. Monique was a simple-minded girl who went to church every Sunday and lit candles to the memory of her grandparents. She had been brought up to believe that the world was a bad place but that she would be protected from it, living in a provincial town with her parents. Getting a job fifteen miles away had been the one adventure of her life and it had taken all her mother’s powers of persuasion to get her father to allow her to go.

  She made her decision. ‘I have to go to the market but I will meet you afterwards. There is a café near the station. It’s called Le Papet. You can wait for me there.’

  ‘Monique – it won’t do you any good hiding from me.’

  ‘I have said I will come.’ Now there was anger in her voice. ‘I will be there in one hour.’ She turned and walked away.

  The railway station at Aubagne is almost absurdly handsome. Painted a royal yellow with arched windows, ornate canopies and palm trees, it could at a glance be the home of a retired ambassador or perhaps a small casino. It is careful to keep its distance from the wide, busy road which skirts the town and stretches on towards the mountains. Cars and buses, it seems to suggest, belong to a more vulgar, modern age. It was built by an architect who believed in train travel, at a time when travellers enjoyed champagne and caviar on the Orient Express or listened to chamber orchestras playing Tchaikovsky on the Golden Eagle across Russia.

  James Bond was sitting at a table just
opposite with a view of the station clock that both told him how much time had passed and taunted him with the suggestion that Monique might not, after all, show up. The inside of the bar was a small, unassuming room, packed with tables and, on this Saturday morning, with customers. However, it had spread itself out with a canopy that stole a large stretch of the pavement and this area was quieter. Bond had ordered une noisette – two shots of espresso with a drop of hot milk – and a croissant that he didn’t really want. He had spent the last hour pulling it apart but had eaten very little of it. He had also smoked two Du Mauriers although they had reminded him of Sixtine’s jibe. He thought of their meeting in the garden, his lips crushing hers. He was a little disgusted with himself. Why couldn’t he get her out of his head?

  The clock was showing twenty past ten when Monique finally appeared, crossing the road without the shopping basket she had been carrying earlier. There was a brisk determination about the way she walked, as if she were on her way to an appointment with the dentist and thought that it would hurt less if she got it over with as soon as possible. She saw Bond and sat down opposite him. Even before she spoke, her eyes were challenging him. You forced me to come here, they seemed to say. What do I have to do to persuade you to let me go?

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Bond asked.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a hot day and you’ve been shopping.’ He called to the waiter. ‘I’ll have an Americano,’ he said. ‘With plenty of ice.’

  ‘And for madame?’

  She hesitated, then relented. ‘Un orange pressé.’

  The waiter swivelled round and left. He hadn’t recognised Monique but most of his customers were probably commuters, never staying long.

  ‘I don’t know what you want,’ Monique began. ‘But I can’t help you.’

  ‘You can start by telling me why you’re so afraid.’

  ‘I already told you that.’ She looked left and right. All the other tables were unoccupied but even so she leaned forward, keeping her voice low. ‘You wouldn’t understand. You don’t live here. But in Marseilles you have to be careful who you talk to and what you say—’

  ‘Please, Monique. Don’t waste any more of my time.’ Bond went in hard. ‘I know you were friends with Richard Blakeney. Maybe more than friends.’

  Her eyes filled with tears. But they were tears of indignation. ‘I didn’t sleep with him! You are a pig to suggest that.’

  ‘But you were fond of him.’

  ‘I liked him.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  She drew a breath, gathering her thoughts. Bond could see that the girl had a steely edge and he admired her for it. ‘I don’t even know who you are,’ she said. ‘You called yourself Mr Howard when you came to the office. Is that your real name?’

  ‘Does it really matter?’

  ‘I suppose not. And maybe Richard also lied to me. I can see that the two of you are the same. Give me a cigarette!’

  Bond held out the packet. She took one. He lit it for her.

  ‘I met Richard about a month ago. He was at the station at Marseilles and he said he couldn’t find the right platform.’

  Bond almost smiled at the obvious pick-up line. It wasn’t one he would have used himself.

  ‘He was also travelling to Aubagne. It is only a short journey but we chatted. He seemed a nice man. He told me that he was working for an insurance company and when we arrived he asked me if I would like to have a drink with him. We came here. We sat at that table.’

  She pointed.

  ‘He started asking me about Ferrix Chimiques and of course I knew then that there was nothing accidental about our meeting and that he had chosen me deliberately. I should have told him to go away right then. It would have been better for me if I had. It would have been better for both of us. But he was charming. He made me smile.’

  ‘What did he want to know?’

  ‘He was interested in one of our clients, a company called Wolfe Europe. He wanted to know what chemicals they had been buying from us. Of course, what he was asking was impossible. We have hundreds of clients and we sell thousands of chemicals. How could I possibly have that information? So he asked me to look at the accounts and to bring him copies of any transactions that had taken place in the last six months.’

  Bond took out the carbon copy of the invoice that he had found in the Rue Foncet and unfolded it on the table. ‘You took this?’ he asked.

  She examined it briefly and nodded. ‘I took fifty different invoices. I had to be very careful. I took four or five each time. Nothing ever seemed to satisfy him. He returned them all to me. Except this one.’

  ‘But what’s the significance of this chemical, acetic anhydride? Wolfe Europe makes photographic film. It’s part of the process.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  The waiter arrived with the drinks. Bond’s Americano – a mixture of Campari, sweet vermouth and soda – was the right colour but he took out the twist of lemon peel and set it aside. It was too early in the day for such fancies. Monique had ordered fresh orange juice but seemed uninterested in it.

  ‘What did he tell you about himself?’ Bond asked.

  ‘He didn’t tell me anything and anyway anything he did say would have been untrue. He said he was working for an insurance company but that was a lie, wasn’t it? He’s the same as you. You are both handsome Englishmen with cold eyes. You both want information. That’s all. You don’t care what happens to me.’

  ‘I do care what happens to you, Monique,’ Bond said and meant it. ‘That’s why I drove all the way to Aubagne. Nobody knows I’m here and after I’m gone we won’t see each other again.’

  ‘They know everything!’ Monique said. ‘I warned Richard when he asked me to steal the papers. This is Marseilles. It is the city, you know, of le grand banditisme. You learn to keep quiet, never to step out of line. I warned him but he didn’t listen and they killed him. When I discovered that a body had been found at La Joliette, I knew it was him, even before he had been identified.’ She paused. ‘He said he was going to take me to Paris and to London. I’ve never left the south of France. But it was all lies. If he hadn’t been killed, he would have gone away and forgotten me. Just like you.’

  They sat looking at each other. She hadn’t touched her drink.

  ‘Do you know who he went to meet, the day he died?’

  ‘No. He never told me anything.’ She stood up. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, Mr Howard, and now I have to go back to my family. Please, leave me alone.’

  ‘Thank you, Monique. I’m sorry about Richard. You may not believe it, but I’m sure he cared for you. And for what it’s worth, he was my friend.’

  ‘Do people like you have friends, Mr Howard? I wonder.’

  She walked away from the table and crossed the road, heading towards the station and the centre of the town which lay just behind it. Bond waved for the bill. At the same time, he heard a car approaching. He knew at once that it was going too fast and even as he registered the roar of the engine, he twisted round, dreading what he was going to see.

  Monique was halfway across the road. She had stopped, freezing as she saw the black, four-door Peugeot 202 Berline hurtling towards her. It was a true gangster’s car with its fat, rounded mud guards, its windows set far back and the bonnet and long, slanting nose that made it look so aggressive. There were two men inside but they were gone in a blur. Bond saw the car make contact. It had aimed for Monique quite deliberately. There could be no doubt of it. She was scooped up, twisting in the air. By the time she hit the tarmac, the car had travelled beneath her and was well on its way out of the town. Somebody screamed. Suddenly there were people on the pavement, coming out of the station, coming out of the bar, closing in on the horror of what had just occurred.

  Bond was already up and running. He saw the car disappear round a corner in the far distance and heard the scream of the tyres. Hi
s own car was still outside Monique’s house. There was no way he could follow them.

  He reached the girl and knew at once there was nothing he could do. Her dress was torn and there was blood on her arms and legs, more blood streaming from her head. It was impossible to see how many of her bones were broken. He had never seen anyone look more pitiful in death and he had to fight back a sense of rising anger and sickness. She had been just twenty-seven years old.

  How had they known? Bond had asked Sixtine about Ferrix Chimiques but he had never mentioned Monique and he hadn’t told anyone that he was coming here today. More than that, he had been careful driving out of Nice, making sure he hadn’t been followed: an elementary precaution. Someone – the two men in the car – must have been watching the girl as she left her house, met Bond, went about her shopping and then came here. They knew about the stolen carbon copy. The decision to kill her had already been made. It had just been a coincidence of timing that Bond had been there to see it happen.

  And what now? A police car had drawn up. Two uniformed men got out. A small crowd gathered. Bond stood up and backed away, not drawing attention to himself. If anyone asked, he was just a tourist. He didn’t know her and he had nothing to do with her. He had just been passing by.

  13

  Love in a Warm Climate

  ‘It’s great to see you, Jim. Welcome aboard.’

  The words grated in Bond’s ears even as he took his last step off the gangplank and surrendered himself to the streamlined beauty and extravagance of the Mirabelle, its two gold-plated funnels towering over him and the promenade deck with its pristine honey-coloured wood stretching into the distance. Irwin Wolfe had been there to greet him, dressed improbably in naval whites complete with cap and the name of the ship – and his dead wife – emblazoned on his chest. Once again, Bond noticed the strange gleam in the man’s pale blue eyes and wondered whether it was pain or fanaticism. For this was his creation, this floating world.