Forever and a Day Page 8

  ‘Well, you can imagine how that went down. Tournier and the other officials rushed over to the window. I followed them and the sight that greeted us in the first light of the morning was pretty dramatic. The Kolchak had twelve six-inch B-38 guns mounted in Mark 5 triple turrets and they were slowly swinging round. In about thirty seconds they were all aimed broadside. We watched them being slightly elevated and converged. At the same time, the pennants were being stripped from the masts … a nice touch, that. I turned round and looked at Captain Stolypin. There was a wild, dedicated gleam in his eyes. He’d struck what he must have imagined to be a heroic pose, like one of those ghastly monuments to the October Revolution. The streak of madness that is in all Russians had most definitely come to the surface.

  ‘There was a large clock on the wall and it ticked off the minutes while the officials tried to argue with the captain, falling over themselves in their desperation. In the end, Tournier ran to a safe in the wall. He opened it and pulled out several packets of 100,000-franc notes which he threw onto the table. But by now, Stolypin had decided it was all over for him. He sat there stubbornly, furiously shaking his head.

  ‘It was half past five. Only thirty minutes remained until the balloon went up. Finally, the officials remembered that there were still a few people playing in the casino and decided it might be an idea to evacuate them. In the meantime, I had a quiet word with Tournier and persuaded him to leave the room with all the others. He agreed. By now, he was ready to quit the entire building. So off they all went and the two of us were left alone.’

  Sixtine sipped her drink, leaving a red crescent moon on the side of her glass. There was the rattle of a ball, silence and then a cry of triumph accompanied by a smattering of applause from the salon next door.

  ‘Stolypin spoke better English than French,’ Bond continued. ‘I had very little time to persuade him so I laid it on pretty thick. The casino would pay him back his money – there it was, right now, in front of him – and no one needed to be any the wiser. If the guns actually opened fire, it might be the start of a world war. His entire crew would be massacred. The captain had to think of his wife and family in Russia and what would become of them. I asked him his wife’s name.

  ‘For a moment he stayed silent, then he broke down and burst into tears. “Irma …” It was the first word he had spoken since we were alone together. I put an arm round his shoulder and said to him, very quietly: “Irma is waiting for you now. Go home to her. Let’s forget about this.”

  ‘He nodded and got to his feet, tears streaming down his face. At the same time, he began to scoop up huge wads of cash, stuffing them into his tunic. They obviously meant as much to him as his absent wife. But at the last moment, I grabbed hold of him, pinning down his arm. He looked at me, alarmed. “There is just one other thing,” I said. “If I’m going to let you walk out of here, I’m going to need the answer to one question. Give it to me and you will be back on board your ship – with the money – in just a few minutes. You’ll be having breakfast with your officers and all will be forgotten and forgiven. Otherwise, the casino will be evacuated. I’ll report to London and they’ll warn Washington. Whether war comes or not, you will have disgraced the Soviet navy.”

  ‘A minute later, Stolypin walked straight out of the room, past the officials standing on the other side of the door, avoiding their eyes, trying as best he could to hold onto what little dignity remained. He didn’t look back until he had left the casino.

  ‘And that’s why Monsieur Tournier was so kindly disposed to me just now. They all came rushing in and I explained that I’d managed to persuade the captain to change his mind. And it was true. Looking out of the window, we saw Stolypin standing up in a two-masted pinnace, frantically waving to his crew as he shot out from the shore. He reached the ship and at the same time we saw the guns slowly swing round fore and aft again, settling back in their mountings. It was a close thing, mind you. The clock was showing 5.59.’

  ‘That was certainly worth a couple of free martinis,’ Sixtine said. She thought back. ‘But what was the question that you asked him?’

  Bond finished his drink. ‘The frequencies and times of transmission of his ship’s radio, of course,’ he replied. ‘That was all I wanted and, to be honest, if he hadn’t given it to me, the casino and Captain Stolypin could have gone to blazes.’

  Sixtine laughed out loud. It had an extraordinary effect on her features. Suddenly, warmly, she had come to life and Bond seized the moment to press home his advantage. ‘You were going to tell me about your business with Scipio,’ he said.

  ‘Was I?’ She sounded surprised.

  ‘Did he want to talk to you about Ferrix Chimiques?’ It was a long shot. But the invoice and the photographs had been in the same envelope. There had to be some connection.

  ‘I don’t even know what that is.’ Her smile had faded and Bond regretted his direct questions. He knew that she was disappointed in him. ‘Scipio wanted me to have a drink with him for the same reason as you. He wanted to know what I was doing here and he tried to intimidate me. He didn’t succeed. That’s all there is to it.’

  Bond didn’t know if she was telling the truth. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But it seems to me that I’ve told you a great deal more about myself than you’ve told me about you. Why don’t we meet again somewhere a little less formal? There’s a restaurant I know in Beaulieu …’

  She thought for a moment and some of the humour returned to her eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’d trust myself alone in a restaurant with a British spy. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each other again. I’m staying with a friend. His name is Irwin Wolfe.’

  ‘I know who he is,’ Bond said.

  ‘He’s having a party tomorrow night. He has a villa called Shame Lady above Cap Ferrat. Why don’t you come along? I’m sure he’d love to meet you.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for the drinks. But as you didn’t actually pay for them, you still owe me 100,000 francs.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘I may find a way to extract it from you.’

  ‘I might enjoy that.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  As she walked away, he called after her. ‘Shame Lady?’

  She turned. ‘It grows in the garden. It’s a plant.’ She paused. ‘I hope you weren’t thinking it referred to me.’

  He watched her disappear into the crowd.

  8

  Not So Joliette

  The basin of La Joliette stretched out, sullen and sweltering in the August heat. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the black water beside the jetties had the thick, noxious quality of melting tar. James Bond gazed around him at what should have been Europe’s busiest port but the midday sun was beating down on empty quays with piles of sacks, pallets and oil drums left haphazardly, the shacks and walkways abandoned, railway lines glinting uselessly in the sunlight with no sign of any trains. In the distance, a collection of freighters, tankers and luxury cruise ships, some of them shrouded in scaffolding, lay in their berthing stations ignored by the gantries and cranes that rose up around them. Even the seagulls seemed too exhausted and dispirited to fly, hunched on the walls and the telephone wires in morose silence.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Bond asked.

  Reade Griffith laughed. ‘It’s midday, James. You don’t separate a French dock worker from his lunch, not unless you want the unions coming down on you like a ton of bricks. They’ll be somewhere inside having a three-course meal – and don’t forget a decent red wine and a selection of half a dozen of the best cheeses.’

  Bond had hired a Citroën Cabriolet-Roadster in Nice, resisting the attempts by the agent to steer him towards the new Deux Chevaux-Vapeur proudly on display. It was named after its air-cooled front engine but Bond wasn’t impressed. ‘That’s not a real car. It’s an oilcan on wheels.’ He and the CIA agent had made the three-hour journey together along the coast. During that time, Griffith had brought Bond up to date.

  ‘I’ve had it checked out and as far as I can see
Ferrix Chimiques is completely legit. It imports chemicals from all over the world and supplies a whole load of different industries in France. I’ve arranged an appointment for us this afternoon with the managing director, a man called Andria Mariani.’

  ‘Andria? That’s a Corsican name, isn’t it?’

  ‘It might be – although the company is registered here in Marseilles. You’re going to be Mr Howard from Universal Export, looking for a European partner. I’m Bill Plover from Polygon Agrochemical Supplies, your international representative.’

  ‘I’m going to have to get into their accounts or wherever they keep their invoices.’

  ‘You got any idea how you’re going to do that?’

  ‘I’ll find a way.’ Bond thought for a moment. ‘Before that, I want to take a look at La Joliette … where the shooting happened.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d like to see that too.’ Griffith glanced over his shoulder as he changed gear. ‘I never asked you. How did you get on with Mata Hari?’

  ‘She’s certainly an interesting character.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything?’

  ‘We’re meeting again tonight.’

  Griffith raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve certainly made an impression, James. But I’d take care if I were you.’

  The section of the dock where the body had been pulled out of the water was closed off to the public with red-painted signs reading PRIVÉ and ENTRÉE INTERDITE. These seemed to have been ignored by two people fishing – perhaps a father and son – at the far end of the otherwise empty quay. A young stocky French-African man with suspicious eyes and a weather-beaten face was sitting on a three-legged stool beside a wooden shack that served as a security office with a barrier that rose and fell to let cars in to the dock. He was wearing a uniform that he’d unbuttoned against the heat and there was a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. He was listening to Mistinguett on an ancient wireless. ‘C’est mon gangster, / De lui rien ne m’étonne …’

  As the Citroën pulled up, he lowered himself off the stool, barely glanced at Griffith, then walked round to examine Bond. ‘Vos papiers, monsieur,’ he demanded. Bond had his passport with him and flashed it through the window. The man examined it for what seemed like a long time, then returned the document as if it had been of no interest to him in the first place. Satisfied, he lifted the barrier, allowing them to drive through.

  ‘That’s strange,’ Bond muttered as they continued forward.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He asks to see ID but he doesn’t ask us what we’re doing here.’

  Griffith considered. ‘Maybe he doesn’t care.’

  ‘Maybe he already knows.’

  The man hadn’t, however, returned to his stool. Instead he went into the shack, moving now with greater speed and purpose. He snatched up his walkie-talkie and pressed the button to transmit. There was a hiss of static before he was connected but nobody answered.

  ‘It’s them,’ he said. He spoke French with an Italian accent. ‘One of them is the American. The other is James Bond. They’ve just driven through.’ The man lowered the walkie-talkie and went back to his music. He didn’t even know who he’d been talking to. He’d just done what he’d been told.

  Meanwhile, the Citroën continued its progress across the empty harbour, driving along a flat, concrete surface that was a road, then a storage yard, then a jetty; it was impossible to say where one ended and the next began. It stopped in front of a low brick wall. Bond and Griffith got out.

  ‘Is this the place?’ Griffith asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Bond said. ‘This is the place.’

  He had seen it at once: the graffiti on the wall that had been present in the photograph. Now he could make it out in full. SOLIDARITÉ AUX MINEURS. There was something hopeless about the message, as if it was left over from a battle that had already been lost. The letters, written in red ink, had begun to fade. Even the brickwork was crumbling, hammered into submission by the blazing Marseilles sun. Bond looked around him. The two fishermen – or rather, the fisherman and the boy – were about twenty feet away at the end of the jetty. The boy was wearing a string vest and a cap. He had a face that was blackened with oil and dirt and arms almost as thin as the rod he was holding. As Bond and Griffith walked forward, he turned to look at them. Meanwhile, his father stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the unmoving water. He was bearded, dressed in a blue chore jacket and shapeless trousers. They had caught a couple of fish which lay, bright silver with mauve streaks that were turning rapidly grey, in the dust. Bond saw the boy staring but knew there was no chance of their being overheard.

  He walked over to the water’s edge and looked down.

  This was where the dead man had been found. Bond remembered the photographs: the splayed arms, the three bullet holes, the flesh already bloated after its time in the sea. He tried to imagine that last embrace with the dark, unsmiling water. Had his eyes been closed as he hit the surface or had that been his last sight on this earth, the window shattering as he entered oblivion? It was very likely, Bond knew, that he too would die violently. It had to happen: the one mistake, the single moment when he lowered his guard. The thought didn’t worry him. It could have happened already, while he was working for the secret service, or a dozen times during the war. He had grown used to the idea and had deliberately chosen to go through life with the same carelessness as the little ivory ball that span around a roulette wheel, blithely ignoring the certainty that it must one day drop into double zero.

  There was, of course, a difference. Ever since Bond had been given his new status, the rules had changed. Death was now his business. It was he who span the wheel. He wondered if it somehow made him complicit in what had happened here in the Joliette basin. After all, there was no real difference between him and whoever had pulled the trigger three times, ending the life of the man he had now replaced. He remembered M growling at him at that first meeting. ‘It was my decision to send an executioner. Not a lawyer.’ That was what he had allowed himself to become.

  He found himself thinking again of Larsen in his bed in the Stockholm flat. What would the man have felt as the knife sliced into his neck? There would have been pain, of course, but not so very much of it because true pain only comes with recovery. You have to live beyond an injury to feel it. So what then? It might have been sadness that he would never see his wife and children again, remorse for what he had done during the war or simply anger that this executioner from London had forced his way into a private home bringing with him not justice but murder.

  The moment of death. Bond would encounter it one day and learn all its secrets, but now, staring into the water, he saw only the reflection of himself.

  ‘He knew the person who killed him,’ he said.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘He came here for a meeting. There’s no other possible reason. There’s nothing here.’ Bond pointed in the direction of the two distant figures. The boy had turned to the older man and was whispering something in his ear. ‘Look around you. If anyone had approached, he’d have seen them. If he’d thought he was in danger, he’d have tried something. At the very least, he’d have turned and run. But he was shot in the chest and at close range. He just stood here and let them do it.’

  ‘You’re right, James. But there is one other thing that might have brought him here.’ Griffith pointed towards a building on the other side of the water. It was an office, very square and flat with three storeys and three sets of windows identically spaced. Because of the shape of the basin, it would take them ten minutes or more to walk round. Bond saw two large silver letters spelling out ‘FC’ above the door. The metal had tarnished, making them less visible. It was why he hadn’t noticed them before. ‘Ferrix Chimiques,’ Bond said.

  ‘Exactly. We’re right on their doorstep. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’

  ‘What time did you say we were coming?’

  ‘Twelve forty.’ Griffith looked at his watch. ‘We ought to move – unless
there’s anything else you want to see.’

  ‘No. There’s nothing here.’

  They walked back to the car and got in.

  As they drove away, the fisherman and his son got to their feet. The two of them were Corsican but the boy’s mother had been English. She had run away from her genteel life in Buckinghamshire to work in one of the caboulots, or ‘hostess bars’ in Ajaccio. She was dead now. Aged six, the boy had been struck down by meningitis, which had caused him to go deaf but which had left him with an unusual gift.

  He could lip-read in three languages.

  Now he repeated everything that Bond had said. The father nodded, patted his son on the head and walked over to a telephone box, set back from the quay. He dialled a number, making sure that he inserted his finger into the correct slot, then pressed in a coin. Like the French-African guard, he had no idea who he was talking to.

  ‘His name is Jems. He is a friend of the Englishman who was killed. There are two of them and they are going to the chemical company, Ferrix.’

  There was no word of thanks at the other end but nor had the man expected it. Just silence, then a click. The father hung up, then put his arm around his son. ‘Ben battu, Paulu.’ Well done.

  ‘Ti rigraziu o bà.’

  They walked off together, leaving the fishing rod and the two dead fish behind.

  9

  Called to Accounts

  ‘This way please.’

  The girl who had come down to the waiting room to collect them was slim and pretty, Bond thought. He liked her shy smile and the way the brightly coloured chambray of her pencil skirt wrapped itself around her, emphasising the curve of her bottom. How old was she? Probably in her late twenties, although her china-blue eyes and straw-coloured hair made her look much younger. He could imagine her waking up in the morning and getting ready for work. She would probably have a two-bedroom flat, which she shared with another girl somewhere on the edge of Marseilles, and she would take it very seriously, the wardrobe, the make-up, the choice of jewellery. But actually it was all play-acting. What she needed was a strong man who would pluck her away from all this and take her to the bright lights of Paris or Amsterdam perhaps. She might pretend to be the meek little secretary. Bond would have liked to have shown her she could be something more.