Devil May Care

don’t know why I remember that – who had the same thing. He was trying to be reassuring, to let Gorner know he wasn’t the only one with this peculiarity, but I suppose it was something Gorner’d never spoken about before. I suppose he was veryashamed of it. As though he or his family hadn’t properly evolved.’
    Bond nodded and filled their glasses.
    ‘Anyway,’ said Scarlett, ‘as a result, far from being his friend, a fellow exile, Gorner viewed my father as even worse than the English – as a kind of successful traitor, a turncoat who’d become one of the enemy. From that day onwards he wore a glove over his hand. And he had a new burning hatred to add to his list. At joint number one with England and its culture were Alexandr Papav and his family.’
    ‘A list I feel I’ve joined this morning,’ said Bond.
    Scarlett clinked her glass against his. ‘To the enemies of Julius Gorner. Anyway, many years later, he came across Poppy. And that was when he saw his chance.’
    As the waiter brought a cheeseboard and fresh bread, Bond looked down the Seine to where the pleasure boats stopped to deposit their passengers. The most popular tourist boat, he noticed, was a Mississippi paddle steamer – the Huckleberry Finn – with a banner on the hull that said she was on loan to the city of Paris for one month only.
    Bond brought his eyes back to the table. ‘You’d better tell me about Poppy.’
    ‘Poppy …’ Scarlett cut a slice of Camembert and put it on Bond’s plate. ‘Try that. Poppy … Well, Poppy’s not that much like me … She’s a bit younger and … She never took her studies very seriously.’
    ‘Unlike you,’ said Bond.
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘And where did you go to school?’
    ‘Roedean. Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. Then I went to Oxford, to Somerville.’
    ‘Where you were doubtless awarded a first-class degree, like Gorner.’
    Scarlett coloured a little. ‘My father said that boasting of exam results was the height of vulgarity. Poppy didn’t go to university. She went to live in London and moved with rather a fast set of people. She went to a lot of parties. For some reason I don’t understand, she decided she wanted to be an air hostess. I suppose it just seemed glamorous to her. Jet travel was still quite a novelty. And I suppose she was rebelling against her academic family. My mother was a consultant at the Radcliffe hospital and she also had high expectations of us. Anyway, Poppy worked for BOAC for three years. She fell in love with one of the pilots. He was married and he kept saying he’d leave his wife, but he didn’t. Poppy was very unhappy. In the course of a layover in Morocco, she tried taking drugs. Just a little. But soon she was taking more. Partly for fun, I suppose, but also because she was miserable. Then, at some point, her lover went to see Gorner in Paris because he was fed up with the BOAC routes and he’d seen an advertisement Gorner had placed. He needed a pilot for his private planes. In the course of following up his references, Gorner got to hear about Poppy and, of course, recognized the name. He pounced. He told the pilot he wasn’t interested in him, but offered Poppy a huge amount of money to go and work for him. And a lot of flying and perks and holidays. Clothes. Shoes.’
    ‘Anything else?’ said Bond.
    ‘Yes. One other thing.’ Scarlett bit her lip. ‘He offered her drugs.’
    ‘And that was a lure for her?’
    ‘Undoubtedly.’ There were tears on the lower lids of Scarlett’s eyes. ‘He was able to promise her an unlimitedsupply of anything she wanted, and it would be good quality, not mixed with poison or anything, as it can be if you buy on the street. And I suppose it looked like a way in which she could control her habit and always have the money for it. Although, in fact, the drugs were free.’ Scarlett wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘She was such a gentle girl. She always was.’
    The waiter brought fresh pineapple and cream.
    With the dark espresso that followed, Bond lit a cigarette and offered one to Scarlett. ‘So, Scarlett, if I find her, will she come? Or is she a willing slave?’
    ‘I haven’t seen her for two years, so I don’t really know. I’ve occasionally managed to speak to her on the telephone. The last time was just the other day. She was in Tehran and had managed to get to the post office.’
    ‘Tehran?’
    ‘Yes, Gorner has a big business interest there. It may be a front. I