Solo

quietly.
    ‘Goodbye, Brigadier,’ Bond said, not wanting his farewell to sound final but knowing he would never see the man again – and knowing also that his mission was now effectively over. He turned and left the room.
    He sat in silence as Sunday drove him back to Port Dunbar. He felt a human sadness, he had to admit, that Adeka’s life was ending so early, and at the same time a gnawing sense of unease that he had been sent here precisely to achieve that object – to make him ‘a less efficient soldier’. No need for that now.
    ‘Is everything OK, sir?’ Sunday said, cautiously, aware of his sombre mood.
    ‘Yes,’ Bond said. ‘I’ve just been given a medal.’
    ‘Congratulations,’ Sunday said, cheering up. ‘Do you want to go to Janjaville? There are five flights tonight. Two already come and go.’
    ‘No thanks,’ Bond said. ‘Take me back to the Press Centre. It’s been quite a day – I need another drink.’
    Bond went straight to the bar and bought a bottle of whisky. He intended to sleep well and soundly tonight and he knew whisky to be an excellent soporific. There was no sign of his colleagues but he didn’t mind drinking alone. He sat down and poured himself a generous three fingers of Scotch. Then the door to the bar opened and Geoffrey Letham walked in.

·16·
     

A VERY RICH MAN
     
    All five members of the foreign press corps in Port Dunbar were invited to Brigadier Solomon Adeka’s state funeral, three days later. The journalists stood in a loose, uneasy group at the rear of the dusty, weed-strewn cemetery that adjoined Port Dunbar’s modest cathedral – St Jude’s – as a guard of honour carried Adeka’s coffin to the graveside. Through a crackling PA system Colonel Denga gave a short but passionate eulogy, outlining Adeka’s virtues as a man, a patriot and a soldier, describing him as the ‘first hero of Dahum’ and saying emphatically that the struggle for freedom would continue – this brought cheers and applause from the large crowd that had gathered beyond the cemetery walls – and that the people of Dahum should draw their inspiration, their courage, their endurance from the memory of this great man.
    A firing party raised their rifles and delivered a ragged six-shot volley into the hazy blue sky as the coffin was lowered.
    Bond looked on in an ambivalent state of mind and then became aware that Geoffrey Letham was sidling over in his direction. They had greeted each other curtly the other night, not shaking hands, and Bond had swiftly taken himself off to his room with his bottle of whisky. He had managed to avoid him subsequently, having Sunday fill his days with endless rounds of official sightseeing. However, there was no escaping him now, as Letham appeared at his shoulder, mopping his florid face with a damp ultramarine handkerchief.
    ‘I say, Bond,’ he whispered in his ear, ‘Breadalbane tells me you met Adeka just before he died. What was all that about?’
    ‘Nothing important.’
    ‘What was he like?’
    ‘Under the weather.’
    ‘Most amusing. Why did he want to meet you? I was told he refused to speak to the press. I’d come to Dahum expressly to interview him. The
Mail
was going to pay him serious money.’
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ Bond said.
    ‘All very curious, I must say.’ Letham gave an unpleasant smile. ‘In fact, you’re a very curious man, Bond. For a journalist of your age and alleged experience, no one seems to have heard of you. You and I must have a little chat about it one day.’
    ‘I don’t speak to the press, Letham, hadn’t you heard?’
    Bond wandered away, wondering if Letham was issuing some kind of covert threat. He had arrived on a Super Constellation flight, having left Sinsikrou after his encounter with Bond and travelled to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. There, he’d paid Hulbert Linck to be flown in, posing as a friend and supporter of ‘plucky little Dahum’. Initially Bond was more irritated than perturbed by Letham’s surprising presence – he could deal with dross like Letham effortlessly – but what was disturbing him now was that nothing in Dahum had changed with the death of Adeka. It had been announced in a black-bordered edition of the
Daily Graphic
– Dahum’s sole newspaper – but the expected collapse of morale in the army and population had not taken place. The junta had simply announced that Colonel Denga was the new commander-in-chief of the Dahumian armed forces. The king was dead –