Solo

his bill. He found he was thinking about her and her rangy, alluring body. He felt a little animalistic quiver of desire low in his gut and his loins. Lust, more like. The prehistoric instinct –
this is the one for me
. He hadn’t felt this sensation in a long time, he had to acknowledge. She was a very attractive woman, he told himself, and, more to the point, she clearly found him attractive also. Perhaps he should check her out further – it would be correct procedure after all – and perhaps the gods of luck were conspiring to send him a birthday present. He threw down a pound note and some coins to cover his bill and a tip, stepped out into the King’s Road and hailed a taxi.

·2·
     

THE JENSEN FF
     
    ‘Back again, Mr Bond, nice to see you,’ the salesman said with a wide sincere smile as Bond circled the chocolate-brown Jensen Interceptor I. It was parked on the forecourt of a showroom just off Park Lane, in Mayfair. Bond had visited it three times already, checking out the Interceptor, hence the salesman’s welcoming smile. What was his name? Brian, that was it, Brian Richards. Bond’s Bentley was out of action, having its gearbox replaced. The old car, much loved, and lovingly customised over the years, was showing signs of its age and its rambunctious history and was beginning to cost him serious money just to keep it roadworthy. It was like an old thoroughbred racehorse – its time had come to be put out to grass. But what to replace the Bentley with? He wasn’t particularly enamoured of modern cars – he’d test-driven an E-type Jaguar and an MGB GT but they didn’t trigger any pulse of pleasure in him, didn’t make his heart beat. But the Interceptor was different – big and beautiful – and this was what kept bringing him back to Park Lane.
    Brian, the salesman, sidled up and lowered his voice.
    ‘I’ll have the Interceptor II in a few weeks, Mr Bond, after the Motor Show. And I can do you a very fair price – so buying the One wouldn’t be that clever, what with the Two coming out, know what I mean? But . . .’ He looked around as if he was about to divulge a dark secret. ‘In the meantime, come through the back and have a look at this.’ Bond followed Brian across the showroom and through a door to a small mews courtyard at the rear. Here were the workshops and extra space for cars to be waxed and polished before they went to the forecourt on display. Brian gestured to what looked like another Interceptor, painted a dull gunmetal silver. Bond walked around it. An Interceptor but somehow longer, he thought, and with two air vents set behind the front wheels.
    ‘The Jensen FF,’ Brian said softly in veneration, almost with a catch in his voice. ‘Four-wheel drive.’ He opened the door. ‘Step in, Mr Bond. Try her for size.’
    Bond slipped into the driving seat and rested his hands on the wooden rim of the steering wheel, his eyes taking in the grouped dials on the fascia, his nostrils filled with the smell of new leather. It worked on him like an aphrodisiac.
    ‘Take her out for a spin,’ Brian suggested.
    ‘I just might,’ he said.
    ‘Be my guest, Mr Bond. Take her out on the motorway, give her some gas. You’ll be amazed. Take all the time you need, sir.’
    Bond was thinking. ‘Right. When do you close? I may be a couple of hours.’
    ‘I’m working late tonight. I’ll be here till ten. Just bring her round the back and ring the bell on the gate.’
    ‘Perfect,’ Bond said and switched on the engine.
     
    Bond felt he was in a low-flying plane rather than an automobile as he accelerated the Jensen down the A316 towards Twickenham. The wide curved sweep of the windscreen filled the car with light and the powerful rumble of the engine sounded like the roar of jet propulsion. The four-wheel drive meant the tightest corner could be negotiated with hardly any diminution of speed. When he stopped at traffic lights pedestrians openly gaped at the car as it idled throatily, heads turning, fingers pointing. If you needed a car to boost your ego, Bond thought, then the Jensen FF would do the job admirably. Not that he needed an ego boost, Bond reminded himself as he accelerated away, the speed forcing him back in the seat, cutting up and leaving a Series V Sunbeam Alpine for dead, its driver gesticulating in frustration.
    Bond turned left before Richmond Bridge. He went into a post office to ask directions to Chapel Close, where Bryce Fitzjohn lived. He motored