Solo

him the office typewriter,’ Kunle said. ‘That wasn’t like Gabriel.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘He was very scrupulous,’ Kunle laughed. ‘Self-destructively honest. He even offered to rent the typewriter off me – one pound a week. I said no, of course. So it was odd that he just left it here and didn’t tell me. I had to ring up the landlord to get the keys and retrieve it.’
    ‘So, it’s now called AfricaKIN Inc.’
    ‘Yes . . . I suppose the offer was too good to refuse. Too much money on the table – a bright shiny future. A shabby rented shop in Bayswater hardly impresses.’
    Peter Kunle could tell him little more and apologised as he locked up the place. Bond shook his hand and thanked him for his help.
    ‘Sorry – what was your name again?’ Kunle asked as he opened his car door.
    ‘Breed,’ Bond said. ‘Jakobus Breed. Do tell Gabriel I called round if you ever speak to him.’
    They said goodbye and Bond wandered off up the road, pondering his options in the wake of all this new information. So: Gabriel Adeka had upped sticks for the USA and reinvented AfricaKIN in Washington DC as a global philanthropic concern overseeing the entire continent. Perhaps it was all perfectly legitimate and full of charitable integrity. He recalled his meeting with Gabriel Adeka and how impressed he’d been with the force of his quiet zeal and humanity . . . But Bond needed to ask him one pressing question: why was his charity’s name on the side of an aeroplane delivering weapons and ammunition to a war zone? What had that to do with his African kinsmen? If he couldn’t answer the question he might be able to point Bond in the direction of someone who would.
    Bond paused to light a cigarette and noticed he was standing outside the cinema where Bryce Fitzjohn alias Astrid Ostergard’s vampire film had been playing the last time he’d been here in Bayswater. What had it been called? Oh, yes:
The Curse of Dracula’s Daughter
. It seemed like a year ago, not weeks, Bond thought, smiling to himself as he pictured Bryce’s unknowing, innocent striptease for him that night he’d broken into her house. Bryce Fitzjohn – yes, he’d be very happy to see her again, one day.
    He wandered on, up towards Hyde Park, still ruminating. There was a trail, thankfully, but it led to America, to Washington DC . . . And thereby lay a major problem. He could buy a plane ticket but could hardly use his own passport to travel. He was meant to be convalescing in South Uist, not taking international flights across the Atlantic. One way or another word would get out and he’d be in trouble.
    Bond crossed the Bayswater Road and strolled into Hyde Park. What he needed was a fake passport and he needed it fast – in a day, two days, maximum. This was the major disadvantage about going solo – lack of resources. Normally, he’d call Q Branch and have a perfect used passport – full of stamps and frankings from foreign journeys – with his new name in an hour. He thought about the numbers he’d jotted down from the contact list in his flat. No, there was no one who could do a complete job like that in the short time necessary. Bond sauntered on. Maybe he could steal someone else’s? He started glancing at passers-by, looking for men of his age who vaguely resembled him and then realised that most people didn’t conveniently carry their passport on them, unless they were foreign visitors. Perhaps he’d need to go to an airport. No, it wouldn’t be—
    He stopped. It had come to him like a revelation. All you had to do was give your brain enough time to work. A solution always presented itself.

·4·
     

VAMPIRIA, QUEEN OF DARKNESS
     
    Amerdon Studios was situated on the banks of the Thames between Windsor and Bray and consisted of a large rambling red-brick Victorian country house with a couple of sound stages built on what had been a parterred garden modelled on Versailles. Around the sound stages there was the usual cluster of wooden shacks and Nissen huts that contained storage rooms for props and equipment and the various technical workshops that a modern film studio required.
    He told the surly man supervising the visitors’ car park that he was Astrid Ostergard’s agent and was sent to sound stage number two, where
Vampiria, Queen of Darkness
was shooting.
    Bond headed over, briskly, a man with purpose, on important business. A couple of phone calls – one to the distributor of Bryce’s last