Solo

the new puckered rosy coin below his right collarbone.
    ‘You’re still fighting it, so it seems.’
    He kissed her to stop her speculating further.
    ‘I’ll tell you all about it one day,’ he said. And they began to make love again.
     
    Bryce’s alarm clock rang at five in the morning and she slipped out of bed, washed and dressed. Bond dressed also and the unit car that came to pick her up for the studio detoured to the station so he could catch an early train back to London.
    She stepped out of the car so they could say their goodbyes discreetly.
    ‘What’re you doing this weekend?’ she asked. ‘I’m only free on Sunday. This film has another three weeks to run at the studio and I’m in every scene.’
    ‘I’ve got to go to America,’ Bond said. ‘Just for a week or two. When your film’s finished I’ll come and take you away somewhere very, very special that only I know.’
    They kissed goodbye and Bond whispered in her ear, ‘Thank you for last night. Unforgettable.’
    ‘For me too,’ she said and squeezed his hand. Then they parted and Bond, with a full heart and a smile on his face, joined the jaded commuters on the platform at Richmond station. As he waited for the train he took Bryce’s passport from his pocket and felt a twinge of guilt. But if she was working for another three weeks she wouldn’t be going anywhere and wouldn’t miss it. When he came back he’d replace it in her desk drawer – she’d never know. His conscience was assuaged somewhat by the fact that he hadn’t made love to her just to steal her passport. He had every intention of seeing his Vampiria, Queen of Darkness, again. He had been stirred and affected by her in a way he had almost forgotten was possible. He’d be back – as soon as he’d administered swift and rough justice to the people who had so nearly killed him. Bryce had no idea how inadvertently important she had been to his plans – he’d find a way to show her his gratitude.
    At Waterloo station Bond had his photograph taken in a booth, then he made a telephone call – to one of the numbers he’d retrieved from his flat – and took a taxi to Pimlico, to a shabby street of dirty peeling stucco houses aptly named Turpentine Lane. He rang the door of a basement flat and an elderly man in his sixties, wearing a flat tweed cap and smoking a moist roll-up cigarette, answered the door.
    ‘Mr Bond, sir, always a royal pleasure.’
    ‘Morning, Dennis,’ Bond said, stepping past him into the flat to be greeted by a noisome smell of cooking.
    ‘Good God, what’s that?’
    ‘Cow-heel stew. Bugger to cook – takes three days – but it tastes something marvellous.’
    Dennis Fieldfare was a forger de luxe, occasionally called upon by Q Branch when they felt their own expertise wasn’t sufficient. Bond had first met Dennis when he’d needed a post-dated visa to Cuba that would have to pass microscopic inspection. It had raised not the slightest suspicion and had been so good that he’d decided to add Dennis’s name to his personal pantheon of experts to be called on, as and when.
    Bond showed him Bryce’s passport and his photograph.
    ‘Swap the picture, change the sex and tweak “actress” for “actor”.’
    ‘That’s a bloody insult, Mr Bond. A simple-minded child could do that,’ Dennis said, professionally aggrieved.
    Bond gave him £50. ‘But I need it very fast – this evening – that’s why I came to you. Keep the original photo safe – I’ll want you to change it back in a couple of weeks. And this is strictly between you and me, Dennis.’
    ‘Doddle, Mr B. And I never seen you,’ Dennis said, enjoying the feel of the money in his hand. ‘Six o’clock all right?’
    At six o’clock that evening Bond had his faultless new passport and was now irrefutably Bryce Connor Fitzjohn, actor, eight years younger than he actually was but he had no complaints there. In fact, he was rather pleased by the coincidence. He had used the name ‘Bryce’ as a pseudonym before, in the early 1950s as an alias for a long train journey he’d made from New York to St Petersburg, Florida. He’d been John Bryce then and it had worked very well. He hoped Bryce Fitzjohn would prove equally effective. He had a feeling the new name would bring him good luck.
    From Dennis’s Pimlico flat he went directly to the BOAC terminal at Victoria and bought himself a first-class return ticket to Washington DC, leaving Heathrow airport at 11.30 the