Solo

this knowledge than worry that some sort of elaborate scheme of entrapment had been set in motion.
    He eased past the door of the spare room, pulling it closed behind him, and paused for a moment on the landing. It was quiet. She seemed to have gone into the bathroom, no doubt luxuriating in a deep bath. For a crazy second he contemplated walking in on her – no, madness, slip out unnoticed while you have the chance. He stepped over her discarded high-heeled shoes and swiftly went down the stairs and into her study. On a piece of her writing paper he wrote ‘Thanks for the cocktail. James’ and weighted it with his empty whisky glass in the centre of her desk. What would she make of that? he wondered, pleased with his mischief, not bothering to question the professional wisdom of the gesture. To hell with it – it was his day off. He let himself out of the front door, closed it silently behind him and strolled, hands in pockets, nonchalantly back to where he’d parked the Jensen.
     
    Bond drove steadily back to Chelsea, not testing the powerful car at all, so caught up was he with the images crowding his brain. Images of Bryce undressing – the red of her brassiere offset by the alabaster whiteness of her skin; the way she’d used a finger to hook and tug the caught hem of her panties back over the swell of her buttock. What was it about this woman, this virtual stranger, that so nagged at him? Maybe it was the fact that he had broken into her home and had spied on her, that his illicit presence in her house made his glimpses of her more . . . what? More charged, more erotic, more perversely exciting? At the back of his mind was the thought that, come what may, he had to contrive a way of seeing her again. It wasn’t over.
    He wound down the window to allow some cool air into the car. His face was hot, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and as he crossed over Chiswick Bridge he drove through the drifting smoke of some early evening bonfire. Instantly, the trigger-effect of the association worked on him and he was back once again in the world of his wartime dream, back in the orchard of the Chateau Malflacon, flitting from tree to tree, Corporal Tozer’s Sten gun heavy in his hand, listening to the sound of German voices – chatting, unconcerned – growing louder as he approached.
    Bond pulled up at a traffic light. Somebody, seeing the Jensen, shouted, ‘Nice motor, mate!’ Bond didn’t even look round – he was in another place, twenty-five years ago. The woodsmoke, he thought, recalling it as if he was actually there in that Normandy orchard, moving cautiously from tree to tree. As he had reached the edge of the orchard he had seen the actual bonfire, heaped high with concertina files and flung boxes of documents, smouldering weakly, wisps of smoke seeping from the mass of paper but no sign of flames catching. Three young German soldiers – his age, teenagers – were emptying the last boxes of documents on to the bonfire, laughing and bantering. One of them, his jacket off, exposing his woollen vest and his olive-green braces, was using a long-handled French gardening fork to spear and heave the tied bundles of paper on to the mound. Filing clerks, stenographers, radio operators, Bond supposed, the last to leave the chateau, instructed to burn everything, unaware that Major Brodie and the rest of BRODFORCE were about to thunder in the front door.
    The boy threw down his fork and began to empty a jerrycan of petrol over the pile of papers, sloshing the fuel on the bonfire. He dumped his jerrycan on the grass and searched his pockets for some matches. One of the others tossed him a box.
    Bond stepped out from the trees, the Sten gun levelled.
    ‘
Weg vom Feuer
,’ he said, ordering them to move away from the fire.
    They froze – completely shocked to see a British soldier, and then to realise he was speaking fluent German. Two of the clerks turned immediately and raced away, panicked, for the woods beyond. Bond let them go. The boy in the braces fumbled with his matches, trying to be a hero. There was something wrong with them, they wouldn’t light.
    ‘
Lass das
,’ Bond warned him, cocking the Sten. ‘
Sonst schiess ich
.’
    The boy in the braces managed to light a match and immediately dropped it on the grass. He scrabbled for another. Was he insane, Bond thought?
    ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said, in German. He raised the Sten and fired it into the air.
    Nothing. The