Carte Blanche

The slick voice: ‘James. Hello! I’m en route back from Cambridge. Thought you and me should have a chinwag. See if we’ve found any pieces to our puzzle.’

You and me… Unfortunate pronoun from an Oxbridge man. ‘How about yourexcursion?’

‘When I got up there, I did some looking around. Turns out the Porton Down folk have a little operation nearby. Stumbled across it. Quite by chance.’

This amused Bond. ‘Well, that’s interesting. And is there a connection between biochemicals and Noah or Incident Twenty?’

‘Can’t say. Their CCTVs and visitor logs didn’t turn up anything that stood out. But I’ve got my assistant toiling away.’

‘And the pub?’

‘Curry was all right. The waitress didn’t remember who’d ordered the pie or the ploughman’s so long ago but we could hardly expect her to, could we? What about you? Did the mysterious note about the chemist and two days past the Ides of March pan out?’

Bond had prepared for this. ‘I tried a long shot. I went to March, Boots Road, and ran across an old military base.’

A pause. ‘Ah.’ The Division Three man laughed, though the sound seemed devoid of humour. ‘So you’d misread the clue when we were chatting earlier. And was the infamous number seventeen tomorrow’s date, by any chance?’

Whatever else, Osborne-Smith was sharp. ‘Possibly. When I got up there, the place was being demolished.’ Bond added evasively, ‘It turned up more questions than anything else, I’m afraid. The techies are looking at some finds. A few small things. I’ll send over their reports.’

‘Do, thanks. I’m peering into all things Islamic here, Afghan connection, spikes in SIGINT, the usual. Should keep me busy for a while.’

Good. Bond couldn’t have asked for a better approach to Deputy Senior Director of Field Operations Mr Percy Osborne-Smith.

Keep him busy…

They rang off and Bond called Bill Tanner to brief him about what had happened in March. They agreed to do nothing for now about the body of the man who had attacked Bond at the hospital, preferring to keep his cover intact rather than learn anything about the corpse.

Mary Goodnight stuck her head through the door. ‘Philly called when you were on the phone. She’s found a few things for you. I told her to come up.’ His PA was frowning, her eyes turned to one of Bond’s dim windows. ‘A shame, isn’t it? About Philly.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I thought you’d heard? Tim broke it off. He sat her down a few days ago – they even had the church booked, and her hen do was planned. A girls’ weekend in Spain. I was going.’

How observant am I? Bond thought. That’s what was missing from her desk on the third floor. The pictures of her fiance. Probably the engagement ring had gone MIA too.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘I suppose it’s always more than one thing, isn’t it? They hadn’t been getting on well recently, more than a few bad patches – rows about her driving too fast and working all hours. She missed a big family reunion at his parents’. Then, out of the blue, he had the chance of a posting to Singapore or Malaysia. He took it. They’d been together for three years, hadn’t they?’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

The discussion of the drama ended, though, with the arrival of the person in question.

Not noticing the still atmosphere into which she’d walked, Philly strode past Goodnight with a smile and into Bond’s office, where she dropped breezily into a chair. Her sensuous face seemed to have narrowed and her hazel eyes shone with the intensity of a hunter picking up sure track. It made her even more beautiful. A hen party in Spain with the girls? God, he simply could notpicture that, any more than he could see Philly lugging home two Waitrose carrier bags to assemble a hearty dinner for a man named Tim and their children Matilda and Archie.

Enough! he upbraided himself and concentrated on what she was telling him. ‘Our people could read one scrap of the ash. The words were “the Gehenna plan”. And below that “Friday, 20 May”.’

‘Gehenna? Familiar, but I can’t place it.’

‘There’s a reference to it in the Bible. I’ll find out more. I only ran “Gehenna plan” through the security agencies and criminal databases. It returned negative.’

‘What’s on the other piece of ash?’

‘That was more badly damaged. Our lab could make out the words “term” and “five million pounds” but the rest was beyond them. They sent it to Specialist Crime at the Yard, under an eyes-only order. They’ll get back to me by this evening.’

‘“Term”… terms of the deal, I’d guess. Payment or down payment of five million for the attack or whatever it’s to be. That suggests Noah’s doing it for money, not for the sake of politics or ideology.’

She nodded. ‘About the Serbian connection: my Hungarian ploy didn’t work. The folk in Belgrade are really quite cross with you, James. But I had your I Branch set me up as somebody from the EU – the head of the Directorate of Transportation Safety Investigations.’

‘What the hell’s that?’

‘I made it up. I did a pretty good Swiss-French accent, though I say it myself. The Serbs are dying to do anything they can to keep the European Union happy so they’re scurrying to get back to me about haz-mats on the train and more details about Karic.’

Philly was truly golden.

‘And Eastern Demolition have headquarters in Slough. They were low bidders for the demolition project at the British Army base in March.’

‘Is it a public limited company?’

‘Private. And owned by a holding company, also private: Green Way International. It’s quite big and operates in half a dozen countries. One man owns all the shares. Severan Hydt.’

‘That’s really his name?’

She laughed. ‘At first I wondered what his parents were thinking. But it seems he changed it by deed poll when he was in his twenties.’

‘What was his birth name?’

‘Maarten Holt.’

‘Holt to Hydt,’ Bond mused. ‘I don’t see the point – though it’s hardly remarkable – but Maarten to Severan? Why, in heaven’s name?’

She shrugged. ‘Green Way is a huge rubbish-collection and recycling operation. You’ve seen their lorries but probably haven’t thought much about them. I couldn’t find a great deal because they’re not public and Hydt stays clear of the press. Article in The Timesdubbed him the world’s richest rag-and-bone man. The Guardian ran a profile of him a few years ago and was fairly complimentary but he gave them only a few generic quotes and that was it. I found out he was Dutch-born, kept dual citizenship for a time and is now just British.’

Philly’s body language and the hunter’s sheen in her eyes hinted that she hadn’t revealed all.

‘And?’ Bond asked.

She smiled. ‘I found some online references to when he was a mature student at the University of Bristol, where he did rather well, by the way.’ She explained that Hydt had been active in the university’s sailing club, captaining a boat in competitions. ‘He not only raced but built his own. It earned him a nickname.’