Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [113]
‘That way.’ Hydt pointed, then pulled out his mobile to make a call. Bond walked quickly down the corridor. He entered the empty men’s room, grabbed a large handful of paper towels and tossed them into one of the toilets. When he flushed, the paper jammed in the drain. He went to the door and looked towards where Hydt was waiting. The man’s head was down and he was concentrating on his call. There was no CCTV, Bond saw, so he walked away from Hydt, planning his cover story.
Oh, one cubicle was occupied and the other was jammed so I went for another one. Didn’t want to bother you when you were on the phone.
Plausible deniability . . .
Bond remembered where he’d seen the sign when he’d entered. He now hurried down a deserted hallway.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. RESTRICTED
The metal security door was operated by a number pad, in conjunction with a key card reader. Bond palmed the inhaler and took several pictures, including close-ups of the pad.
Come on, he urged an unsuspecting confederate inside the room – someone must be thinking about a visit to the loo or fetching some coffee from the canteen.
But no one co-operated. The door remained shut and Bond decided he had to get back to Hydt. He turned on his heel and hurried down the corridor again. Thank God, Hydt was still on his mobile. He looked up when Bond was past the bathroom door; to Hydt’s mind he had just exited.
He disconnected. ‘Come this way, Theron.’
He led Bond down a corridor and into a large room that seemed to serve as both an office and living quarters. A huge desk faced a picture window, with a view of Hydt’s wasteland empire. A bedroom, curiously, was off to the side. Bond noticed that the bed was unmade. Hydt diverted him away from it and closed the door. He gestured Bond to a sofa and coffee-table in a corner.
‘Drink?’
‘Whisky. Scotch. Not a blend.’
‘Auchentoshan?’
Bond knew the distillery, outside Glasgow. ‘Good. A drop of water.’
Hydt tipped a generous quantity into a glass, added the water and handed it to him. He poured himself a glass of South African Constantia. Bond knew the honey-sweet wine, a recently revived version of Napoleon’s favourite drink. The deposed emperor had had hundreds of gallons shipped to St Helena, where he spent his last years in exile. He had sipped it on his deathbed.
The gloomy room was filled with antiques. Mary Goodnight was forever reporting excitedly on bargains she’d found in London’s Portobello Road market, but none of the items in Hydt’s office looked as if they’d fetch much money there; they were scuffed, battered, lopsided. Old photographs, paintings and bas-reliefs hung on the walls. Slabs of stone showed fading images of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, though Bond couldn’t tell who they were supposed to be.
Hydt sat and they tipped their glasses towards one another. Hydt gazed affectionately at the walls. ‘Most of these have come from buildings my companies demolished. To me, they’re like relics from the bodies of saints. Which also interest me, by the way. I own several – though that is a fact no one in Rome is aware of.’ He caressed the wineglass. ‘Whatever is old or discarded gives me comfort. I couldn’t tell you why. Nor do I care to know. I think, Theron, most people waste far too much time wondering why they are as they are. Accept your nature and satisfy it. I love decay, decline . . . the things others shun.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Would you like to know how I got started in this business? It’s an informative story.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I had some difficult times in my youth. Ah, who didn’t, of course? But I was forced to start work young. It happened to be at a rubbish collection company. I was a London binman. One day my mates and I were having tea, taking a break, when the driver pointed to a flat over the road. He said, “That’s where one of those blokes with the Clerkenwell crowd lives.”’
Clerkenwell: perhaps the biggest and most successful