Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [39]
There was also a curious objet d’art in the mantelpiece’s centre: a bullet. It had nothing to do with Bond’s role as an agent in the 00 Section of the ODG’s O Branch. Its source was a very different time and place of Bond’s life. He walked to the fireplace and turned the solid piece of ammunition in his hand once or twice, finally replacing it and returning to his chair.
Then, despite his protest that he keep affairs with Philly – that he keep matters relating to Agent Maidenstone purely professional, he couldn’t stop thinking of her as a woman.
And one no longer betrothed.
Bond had to admit that what he felt for Philly was more than pure physical lust. And he now asked himself a question that had arisen at other times, about other women, albeit rarely: could something serious develop between them?
Bond’s romantic life was more complicated than most. The barriers to his having a partner were to some degree his extensive travelling, the demands of his job and the constant danger that surrounded him. But more fundamental was the tricky matter of admitting who he really was and, more tellingly, his duties within the 00 Section, which some, perhaps most, women would find distasteful, if not abhorrent.
He knew that at some point he would have to admit to at least part of it to any woman who became more than a casual lover. You can keep secrets from those you’re close to for only so long. People are far more clever and observant than we think and, between romantic partners, one’s fundamental secrets stay hidden only because the other chooses to let them remain so.
Plausible deniability might work in Whitehall but it didn’t last between lovers.
Yet with Philly Maidenstone this was not a problem. There would be no confessions about his profession over dinner or amid tousled morning bedclothes; she knew his CV and his remit – knew them intimately.
And she’d suggested a restaurant near her flat.
What sort of message lay in that choice?
James Bond glanced at his watch. It was time to dress and attempt to decipher the code.
18
At eight fifteen the taxi dropped Bond at Antoine’s in Bloomsbury and he immediately approved of Philly’s choice. He hated crowded, noisy restaurants and bars and on more than one occasion had walked out of upmarket establishments when the decibel level had proved to be too irritating. Upscale pubs were more ‘ghastly’ than ‘gastro’, he’d once quipped.
But Antoine’s was quiet and dimly lit. An impressive wine selection was visible at the back of the room and the walls were filled with muted portraits from the nineteenth century. Bond asked for a small booth not far from the wall of bottles. He settled into the plush leather, facing the front, as always, and studied the place. Business people and locals, he judged.
‘Something to drink?’ asked the waiter, a pleasant man in his late thirties, with a shaved head and pierced ears.
Bond decided on a cocktail. ‘Crown Royal, on ice, a double, please. Add a half-measure of triple sec, two dashes of bitters and a twist of orange peel.’
‘Yes, sir. Interesting drink.’
‘Based on an Old Fashioned. My own creation, actually.’
‘Does it have a name?’
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for the right one.’
A few moments later it arrived and he took a sip – it was constructed perfectly and Bond said so. He’d just set the glass down when he saw Philly coming through the door, radiant with a smile. It seemed that her pace quickened when she saw him.
She was in close-fitting black jeans, a brown leather jacket and, under it, a tight dark green sweater, the colour of his Jaguar.
He half rose as she joined him, sitting to his side, rather than across. She was carrying a briefcase.
‘You