Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [20]
‘James!’ He heard his name called, and saw Scarlett beckoning him over.
‘ The secretary says Dr Gorner will be here in a few minutes, but has no game booked. You’re in luck.’
‘How did you manage it?’
Scarlett looked momentarily ashamed. ‘I know from Poppy that Gorner likes a bet. I took the liberty of telling the secretary that you were a fine athlete who would give Dr Gorner a good game and that you enjoyed a flutter yourself. I may also have led him to believe that you might not be quite good enough to win – but that you were a thorough gentleman who would pay his debts.’
‘I should think he must be salivating at the prospect,’ said Bond.
‘Well, I think they find it hard to get the regular members to play against Gorner.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ said Bond. ‘How much am I in for?’
‘Only a hundred pounds,’ said Scarlett, innocently.
‘Now I’m going to make myself scarce.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Bond. ‘But you’re not to leave the premises.’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I’m going to watch. From a discreet distance. Look. Isn’t that his car arriving?’
Through the large glass doors Bond saw a black Mercedes 300D, driven by a man in a kepi. He watched it draw up at the foot of the steps, where the driver threw the keys to an attendant and went round to open the passenger door.
From it stepped the man in M’s photograph, the same man he’d seen in Marseille. He wore a longsleeved white flannel shirt and grey slacks with a single white glove on his outsized left hand. Bond turned to study the noticeboard as the men went past him towards the office. Scarlett had vanished. Bond looked up to a bank of television screens on the wall, which showed the games in progress on the outside courts with a running scoreline updated from a courtside link by the players when they changed
ends. Such technology was rare, Bond knew, outside a television studio and it must have cost the club –
or, at any rate, the members – a hefty amount. In addition to these games, there were indoor facilities in a basement complex immediately below the outside courts. Progress of these matches could be monitored from the indoor gallery that encircled them.
A minute later, Bond heard footsteps approach him. It was the man in the kepi.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in English. ‘Mr Bond? My name is Chagrin.’
Bond turned to face him. He had yellowish skin, narrow eyes with the epicanthic lids of the Orient, and flat, inert features. There was something half dead, or at least not fully alive, about him, Bond thought. He had seen that lifeless flesh once before, in a stroke victim. It sat oddly with the man’s otherwise active demeanour.
‘I think you play Dr Gorner.’ Chagrin’s accent sounded Chinese or Thai.
‘If he’s looking for a game,’ said Bond, casually.
‘Oh, yes. He looking. I introduce you.’
Chagrin led the way past the spiral staircase that wound up to the extensive viewing area, bars and restaurant.
Gorner was staring through the plate-glass window at the nearer courts.
He turned and looked Bond in the eye. He held out his right, ungloved hand.
‘What an enormous pleasure to meet you, Mr Bond. Now, shall we play?’
.
5. Not Cricket
The changing room was on the lower ground floor, and included a large steam room, four saunas and enough colognes and aftershaves to have stocked Trumper’s of Mayfair for a year. Bond, who was used to the club in Barbados (single shower stall, wooden bar with cold beer) or the shabby back rooms of Queen’s Club in London, noticed that no amount of expensive scents had quite concealed a rancid under-smell of socks.
Gorner changed in a secluded cubicle, and emerged in new white Lacoste shorts that showed off muscular, tanned legs. He had retained the long-sleeved flannel shirt and the white glove on his large left hand. Over his right shoulder, he carried a bag with half a dozen new Wilson racquets.
Without speaking, as though he merely expected
Bond to follow, Gorner led the way upstairs