Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood

Author:Kim Sherwood [Sherwood, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2022-07-25T12:00:00+00:00

25

In Search of an Honourable Man

Moneypenny drove with the top down, threading the frayed edge between a soft sky and the chalky folds and gashes of the Sussex Downs. The bite of frost kept her awake. It had been a long night. After returning from Mary Ann Russell’s house, Moneypenny had paid a visit to Records, keeping one eye on 003 and 009’s progress at Paddington Green. She placed a call to M, then to Felix Leiter, who was dodging her. It had been early morning by the time she reached Holly Lodge Estate, a block of mock-Tudor villas in north-west London made even more facade-like because Mrs Keator lived there in the guise of a forgotten retiree amongst nuclear families whose jobs didn’t involve any actual nuclear material. Mrs Keator was waiting for her on the doorstep, and announced they’d take a turn around Highgate Cemetery, whose treeline was a smudge over the chimneypots.

Mrs Keator breathed heavily through her nose, the only sound to break the hush, and Moneypenny knew better than to rush the master. So she stopped to pay homage to George Eliot and Claudia Jones and to enjoy the birds. When they passed Patrick Caulfield’s grave – the letters D E A D descending cut-outs in a stepped slab of stone – Mrs Keator said there at least was someone with an admirable regard for reality. Moneypenny nodded, aware that the monument to Karl Marx waited up ahead with its exhortation that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways: the point however is to change it. But Mrs Keator was clutching a jam jar filled with water and sprigs of holly, and Moneypenny knew where they were heading. The headstone of Major Boothroyd, who had lived on the Archway Road in a block of flats that shared his vintage. Moneypenny had visited the major just once for Scotch in a narrow kitchen. The wilderness of the cemetery was clipped neatly around the grave. Mrs Keator winced as she bent down, and Moneypenny helped her place the jar beneath the words: A Life in Service.

Moneypenny bowed her head.

‘Out with it then.’

A small smile. ‘You told me that Tanner acted like he had no idea we’d had prior contact with Yuri, or Michael Dobra, as he styled himself then. But Bill was the case officer when Mary Ann Russell and Bond debriefed about meeting Yuri. Russell asserts that Yuri asked Bond to join Rattenfänger in its infancy. That information is missing from the report.’

Mrs Keator shot Moneypenny a scouring look. ‘Pedestal unsteady, is it?’

Moneypenny returned the glare. ‘If Bond were a double agent, I’d be the first to put a bullet between his eyes. If we could find him. I want to know why Tanner’s redacting files and withholding information that could have benefited my agent in the field. You’ve worked with him since the days when you both could sleep well.’ Moneypenny looked at the headstone. ‘So did the major. What can you tell me?’

‘Why not ask M?’

‘You’re already out on this limb with me.

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