James Bond: The Authorised Biography (8 page)

Two days later came the bombshell. A Berlin newspaper published photographs of French High Command documents together with comments by the British General Staff. They were repudiated by the French, but in Paris the right wing was in full cry. The President was said to be distressed, and behind the scenes the whole policy of military cooperation between France and Britain now seemed threatened. Maddox had frantic messages from London. However the leak of documents had happened, it must be found and blocked. Immediately. Maddox had several suspects. One of the major ones was Marthe de Brandt. Von Schutz, the German military attaché, was an habitué of the Elysée. Marthe had done business with him in the past. Maddox was informed that she was the source this time. She needed money for her fancy boy. He half suspected her already. Even so, normally he would have checked more thoroughly. There was no time with London clamouring for action. That same evening Maddox had dinner with James Bond.

Maddox wrote later that he found him quite insufferable – arrogant, ill-educated and drinking far too much. (How much simple jealousy was motivating Maddox is anybody's guess.) But Maddox found no difficulty breaking down the arrogance. He probably enjoyed doing it. He seems to have played upon Bond's anxiety for a purpose in his life. He claimed to have known his father. He got him talking and then asked him if this life was really what he wanted – acting the kept man to a notorious tart.

Normally Bond would have hit him as he once hit Sailor Hendrix, but Maddox had handled situations of this sort before. Besides, he wasn't drunk. Bond was. Maddox asked him why he stayed with a woman who was flagrantly unfaithful to him. Bond asked him what he meant. And, in reply, Maddox produced photographs of Marthe de Brandt with a variety of men. They were not the sort of pictures that one enjoys seeing of the woman one loves. Bond was too shocked to realize that they had all been taken at least two years earlier.

Maddox knew then that the time had come to mention patriotism to James Bond. It was not difficult. One of the main performers in the photographs was recognizably von Schutz. As Bond could see, Marthe de Brandt was not only betraying him – she was betraying France and Britain to the Hun.

Maddox outlined the damage caused already by the leakage of the documents to Berlin. Once war came, as come it would, this woman's action could cost fifty thousand British lives, more still if she were permitted to continue.

Bond was silent.

‘What do I have to do?’ asked Bond.

‘I am afraid she has to die,’ said Maddox. ‘The only question that remains is how to do it. I don't want you involved or hurt, but I must know that I can count on your discretion – if not exactly your cooperation.’

‘How soon must this happen?’

‘As soon as possible.’

There was a long silence then. Maddox puffed softly at a large cigar. Finally James Bond said, ‘I'll do it – personally. I don't want anyone else to touch her.’

‘I hardly thought you would,’ said Maddox.

The next day was a Saturday. The day after was to be Marthe de Brandt's thirtieth birthday. She dreaded being thirty. To make her happy, Bond had arranged a long weekend with her and some old friends at a small hotel beside the Seine where they had often enjoyed each other in the past. The place was called Les Andelys. It has a famous castle built by Richard the Lionheart and Monet painted here along the river.

Bond felt curiously cold and self-possessed, and, from the moment that he woke, he treated Marthe de Brandt with exceptional affection. He had spent all his money on a ring for her – an amethyst and diamond which she loved – and put red roses on her breakfast tray. They made love, and Marthe de Brandt seemed happy at the idea of their weekend in the country. All the way down in the Bentley she chattered gaily. Bond thought that she had never been more beautiful.

Just after midday they reached the long road from Les Thilliers. The Seine was on their left, its waters shining through the leafless poplars. The road was empty. On the far hill stood the ruin of the Norman fort. The Bentley sang at something over eighty.

‘Darling,’ said Marthe de Brandt, ‘I do hate being thirty. It's so old. I can't bear being old.’

‘You never will be,’ said James Bond. He jammed his foot down to the floor-boards as the bend approached. The great car lifted, kicked like a jumping horse against the verge, then somersaulted slowly into the lilac-tinted river.

4

Luminous Reader

W
HEN BOND HAD finished telling me his story he fell silent. At first I thought that he was deeply moved: then I realized that he was simply watching the two humming-birds that were still flickering like small blue lights against the coral flowers of the hibiscus. By now the sun was at its height and they were the only things that moved. The empty pool was bright-blue plastic, sea and terrace had become some over-coloured photo on a travel brochure. Bond sipped his coffee. His grey eyes still followed the two birds intently It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

‘Strange business,’ he said finally. ‘Still, it taught me a lesson I've remembered ever since. Never let a woman rule you – total disaster if you do.’

‘A pretty drastic lesson.’

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘What happened?’

‘To the car? Oh, it was salvaged. Cost quite a bit, but it was finally all right.’

‘And you?’

‘I was salvaged too. Went through the windscreen. That's what did this.’ He touched the long scar down his cheek. ‘Fleming was always trying to find out how I got it. Now you know. I was quite knocked around in other ways – several bones broken, mild concussion, but one floats, you know. One floats. I was picked up by one of those big Seine barges.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Oh, she had had it. Very swift death. She was still in the car when they pulled it out. Her neck was broken. The ironic thing about it all was that Maddox told me later it was a mistake. It hadn't been her at all. The real spy had been some wretched fellow in the British Embassy. They caught him a few days later.’

‘Weren't you horrified?’

‘Of course. But there was no use blaming Maddox. It was terrible for him, and he had done his duty. Besides, I owed an awful lot to him. He cleared up the mess, settled the French police, somehow avoided having me involved in the inquiry. God knows how he did it. These things are very difficult in France. It was through Maddox that I got my real start within the Service.’

I tried getting Bond to continue with the next stage of his story, but he seemed reluctant. He had been talking for a long time. Clearly he needed his siesta, but, before he went, he promised to see me that evening over dinner. Then he would continue with his debut with the British Secret Service, the famous affair Fleming mentions of the Roumanians at Monte Carlo.

Before going down to dinner, I rang his room. There was no answer. Nor was there any sign of Bond that evening. I asked Augustus if he had seen the Commander.

‘No, sir. The Commander ain't dining in tonight.’

‘You sure?’

‘Quite sure, sir. He left the hotel with his lady. Somehow I don't think the Commander will be back tonight.’

Nor was he back the morning after. I spent the morning lying in the sun and swimming. There seemed no need to worry about Bond. It would have been strange had he not had a woman with him, but I wondered who she was. I also wondered how long she was keeping him.

My second question was soon answered. Punctual as ever, Bond appeared for lunch, dressed as the day before – same T-shirt, same old
espadrilles
, same uncreased denim trousers. There was, alas, no sign of any lady. Nor did he offer an excuse or explanation for the night before.

Otherwise the routine followed the previous day's, even down to the lobster done with coconut and the guavas. Bond was in lively spirits, chatting quite confidently about his return to active service. He seemed to think that this could happen any moment. Clearly there was something in the wind but when I asked him about possible assignments he clammed up fast. I felt I had committed something of a solecism and, to change the subject, asked about Maddox.

‘Funny character – part of the old guard of the Secret Service. Straight out of Ashenden; in fact he knew Maugham and used to claim that he had based one of his characters on him. He taught me a lot and certainly he influenced me at the time. The after-shave and the cigars and all the people that he knew – I was terribly impressed. He was quite unlike your modern operator; he wouldn't last ten minutes under our present set-up. But he had something. He was a hard man, and he had an instinct for the telling gesture. He was good to me in the beginning.’

After Bond was rescued from the Seine, Maddox had taken care of everything. Bond's name was kept out of the papers and Bond himself installed in a discreet nursing home in the woods near Fontainebleau. The doctors said that he would need several weeks before he was on his feet again but were confident that with his youth and his physique there was no real danger. The only thing they overlooked was the gash on his face. When Maddox saw the scar left by the stitches he was furious.

‘Don't worry,’ said the surgeon. ‘He has kept his looks and the women will find it irresistible.’ But Maddox wasn't thinking about women. He knew the danger of a trademark in the career he had in mind for Bond. He called in LaPointe, the Swiss plastic surgeon who later worked with McIndo. LaPointe did his best, but, as he said, he had, as usual, been consulted when the damage was already done.

During these weeks in the nursing home Maddox was a frequent visitor. He and Bond talked a lot and Maddox was able to sum him up and learn a great deal more about him. He also made inquiries on his own among a lot of contacts back in London. After some hesitation, Headquarters had given him a provisional go-ahead.

The evening James Bond left the nursing home, Maddox took him out to dinner – at the fashionable Orée de la Forêt. The food was somehow typical of Maddox
–fonds d'artichauts au foie gras, tournedos aux morilles
, a bottle of Dom Perignon – and over the brandy and cigars, Maddox outlined his proposition. He did it with great charm and skill. James Bond has never forgotten the small, frog-like man with the bald head and bright black eyes who gave him his first introduction to the life he was to follow. It was a Faust-like situation with Maddox playing Mephistopheles. Bond had little chance against the future that fate had in store for him.

Maddox began by breaking the news of Marthe de Brandt's innocence. Bond was deeply shocked. Maddox did nothing to lessen the boy's sense of guilt. Instead, he cleverly exploited it. Such things, he said, did happen. Bond should forget the whole affair.

Bitterly Bond asked how he could possibly forget? He had killed the woman he loved, for something she had never done. How could he go on living with such a load of guilt?

Maddox was sympathetic then. If Bond really felt like that, there was something he
could
do – something dangerous, something which could save countless lives. Here was a chance for Bond to expiate his hideous mistake.

‘War is coming. It is a matter now of months not years; and there are certain ways in which you can help your country. You possess qualities which we can use. At times the life will seem glamorous and exciting, but I must warn you that your chances of ever seeing a comfortable old age are slim.’

There was no real decision to be made. James Bond agreed to work for the British Secret Service as Maddox knew he would.

At this period Maddox was still dealing with the mess left by the stolen documents affair. Officially the incident was closed. Behind the scenes it was regarded as a considerable loss of face for the British; in the undercover world of secret agents such things matter.

The Germans were exultant – the French mistrustful. Somehow the British needed to regain their credibility – with their own agents, with their allies, and, most of all, with the enemy.

Maddox was an aggressive man. In time of crisis his instinct was to attack. The early part of 1938 saw him mounting several swift operations aimed at restoring the prestige and confidence of his network. As a small part of this, James Bond was to perform his first assignment or as he calls it now, ‘my apprentice piece’.

It was an unlikely business for the British Secret Service to become involved in. Maddox would normally have steered well clear of it. But these were not normal times, and when Maddox heard of the chaos being caused at Monte Carlo by the Roumanians, he smelled his opportunity.

In the long history of the great casino there have been just a few notoriously successful players – Taylor, the professional gambler from Wyoming who had his
succès fou
back in the high days of the 1890s, Fernande, the little Belgian, and the extraordinary Charles Wells, the original ‘man who broke the bank of Monte Carlo’. (In fact he did this six times before his luck ran out.) Such men were considered good for the casino. They were showmen who encouraged other gamblers, raised the stakes and brought Monte Carlo valuable publicity. The Roumanians were different. From their appearance at the beginning of the previous season, they had spelt bad news for the casino.

They were a syndicate of four, headed by a man called Vlacek. No one had heard of them before, but in the season which had just ended they had played steadily and won remorselessly. Nobody knew quite how they did it.