By Royal Command (12 page)

‘Do I have any choice?’ said James.

‘No,’ said Roan. ‘It’s not an invitation, darling, it’s an order.’

‘In that case I’ll come,’ said James.

‘Good lad. Oh, and I nearly forgot. I’ve this for you.’

Roan passed him a small glass jar with a white paste inside it.

‘What is it?’

‘Didn’t I tell you I was a witch?’ said Roan. ‘It’s a healing ointment I made up. It’ll help. Just don’t ask me to rub it on for you.’

Roan laughed and walked away. When she had gone the corridor seemed smaller and colder and darker.

James went up to his room, confused.

He was finding everyday life a lot harder to cope with than he had expected. Dangerous adventures were fine. Back in Mexico all he had had to worry about was trying to stay alive. True, he had needed to take terrible risks, but he’d found that pretty simple. Coping with people was different. Understanding their emotions, understanding his own emotions, was a lot harder. Nearly dying under the wheels of the coal lorry had shaken him up a lot less than Roan Power had.

He punched the back of his armchair. Why did he feel so foolish in her presence, like a small child? Why did he feel the compulsion to be rude and offhand to her, when what he really wanted was to make her smile?

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t spent a lot of time with girls before. He got on well with them usually, and easily felt their equal, so why now did this one make him feel so utterly useless?

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be in love.

‘
No
,’ he said, dismissing the thought instantly.
Love was for saps.

Before bed he rubbed some of her cream on to his tenderest parts, and, although he felt faintly ridiculous doing it, he had to admit that it did soothe the pain.

13

The Invisible Man

James was sitting in the light by the open window in his room. It wasn’t the largest room in the world, and tucked up here under the eaves it was made even smaller by the sloping roof beams, but at least it was bright and the extra height gave him something of a view. Lately he had felt the need of a view. Like a guard in a watchtower he could see everything that was going on outside.

Every once in a while he cast a glance down into Judy’s Passage, the alleyway that led to Codrose’s. He did it almost without thinking, and would look just long enough to make sure that nothing was happening, before he returned to the job in hand.

If anyone had seen him they might have laughed.

James Bond was sewing.

He had borrowed a sewing kit from Roan and had been busy since breakfast.

He had opened the seam of one of his coat-tails, carefully unpicking the stitches with his penknife, and was now busy sewing a small pocket into it.

James wasn’t laughing, though. This was serious business.

He couldn’t prove that he was being followed. He couldn’t prove that someone had pushed him into the path of the coal lorry. He couldn’t prove that it wasn’t an accident. But he knew in his gut that something was wrong and he didn’t intend to sit around on his backside waiting for something worse to happen.

If the man in the trilby came after him, he was going to be ready.

He cursed and looked out of the window for the hundredth time.

This was ridiculous. He couldn’t keep on calling him ‘
the man in the trilby
’. He needed to give the stranger a name. Once you gave a name to something you took the first steps to controlling it. But how did you give a name to a man you had never properly seen? A man who might not even be there, a man who was, to all intents and purposes, invisible.

Well there was his answer. From now on he was ‘
The Invisible Man
’.

Yes.

James already had a secret compartment in the heel of one shoe, inside which he kept his penknife. It would be next to useless in a fight, but it had saved his bacon on a couple of occasions.

Now he had another plan.

Once he had finished sewing the pocket he removed a razor-blade from its cardboard packet and slipped it inside. He held the jacket up to the light to inspect his handiwork. He was satisfied. You couldn’t tell that the razor-blade was hidden in there, and James was confident that there was no danger of cutting himself as the tail would always hang safely down below his chair.

This was the fifth secret pocket he had made today. In one he had a book of matches and a set of lock picks he had been given by his friend, Red Kelly. In another were a pencil stub and some slips of thin paper. And there was a long metal skewer down his other jacket tail, where there was also a second razor-blade sitting in its own pocket.

Just in case.

There was a long tradition at Eton of using your coat-tails to smuggle items in and out of school, and much larger objects than these had been hidden in boys’ jackets before now.

Satisfied, he slipped the jacket on and studied himself in the mirror.

No one would ever have known what the tails contained. He smiled. It was like a stage magician’s jacket, full of secrets. He wondered if he should try and hide a white rabbit or a dove inside it. Maybe a length of silk handkerchiefs tied together…

Actually that might not be such a bad idea. Silk was surprisingly strong and he could use it like a rope.

James looked at his clock. That would have to wait for another time. It was getting late. Making the alterations to his jacket had taken longer than he had expected.

He packed away the sewing kit and grabbed his hat.

Earlier that morning he had received a note from Andrew Carlton, telling James to meet him in Windsor at their lock-up. The boys in the Danger Society had maintained a small garage here and since the Society had been broken up James had pretty well forgotten all about it.

He left the House, walked briskly through Eton and across the bridge into Windsor. It was a warm and sunny day and James was pleased to find that the pain of Bentinck’s beating had almost disappeared. It didn’t affect his movement at all beyond a slight tightness.

He made his way to the backstreets behind the Victoria Barracks. The garage was in an old mews building in a little courtyard, and as James approached he saw Andrew waiting.

‘We wanted to keep it a secret until it was finished,’ said Andrew as he unlocked the padlock on the garage doors. ‘Not that it really is finished. Not sure it ever will be.’

‘The Bentley?’ said James as Andrew pulled the doors open. And there it was.

James had bought the car last year with money he had won at an illegal casino. She was a 4½-litre Bentley Blower. A big, powerful open two-seater, built for racing. She had been a near wreck when James had got her and so much had happened since that he had all but forgotten about her.

The boys of the Danger Society hadn’t, though. They had been busy.

‘We’ve worked on her every available moment,’ Andrew explained. ‘It was Perry’s idea, and he was pretty cut up that he couldn’t be here to help out after he was sent down. But he’s still been helping, in his own way. In fact I doubt we could have finished it without him. He visited me in London just before the start of the half with a big pile of one-pound notes. The only thing not finished is the paintwork.’

The car was painted a flat, gun-metal grey.

‘It rather suits her,’ said James, running a hand along the car’s flank. ‘It shows her history. We should leave her just as she is.’

‘So you like her, then?’

‘She’s beautiful,’ said James. ‘If that’s the right word for such a brute. Does she run?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘None of us have been able to take her out on the road. Though the man from the workshop who finished her off drove her round here for us.’

‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you all for this.’

‘Being allowed to work on her has been all the thanks we need,’ said Andrew. ‘Although I’d dearly love to take her out for a spin one day.’

‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ said James, trying not to grin from ear to ear like an idiot as he inspected the magnificent car, going over every detail. The work was crude and not finished to the usual high standards of Bentley, but somehow it made the car seem more powerful, more rugged. She was a working machine and not a gentleman’s plaything. The leather seats didn’t match, but at least the wheels did. The controls were scrounged from spare parts, mostly from other makes of car. In fact some were not even from cars at all, by the looks of them. There was an odd assortment of knobs and dials and levers.

James climbed into the driver’s seat and started her up. The noise of the engine was music to his ears as it coughed and growled and rumbled into life, shattering the peace and quiet of the sleepy mews. The whole car shook on its springs, like an animal eager to be off and running.

Reluctantly James cut the engine and silence returned.

The smell of hot oil and petrol filled the lock-up, but as far as James was concerned it was the sweetest perfume.

He got out of the car and walked over to Andrew.

He couldn’t think of anything to say, but the expression on his face told the whole story.

He was still thinking about the car half an hour later as he entered Windsor Great Park to meet Roan for her picnic. She had drawn him a map of where they were to meet, a secluded spot among some trees. She had also drawn little stick figures of the two of them enjoying the picnic together and he couldn’t wait to act out the scene.

As he marched along the wide tree-lined track known as The Long Walk all thoughts of school, and Bloody Bentinck and The Invisible Man, drifted away.

The park was busy with families enjoying the sunshine, walking, sitting on the grass, riding horses. Deer wandered on the fringes of the forested areas where the oaks and elms and chestnuts were in full leaf. James was overcome by a sense of how good it was to be alive.

He wished he could have driven over in the Bentley. It was the perfect day for a drive. He pictured himself at the wheel, flying round a bend with the wind tugging at his hair. He could almost hear the throaty growl of the engine.

He broke into a run and dashed past Snow Hill with its statue of King George III dressed as a Roman emperor sitting on his horse looking regally towards Slough. The royal family had always owned the park and it was impossible to forget their presence. There were the towers and turrets of Windsor Castle to the north, the Frogmore mausoleum to the east, where Queen Victoria was buried with Prince Albert, King George up on his hill in the middle. He remembered what Roan had said to him about not living in the real world and he wondered if the royal family ever looked out of the windows of their huge castle and thought about what life must be like for the ordinary people out here going about their everyday business.

He followed the map until he identified the patch of woodland Roan had marked with an X. He soon found the path that led away from the open grassland in among the trees.

A minute later, there was Roan, sitting on a blanket in a clearing, lit by broken sunlight, filtering down through the leaves and branches overhead. He stopped for a moment to look at her, while she was still unaware that he was there.

She was eating an apple and looked utterly at peace with the world.

James took a moment to pull himself together. He slowed his breathing and adopted a casual expression, and then, when he was sure that he would appear as relaxed and untroubled as the maid, he sauntered into the clearing.

As soon as he stepped out of the shadows, however, he realised that Roan was not alone.

A young man was there. He had been hidden from James’s view, sitting with his back against a tree stump. When he saw James, he tossed a chicken bone aside, sprang lightly to his feet and bounded over to greet him.

‘You must be the famous James Bond,’ he said with a broad Irish accent to match Roan’s, and he slapped James hard on the shoulder.

James fought hard not to show his disappointment. He had assumed that he and Roan would be alone. There had only been two stick figures in her drawing…

Don’t be a fool. Why shouldn’t she have asked someone else on her picnic?

The young man was as handsome as Roan was beautiful, with a glamorous mop of wavy fair hair and dark blue, almost black eyes. He was dressed in an olive-green moleskin suit with a bright orange waistcoat and a red scarf knotted loosely around his throat.

Roan stretched out on her back on the blanket and called over to James.

‘This is my pal, Dandy O’Keefe,’ she said. ‘Us paddies need to stick together, you know. When we’re so far from home.’

‘Is there anyone else joining us?’ said James, with a brave attempt at sounding unconcerned.

‘No, it’s just the three of us,’ said Roan, closing her eyes and letting the sunlight fall across her face. ‘I bumped into Dandy this morning in town and he sort of invited himself along.’

‘Roan told me you got into a whole heap of trouble last time she was out with you,’ said Dandy, grabbing a fresh chicken leg and passing it to James. ‘I hope you’ve not told anyone you were coming here today, Bucko.’

He winked at James, who shook his head.

‘It’s our secret, isn’t it?’ said Roan.

‘Well, it’s safe with me,’ said Dandy.

‘Dandy’s a gardener,’ said Roan. ‘He works for the school as well. Looking after the grounds. He’s the greenest fingers of any man I know.’

‘Ah, it’s all fertilisers and chemicals these days,’ said Dandy.

‘Dandy used to work on one of the big estates back in the old country,’ said Roan.

‘I’ve come over here to make me fortune,’ said Dandy. ‘Though between you and me, it’s going to take the devil of a long time. I’ll be a hundred years old with a beard around me ankles by the time I make me millions. Too old to enjoy them. Now come along, let’s get stuck in here, I’m starving.’

‘You’re always starving,’ said Roan as she handed round plates of food.

James was amazed at the food. There was bread and cheese and ham, cold pies and chicken, pickles and hard-boiled eggs. She had brought water and lemonade and some bottles of beer for Dandy, who gave one to James.

‘This is quite a spread,’ said James.

‘I’ve made great friends with the kitchen staff at Codrose’s,’ said Roan with a wink.

‘Roan could charm the crown off the King’s head,’ said Dandy.

‘You should see Codrose’s pantry,’ said Roan. ‘It’s fit to bursting with food. And he’s miserly with it. You’re a Codrose boy, James, so by rights this food is yours.’

‘I’ve no right to it at all, of course,’ said Dandy, taking a swig of beer. ‘Which makes it taste all the sweeter.’

Dandy went on to tell a long story about getting into an argument in a pub in Virginia Water that had Roan crying with laughter. He was great company, always talking, joking and telling stories, but, all the same, James wished that he hadn’t come along, that it was just him and Roan.