Young Bond

by Steve Cole

  Elmhirst shook his head. ‘Anyway, couldn’t stick around at the hotel after that, what with the police, Intourist and the hotel staff after me. So I’ve been roaming the city pretty much ever since, trying to find you, Bond. Heard news reports on the wireless about an incident in the Zamoskvorechye quarter yesterday evening. A boy of your description was seen fleeing the scene.’

  ‘We nearly died there,’ James said.

  ‘About the only buggers who didn’t, from the sound of things.’ Elmhirst glanced at Anya in the rear-view mirror. ‘Er – no offence, love. Sounds like another Great War broke out. Tell me what happened. All of it.’

  Feeling a little self-conscious, James began. He had been waiting for so long to talk things through with Elmhirst, but now that the opportunity was here he felt more like a sinner making confession to his priest than any sort of hero. Anya made no comment on his story, staring out of the window, arms folded across her chest.

  ‘So the Mimic showed up.’ Elmhirst actually looked shaken. ‘You’re lucky you got out alive.’

  ‘Without Anya, I wouldn’t have,’ James admitted. ‘I saw this “Mimic” at the Academy – he must have come out with Karachan. He’s uncanny.’

  ‘So I hear. I only know him by reputation. No real brains but fiercely loyal, and a talent for impersonation like no one on earth.’

  ‘His impression of you was so convincing.’

  ‘I’ve snooped after Karachan enough times. Mimic must have heard me talking one time then.’ Elmhirst shook his head. ‘Whisper is, La Velada came across him when she was stirring things up in Ribeirao Preto, during the Brazilian revolutions back in 1930. Local robber gangs kept him caged up like a dog, used him to impersonate police officers so they could burgle without alarms going off. O Imitador, they called him; he didn’t know any other name. La Velada heard rumours, and when she saw him in action, she killed his handlers and took him on.’

  James shuddered. ‘So the story had a happy ending.’

  ‘Let’s hope this one does.’ In frustration, Elmhirst slammed a hand against the steering wheel. ‘Why couldn’t I have been there when you found Kalashnikov’s address in that old souvenir! Things might have ended differently . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ James looked down at his lap. ‘You’re right, I blundered in – didn’t think what the consequences might be.’

  ‘You could say the same for my father,’ Anya said quietly. ‘These killers only finished a job they started long ago.’

  ‘It’s the job Bond’s father started that I’m keen to finish.’ Elmhirst slowed down for a junction controlled by traffic lights, still quiet at this early hour. ‘Which way now . . .?’

  Anya blinked. ‘You do not know our destination?’

  ‘Not until Bond works out where we’re going. Then we’ll speed straight there.’ Elmhirst steered the motor car to the right. ‘You sure there were no other clues hidden inside that little statue of St Basil’s? Nothing about Cardinal Henson, or—’

  ‘Nothing,’ James broke in, disconsolate. Then he frowned. ‘Cardinal is a high-up church official, right? Would St Basil’s Cathedral have a cardinal?’

  ‘There are no cardinals in the Russian Orthodox Church,’ Anya assured him. ‘The meaning of “cardinal” that I understand is that of a cardinal sin, like greed, or envy, or pride,’ she said with sudden passion. ‘Or a cardinal error: an unforgivable mistake.’

  ‘We’ve all made a few of those,’ Elmhirst murmured as the car ran into sudden traffic. ‘For instance, why didn’t I turn left instead of right?’

  ‘Oh my God . . .’ James started rummaging around inside the backpack. ‘That could be it. That could actually be it.’

  Elmhirst was deadly serious again. ‘What could?’

  ‘Stop the car a moment.’

  Puzzled, Elmhirst did as James requested, pulling in to the kerb beside a large vacant lot awaiting redevelopment. James pulled out his father’s crumpled papers and riffled through them. It felt as if clouds were clearing at the back of his head. ‘Play with James,’ he muttered. ‘That’s what Father wrote to my uncle. And you said, Which Way Now—’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Elmhirst complained.

  ‘This!’ He read aloud from the Chamonix notes. ‘Left for collection. Nash marsh! James and Cardinal Henson: Sep 42 Ori 33 Sep 31 Occ 57 Mer 21 Ori 18 Plamia 47 Occ 62 Sep 59 Iunoshei 45 . . .’

  ‘Well?’ Elmhirst grunted.

  ‘When I was small, we used to play a game – a sort of treasure hunt using compass points. Dad would write directions for a certain number of steps north, east, south and west and I’d have to march about trying to find whatever he’d hidden.’

  ‘All right, but what has this got to do with the clues you—?’

  ‘Cardinal. North, east, south and west are called the cardinal directions!’ James felt his heart hammer harder. ‘And Henson – Father and Max’s old Latin master – gets a mention because Latin is the key to it!’

  Anya looked curious. ‘The short words there mean something?’

  ‘They’re abbreviations: Sep, Ori, Mer, Occ stand for Septentrio, Oriens, Meridies and Occidens. In Latin, that’s north, east, south and west.’

  ‘Cardinal directions! Sneaky son of a . . .’ Elmhirst shook his head and laughed. ‘All that Latin prep finally paid off, eh, Bond?’

  Even Anya seemed drawn in. ‘So the words are the directions, but the numbers—?’

  ‘Are how many steps we have to take,’ James broke in. ‘The other words – flames, love, and so on – they weren’t chosen at random, they’ll be landmarks, or features of the architecture, something like that, helping us to stay on course along the way.’

  ‘Along the way from where?’ Elmhirst demanded. ‘Where do we start following the directions?’

  ‘Father wanted me to show Max the statuette of St Basil’s Cathedral. Surely it’s got to be there!’ James said.

  ‘Then the reason for all this violence, this pain . . .’ Anya leaned forward. ‘We can find it now, yes? Whatever it might be.’

  ‘Yes.’ James pulled out the broken pieces of the little statuette and nodded. ‘Whatever it might be.’

  19

  Red Treasure

  KRASNAYA PLOSHCHAD, OR Red Square, was a vast brick plaza surrounded by historic buildings and eye-popping architecture. Thousands of years of history had played out on this grand sweep of stone, and the population still gathered regularly to greet its rulers, cheer displays of Soviet strength and castigate past heroes, now fallen from favour. It was the centrepiece of Moscow, a symbol to outsiders of the Soviet Union’s might and vision, red not only with the blood of former enemies, but with the blazing promise of power and prominence, of a colossal country on the rise.

  Everywhere James looked there was a new draw to the eye: a miniature church here, an overly ornate mansion there, its clashing colours an affront to the greyness of the sky above. To the west were the dramatic towers of the Kremlin, while to the east stood the elaborate, elongated facade of Moscow’s state department store, the GUM (pronounced ‘Goom’, Anya told him). Only the Soviet elite or visiting diplomats had wallets deep enough even to window-shop there.

  ‘Their connections bring them treasures,’ said Anya, ‘while the rest of us take our places at the back of the queue and hope for whatever we can get.’

  And whatever will we get at the end of this treasure hunt? James wondered. He suspected that Anya might be hoping for a new wardrobe. Since she and he both looked dirty and disreputable after their misadventures, Elmhirst had insisted on fresh clothes from a Torgsin store on Gorky Street, to confound any spies on the street. James now wore a red shirt and a tweed jacket a size too big, all he could find that came close to fitting, while Anya wore a shapeless grey cotton dress that came down to her ankles; the better, he supposed, to conceal the thick white scars he’d glimpsed on her slender right calf.

  It was still early as they walked through the wide-open square. The cathedral was located
in the forbidding shadow of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower with its shiny new red star, and seemed to rise up out of the Place of Skulls, a forty-foot-wide circular platform of stone, standing as high as two men. A gaggle of rotund women were busy cleaning the cobbles around it.

  ‘So where exactly do we start?’ Elmhirst asked.

  ‘The entrance to the cathedral stands in front of the chapel of St Basil,’ Anya said. ‘This chapel was built over the grave of Basil the Blessed, the holy fool of Christ. In the end, his name was given to the whole church.’

  James nodded. He felt that his father, never the most God-fearing of men if Aunt Charmian was to be believed, would have been amused by the notion of a ‘holy fool’; as fair a reason as any for choosing Basil’s final resting place as the point of origin for the trek to his own buried treasure.

  From a distance, the cathedral looked huge – a colourful conflation of tent peaks and onion domes; but as James got closer, it seemed to diminish in size, though not in its curious, candy-box grandeur. Looking up at the cathedral – eight churches built around a central ninth – James was fascinated by the way the walls glittered thanks to a coarse-ground paste of enamelled fish scales, glossy mosaic tiles and dazzling jewels.

  At the entrance, facing out to the north-east, James unfolded the paper from his backpack with no small sense of destiny. Years after the directions were written, it was he himself who would do the legwork on this final treasure hunt. He felt solemn and sad – and never more ready. Fears, fatigue and the memories of recent violence faded as he readied himself for the last march.

  ‘Come on then.’ Elmhirst had no truck with sentiment. ‘What’s first – north for forty-two paces?’

  ‘My step is smaller than your long stride,’ Anya pointed out.

  ‘Between us we should make a good average,’ James said. ‘Besides, I told you, there’ll be visual clues to watch out for.’

  ‘So long as they’re still standing,’ Anya warned him. ‘Moscow changes so quickly, and as the Metro was built this last year, so many buildings were pulled down . . .’

  ‘Let’s put it to the test.’ Impatient, Elmhirst was already striding off in a northerly direction. ‘You know, even as a kid, I never liked games with too many rules . . .’

  The hunt was on. North, east, north again . . . The further James walked, the more his blood fizzed, uncertainty biting at his heels. He could almost imagine his father walking just behind him, smiling, knowing that his efforts in planning the march were being enjoyed and appreciated. Amat victoria curam – victory favours those who take pains . . .

  ‘Plamia!’ Anya pointed to a statue, the arm holding a burning torch above the porticos of a long white building on Razin Street. James led the way over and, once standing below it, read out the next distance and direction. He felt such pressure: the game might be childish, but the stakes were life and death. Whatever happened, James was determined not to let his father down in this, their final game together. A game he was determined to win for them both.

  They moved on, counting each step, encountering a statue of solemn young people looking skyward in the well-kept grounds of the Anti-Religious Museum.

  ‘There are your “youths”, Elmhirst said, ‘your iunoshei. Hey, that one looks a bit like you, Bond.’

  James felt himself flush. Had his father thought of him when compiling the clues? Off they went again: east, north, east again and then south.

  ‘What’s this word?’ James wondered. ‘Opirat’sya . . .’

  ‘Leaning,’ Elmhirst and Anya said in unison.

  ‘It is there you should look.’ Anya pointed to a custard-yellow tower some way across the street, visibly off-centre as it emerged from a smart white courthouse; James could tell from the red dots in her cheeks that she was as caught up in the excitement as he was. ‘The Church of St Maksim’s bell tower is famous here; we call it the “leaning tower” of Moscow.’

  ‘Still on the right track then.’ Elmhirst was tapping his foot impatiently. ‘Next?’

  Turning down an alleyway beside the leaning tower, James began to count out the next sixty-five paces. There were only three sets of directions left, ending in the words, osculum pacis: ‘The kiss of peace,’ he translated.

  The last of the sixty-five steps took them to the junction of a quiet lane that bordered an overgrown grassy area, hemmed in by black railings. Beyond, weeping willows hid the terrain with great falling cascades of greenery. Forty-three steps eastwards and they reached a wrought-iron gate that led into this green space, which they now saw was full of slabs of leaning stone.

  ‘A graveyard,’ James breathed.

  ‘He was looking to bury something,’ Elmhirst noted. ‘Where better?’

  The gates were chained shut now, the padlock rusty; it seemed that the graveyard was no longer in use, its land earmarked for future development.

  ‘Over we go.’ Elmhirst looked around to make sure they weren’t being watched, then vaulted the gates with an easy fluid movement. He reached his hands out to help Anya but she shook her head; she was so slender, she could slip through the railings instead. James took the time to check for watching eyes too, then vaulted the fence in much the same fashion as Elmhirst. ‘Twenty-three steps west,’ he read out, his heart crawling up his throat with every step.

  Anya peered at the paper in James’s hand. ‘Now, fifteen steps north and we reach the kiss of peace.’

  ‘I’ll kiss anyone if we actually find the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.’ Elmhirst’s dour expression couldn’t hide the anticipation in his eyes, and he quickened his step. ‘Well, well . . . don’t tell me that’s it . . .’

  A cracked marble tomb, half covered in ivy, rose from the soil in a quiet patch of dappled sunlight. Abandoning his counting, James hurried over to study the figures carved out of the stone: a man who might have been a priest stooped over a woman on her deathbed; each figure held a small cross, lips pressed together, eyes closed.

  Anya read the inscription on the tomb. ‘Dimitry Yakov and his beloved wife, Vjatka . . .’ She turned to James and Elmhirst. ‘Yakov is the way Russians say “James”.’

  James felt a jolt as he remembered the coded words from the telegram. ‘Chapter and verse buried in James,’ he breathed. ‘This is it. Whatever Father hid away all those years back, it’s right here!’

  Elmhirst gave a lopsided smile. ‘Chapter and verse, safely hidden. The lowdown on the big bad plot your old man stumbled on . . .’ He gave a hearty laugh. ‘Damn well didn’t make it easy, did he!’

  ‘But we’ve done it.’ James’s voice cracked as he gazed at the old marble, so skilfully carved, knowing that, years ago, his father had stood here studying the very same thing, burying his secrets beneath this depiction of love beyond death. James felt he’d made a pilgrimage into the past, and found himself moved. ‘We’ve actually done it.’

  ‘You’ve done it, Bond.’ He jumped as Elmhirst laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I knew it was worth bringing you out here. Now we dig up whatever it is. Which means I’d better go and find something to dig with, hadn’t I? Spades, trowels . . . If I can’t buy them from a hardware store I’ll pinch them from a building site.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ James offered at once.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Elmhirst smiled kindly. ‘Your part in this has been played, and played well. I won’t be long. Stay here, stay down and stay quiet until I get back.’ Without a backward glance, he disappeared through the weeping willows’ waterfall of green.

  ‘So.’ Anya sank down onto the ground beside the little mausoleum, rubbing her bad ankle as she looked up at James. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘I’m . . . not sure.’ He sat down beside her. ‘I thought perhaps by solving this treasure trail of Father’s, I’d feel closer to him. But instead, I’m thinking if Father had never started this – or if I’d never been brought out here to help finish it – a lot of people would still have their lives.’ He looked at Anya. ‘No one knows that better th
an you.’

  ‘When my father chose to defy the state . . . he knew how dangerous it was, for him and for those around him. Your father too, in trying to help him. They knew there would be a greater cost if they chose not to act.’ Anya folded her knees to her chest and hugged them. ‘Let us hope that what we find here can stop this project.’

  ‘Only then can any of this be worth a damn.’ James looked at her, wanting to feel better, but not yet able to grant himself that privilege. Waiting around here was chafing at his soul. As the sun probed down through the dappling leaves, James began to explore the graveyard for something that might serve as a makeshift tool. When he couldn’t find anything, he began tugging up weeds from around the mausoleum, checking the soil for a likely spot to start digging.

  Anya was looking at the figures carved into the old stone. ‘The Romans believed that a person’s dying breath contained the essence of their soul,’ she announced at length. ‘Do you know the Aeneid?’

  ‘Virgil’s epic poem?’ James thought of all the dry, dreary Classics lessons he’d daydreamed through at Fettes and Eton, and grunted. ‘Sadly, yes.’

  ‘When Dido commits suicide, her sister tries to take her soul into herself. “Let me wash her wounds with water, and with my mouth collect whatever last breath she has.”’

  James had to admit, the way Anya said the words, they sounded beautiful. ‘So, in other words, her sister lives on inside her?’

  ‘Yes. I was only thinking – in a way, this march of your father’s, leading you here . . . This was his last breath, and you have taken it.’

  ‘So now he will live on inside me?’ James grappled with the thick roots of a particularly tough thistle. I spent so much more time with my mother, I can never forget her. But Father . . .

  Even after all this, James still felt as if he barely knew him.

  He threw the thistle away and wiped his sore fingers on his shirt. ‘So . . . either you have an extremely good memory, or you spend too much time reading long-dead authors.’