John Gardner - Never send flowers

He headed straight for the comfortable, panelled lounge to the right of the foyer, where afternoon tea was served in a truly traditional manner. There were only half a dozen people still in the room, and a waiter came up to quietly tell him that they had finished serving tea.

`It's all right, I'm supposed to meet someone ...

His voice trailed off for he saw her raise a hand and smile at him. She was sitting in a corner, near the fireplace decorated with flowers now in summer where she had a total controlled view of the room, and as he moved closer, he still could not place her.

She wore an elegant black business suit and the short skirt rode up high, showing an almost erotic amount of thigh. When he had last seen her, she had her black hair pulled severely back from her forehead and fastened in a bun at the nape of her neck. Now the smooth and glossy hair fell down to her shoulders and curled provocatively. The granny glasses had gone and he presumed she was wearing contact lenses, for the deep brown eyes looked up at him, wide and delighted, with just a hint of anxiety.

`Captain Bond, I'm so glad you could make it. I hope you didn't bring anybody with you." The voice was husky and distinctive.

`Please call me James, His Chantry. This is quite a surprise. You look different." The last time he had seen her was in M's office with her superior officer from MIS, the fussy Mr Grant.

`Then you should call me Carmel-a strange name for a good British girl, I know." She smiled and the entire room seemed to brighten. `You did manage to slip our little phantom friends, I hope.

He smiled and sat next to her, his nostrils noting the subtle trace of a very expensive scent. `They were dealing with a fire in my flat when I left." `Good. Might I suggest we go somewhere a little more private. I have a great deal to tell you, and I really don't think I'm going to have all that much time. I fear my immediate boss, the preposterous Gerald Grant, will be out looking for me, and I think his message will be that I've overstepped the mark once too often.

Would your service have a job for a former member of the Security Service?" `It depends what kind of service she's offering?" `Well,' she paused, letting a wicked smile play around her lips. `Well, James, to begin with I have some nasty stories about the way my people cocked up the vetting of Laura March..." `I know about the brother." `Indeed.

Well, for one reason or another, there are secrets deeper than the maniac brother." `Such as?" `Such as her last lover the fiance' and the broken engagemen. How would that be for starters?" `Give me a name, just to humour me, Carmel." `David?" She smiled, her fingers brushing the back of his hand. `David Dragonpol.

`As in the greatest British actor since Olivier?" He heard the shocked surprise in his voice.

`The same." `Where can we go and talk?" `I'm on leave." Again the smile which was a mixture of wanton invitation and secret amusement.

`I've taken a room here for the week, on the premise that little Gerald won't look for me in London.

`You really mean the David Dragonpol?" `The actor, no less. Shall we go?" She rose and he waited for her to lead the way. As he followed her out to the elevators, Bond had one of those strange flashes of intuition which told him that this way lay monsters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MAN WITH THE GLASS HEAD

The name, David Dragonpol, slewed around Bond's mind as they rode the elevator up to the third floor. In that short space of time, he went through all he could remember concerning the great actor who was, in himself, an enigma.

The world had become aware of Dragonpol in the late 1970s when he had appeared, first, in a television dramatization of the life of Richard Wagner, then, later in the year, in a National Theatre production of Hamlet. It was his first leading role on stage, and he had only left the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the spring.

What followed was theatrical fairytale history.

Dragonpol had a stunning stage presence, was tall, fine looking, and with that extraordinary talent of a truly great actor-the ability to change both voice and appearance almost at will. After his huge success as the Prince of Denmark he directed and played in Richard III and The Merchant of Venice.

Both productions had taken not just London, but the world, by storm and Hollywood came calling with offers he could not refuse.

He did five films before returning to the stage, and by the early 1980s, David Dragonpol was hailed as one of the greatest living British actors, second only to Olivier.

During the film period, one reviewer had commented that he was .... as impressive in his pauses as he is when speaking the lines of a character. He has that unique gift, known to only a handful of film actors, which allows the audience to see into his head, as though you can view his brain and mind. It is as if he is a man with a glass head." The jealous few derisively called him the Man with the Glass Head.

On stage he played just about every classic role, from the comic Lord Foppington in the bawdy Restoration comedy The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger, to Firs, in Chekhov's The Cheny Orchard, and on to Lear. He also created new characters like Justin Marlowe, the seedy confidence trickster in a first play Graft by unknown author Jack Russell; and the Mystic in a clever reworking of the general plot of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He was a household name, and within a decade enhanced the art of acting.

Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, Dragonpol whose ancestry could be traced back to the Domesday Book retired from both stage and screen in 1990, for what were described as `personal and private reasons Rumours spread: that he had Aids; that he had been the victim of a nervous breakdown which had destroyed both his talent and confidence; that some unknown tragedy had struck within his family he had always kept his private life strictly to himself, and even the most skilful and unprincipled journalists had failed to break into his privacy. They tried to track him down, but David Dragonpol eluded Press and the other media, disappearing as though he had never been.

Bond had seen him on stage and film, then once in the flesh, dining at Fouquet's in Paris with the British director Trevor Nunn, and swore he could feel the creative static right across the busy restaurant.

As they reached Carmel Chantry's door, he felt a strange sense of de Ja vu, as though the David Dragonpol of that time was very near at hand.

The room was on the small side, though pleasant enough and well furnished. Carmel slipped out of her suit jacket, to reveal a white silk shirt which showed off her slim waist and clung tightly to neat, firm breasts. She dropped on to the bed, propping herself against the padded headboard, indicating that Bond should take the one easy chair.

`Okay, what about Laura March and David Dragonpol?" He tried to look elsewhere as her skirt rode higher up her thighs.

`Oh, James." She gave a little throaty laugh, and arched her body.

`You mean I have lured you into my web and you still want to talk business?" He looked up and saw that her lips and eyes were almost mocking him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. `It's all right,' she smiled. `I did lure you here to talk business, but I get so few opportunities to p,lay the femme fatale that the role carries me away.

`Then why the disguise?" `Which disguise?" `I'm not sure. Either the disguise you wore when you came to see my Chief, or the one you're wearing now?" She shifted on the bed. `Actually, this is the real me." `Then why the frumpish outfit, the granny glasses and severe hairdo when you came calling?" `Gerald,' she sighed.

`Grant?" `Master of the Anti-terrorist Section, lord of all he surveys. Gerald Grant is the complete paranoid.