John Gardner - Never send flowers

`Before we begin, Captain Bond, I'd like you to take a look at this photograph." M slid a matt eight by ten, black and white print across his desk. His mood had been sombre from the moment Bond had entered the room.

It had been Moneypenny, the Chief's secretary, who summoned Bond to the suite of offices occupied by M and his personal staff, on the ninth floor of the anonymous building overlooking Regent's Park.

`You're to go straight in, take no notice of that.

She had nodded towards the door above which the familiar red `Do Not Enter' light flashed. As Bond took a pace forward, Moneypenny dropped her voice. `He's got a pair of our sisters in there." She gave him a quick little smile, before looking away, a fierce blush scalding her cheeks. The torch she carried for James Bond was no secret to anyone in the building.

The `sisters' were a man and woman from the Security Service, MIS, introduced to Bond as Mr Grant and His Chantry a portly man, dressed in the dark-suited Whitehall uniform, and a rather frumpish young woman, sitting to attention, inflexible, with her backside perched on the edge of her chair. Both of these officers looked uncomfortable, for members of the Security Service are seldom at ease when circumstances force them to ask favours of the Secret Intelligence Service. There was little doubt in Bond's mind that they were here to crave a boon from M.

He glanced at the photograph of a young woman, possibly in her early thirties, with light blonde hair, and a pixyish, pleasant face.

`Should I recognize her, sir?" Bond raised his eyebrows in query.

`Only you can answer that, Captain Bond." M remained unsmiling.

`I am aware that there are occasional cross-fertilizations between our service and our sisters." `She's one of yours?" Bond addressed His Chantry.

`Was one of ours." Impatient, but somehow full of suspicion.

He thought he could also detect a tiny fleeting stab of pain in her voice, and saw it pass across her face, there one minute, gone the next. He turned back to his Chief. `No, sir. No, I don't recognize the young lady." M nodded, ,then looked across at Grant. `Tell him what you ve just told me." His tone was not unfriendly, but nobody could doubt that the Old Man was in one of his tough, all business moods.

Grant, in his mid-forties, had a prissy mouth and a tendency to be fussy, his hands constantly straightening his tie, or brushing imaginary lint from his trousers. Bond put him down as a desk man personnel, or accounts.

After clearing his throat a couple of times, and fiddling with his cufflinks, Grant began tentatively.

`Her name is Laura March. Age thirty-five, been with our service for ten years. Worked five years with the Watcher Division, then moved on to Anti-terrorist Intelligence. Mainly analysis of raw information.

Very good record. Knew her stuff.

For a second he paused, as if treading on uncertain ground.

`And?" Bond gave him an encouraging smile.

`She's disappeared with the family jewels?" `She's dead." It came out flat and uneasy.

Murdered, it would seem." M filled the gap.

`In Switzerland,' His Chantry supplied. `She was on leave." `Ah." The truth was out, Bond thought. MIS's jurisdiction was effective only in the United KIngdom and its dependencies, a situation which often led to ill-feeling between the two organizations.

Grant sounded a shade petulant now. `That's why we need your help. She was staying in Interlaken Switzerland. . -` `I know where Interlaken is." This time, Bond was neither encouraging nor smiling.

`Switzerland.

Little place with lots of lakes and mountains. Lots of banks and chocolates as well." Grant frowned. `You're Interlaken?" `I know it's a tourist centre for the Bernese Oberland." Bond wanted to demagnetize the highly charged atmosphere, maybe even force a smile from this somewhat pompous man. So he half sang, "Gazing down on the Jungfrau, from our secret chalet for two." Kiss Ale Kate and all that.

`The only way you can gaze down at the familiar with Jungfrau is from a helicopter or an aeroplane.

Grant looked puzzled.

`That's the whole point,' Bond snorted. `Cole Porter wrote that song as a satire on the stupidity of some operettas..

`Captain Bond,' M snapped. `We do not require a lesson in musical comedies. This is a serious business. Let Mr Grant give you the facts.

Bond, still a little irritated at having been called away from what was to have been a delightful weekend, and possibly two reckless nights with the nubile His Helpful, knew how far he could go with M, and his Chief's voice had now hit what he liked to think of as the Mutiny on the Bounty level. He closed his mouth and nodded politely to Grant.

`It's a beautiful part of the world,' Grant continued lamely.

`And it appears that she was particularly fond of it. She had been there for two days, and yesterday morning she took the chair lift up to First, a very good viewing point above Grindelwald. Last night, she was found dead, about half a mile from the chair lift staging-point." `Dead as in natural causes, or the other kind?" `It would seem the other kind.`How?" Bond looked towards His Chantry who had gone pale, her eyes reflecting the anguish he had noted earlier.

`As you know, the Swiss authorities have a tendency to work by the book, Captain Bond. The police were called, treated the matter as a possible murder or suicide, did the usual things and then moved the body to Interlaken. They did an autopsy in the early hours of this morning, and the results are both puzzling and unpleasant." `I'm used to unpleasant matters." Bond had on grim business was slipped into his own sombre mode. If you cannot beat them, join them, he considered. `I've spent the past week looking at photographs, and reading autopsy reports on four terrorist assassinations, which might just impinge on matters of intelligence, so a fifth post mortem isn't going to make me queasy." Grant nodded. `The only unusual mark they found on the body was an angry bruise on her neck, just below the right ear. The skin was broken and they recovered a tiny fragment of gelatin. Part of a capsule which had penetrated the skin.

`How?" `We don't know. The Swiss won't commit themselves.

`So what was the cause of death?" Grant frowned. `They're still doing tests.

Nothing confirmed as yet, except that whatever killed her almost certainly got into her via the capsule. I understand that they've now brought some specialist forensic doctor up from Berne.

`And this, having happened in Switzerland, brings you to the point of your visit to us?" `We've been refused permission by both the Foreign Office and Swiss security to operate on their turf. They know of His March's link with us, and they're fairly paranoid.

`Point is,' M cut in, as though annoyed at Grant for taking too long to explain the full situation.

`Point is that they will accept Scotland Yard, or one representative from us." `And we're not happy about Mr Plod treading all over one of our own,' Grant added.

`So I'm the lucky winner?" Bond's spirits rose slightly. An all-expenses-paid weekend in Switzerland even __ relatively appealing.

`You fly out this afternoon." M did not even look at him.

`They'll be holding the inquest on Monday, so you'll have plenty of time to go over the ground.

`Haven't we got anybody in Switzerland any more, sir?" `You know how it is, Bond. Cutbacks, reorganization. Yes, we have somebody in Geneva, at the embassy...

`Well, can't. . ?` `No, he can't. He's on leave. In the old days we would have had him covered, but those luxuries are gone. You go out, flying the flag, to Berne this afternoon. They'll meet you at the airport and ferry you to Interlaken." `Who's they? The cops?" `No.

Swiss Intelligence. What used to be the old Defence Department Twenty-seven disbanded last January. They've reorganized like everybody else, and one of their people will meet your flight, take you around, show you the crime scene, fill you in and hold your hand at the inquest. Your job is simply to gather details and make sure the Swiss police have done a thorough job.. `They always do a thorough job,' Grant muttered. `They're Swiss, and the Swiss bring a new meaning to the word brusque.