The AfricaKIN sign had been removed and the poster had been replaced with a ‘TO LET – ALL ENQUIRIES’ notice in the grimy window, now barred with a sliding iron grille. Bond stood across from the parade of shops in Bayswater feeling frustrated. This had been his key line of investigation; he recalled the shock he’d experienced on seeing the AfricaKIN logo on the nose of the Super Constellation at Janjaville airstrip. He had felt sure that Gabriel Adeka would – unwittingly or not – be the route to Hulbert Linck and then to Breed, or whoever else was behind the whole plot. Bond paced around. With the AfricaKIN door closed maybe Blessing – or Aleesha Belem – was the person to search for, but where would he begin to pick up that trail?
Then the door to the shop opened and a young man came out – a young black man – carrying a typewriter. He chucked the typewriter on the back seat of a Mini parked outside and was about to climb in and drive away, when Bond stopped him with a shout and crossed the road to introduce himself – without giving his name – as a friend of Gabriel Adeka and a long-time donor to AfricaKIN.
The young man – who said his name was Peter Kunle – spoke like an English public schoolboy. He let Bond into the shop so he could have a look around. Everything had gone on the ground floor, even the linoleum, leaving just an empty expanse of noticeably clean concrete amidst the general grime, almost as if it had been freshly laid; and upstairs in Adeka’s former office there was only a curling yellowing pile of posters that signalled the place’s previous function.
‘So did Gabriel close everything down when the civil war ended?’ Bond asked Peter Kunle, who had followed him up the stairs.
‘Oh, no. AfricaKIN still exists. He’s just moved everything to America.’
‘America?’ Bond was astonished.
‘Yes,’ Kunle said. ‘He’s set the whole charity up there – AfricaKIN Inc. He’s got major backers, apparently, very big sponsors.’
‘When did all this happen?’ Bond paced around, picking up a poster and dropping it – a starveling fly-infested child, all too horribly familiar now.
‘Maybe a few weeks or so ago,’ Kunle said. ‘Maybe a bit longer, actually. We all had this round-robin letter explaining what was happening.’
‘So everything changed just as the war was ending,’ Bond said, trying to get a sense of a narrative.
‘Yes. The charity now focuses on the entire continent. Not just Zanzarim – or Dahum, as was. You know, famines, natural disasters, disease, revolutions, anti-apartheid. The whole shebang.’
Bond was thinking hard. ‘Where’s he gone in America? Do you know?’
‘I think it’s Washington DC,’ Kunle said, adding, ‘I didn’t know Gabriel that well. I used to help out as a volunteer a little in the early days but there was too much harassment. It was quite frightening sometimes.’
‘Yes, he told me,’ Bond said.
‘He forgot that I’d lent him the office typewriter,’ Kunle said. ‘That wasn’t like Gabriel.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was very scrupulous,’ Kunle laughed. ‘Self-destructively honest. He even offered to rent the typewriter off me – one pound a week. I said no, of course. So it was odd that he just left it here and didn’t tell me. I had to ring up the landlord to get the keys and retrieve it.’
‘So, it’s now called AfricaKIN Inc.’
‘Yes . . . I suppose the offer was too good to refuse. Too much money on the table – a bright shiny future. A shabby rented shop in Bayswater hardly impresses.’
Peter Kunle could tell him little more and apologised as he locked up the place. Bond shook his hand and thanked him for his help.
‘Sorry – what was your name again?’ Kunle asked as he opened his car door.
‘Breed,’ Bond said. ‘Jakobus Breed. Do tell Gabriel I called round if you ever speak to him.’
They said goodbye and Bond wandered off up the road, pondering his options in the wake of all this new information. So: Gabriel Adeka had upped sticks for the USA and reinvented AfricaKIN in Washington DC as a global philanthropic concern overseeing the entire continent. Perhaps it was all perfectly legitimate and full of charitable integrity. He recalled his meeting with Gabriel Adeka and how impressed he’d been with the force of his quiet zeal and humanity . . . But Bond needed to ask him one pressing question: why was his charity’s name on the side of an aeroplane delivering weapons and ammunition to a war zone? What had that to do with his African kinsmen? If he couldn’t answer the question he might be able to point Bond in the direction of someone who would.
Bond paused to light a cigarette and noticed he was standing outside the cinema where Bryce Fitzjohn alias Astrid Ostergard’s vampire film had been playing the last time he’d been here in Bayswater. What had it been called? Oh, yes: The Curse of Dracula’s Daughter. It seemed like a year ago, not weeks, Bond thought, smiling to himself as he pictured Bryce’s unknowing, innocent striptease for him that night he’d broken into her house. Bryce Fitzjohn – yes, he’d be very happy to see her again, one day.
He wandered on, up towards Hyde Park, still ruminating. There was a trail, thankfully, but it led to America, to Washington DC . . . And thereby lay a major problem. He could buy a plane ticket but could hardly use his own passport to travel. He was meant to be convalescing in South Uist, not taking international flights across the Atlantic. One way or another word would get out and he’d be in trouble.
Bond crossed the Bayswater Road and strolled into Hyde Park. What he needed was a fake passport and he needed it fast – in a day, two days, maximum. This was the major disadvantage about going solo – lack of resources. Normally, he’d call Q Branch and have a perfect used passport – full of stamps and frankings from foreign journeys – with his new name in an hour. He thought about the numbers he’d jotted down from the contact list in his flat. No, there was no one who could do a complete job like that in the short time necessary. Bond sauntered on. Maybe he could steal someone else’s? He started glancing at passers-by, looking for men of his age who vaguely resembled him and then realised that most people didn’t conveniently carry their passport on them, unless they were foreign visitors. Perhaps he’d need to go to an airport. No, it wouldn’t be—
He stopped. It had come to him like a revelation. All you had to do was give your brain enough time to work. A solution always presented itself.