Bond is called in by M for a new assignment

At Ormond Yard there is a lift of sorts but being so incredibly slow nobody seems to use it, preferring instead the back stairs. That’s probably also because the building comprises only four floors, and the tiny top apartment has always been mine.

Winding up the cream blinds admits morning sunshine glancing across the roofs of Westminster, still damp after overnight rain. Today I have no need of either umbrella or raincoat as M insists that agents are collected by official car, a device to ensure that we are never late for appointments. I have brushed off my best Savile Row suit, bought as a pair two decades earlier, and found an appropriate silk tie to lift the pin stripe.

A double blast from a car horn tells me, not only that the car has arrived, but that the driver must be my old ministry colleague. You will recall Mireille from our earlier exploits in Buenos Aires, her Quebecois French undiminished despite years living in London working for the ministry. ‘Bonjour, James, ca vas?’

As my few readers will know, I am neither the most cheerful person in the morning, nor the most loquacious, but Mireille’s infectious smile lifts my mood.

‘You know, Mireille, I could have walked from the flat to the MOD in twenty minutes, and I expect you are going to trundle me round St James’s, Pall Mall and Cockspur Street to get there.’

None of the ‘trundling’ if you don’t mind, James, I’ll have you know that we have a new Vauhall flotte.’...‘And you’ve got the right route, but the wrong destination’, she adds with a half-smile.

M’s office is on the eighth floor of the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall; but true to type, it seems that she has arranged our meeting instead at the Savoy Hotel in the Strand. Mireille will drive to the Strand entrance. M, however, will no doubt walk by the back streets to Savoy Place where she will slip in through the staff door, just as she did at Bar Notable Los Laureles in Buenos Aires.

Vollam, Savoy’s head doorman, instructs me to go straight to the Sorcerer room on the first floor, hidden away in the hotel’s beating heart. It is themed in scarlet and black, dominated by a large circular table surmounted with an elaborate chandelier. Everything about the room speaks of M, her tastes, her authority, her transition, and her sense of danger.

As I enter M is standing by the window looking down into Savoy Court. ‘Did you know Bond that this is the only road in London where we must drive on the right?’

At the table sit Paul Savident and Richard Hammond, the former checking figures on a spreadsheet, whilst the latter files a broken nail. With his back to the fireplace stands Norm, international photographer, the government’s principal agent in Northern Ireland. Behind me I hear voices, raised, but not in argument. They are the type of voices that you may hear frequently in grand hotels, raucous with a slight upper-crust polish. As they approach, their identities become clear:…Q… and his daughter, Xiomara.

‘Well, its like the old days…almost’, I say, immediately regretting my comment. Could Xiomara’s presence ever make up for the missing Moneypenny? My mind flashes back to the ‘Monumento Al Plus Ultra' at which Moneypenny met her death from a single-action semi-automatic M1911 pistol. I cough to clear my throat, ‘Good morning, M; good morning everyone - how nice to be back!’

In the next episode, Bond gets his instructions for his next assignment. What will that be? And will this be initiation for Xiomara?