James Bond, in his ninetieth year, sat in the sun-room at Shrublands and wondered when life had passed him by.

It had all been so very different, when he first came here fifty-five years ago. Then, it had been at M's request, to keep him in peak physical fitness for the mission that followed close behind. Shrublands had been used as a health centre for agents at the peak of their careers. Now, as a retirement home, it housed those whose service was almost over.

He looked out at that most hateful of sights, the croquet lawn. He recognised one or two of the players, had worked with some of them, met others in the Service canteen. They had all done their bit for Queen and Country. Did the world even remember, any more? Did they?

He caught sight of himself, reflected in the nearby French window. His black hair was almost gone now and the moustache he had adopted in middle age was flecked with grey. He had resisted every temptation in an attempt to keep his weight down, but the muscles had still wasted away. His bronzed skin was wrinkled. Only the steely gaze and the faint scar across his cheek revealed that here was still James Bond, 007, the original, and the only one truly to bear the name.

He must have dozed a little, because suddenly he sensed someone standing beside him. A hated female voice said:

"Mr Bond?"

Bond didn't bother to open his eyes.

"Commander Bond, Matron. I told you. First thing they teach you in the Service. Always read the file."

The Matron took no notice of this. Bond still didn't look. He knew her fake-red hair and fat pink face in every detail, and he was long past the age when nurses' uniforms turned him on.

"You have a visitor."

Bond opened his eyes.

He saw a carefully-preserved older woman, her once-dark curls now turned to silver. Her dark pink suit looked immaculate and she wore some beautiful jewellery. Her makeup and nails were perfection.

It had been many years, but he recognised the Cupid's mouth and the coolly insolent gaze.

"Trench, Sylvia Trench."

"Bond, James Bond." Sylvia took a chair beside him. "Thank you, Matron."

The Matron went away, and Bond sat up straighter in his armchair.

"How the hell did you find me? I thought the world had forgotten me."

"My late husband was on the Board of this place. It's amazing what one can find out."

"You're married?"

"Widowed. I had three husbands. All very rich men."

"You're looking good."

"You're looking bald."

"Thanks." Bond chuckled. "When was the last time?"

"...1964. A charity ball at the Savoy. Just before you flew off to Miami. I followed your career, from time to time."

"I looked you up. When I got back..."

"I got tired of being looked up. I didn't want to be Moneypenny, left in London. Pining for James Bond..." There was a mischievous smile around Sylvia's lips. "Or whatever your name is. It is a codename, isn't it?"

"For the others, it is! Mine's real."

"Of course."

"It is!" Bond stopped. "You always did know how to tease me."

"You always made it far too easy. You bastard. Leaving me behind all the time, while you went off, having fun."

"I was working!"

"Odd how your work always involved other women. The Russian one was blonde, wasn't she?"

"You're very well-informed." Bond paused. "She died, you know."

"Who?"

"Moneypenny. A few years back. Q's gone too, and M, and even the new M – the woman. I'm the last man standing. Or sitting." Bond smiled slightly. "Strange. I was supposed to be protecting them. Protecting everyone..."

Sylvia stood up, with remarkable speed for a lady of her years.

"Come on, 007. I'm taking you for a spin."

Sylvia waited in the entrance hall while Bond went to his room – and to its bathroom. He didn't want to admit to her that he needed to pee before going out. He found the most suitable suit he had – in dark tweed, with a white shirt and silk cravat. He still felt naked without a holster concealed beneath his jacket.

Matron gave him a faintly disapproving look as he signed out. He leaned nearer.

"I'll leave the door of my room unlocked. Be there at midnight."

He knew she wouldn't, and he would have had a stroke and died if she had, but a little flirtatious banter still kept him entertained. He wasn't sure he should try it on Sylvia. All these decades after he found her in his flat, she still had an agenda of her own.

He stepped out onto the forecourt. Sylvia made a dramatic gesture.

"Your chariot awaits."

Bond stared at the sight of a dark green Bentley. A grey-uniformed chauffeur stood waiting.

"I must be dreaming." He walked, as quickly as he could, towards the car. "It is! It's the same one. Where did you find her? I thought Q scrapped this, back in the Sixties."

"Evidently a pioneer of recycling. I found it at a car hire firm. Vintage vehicles, for weddings and movies."

Bond touched the bonnet, almost tenderly. He seemed inclined to head for the driving seat, but then changed his mind and went to the front passenger seat. The chauffeur held the door open for him. Sylvia seated herself behind.

"Are you OK? Want something across your knees?"

"Only you."

"James! You can't talk to girls like that, any more... Lunch is in the boot. As is the champagne."

"The '62, I hope."

"Oh, of course."

Bond laughed. The chauffeur revved the engine, and Bond relaxed at the familiar sound of the Villiers supercharger. Every blast took him back another ten years.

They completed a half-circuit of the Shrublands courtyard, then escaped.

Bond remembered every inch of these roads. They were much as they had been in 1965, with no ghastly housing estates or wind turbines to remind him of modern life.

Sylvia had donned a silk headscarf. "Takes you back, doesn't it? Though it makes a change for me to be the one calling the shots."

They rounded a bend.

"Do you know what it was like, having an absent boyfriend? Everyone at parties asking where you were, and I had to tell them I didn't know!"

"How do you think I've felt? With all those other men using my name, and my number? Even the latest one's on the verge of retirement now. Keep the legend alive, M said! While I got pensioned off at forty-two."

"I heard you went freelance."

"Troubleshooting. For a while. Then I retired to Jamaica. Then the money ran out. Along with my health. They just about remembered who I was, gave me a place at Shrublands."

"Poor James." Sylvia laughed. "Come on, let's give you one last outing."

The words troubled Bond. But he said nothing.

They had left the main road. The Bentley was bumping uncertainly along a country lane. Bond looked round.

"Where are we?"

The route ahead was shrouded by trees. They emerged beside a lake. Sylvia smiled as they came to a halt.

Bond started to get out of the car. "Nice spot."

"Yes, James," said Sylvia. "I don't think anyone will disturb us here."

Too late, Bond turned back.

The chauffeur was pointing a gun at him.

Bond stared into the blank face and expressionless eyes. He struggled to turn his mind back across the years.

"Karl Dieter Schumann."

"Karl Dieter Schumann... the Third."

"I believe I knew your grandfather, in East Germany."

"I believe you killed him."

"He was working for the Russians."

"And now I'm working for another of your enemies."

Bond leaned back in the well-upholstered seat of the Bentley. He had faced death many times, and was quite relaxed.

"SPECTRE, of course?"

"A new SPECTRE."

Bond glanced over his shoulder. "And your angle is...?"

Sylvia laughed. "Oh, James, don't you get it? I worked for them for over twenty years. Gibraltar. Argentina. Hong Kong. You wouldn't believe how many times we just missed each other. Your successors, too. I actually spent the night with another Bond! The one with the eyebrows. It was progress." She looked almost playful, between the wrinkles. "I got tired of waiting, so I decided to find out whom you were fighting against."

"I heard rumours there was a new Blofeld."

"He's very keen to have you dead. With the real Bond gone, and the legend exposed, MI6 will lose interest in any other Bonds. His greatest threat will be gone."

Karl was smirking. "It's time to explode the myth. And much of your English countryside."

He reached for the dashboard of the car and touched a button. The whole panel rotated to reveal further controls – and a digital readout. Another touch from Karl, and a three-minute countdown began. There was a faint ticking sound.

Bond began to realise he was sitting not in a car, but in a bomb.

Bond was able to turn his head, enough to glare at Sylvia.

"So that's all this is. A pathetic revenge plan."

"You underestimate us. A world with no more Bonds? It'll be ours for the taking."

"Except... aren't you about to go up as well?"

Karl levelled the gun. "Any second now, a SPECTRE helicopter will get us out of here."

They sat for thirty seconds. Bond looked at the sky.

"I don't think it's coming."

He threw his head back and laughed.

"Oh, that's brilliant. Didn't you realise? You're part of the retirement plan, as well." He sneaked out a hand towards the gear lever. "Time I put you into reverse."

Inside a second, he flipped up the top of the lever and pressed the button concealed inside.

Karl had just enough time to yell before the ejector seat activated and sent him into the depths of the lake.

Bond turned to Sylvia, with a grin.

"He made a big splash." He looked at the gear lever. "Good old Q. He must have piloted it on this, before fitting it on the DB5."

"Er... James? The bomb!"

"Oh, yes. I'll talk to you later about the bomb. Meanwhile..." Bond sprang out of the car with a speed he hadn't attained in years. He raised the bonnet. "Get in the front, tell me how that countdown's doing."

Sylvia didn't argue. She made for the passenger seat. "One minute, fifty seconds."

Bond disappeared beneath the bonnet.

"It's surprisingly easy to convert a supercharger into a time-bomb, and to defuse it, too. Though if you're only carrying a pair of nail scissors..."

"James! Hurry!"

"First the red wire, then the green, then I play for time because I haven't done this since 1970..."

"James Bond, I hate you."

"Relax. We'll have that champagne yet. Now..." Bond continued to work. "How's it doing?"

"Forty. Thirty-five. Thirty..."

"Oh, we can't have that. Wait. I forgot something..."

Sylvia caught her breath.

Then the countdown stopped.

Bond emerged into view. He came and looked at the countdown for himself. He smiled as he saw the remaining seconds. 007. Then his smile faded, as it flipped back one more time to 006.

"Damn. I'm getting slower."

He went and took one last look at the engine, before lowering the bonnet.

"That should hold."

He came back to the driving seat, opened a hidden compartment in the dashboard. Inside was a Walther PPK. It had been there a long, long time, but it was still loaded, and it worked. Even Q Branch hadn't known he had a spare.

He levelled it at Sylvia as he clambered into the car.

"It's time I took you for a spin!"

He revved the engine and reversed their journey.

Sylvia sat back in her seat. She was still the model of well-bred calm, but her eyes showed the fear within. Bond was driving faster and faster, now they were back on the main road. In his eyes she could see the young Bond again, brash, brave, reckless. With his car and his gun, old age was gone and he was 007 again.

She kept her voice steady.

"So what happens now?"

"Now?" Bond smiled. "I drive you to London. Find where MI6 is, these days. Hand you over. Become a hero, all over again."

They were approaching a bridge. A sign helpfully told motorists that the River Thames lay below.

Bond's smile grew colder.

"Then they make me a nice cup of tea, which I hate, and send me back, to waste away quietly in my nursing home. No. I never did like playing by the rules. I think you deserve better than that. I think I do, too."

Sylvia looked at him. The fear was naked now.

"James..."

She looked into his face, and saw the Bond she had first met, young, dark-haired, sexy... and dangerous. She saw his scar... and the cold eyes.

Very quietly, he said:

"I've done this kind of thing before, you know. For my first girl."

Sylvia screamed. "James!"

Bond accelerated hard, and spun the steering wheel to the left.

Sylvia had no time for a second scream before the Bentley left the road and crashed straight through the barrier.

For a moment it hung in the air, a giant green bird.

Then both of them went down to the river for one last time.

In memory of Sir Sean Connery, 1930-2020