Licence Renewed

bolts again. His stomach turned over. Surely Mary-Jane would not have the nerve – even at Murik's instigation – to return to his room for a second visit? The handle was turning, and for the second time that night Bond moved quickly to the door and yanked it open.

10 DILLY-DILLY

THERE WAS A LITTLE squeal as Lavender Peacock half fell into the room, and James Bond's arms. She quickly recovered, snatching at the door, but was too late to stop it closing behind her, with its ominous electronic click.

'Blast,' she said loudly, shaking out her long sheen of hair. 'Now I'm locked in with you.'

'I can think of worse fates,' Bond said, smiling, for Lavender was also dressed in her night clothes, making a distinctly more desirable picture than Mary-Jane Mashkin. 'Anyway,' he asked, 'haven't you got one of those neat little metal things that opens the door from inside?'

She leaned against the wall, pulling her wrap around her, one hand brushing back her hair. 'How do you know about those?' she started. Then: 'Oh Lord, has Mary-Jane been up here? I can smell her scent.'

'Miss Mashkin did play a scene of some ardour, but I fear she didn't go away contented.'

Lavender shook her head. 'She wouldn't expect that. I thought I might get here before they started to play tricks with you. Anton has a warped sense of humour. I've seen him put her on offer before now, just to test people. Have you got a cigarette?'

Bond took out his case and lit one for each of them. His mind had gone into a kind of overdrive. Quite suddenly he had recognised two of the things overheard in Murik's conversation with Franco, via the bug: two names that were familiar-Indian Point Unit Three and San Onofre Unit One. He was beginning to come to some conclusions.

Lavender inhaled deeply, then shook her head again. 'No, I haven't the privilege of being allowed to carry electronic keys. In this place I'm usually just as much a prisoner as yourself.' She gave a little smile. 'Don't doubt that you're a prisoner, Mr Bond.'

'James.'

'Okay; James.'

Bond gestured towards the bed, 'Make yourself comfortable now you're here, Lavender; and you might as well tell me why you are here.' He did not doubt that this might be yet another test.

She moved away from the wall, heading for one of the armchairs. 'I think I'd better sit over here. That bed's too much. Oh, and call me Dilly, would you? Not Lavender.'

'Dilly?'

'Silly old song-'Lavender blue, dilly-dilly'-but I prefer it to Lavender. You're honoured, incidentally. Only real friends call me Dilly. Nobody here would dream of it.'

Bond settled himself on the Sleepcentre, where he had a good view of his latest visitor. 'You still haven't told me why you're here, Dilly.'

She paused for a moment, taking another long pull at the cigarette. 'Well, I shouldn't be. Here, I mean. I suppose I'm taking a chance. Don't know if I should even trust you, James. But you've come out of the blue, and I've got to talk to someone.'

'Talk away.'

'There's something very strange going on. Mind you, that's not unusual for this place. My guardian is not like other men: but you know that already. I should ask you what you know about him, I suppose.'

Bond told her that he gathered Anton Murik was wealthy; that he was a nuclear physicist of some note; and had half promised him a job.

'I should be careful about the job.' She smiled-a knowing, somewhat foxy smile. 'Anton Murik hires people to do the dirty work. It's a terrible thing to say, but when he fires them, he does it in a literal sense,' she lifted her hand, holding the fingers as a child will play at using its hand as a gun. 'Bang!' she said.

Bond looked straight into her eyes. She was the kind of woman who had an immediate appeal for him. 'You sure you wouldn't be more comfortable over here?' There was a challenge in her eyes, and Bond thought he detected that familiar charge of static pass across the room between them.

'Probably too comfortable. No, James, I came to give you some advice. I said something strange is going on. It's more than that. It could even be something terrible, disastrous.'

'Yes? What sort of thing?'

'Don't ask what it is because I just don't know. All I can gather is that it has something to do with the Laird's plans for building a new kind of nuclear reactor. He left the International Atomic Research Commission because they wouldn't fund his idea. He calls it an Ultra-Safe Reactor. There's a mountain of money needed, and I think he plans to use you in some way. But first – apart from the danger of being involved with him – he's going to put you at risk. Tomorrow. I heard him talking to Mary-Jane.'

'Tomorrow? But he has his Games tomorrow.'

She stubbed her cigarette out in one of the large glass ashtrays. 'Quite. It probably has something to do with the Games. I really don't know.'

'I might get hurt then. It wouldn't be the first time.'

'No, but… Another cigarette?'

'Smoking damages your health, Dilly. It says so on the packets.' 'It's not just smoking that can damage you here, James. Give.'

He went over to her, lit her cigarette, then bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. She drew back fractionally, putting a hand up to his shoulder. 'That wasn't what I came for, James.'

'No?'

Firmly she moved her head. 'No. People've already got into a lot of trouble because of me. I just came as a kind of Cassandra, uttering warnings.'

'Just uttering warnings? I wonder, Dilly. You said you were taking a risk to trust me; that you were virtually a prisoner like me. I wonder if you came hoping that I'd get you away; that I'd take fright and run, carrying you off on the pommel of my saddle.'

'That's not on, I'm afraid. But I think you should get out, and I'm willing to help you.' 'So that I can ride back with the Fifth Cavalry and save you?'

'Maybe I'm beyond salvation.'

Bond squeezed her shoulder and went back to the bed. For a time they were silent. Did she, he asked himself, have any inkling of what was really going on? Already his mind had latched hard on to the locations of Indian Point Unit Three and San Onofre Unit One. He knew exactly what they were, and the possibilities of Murik's involvement with them carried things into a nightmare world.

He returned to Lavender's last words, 'Why beyond salvation, Dilly?'

'Because I am who I am – the Laird's ward, a distant relative, trapped in the outmoded traditions of this place, and by my guardian's intrigues.'

'Yet you're willing to get me out?'

'I think you should. Not just you, James. I'd probably say it to any stranger who came here and took the Laird's fancy.'

'I can't go yet, Dilly. You've whetted my appetite about what's going on here. If I find that it's something really dangerous, or even criminal, then I'll take you up on your offer. I'll let you give me a hand. If it comes to that, will you ride off for help with me?'

Once more she slowly shook her head. 'I was brought up here. It's all I know. Prisoner or not, there are certain responsibilities…' Bond showed surprise. 'Brought up here? I thought you had only been his ward…' he stopped, realising he had already given away too much. 'Legally only for a short time. But I've lived here-well- for ever.' 'And you don't like it, and yet don't want to leave?' She said that if she ran away now and something went wrong, things could be very bad for her. 'At least you can get out now, while the going's good.'

Bond said that was the last thing he wanted to do. Privately he also knew that it might be the only thing he could do. Triggering off the pen alarm from the castle roof-if he discovered the full extent