the shelves and a heavy bureau filled the remaining space. Three dark German prints of mountain scenes, with clouds gathering between valleys, in ugly wooden frames hung on the walls. The floor was of the same polished pine with a number of thick rugs placed haphazardly around a central oblong carpet. Bond was deeply suspicious of rugs. It also worried him that the room had no windows. There were three doors besides the entrance, one in each wall, which Bond took to belong to the bedrooms.
‘I have the room over here,’ said Ebbie as she went to a door set almost opposite the entrance. ‘I hope nobody minds?’
She looked Bond straight in the eyes, then invitingly through slightly lowered lashes. She stood with one leg forward, bent at the knee, showing the curve of her thigh under the thin material of her skirt.
‘First come, first served, as my old Nanny used to say,’ he said, nodding at her. Then, turning to Heather, he told her to take her pick. She shrugged and went to the door on the left. Sinister, Bond thought, recalling the old theatrical tradition of the pantomime devil making his entrance stage left:
The whole tangle of questions and theories came into the open again. Where did Jungle Baisley fit in? Had M misled him? Had Swift really made a terrible error of judgment in telling Heather to activate Smolin? How was Smolin so well briefed about his movements, and why had he felt it necessary to distance himself from the London incident, when Heather had almost died? Had the delicious Ebbie lent her raincoat and scarf to the Ashford Castle chambermaid on purpose?
He entered his bedroom and found the furniture equally oppressive. There was a huge bed with the head intricately carved in solid oak, a heavy free-standing wardrobe and an oldfashioned marble topped washstand doubling as a dressing table. The bathroom was modern, in unlikely avocado green, with pine surrounds to the tiny cupboard, a bath built for a midget and even a bidet squeezed between the bath and lavatory. Bond went back into the bedroom to find one of the men standing in the doorway holding his getaway case.
‘The lock is, I fear, broken,’ he said in English. ‘The Herr Colonel ordered the contents inspected.’
The Herr Colonel can take a running jump, thought Bond. Aloud, he thanked the man. It was highly unlikely that they had found anything to interest them. His two overt weapons, the ASP and the baton, had been removed, but they had left his cigarette lighter, wallet and pen – all three from Q Branch with Q’ute’s blessing. It struck Bond as odd that so far Smolin had not subjected him to a body search, which could easily have revealed items secreted in his clothing. Such an oversight was out of tune with his reputation.
As Bond was about to open the getaway case, he heard the two girls talking loudly in the sitting room. Quickly he went out, motioning them to stop – pointing at the telephone and lighting to remind them that the rooms were almost certainly bugged.
He needed to find some way of talking unheard to the girls, to discover the three key questions Heather had been instructed to ask Smolin, and more details about Swift. Once they could have crowded into one of the bathrooms, turned on all the taps and talked. But that old dodge had long gone out of the window with modern filtering systems that cut out extraneous sound. Even talking in whispers with a radio on at full volume was no longer safe.
He strode to the bureau and tried the flap. It was not locked and sure enough, writing paper and envelopes had been left in the pigeon holes. Taking some of the paper, he gestured at the girls to sit down near one of the heavy side tables and carry on talking while he went to the door and looked out. They must have been very sure of themselves, for the door was unlocked and there appeared to be no guards in the corridor.
Back at the table, seated between the girls, he bent over the paper and took out his pen. Writing quickly, trying to make some logic of his own confused suspicions, he set questions in order of importance. The girls were flagging, their conversation becoming stilted, so he asked Ebbie how she had been picked up.
‘It was done by telephone. After the girl’s murder.’
Ebbie moved a fraction closer to him, her hand brushing his arm. Bond started to write his questions, two to each sheet of paper, and double sets, one for Ebbie, another for Heather.
‘They telephoned you?’
‘
She allowed her shoulder to press hard against his arm, leaving in its wake a tingling sensation that he found decidedly pleasant.
Bond passed two sheets of questions to Heather, and a couple to Ebbie, miming for them to write replies. Heather had a pen, but Ebbie looked lost, so Bond gave her his. Meanwhile he continued the conversation, as though desperate to know the answers.
‘And they said they were from Britain?’
There was a slight hesitation, for Ebbie was trying to write. Then she said, ‘Yes, they said they came from the people we used to work for.’
She smiled at him, revealing small, perfect teeth and the tantalising pink tip of her tongue.
‘You had no doubts?’
‘None. They seemed to be perfect English gentlemen. They promised me one night at a safe place, then an aeroplane would come and I would go to some other place.’
She frowned and continued to write, still allowing her arm to press against Bond’s shoulder.
‘Did they say anything about Heather?’
There was an agonising silence while she wrote some more.
‘Safe. They say she is safe and will be coming soon. I never . . .’
He turned to Heather, who had apparently been writing without trouble. ‘You were unconscious in the ambulance,’ he said, giving her a broad wink so that she would not be disturbed by what he was going to say. ‘Smolin talked to me about something called Cream Cake. Do you know about that?’
Her jaw dropped, her mouth starting to form the word ‘but’, then she remembered their audience and said she was not to speak of it. The whole business had been a despicable trick; neither she nor Ebbie were responsible for it.
‘It was a mistake,’ she repeated, ‘A most horrible mistake.’
Bond leaned over and began to read what they had already written, his eyes moving quickly first down one page, and then the other. As he read, the suspicion that had started earlier returned. At that moment the door burst open to reveal Smolin flanked by two of his men. There was no point in trying to hide the papers, but Bond pulled them off the table, hoping to misdirect Smolin’s gaze by rising to his feet.
‘James, I’m surprised at you.’ Smolin’s voice was soft, almost soothing and therefore more threatening. ‘You think we only listen to what we call our guest suite? We have
One of the men stepped towards them, but Heather snatched the sheets from Bond and headed for her bedroom door, light and very fast on her feet. The man sprang at her in a rugger tackle, missed and fell against the wall as her door slammed and the key turned in the lock.
Smolin and the other man had automatics in their hands, while the other man who had fallen was back on his feet, pounding on the door and shouting in German for Heather to come out. But there was no sound until eventually the door opened and Heather stalked haughtily into the room. From behind her, smoke curled out of a metal waste bin.
‘They’re gone,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘burned. Not that they would have meant much to you, Maxim.’
Smolin took one pace forward and hit her hard in the face, first with the back of his hand, then the palm smashing into her cheeks. She staggered with the blows and then straightened up, her face scarlet.
‘That’s it. Enough!’ Smolin drew in a breath through his clenched teeth. ‘We won’t wait for food. I think the time has come to talk – and talk you will. All of you.’
He turned back to the door and shouted for more of his men, who came noisily up the stairs, weapons drawn.
‘You first, I think, James.’ Smolin’s finger was aimed like a dagger.
There was little point in struggling as two of the men seized Bond’s arms and hustled him out along the corridor and down the main staircase.
