Trigger Mortis Read online

  It took him another twenty minutes to drive home where he knew Gloria would be waiting for him. The thought of Gloria made him smile and relax a little behind the wheel. At the end of the day, this had all been for her.

  She was fifteen years younger than him, short and a little plump but in a way that excited him, her breasts and hips always fighting against the fabric of her clothes. She had been in her twenties when the two of them met and when he had told her about himself she had been thrilled. Here was a man who had been smuggled into the country from Europe and who worked in a top-secret research facility building space rockets. It was like something out of the cheap paperbacks she liked to read, and the fact that he was German, unattractive, and that he sometimes made painful demands of her didn’t seem to matter. They had been happy enough when they married and had both taken the decision to move north, choosing Salisbury because of its proximity to Wallops Island. They had bought a house and chosen the furniture together. But since then, things had not gone so well between them. They were unable to have children and she was bored in the house and bored at her job which was managing a local restaurant that barely came to life until the weekend. She didn’t want to hear anything more about rockets and these days she only reluctantly came to the launches. And yet Keller still loved her. He was certainly attracted to her. In a way he looked upon her as the ultimate status symbol, the validation of a lifetime’s work. She was his American wife. He deserved her.

  He had told her about his new friend, Harry Johnson, and what he had been asked to do. He wouldn’t have dreamed of going ahead without her approval. He was glad he had done so. The stakes were incredibly high. He was about to commit a crime which, if discovered, might see him charged with treason. But from the very start Gloria had been even more determined than him, urging him on when his courage failed. For weeks now, the two of them had been talking about the future they would make for themselves together, what they would do with the money, how careful they would have to be not to spend too much of it too soon. It seemed to Keller that his wife had transformed. He remembered now how she had been when he first set eyes on her. All her energy and lebensfreude had returned. And she had a renewed appetite in bed, giving herself to him with the same abandonment as on their wedding night.

  She was waiting at the front door of their wood-boarded bungalow with its single picture window and pull-up garage. It was a house straight out of a sales catalogue with its neat front garden and white picket fence. Keller parked up in the drive and went to her, carrying the attaché case. They kissed in the doorway. She was wearing a flower-patterned day dress, tied tight at the waist. Her blonde hair fell in curls to her shoulders. At that moment, Keller wanted her more than ever.

  ‘You’ve got it,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you count it?’

  ‘It’s all here. There’s no need.’

  ‘You should have counted it.’

  ‘We can do that inside.’

  They went in together, to the neat living room with its sofa, coffee table and flip-top TV. They opened the case and they counted the money, Gloria standing with her shoulders and buttocks pressing against him, his arms around her. When they were sure that it was all there, she twisted round and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I put some champagne in the fridge,’ she said.

  He followed her into the kitchen and stood there while she fumbled in the drawer. ‘I can’t find the damn corkscrew,’ she said.

  He went over to her, and it was only as he reached her that he remembered that you didn’t actually need a corkscrew to open a bottle of champagne and that was the same moment that she turned and he felt something pressing into him. He looked down and saw, impossibly, the handle of a knife jutting out of his stomach. It had to be a mistake. This couldn’t have happened. But then he looked up and met her eyes and knew that it was true. He tried to speak but the blood was already rushing out of him and it took his breath and his life with it. Still holding her, he fell to his knees, then, as she stepped aside, he pitched forward onto the floor. Gloria looked down at him and shuddered. It wasn’t the sight of his blood spreading over the linoleum that disgusted her. It was the memory of his hands on her body, the sour smell of his breath.

  There was little left to do.

  She had already bought the gasoline. She sprinkled it over her dead husband, over the kitchen, the living room, the stairs. Then she picked up the suitcase packed with the few things she intended to take with her and emptied the money into it. Finally, she lit a match.

  She took her husband’s Crosley station wagon, although it was a horrible car. At least she could rely on it to make it all the way across to California where she intended to begin her new life. She reached the end of the drive and turned into the road without looking back. And so she didn’t see the first flames as they leapt up behind her or the smoke weaving its way into the evening air.

  PART ONE:

  WHAT GOES UP . . .

  ONE

  Back to Work

  James Bond opened his eyes. It was seven o’clock exactly. He knew without having to look at the alarm clock beside the bed. The morning sun was already seeping into the room, feeling its way through the cracks in the curtains. There was a sour taste in his mouth, a sure sign of one whisky too many the night before. What time had he gone to bed? Well after midnight. And bed had not meant sleep.

  ‘What time is it?’ The woman lying next to him had woken up. Her voice was soft and drowsy.

  ‘Seven.’ Bond reached out and stroked the black hair, cut short above the neck, then gently trailed his finger down.

  ‘Come on, James. I need my shut-eye. It’s way too early.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  Bond swung out of bed and padded into the bathroom. It was one of the peculiarities of the flat in the converted Regency house where he lived, just off the King’s Road in Chelsea, that the brightly lit, white-tiled master bathroom was exactly the same size as the bedroom. Perhaps one was too small and one too large but Bond had got used to it and there was absolutely no point knocking the place about, wasting time with architects and builders simply for the sake of convention. He stepped into the glass shower cabinet and turned on the water, very hot and then icy cold for five minutes, the same way he started every day.

  He got out, wrapping a towel around himself, and went over to the basin. In a life where nothing was predictable, when even life itself could be threatened or terminated without warning, this morning ritual was important to him. It was good to start each day with a sense that everything was in its right place. He shaved, using the orange and bergamot shaving cream that he bought from Floris in Jermyn Street, then rinsed off. The mirror had steamed up and he ran a hand across the glass to expose blue-grey eyes that were quietly assessing him as they always did, a lean face and thin lips that could so easily be cruel. He turned his head to examine the burn on his right cheek, caused by a bullet fired at close range in a Stratocruiser high above the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, it had almost faded. Bond already had a permanent scar on his face and it occurred to him that one injury might be dismissed as a misfortune but two would most definitely invite comment – far from desirable, given his profession.

  He pulled on a pair of Sea Island cotton shorts, then walked back into the bedroom. The bed was empty, the sheets still warm with the memory of the night before. He went over to the wardrobe and took out a dark suit, a white silk shirt and a thin, double-ended grey satin tie. He dressed quickly, at the same time noticing, with approval, the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. Finally, he drew on a pair of black leather moccasins, then slipped his gunmetal cigarette case into his inside pocket, and made his way out. It was a little after seven thirty.

  Pussy Galore was waiting for him in the kitchen, wearing an oversized man’s shirt and nothing else. As he came in, she turned and looked at him with the extraordinary violet eyes that had first attracted him when he’d met her at the warehouse in Jersey City barely more than two w
eeks ago. Then she had been the head of a lesbian organisation, The Cement Mixers, brought in by Auric Goldfinger to help him pull off the heist of the century. As things had turned out, the two of them had become allies and then, inevitably, lovers. The conquest had been particularly satisfying to Bond who had instantly recognised in her that untouchable quality, a refusal to be loved. He had desired her the moment he saw her, walking towards him in a well-cut suit, holding her own in a room full of mobsters. He examined her now; the black hair carelessly cut, the full lips, the decisive cheekbones. It was hard to believe that this was a girl who had felt nothing but suspicion and hatred towards men until he had come into her life.

  She poured two cups of coffee – the extra-strong De Bry blend that Bond favoured – then brought a single boiled egg to the table.

  ‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘Boiled for three and a third minutes, just how you like it.’

  She didn’t eat anything herself. She’d already made herself a Bloody Mary with a large slug of Smirnoff White Label vodka and enough Tabasco sauce to set the lining of her stomach on fire. She sat with it in front of her, absent-mindedly stirring it with a stick of celery. ‘So what are you getting up to today, Bond?’ she asked. ‘You get to work at eight thirty. In my line of business, I never got out of bed before ten. I could think of plenty of things to do before breakfast, depending on who I was with. I used to stay in these swanky joints in New York and, I’m telling you, I gave “maid service” a whole new meaning. But you’re different, right? Saving the country three times before lunch . . .’

  In fact, Bond was booked in for a one-hour session in the shooting range located in the basement of his office. He would spend the rest of the day sorting through the paperwork that had piled up in his absence, perhaps breaking off for lunch with Bill Tanner, the Chief of Staff and his closest friend within the service. But he didn’t tell her any of this. What happened behind the walls of the nine-storey building near Regent’s Park was its own business, not to be discussed with anyone outside the profession. At the end of the day, it was easiest not to say anything at all.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t decided.’ The stick of celery made another circuit round the side of the glass. ‘I love this town of yours. Really, I do. Everything you’ve shown me – the Tower, the Palace, the Houses of Whatever-they-were . . . I never figured I’d come to London and now I understand why you Brits are so pleased with yourselves. Maybe I could live here. I could start looking for an apartment. Whaddya think?’

  ‘It’s a thought.’

  ‘A bad one. They’d never allow it. Who’d want a crook like me? Except you, and for all the wrong reasons.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I’m not in the mood for more sightseeing. Not on my own.’

  ‘I can’t take any more time off work.’

  ‘OK. I’ll go shopping. That’s what a gal’s meant to do in London, isn’t it?’ I’ll buy a hat.’

  ‘You’d look ridiculous in a hat.’

  ‘Who says it’s for me?’

  ‘I won’t be late. We can go out tonight. I can get a table at Scott’s.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’ She sounded bored. ‘Just so long as you don’t make me eat any more oysters. I reckon I can get through the evening without a mouthful of slime.’

  She waited until Bond had finished his egg, then lit two cigarettes – not the Morland brand which were specially made for him and which he preferred, but one of her own Chesterfields. She passed it across and Bond inhaled deeply, reflecting that the first cigarette of the day definitely tasted better when it came from the lips of a beautiful woman.

  They didn’t speak for a while. It was an uneasy silence full of dark thoughts and words unsaid. Bond drank his coffee and glanced at the front page of The Times which she had brought in from the front door. Nothing about the ructions in America. Those had slipped out of the front pages. A story about apartheid. The Medical Research Council was insisting that they had found a link between smoking and lung cancer. Bond glanced at the glowing tip in his left hand. Well, he had never smoked because he thought it was good for him and, if cancer had any fancy ideas about killing him, it would just have to take its place in the queue. Across the table Pussy finished her Bloody Mary. Bond slid the paper aside, stood up and kissed her briefly on the lips. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  Suddenly she was holding onto him and there was a hardness in her eyes. ‘You know – if you want me to leave, you only have to say.’

  ‘I don’t want you to leave.’

  ‘No? Well remember – you were the one who invited me here. I got by perfectly well without you and don’t think I need you now.’

  ‘Put away those claws, Pussy. I’m glad you’re here.’

  But was he? Sitting behind the wheel of his 4½ litre Bentley, cruising silently up towards Hyde Park, Bond thought about what he had said and wondered if he had meant it.

  What had begun with a routine enquiry about gold smuggling had turned into one of the most dangerous – and most fantastical – assignments of Bond’s career. Somehow he had found himself at the heart of a conspiracy that had brought together the elite of American crime syndicates including The Machine, The Cement Mixers and the Unione Siciliano. That was when he had met Pussy Galore and she had been with him at the end when Bond had confronted Goldfinger and forced his Stratocruiser out of the sky. In truth, she had done little to help him, but he had to acknowledge that knowing she was there, having a friend in the enemy camp, had spurred him on to make his hair-raising escape.

  It was only afterwards that the question had come – what was he to do with her? He had left America in a storm with the press demanding to know more. The FBI and the Pentagon were on full alert. The fact that Goldfinger had come close to using a chemical weapon on American soil had caused shock and outrage in the highest circles. Goldfinger had told Bond that he had killed the four main gang leaders but this still had to be confirmed and meanwhile their associates were being harried up and down the country with more arrests being made. Pussy Galore had played her part in the conspiracy. She was a known criminal who had graduated from cat burglary to organised crime. She had colluded in the murder of Mr Helmut M. Springer of the Purple Gang. It had all been a close-run thing and the Americans were in no mood to make exceptions. If she fell into their hands, she would go down.

  In the circumstances, Bond felt he had no alternative. He had taken her with him, justifying his actions by reporting (falsely) that she had agreed to co-operate and might have information that could help the Bank of England track down its missing gold. Pussy Galore had never been to London. She had nowhere to stay. It seemed only reasonable to install her in his own flat . . . at least until things had quietened down and they had decided what they were going to do . . .

  He was already regretting it. Pussy needed him. But there was something in his make-up that didn’t want to be needed, that resented the very idea. And the fact was that she was a fish out of water away from the streets of Harlem. Already the relationship was beginning to lose its appeal, like a favourite suit that has been worn one too many times.

  Bond knew he was being unfair but he never felt completely comfortable sharing his life with a woman. He remembered his time with Tiffany Case, how it had ended with pointless arguments, the two of them snapping at each other before she moved into a hotel and then, finally, left altogether. He still desired Pussy Galore but he did not want her. Even the boiled egg she had given him for breakfast had somehow irritated him. Yes, he had his fads. He liked things done a certain way. But he didn’t like to be reminded of it and he certainly resented the slight mocking quality in her voice.

  He didn’t know what to do with her. They’d had a wonderful few days together, visiting some of the tourist sights of London, and she’d loved everything with that sense of childish abandonment that comes of finally being out of danger. She’d insisted on taking a boat down the river and, sitting on the deck together, watching the various bridges glide
past, they could have been any couple, just two ordinary people enjoying each other’s company and then, later on, each other. And yet it couldn’t go on for ever. Bond was already feeling uncomfortable. Only the night before he had bumped into an acquaintance at the Savoy and had been quietly pleased to see the other man’s eyes gliding over the beautiful woman on his arm. But then she had spoiled it by introducing herself. Pussy Galore. The name, which had seemed both challenging and appropriate when he had first met her at the hoods’ congress in Jersey City, became jejune, almost puerile, in a serious London hotel.

  He was just glad that May, his elderly housekeeper, was away for a month, nursing her sister who was ill in Arbroath. What would she have had to say about the new arrival? Bond could almost hear her voice as he joined the traffic at Hyde Park Corner and swept into Park Lane. It was as if she were sitting next to him. ‘It’s all right for you, Mr James. Ye must do what ye want and it’s no’ my place to say otherwise. But if y’ask me, I’d say you’d do better with a nice young English lassie looking after ye. Or better still a Scottish one. And you know what they say. Choose yer wife with her nightcap on! You should take heed of that . . .’

  Two hours later, with the smell of cordite clinging to him, Bond stepped out of the lift on the fifth floor of the Secret Service headquarters and made his way along to the door on the far right. It led into a small anteroom where a young woman was sitting, sorting through the mail. She didn’t get up as he came in, which told Bond at once that she was displeased with him. Loelia Ponsonby was in every respect the perfect secretary. Discreet, loyal, efficient, she also happened to be strikingly beautiful – he simply could not imagine working with a woman who was plain or unattractive. Normally she would have fussed over him, taking his coat and filling him in on the latest office gossip. But she had overseen his travel arrangements, returning from America. She had typed up his reports. Doubtless she had noted that Bond had not returned alone and that one P. Galore was now ensconced in Chelsea. Loelia Ponsonby was not jealous. Such a trait would not have been part of her emotional make-up. But spending so long in a world made up, quite literally, of secrets and service, some of its austerity had rubbed off on her and she disapproved of an agent – particularly from the Double O section – cavorting with someone who might be at best a distraction and at worst a security risk.