Trigger Mortis Page 6

  Bond ran over to Pussy Galore and released her. She fell against him and he felt the gold paint sticking against his clothes. He was sickened by what she had just been through and wished that he had listened more carefully when she had described the two men following her in London. CIA indeed! She didn’t speak as he laid her gently on the ground and took off his jacket to cover her lower body. Using his bare hands he rubbed off as much paint as he could, exposing the flesh and, hopefully, allowing it to breathe.

  ‘What have they done to her?’

  Logan Fairfax was suddenly there beside him, and Bond glanced up at her angrily. ‘I thought I told you to wait in the car.’

  ‘That’s right, James. And I decided to ignore you. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on here? Who is she?’

  ‘A friend.’ The two words sounded feeble, the stale admission of a suburban husband found cheating by his wife. While he had been trying to seduce Logan over roast lamb and a classic Bordeaux, Pussy Galore had been walking into this. ‘We have to get her into hospital,’ he went on. ‘I can carry her to your car.’

  ‘Do it quickly. We’ll take her to Marlborough.’

  ‘James?’ It was the first word Pussy had spoken since he had reached her and it seemed to Bond that she spoke it with hostility. She couldn’t open her eyes. The paint had sealed the lids shut.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he said to her. ‘We’re going to get you some help.’

  The flames were still flickering on the grass and around the dead bodies as Bond carried her back to the car.

  FIVE

  No Regrets

  Marlborough had a cottage hospital – it looked more like a private house – and Bond was relieved to see a doctor and two nurses come hurrying towards them, alerted by the speed of Logan’s approach and the scything of the tyres as she stopped. Pussy Galore was lying on the back seat, half covered by Bond’s jacket, her breathing rapid, her eyes closed. Bond stood back as the medics helped her out onto a stretcher.

  ‘What on earth happened?’ the doctor asked. He was young, only recently out of medical school, with his white coat flapping around him. He seemed more offended than shocked. He had never seen anything like this before.

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  ‘Who did this to her?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter right now. Can you just look after her. Please?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘All right. You need to clean yourself up.’

  Bond had gold paint smeared on his arms and across his chest. He could feel it sticking to his hands. He watched as Pussy was carried into the building. Logan was standing beside him. She looked at him curiously and Bond wondered if she thought this was his fault.

  He cleaned himself as best he could in a downstairs bathroom and was waiting when, an hour later, the doctor returned. It was well after midnight and there was a sort of tiredness in the air, a sense of respite that only a hospital can have.

  ‘She’s all right. She wasn’t hurt too badly and I’ve given her a shot of Pentothal to calm her down. We managed to get the paint off with turpentine and baby oil. The worst of it was around her eyelids, nose and mouth. I’m afraid there’s going to be some irritation there and she’s going to have to stay in for at least twenty-four hours. Do you live nearby?’

  ‘I have a house here,’ Logan said.

  ‘Well, she’s lucky she wasn’t blinded. I can’t imagine who would do such a thing to a woman. It’s disgusting. Have you spoken to the police?’

  ‘They’re on their way.’

  Bond had used the payphone in the hospital reception but he hadn’t called the police. He had spoken to the duty section officer in London and told him everything that had happened, knowing – with a sinking feeling – that it meant opening the whole can of worms about Pussy Galore. M had told him to get rid of her – ‘alternative arrangements’ as he’d put it – and although Bond had fully intended to do something eventually, he had certainly been slow off the mark. God knows how the old man would respond when he read the signals on his desk the following morning. Meanwhile, Bond could imagine all the phone calls and the MOST URGENTs making their way between the Secret Service and Scotland Yard throughout the night. There were two dead men to be explained; Bond himself; and an American woman who had been the victim of a bizarre attack. This sort of thing didn’t usually happen in quiet Wiltshire towns. The local press would be on to it like carrion crows and they’d have to be dealt with too. Meanwhile, the race at Nürburgring was just four days away and Bond knew that even if Logan was right and he was responsible for what had happened, he couldn’t afford to hang around.

  He spent the night crumpled on an armchair and he was there in the ward soon after Pussy woke up. Logan Fairfax had stayed in the room with her while she slept but now she had gone home to get some things – ‘women’s things,’ she’d said – and Bond and Pussy were on their own. The hospital had just twelve rooms and she had been put at the far end of a corridor, as far away from the other patients as possible. They’d had to shave off some of her hair. She was pale and her voice was hoarse. But as she sat, propped up on pillows, those amazing eyes of hers were full of fight and in every other way she seemed her old self.

  ‘Well, whaddya know,’ she began. ‘For once, Mr James Wonderful Bond got it wrong. I seem to recollect you said I had nothing to worry about. Just a figment of my imagination. Was that what you said? And before you say anything else, who’s that girl you’ve been hanging out with? Pretty as a peach with those chocolate-brown eyes. I can’t remember you mentioning anything about dinner à deux in some swanky pad as part of your mission to save the world.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pussy,’ Bond replied. ‘She’s just been helping me with my work. That’s all. Now tell me what happened. How did you get here?’

  ‘OK.’ She took a breath. ‘After you left, I didn’t know what to do. Don’t get the idea that I was a little-girl-lost without you! I was bored – that’s all. I hung around the house for a while. I did a bit of shopping. I saw a movie. To be honest with you, I was beginning to think of heading back stateside. I’m not quite used to being Mrs Stay-at-Home – know what I mean? Anyway, I was walking down that King’s Road of yours when I saw them again – two guys in a grey automobile. The same two guys I’d seen outside that gallery I went to. That was when I knew I had a problem. I thought of calling you but I’m not the sort to jump on the phone when I’m in trouble. Jeezus – when I was in Harlem, I took out plenty of hired muscle myself. It’s amazing what you can do with a broken bottle and a little determination. A gal has to look after herself, and sitting there with my knees trembling, you know, I began to wonder what exactly had happened to me since I came to London with you.

  ‘In the end, I decided to come down here. I thought I’d surprise you and let you handle it your own way. It’s like I said the first time this happened, I didn’t want to embarrass you. I was sure your bosses wouldn’t be too pleased with you if I muscled in on your operation and there were dead bodies turning up on your doorstep.’ (Well, that’s true enough, Bond thought.) ‘I hired a car and drove down. It was good to get out of London anyway. I don’t know how they followed me. Trust me, I took care but maybe it’s because you people drive on the wrong side of the road and you’ve got so many twists and turns and traffic circles . . . I don’t know. Maybe they already knew where you were staying and they got here ahead of me. They certainly knew all about that stone circle place.’

  She broke off as a large, matronly type suddenly entered the room, carrying a cup of tea and two coconut fingers on a tray. Pussy Galore looked down disdainfully. ‘Thanks all the same,’ she said. ‘But I don’t suppose you could get me a tomato juice with a large slug of vodka?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ The nurse set down the tray and left.

  Bond waited until the door had closed. ‘So what happened when you got here?’ he asked.

  ‘I found the hotel and checked into your room. I told them I was your wife. It seemed the easi
est thing to do. So I was waiting for you to turn up – I see you’ve been taking your work very seriously, by the way – and then I got hungry and went down for dinner. Horrible food too. So while I was eating, the waiter came in and told me there was someone asking for me in the reception and naturally I assumed it was you. I came out only to find Abbott and Costello and before I could do anything, one of them had pulled out a gun, keeping it low so only I could see. There was nothing I could do. They were pros – I could see that from the start. They made me walk out with them and bundled me into a car – and the rest of it, I guess you know.

  ‘So tell me about Miss Fairfax. How does she fit into all this? Are you really here on a secret mission or did you just tell me that so you could skip town?’

  ‘She’s a racing instructor.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s complicated, Pussy. I can’t really tell you about my work but it looks like I’m going to have to drive in a race and she’s been helping me.’

  ‘She was nice to me too. She was here all night and when I woke up she stayed, talking to me. I’m getting out of here later today and she says I can move into her place.’

  ‘Is that what you want to do?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going back to London on my own, that’s for sure. And you can keep your hotel. It’s not my style. I don’t know what I want to do, really. I need a bit of thinking time. Can you give me that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  In fact, Bond didn’t see her for the next twenty-four hours. First he had to look into the local police station where he was kept waiting in a blankly empty interrogation room by a scowling detective inspector determined to show that he wasn’t going to be pushed around – and certainly not by some hotshot from the city. Fortunately (as Bond found out later), a call came in from Ronnie Vallance, the head of Special Branch, and after that, Bond was rushed through paperwork and hurried out of the building as if he had contracted some particularly contagious disease.

  Next, he drove back to London for meetings with Bill Tanner and a wasted afternoon in the Records Department. The two men who had taken Pussy were American – that is, their clothes, their haircuts and their dental work were American but they had carried absolutely nothing that might identify them; the mark of true professionals. One of them had a teardrop tattoo on his shoulder, made not with ink but with melted rubber, probably from a shoe. That suggested prison time. Photographs and fingerprints had been sent to New York but it would be days before any results came in.

  ‘M isn’t too pleased,’ Tanner said, over lunch in the officers’ canteen. ‘He told you to get rid of that girl. He certainly didn’t expect her to turn up in the middle of Wiltshire.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Bond agreed.

  ‘How are you getting on with the Maserati?’

  For the next few minutes Bond talked about the skills he’d learned and the pleasures of putting the car through its paces and the Chief of Staff had to smile. ‘Girls and fast cars. Perhaps you’re in the wrong job.’

  That night, Bond stayed in his own flat. He realised that it was the first time he had been alone for quite a few weeks – and it also occurred to him that he preferred it that way. Steadily, without really enjoying it, he drank his way through half a bottle of Old Grand-Dad, then threw himself into bed. He slept badly, snapshot images of Pussy, Logan and – absurdly – M flickering through his mind. But of course that was what had caused his malaise. Bond liked to keep his life – and his women – in separate compartments, something which, for once, he had signally failed to do.

  He woke up with a nagging hangover and the sense of disgust that comes with drinking alone, showered, and after three strong coffees, drove back to Marlborough. But by the time he got to the hospital, Pussy Galore had gone. According to the matron, she had checked out at lunchtime and she hadn’t turned up at the hotel either. He wondered if she was staying with Logan. Perhaps she was angry with him. Both women must have known what was in his mind, the way he had toyed with them. So much for separate compartments. With nothing else to do he went through the Nürburgring photographs one last time. He suddenly had an urge to be out of the country.

  He was sitting, smoking, in the lounge, when she walked in. She was wearing a loose-fitting raincoat and sunglasses that he hadn’t seen before. It was possible that they were covering the damage that had been done to her eyes but it occurred to him that she was dressed for travelling. She sat down opposite him.

  ‘I’ve come to say goodbye,’ she said.

  Somehow he wasn’t surprised. He waited for her to continue.

  ‘I’m heading back to Harlem. Seems to me I’m a sitting duck if I stay here and I need to get my gang back together – what’s left of it – and pick up where I left off. One thing’s for sure. I’ve seen enough of the British countryside to last a lifetime.’ She reached for Bond’s cigarette. He handed it over and she inhaled, her eyes never leaving his. ‘You and me got it wrong, Bond. You made a mistake inviting me and I made a mistake coming. But you know what I always say. There are two types of mistake; bad ones and good ones. You were definitely one of the good ones. We had fun, didn’t we? That Goldfinger thing was crazy and I’m glad that in the end we were together just so I could find out what it was like. But there’s no future in it. You know it and I know it and we might as well pack it in before it all goes sour.’

  ‘Whatever you want, Pussy.’

  ‘Don’t say that to me, you bastard! It’s what you want too – don’t think I don’t see it. You know what the big difference is between us? You can’t live with a woman in your life.’

  She took another drag on the cigarette and handed it back.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ Bond asked.

  ‘There’s a flight out of Heathrow this evening.’

  ‘Let me at least give you a lift to the airport.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I’m not going alone.’

  Her eyes flickered to the doorway and Bond saw Logan Fairfax standing there. There was a gleam in her eyes that he recognised and understood at once. She had never looked happier.

  ‘Yeah. I know it’s insane,’ Pussy continued. ‘We’ve only known each other five minutes. But you gotta remember how we met and we had a whole night being next to each other and talking and somehow we both knew . . . something had clicked. We’re going to take it one day at a time but – what the hell? If you don’t live dangerously, why bother to live at all?’ She got up and held out a hand. ‘No regrets?’ she asked.

  Bond took it. ‘No regrets,’ he said.

  She walked over to Logan and Bond watched as the two women disappeared together.

  After they had gone, he went and paid his bill. A few minutes later, he drove away.

  SIX

  Nürburgring

  Twelve years after the war, it was still too soon to be back in Germany. Bond wondered if he would ever be comfortable there. The ghosts were still present – the dead and the living. Driving through what was left of old Cologne, he reflected on the sickness that had seized hold of a nation and propelled it down the path to almost total destruction. He couldn’t avoid it. The evidence was all around him in the gaping holes that still remained in the city and the cathedral – grim in that peculiarly Teutonic way – that had only been left intact so that the RAF could use it as a direction finder. All the rebuilding – the new park, the lakes, the cable car, the strikingly ugly blocks of flats that were going up on all sides – could not disguise it.

  Bond’s attitude to the war had always been simple. It was a cataclysmic struggle between good and evil, starker and more straightforward than any war that had ever been fought. As a teenager, in the thirties, he had been taken skiing and climbing in Kitzbühel, a medieval town in the Tyrol, and on his return to London, acting on his own initiative, he had sat down and painstakingly compiled a report on what he had seen – planes, troop movements, political activity and so on – which he had then sent with a covering letter to the Foreign Office. A
few years later, even before the actual outbreak of hostilities, he had lied about his age to enter the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant and had been delighted to see a copy of that letter in the file before him. His enemies might be different now but, for Bond, the moral certainties remained the same.

  Nürburg was two hours south, surrounded by fields and woodland that stretched out luxuriantly, ignorant of recent history. It would have remained an anonymous little town, neither ugly nor particularly attractive with an assortment of very ordinary houses, a local shop and a dilapidated fortress high up on a hill, but for the decision made thirty years earlier by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club. It was they who had agreed to the construction of the fourteen-mile circuit, which had at last given the place a reason to exist. More than a reason. Racing had become its heart and its soul and the high-pitched scream of engines tore across the countryside long before you drew near.

  After his long journey, Bond was glad to slow down and cruise gently past the hotels and guest houses that had recently sprung up and which were almost shamed by the astonishing assortment of prestige cars haphazardly parked outside them. Shops and garages advertised a hundred brands of tyres, lubricants, gaskets, dry liners and motor accessories. There were people of every nationality parading in the streets and it amused Bond to identify them: the Italians self-consciously stylish, the French cocksure and casual, the Germans on their own, the English superior and the Russians . . . Yes. He spotted them soon enough, walking together with that pinched look that comes from a poor diet and their dead-fish eyes. They made up a quartet, all dressed in clothes that were cheap and far too formal. He looked for Ivan Dimitrov. Did his teammates have any idea who he was? Not just another racer but an operative working for SMERSH? For the moment there was no sign of him and Bond drove on.