One brown shoe left the floor. It would have stepped half across Bond. The vulnerable arch would be open above Bond’s head.
Bond’s muscles coiled like a snake’s. His right hand flickered a few centimetres to the hard stitching on the edge of the case. Pressed sideways. Felt the narrow shaft of the knife. Drew it softly half way out without moving his arm.
The brown heel lifted off the ground. The toe bent and took the weight.
Now the second foot had gone.
Softly move the weight here, take the purchase there, grasp the knife hard so that it wouldn’t turn on a bone, and then …
In one violent corkscrew of motion, Bond’s body twisted up from the floor. The knife flashed.
The fist with the long steel finger, and all Bond’s arm and shoulder behind it, lunged upwards. Bond’s knuckles felt flannel. He held the knife in, forcing it further.
A ghastly wailing cry came down to him. The Beretta clattered to the floor. Then the knife was wrenched from Bond’s hand as the man gave a convulsive twist and crashed down.
Bond had planned for the fall, but, as he sidestepped towards the window, a flailing hand caught him and sent him thudding on to the lower bunk. Before he could recover himself, up from the floor rose the terrible face, its eyes shining violet, the violet teeth bared. Slowly, agonizingly, the two huge hands groped for him.
Bond, half on his back, kicked out blindly. His shoe connected; but then his foot was held and twisted and he felt himself slipping downwards.
Bond’s fingers scrabbled for a hold in the stuff of the bunk. Now the other hand had him by the thigh. Nails dug into him.
Bond’s body was being twisted and pulled down. Soon the teeth would be at him. Bond hammered out with his free leg. It made no difference. He was going.
Suddenly Bond’s scrabbling fingers felt something hard. The book! How did one work the thing? Which way up was it? Would it shoot him or Nash? Desperately Bond held it out towards the great sweating face. He pressed at the base of the cloth spine.
‘Click!’ Bond felt the recoil. ‘Click-click-click-click.’ Now Bond felt the heat under his fingers. The hands on his legs were going limp. The glistening face was drawing back. A noise came from the throat, a terrible gargling noise. Then, with a slither and a crack, the body fell forward on to the floor and the head crashed back against the woodwork.Bond lay and panted through clenched teeth. He stared up at the violet light above the door. He noticed that the loop of the filament waxed and waned. It crossed his mind that the dynamo under the carriage must be defective. He blinked his eyes to focus the light more closely. The sweat ran into them and stung. He lay still, doing nothing about it.
The galloping boom of the train began to change. It sounded hollower. With a final echoing roar, the Orient Express sped out into the moonlight and slackened speed.
Bond lazily reached up and pulled at the edge of the blind. He saw warehouses and sidings. Lights shone brightly, cleanly on the rails. Good, powerful lights. The lights of Switzerland.
The train slid quietly to a stop.
In the steady, singing silence, a small noise came from the floor. Bond cursed himself for not having made certain. He quickly bent down, listening. He held the book forward at the ready, just in case. No movement. Bond reached and felt for the jugular vein. No pulse. The man was quite dead. The corpse had been settling.
Bond sat back and waited impatiently for the train to move again. There was a lot to be done. Even before he could see to Tatiana, there would have to be the cleaning up.
With a jerk the long express started softly rolling. Soon the train would be slaloming fast down through the foothills of the Alps into the Canton Valais. Already there was a new sound in the wheels – a hurrying lilt, as if they were glad the tunnel was past.
Bond got to his feet and stepped over the sprawling legs of the dead man and turned on the top light.
What a shambles! The place looked like a butcher’s shop. How much blood did a body contain? He remembered. Ten pints. Well, it would soon all be there. As long as it didn’t spread into the passage! Bond stripped the bedclothes off the bottom bunk and set to work.
At last the job was done – the walls swabbed down around the covered bulk on the floor, the suitcases ready for the getaway to Dijon.
Bond drank down a whole carafe of water. Then he stepped up and gently shook the shoulder of fur.
There was no response. Had the man lied? Had he killed her with the poison?
Bond thrust his hand in against her neck. It was warm. Bond felt for the lobe of an ear and pinched it hard. The girl stirred sluggishly and moaned. Again Bond pinched the ear, and again. At last a muffled voice said, ‘Don’t.’
Bond smiled. He shook her. He went on shaking until Tatiana slowly turned over on her side. Two doped blue eyes gazed into his and closed again. ‘What is it?’ The voice was sleepily angry.
Bond talked to her and bullied her and cursed her. He shook her more roughly. At last she sat up. She gazed vacantly at him. Bond pulled her legs out so that they hung down over the edge. Somehow he manhandled her down on to the bottom bunk.
Tatiana looked terrible – the slack mouth, the upturned, sleep-drunk eyes, the tangle of damp hair. Bond got to work with a wet towel and her comb.
Lausanne came and, an hour later, the French frontier at Vallorbes. Bond left Tatiana and went out and stood in the corridor, just in case. But the customs and passport men brushed past him to the conductor’s cabin, and, after five inscrutable minutes, went on down the train.
Bond stepped back into the compartment. Tatiana was asleep again. Bond looked at Nash’s watch, which was now on his own wrist. 4.30. Another hour to Dijon. Bond set to work.
At last Tatiana’s eyes opened wide. Her pupils were more or less centred. She said, ‘Stop it now, James.’ She closed her eyes again. Bond wiped the sweat off his face. He took the bags, one by one, to the end of the corridor and piled them against the exit. Then he went along to the conductor and told him that Madame was not well and that they would be leaving the train at Dijon.
Bond gave the conductor a final tip. ‘Do not derange yourself,’ he said. ‘I have taken the luggage out so as not to disturb Madame. My friend, the one with fair hair, is a doctor. He has been sitting up with us all night. I have put him to sleep in my bunk. The man was exhausted. It would be kind not to waken him until ten minutes before Paris.’
‘Certainement, Monsieur.’ The conductor had not been showered with money like this since the good days of travelling millionaires. He handed over Bond’s passport and tickets. The train began to slacken speed. ‘Voilà que nous y sommes.’
Bond went back to the compartment. He dragged Tatiana to her feet and out into the corridor and shut the door on the white pile of death beside the bunk.
At last they were down the steps and on to the hard, wonderful, motionless platform. A blue-smocked porter took their luggage.
The sun was beginning to rise. At that hour of the morning there were very few passengers awake. Only a handful in the third class, who had ridden ‘hard’ through the night, saw a young man help a young girl away from the dusty carriage with the romantic names on its side towards the drab door that said ‘SORTIE’.
28 | LA TRICOTEUSE
The taxi drew up at the Rue Cambon entrance to the Ritz Hotel.
Bond looked at Nash’s watch. 11.45. He must be dead punctual. He knew that if a Russian spy was even a few minutes early or late for a rendezvous the rendezvous was automatically cancelled. He paid off the taxi and went through the door on the left that leads into the Ritz bar.