Bond 01 - Casino Royale (17 page)

‘Bravo,’ said Mathis. ‘I’m proud of you. You ought to be tortured every day. I really must remember to do something evil this evening. I must start at once. I have a few marks in my favour – only small ones, alas,’ he added ruefully – ‘but I shall work fast now that I have seen the light. What a splendid time I’m going to have. Now, let’s see, where shall I start, murder, arson, rape? But no, these are peccadilloes. I must really consult the good Marquis de Sade. I am a child, an absolute child in these matters.’

His face fell.

‘Ah, but our conscience, my dear Bond. What shall we do with him while we are committing some juicy sin? That is a problem. He is a crafty person this conscience and very old, as old as the first family of apes which gave birth to him. We must give that problem really careful thought or we shall spoil our enjoyment. Of course, we should murder him first, but he is a tough bird. It will be difficult, but if we succeed, we could be worse even than Le Chiffre.

‘For you, dear James, it is easy. You can start off by resigning. That was a brilliant thought of yours, a splendid start to your new career. And so simple. Everyone has the revolver of resignation in his pocket. All you’ve got to do is pull the trigger and you will have made a big hole in your country and your conscience at the same time. A murder and a suicide with one bullet! Splendid! What a difficult and glorious profession. As for me, I must start embracing the new cause at once.’

He looked at his watch.

‘Good. I’ve started already. I’m half an hour late for a meeting with the chief of police.’

He rose to his feet laughing.

‘That was most enjoyable, my dear James. You really ought to go on the halls. Now about that little problem of yours, this business of not knowing good men from bad men and villains from heroes, and so forth. It is, of course, a difficult problem in the abstract. The secret lies in personal experience, whether you’re a Chinaman or an Englishman.’

He paused at the door.

‘You admit that Le Chiffre did you personal evil and that you would kill him if he appeared in front of you now?

‘Well, when you get back to London you will find there are other Le Chiffres seeking to destroy you and your friends and your country. M. will tell you about them. And now that you have seen a really evil man, you will know how evil they can be and you will go after them to destroy them in order to protect yourself and the people you love. You won’t wait to argue about it. You know what they look like now and what they can do to people. You maybe a bit more choosy about the jobs you take on. You may want to be certain that the target really is black, but there are plenty of really black targets around. There’s still plenty for you to do. And you’ll do it. And when you fall in love and have a mistress or a wife and children to look after, it will seem all the easier.’

Mathis opened the door and stopped on the threshold.

‘Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.’

He laughed. ‘But don’t let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.’

With a wave of the hand he shut the door.

‘Hey,’ shouted Bond.

But the footsteps went quickly off down the passage.

I
T WAS
on the next day that Bond asked to see Vesper. He had not wanted to see her before. He was told that every day she came to the nursing home and asked after him. Flowers had arrived from her. Bond didn’t like flowers and he told the nurse to give them to another patient. After this had happened twice, no more flowers came. Bond had not meant to offend her. He disliked having feminine things around him. Flowers seemed to ask for recognition of the person who had sent them, to be constantly transmitting a message of sympathy and affection. Bond found this irksome. He disliked being cosseted. It gave him claustrophobia.

Bond was bored at the idea of having to explain some of this to Vesper. And he was embarrassed at having to ask one or two questions which mystified him, questions about Vesper’s behaviour. The answers would almost certainly make her out to be a fool. Then he had his full report to M. to think about. In this he didn’t want to have to criticize Vesper. It might easily cost her her job.

But above all, he admitted to himself, he shirked the answer to a more painful question.

The doctor had talked often to Bond about his injuries. He had always told him that there would be no evil effects from the terrible battering his body had received. He had said that Bond’s full health would return and that none of his powers had been taken from him. But the evidence of Bond’s eyes and his nerves refused these comforting assurances. He was still painfully swollen and bruised and whenever the injections wore off he was in agony. Above all, his imagination had suffered. For an hour in that room with Le Chiffre the certainty of impotence had been beaten into him and a scar had been left on his mind that could only be healed by experience.

From the day when Bond first met Vesper in the Hermitage bar, he had found her desirable and he knew that if things had been different in the night club, if Vesper had responded in any way and if there had been no kidnapping he would have tried to sleep with her that night. Even later, in the car and outside the villa when God knows he had had other things to think about, his eroticism had been hotly aroused by the sight of her indecent nakedness.

And now when he could see her again, he was afraid. Afraid that his senses and his body would not respond to her sensual beauty. Afraid that he would feel no stir of desire and that his blood would stay cool. In his mind he had made this first meeting into a test and he was shirking the answer. That was the real reason, he admitted, why he had waited to give his body a chance to respond, why he had put off their first meeting for over a week. He would like to have put off the meeting still further, but he explained to himself that his report must be written, that any day an emissary from London would come over and want to hear the full story, that today was as good as tomorrow, that anyway he might as well know the worst.

So on the eighth day he asked for her, for the early morning when he was feeling refreshed and strong after the night’s rest.

For no reason at all, he had expected that she would show some sign of her experiences, that she would look pale and even ill. He was not prepared for the tall bronzed girl in a cream tussore frock with a black belt who came happily through the door and stood smiling at him.

‘Good heavens, Vesper,’ he said with a wry gesture of welcome, ‘you look absolutely splendid. You must thrive on disaster. How have you managed to get such a wonderful sunburn?’

‘I feel very guilty,’ she said sitting down beside him. ‘But I’ve been bathing every day while you’ve been lying here. The doctor said I was to and Head of S. said I was to, so, well, I just thought it wouldn’t help you for me to be moping away all day long in my room. I’ve found a wonderful stretch of sand down the coast and I take my lunch and go there every day with a book and I don’t come back till the evening. There’s a bus that takes me there and back with only a short walk over the dunes, and I’ve managed to get over the fact that it’s on the way down that road to the villa.’

Her voice faltered.

The mention of the villa had made Bond’s eyes flicker.

She continued bravely, refusing to be defeated by Bond’s lack of response.

‘The doctor says it won’t be long before you’re allowed up. I thought perhaps … I thought perhaps I could take you down to this beach later on. The doctor says that bathing would be very good for you.’

Bond grunted.

‘God knows when I’ll be able to bathe,’ he said. ‘The doctor’s talking through his hat. And when I can bathe it would probably be better for me to bathe alone for a bit. I don’t want to frighten anybody. Apart from anything else,’ he glanced pointedly down the bed, ‘my body’s a mass of scars and bruises. But you enjoy yourself. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy yourself.’

Vesper was stung by the bitterness and injustice in his voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I just thought … I was just trying …’

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She swallowed.

‘I wanted … I wanted to help you get well.’

Her voice strangled. She looked piteously at him, facing the accusation in his eyes and in his manner.

Then she broke down and buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘I’m really sorry.’ With one hand she searched for a handkerchief in her bag. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I know it’s all my fault.’

Bond at once relented. He put out a bandaged hand and laid it on her knee.

‘It’s all right, Vesper. I’m sorry I was so rough. It’s just that I was jealous of you in the sunshine while I’m stuck here. Directly I’m well enough I’ll come with you and you must show me your beach. Of course it’s just what I want. It’ll be wonderful to get out again.’

She pressed his hand and stood up and walked over to the window. After a moment she busied herself with her make-up. Then she came back to the bed.

Bond looked at her tenderly. Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment. She was very beautiful and he felt warm towards her. He decided to make his questions as easy as possible.

He gave her a cigarette and for a time they talked of the visit of Head of S. and of the reactions in London to the rout of Le Chiffre.

From what she said it was clear that the final object of the plan had been more than fulfilled. The story was still being splashed all over the world and correspondents of most of the English and American papers had been at Royale trying to trace the Jamaican millionaire who had defeated Le Chiffre at the tables. They had got on to Vesper, but she had covered up well. Her story was that Bond had told her he was going on to Cannes and Monte Carlo to gamble with his winnings. The hunt had moved down to the South of France. Mathis and the police had obliterated all other traces and the papers were forced to concentrate on the Strasbourg angles and the chaos in the ranks of the French communists.

‘By the way, Vesper,’ said Bond after a time. ‘What really happened to you after you left me in the night club? All I saw was the actual kidnapping.’ He told her briefly of the scene outside the Casino.

‘I’m afraid I must have lost my head,’ said Vesper, avoiding Bond’s eyes. ‘When I couldn’t see Mathis anywhere in the entrance hall I went outside and the commissionaire asked me if I was Miss Lynd, and then told me the man who had sent in the note was waiting in a car down on the right of the steps. Somehow I wasn’t particularly surprised. I’d only known Mathis for a day or two and I didn’t know how he worked, so I just walked down towards the car. It was away on the right and more or less in the shadows. Just as I was coming up to it, Le Chiffre’s two men jumped out from behind one of the other cars in the row and simply scooped my skirt over my head.’

Vesper blushed.

‘It sounds a childish trick,’ she looked penitently at Bond, ‘but it’s really frightfully effective. One’s a complete prisoner and although I screamed I don’t expect any sound came out from under my skirt. I kicked out as hard as I could, but that was no use as I couldn’t see and my arms were absolutely helpless. I was just a trussed chicken. They picked me up between them and shoved me into the back of the car. I went on struggling, of course, and when the car started and while they were trying to tie a rope or something round the top of my skirt over my head, I managed to get an arm free and throw my bag through the window. I hope it was some use.’

Bond nodded.

‘It was really instinctive. I just thought you’d have no idea what had happened to me and I was terrified. I did the first thing I could think of.’

Bond knew that it was him they had been after and that if Vesper hadn’t thrown her bag out, they would probably have thrown it out themselves directly they saw him appear on the steps.

‘It certainly helped,’ said Bond, ‘but why didn’t you make any sign when they finally got me after the car smash, when I spoke to you? I was dreadfully worried. I thought they might have knocked you out or something.’

‘I’m afraid I must have been unconscious,’ said Vesper. ‘I fainted once from lack of air and when I came to they had cut a hole in front of my face. I must have fainted again. I don’t remember much until we got to the villa. I really only gathered you had been captured when I heard you try and come after me in the passage.’

‘And they didn’t touch you?’ asked Bond. ‘They didn’t try and mess about with you while I was being beaten up?’

‘No,’ said Vesper. ‘They just left me in an armchair. They drank and played cards – “belotte” I think it was from what I heard – and then they went to sleep. I suppose that was how
SMERSH
got them. They bound my legs and put me on a chair in a corner facing the wall and I saw nothing of
SMERSH
. I heard some odd noises. I expect they woke me up. And then what sounded like one of them falling off his chair. Then there were some soft footsteps and a door closed and then nothing happened until Mathis and the police burst in hours later. I slept most of the time. I had no idea what had happened to you, but,’ she faltered, ‘I did once hear a terrible scream. It sounded very far away. At least, I think it must have been a scream. At the time I thought it might have been a nightmare.’

‘I’m afraid that must have been me,’ said Bond.

Vesper put out a hand and touched one of his. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘It’s horrible,’ she said. ‘The things they did to you. And it was all my fault. If only …’

She buried her face in her hands.

‘That’s all right,’ said Bond comfortingly. ‘It’s no good crying over spilt milk. It’s all over now and thank heavens they let you alone.’ He patted her knee. ‘They were going to start on you when they’d got me really softened up,’ (softened up is good, he thought to himself). ‘We’ve got a lot to thank
SMERSH
for. Now, come on, let’s forget about it. It certainly wasn’t anything to do with you. Anybody could have fallen for that note. Anyway, it’s all water over the dam,’ he added cheerfully.