Bond - 27 - Never send flowers

by John Gardner

  `Sleeping beauty, yes?" Bodo took back the photographs.

  `Dead beauty,' Bond corrected, for, in life, Laura March had been undoubtedly attractive. He felt irritated by Bodo's seeming callousness, but tamped down his anger. Cops the world over seemed to develop a hard second skin when it came to sudden death.

  Lempke turned and pointed up the smooth green slope, towards a small outcrop of rock.

  `When the forensic folk examined the body first, they drew my attention to the bruise on the back of her neck I have snapshots also of that. We took some bearings from the position of the body, worked out a possible trajectory. It's up there, sniper's hide." `But you had no idea that the bruise came from something fired at the victim." `This also is true. Could have been inflicted from very close, but there were no signs that anyone else had been in this spot. I used brain." He tapped his forehead. `I watch sometimes the television of that detective, Hercule Poirot, by Agatha Crusty..

  `Christie,' Bond corrected.

  `That's the one. Yes, he calls the brain his little grey cells, no?" `Yes." `Then also that's what I use. Little grey cells, only I think mine are possibly pink. I have a liking for red wine. Okay?" There was really no answer to that, so Fredericka and Bond simply followed Bodo up the neatly marked track, rising towards the little outcrop of rock, which was also cordoned off by crime scene tape.

  `This is where the sniper laid his eggs." Bodo made a small gesture to the area immediately behind the rocks.

  Laid his eggs? Bond thought, and knew in that moment his first impression of the man had been correct. Bodo Lempke, with his slept-in appearance, and feigned naivete', coupled with a disarming misuse of the English language, was as sharp as a razor blade. He almost certainly suspected everybody of being guilty of something until he, in person, proved otherwise.

  `You see,' Bodo continued. `You see how the marksman had a clean shot. Straight down, sixty metres: a good clear shot with plenty of cover." `How do you know? Did the shooter leave a calling card?" Bodo gave his blank stare, followed by the imbecilic smile. `Sure. Of course. People like this always leave the visiting cards. Part of their stork in trade. They like you to know they've been here, and this one for quite a long time was here.

  Overnight, in fact.

  `Overnight?" `Came up as one person. Went down as someone completely different. It rained, quite hard, like dogs and cats even, on the day before Miss March died. The shooter got wet and cold, then dried out the next day when the sun came out and when his victim rode up on the chair lift. See, the ground here was softened by rain. He left perfect marks of his body." Behind the little cluster of rocks there were indentations which undoubtedly showed that someone had lain there for a considerable period.

  Lempke gave them his fast humourless smile.

  `Come, he said, with a conspiratorial wink.

  He led the way up the rise to a small clump of bushes, also corralled by crime scene tape. At the base of the bushes was a shallow hole, around two feet square and a foot or so deep. `Maybe he planned to come back for his stuff, but we got here first. I have it in my car.

  `You have what in your car?" from Fredericka.

  `Everything he needed except for the weapon, of course, and the other personal items he took down on the following day." `Such as?" `You don't believe me? You think I'm oaf of detective. Come, I will even buy you lunch at one of my favourite restaurants here. Captain Bond, you accompany the pretty lady, I'll follow. Meet you at the bottom, I have to get these flatfooted policemen out of here. They want to open up the chair lift this afternoon so that the crowds can come up and admire the mountain view." And gawp at the place where a lady got herself killed." `What is gawp?" Bodo kept his mouth open, waiting for the reply.

  `A lower-class British term for stare. Like gawping at me with your mouth open." `So. Good, I learn something new. Gawp. Is a good word." `You don't like him much, do you?" Fredericka asked as they sat, swaying down on the chair lift.

  `Cunning as a fox, and he knows far more than is good for him." Bond reached out and took her hand. `Am I forgiven yet?" `Maybe. Wait and see. I'll tell you tonight." Ah." `What interests me, James, is that this policeman seems to know much more than we were led to believe." `Bozo Lempke." `His name is Bodo, I think, James." `I know; but I like the name Bozo better. Bozo the clown. Lempke drove like a short-sighted racing driver well past his prime. Rarely had Bond felt so insecure in a car, and Fredericka looked both white and shaken when the policeman finally pulled up outside a small, Mom and Pop restaurant a few kilometres outside Interlaken.

  Being Sunday, when Swiss families tend to eat out, the place was full, but Bodo was known, and they soon found themselves in a private room behind the main restaurant. Lempke waved aside all question of Laura March's death until after they had eaten. `You go into a church to pray,' he muttered, `so you go into a restaurant to eat. This is well-known fact, and I enjoy eating." This became all too clear over the next hour and a half as he efficiently put down two helpings of raclette, that simple, yet wonderfully aromatic, dish of cheese melted over potato, served with pickled onions and gherkins. He also ate three succulent rainbow trout to Bond's two and Fredericka's one.

  Two extra large slices of cherry tart, heaped with cream, followed, and he drank the best part of a bottle of red wine with the meal. It was only when coffee was served that Bodo looked satisfied.

  He gave an eccentric wink, rubbed his hands together and announced that they should now get down to business as he really did not have all day to waste.

  `My superiors tell me that, as the officer in charge of this case, I am to afford you as much help and information as possible." He looked from Bond to Fredericka and back again, as though waiting for questions.

  `So what did you find hidden up there, in the hole under the bushes, Bodo?" `Everything he couldn't take back down the mountain.

  Particularly as he wanted to go down as a different person." `What d'you mean by everything?" Fredericka leaned forward to light a cigarette.

  `Everything he couldn't carry down. It was all stashed up there.

  `Such as?" `Such as a large canvas holdall. Very dampened by rain and from its contents." `Which were?" `Waterproof camouflaged coverall with hood and gloves, battery-warmed waterproof sleepingbag, the remains of food-from what the military call a ratpack and a thermos flask. Also one spare CO2 cartridge, so we know what he was using: a high-powered gas-operated rifle. He also left some special attachments for his shoes. Make himself look taller with them.

  `And he came up with it? Anybody see him?" `Sure they saw him.

  Coming up and going down. One of the men operating the chair lift has identified him, even though he looked quite different both times.

  `How?" `How what?" `How did he look so different?" `His tallness, or shortness, depending which day you're talking about. Here, I have artist's impressions." He delved into the pigskin folder, which had obviously been restocked since they were up on the mountain, and placed two photographs of line drawings on the table.

  The first was of a middle-aged man, slightly oriental in appearance with a short drooping mustache and thick-lensed spectacles.

  As the legend at the side of the drawing told them, he was a little over six feet in height. The raincoat looked very English, probably Burberry, reaching down to lower calf length. This man carried a canvas holdall and a thick walking stick.

  Lempke touched the drawing with a stubby index finger. `Came up a tall man, wearing a raincoat." He touched the second drawing. `Went down as a cleanshaved man, around five feet eight inches tall, in black cords and a rollneck, carrying a small rucksack. Too small. If he'd bothered to bring a larger size he could have taken everything back with him." Certainly the drawing showed someone quite different. Much younger, the face more open. The only thing he had in common with the first drawing was that he also carried the heavy stick.

  Lempke smiled, producing a third drawing which he laid between the first two.

  `This how he was ide
ntified?" Bond's mouth tightened.

  `Of course. By his walking stick. Very thick, sturdy, with a brass handle shaped like a duck's head." `You think that was the `I even know the man's name, for it was the real person who went down or as real as we'll ever get. They identified him at his hotel.

  An Englishman by the name of David Docking.

  They had his passport details, as did the local police, which is the law. Arrived on the Friday night, dressed as you see him there." He touched the second drawing. `Only luggage was the rucksack quite small and left on the Saturday morning. The head porter of the Beau-Rivage, where he stayed, saw his air ticket. He was due to fly from Zurich on a British Airways flight on the Saturday evening, so it won't surprise you that nobody called David Docking was on that particular flight. Mr Docking left the Hotel Beau-Rivage at ten o'clock on the Saturday morning, and has not been seen, or heard of, since. `So, Mr Docking went up the mountain on Thursday morning. .

  `Afternoon. Around four in the afternoon.

  `Went up on Thursday afternoon, looking like a middle-aged man with a walking stick. Holed up there overnight, and came down, as himself, on the Friday, when he booked into the Beau-Rivage.

  Lempke nodded slowly. `That's how he did it.

  One of the men who help people into the chairs noticed the unusual walking stick on the Thursday.

  He was also on duty during the Friday afternoon, and his eye caught the stick again. "Hallo," he said to himself. "A lot of people are going around with thick sticks with brass duck's head handles."

  Bond grunted, thinking, yes, there was an elderly man with a stick just like that in Washington only two days before Laura March died.

  Mentally he made a note to check out flights.

  Could the elderly man with the stick and the funny hat, caught on film near the White House on the Wednesday, have been the same man who took the chair lift at Grindelwald on the Thursday? The timing would work, and he had little doubt that it could be done easily.

  `You see, my little pink cells have worked overtime. The man was already waiting for his victim, and he was quite prepared to suffer minor discomfort like a night out in the rain on a bare hillside to get her.

  Fredericka spoke. `You think she was a definite victim? The target?

  You don't think she could have just got unlucky? That David Docking, or whatever he's called, waited for the first good random target?" `Even in the rain there were quite a lot of people up there on the Thursday, Fraulein von Grusse.

  No, this joker-is right in English, joker? waited rot one person.

  He waited in cold and rain for Laura March.

  `Then he must have been pretty certain that she'd turn up,' Bond mused.

  `One hundred percent certain. My pink cells tell me she was the target, and he waited for her only.

  He knew she would turn up. `As you are the police officer in charge of the case, d'you think you're ever going to catch him?" `Docking, or whatever his real name is? Oh no.

  No, I won't catch him. Already I think he has long left Switzerland. In any case, I am to hand over my report to your Scotland Yard people, Captain Bond, so that they can take the case forward. As soon as the inquest is over, tomorrow, I act only in an advisory capacity. Had you not been told this?" `No. There was some anxiety in certain quarters that Scotland Yard should be kept out." Lempke nodded ponderously. `So, yes. Yes, I understand this, but all is changed as from a very short time ago. The instructions were waiting for me when I came down from First. Really I'm talking to you as a little favour.

  I pretend I don't get the new orders until I return to my headquarters." Once more the small conspiratorial look. `This, I suppose, means you don't know either.

  `Don't know what?" `Don't know that you also are off the case." `Off the ?` Bond began. `How in blazes ?` Again, Lempke touched his nose with his right forefinger. `I consider myself a judge of good character. Just thought you should know what I know before you are sent into whatever oblivion is prepared for funnies like you. Now, I think I should drive you both back to Grindelwald, so that you can collect your car. Then I can discover they've taken you off the case, and show my own contrition and surprise." * `You think they've taken both of us off, for real, James?" They were driving back to Interlaken, with Fredericka at the wheel.

  `If that's what Bodo says, then it's probably true, though I can't figure him. Why would he want to pass on all that information if he knew we were already being cut out of the loop?" `Maybe he's concerned that someone's trying a cover-up.

  `Who'd want to do that?" `Your sister service? MI 5?" `They haven't got the clout. My Chief wouldn't go for it. Could be they're furious with me for losing the letter, or maybe there's some kind of danger in our being left in the field." `I know the dangers, so what's new?" He said that he would tell her once, and once only, then quickly ran through his suspicions concerning the assassination of the CIA assistant director in Washington especially about the elderly man in the L. L. Bean shirt and the billed cap with the legend `Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more', and of the walking stick with the brass duck's head handle. `I'm on the restricted file list, and there aren't many of us. The chances of two people using a similar weapon within forty-eight hours of each other must be pretty slim.

  I just want you to know about this in the event that we are really being taken off the case.

  `But I don't want to be taken off it, James. It's the kind of puzzle that I like. I want to solve this business." For a moment, she sounded like a spoiled child.

  `We might not have any other option." `Do you want to be taken off it?" `Of course not. `What're you going to do then?" `If I'm off the case? I have some leave coming up. I'll demand a month of it now and follow my own private inquiry. But I don't really think that's going to happen. `Give me your private number in London. Then I can always call y~ The first person Bond saw as they finally walked into the foyer of the Victoria-Jungfrau was M's Chief of Staff, Bill Tanner. He was standing in deep, serious conversation with a gaunt-looking woman, severe faced, and with iron-grey hair pulled tightly back from a high forehead.

  `Hell,' Fredericka whispered. `That's my immediate superior. Gerda Bloom, known in the business as Iron Gerda." `Sorry about this, James." Tanner came swiftly towards them, as Iron Gerda cut Fredericka away from them like a stalking horse. `I'm very sorry about it, but my orders are to put you on the first flight out of here. M's furious about the missing letter, and there's been a complaint from the hotel which, if it's true, means you're up to your neck in fertilizer.

  I'm to stand over you as you pack, and there'll be no further contact with Fraulein von Grusse."

  CHAPTER SIX

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  `The Swiss are furious, and so am I!" M barked.

  He strode up and down behind his desk, brows dark and face an angry crimson. `Why do we always have problems like this when you have to work with any female member of a foreign service, 007? 1 won't have it. You know that already, so why do you constantly go out there and make fools of us?" From long experience Bond knew there was no point in trying to argue with his Chief. When the Old Man had the bit between his teeth, and truly believed that his accusations were founded on fact, all you could do was hang on and wait for the storm to pass.

  The moment he entered M's office, on his return to London, he immediately knew there was trouble. The Chief was icy and terse as he made his verbal report, waiting to hear Bond's side of things before launching into an uncontrolled attack, which still continued after fifteen minutes.

  `You appear to have lost a vital piece of evidence, which is reprehensible. You have also behaved in a manner prejudicial to both Queen's Regulations and the discipline of this service. I suspect the loss of the evidence is partly due to your misconduct, which was eventually reported to me via Scotland Yard, who were informed personally by the Swiss authorities." He stopped in mid-flow, turning to glower at Bond. `Well, 007?

  Well, what have you to say for yourself?" `I admit to lo
sing a document, sir. But, in my defence, that document was secure: locked in my briefcase which was inside one of the rooms in the suite I occupied with a member of the Swiss Intelligence and Security Service. There was no reason to think that anything would be stolen from a room that was locked and safeguarded.

  `But it was stolen!" M's voice rose on the `was' and reached a high decibel level on `stolen'.

  `I don't deny that, sir. I didn't know I'd have to sleep with the thing chained to my wrist. As far as we were concerned, Fraulein von Grusse and myself were the only people who even knew of the existence of the letter." `Oh, yes, Fraulein von Grusse! The pair of you are a disgrace. She'll be lucky if she's not actually dismissed from her service. But for your seniority, Bond, I'd have you permanently out of this building before nightfall. In these times, when various parliamentary idiots are calling for the disbandment of all intelligence services, we cannot afford flagrant moral lapses in the field.

  He paused, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

  `God knows, many people in power, both here and in the USA, seem to delight in telling the world that there is no further need for either security or intelligence operations. I even heard recently of some bestselling novelist doing a Chamberlain and sounding off about peace in our time. We all know that the so-called reformed Russians are still carrying out clandestine operations, and there's been a proliferation of new "active measures" by foreign intelligence services that the politicians let alone the general public have never even heard of. So, I cannot afford officers like yourself, who go out and live the life of Riley on government money.

  `What are Fraulein von Grusse and myself accused of doing, sir?" `Of rutting like animals, Captain Bond. Of disturbing the peace of the Hotel VictoriaJungfrau, Interlaken, and of causing grave moral scandal." `On whose word, sir?" `On whose word? The hotel management's word, 007. They had no less than six complaints from guests. Heaven knows I have often turned a blind eye to your flagrantly immoral behaviour, but this time even I can't disregard it. It appears that you, with Fraulein von Grusse, made enough noise to waken the dead.