The Girl From Peking

by George B Mair

  Grant lifted his foot and she undid the laces. Her dress sagged, and hardened as he was, he found himself thrilling to the sight of a plunging neckline which revealed her incomparable figure. He knew that she was wearing practically nothing below that shimmering sheath of expensive brocade and he longed to run his fingers through the sweep of blue black hair which seemed to throw the magnolia complexion of her skin into a play of light and shade.

  She opened the wardrobe and laid the shoes inside, covering them with the bed spread. ‘So no one can hear us. No one knows where we are and no one knows why we are here.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Not even me.’

  Grant was uncertain of himself. The woman seemed unapproachable, even more remote than the statuesque models of Folies Bergère, but infinitely more beautiful. And yet, he felt that she knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. ‘Have a cigarette. And then I’ll tell you.’

  She laughed aloud, a high pitched giggle which made him want to smack her. ‘The cigarettes are in our wardrobe. But one minute.’ She loosened her dress and withdrew a thin flat box of Balkan Sobranies which had been strapped somewhere around her thighs. ‘Your frisk wasn’t very efficient, m’sieur,’ she said sarcastically.

  Grant’s lips tightened. It was true that he had skimped one or two areas, but the way she had pulled out that box was a challenge. ‘Then before we light up let’s be thorough. Suppose you strip and then we’ll know how we stand.’

  Tania stared at him thoughtfully. ‘We would know how you stand. But I might be at a disadvantage, so I’ll take off the dress if you do the same. Since bugs are so easily hidden we’ll play this hand open.’

  Grant could strip better than average and hadn’t an ounce of superfluous flesh on his finely machined body. Nor was he self-conscious about nakedness.

  She hung his evening wear on a hanger and laid her own dress on a chair. ‘An informal beginning to a formal chat! or is this the way you like it?’ Grant had stubbed out the cigarette Tania had given him, while she laid more on the side table by the bed. ‘So why are we here?’

  Every instinct told him to jump between the sheets and take her, but he also knew that if he did she would win. Her body would make him careless and Grant had no illusions about her power. He noticed that she had shaved every millimetre of hair and as she stood there in the dim light she reminded him of a some pagan priestess of the old days, almost a goddess waiting for blood.

  ‘First,’ he said slowly, ‘I told you that you don’t look like the woman arrested for shooting that Dutch seaman in Shanghai, and remember that I’ve seen pictures taken by my friend.

  ‘Second we do know that an agent spoke today with people in Peking, that the conversation was monitored by America’s new satellite and that the set up suggests you were the agent.

  ‘Thirdly I want to know what you were doing with the President this evening. And fourth, I want to know why you danced so long with the Prime Minister of Britain, because messages from Samos prove that some woman spy from Peking has been detailed to do these very things and it’s not likely to be coincidence that you have carried out the programme.’

  Tania stared indifferently at the enamel of her nails and Grant noted that her body was totally relaxed. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her self-confidence was maddening. ‘I’m certain that you killed a woman at the Élysée this evening and that you were photographed by one of your own people while making an exhibition of yourself with the President. The fact that you were also photographed leaving the room together could be deadly if placed alongside other photographs, and we know that other photographs do exist. In fact they were taken in China while you co-operated with a man posing as the British Prime Minister, and they are now in Paris ready for release when your government decides.’

  Tania’s pulse was no more than seventy and she was cool as cucumber. There wasn’t even a bead of sweat on her brow and her fingers were rock steady as he turned on the heat even more. ‘There are also experts who say that your handwriting is the same as that of a known Chinese woman spy and others who swear that your voices are also fundamentally the same.’

  Tania allowed herself to seem interested. ‘How do experts prove that?’

  Grant became side-tracked. ‘A new technique converts the sound of voices into a sort of graph called a voice print and no two prints are the same.’

  ‘So mine is the same as that of this other woman?’

  ‘Not exactly. But near enough and they say that a small operation on the vocal cords could explain any difference.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Tania. ‘I never heard of voice prints before. You must show them to me some day. Meanwhile carry on and let’s hear the worst because to date this is all nonsense which can easily be explained away.’

  Grant took a deep breath. ‘Our theory is that you are a girl who used to call herself Jacqueline de Massacré, but that some team of plastic surgeons has given you a new face.’

  Tania forced herself to bow her head politely, though it was really only to hide the consternation which must suddenly have flickered across her features. This last news flash had rocked her and she knew that Grant would have marked every fleeting expression. But when she spoke her manner was still formal. ‘This girl Jacqueline was the one you said you were in love with. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Grant moved towards the bed and the girl was lying back on the pillows. Her cigarette dangling between her lips when he seized her. He felt her drive the end of her Sobranie into the flesh of his back and then she flung her arms around his neck as the stub dropped to the floor and he gasped with pain. ‘And you . . . are . . . Jacqueline. Aren’t you?’ He held her close to his chest and watched her eyes cloud with desire. ‘Answer me. You are Jacqueline?’

  She stiffened for an instant and then ran her hands down his cheeks. Her body arched to mould against his own and her voice was husky. ‘No, David Grant. I’m not Jacqueline. But I think you said that you also love me.’

  He hesitated and felt her nibble his ear as he relaxed against her warm skin. ‘I do love you, Tania. Or at least I want you. But I still say you’re Jacqueline.’

  Her fingers probed against his carotid plexus, making his mind go blank for a split second. ‘Never use that word again,’ she said. ‘A man’s mistress doesn’t want to hear about his other conquests. It’s enough that you love me and that I want you too.’

  Grant’s neck was aching. The woman was a she-devil. ‘I . . . want . . . you,’ she repeated, and her voice was thick as she spoke in French while her hands rippled up and down the sweep of his back. ‘Just now I hurt you, but stop speaking about Jacqueline and I’ll prove that I can give you more than any woman alive.’ She leapt from the bed, stood, hands on hips, staring at him and unclipped part of her hair until it dropped over her shoulders in a shimmering cascade which framed her features in an ovoid circle of colour. ‘But I set the pace.’

  She still seemed innocent. Almost inexperienced, until he saw the tell tale signs of tautening muscles, rising mounds of pink flesh and a sudden narrowing of nostrils.

  He wriggled his shoulder against the coolness of the sheet. It still ached and he guessed that there would be a blister before morning. She was half smiling now and blowing faultless smoke rings which rose in the dim light to break against the ceiling. One part of his mind was still trying to guess the impossible. Had the Admiral tipped off the hotel? Had the department been able to wire it for sound? Just how private was the Admiral going to allow them to be? Why did she suddenly seem to have taken control? Where had he slipped up? What would happen when it was over? How far would she go before morning? Was she really Jacqueline? Above all was she the girl from Peking?

  Tania could almost read his thoughts and decided to force the pace. Thoughts were bad at a time like this. Another hour or more would have to be killed before her programme began to develop to schedule. If ever it did! So much depended on a secret which not even Grant was likely to discover. Maksud had given h
er weapons which no living person could beat. One might never be found even after death. And yet, as she stared at the impassive man beside her she admitted what she had tried to keep secret for so long . . . even from her own thoughts. She wanted him as she had never done when she had been Jacqueline. Yet it was a longing split wide open by lust for revenge, and only when they had broken even would she allow herself the luxury of a gentle love. But until he had suffered . . . just a fraction of all that he had done to her . . . then passion would be a frenzy of demands which would break him. Vanity was his weak spot. And she would play on it. Pride was his second. And she would break it too. Self-confidence was his biggest asset. And she would smash it to smithereens. ‘I thought you would strip better than that,’ she said curtly. ‘You’re out of training.’

  He lifted the last of the Sobranies and lit it against the tip of her own still smouldering stub. Her words had jerked him into near anger. ‘I haven’t gained or lost a pound since I was twenty-two,’ he said, cursing himself as he spoke for having risen to her bait.

  ‘I only said you didn’t strip as well as I had expected. I wasn’t talking about your weight.’ She saw that he was on edge and slammed in another insult. ‘And I see you aren’t as young as I had thought either. Twenty years ago you would have shown more interest when a woman like myself was waiting to be loved. Or are you always slow to rouse?’

  Grant forced himself to think clearly. She was either setting out deliberately to provoke him, or else she was a straight psychotic. And as he turned to flick off an inch of ash he heard her taunting him again. ‘Do you wear a topee or is that well groomed hair your own?’ She leaned forwards, and as she ran her hands through his scalp he felt the tips of her breasts slither past his arm. ‘Your own,’ she said flatly. ‘For a moment I thought you were bald as well as impotent.’

  The speed of Grant’s movements crashed her jaws together and she yelped with pain as her teeth bit into the tip of her tongue. He had moved like a striking snake, so fast that she never ever really knew what happened. She knew only that her mouth was burning with agony and that she was lying across the bed while he slapped her buttocks with the flat of his hands, stinging blows which made her almost scream with pain until she suddenly felt herself throb with excitement. He seemed to sense the change in her mood, and as she struggled to turn round she felt herself enclosed in a grip which tautened like coiling bands of thickly elastic rubber while every limb was enmeshed by his writhing body. He ended sitting astride her, his hands pinning her down by the shoulders while her legs knocked the bedclothes spinning. They looked at one another for as long as it takes a man to breathe twice but as she opened her mouth to speak he kissed her with a violence which left bruises around her lips for days.

  She tried to be frigid, to ignore the probing, questing thrusts of his body and the deep kisses which had begun to stir her until her self-control disappeared as she felt him suddenly relax and saw his hands caress the sweep of her neck while he whispered words which seemed almost meaningless in her ear. ‘So help me, Tania, you frenzied tigress, I’ll tame you if it takes till dawn. But you aren’t a cat. Cats purr. You just hate. And they wag their tails when they are angry but you wriggle yours only when you want to torment a man.’

  He guided her hands as she tried to make herself comfortable, and then she flung her arms around his neck. Her nails were scratching his scalp. Like the teeth of a hard comb he thought, as he kissed her again with a violence which forced her to gasp for breath. It was a test! One part of his subconscious was still working at the job. If she allowed him to kiss her like that and not roll in ecstasy then for sure she was not Jacqueline. He tensed as he waited. But Tania guessed his mood, remembering that sort of kiss . . . a David special she had once called it . . . as she drew on her last reserves of will power, throwing her arms apart above her head and sighing deeply as she allowed him to caress her, teeth to teeth.

  She guessed his next gambit. Passion had left her and she realised only that she was playing the most bizarre game in her life. She also guessed that Grant too had changed, and that from now on it would be a battle of wills. He had been her lover for too long for her ever to forget his technique, and she waited while he eased her gently on to her side while his fingers made love with delicate expertise. And it was then that she thanked years of experience with men who knew how to satisfy a woman and who could think of the girl as well as of themselves. She recalled a night in Saigon, a night in the old days after she had begun her training, a night when she had been forced to give herself to that first Australian. He had been a nice boy, too young to know much. Too old to know nothing. And she had been gentle with him as she was now gentle with Grant. She forced herself into the same rhythm which was rocking the man beside her but the face she saw was the face of that young soldier. He had been a little frightened, a little uncertain, because he knew that she had forgotten more than he had ever learned. Yet she had been kind and she knew that kindness was the last thing Grant expected. Jacqueline had been a bomb: a time bomb which exploded almost on contact. But she forced herself into a delayed action release, driving her memory back to Peking and to that accursed hospital. At one time it had almost been home, but memory had now been swamped by the sophisticated life of Parisian society, and she allowed memories of her worst moments to subdue passion until she was able to play the affair pianissimo while Grant heaved into a torrent of self-giving which left him bewildered and frustrated.

  His voice was thick and she saw the puzzled look in his eyes as he spoke. ‘What in Satan’s name is wrong?’

  She lay back against the thick pillow. This was the sort of revenge of which she had dreamed. Yet, for a moment she had almost lost it. ‘You can’t help it,’ she said at last. ‘But you aren’t made right. Too crude. You lack finesse.’ And then she added the final sting. ‘Or are all Englishmen the same? Why so impulsive? Why not enjoy pleasure slowly? Love is like wine. Cultivated people linger over it and savour it quietly.’

  The hurt in his eyes pleased her. And this would only be the beginning! ‘Anyhow,’ she added with an off-hand casualness which shocked him, ‘I slept with a friend for an hour or two this afternoon and he was very sympathique. Perhaps the contrast upset me. I am beauty with the beast.’

  ‘And what was he?’ Grant was boiling with rage.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘The ugly duckling.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Not so wonderful to look at but very expert. He had insight and he thought of me before himself. So he turned out to be a really wonderful swan.’

  Grant stared at her with an appraisal which took in every blemish of her body, the tiny scars around her breasts and the flatness of her recti muscles, the curve of her shoulder and the thickness of her triceps. He forced himself to forget the insults, to forget even his own sense of shame at having failed in something important for the first time in his life. The little mole on Jacqueline’s shoulder had disappeared, and there was no visible scar, even allowing for the half light. Jacqueline had firm, rounded, gluteus muscles which contracted with every step while Tania was smooth as a melon. Jacqueline had a navel which was almost a slit against tanned flesh while Tania showed a dent like that made by a little finger pressed against soft putty. Jacqueline’s thighs had been fascinatingly slim, while Tania had the limbs of an athlete, with powerful muscles and a stride which showed the tension behind every muscle contraction.

  He walked to the wardrobe. The woman might be anyone. She might even be what she claimed to be. But for sure she wasn’t Jacqueline. He had tried every trick, but not even the most enticing bait had stirred her to more than a moment of mild excitement.

  Dermatitis! He remembered Miss Sidders. But her skin was faultless. He lifted her clothes and casually handed over a wisp of girdle. But the clips were either bone or plastic.

  It was a point. A point which might mean nothing. Or everything. Though for sure there was no trace of dermatitis. In fact there was no trace of a
nything. The woman was a stranger. Not once had she given herself away. Not even when he kissed the most sensitive nerve ends in her body or caressed flesh which had made Jacqueline wriggle with excitement and cry out for more.

  She was still naked and smoking another Sobranie while he dressed when two men threw open the door. And their guns were rock steady.

  One nodded towards Tania. ‘Get dressed.’ And then he faced Grant. ‘Clever, Doctor. But not clever enough.’

  Grant froze. ‘Where did I slip up?’

  ‘State secret. But it was easy to track you.’

  The words rang a bell, and Grant remembered how he himself had used an unusual trick on at least two occasions. A transmitting device which sent out a continuous signal. Bearings taken on it from two or more angles could locate any person carrying the thing and it could be effective up to a mile or more. He thought swiftly. He had once caused a surgeon friend to embed one in a man’s tibia and he had used it to enable ADSAD to keep track of himself during a tricky emergency. But he was willing to swear blind that Tania carried nothing. Just nothing. And nowhere.

  The girl smiled as she listened to the last part. ‘Wrong. I swallowed it. So it was only a matter of time till my friends arrived.’ She laughed. ‘Or was suspicion one of the things which made you so anxious to make love?’

  Grant flushed. She had rattled him from the beginning and she could still get under his skin even at this stage. ‘So you are Jacqueline?’

  ‘The name is Tania Monham.’

  ‘And your business?’

  She nodded towards the two men. ‘They are only here because you interfered with my work.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Exactly what was monitored by this Samos apparatus. To force a deal between Washington and the Chinese People’s Republic, using Britain with France to influence the Americans.’ She lit a cigarette and handed it to Grant. ‘I don’t mind talking for a moment. The President was thunderstruck when he woke up from a catnap to find me apparently sleeping almost naked on a divan near his chair.’ She smiled again. ‘It was really too easy! I hid in a closet when he arrived, and as you seem to have expected he loosened his clothes, splashed his face in a lotion or something, then sat down in a lug chair, glanced at a newspaper and dropped off to sleep.’ She raised her hands expressively. ‘The rest was easy. I slipped out of the closet, left my clothes where they would be conspicuous in a photograph and posed for a few mildly dangerous moments while the phographer took some pix using a fast film with no flash. Maybe not ideal, really, since the old man was asleep, but he was taken side on or with my hands in front of his eyes and I think we can pass them off as a drunk president having a good time with a young mistress. Especially,’ she added caustically, ‘since a few more were also taken by the official press when we left the room together.’