by John Gardner
‘We assume the noise-reduction system would have to be replaced after three rounds have been fired,’ the ballistics man told them. ‘We have yet to test the thing, but my guess is that it would be accurate up to around a hundred and thirty metres – in yards, about one hundred fifty.’
‘And it was loaded, just like this?’ Bond asked.
‘Loaded with the safety off, sir,’ the other expert said gravely. ‘As I understand it, he was bringing the thing up to his hip and aiming directly at you. If he hadn’t been taken out, you would have been.’
Flicka’s fingers dug into Bond’s arm.
‘You always had the devil’s own luck, James.’ M did not sound impressed. ‘What of the second mechanism?’ pointing to the other duck’s head.
‘Even more cunning.’ The expert began to dismantle the brass and wood. There was no doubt what this had been used for. The head again contained a breech block, but this time of a much smaller bore, while the mechanism contained a CO2 cartridge. In the chamber they could just see a tiny gelatin capsule.
The two firearms men both agreed that there had to be another, smaller bore, barrel somewhere, and that the capsule would have to be examined by forensics. ‘But with the information we have been given, I think it’s obvious what this one does, gentlemen, and what the capsule contains. We’re handling it with great care.’
‘Diabolical!’ Gianne-Franco used his favourite word again. When the firearms people had left, Bond decided it was time to eat. He bit into one of the large ham-filled baguettes and M winced at the crunching noise.
Eventually they all ate, as it was obviously going to be a long night. They had almost cleared the large plate of sandwiches when several security men and two senior police officers came in with the man they now knew as Daniel Dragonpol. He looked tired and haggard, but it was quite clear that, as far as build and features were concerned, he was identical to his brother, David. He looked around the room, and gave Bond a bleak smile of recognition.
Nobody tried to restrict his movements, and one of the police officers passed a small stack of typewritten pages over to Gianne-Franco Orsini.
‘I have told these gentlemen everything,’ Dragonpol said, sitting down at the table as though holding a Press conference. The voice had the same timbre known to theatre and movie aficionados all over the world as that of the great actor. ‘I’m quite willing to answer any questions, and I realize that I might well have to stand trial for the murder of my brother, and the, admitted, manslaughter of Carmel Chantry. I don’t know what happened. I was aiming at my brother and she shouted something. It must have been a reflex.’ He hesitated. ‘I was very fond of Ms Chantry who – like you, James – thought I was my brother, David.’
‘And I must thank you for saving my life, Dav— Daniel. Is that correct? Daniel?’
Daniel Dragonpol nodded. ‘Quite correct, James. I’mt believe a word of it.on, f very sorry to have misled you, and a lot of other people. Our family is close and proud. Wrongly, we tried to keep David’s condition hidden.’ Something stirred in Bond’s mind. Daniel, he thought, sounded as though he was on autopilot. Perhaps it was some kind of shock. He remembered Dragonpol at Schloss Drache talking about his family’s pride.
‘That’s what I want to know about.’ M had moved to the table, shoulders hunched, and his chin in his hands. ‘Why did nobody know that the famous David Dragonpol had an identical twin?’
‘Many people did know. It was a fact to everybody in Drimoleague, where we were born, and older folk in Cornwall knew. But they were also very loyal, and after a couple of years the family put it about that one of the twins had died. Anybody who cared to take a good look through the public records – births, deaths, that sort of thing – could have found out.’
He paused, looking around the table, as though seeking support. ‘It amazed me that the fact of us being identical twins never once appeared in the Press. Later, of course, it became very useful. You see, David was born without the power of speech, and was unable to hear. He was born a deaf mute. While I, on the other hand, was a normal little boy. The family, being what they always were, found that facing the fact of David’s huge handicap was more than they could bear. Doctors, at that time, were convinced – and my family believed it – that David would spend a short life within a world of his own. They regarded him as a vegetable, utterly lost to all of us. So, they did what so many old aristocratic families used to do. They covered their embarrassment by hiding it; refusing to accept it.’
‘So, they put him away? Institutionalized him?’
Dragonpol slowly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said in almost a whisper. ‘Telling the story makes it sound like one of those old Victorian melodramas. David became the little boy shut away in an attic: the Grace Poole of Jane Eyre or the boy Colin in The Secret Garden. He was an embarrassment, cared for by three nurses – until the accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘As children, Maeve and myself were educated by a series of governesses. We moved between Ireland and Cornwall. Wherever the family went, so David was brought along. Nobody dared leave him behind. If we were in Cornwall, so was he. In Ireland, he was also there. The accident happened in Ireland when we were three years old – David and I, that is. Three years old,’ he repeated, as though momentarily lost.
‘You would see your brother regularly?’ M asked.
‘Yes. Yes, I saw him, though I don’t remember a great deal about it. I have a vague recollection of this other little boy who was kept apart, but most of our childhood was spent together. After the accident.’
‘You want to tell us about that?’ M used his best interrogator’s voice, as if it did not matter to him one way or the other.
Dragonpol asked if he could have a cup of coffee. More coffee was ordered, and until it arrived he simply sat there, looking sad. Bond recalled his Hamlet, and almost saw him sitting with the same melancholy look on his face. Then he realized that it had not been this man, but his brother.
When he had taken a few sips of coffee, Dragonpol started again. ‘Most of what I can tell you is from family talk – the family tradition, if you like. Though I do recall the sense of drama and of wonder. My life also changed after the accident.’
Oncet believe a word of it. began to careful more he sipped the coffee, and it was as though he were playing for time, building tension.
‘We were in Ireland. At the house in Drimoleague, and a cold, stone, dreary place that was. David was kept, literally, at the top of the house. There were two attics, one on either side of a large landing, and two sets of stairs. One went right down to the front of the house, but there was a little trap door with a kind of ladder that dropped to a tiny landing with a narrow flight of stairs that went right down to the servants’ quarters.
‘The three nurses looked after him very well, but – I can’t remember this, it’s what I was told later-one of them had to leave. Someone sick in her family or something. David needed constant attention because he was a danger to himself. Two people were not enough to manage him. It was tiring, trying work.
‘Odd, I do remember a woman’s name – Bella. You don’t often hear the name Bella nowadays. Well, Bella was supposed to be on duty and she fell asleep, it appears. David somehow got to the trapdoor and the ladder contraption – it’s not there now, we had it taken out years ago. He fell. What? Twelve? Fifteen feet? Fell right on to his head. I do remember the fuss. The local doctor coming out, and I recall being told to be very quiet. Told that David was probably dying.’
‘But he didn’t die.’ M sounded as though he were accusing Daniel of some gross and terrible act. ‘Instead of dying, he got better, didn’t he? Got completely better?’
‘Yes. You sound as though you know all of this.’
‘It’s a good old Victorian novelist’s plot, Mr Dragonpol.’
‘Maybe. But it’s true. All of it’s true, and, yes. Yes, by some miracle he came out of the coma. He was unconscious for almost a week, I was told. Yes, whe
n he came out, he could hear, and he made noises. Within a year he could speak. Within two years he was like all other little boys. He could read, play, get into scrapes . . .’
‘Is there any supporting evidence of this?’
‘Yes. Plenty. At Schloss Drache we have letters, and our parents’ diaries. I’ve only briefly looked at them. I like to live with what I can remember, but Maeve’s read them.’
‘So, suddenly, all was changed. You had a playmate. Your brother.’
‘We had a wonderful childhood together. Except . . .’
‘Except what?’ This time it was Bond’s turn to sound doubtful.
‘He was a little obsessive . . . And he was cruel. Very cruel.’
‘In what way?’
‘Obsessive?’
‘If you like, that first.’
‘Well, the family did not make any fuss about David and his newfound normality. They didn’t even deny the stories that he was dead. In a way, I think my parents had some idea that he was not truly normal, even though they didn’t say anything to suggest abnormality. You see, David liked to work to a routine. He set himself tasks, goals, and if he did not – or could not – meet the goal, then he would fly into terrible rages. Later, of course, he became obsessive about being an actor. As with everything else he had to be the best actor ever. He could not settle for second best. If something he did was not quite right, he would become uncontrollable with rage. He learned to check it in time, but in private it could be very frightening.’
‘So you rather played second fiddle to him?’ M again.
‘Very mut believe a word of it. began to carefulch so. He was a brilliant man. In the end, I suppose I was the only one who really knew him. He learned to control himself in public, and even among his peers, but never in front of me. I suppose I became his real keeper.’
Bond remembered Carmel Chantry on the previous night – ‘I suppose he looks on me as a sister, and, as such, I am my brother’s keeper.’
‘And the streak of cruelty?’
Daniel Dragonpol let out a long sigh. ‘Animals to start with. He would invent the most terrible traps and snares for animals, and revel in it when he caught one – birds, squirrels, sometimes a dog or cat. They were like old-fashioned man traps. Awful things, which caused distress and pain, but usually did not kill the creatures.’ Another pause. ‘He would do that. He would kill them.’
‘And eventually, the animals became human beings?’
‘Yes, something like that. With the traps, he became elated while he was designing them. The actual catch was something he looked forward to. But the killing? Well, that seemed to be nothing.’
‘But, eventually, the animals became people?’ M repeated.
‘I’ve told you. Yes.’ Sharp, on the brink of anger. ‘Yes. He killed people. But that only happened recently.’ He closed his eyes, shook his head. Then, softly, ‘I think it was only recently. There might have been something during the height of his success. I know of one actor and a theatre technician who died by accident while working with him. Those accidents could have been planned traps. But I really believe all the rages, the obsessions, and the cruelty were mainly contained by the brilliance of his career, because he was bloody brilliant.’ He stared about him, as though challenging them.
‘Oh, he was bloody all right. Yes, bloody brilliant,’ M snapped. ‘Your problem, Daniel, is that you knew. You knew what he was up to, and you said nothing. You reported nothing.’
‘I know. I take full responsibility for it. They’ll probably lock me up . . .’
‘And throw away the key, I hope.’ M had become very angry. ‘Now tell us about his retirement from the theatre. This time the truth. What happened. How it happened. Who did what?’
Dragonpol nodded, meekly. ‘I believe that my brother was, in some ways, insane from birth. Or maybe it was simply a case of what happened when he had that fall at three years old. It brought back his hearing, loosened his vocal cords, but left him . . . oh, I don’t know . . . left him some kind of emotional cripple. A very dangerous emotional cripple.’
‘The retirement,’ M prodded.
‘In that final year I spent a lot of time with him – come to that I’ve spent most of my life with him. But in that last year he began to crack. The strain of performing, even of rehearsing and learning, became too much. By then, of course, he was channelling a lot into his dream of the theatre museum at Schloss Drache. In the end, he did have a breakdown. Completely. Maeve and I nursed him. Lester – his dresser – came with him, and we brought in the two nurses: Charles and William. Eventually, I persuaded him to stay at Schloss Drache and just work on the museum. I don’t think he even realized that he had retired from the theatre.’
‘But he’d gone into a new line of business as well, hadn’t he? The assassination business.’
This time the pause was even longer than before. ‘You want to tell us about your brother’s penchant fot believe a word of it. him?’ f b dr organizing public executions, Daniel? You want to tell us why you didn’t even try to stop him?’
‘There are two sides to everything.’ Daniel seemed to have gathered strength and was prepared to fight back. ‘Yes. Sure. I’ll tell you what happened, and I’ll tell you how I tried to stop it. I did everything I could. I . . .’
‘You did everything short of actually bringing it to the attention of the police, I think.’
‘Well, you know it all, I suppose.’ Now he suddenly changed. It was the third or fourth time that Bond had sensed a sudden mood swing.
They didn’t break for another four hours. M went meticulously through every suspected killing: from the February 1990 shooting of the terrorist in Madrid; the bomb blast that had killed the Scandinavian politican in Helsinki, followed by the musician whose brakes had failed outside Lisbon, right through to the series of recent deaths, ending in the minder of Laura March.
‘She was your fiancée, after all,’ M thundered. ‘You must have known that he killed her, and you still didn’t do anything abon not to beli
17
THE DRAGONS ARE LOOSE
It went on until after five in the morning, with everybody but M getting more and more exhausted. The Old Man seemed to thrive on the long and hard question and answer routine. His interrogation techniques were a copybook lesson to everyone present, and he dragged every last piece of information, and then more, from the cowed Daniel Dragonpol.
Brother David, it seemed, had carefully kept up all his old contacts, in government as well as the Arts. According to Daniel, he had informers everywhere – in financial areas, big business and highly regarded social groups, as well as among his old colleagues in the theatre. He knew many friends of friends, and even had the ear of insiders within royal circles. So information regarding the schedule of the princess and the two young princes would be no problem.
‘David set great store by the telephone,’ Daniel told them. ‘We tried all kinds of tricks, but in the end there was no way we could keep him from a phone.’ He made a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Nor could we keep him under lock and key. We knew when he was brewing up for some kind of expedition, just as we knew when he became deflected from his preoccupation with the museum . . .’
‘Did he make those silly little errors when his mind moved to other things?’ Bond asked.
‘What little errors?’
‘Well, he’s got a Greek actor, four hundred years BC, putting on a Kabuki mask. Then there’s the watch on . . .’
‘I haven’t noticed anything like that!’ A shade sharp.
‘Well, the mistakes are there.’
‘Then they’ll have to be put right before the museum is opened to the public.’ Daniel seemed to stop, as though realizing his predicament for the first time. ‘If it is ever opened,’ he added.
‘But you found it impossible to keep him confined, or away from telephones? That what you’re telling us?’ M sounded alt believe a word of it. distance ffont-family: sans-serifert and relaxed; his mind razo
r sharp.
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
Bond recalled the conversation about telephones which Flicka had overheard between Maeve and the nurse Charles – who was more than a nurse, though Daniel never mentioned that side of things.
‘Let’s go over it again,’ M prodded. ‘You tried to catch up with him during the terrible killing spree which included the death of your former fiancée?’
‘I’ve told you. Yes. I tracked him down, but on each occasion I was too late.’
‘How do you think he knew where to find Laura March?’
‘He listened at doors a lot: in the castle. I mean it was creepy. He moved around the place like a ghost, when we didn’t have him locked in the Tower Room. When Laura was there for the last time, she told me she’d try to get to Interlaken to rest and . . . well, put herself straight. We were both in a very emotional state. David knew we had spent time in Interlaken. I have photographs, and I talked to him about it. He knew we liked going up to First and sit looking at the view.’
‘So, you followed him on that last occasion, and tried to catch up with him. What of his other little trips?’
‘I didn’t really find out what was happening until ninety-one. I found some notes which indicated what he’d been up to during the previous year. I did try and catch him in April ninety-one, when he did the London, New York and Dublin ones. In fact I almost got him in Dublin. He was staying at the Gresham and I really thought I had him, but that was the occasion he disguised himself as a woman. He walked right past me in the foyer of the hotel, and it wasn’t until he came back that I realized what had happened.’
Around four-thirty they came to the question of the flowers and the notes left at each funeral.
Daniel seemed bewildered at first. When he started to talk, it was about Maeve’s attempts to create her perfect hybrid rose. Bond stopped him.