Bond knew enough about women to recognize when the barriers were down. The seduction of a woman had everything to do with attitude, not looks or wit. Bond reflected—just for a moment—how unprofessional it might be for her to sleep with him. Most women in her position would have resisted going this far. Bond chalked it up to her youth and enthusiasm, and, giving himself a small boost to his ego, to his experience with the opposite sex.
He turned to her and put his arms around her. She looked up at him, her mouth parted. Her lower lip trembled a bit, and he could feel her shaking.
Bond brought his mouth down on hers and roughly held her against him. She submitted with a soft moan, then opened her mouth to receive his tongue. They kissed passionately until she finally, gently, pushed him away.
“Mr. B—James, please,” she said, breathlessly. She took a sip of coffee, then said, “Uhm, tell me more about your, uhm, condition.
You said you haven’t been sleeping well?”
“That’s right,” he said, lightly brushing a strand of blond hair from her face.
“Any hallucinations?”
Bond hesitated.
“Seen anything unusual? Things that shouldn’t have been there?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he replied truthfully.
She reached up and rubbed his eyebrow slowly with her thumb, as if to brush away something caught there.
“Feelings of paranoia?”
Bond closed his eyes as she continued to massage his forehead with both thumbs. “Mmm hmm,” he answered.
“James, we have to do another EEG.”
She rubbed his temples with care for another thirty seconds, then stopped. She was unsure how to handle the situation or her desire.
After a few sips of coffee in silence, she looked at him and tried to smile. He took this as an invitation and leaned in to kiss her again. She nearly spilled her cup setting it on the saucer, then pulled him down on the couch on top of her. Her hands ran through his hair, pulling it, clawing the back of his neck with her fingernails. With his mouth firmly on hers, he brought his right hand up the side of her left leg, pushing the skirt up until it was above the tops of her nylon stockings.
They rolled off the couch, crashing into the coffee table and spilling the coffee. They didn’t notice, though—such was the unexpected passion that had overtaken them.
They lay naked on the carpet next to the overturned coffee table. Bond had lit a cigarette and was using a saucer as an ashtray. The sex had been intense, as if neither of them could get enough of each other. The world outside could have been on the brink of disaster, but they would not have known it. The first time had been rushed and anxious, almost a selfish race to pleasure themselves rather than climax together. The second time was more relaxed and slower, but just as fierce. There was more give-and-take, and they had focused their energies on each other. They were by now exhausted.
Now she snuggled next to him, her firm breasts pressed up against his rib cage. She was still attempting to catch her breath and said, “Just so you know, I don’t do this with all my patients.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” he said. The throbbing in his head had just returned, and he rubbed his brow.
“I think it was your brooding angst that was so dreadfully attractive,” she said with a laugh. “What’s wrong? Head again?”
He nodded.
“I tell you what.” She sat up. “I’m going to the loo. When I get back, I’ll give you a proper massage. We’ll see if I can work out some of that tension.”
He closed his eyes as the warmth of her body disappeared. When he heard the bathroom door shut, he tried to sit up, but found that he couldn’t. The room was spinning again, just like when he had been on that rooftop earlier in the day.
So he lay there for a few minutes with his eyes closed. When he thought that he heard something at her front door, but wasn’t positive, he tried to sit up again.
Bond cursed aloud and reached for one of the leather chairs nearby. He managed to pull himself up to his knees, but now the pain in his head increased tenfold. This was accompanied by the dreaded anxiety that flooded his senses. Once again, his heart began to pound, bringing on that horrible feeling that he was about to die.
“Kimberley …” he tried to call, but his voice came out in a whisper. Exerting every bit of strength in his body, he pulled himself up against the chair and got to his feet.
The room went dark as he lost his balance and fell over the glass coffee table.
He was aware of a cold sensation on his right cheek. It was hard and wet.
A tile floor. Shards of broken mirror.
He opened his eyes and saw a toilet. But something was wrong. The normally white appliance was streaked in red.
Blood.
Bond felt a burst of adrenaline as life poured back into his body. He groaned and rolled over.
He was lying in Kimberley Feare’s bathroom, naked. He coughed and put his hand to his face so that he could rub the haze from his vision. He got a jolt when he saw that his hand was covered in blood.
He sat up quickly, alarmed.
There was blood all over the bathroom and on his body. The mirror had been shattered. He examined himself and found several cuts on his arms, legs, and torso. He vaguely remembered falling into the glass coffee table.
He gingerly got to his feet and looked in the broken glass around him.
My God.
Dozens of ghosts stared back at him.
His skin was pale, frosty white. Streaks of blood went from his face and down his chest. Looking around the bathroom, he saw that the door was closed and noticed that his hand and footprints were all over the place in blood. On the floor by the door was a large bloody kitchen knife. He already knew that his prints probably covered it.
“Kimberley?” he called.
Dreading the worst, he opened the door and looked out.
The living room was a shambles. The glass coffee table had been broken. The cups, saucers, and coffeepot were on the rug. Their clothes lay in heaps on the floor, some of them torn. The collection of elephants had been scattered, some broken.
The green-and-white design scheme of the flat had been smeared with red.
“Kimberley!”
Bond stumbled to the open door of the bedroom and gaped in horror at the gruesome tableau before him.
Kimberley Feare was lying on the bed, naked, covered in blood. Her throat had been slashed, ear to ear, and she had been stabbed several times.
NINE
SUNRISE IN THREE
COUNTRIES
JAMES BOND RARELY PANICKED, BUT HE WAS ON THE VERGE OF DOING SO NOW.
Did he kill this woman? What the hell was going on?
Trembling, he stepped into the bedroom to take a closer look. The multiple stab wounds suggested rage on the part of the killer. The blood trails on the carpet indicated that the body had been dragged from the living room and placed on the bed. She had probably been killed in the other room. Bond suspected that the throat-cutting had probably been done in here, postmortem.
But who could have done it? Not he! He might be a professional killer in the line of duty, but he was incapable of doing this to a person.
Or was he?
Bond backed out of the room, frantically going over everything that had happened in the last few hours. He looked at the clock in the living room: it was 2:48 in the morning. He had been unconscious for a long time.
He moved to the front door and saw that it was still locked.