‘You told me you could handle him, that you could have dealt with him before, when my predecessor thumped him.’
She was quiet for a moment, then, when she spoke it was a snap, a small explosion: ‘Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I? That’s all there is to it.’ She paused. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, James. I’m supposed to be highly trained and self-reliant. Yet . . .’
‘Yet Brad Tirpitz you can’t handle?’
She smiled at Bond’s mocking timbre replying in kind: ‘He knows nothing of women.’ Then her face tightened, the smile disappearing from the eyes. ‘He really has been most unpleasant. Tried to force his way into my room. Very drunk. Gave the impression he wasn’t going to let up easily.’
‘So, you didn’t even hit him with your handbag?’
‘He was really scary, James.’
Bond went over to the bedside table, picked up his cigarette case and lighter, offering the open case to Rivke, who shook her head as Bond lit up, blowing a stream of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘It’s out of character, Rivke.’ He sat on the end of the bed, facing her, searching the attractive face for some hint of truth.
‘I know.’ She spoke very quickly. ‘I know. But I couldn’t stay alone in my room. You’ve no idea what he was like . . .’
‘You’re not a wilting flower, Rivke. You don’t normally come running to the nearest male for protection. That’s back-to-the-cave-dwellers stuff – everything people like you hate, and despise.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She made to get up, her anger almost tangible for a second. ‘I’ll go, and leave you in peace. I just needed company. The rest of this so-called team doesn’t give anyone company.’
Bond put out a hand, touching her shoulder, quietly pushing her back into the chair. ‘Stay, by all means, Rivke. But please don’t take me for an idiot. You could handle Brad Tirpitz, drunk or sober, with a flick of your eyelashes . . .’
‘That’s not quite true.’
The ploy, Bond thought, dated back to the Garden of Eden, the oldest in the book. But who was he to argue? If a beautiful girl comes to your room in the middle of the night asking for protection – even though she is quite capable of looking after herself – she does so for one reason. But that was in the real world, not this maze of secrets and duplicity in which both Bond and Rivke lived and worked.
Taking another long pull on his cigarette, he made the vital decision. Rivke Ingber was alone in his room, and he knew who she really was. Before she made any other move it would, perhaps, be best for him to put the cards firmly on the table.
‘A couple of weeks ago, Rivke, maybe even less – I seem to have lost all sense of time – did you do anything when Paula Vacker told you I was in Helsinki?’
‘Paula?’ She looked genuinely perplexed. ‘James, I don’t know . . .’
‘Look, Rivke,’ he leaned forward, taking her hands in his, ‘our business breeds odd friends; and, sometimes, strange enemies. I don’t want to become your enemy. But you need friends, my dear. You see, I know who you are.’
Her brow creased, the eyes becoming wary. ‘Of course. I’m Rivke Ingber. I work for Mossad; and I’m an Israeli citizen.’
‘You don’t know Paula Vacker?’
There was no hesitation. ‘I’ve met her. Yes, a long time ago I knew her quite well. But I haven’t seen her for . . . Oh, it must be three, four years.’
‘And you haven’t been in touch with her lately?’ Bond heard his own voice, slightly supercilious. ‘You don’t work with her in Helsinki? You didn’t have a dinner date – which Paula cancelled – just before leaving for the Madeira meeting?’
‘No.’ Plain; open; straightforward.
‘Not even under your real name? Anni Tudeer?’
She took a deep breath, then exhaled, as though trying to expel every ounce of air from her body. ‘That’s a name I like to forget.’
‘I’ll bet.’
She quickly pulled her hands away. ‘Please James, I’ll have that cigarette now.’ Bond gave her one of his H. Simmons specials, lighting it for her. She inhaled deeply and allowed the smoke to trickle from her mouth. ‘You seem to know so much; I should let you tell me the story.’ Her voice was cold, all the friendly, even seductive, undertone gone.
He shrugged. ‘I know only who you are. I also know Paula Vacker. She told me she’d confided in you that we were meeting in Helsinki. I went to Paula’s apartment. There were a couple of knife experts keeping an eye on her and ready to treat me like a prime joint.’
‘I’ve told you, Paula hasn’t spoken to me in years. Apart from knowing my old name, and, presumably, the fact that I’m a former SS officer’s daughter, what do you really know?’
Bond smiled. ‘Only that you’re very beautiful. I know nothing about you, except what you call your old name.’
She nodded, face set, mask-like. ‘I thought so. All right, Mr James Bond, let me tell you the full story, so that you can set the record straight. After that, I think we’d both better try to find out what’s going on – I mean what happened at Paula’s . . . I’d like to know where Paula Vacker fits into all this.’
‘Paula’s flat was done over. I went there before leaving Helsinki yesterday. There was also a slight altercation with three – four – snow ploughs on my way here. The snow ploughs indicated they wanted to remodel my car, with me inside it. Somebody does not want me here, Anni Tudeer, or Rivke Ingber, whichever is your real name.’
Rivke frowned. ‘My father was – is – Aarne Tudeer; that’s true. You know his history?’
‘That he was on Mannerheim’s staff, and took the Nazis up on an offer to become an SS officer. Brave; ruthless; a wanted war criminal.’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t know about that part until I was around twelve years old.’ She spoke very softly, but with a conviction Bond felt was genuine. ‘When my father left Finland he took several of his brother officers, and some enlisted men, with him. In those days, as you know, there was a fair assortment of camp followers. On the day he left Lapland, my father proposed to a young widow. Good birth, had large holdings of land – forest mainly – in Lapland. My mother was part Lapp. She accepted, and volunteered to go with him, so becoming a kind of camp follower herself. She went through horrors you’d hardly believe.’ She shook her head, as though still not crediting her own mother’s actions. Tudeer had married on the day after leaving Finland, and his wife stayed near him until the collapse of the Third Reich. Together they had escaped.
‘My first home was in Paraguay,’ Rivke told him. ‘I knew nothing, of course. It wasn’t until later I realised that I spoke four languages almost from the beginning – Finnish, Spanish, German and English. We lived in a compound in the jungle. Quite comfortable really, but the memories of my father are not pleasant.’
‘Tell me,’ Bond said. Little by little, he coaxed it out of her. It was, in fact, an old tale. Tudeer had been autocratic, drunken, brutal, and sadistic.
‘I was ten years old before we escaped – my mother and I. To me it was a kind of game: dressed up as an Indian child. We got away by canoe, and then, with the help of some Guarani, made it to Asunción. My mother was a very unhappy lady. I don’t know how it was managed, but she got passports for both of us, Swedish passports, and some kind of grant. We were flown to Stockholm, where we stayed for six months. Every day my mother would go to the Finnish Embassy, and, eventually, we were granted our Finnish passports. Mother spent the first year in Helsinki getting a divorce and compensation for her lost land – up here, in the Circle. We lived in Helsinki, and I got my first taste of schooling. That’s where I met Paula. We became very good friends. That’s about it.’