She looked at him admiringly. ‘You are a very good skier.’ There was a slight note of surprise in her voice.
‘I try,’ said Bond.
They skied for another hour before they came to the chalet- refuge. Bond had kept careful watch but had seen no sign that there was anyone in this part of the mountains but themselves. He had noticed chamois tracks, but that was all. Perhaps his instinct had been wrong for once. The helicopter pilot had been disgruntled because he was having problems with his wife or mistress - or both - and Martine Blanchaud was like himself; merely looking for congenial company and not part of some sinister plot. Maybe M’s surmise that he was run down and needed a few days’ holiday had been correct. M’s surmises usually were.
The hut was of typical alpine construction - wide and low and backed into the mountain as if prepared to sell its life dearly against any avalanche that rolled down from above. The logs from which it was made criss-crossed and stuck out at two corners and the tiny windows were sunk back in the walls like old man’s eyes. Six feet of snow on the roof gave it the appearance of some exotic gateau.
Bond was glad to see that the snow around the door was undisturbed. He took off his skis and tried the door. At first he thought it was locked, but it was merely frozen. He put his shoulder against it and it gave with a sound like a pistol shot Some snow fell on his head and the girl laughed. ‘Careful/ said Bond. ‘I might put you across my knee.’
The girl raised an intrigued eyebrow and Bond wondered if she understood the exact meaning of the expression. She was very pretty and the mornings skiing had rekindled a number of his appetites. Perhaps it had been the Italians and the losing streak at the casino that had made him liverish.
As was his habit when playing roulette, Bond had borrowed the chef’s card and studied the run of the ball since the session opened at three o’clock. He knew that mathematically it meant nothing, but it was his convention to take carcful note of any peculiarities in the run of the wheel and to act upon them. In this instance the card had told him nothing of interest except that five of the last six numbers to come up had been lower than twenty-five. It was Bond’s practice to play always with the wheel and only start on a new tack when zero came up. On this night he had decided to follow the wheel and back the first two dozens. The dozens pay odds of two to one, which meant that for every thousand francs Bond bet he would make a profit of five hundred francs provided that neither zero nor a number higher than twenty-four came up.
On the first throw, the ivory ball had dropped into the twenty-five. The second throw was thirty-two. Bond had made no sign but merely marked his card. The third throw was another twenty-five. Bond had stayed with the first dozens and increased his stake to the maximum.
As he did every time, the croupier had picked up the ball with his right hand, given one of the four spokes of the wheel a controlled clockwise twist with the same hand, and flicked the ball round the outer rim of the wheel anti-clockwise against the spin. The ball had run smoothly at first and then jiggled and joggled happily over the slots as the wheel began to lose momentum. Its carefree progress contrasted with the drawn faces round the table, some of them trying to keep pace with its movement like spectators at a tennis match.
‘Zero!’ Had there been a hint of triumph in that cry? Nobody had been on zero and the table had been cleared in favour of the bank.
So opened one of the least successful gaming sessions Bond had ever known. He had limped away from the tables with Marline Blanchaud in exchange for a total loss of eight thousand francs. Perhaps now was the moment to discover if Mademoiselle Blanchaud could provide adequate recompense for such a loss.
The inside of the hut was sparsely furnished with a few solid wooden chairs and a hewn table. There was a large woodframed fireplace with a fire laid and waiting to be lit, and a two-tier bunk bed, each compartment being of strictly single dimensions. Panicles of dust hung in the descending shaft of sunlight that penetrated one of the small, thick-paned windows, and there was a thick coating of dust on most surfaces. Two tall doors flanked the fireplace and were presumably cupboards.
‘It needs a little money spent on it,' said Bond. ‘Kind of someone to leave us a fire.’
'Tu as du feu?'
Bond proffered his battered Ronson and enjoyed the line of the girl’s behind as she sat on her haunches to light the fire. Nobody has yet managed to design a ski outfit that enhances the work God put into the female body, but this concealed less than most.
There was a crackle, a flame, a thin, determined column of smoke and then the fire began to draw lustily. The girl rose to him triumphantly. ‘Voilà!’
‘Do they have girl guides in France?'
Again the look of puzzlement. ‘You mean, on the mountains?’
Bond took the girl into his arms and felt her warm, soft breasts against his chest. Soon he would kiss her and make the nipples hard.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean something completely different. Girl guides are-' He broke off, staring through the fragment of window not obscured by drifts. He was looking at a perfect field of snow traversed by distant ski tracks weaving down the side of the mountain. Three pairs of ski tracks. Bond’s heart raced. The tracks had not been there when they came. Somebody was coming towards the hut.
Bond pushed the girl away and immediately saw fear in her eyes. She knew. What the hell was he going to do? Certainly not stay here. He looked into the frightened, betraying eyes and threw his arm roughly round the girl’s waist. He snatched her to him so that her lips trembled an inch from his.
‘Might as well find out what you taste like! ’ He kissed her hard and cruelly and hurled her back across the room so that she sprawled dangerously close to the fire she had just lit. Turning his back contemptuously Bond stooped to gaze through the window. The path of the ski tracks was obscured by an outcrop of rock in the foreground. For two hundred yards in front of him there was no sign of movement. The men must be in the hollow behind the rock. He could imagine them briskly side-stepping up the slope, the locomotive spurts of breath escaping from their lips. He turned towards the girl, who was still squatting in the fireplace watching him warily. Get going!
He had taken two steps towards the door when an impulse made him spin round and examine the two cupboards. The first yielded nothing of interest - two folded duvets, tins of cassoulet and candles.
The second was locked.
Bond took his knee to it and then followed through with the whole weight of his foot encased in its Handson ski boot. Splinters of wood burst from the area of the lock and the door crashed open. What Bond saw made him want to be sick. A pretty girl in a transparent laundry bag. Naked. Dead. Her hands tied behind her back. Her body mutilated. Disgusting smears of blood on the thick polythene. Her flesh bruised and swollen.
Bond spun round towards Martine Blanchaud. The expression of stupefied horror on her face saved her life. This was one turn of the wheel she did not know about.
Bond clattered clumsily across the room and threw open the door. The mid-day sun had been strong enough to start the icicles dripping, and a ragged trench mark followed the line of the eaves. Bond snatched his skis, which were propped up against the wall, and threw them down in the snow. Damn! There was ice on one of his boots. He tried to force it into the binding and then hacked savagely with the tip of his stick. The black, hard rime fell away parsimoniously as if being sculpted.