‘Heather – Irma – they have you safe as well. I thought we were going to be left out in the cold. But they haven’t let us down.’ She was close to Heather now, embracing her.
‘A small deception, I’m afraid.’ Smolin looked at Bond, as Heather gasped, ‘Ebbie? What . . .’
‘Inside!’ Smolin’s voice cut loudly across the several conversations that had started up among his men and the bewildered girls. ‘Everybody inside! Now!’
The men closed in, the dogs circling as though on guard. They seemed to be particularly concerned with Bond and the two girls, herding them through the door into a vast flagstoned hallway. It was dominated by a stripped pine gallery running round three sides and a wide staircase.
Heather appeared to be calm, still under the effect of the drugs, Bond supposed, but Ebbie trembled visibly. There was horror in her wide blue eyes as she looked towards Bond. Recognition slowly dawned as she recalled that night, five years before, when Bond and the Special Boat Squadron men had plucked Heather and herself from the German coast.
‘Is he?’ Ebbie spoke loudly, turning towards Heather and half raising a hand to point accusingly at Bond.
Heather shook her head and said something quietly, glancing quickly first at Smolin and then at Bond, who glanced around the hallway, taking in everything: the dark blue velvet of the curtains, the three doors and one passage that led off to other parts of the castle, and the large eighteenth-century portraits, so much at odds with the group now gathered there.
Smolin snapped orders at the two men who had appeared with Ebbie. The four from the ambulance and the two who had driven the cars stood near the door. From their manner and the distinct bulges beneath their clothes it was obvious that all of them were armed. Armed to the teeth, Bond thought. As though the very thought produced the fact, he saw a folded machine pistol appear from behind one of the drivers’ backs. There would be more of those and probably other men as well – watchers on the rim of the grassy bowl. Men, guns and dogs; locks, bars and bolts; and a long haul across open ground if they were even to get that far.
‘Irma, my dear, bring Emilie over here, although I think she knows Mr Bond.’
Bond was pleased to see that Ebbie had regained enough wit to cloud her face with a puzzled expression.
‘I don’t think . . .’ she began.
Smolin spoke coldly. ‘How remiss of me. Mr Bond, you do not know Fräulein Nikolas – or Miss Ebbie Heritage as she now prefers to be called?’
‘No, I haven’t had the pleasure.’ Bond walked over with his hand outstretched and gave Ebbie’s a reassuring squeeze. ‘This really is a pleasure.’
He meant this last remark, for, now he was close to Ebbie Heritage, Bond sensed a desire he rarely felt on first meeting a girl. Through his expression he tried to convey that all would be well, a difficult task as the German Shepherds moved with him, not aggressively but still letting him know of their presence.
‘How strange,’ Smolin commented, ‘I could have sworn that she recognised you out there, Bond.’
‘He . . .’ Ebbie began. Then, as her confidence returned, she said, ‘He reminded me of someone I used to know. Just for a second. Now I see he’s English, and I’ve not met him before. But, yes, for me also it is a pleasure.’
Good girl, Bond thought to himself, looking towards Heather and trying to pass on a reassuring look to her also. Heather’s eyes did not appear to be properly focused, but she managed a firm, confident smile. For a moment, Bond could have sworn that she was trying to convey him a message of deeper significance. It was as if they had already reached a mutual understanding.
‘So.’ Smolin was standing beside them. ‘I suggest we eat a hearty meal. A full stomach before work, eh?’
‘What work, Colonel Smolin?’
‘Oh, Maxim. Please call me Maxim.’
‘What kind of work?’ Bond repeated firmly.
‘There is much talking to be done. But first you must see your quarters. The guest accommodation is good here in . . .’ He paused, as though stopping himself from giving away their location. Then he said, with a contented smile, ‘Here, in Schloss Varvick. You recall Schloss Varvick, James?’
‘It’s familiar,’ he said with a nod.
‘As a boy you probably read of it in Dornford Yates. I forget which book.’
‘So, for the want of a better name, Maxim?’
Smolin nodded. ‘For want of a better name.’
‘Then this is your base in the Republic of Ireland? Schloss GRU. Or perhaps Schloss Gruesome?’ said Bond without a smile.
Smolin exploded with laughter. ‘Good. Very good. Now, where is our housekeeper? Ingrid! Ingrid! Where is the girl? Somebody get her.’
One of the men disappeared through a service door and a few seconds later returned with a dark, sharp-faced, angular woman. Smolin ordered her to show his ‘guests’ to their quarters, adding that Miss Heritage was already nicely settled in.
‘You won’t be cramped,’ he said as he stood hands on hips and head thrown back. ‘There is a communal sitting room, but you each have a separate bedroom.’
Two of the men closed in on them and Smolin ordered Fafie to follow. The thin figure of Ingrid moved up the stairs silently as though she walked on a cushion of air. Yet her movement appeared sinister rather than graceful.
‘It is very comfortable.’ Ebbie’s voice was strong and pleasant. ‘I quite enjoyed it last night, but then I thought it to be sanctuary.’
Her English was not quite so flawless as Heather’s but she seemed at least initially to have a more outgoing personality. Heather, he felt, had disappeared into the shell of her long legs, slim body and beautiful mask of a face. Ebbie was full of fun and had an unselfconscious sense of her own attractiveness. She held herself well as though to show off her fine body.
The little group, followed by Fafie, climbed to the gallery, and turned right along the polished pine floor. At the end of a short corridor was a solid door, also in pine. This led into a large sitting room decorated in heavy mid-European style with flock wallpaper, a buttoned sofa, matching chairs and solid oak side tables. A card table with ball and claw feet, a Gothic breakfront bookcase reaching almost to the ceiling containing only magazines piled into the shelves and a heavy bureau filled the remaining space. Three dark German prints of mountain scenes, with clouds gathering between valleys, in ugly wooden frames hung on the walls. The floor was of the same polished pine with a number of thick rugs placed haphazardly around a central oblong carpet. Bond was deeply suspicious of rugs. It also worried him that the room had no windows. There were three doors besides the entrance, one in each wall, which Bond took to belong to the bedrooms.
‘I have the room over here,’ said Ebbie as she went to a door set almost opposite the entrance. ‘I hope nobody minds?’
She looked Bond straight in the eyes, then invitingly through slightly lowered lashes. She stood with one leg forward, bent at the knee, showing the curve of her thigh under the thin material of her skirt.
‘First come, first served, as my old Nanny used to say,’ he said, nodding at her. Then, turning to Heather, he told her to take her pick. She shrugged and went to the door on the left. Sinister, Bond thought, recalling the old theatrical tradition of the pantomime devil making his entrance stage left: a sinister, the side of evil omen.
The whole tangle of questions and theories came into the open again. Where did Jungle Baisley fit in? Had M misled him? Had Swift really made a terrible error of judgment in telling Heather to activate Smolin? How was Smolin so well briefed about his movements, and why had he felt it necessary to distance himself from the London incident, when Heather had almost died? Had the delicious Ebbie lent her raincoat and scarf to the Ashford Castle chambermaid on purpose?