‘I hope so. Is there a ferry to Cheung Chau?’ Bond asked.
‘Each hour, sir. Yaumati Ferry Company. From Outlying Districts Services Pier.’ She gestured in the direction of the pier.
Bond nodded and thanked her. ‘We must go now,’ he said, turning to Ebbie.
‘Why? We are to meet Swift. You arranged . . .’
‘I’m sorry. Yes I did arrange. But just come now. You should know that I’ve stopped trusting anybody, Ebbie: even Swift, and even you.’
He became aware of police sirens close by and as they reached the main doors of the hotel, a knot of people was already gathering across the road in the gardens that surrounded the Connaught Centre. Dodging traffic, they dashed towards the crowd just as two police cars and an ambulance drew up.
Bond managed to get sight of the trouble through the throng. A man lay spreadeagled on his back, blood seeping on to the paving stones. There was a terrible stillness about him and the grey eyes looked steady and sightless into the sky above. The cause of Swift’s death was not immediately apparent, but the killers could not be far away. Backing away from the crowd, Bond caught Ebbie by the forearm, and propelled her away to the left, in the direction of the Outlying Districts Pier.
17
LETTER FROM THE DEAD
The sampan smelled strongly of dried fish and human sweat. Lying close together in the bows, looking back towards the toothless old lady who sprawled across the tiller and the twinkling lights of Hong Kong behind her, Bond and Ebbie could feel the fatigue and tension emanating from one another. The afternoon with its sudden changes of moods and events seemed far away, as did the sight of Swift’s body in front of the portholed windows of the Connaught Centre building. After the shock of seeing the man lying dead, Bond’s thoughts had been unusually imprecise and jumbled. He was certain of only one thing, that unless Chernov had shown monstrous cunning, Swift had been straight. There were moments during the conversation at Big Thumb Chang’s when he had doubted that. Now he was on his own and the only chance of fingering the Cream Cake double and getting Chernov alive lay in putting himself on offer, as a living lure.
His first instinct had been to give chase, to head for the island by the quickest possible means. He was in fact half way towards the ferry terminal when he realised that this was just what Chernov might want. He slowed his pace, keeping the holdall close to his left side, and holding Ebbie fast by his right. She had not seen the body and asked continually what was wrong and where were they going. Angrily, Bond dragged her along until the moment when his fragmented thoughts came together and he could think logically again.
‘Swift,’ he said, surprised at the calmness of his own voice, ‘It was Swift. He looked very dead.’
Ebbie gave a little gasp and asked in a small voice if he was sure. He described what he had seen without sparing her. In a way he wanted the picture to be shocking. Her reaction had been unexpectedly restrained. After a lengthy silence, as they almost strolled along the picturesque waterfront, she merely muttered, ‘Poor Swift. He was so good to us – all of us.’ Then, as though the full implication had struck her, ‘And poor James. You needed his help, didn’t you?’
‘We all needed his help.’
‘Will they come for us too?’
‘They’ll come for me, Ebbie, but I don’t know about you. It depends which side you’re working for.’
‘You know which side I’m on. Were they not trying to kill me at the hotel, the Ashford Castle Hotel, when I was lending my coat and scarf to that poor girl?’
She had a point. Even Chernov would not be so stupid as to kill an innocent bystander in the Irish Republic. Bond had to put trust in at least one other human being. Ebbie was apparently straight and had been from the outset. With some reluctance, he decided he would have to accept her.
‘All right. I believe you, Ebbie.’ He swallowed, and then went on to give her the briefest details, that Chernov was on the island with his men; that he was holding Heather and Maxim Smolin prisoner, and almost certainly Jungle and Susanne Dietrich as well. ‘We’re probably under some form of surveillance now. They might even expect us to go charging over to Cheung Chau straight away. I’ll say this for the KGB, they’ve become quite classy lately when it comes to psychological pressure. They are putting us under stress at our weakest moment. We’re both tired, disoriented, jet-lagged. They’ll expect us to make moves automatically. We need time to rest and work out some more effective plan.’
But where should they go? In this place, even though the crowds were constant, you could not hide, for a thousand eyes were watching. He had no safe house at his disposal, only his own experience and the weapons in the holdall, and Ebbie Heritage whose form in the field he did not know. His one chance would be to go through the complex business of throwing a tail – even though he could not spot one. After that, well, it would be a matter of luck; they could try going to another hotel.
Leaning on the wall and looking out over the harbour, he pulled Ebbie closer to him. Three low barges were being towed across the centre of the bay. The usual junks and sampans ploughed and turned. One of the high, double-decked car ferries was nosing out to their left, while two of the Star Ferry boats that ran every ten minutes between Hong Kong and Kowloon hooted as they passed one another in the centre of the harbour. In his mind, Bond went through the various means of running the back doubles in Hong Kong. The Mandarin was out as a resting place, for they were certain to have watchers back there. Kowloonside seemed the best idea.
Very carefully he explained to Ebbie what he must do. Then he went over it a second time. Smiling down at her, he asked if she could go through with it.
She nodded. ‘Oh yes, we’ll show the devils. I have scores to settle with them, James. At least two – three if you count the poor girl I loaned my scarf and coat to.’ She gave a little smile back. ‘We will win, won’t we?’
‘No contest.’ He tried to make it sound casual, though he knew that to win here in Asia against the kind of people Kolya Chernov had at his disposal, and with at least one of the Cream Cake team as his ally, it would need very good joss indeed.
They started to walk back along the harbour front, dodging up the open stairs near the Central Post Office to get on to the covered overpass which brought them out on the Mandarin side of Connaught Road. The offices were closing and the crowds had thickened, yet even among so many people there was a strange orderliness.
‘Keep your eyes open. Watch shoes rather than faces,’ Bond advised her; although as they began to look, he realised how many people wore trainers. A team of watchers would almost certainly be wearing them.
At the hotel they turned right into Ice House Street again. This time they were heading for the red brick ivy-covered entrance to the Mass Transit Railway station, less than a hundred yards behind the hotel. This was the Hong Kongside, end of the line station known as Central.
The MTR is rightly Hong Kong’s pride and joy, the envy of many cities. For efficiency and cleanliness, there are few underground railways in the world that can compare. Certainly Moscow has its huge baroque stations, Paris its fabled Louvre station with objets d’art on view; London has its somewhat dingy charm and New York its air of naked danger. But Hong Kong has bright shiny trains, air-conditioned, spotlessly clean platforms and an ordered sense of obedience, evident from the electronic turnstiles to the passengers themselves. They dodged down the steps from the street into the high-ceilinged modern complex. Bond went straight to the booking booth, flashed his Boldman passport and asked for two special tourist tickets, which allowed unlimited travel. He slapped down thirty Hongkong dollars and received two coloured plastic smart cards in return.