John Gardner - Seafire

Under his tight hold, with her arm strained behind her back, Anna let out a little groan. "We were trying to let you go," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Cathy was coming back to tell you what was really going on. We had the handcuff keys. Tarn would only have let us come up to you if we said it was to kill you. You've no -"

"She's telling the truth." Trish Nuzzi nodded, and he saw that it even hurt her to speak. There was some wiring on her jaw on the inside of her mouth. "She's being honest with you. It was all done for me . They persuaded Max that it would be a good idea to get you both out of the way. He was reluctant, but finally allowed them to stay behind in Cambridge. Please, they're telling the truth."

Unwillingly, Bond let go of the wrist. "Why should I trust you? Any of you?"

"Sit down. Please." Trish Nuzzi gestured to the chairs and a long sofa. "Cath, get a bottle of champagne and we'll have a drink. I'm in need of it, the painkillers are wearing off, and I can't take any more for a couple of hours." The grimace on her face was evidence enough that she was not acting.

"Who did this to you?" he asked, one hand rising to indicate her face.

"Who do you think?" She gave a cynical little laugh and patted the place next to her on the sofa. Flicka gave a long sound, as though clearing her throat, and indicated one of the comfortable easy chairs. Bond raised one eyebrow at her as she cut in front of him and seated herself next to Trish.

As he sat down, his eyes caught Anna's; she had been glowering at him. Now she gave a little knowledgeable smile, then glowered again, touching her hair. "Wigs," she snapped. "Wigs for us both until our hair grows again."

"I prefer you with real eyebrows as well," Bond said, straight-faced.

"And you." Anna made an obscene gesture as Cathy came back into the room with an ice bucket in which rested a bottle of Dom Perignon, and glasses.

"Who?" He turned to Trish again.

"I asked who do you think?"

"Your husband?"

"Part of it. Max likes to inflict pain, but he leaves the real bone breaking to that bastard Connie Spicer."

"Then this isn't something new? Sir Max has a penchant for battering you?"

"It's one of the reasons I brought Cathy and Anna into the marriage."

"You brought…?"

"I am right in saying you are with the British authorities, and that you want to put Max Tarn into a high-security prison for a thousand years, aren't I?"

"A thousand and one, actually."

"Make that two thousand," said Flicka.

"Good." Trish accepted a glass of the Dom Perignon from Cathy, who had waved away Bond's offer of help. She took a long sip. "I need this. If I have to talk for a while, I need help at the moment."

"Take your time." Flicka patted her arm.

"You said that you brought Cathy and Anna into the marriage?"

"Look, Mr. Bond. I know I've been an idiot. I had the pick of the field. I could have married anyone. Max could be amusing, and he had other things to offer – like money. I married him for his money, that's plain and simple. I knew he got some of his kicks through hurting women, but before we married, I thought it wasn't all that dangerous. Games. You know the kind of thing. Then, well, he suggested that once we were married, I should have a couple of bodyguards. He said he'd arrange it. I said that I would arrange it. That's where Cathy and Anna come in."

"We offered a service for lots of people in the business," Cathy joined in. "We're trained in the martial arts, and we know how to shoot." She pirouetted and a small automatic pistol appeared from under her jacket. As Bond moved, she gave a small laugh and returned the weapon to its hiding place. "We can be a right pair of dangerous bitches when we want. Also, we got on well with Trish. She came to us with a proposition, and we ran with it."

"Max wouldn't have taken them seriously as women," Trish began.

"Max is still your average male chauvinist." Cathy shook her head, as though male chauvinists were an endangered species.

"It meant disguising them," Trish continued, "and they looked bizarre enough for Max to take them seriously as men. He has some odd tastes in bodyguards."

"You knew he could be violent. Did you also know anything about his business affairs?" Flicka again.

"Not until much later. The girls knew before I did, because Max gave them a couple of jobs to do. They weren't that happy about it, but they did try and shield me from the worst."

"Until it was too late." Anna sat in a good upright posture on one of the easy chairs.

"What is the worst?" Flicka asked. "The scope of his illegal arms dealing, or the contempt he shows by constantly abusing you physically?"

"Oh." She frowned and looked a little bewildered. "Then you don't really know Max at all. I can normally put up with his bouts of sadism, but about five years ago I discovered the end product of his deals and intrigues." She took another sip of her drink. "At first I couldn't understand when he became angry every time I visited Israel – I make a couple of trips here each year." She explained that some ten years before she had undergone treatment for a slight eye problem. "My doctor – Julius Hartman – did the procedure and follow-ups in Harley Street. Then, being a good Jew, he finally decided to leave London and live here, in Israel. So I had my six-monthly checkups with him. Here in Jerusalem. Anna and Cathy always came with me."

"Funny." Bond looked first at Anna and then at Cathy. "I thought I chased you two all over Seville on motorcycles. I thought I had killed the pair of you."

"You did what?" Anna sat up even straighter.

"If you left with Trish, you missed a little unpleasantness. I killed two of his toughs, and a man called Peter Dolmech got murdered."

"Oh, no." Trish Tarn put her hands to her face. "Peter? He was one of the nicest men around Max."

"He was also providing us with information and his luck ran out, I'm afraid."

"You probably did in Pixie and Dixie," Cathy supplied.

"Pixie and…?"

"That's what everyone called them. They had been stunt drivers at one time. Stunts with cars and motorcycles. Very nasty gentlemen. Did a lot of unpleasant jobs for Max. Their real names were never mentioned, and I got the impression they were wanted by the police in about seven different countries." Trish held out her glass for more champagne and took a deep breath. "But to get back to Max, I really laid into him when we got to Seville. I knew a lot more by then, but I was out of my mind with anger and grief. It would've been more prudent to keep quiet, but I told him the truth and this is the result. He was so furious that he did most of it. Connie Spicer broke my nose and jaw. Max, as you must know, suffers from a kind of folie de grandeur . He's done nothing but spread death and destruction for most of his adult life, but he thinks he can, in some way, make amends. When he does, he reckons that everyone's going to forget about the weapons and people – because he also deals in people, mercenaries mostly – and hail him as a hero. As the true hero. I shouldn't have told him on that last day in Seville."

"What was this horrific thing you told him, Trish?"

"You can't guess?" She gave a bitter little laugh. "I told him the truth, knowing that it would explode his mind. The truth. You see, I'm a quarter Jewish, on my mother's side, and me a good Catholic girl. My father was Italian, and my mother English. When I was coming up to my First Communion they told me. It was a big family secret. A quarter Jewish, and that was enough to spark off my dear husband when I threw it in his face."

"He just beat you up and then let you walk away?" Bond still only had an inkling of what she really meant.

"Not quite." Again the bitter laugh. "He lost control. Said he would have to bathe four times a day for the rest of his life, to get the Jewish filth from his body. He shouted at me. Said nobody must ever know; said he loathed himself. Did some damage to my face and ribs. I said I was going, so he put Connie in. I think the idea was to disable me so that I couldn't leave, but Connie hadn't banked on the girls."