The Facts Of Death

by Raymond Benson

  “Why is that?”

  “Let’s just say I know a few things about his family. I shouldn’t have said anything—forget about it.”

  “Do you know him well?”

  “Not really. We’ve played bridge at Blades a few times. He gets into a terrible temper when he loses. He reminds me of that man we played against a while back … you know, the German with the disfigured face and the rocket.”

  “Drax?”

  “That’s right. Oh, never mind. There’s just something about Hutchinson that I don’t like. That’s all. Forget I said anything about it.”

  For a moment Bond caught a hint of jealousy in Sir Miles’s voice. Could it be that he was attracted to the new M himself and was merely sounding off against her choice of suitors? Bond quickly dismissed the absurdity of that idea.

  They were interrupted by M herself. She stuck her head in the door and spotted Bond and Sir Miles. “Oh, there you are, James. Might I have a word with you? Excuse me, Sir Miles.”

  “Quite all right, my dear,” Sir Miles said with charm.

  Bond followed her out and over to where Hutchinson was standing, admiring a new watercolor print that Sir Miles had recently completed.

  “The old man has an extraordinary gift for capturing light and shadow, doesn’t he?” Hutchinson said, peering closely at the painting.

  “James,” M began, “Alfred has some information about the Cyprus case which might be useful.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Be at my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, please? Is that good for you, Alfred?” she asked.

  “Yes, my dear,” he said conspiratorially. “That will be fine.”

  “Why not just tell us now?” Bond asked.

  “My dear man,” Hutchinson said, “we’re here to enjoy ourselves, aren’t we? Let’s not discuss business now, for heaven’s sake. I’m going to have another drink. Can I get you something?”

  “Thank you, no,” Bond said. Sir Miles was right. There was something inherently sleazy about the man. “Ten o’clock, then,” he said. He nodded at M and walked away.

  Bond went into the hallway to find Davison. He had had enough socializing for one night. He was surprised to find none other than Helena Marksbury sitting alone. She was just putting out a cigarette in a glass ashtray. Bond had seen her earlier conversing with other SIS personnel, and he didn’t want to join them. Now that she was alone …

  “What’s the matter, Helena? The bus doesn’t stop here.”

  She smiled. “Hello, James. I was wondering if you were ever going to talk to me this evening.”

  “I’ve been trying to, but you were always engaged. Care to take a walk outside?”

  “It’s a bit cold and damp, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll put on our coats. Come on, let’s find them.”

  A few minutes later, they had their overcoats on and they quietly stepped out of the house. The air was chilly and the night was full of dark clouds. Bond lit two cigarettes and passed one to Helena. They walked around the side of the house to a sunken patio. A large fountain with a statue of Cupid in its center stood in the middle of the patio, but the water had been turned off.

  “I felt a bit lost in there,” she said. “They’re really not my crowd.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you they’re not my crowd either?”

  “Yes, I would,” she said. “You’re not like the others at the office, James.” She laughed to herself. “Not at all.”

  “I suppose that’s a compliment,” he said.

  She smiled but didn’t elaborate.

  A bit of light from windows at the back of the house shone across the patio. He gazed at her oval face, the short brown hair and big green eyes. She was very beautiful. She returned his stare and finally said, “What would you like to do now?”

  “I want to kiss you,” he said.

  She blinked. “You’re very direct,” she said.

  “Always,” he said; then he leaned forward and kissed her. She welcomed the embrace and opened her mouth to make the kiss more intimate. After a few seconds, they separated, but Bond kept his face close to hers. He felt a raindrop on his forehead.

  “It’s starting to rain,” she whispered.

  He moved in and kissed her again, and this time she responded even more passionately. The raindrops began to increase in tempo.

  Eventually, she pulled away gently. Breathlessly, she said, “I know this isn’t sexual harassment, but I’d better point out that you’re my boss, James.”

  He kept his hands on her shoulders. He nodded. “I know. We … I shouldn’t do this.”

  “We’d best go back inside. We’re getting wet.”

  A thunderclap roared and the rain started to come down in earnest. Bond held her as they ran around the house to the front door. By the time they got there, she was laughing. They stood beneath the awning for a moment. Now there was an awkward silence between them.

  “I was about to leave when I saw you,” he said finally.

  “It’s pouring now, you’ll have to wait. You couldn’t possibly drive home in this.”

  “No. I’m going now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He gave her shoulders a squeeze and said, “Forgive me.” Then he walked out into the rain and onto the gravel drive. Helena Marksbury watched him go and muttered under her breath, “You’re forgiven.”

  Bond let the rain soak him as he walked to the end of the drive where he had left the Bentley. He cursed himself for what had just happened. He knew better than to get involved with women at the office. If only she wasn’t so bloody attractive! What was it in him that made him want to seduce every woman he found desirable? Temporary recreational love was satisfying and always had been, but it certainly didn’t fill a greater need Bond had. Was it possible that what he craved was a woman to love—really love—in order to fill that hole? The bitter answer to that was that he got burned every time he allowed himself to truly love someone. The scars on his heart were many and deep.

  He got into his car and set off through the torrent toward London. Bond’s darker side took hold of him once again as he pondered his lonely, wretched life. He would have liked the rain to wash away the familiar melancholy, but he ultimately accepted and embraced it as an old friend.

  FOUR

  TOO CLOSE TO HOME

  THE PHONE WOKE BOND ABRUPTLY OUT OF A DEEP SLEEP. THE ILLUMINATED digital clock read 2:37. He switched on the light and went for the white phone, but the ring continued. Bond felt a sudden rush of adrenaline when he realized that it was the red phone that was ringing. The red phone rang only in an emergency situation.

  “Bond,” he said into the receiver.

  “James, code sixty.” It was Bill Tanner.

  “I’m listening.”

  “M’s orders.” Tanner gave an address and flat number. “You know where it is? Just off of Holland Park Road. It’s the block of flats called Park Mansions.”

  Tanner rang off and Bond jumped out of bed. “Code sixty” meant that the matter had a special security classification. In other words, Bond must use utmost discretion.

  It took him ten minutes to get to Holland Park, an area of affluence on the western edge of Kensington. The district grew as a result of the reputation of Holland House, a mansion built four hundred years ago primarily for the purpose of entertaining king and court. Town houses sprang up in the early to mid-nineteenth century on various streets and squares west of the park. Many MPs and governmental elite lived in the area.

  Park Mansions was a long block of brown and red brick buildings three stories high. A security gate provided protection from traffic, but at the moment there seemed to be a lot of activity in front of one of the buildings. An ambulance was parked there, its lights flashing. A police car and two unmarked MI5 cars were double-parked in front as well. Bond left the Bentley outside the gate and walked through. He showed a constable his credentials and was shown through the front door of the building.

  Bill Tan
ner met him at the open front door of the flat. Police tape had been stretched several feet away from the door, preventing any curious neighbors from peering inside.

  “James, come inside,” Tanner said. “M’s in here.”

  “What’s going on, Bill?”

  “It’s Hutchinson. He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  Tanner leaned in closer and kept his voice down. “This is his flat. M was here spending the night with him. She’s quite distraught.”

  “Do we know what happened?”

  “You’d better have a look. I phoned Manville Duncan after I called you. He’s on his way.”

  Tanner led Bond inside the flat. MI5 Forensics were taking photographs and examining the scene. M was in the sitting room, dressed in a white and pink silk housecoat. She looked pale and frightened. She was holding a cup of coffee in her lap. When she looked up, Bond could see that she was extremely upset, not only because her lover was dead, but because she was embarrassed to be seen by her staff in this condition.

  Bond knelt beside her and took her hand. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked gently.

  M nodded and swallowed. “Thank you for coming, James. Poor Alfred. I feel so … exposed.”

  “Don’t worry about that, ma’am. What happened?”

  She shook her head and trembled. “I don’t even know. One minute he was fine, and the next …” She closed her eyes, attempting to get hold of herself.

  Bond stood up and said, “I’m going to have a look at him, ma’am. We’ll talk in a moment.”

  He followed Tanner into the bedroom.

  Bond had seen many cadavers and crime scenes, and this one was no different. Death brought an unnatural chill to an otherwise warm hued room with oak wall paneling, a king-sized bed and ornate headboard, and distinctly masculine furnishings. Alfred Hutchinson lay naked on his back on the bed. He might have been asleep but for the fact that his eyes were wide open, frozen in fear. There were no marks on the body. There were no signs that there had been any violence. He looked as if he might have been a victim of cardiac arrest. In this state, Alfred Hutchinson was no longer the distinguished Goodwill Ambassador to the World Bond had met a few hours earlier. Now he was simply a chalk-skinned common corpse.

  “Heart attack?” Bond asked the MI5 medical examiner, who was sitting by the bed, writing in a notebook. A member of the MI5 forensic team was taking photographs of the body with a multi/fixedfocal length Polaroid Macro 5 SLR instant camera, one of several special-purpose cameras that the team was using at the crime scene.

  “That’s what it looks like,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to conduct a postmortem examination, of course, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hutchinson died of cardiac and respiratory failure, but he was in perfect health. After hearing Ms. Mawdsley’s statement and examining the body, it’s my preliminary opinion that he was murdered.”

  “How?”

  “Some kind of poison. A neurotoxin, most likely, a substance that stops your heart and the automatic function of breathing. It’s something that is irreversible once it’s been introduced into the bloodstream. It acts fast, but not fast enough, I’m afraid. The man suffered terribly for several minutes.”

  “Any marks on the body?”

  “One suspicious contusion on the anterior of his right thigh. See the little red mark?” The doctor pointed to a small, swollen puncture wound on Hutchinson’s upper leg. “At first I thought it was just a pimple, but further examination revealed that he had been jabbed with a needle.”

  Bond looked at the body again. The man in charge walked into the bedroom.

  “Commander Bond?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective Inspector Howard. We’re ready to take the body away if you are.”

  “Have you had a good look at all his personal effects?” Bond asked.

  “We’re just getting around to that now. Might I ask you to have a talk with Ms. Mawdsley? I wasn’t able to get much out of her earlier.”

  Bond nodded and left the bedroom. He found that M had not moved, nor had she drunk her coffee. He sat down next to her in an armchair.

  “Ma’am, we need to know exactly what happened tonight,” he said softly.

  M sighed heavily and shut her eyes.

  “I’m still trying to piece it together,” she said. “We left Sir Miles’s house around eleven. Maybe eleven-fifteen. We were all together—the Duncans, Alfred, and me. We decided to stop at the Ritz for a nightcap.”

  She paused and took a sip of the coffee. She turned to Tanner. “Mr. Tanner, this is cold. Could you please get me a fresh cup?”

  Tanner nodded and took the cup from her.

  “What time did you get to the Ritz?” Bond asked.

  “I think it was around midnight. We were there three quarters of an hour, I suppose.”

  “What did Mr. Hutchinson have to drink?”

  “He had a brandy, as did I. We all did.”

  “Then what?”

  “It was raining heavily. Alfred offered to drive the Duncans home, but they insisted on calling a taxi. They live out of the way, in Islington.”

  “So you and Alfred drove here together?”

  She nodded. “He had parked near the hotel. We both had umbrellas, so I didn’t mind walking in the rain. We got to the flat twenty minutes later. He seemed fine. We … got undressed …”

  Bond knew this was extremely difficult for M. She was exposing a personal, intimate side of herself that no one else ever saw.

  “It’s all right, ma’am,” Bond said. “Go on.”

  “We made love,” she said. “Afterwards, he—”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but did he show any signs of fatigue or illness during your lovemaking?”

  “No,” M said. “He seemed completely normal. Alfred is … was … very energetic.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  “I got up to go to the loo. While I was in there, I heard him gasping for breath. I ran out to him and he was struggling for air, clutching at his throat. Oh, James, it was horrible. I reached for the phone to call an ambulance, but he grabbed my arm. All he could say was, ‘Your hand … your hand …’ So I let him hold my hand. He went into a terrible convulsion, and then he died. I called the ambulance and Mr. Tanner immediately afterwards. I thought about dressing him, but I knew that wasn’t the thing to do. I … left him … like that …” She started to sob.

  Bond put his arm around his chief and let her cry on his shoulder for a full sixty seconds until she finally pulled herself together.

  Tanner brought another cup of coffee. “Manville Duncan just arrived. Here you go, ma’am.”

  Duncan’s face was white when he hurried into the room. “What happened?”

  Tanner gave him a quick rundown of what they knew so far.

  “Christ, was it a heart attack?” Duncan asked.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Bond said, “but I’m afraid that’s not the case. Alfred Hutchinson was murdered.”

  M’s eyes grew wide. “How do you know?”

  “It’s the medical examiner’s suspicion. Mine as well. You see, ma’am, what you described is not consistent with a heart attack. Mr. Hutchinson was alive for several minutes, apparently choking, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he went into convulsions?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ma’am, can you come look at the body again? I’d like to show you something.”

  A complete change came over M. When she heard the word “murder,” she summoned all of her professional integrity. Even though she was dressed in only a housecoat, she became the head of SIS once again. She stood up and gestured toward the bedroom for Bond to lead the way.

  Bond took her in and showed her the tiny wound on Hutchinson’s leg. “The medical examiner believes that’s where the poison entered the bloodstream.”

  “Oh my God,” M said. “I know
how it happened. I remember now.”

  “What?”

  “It was outside the hotel. We had just said goodbye to the Duncans. We were walking toward his car. There was someone with a broken umbrella on the pavement. He was struggling with it, trying to open it.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, angrily. “I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman. They were dressed in a hooded yellow raincoat—completely covered.”

  “And?”

  “As we walked by, the person accidentally poked Alfred with the end of the umbrella, I think. I know it struck him somehow, and he said, ‘Ouch.’ …”

  “What did the person with the umbrella do?”

  “Nothing! They didn’t even realize what had happened, for they moved on without apologizing or saying a word. Alfred shrugged it off and we kept walking toward the car, although now that I think about it, he seemed a little shaken up by the incident. He did act a little strange until we started driving. While we were walking, he kept looking behind us. And he insisted on holding my handbag until we got into the car, for fear that it might get snatched. In two minutes we got to the car. It all happened so fast that frankly I had forgotten all about it.”

  “You know what this reminds me of?” Tanner asked.

  “Yes,” Bond said. “Markov.”

  “By God, you’re right,” M said.

  “What?” Duncan asked. “Who’s Markov?”

  “Georgi Markov,” Bond said. “He was a Bulgarian defector. He was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge in … 1978, I believe, in this same fashion. Someone poked him with an umbrella. The tip of the umbrella injected a tiny capsule of ricin into his bloodstream.”

  “Ricin?”

  “It’s a toxic protein-based poison derived from castor beans. Depending on the dosage, it can be effective in fifteen minutes to an hour. It’s lethal, and it leaves no trace in the bloodstream. To all intents and purposes, the victim dies of respiratory and cardiac failure. It attacks the nervous system and shuts off those basic motor functions.”

  “But … who would want to kill Alfred?” Duncan asked.

  “That’s the big question,” Bond said. “Who would?”