Hadley, page 17
“No. About a strange man involved in the movie business. Nothing I can write.”
Chris Torment, on an island no one had ever heard of in the middle of a war no one cared about involving one combatant group which didn’t exist, was at risk. Then an attempt was made on Torment’s life. I knew it hadn’t been successful, because it was Torment who told us the next day. Joe was now driving golf balls from a machine which teed up every shot for him. The cameras were rolling everywhere.
“Some bastard really is trying to kill me,” Torment, dressed in an orange sarong, said. “You won’t believe what I’ve been through in the last twelve hours. Never mind our fun and games. It’s like I can feel the danger of the island. It’s involving me, it’s moving me like I’ve never been moved before. The prison cell has become part of my psyche. It’s like everything I’ve done in my career until now has been complete shit.”
Joe looked at Torment and appeared to consider a swift, merciful strike at his head. “Don’t be stupid. Why don’t you just tell us what happened?”
“Well, unfortunately it involves the lovely Linda who, um, is now very sick.”
Joe lifted his head to the heavens. “The lovely Linda.”
“I’m afraid so. I would have told you earlier, but she begged me to keep quiet. Apparently her husband is in the Sri Lankan army. The jealous sort. He has a big moustache.”
“What happened?”
“Well, that’s the strangest thing. Linda has been paying a few visits of late, and, well, one thing led to another. She couldn’t understand why I was staying in such a dank sort of place, by the way. In the cell. But that’s neither here nor there. Because I understand and I told her it was all for a damn good reason.
“What happened, Chris?”
“Well, we were asleep, but I seem to recall the trap door in the roof opening. Like it was a dream. And then I fell asleep again and I dreamt this man dressed in black – it was too dark to tell who but for some reason I thought it may have been that ghastly Robert Pattinson – crept on to the beam above my bed. From his top pocket he pulled some cotton thread and a phial. He unravelled the cotton so it fell to just above my head. I dreamt that beads of sweat appeared on my forehead as he unscrewed the phial and poured three drops on to the cotton. Drop followed drop down the string. It was just like that Bond film in Japan…What’s the matter?”
“You’re telling us your dream, Chris,” said Joe. “I don’t want to hear about your dreams.”
“No, but wait. This is the spooky part. I woke up, Joe. I woke up, and I opened my eyes, and what did I see?”
“I don’t know. Dolly Parton?”
“I saw the string! The end of it was about two inches above my nose. And I could see it was wet!”
“Are you trying to tell me they tried to kill you by dabbing your nose with wet string?”
“Don’t be silly, Joe. It was that James Bond film, ‘You Only Live Twice’. A drop of something reached the bottom of the string and was about to fall…”
“On to your nose.”
“Into my mouth, man. But then Linda turned in her sleep and pushed me… actually she kneed me in the balls, and before I could take stock, a drop had fallen into her mouth.”
I looked at Joe and wondered what he was thinking. Best laid plans of mice and men, etc. As for me, I was thinking: this man Torment is enjoying the attention far too much, but he doesn’t deserve to die. But then, is Joe seriously trying to kill him, or is he just playing games?
“Anyway she got the shits,” Torment was saying. “Almost immediately. There was poison on that string, man, and that’s not the only thing. She pissed off, which was okay with me, and whoever was up in the roof beams, Robert Pattinson or no Robert Pattinson, had pissed off too. I was lying there, wondering what to do, when the next thing I knew, the next thing I felt, was a spider, as big as an omelette, crawling over my elbow. I found out this morning that its bite can kill within seconds, an agonizing death that contorts the victim’s features hideously.”
“Who told you that?” Joe shanked a four iron.
“One of these sports people.” Torment looked around. “They seem to be all over the place. But that’s not the point. The spider crawled up on to my face, where it paused, looked around, and sat down on my nose.”
All Torment could do was blow at it or shout very loudly. He was staring at it cross-eyed. The spider stood up, stretched, and walked leisurely across Torment’s cheek. The moment it left his face, Torment leapt out of bed, put on a shoe, hopped to the other side of the bed, waited for it to climb down to the floor – and stamped.
“As if I hadn’t had enough excitement,” he said.
“Anyway, you’re alive and well, that’s the main thing,” Joe said.
“No, but I haven’t finished.”
As Torment was shaving that morning with a cigar clamped between his teeth, out of the corner of his eye, in the mirror, he saw a slim panatela of a snake moving slowly across the floor towards his feet. He recognised it from the guidebook as a species only found on Macho. It was one of the world’s most venomous snakes but its bark apparently was even worse than its bite. The world’s only barking snake accelerated towards Torment who had seconds to act. His mind moved quickly. Next to the basin was a can of hairspray (ha! what had Joe said about ruling out a James Bond contender who used hairspray?) which Torment lit with the end of his cigar, turning it into a flame thrower which he turned into the face of the snake! The reptile stopped wagging immediately and gave a couple of ferocious woofs that sent shivers down Torment’s spine.
“It was a lucky escape,” Torment said.
“Very lucky,” Joe said. “You were very… intuitive.”
“Oh Joe, to explain the freedom I have found since coming to Macho,” Torment said as a Sri Lankan pro arrived to give Joe putting tips. “Don’t you see? I am paying some sort of penance. It’s my karma. These experiences, the narrow escapes, the physical togetherness with the anger of the oppressed, have all served to, well, to harden me, to make a man out of me. Just like you said.”
I felt myself nodding off there for a moment.
“I think you have been extraordinarily brave,” Joe said.
“Thank you.”
“Not a cowardly bone in your body.”
“What you reap, you sow.”
“Chris, you mean what you sow, you reap.”
“In a way, that’s true too.”
Joe had the putter tight in his grip. Dismissing the pro, he marched back to the house.
I had been brushing up on my tennis. Among the sportsmen on the island were a couple of coaches from the Philippines. They were good players but useless disciplinarians.
“What do you think about my backhand?” I said that evening as the sun went down over Torment’s outhouse.
“Please sir, it is not for us to say.”
“Well should I put my weight on the front foot or the back?”
“Sir, it is entirely up to you.”
I saw Torment leaning against a palm tree.
“That was in, sir,” one of the coaches said.
“Way out. Game, set and match to you.”
“It was in, sir. We must insist.”
“Look, enough.” I walked away from the court. “Chris, we have to talk.”
“If it’s about your sister…”
“No, it’s not about my sister.”
“Or these bloody Pattinson vampire people…”
“No.”
“Maria then…”
“It’s not about Maria.” I looked around. A 360-degree scowl. There was a camera perched on the wire netting around the tennis court and another two on top of the main house. All were pointed in our direction. Could they pick up what we were saying? Could someone read our lips? I put my hand to my mouth. “Chris, we have to have a private chat.”
“Miss Benito has a private jet? I don’t understand.”
“I’m speaking with my hand over my mouth.”
“I can’t hear you. You’re speaking with your hand over your mouth.”
“I’m speaking like this on purpose.”
“Again, I can’t quite catch what…”
“Look, be quiet.” I lifted the front of my shirt to my face as if wiping dust out of my eyes. “Listen to me. I have to tell you something urgently and in private and I don’t want these cameras to pick up what I am saying. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Torment lifted a cupped hand to his mouth. “Is Miss Benito a bit of all right?”
“There is no Miss Benito, Chris. Can you get out of your cell tonight?”
“Any time.”
“Nine o’clock. In the boathouse.”
Joe had been keeping himself much to himself and I had no trouble excusing myself from Waverly and a couple of the other staff, taking a few beers down to the beach. There were explosions on and off all the time now, mostly from the mainland, with a few flashes coming from beyond the horizon. Torment was waiting at the boathouse, uncharacteristically smoking a cigarette. We went inside and I pulled out a small flashlight.
“Chris, we have to be quiet. Things aren’t all that they seem.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’d better take a look at these.” I passed over Joe’s pictures and watched Torment’s face as he realised what they were. His mouth fell slowly open. He held one of the pictures up to the light, turned it upside down, then craned his neck to the side to look at it the right side up again.
“I’m upside down,” he said at last.
“I can see that.”
“I’m wearing nothing but a loin cloth.”
“That would appear to be the case.”
“With a belt around my neck. Why would I do that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Joe seems to think it is some sort of auto-erotic asphyxiation.”
“But I, I have no idea what that means. Do you mean some sort of sex game?”
“Yes.”
“Auto-erotic asphyxiation? Breathing in car fumes? That sort of thing?”
“No, no, no.”
“Because that just simply isn’t me. It sounds disgusting.”
“Nothing to do with car fumes. Apparently some people get off on choking their air supply. Don’t ask me. So what are you doing exactly?”
“Hadley, you don’t get it. When I say that simply isn’t me, I mean that… that person in the picture… simply isn’t me.”
“You’ve been set up.”
“Apparently so. But by whom?”
“I know by whom. Whom by. I know who set you up.”
“Who?”
“First off, I had better explain a few things. I have a couple of beers. You want one?”
Torment, a cigarette gripped between his lips, somehow flipped the cap off the bottle with the side of his hand. In the torchlight, he did indeed look tougher.
“What happened to your first movie, ‘Great Expectations’? You were Pip, right?”
“It never got made. They were filming in the wrong place. Should have been more marshy. Also, there were a couple of accidents. The director got sick. I got sick. Why do you ask?”
“Did you know I was there?”
“I didn’t. As a reporter? For the local rag?”
I nodded. “It was the scene where Magwitch gets caught in the marshes. Do you know who else was there?”
“Who?”
“Our friend Joe.”
An explosion from the mainland was loud enough to shake the boathouse. Dust fell from the roof beams.
“Joe?”
“He was there in the Fens, monitoring the whole thing. There were American cars, limos, parked away from where all you actors were. You probably don’t remember.”
“I wasn’t there. The Magwitch scene was with the younger Pip. What was Joe doing there?”
“He was doing what he said he does. He’s a big mover and shaker, a glorified casting agent. He didn’t want that film made. Don’t ask me why. He was a big fan of the David Lean version.”
“So he caused the accidents? Made me sick? Yeah, right.” I said nothing. “You’re saying he did cause the accidents? He made me sick?”
“It gets worse.”
I gave Torment the gist of how I had been recruited, how I had been followed in Hong Kong and probably long before I was ever in Hong Kong, and what Joe’s stated aim was. I explained how I had always hated Torment for what he had done to my sister, and most recently for what I had seen of him with Maria and how Joe had rubbed that in my face.
“What did he say I’d done to Maria?”
“He didn’t have to say anything. He showed me the movie.”
“Oh.”
“And I saw you in Joe’s flat in Wanchai. That was me peering in the window. You were all over her.”
“Oh I see.”
“Are you going to tell me nothing happened?”
“Well, that’s not quite true.”
“What’s not true?”
“That nothing happened.” I closed my eyes. “You see, I did try it on with her, that night of the junk party. And again when we were at Joe’s flat discussing the video…”
“Discussing the video?”
“That’s all it was. The video was a put-up job. We made it the next day. I wasn’t all over Maria, I was doing what I was being told to do the next day in the video at that god-forsaken bar of yours. It was a rehearsal. The ending was faked. Joe was mad at you, Hadley. That’s what I thought then. But now I see it was probably to get you on board to help set me up.”
“And you tried it on with Maria?”
“I did, I’m afraid.”
“But she wouldn’t play ball?”
“She wouldn’t play anything. Told me to… how did she put it? – eat shit and die. Those were her exact words. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know anything.”
There were more explosions and the thwump, thwump, thwump sound of a helicopter out at sea.
“Why is he so determined to stop me playing Bond?”
“He told me there’s a ‘heritage’ to protect, but don’t ask me how he intends to protect it or who else he has in mind.”
“It makes me even more determined.”
“For fuck’s sake no, Chris. Either he’s sane and motivated or he is completely mad, but either way he is dangerous. He set up Chen and obviously he set up the attempts on your life here. I just don’t know if they were serious, or if he was just playing. But he has money and power. He can do anything he likes.”
“What do we do now then? And how are these Pattinson people involved?”
“Complete mystery. What we do though is I call Shrubs and tell them we need to get out of here. This kind of thing they can do, some sort of medical evacuation, or we get that pompous brigadier back.”
“I’d better be going.”
“Chris, keep this all to yourself.”
“Who is there to tell, except the sports pros and the fitness freaks?”
“Well, don’t tell the lovely Linda. When she gets over all the excitement, I mean. She will want an explanation.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll give her more than…”
“Don’t say it, Chris. Please.”
“Sorry.”
I went back to the house and locked on to a satellite signal through the window. I called Baxter.
“Hadley, is that you?”
“Yes, sorry to call so late but it is pretty urgent.”
“Are you safe? How did you escape?”
“Escape what?”
“Hadley, the papers are now saying Chris Torment has been taken hostage for real. With you.”
“Oh not this again. He hasn’t been taken hostage. What do you mean ‘with me’?”
“Hadley, calm down. You’d better let me read it. Actor Chris Torment has been taken hostage after surviving a new assassination attempt in Sri Lanka and is being held together with a British journalist he knew at school.”
I slowly reached across and turned out the ceiling light, not knowing why. I sat down on my bed.
“Hadley, are you there?”
“I’m here, Rodney. Can you tell me the source?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“What’s the source?”
“It’s this Chen guy. Is he right? Have you both been taken hostage?”
“You mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.”
“Hadley, why are you whispering? Are you all right? Have you been taken hostage?”
“Not as far as I know. Don’t put anything out.” I heard a creak in the teak floor outside my room. “Rodney, I’ll have to call you back. But I am safe. So far.”
I put the phone down and went to the door and knew before I tried it that it would be locked. Then I heard the hissing of the gas from the air-conditioner. They had done this to Patrick McGoohan as John Drake in ‘Danger Man’. An undertaker wearing a top hat had come to his door and sprayed something through the letterbox. And when Drake came to, he was suddenly in a new series called ‘The Prisoner’. Turned out to be a good career move. Where will I be when I wake up? If I wake up, that is.
The answer turned out to be the boathouse. At first I thought I was dreaming, but the pain in my wrists assured me I was awake. I was pinioned on the ground, held down by the wrists and the ankles. Above me was the wooden roof and cross beams, decked out with assorted telescopic and microscopic instruments, two crossbows, a jar of liquid and yards of wiring. A man, wearing a black diving suit and black eye patch, was standing at the back of a speedboat propped upright on the sand by wooden bollards. Next to him were a pair of oxygen tanks and a speargun.
“And so I am afraid, my dear Mr Bond, death may be slow, but it is certain.”
“What are you playing at?” asked Chris Torment. “How did we get here? Who are you?”
I turned my head. True enough, Torment was lying manacled on the ground next to me.
“There is no one here to stop me,” the man said. “No one knows where you are, 007, let alone Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and I shall be the last to leave the island. Alone. Your friend had the chance to call in the cavalry and he failed.”
It was meant to be Emilio Largo, the baddie from ‘Thunderball’.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr Leiter.” The man was addressing me now. I was Bond’s U.S. secret service sidekick, Felix Leiter, it seemed. I raised my head as far as I could.
