This wonderful man who had carried the sun with him. Now he was extinguished, totally dead.
Bond turned brusquely and walked out of sight of the man who had died for him.
He began, carefully, non-committally, to answer questions.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Out of Danger?
The Orient Express steamed slowly into Belgrade at three o’clock in the afternoon, half an hour late. There would be an eight hours’ delay while the other section of the train came in through the Iron Curtain from Bulgaria. Bond looked out at the crowds and waited for the knock on the door that would be Kerim’s man. Tatiana sat huddled in her sable coat beside the door, watching Bond, wondering if he would come back to her.
She had seen it all from the window–the long wicker baskets being brought out to the train, the flash of the police photographer’s bulbs, the gesticulating chef de train trying to hurry up the formalities, and the tall figure of James Bond, straight and hard and cold as a butcher’s knife, coming and going.
Bond had come back and had sat looking at her. He had asked sharp, brutal questions. She had fought desperately back, sticking coldly to her story, knowing that now, if she told him everything, told him for instance that SMERSH was involved, she would certainly lose him for ever.
Now she sat and was afraid, afraid of the web in which she was caught, afraid of what might have been behind the lies she had been told in Moscow–above all afraid that she might lose this man who had suddenly become the light in her life.
There was a knock on the door. Bond got up and opened it. A tough cheerful india-rubbery man, with Kerim’s blue eyes and a mop of tangled fair hair above a brown face, exploded into the compartment.
`Stefan Trempo at your service,’ the big smile embraced them both. `They call me “Tempo”. Where is the Chef?’
`Sit down,’ said Bond. He thought to himself, I know it. This is another of Darko’s sons.
The man looked sharply at them both. He sat down carefully between them. His face was extinguished. Now the bright eyes stared at Bond with a terrible intensity in which there was fear and suspicion. His right hand slipped casually into the pocket of his coat.
When Bond had finished, the man stood up. He didn’t ask any questions. He said `Thank you, sir. Will you come, please. We will go to my apartment. There is much to be done.’ He walked into the corridor and stood with his back to them, looking out across the rails. When the girl came out he walked down the corridor without looking back. Bond followed the girl, carrying the heavy bag and his little attaché case.
They walked down the platform and into the station square. It had started to drizzle. The scene, with its sprinkling of battered taxis and vista of dull modern buildings, was depressing. The man opened the rear door of a shabby Morris Oxford saloon. He got in front and took the wheel. They bumped their way over the cobbles and on to a slippery tarmac boulevard and drove for a quarter of an hour through wide, empty streets. They saw few pedestrians and not more than a handful of other cars.
They stopped half way down a cobbled side-street. Tempo led them through a wide apartment-house door and up two flights of stairs that had the smell of the Balkans–the smell of very old sweat and cigarette smoke and cabbage. He unlocked a door and showed them into a two-roomed flat with nondescript furniture and heavy red plush curtains drawn back to show the blank windows on the other side of the street. On a sideboard stood a tray with several unopened bottles, glasses and plates of fruit and biscuits–the welcome to Darko and to Darko’s friends.
Tempo waved vaguely towards the drinks. `Please sir, make yourself and Madam at home. There is a bathroom. No doubt you would both like to have a bath. If you will excuse me, I must telephone!’ The hard facade of the face was about to crumble. The man went quickly into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.