He looked into her eyes. “What about it?”
Gala laughed abruptly. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It’s what we’re paid for. Of course we’ll take them on. And I agree we’d get nowhere with London. We’d look absolutely ridiculous telephoning reports about cliffs falling on our heads. What are we doing down here anyway, fooling around without any clothes on instead of getting on with our jobs?”
Bond grinned. “We only lay down for ten minutes to get dry,” he protested mildly. “How do you think we ought to have spent the afternoon? Taking everybody’s fingerprints all over again? That’s about all you police think about.” He felt ashamed when he saw her stiffen. He held his hand up. “I didn’t really mean that,” he said. “But can’t you see what we’ve done this afternoon? Just what had to be done. We’ve made the enemy show his hand. Now we’ve got to take the next step and find out who the enemy is and why he wanted us out of the way. And then if we’ve got enough evidence that someone’s trying to sabotage the Moonraker we’ll have the whole place turned inside out, the practice shoot postponed, and to hell with politics.”
She jumped to her feet. “Oh, of course you’re right,” she said impatiently. “It’s just that I want to do something about it in a hurry.” She looked for a moment out to sea, away from Bond. “You’ve only just come into the picture. I’ve been living with this rocket for more than a year and I can’t bear the idea that something may happen to it. So much seems to depend on it. For all of us. I want to get back there quickly and to find out who wanted to kill us. It may be nothing to do with the Moonraker, but I want to make sure.”
Bond stood up, showing nothing of the pain from the cuts and bruises on his back and legs. “Come on,” he said, “it’s nearly six o’clock. The tide’s coming in fast but we can get to St Margaret’s before it catches us. We’ll clean up at the Granville there and have a drink and some food and then we’ll go back to the house in the middle of dinner. I shall be interested to see what sort of a reception we get. After that we’ll have to concentrate on staying alive and seeing what we can see. Can you make it to St Margaret’s?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Gala. “Policewomen aren’t made of gossamer.” She gave a reluctant smile at Bond’s ironically respectful ‘Of course not’, and they turned towards the distant tower of the South Foreland lighthouse and set off through the shingle.
At half-past eight the taxi from St Margaret’s dropped them at the second guard gate and they showed their passes and walked quietly up through the trees on to the expanse of concrete. They both felt keyed up and in high spirits. A hot bath and an hour’s rest at the accommodating Granville had been followed by two stiff brandies-and-sodas for Gala and three for Bond followed by delicious fried soles and Welsh rarebits and coffee. And now, as they confidently approached the house, it would have needed second sight to tell that they were both dead tired and that they were naked and bruised under their walking clothes.
They let themselves quietly in through the front door and stood for a moment in the lighted hall. A cheerful mumble of voices came from the dining-room. There was a pause followed by a burst of laughter which was dominated by the harsh bark of Sir Hugo Drax.
Bond’s mouth twisted wryly as he led the way across the hall to the door of the dining-room. Then he fixed a cheerful smile on his face and opened the door for Gala to pass through.
Drax sat at the head of the table, festive in his plum-coloured smoking-jacket. A forkful of food, halfway to his open mouth, had stopped in mid-air as they appeared in the doorway. Unnoticed, the food slid off the fork and fell with a soft, distinct ‘plep’ on to the edge of the table.