by Eric Ambler
The coffee did not taste much like coffee, but the bread was good. I considered attempting to heal the breach by offering him the use of my bathroom; but I only had one towel and the thought of what it would look like by the time he had finished with it kept me silent. Instead, I offered him a cigarette.
He took it and motioned to a basket of apricots on the table. I don’t like apricots, but it seemed as well to accept the offer. Soon he began to mutter about the breakfasts which had to be served, each on a separate tray to the four “lords and ladies” above. I offered to lay the trays and, although he waved away the offer, friendly relations seemed to be re-established. After a while, Mr. and Mrs. Hamul arrived and were introduced. Mrs. Hamul was a small, stout, sad-looking old woman with the black dress and head scarf of the conservative Turkish matron. As neither she nor her husband spoke a word of anything but Turkish, the formalities were brief. I lingered there, though, and had another piece of bread. The best time to leave without attracting attention, I had decided, would be while Harper and the rest were having their breakfasts.
As soon as the trays started going up, I told Geven that I had to buy petrol and asked if there was anything I could get for him while I was in town. At once he wanted to come with me. I got out of that by saying that I had to go immediately in order to be back at the time for which the car had been ordered. I left him, sulking, picked up the Phillips screwdriver from my room, and went to the garage.
The Lincoln was a quiet car, and I knew that all they would probably hear of my going would be the sound of the tires on the gravel of the courtyard; but I was so afraid of Harper or Fischer suddenly appearing on one of the bedroom balconies and yelling at me to stop, that in my haste to reach the drive I almost hit the basin of the fountain. As I went on down the drive I broke into a sweat and my legs felt weak and peculiar. I wanted to stop and be sick. That may sound very stupid; but when you are like I am, the bad things that nearly happen are just as hard, in a way, as the bad things that actually do happen. They are certainly no easier to forget. I always envied those characters in Alice who only felt pain before they were hurt. I seem to feel things before, during, and after as well; nothing ever goes completely away. I have often thought of killing myself, so that I wouldn’t have to think or feel or remember any more, so that I could rest; but then I have always started worrying in case this afterlife they preach about really exists. It might turn out to be even bloodier than the old one.
The Peugeot was back on duty again. I drove towards Sariyer for about half a mile, and then turned left onto one of the roads leading up to the forest. It was Sunday morning and families from Istanbul would soon be arriving at the municipal picnic grounds to spend the day; but at that early hour the car-parking areas were still fairly empty, and I had no difficulty in finding a secluded place under the trees.
I decided to try the same door again. I had scratched the leather on it once already; but if I were very careful it need not be scratched again. In any case, as long as I drove the car, scratches would be less noticeable on that door than on the others. The earlier attempt had taught me something, too. If I removed all the screws on the hinge side of the door first and only loosened the others, I thought it might be possible to ease the panel back enough to see inside the door without taking the whole panel and electric window mechanism completely away.
It took me twenty minutes to find out that I was right about the panel, and a further five seconds to learn that I had been completely wrong about the stuff having been removed. There it still was, just as I had seen it in the photographs Tufan had shown me at Edirne. In this particular door there were twelve small, paper-wrapped cylinders-probably grenades.
I screwed the panel back into place, and then sat there for a while thinking. The Peugeot was parked about a hundred yards away-I could see it in the mirror-and I very nearly got out and walked back to tell the driver what I had found. I wanted badly to talk to someone. Then I pulled myself together. There was no point in talking to someone who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, usefully talk back. The sensible thing would be to obey orders.
I took my report out of the cigarette packet and added to it.
9:20 a.m. inspected interior front door driver’s side. Material still in place as per photo. In view of time absent from villa and inability to add to this report, will not telephone from garage now.
I replaced the toilet paper in the packet, tossed it out of the window, and drove back onto the road. I waited just long enough to see a man from the Peugeot pick up the report, then I drove into Sariyer and filled the tank. I arrived back at the villa just before ten.
I half expected to find an angry Fischer pacing the courtyard and demanding to know where the hell I’d been. There was nobody. I drove the car into the stable yard, emptied the ash trays, brushed the floor carpeting, and ran a duster over the body. The Phillips screwdriver in my pocket worried me. Now that I knew that the stuff was still in the car, it seemed an incriminating thing to have. I certainly did not want to put it back in my room. It might be needed again, so I could not throw it away. In the end, I hid it inside the cover of an old tire hanging on the wall of the garage. Then I went and tidied myself up. Shortly before eleven o’clock I drove the car round to the marble steps in the front courtyard.
After about ten minutes Harper came out. He was wearing a blue sports shirt with blue slacks, and he had a map in his hand. He nodded in response to my greeting.
“Are we all right for gas, Arthur?”
“I filled it this morning, sir.”
“Oh, you did.” He looked agreeably surprised. “Well, do you know a place called Pendik?”
“I’ve heard the name. On the other side somewhere, isn’t it? There’s supposed to be a good restaurant there, I think.”
“That’s the place. On the Sea of Marmara.” He spread the map out and pointed to the place. From Uskudar, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, it was twenty-odd miles south along the coast. “How long will it take us to get there?”
“If we have luck with the car ferry about an hour and a half from here, sir.”
“And if we don’t have luck?”
“Perhaps ten or twenty minutes more.”
“All right. Here’s what we do. First, we go into town and drop Miss Lipp and Mr. Miller off at the Hilton Hotel. Then, you drive Mr. Fischer and me to Pendik. We’ll be there a couple of hours. On the way back we stop off at the Hilton to pick the others up. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who paid for the gas?”
“I did, sir. I still have some of the Turkish money you gave me. I have the garage receipt here.”
He waved it aside. “Do you have any money left?”
“Only a few lira now.”
He gave me two fifty-lira notes. “That’s for expenses. You picked up a couple of checks for Miss Lipp, too. Take the money out of that.”
“Very well, sir.”
“And, Arthur-stop needling Mr. Fischer, will you?”
“I rather thought that he intended to needle me, sir.”
“You got the room and bathroom you asked for, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then, cut it out.”
I started to point out that since I had been shown to the room the previous night I had not even set eyes on Fischer, much less “needled” him, but he was already walking back to the house.
They all came out five minutes later. Miss Lipp was in white linen; Miller, draped with camera and lens attachment case, looked very much the tourist; Fischer, in maillot, white jeans, and sandals, looked like an elderly beach boy from Antibes.
Harper sat in front with me. The others got into the back. Nobody talked on the way into Istanbul. Even at the time, I didn’t feel that it was my presence there that kept them silent. They all had the self-contained air of persons on the way to an important business conference who have already explored every conceivable aspect of the negotiations that lie ahead, and can only wait now to lea
rn what the other side’s attitude is going to be. Yet, two of them seemed headed for a sightseeing tour, and the others for a seaside lunch. It was all rather odd. However, the Peugeot was following and, presumably, those in it would be able to cope with the situation when the party split up. There was nothing more I could do.
Miss Lipp and Miller got out at the door of the Hilton. A tourist bus blocked the driveway long enough for me to see that they went inside the hotel, and that a man from the Peugeot went in after them. The narcotics operation suddenly made sense again. The raw-opium supplier would be waiting in his room with samples which Miller, the skilled chemist, would proceed to test and evaluate. Later, if the samples proved satisfactory, and only if they did, Harper would consummate the deal. In the meantime, a good lunch seemed to be in order.
We had to wait a few minutes for the car ferry to Uskudar. From the ferry pier it is easy to see across the water the military barracks which became Florence Nightingale’s hospital during the Crimean War. Just for the sake of something to say, I pointed it out to Harper.
“What about it?” he said rudely.
“Nothing, sir. It’s just that that was Florence Nightingale’s hospital. Scutari the place was called then.”
“Look, Arthur, we know you have a guide’s license, but don’t take it too seriously, huh?”
Fischer laughed.
“I thought you might be interested, sir.”
“All we’re interested in is getting to Pendik. Where’s this goddam ferry you talked about?”
I didn’t trouble to answer that. The ferryboat was just coming in to the pier, and he was merely being offensive-for Fischer’s benefit, I suspected. I wondered what they would have said if I had told them what the sand-colored Peugeot just behind us in the line of cars was there for, and whose orders its driver was obeying. The thought kept me amused for quite a while.
From Uskudar I took the Ankara road, which is wide and fast, and drove for about eighteen miles before I came to the secondary road which led off on the right to Pendik. We arrived there just before one o’clock.
It proved to be a small fishing port in the shelter of a headland. There were several yachts anchored in the harbor. Two wooden piers jutted out from the road which ran parallel to the foreshore; one had a restaurant built on it, the other served the smaller boats and dinghies as a landing stage. The place swarmed with children.
I was edging my way along the narrow road towards the restaurant when Harper told me to stop.
We were level with the landing stage and a man was approaching the road along it. He was wearing a yachting cap now, but I recognized him. It was the man who had been waiting at the Hilton car park on the night I had arrived in Istanbul.
He had obviously recognized the car and raised his hand in greeting as Harper and Fischer got out.
“Park the car and get yourself something to eat,” Harper said to me. “Meet us back here in an hour.”
“Very good, sir.”
The man in the yachting cap had reached the road and I heard Harper’s greeting as the three met.
“Hi, Giulio. Sta bene?”
And then they were walking back along the landing stage. In the driving mirror, I could see a man from the Peugeot sauntering down to the quayside to see what happened next.
At the end of the landing stage they climbed into an outboard dinghy. Giulio started it up and they shot away towards a group of yachts anchored about two hundred yards out. They went alongside a sixty-foot cabin cruiser with a squat funnel. The hull was black, the upper works white, and the funnel had a single band of yellow round it. A Turkish flag drooped from the staff at the stern. There was a small gangway down, and a deck hand with a boat hook to hold the dinghy as the three went on board. It was too far away for me to see the name on the hull.
I parked the car and went into the restaurant. The place was fairly full, but I managed to get a table near a window from which I could keep an eye on the cruiser. I asked the headwaiter about her and learned her name, Bulut, and the fact that she was on charter to a wealthy Italian gentleman, Signor Giulio, who could eat two whole lobsters at a sitting.
I did not pursue my inquiries; Tufan’s men would doubtless get what information was to be had from the local police. At least I knew now what Giulio looked like, and where the boat which Miss Lipp had mentioned to Miller was based. I could also guess that Giulio was no more the true charterer of the Bulut than was Fischer the true lessee of the Kosk Sardunya. Wealthy Italian gentlemen with yachts do not lurk in the Istanbul Hilton car park waiting to drive away cars stuffed with contraband arms; they employ underlings to do such things.
Just as my grilled swordfish cutlet arrived, I saw that the Bulut was moving. A minute or two later, her bow anchor came out of the water and there was a swirl of white at her stern. The dinghy had been left moored to a buoy. The only people on the deck of the cabin cruiser were the two hands at the winches. She headed out across the bay towards an offshore island just visible in the distant haze. I wondered whether the Peugeot men would commandeer a motorboat and follow; but no other boat of any kind left the harbor. After about an hour, the Bulut returned and anchored in the same place as before. I paid my bill and went to the car.
Giulio brought Harper and Fischer back to the landing stage in the dinghy, but did not land with them. There was an exchange of farewells that I could see but not hear, and then they walked ashore to the car. Harper was carrying a flat cardboard box about two feet long by six inches wide. It was roughly tied with string.
“Okay, Arthur,” he said as he got into the car. “Back to the Hilton.”
“Very good, sir.”
As I drove off he glanced back at the piers.
“Where did you lunch?” he asked. “That restaurant there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good food?”
“Excellent, sir.”
He grinned over his shoulder at Fischer. “Trust Giulio!”
“Our man Geven can cook well,” said Fischer defensively, “and I intend to prove it to you.”
“He’s a lush,” Harper said shortly.
“He cooked a castradina before you arrived which would have made you think that you were in the Quadri.” Fischer was getting worked up now and leaning forward over the back of the front seat. His breath smelled of garlic and wine.
I could not resist the opportunity. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir,” I said to Harper, “I think Mr. Fischer is right. Geven is an excellent cook. The chicken soup he gave me last night was perfect.”
“What soup?” Fischer demanded. “We did not get soup.”
“He was upset,” I said. “You remember, Mr. Fischer, that you told him that he was not good enough to have a bathroom. He was upset. I think he threw away the soup he had made.”
“I told him no such a thing!” Fischer was becoming shrill.
“Wait a minute,” said Harper. “The cook doesn’t have a bathroom?”
“He has the whole of the servants’ rooms for himself,” Fischer said.
“But no bathroom?”
“There is no bathroom there.”
“What are you trying to do, Hans-poison us?”
Fischer flung himself against the back seat with a force that made the car lurch. “I am tired,” he declared loudly, “of trying to arrange every matter as it should be arranged and then to receive nothing but criticism. I will not so to be accused, thus…” His English broke down completely and he went into German.
Harper answered him briefly in the same language. I don’t know what he said, but it shut Fischer up. Harper lit a cigarette. After a moment or two he said: “You’re a stupid crook, aren’t you, Arthur?”
“Sir?”
“If you were a smart one, all you’d be thinking about would be how much dough you could screw out of this deal without getting your fingers caught in the till. But not you. That miserable little ego of yours has to have its kicks, too, doesn’t it?”
“I don’
t understand, sir.”
“Yes you do. I don’t like stupid people around me. They make me nervous. I warned you once before. I’m not warning you again. Next time you see a chance of getting cute, you forget it, quick; because if you don’t, that ego’s liable to get damaged permanently.”
It seemed wiser to say nothing.
“You’re not still saying that you don’t understand, Arthur?” He flicked my knee viciously with the back of his hand. The pain startled me and I swerved. He flicked me again. “Watch where you’re going. What’s the matter? Can’t you talk while you’re driving, or has the cat got your tongue?”
“I understand, sir.”
“That’s better. Now you apologize, like a little Egyptian gentleman, to Mr. Fischer.”
“I’m very sorry, sir.”
Fischer, appeased, signified his forgiveness with a short laugh.
The ferry from Uskudar was crowded with returning Sunday motorists and it took half an hour to get on a boat. Miss Lipp and Miller were waiting at the hotel entrance when I pulled up. Miller gave a wolfish grin and, as usual, leaped into the car ahead of Miss Lipp.
“You took your time,” he said to no one in particular.
“The ferry was crowded,” Harper replied. “Did you have a good afternoon?”
It was Miss Lipp who answered him. “Let the dogs be fed and clothed,” she said. It was the same sentence that I had heard Miller cackling over the previous night, and I wondered idly what it could mean.
Harper nodded to her. “Let’s get back to the villa, Arthur,” he said.
None of them uttered a word on the drive back. I sensed a feeling of tension between them, and wondered who was waiting to report to whom. As they got out of the car, Harper picked the cardboard box up off the floor and turned to me.
“That’s it for today, Arthur.”
“What time tomorrow, sir?”
“I’ll let you know.”