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 learn 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
