Before she could reply he sprang up, rushing to the radio and turning up the volume. He listened attentively for a couple of minutes and then snapped off the switch.
'That was the announcement of our freedom,' he said dreamily.
'But you are free!' Dawnay looked at him in surprise.
He turned to her. 'Political freedom is a matter of paper ideals. Real freedom is a matter of business. We have at last broken off our ties with your country; we have renounced all our oil and trade agreements.' He indicated the radio. 'That is what you heard.' He smiled at her again. 'You can see why we need the right people to help us. I shall be returning to Azaran myself as soon as diplomatic affairs are cleared up here. We want to remain on friendly terms with Britain; with all countries. But we need to be independent in the best sense of the word. 'So you will help us.'
Dawnay felt slightly disturbed at this sudden turn of events. Throughout her career she had studiously avoided politics, believing that scientists were above party and national factions, their duty being to the welfare of mankind.
'I hope I can do something,' she murmured politely.
Salim did not appear to be listening. He began frowning over the documents she had handed to him. 'No yellow fever inoculation?' he queried. 'Surely you were notified that it's necessary?'
'I don't think so,' she replied. 'But I can have it done today.'
He stood up and smiled ingratiatingly. 'I can do better than that. It so happens that the embassy doctor is here this morning.'
He pressed a switch on his intercom. 'Ask Miss Gamboul if she can manage another yellow fever inoculation,' he told a secretary.
There was a pause and then a man's voice replied that Miss Gamboul could do so. :
Again the sense of misgiving prodded Dawnay's brain. For a moment she could not identify the reason. Then she found it. A woman doctor was not usually described as Miss. She dismissed the suspicion as trivial, putting it down to Salim's incomplete knowledge of English.
While they awaited the doctor's arrival he came round and leaned against the desk, close to Dawnay. 'Tell me about a colleague of yours, a Dr John Fleming. I believe he worked with you at that Scottish research station. Is he still there?'
'I can't say,' she answered shortly.
'I heard one report that he was dead.'
'I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him.' Her tone was all he needed to tell him that Fleming was alive, but he did not react to it. He looked up instead at the opening door.
'Ah, Miss Gamboul!'
A woman in a white coat had entered without knocking.
She was dark-haired and rather attractive and - one could put it no closer than that - somewhere in her thirties. She had a flawless skin, and a good brow above fine dark eyes; but she did not look in the least like a doctor. Even in her white coat she gave an impression of sensuousness and haute couture; Dawnay felt sure that she was more used to being called Mademoiselle than Miss.
And yet there was a surprising degree of professional intelligence and seriousness in her face. Dawnay did not like the hardness in her eyes nor the thin red-pencilled line of her mouth, but most of all Dawnay did not like people to be enigmatic. She noticed that the nails on the hand which clutched a napkin-covered white dish from which the base of a hypodermic protruded were varnished bright red and the ends were pointed. Dawnay glanced automatically at her own stubby, close-cut nails. Neither doctors nor scientists, she felt, should allow themselves such unhygienic luxuries as long nails and lacquer.
'Now, Professor Dawnay, which arm would you like punctured?'
Her voice was business-like; she had a strong French accent, Dawnay realised with satisfaction.
Stifling her instant dislike of the woman, she said she would prefer to be injected in the right arm. She removed her coat and pushed up the sleeve of her blouse.
Mademoiselle Gambout dabbed her upper arm with a wad of spirit-soaked cotton wool. Dawnay looked away when the needle went in. It was badly done and the clumsy jab made her wince.
Salim had not moved away. He watched the inoculation as if fascinated. He began to talk rapidly. 'You'll have every facility for your work when you get to our capital, which is called Baleb. We have recently completed building the laboratories. Anything you need...'
His voice seemed to thicken, and his swarthy face, looking down at her still bared arm, became hazy.
She tried to fight off the sense of dizziness.
'Can - can I have a glass of water?' she faltered. 'I can't be as fit yet as I thought... '
Her head slumped forward. She felt the hardness of the rim of a glass pressed against her lips and she drank some water: Her vision cleared a little, and she saw the red fingernails around the glass.
From an immeasurable distance, yet clear and menacing, came Salim's voice again.
'Now, where is Dr Fleming? If you know, you will tell us every detail. Now, I repeat, where is he?'
As if it were some other woman talking, Dawnay heard herself meticulously describing her meeting at Oban airport.
Word for word she repeated her conversation with John as if she were reading from a play script. Her memory was crystal clear. And she could not stop until she had explained every detail of the meeting.
Salim laughed. 'So that is how a truth drug works.' He looked at Dawnay with interest.
Janine Gamboul nodded. 'Sodium amytal. It'll work off in five or ten minutes. She'll remember nothing. Tell her she fainted with the yellow fever injection or whatever it was.
And see you get her on that plane.'
She took off her white coat, revealing a dress which had indeed come from Paris, and a good deal of herself as well.
Although she was no longer a girl, the skin of her throat and the upper curves of her bosom looked as young and smooth as her face. She seemed completely relaxed and at ease. She perched on a corner of the table and looked at Salim with a mixture of malice and amusement as she lit a cigarette and slowly and delicately inhaled and exhaled. Salim watched her with something like admiration until she spoke again.
'Repeat what you've heard to our man Kaufman,' she told him without any effort at grace. 'He is unimaginative but resourceful. Tell him that speed is vital. And this girl Fleming has with him. The one he got the medicament for. Tell Kaufman to bring her too.'
'But she is nothing,' protested Salim. 'The man's mistress, one presumes. What do we need with her? We can supply reliable girls once Fleming's out in Baleb. They'll help to keep him happy.'
'Nevertheless.' said Gamboul, 'we will have her.'
Salim obediently lifted the receiver of the telephone. It took some time to locate Kaufman. The hotel where he had reported he was staying said that their guest was out tramping; the receptionist volunteered the information that Mr Kaufman was a great one for the open air and the rolling hills of Scotland. Salim cut her short and grunted that he would ring again. He had no wish to leave his number.
When eventually he got through and Kaufman's guttural voice answered the extension to his bedroom Salim talked rapidly. 'We have reliable news. An island off an island near an island.' He stopped, aware of the ridiculousness of his words. 'A moment, I have written down the names of these places which I have never before heard. Ah yes, there is a place called Skye?'
'Of course,' grunted Kaufman. 'I have been. Our friend was seen taking a plane there. But no information.'
'And near this Skye is Soay,' Kaufman opened a map and located the word which he could pronounce no better than the Ambassador.
'Good, you have it,' said Salim. 'Near this Soay there is perhaps a smaller island?'
'I'll need a more detailed map,' came Kaufman's voice. 'I know there are several. We had better end this call, I think.
You may leave things to me.'
'I hope so. I have done my part. Now it is up to you.' Salim replaced the phone. Kaufman folded up the map and considered.
First he made his plans for a discreet survey of the offshore islands around Skye. He put in a couple of calls to
