They had to wait an hour before the steamer left. They bought some bread and cheese and a wicker-bound jar with four litres of retsina which they lugged between them up the gangway past a brass plate engraved with the name of John MacIntyre & Sons, Glasgow, 1907.
‘This should last us the night,’ said Neil, as they set down the monster jar on the deck and settled against the bulkheads, using their rucksacks as cushions.
‘I think perhaps if we stay on Athos a few months we become drunkards,’ said Van Loon, drawing the cork which was the size of his fist.
‘And live to be a hundred years old,’ said Neil, smiling.
‘It is because they have no women,’ said Van Loon; ‘if I had no women I would go crazy.’ He heaved up the jar with both hands and took a long drink. ‘I think after Athens I go to Beirut,’ he added. ‘The girls there are pretty good, huh?’
‘That’ll cost you money,’ said Neil.
The Dutchman shook his head: ‘Ah, I wish I had some bloody money!’
They sat watching the mules jog down to the jetty laden with wine casks which were exchanged for coffee, sugar and paraffin. Just after five o’clock the two Greek officials came up the gangway. A moment later the rusted smokestack gave a boom that bounced off the mountain, and the engines started up.
‘You know that old white-haired Frenchman?’ said Van Loon, as they pulled away from the shore. ‘I think he is a smuggler.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Neil, lifting the jar which was growing lighter.
‘He has a black box and gold coins and a boat that comes in the night to take him away,’ said Van Loon; ‘that is like a smuggler.’
‘And what was he smuggling?’
‘Gold coins.’
Neil laughed: ‘Those were all collectors’ pieces. Besides, most of them weren’t even gold.’
Van Loon stared at the receding mountain. ‘Well, perhaps he smuggles diamonds. Whatever it is, he is a bloody odd fellow!’
Neil thought that M. Martel was indeed an odd fellow; but he didn’t think he was a smuggler.
PART 2: THE FAT MAN
CHAPTER 1
They woke as the edge of the sky began to whiten over the hills of Attica; and they sat on the deck, drinking Turkish coffee and watched Athens grow out of the dry dawn.
The sky-line straggled, the colour of dust and sand, from the jumbled port of the Piraeus, where Van Loon’s mind was already planning some low debauch, to the gaunt square rock on which the Acropolis stands — looking, Neil thought, like a piece of broken balustrade.
They drew closer, to the groan of ships’ horns, smells of tar and tobacco, with gulls gliding over the oily water. There were two men waiting on the quayside as the boat tied up. One was thin, in a brown suit with dark glasses. The other wore the blue-grey uniform of the Greek police.
As Neil and Van Loon came ashore, the plainclothes man stepped in front of them. ‘Les papiers!’ He stood with his hand thrust out, while the uniformed man watched with a dark closed face. Neil and Van Loon took out their passports; the plainclothes man flipped through them, snapped them shut and put them away in his pocket. He looked up, his glasses glinting in the sun. ‘Suivez-nous!’ he said, jabbing his thumb towards the customs shed. The uniformed man fell in behind, and the little squad began to march briskly across the quay.
After a few yards Neil said to Van Loon, ‘Peter, we’re under arrest.’
The Dutchman shrugged: ‘Oh, some bureaucratic idiocy. It is nothing.’
Neil, who had never been detained by the police before, did not feel the same composure. He turned to the plainclothes man and tried — in French, then in English — to ask what was happening.
The Greek replied brusquely, ‘Affaire de police!’ and nodded again towards the customs shed.
But they were not taken into the customs shed. Instead they were led round into a yard where a black Ford sedan stood parked behind locked gates leading into the street. A second policeman, who had been waiting by the car door, came forward to meet them. He was a stout man with a severe puffy grey face. He stepped up to Van Loon and frisked him under the arms and down his hips and thighs. Van Loon laughed. The policeman straightened up and snarled something, then turned and repeated the operation on Neil, who stood very still and did not laugh. The man’s breath had a rancid smell and his fingers felt hard and prepared for violence. The first policeman was searching both rucksacks.
Finally the stout man stepped back; they were both handed their luggage and pushed into the rear seats of the Ford. The plainclothes Greek climbed into the front next to the stout man who was driving; the other policeman unlocked the gates, and they purred into a white street where shutters were being rattled up and waiters were sprinkling the pavements and setting tables out in the early sun.
Neil was beginning to feel very uneasy. He whispered
