‘Wednesday.’
‘Ah!’ He lay back and patted his hairy stomach. ‘I’m sick,’ he said again, ‘haven’t eaten since February.’
Neil looked at him lying there with eyes closed, his head sunk back in the pillows: ‘Thank you, Monsieur Biaggi.’
‘Salut!’ the man called, lifting one hand up a few inches above the bed. ‘Take care of her — the “Serafina”, I mean.’
Neil paused by the door, feeling guilty and sorry for M. Biaggi. He disapproved heartily of rich idle men who spent their lives whisking girls off in pleasure-boats. But M. Biaggi was not going to whisk his girl down to Naxos on Monday. His pleasure-boat had been commandeered for a revolution in North Africa and would probably never be seen again. Still, it was Neil’s job to get across to the Protectorate by the quickest means available. The responsibility of the boat was Pol’s; and Neil held his tongue and left M. Biaggi, closing the door gently behind him.
Van Loon was waiting in the foyer with the luggage which they had collected from their hotel on the way from the French Embassy. Monsieur Molyneux had turned out to be a quiet-mannered little man who had spoken about a dozen words and given them their visas and permits in ten minutes.
Neil went over to reception to cable his office that he was on his way to North Africa. There were two men at the desk. One was the slim grey man who had been reading L’Aurore in the armchair before lunch. The other was heavily-built, with a rubbery face and cropped black hair like a wire brush. As Neil reached them the receptionist nodded towards him. Both men turned. The slim one took a step forward and addressed Neil in French: ‘I understand you have been asking for a Monsieur Pol?’
Neil hesitated. The man’s face was smooth and steel-grey like his hair, his expression dead behind the dark glasses.
Neil nodded.
‘We are also looking for Monsieur Pol,’ said the man, ‘would you happen to know where he is?’
‘I’m sorry’ — Neil saw the man turn his head a fraction and glance at Van Loon — ‘I haven’t seen Monsieur Pol since this morning. I don’t think he’ll be back until later tonight.’
The two men looked hard at him, then nodded together and left the hotel without another word. Neil filled in the cable-form and called for a taxi, then explained to Van Loon: ‘I think those two men may be the ones who are after Pol.’
The Dutchman shook his head and grinned: ‘It’s all crazy! That old fellow Pol is completely crazy!’
The taxi was a Chrysler with a radio and a gramophone shaped like a toaster under the dashboard. As he was getting in, Neil noticed a dark-blue Renault Gordini parked about fifty yards down the street behind them. The taxi driver pushed a button above his knee and they rode off listening to ‘Never on Sunday’, with English lyrics.
Neil sat back and glanced out of the rear window: the little blue Renault was behind them, winding between the traffic about thirty yards away. He frowned. The Chrysler drifted across Omonious Square; a dock chimed half past five. The Renault accelerated, cutting across a lane of traffic, and Neil could see now that it had a Paris TT registration number. There were two men inside: the driver wore dark glasses.
They had turned into Democracy Avenue. The Renault was still behind, keeping its distance of about thirty yards. Neil felt a prickle of fear and his pulse quickened. He turned to the driver: ‘Can you go faster!’
The driver spoke English: ‘O.K.! I go real fast!’ The Chrysler hummed and swerved out in front of a dusty bus; a policeman waved a baton; lights above the street turned red; the Chrysler slowed down with a moan and stood ticking over. The Renault was directly behind.
‘Damn them!’ said Neil. The lights changed.
‘What do they want?’ said Van Loon, watching the Renault pulling away after them from the lights.
‘They want Pol.’
‘Why him?’
‘Presumably because he’s dangerous to them. These boys have just started a revolution. They don’t want him getting over there and cocking the whole thing up!’
The driver had his hand down on the horn, and all the cars round them were blowing their horns too and nobody was moving. ‘This is a bad time for traffic,’ said the driver, ‘no good for going fast.’
Van Loon sat stroking his beard. ‘But that fat fellow cannot be so dangerous,’ he said.
‘Well, those boys in the car behind obviously think he is!’ Neil looked anxiously round again. The Renault was still there. Ahead the traffic was strung across the avenue in a wedge of bicycles, buses, American limousines and old dog-carts. The driver told Neil he was going to cut down into one of the side-streets leading to the vegetable market. They honked and jerked their way through the ambling crowds, braking every few yards, the Chrysler rocking on its springs like a motorboat in a heavy swell. They seemed to have lost the Renault. They turned into a quiet street that curved away under a wall enclosing a garden of cypress trees.
‘Now fast!’ Neil yelled, and the car roared gently and slid away with a wake of dust.
They had gone perhaps two hundred yards when Neil saw the Renault again. It was coming after them through the dust like a torpedo, slowing and dropping back when it came in sight of them.
‘That was a mistake,’ Neil muttered. ‘Now they know we’re trying to lose them.’
‘Oh to hell with them!’ said Van Loon. ‘Let’s just stop here and see what the idiots will do.’
Neil hesitated. Ahead there was another main street and a stream of traffic. He told the driver to pull up and wait just before the intersection. The Chrysler bumped softly on to the edge
