‘You still don’t want to call Captain Spyros?’
Pol shook his head: ‘Too much trouble. We couldn’t hold Jadot for long — there’s no proper warrant out for him, In France we might get him under the emergency regulations, but not here.’ He belched. ‘No, the only real way to deal with men like that is shoot them down like dogs when they’re not looking. But unfortunately one can’t do that sort of thing in a nice city like Athens.
‘We’re all right, though,’ he added, ‘as long as you’re sure you got rid of him.’
‘I think we got rid of him,’ said Neil.
‘And the papers?’
Neil patted the greaseproof envelope: ‘All here.’
‘How was old Biaggi?’
‘In bed. He’s not well.’
‘Ah, yes. His stomach’s bad. He thinks too much about women.’ Pol stood up and snapped his fingers for the bill, then swayed and lurched heavily backwards into the table. Neil saw with some misgiving that he was very drunk.
The waiter arrived with a fistful of chits which Pol paid for out of a wallet stuffed with five hundred and thousand drachma notes.
Outside, special editions of the Athens evening papers were carrying photographs of ex-General Paul Guérin. Neil could make out a distinguished, middle-aged face with a square jaw under a five-starred képi.
There was no sign of the Renault Gordini. They walked down the street and caught a taxi to the Piraeus.
CHAPTER 5
Monsieur Biaggi’s boat, the ‘Serafina’, was moored under a jetty at the end of the yacht-basin where the tramlines finished. There were a number of other smart private craft tied up beside her, shielded from the rest of the port by a seawall. Behind this lay a row of noisy bars and open-air cafés strung with naked lights where there was dancing and handclapping to the strumming of bazoukis. Two harbour police stood at the end of the jetty, smoking; they wore revolvers.
The ‘Serafina’ was a thirty-foot converted rescue launch, painted blue and white with plenty of deck room for sunbathing and a good deal of fancy brass fittings. There was a covered wheelhouse with a curved windshield leading into a chromium-plated galley and a carpeted wardroom with leather couches round the walls. Below was a second wardroom with twin bunks under velvet curtains, a radiogram and a cocktail cabinet. The shower cubicle and toilet lay under the steps up to the deck.
Van Loon inspected the boat with awe. She was driven by two Perkins diesels, capable of more than twenty knots. The levers and control knobs were ivory, and the wheel was of dark polished wood. There was a panel of luminous green dials, a navigation table covered with charts of the Aegean and Mediterranean, a giro-compass the size of an atlas globe, shortwave radio, cigar lighter and a sliding shelf fitted with slots to hold M. Biaggi’s drinks as he steered himself from one pleasure-dome to the next.
‘Bloody fantastic!’ said Van Loon, smoothing his hand along the varnished wood.
Pol had waddled into the upper wardroom and now sank down on one of the leather couches, breathing hard. The customs man came on board; Neil showed him the papers, and the man looked quickly through the boat, opening cupboards and peering under the hatch. In one locker he found a crate with a dozen bottles of vintage Epernay ’55. Neil lifted one out and fired the cork, hosing champagne into four glasses, with one for the customs man before he went ashore. They finished the bottle and Van Loon put his head under the engine-cover, checking the valves and pumps and oil valves.
‘Is she all right?’ said Neil.
‘Terrific! Beautiful! The tanks are almost full, too. We need perhaps another three hundred litres of oil.’ He switched on the ignition. The diesels spluttered and grunted and he eased down the ivory levers, allowing the engines to turn freely. The noise purred along the darkening jetty.
The customs man had told them where the fuel bunker was, a couple of hundred yards along the dock past the sea-wall. Neil said, ‘You take her round and get her filled up, and I’ll buy some food for the trip.’
‘Don’t worry about drink,’ cried Van Loon, ‘we have champagne for dinner and champagne for breakfast and champagne for lunch!’
Neil went into the wardroom and found Pol on his back along one of the leather couches. His eyes were closed and his face had gone an unhealthy mauve colour. ‘Hey, Charles!’ He shook him. Pol opened his eyes and groaned. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ said Neil.
Pol sat up slowly, trying to get his breath: ‘Ça va? Ça va! Just a touch of acid.’
‘I should lay off the drink for a bit,’ said Neil, ‘now listen. Van Loon’s taking the boat round to refuel. Have you got some money to pay?’
Pol handed him his wallet. ‘There’s enough there,’ he muttered, rolling back on to the couch.
Neil took the wallet into the wheelhouse; judging by its thickness it must have held at least £150 in Greek currency. He gave it gingerly to Van Loon: ‘There’s a lot of money there — don’t spend it all on ouzo. I’ll meet you at the bunker.’
He went ashore, along the jetty past the harbour police; and it was then that he began to have his first premonition of impending calamity. After all, he had only Van Loon’s word that the man could navigate a ship across several hundred miles of sea, at night, to a strange shore; and although they had maps and good engines, Neil knew that treacherous weather could blow up off the Peloponnese in a matter of minutes and smash even sixty-foot ships on to the rocks. And now there was Pol, architect
