The man gave him a flat stare and nodded past him towards the girl in the armchair. Neil turned, frowning, and walked over to her; he stopped with a slight bow and said, ‘I’m Monsieur Ingleby. Were you asking for me?’
She looked impassively up at him: ‘You are the English journalist who came by boat yesterday from Greece.’ It was not a question, but a statement of fact. Neil nodded, swallowing hard.
‘Sit down, Monsieur Ingleby.’ She took out a packet of Gitanes, lit one, tossed the match on the floor and sat watching him through the curling smoke. She had fine black eyes that sloped upwards in a wide face, and her nose was straight, in a bold line with her forehead, giving her a dramatic Grecian profile. She wore a crimson sheath of shot-silk cut low over her sunburnt breasts. Her arms were bare and her hands slender and brown; she wore no make-up and no ring. On her left wrist was a loose, heavy bracelet of Berber silver.
‘You represent a famous English newspaper,’ she began, speaking with the deliberation of a set speech, ‘it is important that while you are here you write the truth. Many of the foreigners here tell lies about us. They accuse us of being murderers and Fascists and traitors. That is not true. This is our country. We built it out of the sand. Before the French came there was nothing! The Arabs were nomads — tribesmen who came from outside and profited from what we had built, and now they say the country is theirs. It is not theirs, Monsieur Ingleby! This country is French, and we shall keep it French!’ Her eyes were fierce and beautiful, and they confused him: he was not used to political passion so early in the morning. He nodded again and said nothing. There was something both absurd and rather frightening about this lovely girl mouthing political abstractions, while outside she and her friends wielded the weapons of violence and death.
‘You must write in your newspaper that we are not Fascists and murderers,’ she went on, ‘we are patriots!’ She paused, inhaling deeply, and Neil mumbled something about trying to be objective and seeing all sides of the problem; then added, ‘What is your name?’
‘Anne-Marie. You don’t have to know my family name.’ She looked up sharply. Van Loon was coming towards them across the foyer. He stopped in front of her and gave a jerky bow. Neil said, ‘This is my Dutch friend who came with me from Greece.’
She said, ‘I know. You’re Monsieur Van Loon. Sit down please.’
Van Loon fumbled for an armchair, ogling her with his huge blue eyes. She flicked some ash on the carpet and said to Neil, ‘There was a third man with you on the boat from Greece.’
He stiffened and felt that tightening again in his stomach as he thought of Jadot and wondered, how much do these people know? His neck and forehead grew damp. She was watching him carefully now, and smiling a small teasing smile. ‘A fat man with a beard,’ she added, and her sloping black eyes flashed, almost with amusement, ‘he is called Charles Pol.’
Neil licked his lips. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘We know everything, Monsieur Ingleby. And we want to ask you some questions about this fat man.’ She squashed out her cigarette on the arm of the chair and brushed the ash to the floor. ‘The car is outside,’ she said, standing up.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll find out.’ She led the way across the foyer, She was a tall girl, large-boned but graceful, and she walked like a dancer, with beautiful legs, long and suntanned, and without too much muscle; her buttocks were high and firm and slightly pointed under the tight red silk. After three iron weeks on Mount Athos Neil began to feel an uneasy stirring in his loins.
Outside, the sea-fog had cleared and the sun burned down out of a hard blue sky. A big man in dark glasses with an open-necked denim shirt stood in front of the hotel leaning against a black Peugeot 403 saloon. He straightened up and opened the doors. Anne-Marie waved them both into the back seats. Neil’s foot stubbed against something on the floor as he sat down. It was a sporting rifle with telescopic sights.
The car accelerated with a skid of gravel and drove fast along the Front de Mer. Now that the strike was over, people were beginning to come out again into the streets. Shops and cafés were opening, and the Gardes Mobiles were at every corner with machine-guns and walkie-talkies; and in the squares and down the main boulevards armoured cars stood with the long barrels of the Douze-Septs trained on the balconies above.
The morning smelt fresh and clean, as they climbed from the Front de Mer, above the white dazzle of the city, into a series of poorer, working-class streets full of slogans and grubby little men idling in the mouths of bars and bistros. They turned another corner, still climbing, and two men in khaki uniforms with no insignia stepped out and waved them to a halt. One of them began talking to the driver and Neil caught the word barbouze several times; then the man handed in a sheet of notepaper scrawled with what looked to Neil like a list of serial numbers. Anne-Marie took the paper and began studying it, as the car drove on. She turned to Neil. ‘Car numbers belonging
