The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [23]
More to break the interminable silence in the room than because I wanted to know, I asked: “Is there a big airport at Edirne?”
I spoke in French, but it meant nothing to him. I made signs, which he misunderstood.
“Askeri ucak,” he said briefly.
An army plane. That concluded that conversation; but I noticed that he kept glancing at his watch now. Probably, I thought, it was time for his relief and he was becoming impatient.
Twenty minutes later there was the distant sound of a car door slamming. The guard heard it, too, and promptly stood up. I stared at him and he glowered back.
“Hazirol!” he snapped, and then exasperatedly: “Debout! Debout!”
I stood up. I could hear approaching footsteps and voices now. Then the door was unlocked and flung open.
For a moment nothing more happened, except that someone in the corridor, whom I could not see, went on speaking. He had a harsh, peremptory voice which seemed to be giving orders that another voice kept acknowledging deferentially—“Evet, evet efendim, derhal.” Then the orders ceased and the man who had been giving them came into the room.
He was about thirty-five, I would think, perhaps younger, tall and quite slim. There were high cheekbones, gray eyes, and short brown hair. He was handsome, I suppose, in a thin-lipped sort of way. He was wearing a dark civilian suit that looked as if it had been cut by a good Roman tailor, and a dark-gray silk tie. He looked as if he had just come from a diplomatic corps cocktail party; and for all I know he may have done so. On his right wrist there was a gold identity bracelet. The hand below it was holding a large manila envelope.
He examined me bleakly for a moment, then nodded. “I am Major Tufan, Deputy Director, Second Section.”
“Good evening, sir.”
He glanced at the guard, who was staring at him round-eyed, and suddenly snapped out an order: “Defol!”
The guard nearly fell over himself getting out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, the major pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. Then he waved me back to my seat by the bread.
“Sit down, Simpson. I believe that you speak French easily, but not Turkish.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we will speak in French instead of English. That will be easier for me.”
I answered in French. “As you wish, sir.”
He took cigarettes and matches from his pocket and tossed them on the table in front of me. “You may smoke.”
“Thank you.”
I was glad of the concession, though not in the least reassured by it. When a policeman gives you a cigarette it is usually the first move in one of those “let’s see if we can’t talk sensibly as man to man” games in which he provides the rope and you hang yourself. I lit a cigarette and waited for the next move.
He seemed in no hurry to make it. He had opened the envelope and taken from it a file of papers which he was searching through and rearranging, as if he had just dropped them all and was trying to get them back into the right order.
There was a knock at the door. He took no notice. After a moment or two, the door opened and a guard came in with a bottle of raki and two glasses. Tufan motioned to him to put them on the table, and then noticed the soup.
“Do you want any more of that?” he asked.
“No thank you, sir.”
He said something to the guard, who took the soup and bread away and locked the door again.
Tufan rested the file on his knees and poured himself a glass of raki. “The flight from Istanbul was anything but smooth,” he said; “we are still using piston-engined planes on these short runs.” He swallowed the drink as if he were washing down a pill, and pushed the bottle an inch or two in my direction. “You’d better have a drink, Simpson. It may make you feel better.”
“And also make me more talkative, sir?” I thought the light touch might make him think that I