The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [65]
I got down from the plinth and moved back into the shelter of the fig trees. Sure enough, they made their way round to the balustrade. When they turned to go back I was only twenty-five feet away from them. I heard a snatch of conversation.
“… if I took over?” That was Miss Lipp.
“He was Leo’s idea,” he answered. “Let Leo take care of him. After tomorrow, he doesn’t matter too much anyway. Even Arthur could do the rest of that job.”
She laughed. “The indignant sheep? With his breath you wouldn’t even need the grenades, I guess. You’d get a mass surrender.”
He laughed.
She said: “When does Giulio’s man arrive?”
“Sometime today. I didn’t wait. Giulio knows …”
I heard no more.
As soon as they were well clear, I went back through the orchard to the yard, and then up to my room. I locked the door. Geven would be free of the kitchen at any moment, and I did not want to be bothered with him.
I had to think about what they had said and it was hard to do so, because all I could think about was her laugh and the words she had used about me. I felt sick. There was another time when it had been like that, too. Jones iv and I had gone up to Hilly Fields to meet a couple of girls we knew. One of them was named Muriel, the other was Madge. Madge didn’t turn up because, so Muriel said, she had a cold. So there were just the three of us. Muriel was really Jones’ girl, so I was more or less out of it. I tried to pick up another girl, but that was more difficult when you were alone and I didn’t have any luck. After a while, I gave up and went back to where I had left the other two necking on a seat under the trees. I thought I’d come up quietly and give them a surprise. That is how I overheard it. She was saying that she had to get home early, for some reason or other, and he was asking her about Saturday night.
“With Arthur, too?” she said.
“I suppose so.”
“Well, Madge won’t come.”
“She’ll be over her cold by then.”
“She hasn’t got a cold. She just didn’t want to come. She says Arthur’s a little twerp and gives her the creeps.”
I went away and they didn’t know that I’d heard. Then I was sick behind the bushes. I hated that girl Madge so much that it was like a pain.
Geven came up and I heard him go into the bathroom. A little while afterwards he came out and knocked on my door. I had taken the precaution of switching off the light so that it wouldn’t show under the door and he would think that I was asleep. He knocked again. After a few moments I heard him muttering to himself. Then he went away.
I nearly changed my mind and called him in. I could have done with a drink just then, and someone to talk to. But then I thought of how dirty he was and how the stink of his body would stay in the room—the “perfume of the great unwashed,” as my father would have said. Besides, I couldn’t be sure of getting rid of him when I wanted to, and I had the eleven o’clock radio call to take.
It came at last.
Attention period report. Attention period report. Passenger for yacht Bulut arrived Pendik seventeen hundred hours today. Name Enrico, other names unknown so far. Description: short, stocky, black hair, brown eyes, age about thirty-five. Casual observation of subject and hand luggage suggests workman rather than guest of charterer Corzo. Are you able to identify this man? Important that written notes of all conversations, with particular care as to political content, should be made. Essential you report progress. Repeat. Essential.
The outside of the body can be washed of sweat and grease; but inside there are processes which produce other substances. Some of these smell. How do you wash away the smells of the inside of the body?
8
The morning call was a