The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [97]
I glanced at the car-park entrance to make sure that Fischer wasn’t coming back; and then I moved. I went to the door by the driver’s seat, leaned across it as if I were going to switch off the engine, and looked across the back of the seat.
Harper was bending down to undo one of the screws by the hinge.
I slid into the driver’s seat gently so as not to rock the car, and eased the transmission lever from “Park” to “Drive.” The car gave a slight jerk. At the same moment I stamped on the accelerator.
I heard a thump as the door sent him flying, then I spun the wheel and was heading for the car-park entrance.
About twenty feet from it, I jammed on the brakes and the two rear doors swung shut with a slam. Through the rear window I could see Harper scrambling to his feet. As I closed the door beside me I accelerated again and went through onto the road. A moment later I was halfway round the loop. Another car ahead slowed me for a moment. In the driving mirror I saw Harper running towards the taxi rank. I leaned on the horn ring and the car in front swerved. Then I was out of the loop and on the approach road.
I had gone about a mile when the Opel passed me going in the opposite direction. I waved frantically, but kept on going. I didn’t care whether they thought I’d gone mad or not. All I wanted was to get away from Harper.
I went on driving fast towards Istanbul until I saw in the mirror that the Opel was behind me. Only then did I stop.
It wasn’t my fault that they took all that time to catch up with me.
12
“The Director is not pleased with you,” Tufan informed me.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him what the Director could go and do to himself; but I managed to keep my temper. “You got the stuff back,” I reminded him sharply; “you have the names and descriptions of the people who took it. You know what was done and how it was done. What more do you want?”
“The woman and the three men,” he snapped.
The nerve of it! “It wasn’t I who let them get on that plane to Rome,” I said.
“It was your stupidity that did. If you hadn’t panicked, if you had stopped immediately when you saw the Opel instead of driving off like a madman, they would be in prison now. As it was, they got a close enough look at my men to realize their mistake. We had had no information from you. By the time we were able to re-establish contact with you, naturally they had gone.”
“They can be arrested in Rome. You can extradite them.”
“Not without a case strong enough to justify extradition proceedings.”
“You have it. I’ve told you what happened.”
“And what do you think your evidence would be worth in an Italian court?” he demanded. “You smuggled the explosives in. Who is there to confirm your story of the subsequent robbery? They would have your record from Interpol to discredit you. Is the court to extradite four persons on your unsupported word that you have told the truth? They would laugh at us!”
“What about Giulio and Enrico?”
“Very sensibly, for them, they are saying nothing useful. They chartered a yacht. They decided to go for a night cruise. They were hailed by some men in a caique who said that their motor had broken down. They took them to Serefli and put them ashore. Is that a crime? Tomorrow the police will have to let them go. There is nothing we can do. Your mistake, Simpson, was in not carrying out orders.”
“What orders, for God’s sake?”
“The orders I gave you in this very room. You were told to report. You failed to do so. It was unfortunate that the packet you dropped in the garage was overlooked, but you had other opportunities. You could have reported at Serefli. You could have dropped your guide’s license at the guard post as you were taken through. There was want of imagination. We have no choice but to abandon the inquiry.”
“Including the inquiry about the attack on the guard post?”
He looked like a man who, having just realized that his fly is