The Light of Day by Eric Ambler Page B

knowledge of the Places of Interest and how to get to them. On my way down to my room I had to laugh to myself. 'Never volunteer for anything,' my father had said. Well, I hadn't exactly volunteered for what I was doing now, but it seemed to me that I was suddenly getting bloody conscientious about it.
    I spent most of the following morning in bed. Just before noon I got dressed and went up to the foyer to see if Tufan had remembered about the guide's licence. He had; it was in a sealed Ministry of Tourism envelope in my mail-box.
    For a few minutes I felt quite good about that. It showed, I thought, that Tufan kept his promises and that I could rely on him to back me. Then I realized that there was another way of looking at it. I had asked for a licence and I had promptly received one; Tufan expected results and wasn't giving me the smallest excuse for not getting them.
    I had made up my mind not to have any drinks that day so as to keep a clear head for Harper; but now I changed my mind. You can't have a clear head when there's a sword hanging over it. I was careful though and only had three or four rakis. I felt much better for them, and after lunch I went down to my room to take a nap.
    I must have needed it badly because I was still asleep when the phone rang at five. I almost fell off the bed in my haste to pick it up, and the start that it gave me made my head ache.
    'Arthur?' It was Harper's voice.
    'Yes.'
    'You know who this is?'
    ‘Yes.'
    'Car okay?'
    'Yes.'
    Then what have you been stalling for?'
    'I haven't been stalling.'
    'Fischer says you refused to deliver the car.'
    'You told me to wait for your instructions, so I waited. You didn't tell me to hand the car to a perfect stranger without any proof of his authority. . . .'
    'All right, all right, skip it! Where is the car?'
    'In a garage near here.'
    'Do you know where Sariyer is?'
    ‘Yes.'
    'Get the car right away and hit the Sariyer road. When you get to Yeniköy look at your mileage reading, then drive on towards Sariyer for exactly four more mites. On your right you'll come to a small pier with some boats tied up alongside it. On the left of the road opposite the oier you'll see a driveway entrance belonging to a villa. The name of the villa is Sardunya. Have you got that?'
    ‘Yes.'
    'You should be here in about forty minutes. Right?’
    'I will leave now.'
    Sariyer is a small fishing port at the other end of the Bosphorus where it widens out to the Black Sea, and the road to it from Istanbul runs along the European shore. I wondered if I should try to contact Tufan before I left and report the address I had been given, then decided against it. Almost certainly, he had had Harper followed from the airport, and in any case I would be followed to the villa.
    There would be no point in reporting.
    I went to the garage, paid the bill and got the car. The early evening traffic was heavy and it took me twenty minutes to get out of the city. It was a quarter to six when I reached Yeniköy. The same Peugeot which had followed me down from Edirne was following me again. I slowed for a moment to check the mileage and then pushed on.
    The villas of the Bosphorus vary from small waterfront holiday places, with window-boxes and little boat-houses, to things like palaces. Quite a lot of these were palaces once; and before the capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara the diplomatic corps used to have summer embassy buildings out along the Bosphorus, where there are cool Black Sea breezes even when the city is sweltering. The Kösk Sardunya looked as if it had started out in some such way.
    The entrance to the drive was flanked by huge stone pillars with wrought-iron gates. The drive itself was several hundred yards long and wound up the hillside through an avenue of big trees which also served to screen the place from the road below. Finally, it left the trees and swept into the gravel courtyard in front of the villa.
    It was one of those white stucco wedding-cake