The man looked sharply at them both. He sat down carefully between them. His face was extinguished. Now the bright eyes stared at Bond with a terrible intensity in which there was fear and suspicion. His right hand slipped casually into the pocket of his coat.
When Bond had finished, the man stood up. He didn’t ask any questions. He said, ‘Thank you, sir. Will you come, please. We will go to my apartment. There is much to be done.’ He walked into the corridor and stood with his back to them, looking out across the rails. When the girl came out he walked down the corridor without looking back. Bond followed the girl, carrying the heavy bag and his little attaché case.
They walked down the platform and into the station square. It had started to drizzle. The scene, with its sprinkling of battered taxis and vista of dull modern buildings, was depressing. The man opened the rear door of a shabby Morris Oxford saloon. He got in front and took the wheel. They bumped their way over the cobbles and on to a slippery tarmac boulevard and drove for a quarter of an hour through wide, empty streets. They saw few pedestrians and not more than a handful of other cars.
They stopped half way down a cobbled side-street. Tempo led them through a wide apartment-house door and up two flights of stairs that had the smell of the Balkans – the smell of very old sweat and cigarette smoke and cabbage. He unlocked a door and showed them into a two-roomed flat with nondescript furniture and heavy red plush curtains drawn back to show the blank windows on the other side of the street. On a sideboard stood a tray with several unopened bottles, glasses and plates of fruit and biscuits – the welcome to Darko and to Darko’s friends.
Tempo waved vaguely towards the drinks. ‘Please, sir, make yourself and Madam at home. There is a bathroom. No doubt you would both like to have a bath. If you will excuse me, I must telephone!’ The hard façade of the face was about to crumble. The man went quickly into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.
There followed two empty hours during which Bond sat and looked out of the window at the wall opposite. From time to time he got up and paced to and fro and then sat down again. For the first hour, Tatiana sat and pretended to look through a pile of magazines. Then she abruptly went into the bathroom and Bond vaguely heard water gushing into the bath.
At about 6 o’clock, Tempo came out of the bedroom. He told Bond that he was going out. ‘There is food in the kitchen. I will return at nine and take you to the train. Please treat my flat as your own.’ Without waiting for Bond’s reply, he walked out and softly shut the door. Bond heard his foot on the stairs and the click of the front door and the self-starter of the Morris.
Bond went into the bedroom and sat on the bed and picked up the telephone and talked in German to the long-distance exchange.
Half an hour later there was the quiet voice of M.
Bond spoke as a travelling salesman would speak to the managing director of Universal Export. He said that his partner had gone very sick. Were there any fresh instructions?
‘Very sick?’
‘Yes, sir, very.’
‘How about the other firm?’
‘There were three with us, sir. One of them caught the same thing. The other two didn’t feel well on the way out of Turkey. They left us at Uzunkopru – that’s the frontier.’
‘So the other firm’s packed up?’
Bond could see M.’s face as he sifted the information. He wondered if the fan was slowly revolving in the ceiling, if M. had a pipe in his hand, if the Chief-of-Staff was listening on the other wire.
‘What are your ideas? Would you and your wife like to take another way home?’
‘I’d rather you decided, sir. My wife’s all right. The sample’s in good condition. I don’t see why it should deteriorate. I’m still keen to finish the trip. Otherwise it’ll remain virgin territory. We shan’t know what the possibilities are.’
‘Would you like one of our other salesmen to give you a hand?’
‘It shouldn’t be necessary, sir. Just as you feel.’
‘I’ll think about it. So you really want to see this sales campaign through?’
Bond could see M.’s eyes glittering with the same perverse curiosity, the same rage to know, as he himself felt. ‘Yes, sir. Now that I’m half way, it seems a pity not to cover the whole route.’
‘All right then. I’ll think about giving you another salesman to lend a hand.’ There was a pause on the end of the line. ‘Nothing else on your mind?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Goodbye, then.’
‘Goodbye, sir.’
Bond put down the receiver. He sat and looked at it. He suddenly wished he had agreed with M.’s suggestion to give him reinforcements, just in case. He got up from the bed. At least they would soon be out of these damn Balkans and down into Italy. Then Switzerland, France–among friendly people, away from the furtive lands.
