The Light of Day
Director.' He paused. 'But he will have to be persuaded. You understand me?’
    ‘I have no money.’
    It seemed a perfectly sensible reply to me, but for some reason it appeared to irritate him. His eyes narrowed and for a moment I thought he was going to throw the glass he was holding in my face. Then he sighed. 'You are over fifty,' he said, "yet you have learned nothing. You still see other men in your own absurd image. Do you really believe that I could be bought, or that, if I could be, a man like you could ever do the buying?'
    It was on the tip of my tongue to retort that that would depend on the price he was asking, but if he wanted to take this high-and-mighty attitude, there was no sense in arguing. Obviously, I had touched him in a sensitive area.
    He lit a cigarette as if he were consciously putting aside his irritation. I took the opportunity to drink some of the raki.
    'Very well.' He was all business again. "You understand your position, which is that you have no position. We come now to the story you told to the post Commandant before your arrest.'
    ‘Every word I told the Commandant was the truth."
    He opened the file. 'On the face of it that seems highly unlikely. Let us see. You stated that you were asked by this American, Harper, to drive a car belonging to a Fräulein Lipp from Athens to Istanbul. You were to be paid one hundred dollars. You agreed. Am I right?'
    'Quite right.'
    "You agreed, even though the passport in your possession was not in order?'
    'I did not realize it was out of date. It has been months i since I used it. The whole thing was arranged within a few hours. I scarcely had time to pack a bag. People are using out of date passports all the time. Ask anyone at any international airline. They will tell you. That is why they always check passengers' passports when they weigh their baggage, do not want difficulties at the other end. I had no check. The Greek control scarcely looked at the passport. I was leaving the country. They were not interested.'
    I knew I was on safe ground here, and I spoke with feeling.
    He thought for a moment then nodded. 'It is possible, and, of course, you had good reason not to mink too much about the date on your passport. The Egyptians were not going to renew it anyway. That explanation is acceptable, I think. We will go on.' He referred again to the file. 'You told the Commandant that you suspected this man Harper of being a narcotics smuggler.'
    'I did.'
    ‘To the extent of searching the car after you left Athens."
    ‘ Yes .'
    'Yet you still agreed to make the journey.'
    'I was being paid one hundred dollars.'
    That was the only reason?’
    'Yes. '
    He shook his head. 'It really will not do.'
    'I am telling you the truth.'
    He took a clip of papers from the file. 'Your history does not inspire confidence.'
    'Give a dog a bad name.’
    'You seem to have earned one. Our dossier on you begins in ‘fifty-seven. You were arrested on various charges and fined on a minor count. The rest were abandoned by the police for lack of evidence.'
    They should never have been brought in the first place.'
    He ignored this. 'We did, however, ask Interpol if they knew anything about you. It seems they knew a lot. Apparently you were once in the restaurant business.’
    'My father owned a restaurant in Cairo. Is that an offence?'
    'Fraud is an offence. Your mother was part owner of a restaurant. When she died, you sold it to a buyer who believed that you now owned all of it. In fact, there were two other shareholders. The buyer charged you with fraud but withdrew his complaint when the police allowed you to regularize the transaction.'
    'I didn't know of the existence of mese other shareholders. My mother had never told me that she had sold the shares.' This was perfectly true. Mum was entirely responsible for the trouble, I got into over that.
    'In nineteen thirty-one you bought a partnership in a small publishing business in Cairo. Outwardly it concerned itself with

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