Eric Ambler: The light of day

Inside was a small bare office with some hard chairs and a green baize trestle table in the center. The customs inspector stood beside the table. Seated at it was a man of about my own age with a lined, sallow face. He wore some sort of officer’s uniform. I think he belonged to the military security police. He had the carnet and my passport on the table in front of him.

He looked up at me disagreeably. “This is your passport?” He spoke good French.

“Yes, sir. And I can only say that I regret extremely that I did not notice that it was not renewed.”

“You have caused a lot of trouble.”

“I realize that, sir. I must explain, however, that it was only on Monday evening that I was asked to make this journey. I left early yesterday morning. I was in a hurry. I did not think to check my papers.”

He looked down at the passport. “It says here that your occupation is that of journalist. You told the customs inspector that you were a chauffeur.”

So he had an inquiring mind; my heart sank.

“I am acting as a chauffeur, sir. I was, I am a journalist, but one must live and things are not always easy in that profession.”

“So now you are a chauffeur, and the passport is incorrect in yet another particular, eh?” It was a very unfair way of putting it, but I thought it as well to let him have his moment.

“One’s fortunes change, sir. In Athens I have my own car, which I drive for hire.”

He peered, frowning, at the carnet. “This car here is the property of Elizabeth Lipp. Is she your employer?”

“Temporarily, sir.”

“Where is she?”

“In Istanbul, I believe, sir.”

“You do not know?”

“Her agent engaged me, sir-to drive her car to Istanbul, where she is going as a tourist. She prefers to make the journey to Istanbul by sea.”

There was an unpleasant pause. He looked through the carnet again and then up at me abruptly.

“What nationality is this woman?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What age? What sort of woman?”

“I have never seen her, sir. Her agent arranged everything.”

“And she is going from Athens to Istanbul by sea, which takes twenty-four hours, but she sends her car fourteen hundred kilometers and three days by road. If she wants the car in Istanbul, why didn’t she take the car on the boat with her? It is simple enough and costs practically nothing.”

I was only too well aware of it. I shrugged. “I was paid to drive, sir, and well paid. It was not for me to question the lady’s plans.”

He considered me for a moment, then drew a sheet of paper towards him and scribbled a few words. He handed the result to the customs inspector, who read, nodded, and went out quickly.

The Commandant seemed to relax. “You say you know nothing about the woman who owns the car,” he said. “Tell me about her agent. Is it a travel bureau?”

“No, sir, a man, an American, a friend of Fraulein Lipp’s father he said.”

“What’s his name? Where is he?”

I told him everything I knew about Harper, and the nature of my relationship with him. I did not mention the disagreement over the traveler’s checks. That could have been of no interest to him.

He listened in silence, nodding occasionally. By the time I had finished, his manner had changed considerably. His expression had become almost amiable.

“Have you driven this way before?” he asked.

“Several times, sir.”

“With tourists?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ever without tourists?”

“No, sir. They like to visit Olympus, Salonika, and Alexandropolis on their way to Istanbul.”

“Then did you not think this proposal of Mr. Harper’s strange?”

I permitted myself to smile. “ Monsieur le Commandant,” I said, “I thought it so strange that there could be only two possible reasons for it. The first was that Mr. Harper was so much concerned to impress the daughter of a valuable business associate with his savoir-faire that he neglected to ask anyone’s advice before he made his arrangements.”

“And the second?”

“That he knew that uncrated cars carried in Denizyollari ships to Istanbul must be accompanied by the owner as a passenger, and that he did not wish to be present when the car was inspected by customs for fear that something might be discovered in the car that should not be there.”

“I see.” He smiled slightly. “But you had no such fear.”

We were getting cozier by the minute. “ Monsieur le Commandant,” I said, “I may be a trifle careless about having my passport renewed, but I am not a fool. The moment I left Athens yesterday, I stopped and searched the car thoroughly, underneath as well as on top, the wheels, everywhere.”

There was a knock on the door and the customs inspector came back. He put a sheet of paper down in front of the Commandant. The Commandant read it and his face suddenly tightened. He looked up again at me.

“You say you searched everywhere in the car?”

“Yes, sir. Everywhere.”

“Did you search inside the doors?”

“Well, no, sir. They are sealed. I would have damaged…”

He said something quickly in Turkish. Suddenly the security man locked an arm round my neck and ran his free hand over my pockets. Then he shoved me down violently onto a chair.

I stared at the Commandant dumbly.

“Inside the doors there are”-he referred to the paper in his hand-“twelve tear-gas grenades, twelve concussion grenades, twelve smoke grenades, six gas respirators, six Parabellum pistols, and one hundred and twenty rounds of nine-millimeter pistol ammunition.” He put the paper down and stood up. “You are under arrest.”

The post had no facilities for housing prisoners, and I was put in the lavatory under guard while the Commandant reported my arrest to headquarters and awaited orders. The lavatory was only a few yards from his office, and during the next twenty minutes the telephone there rang four times. I could hear the rumble of his voice when he answered. The tone of it became more respectful with each call.

I was uncertain whether I should allow myself to be encouraged by this or not. Police behavior is always difficult to anticipate, even when you know a country well. Sometimes Higher Authority is more responsive to a reasonable explanation of the misunderstanding, and more disposed to accept a dignified expression of regret for inconvenience caused, than some self-important or sadistic minor official who is out to make the most of the occasion. On the other hand, the Higher Authority has more power to abuse, and, if it comes to the simple matter of a bribe, bigger ideas about his nuisance value. I must admit, though, that what I was mainly concerned about at that point was the kind of physical treatment I would receive. Of course, every police authority, high or low, considers its behavior “correct” on all occasions; but in my experience (although I have only really been arrested ten or twelve times in my whole life) the word “correct” can mean almost anything from hot meals brought in from a nearby restaurant and plenty of cigarettes, to tight-handcuffing in the cell and a knee in the groin if you dare to complain. My previous encounters with the Turkish police had been uncomfortable only in the sense that they had been inconvenient and humiliating; but then, the matters in dispute had been of a more or less technical nature. I had to face the fact that “being in possession of arms, explosives, and other offensive weapons, attempting to smuggle them into the Turkish Republic, carrying concealed firearms and illegal entry without valid identification papers,” were rather more serious charges. My complete and absolute innocence of them would take time to establish, and a lot of quite unpleasant things could happen in the interim.