Journey Into Fear Read Free

would like to dance.
    She danced well; well enough for him to feel that he, too, was dancing well. He felt less depressed and asked her to dance again. The second time she pressed her thin body hard against him. He saw a grubby shoulder strap begin to work its way out from under the red satin and smelt the heat of her body behind the scent she used. He found that he was getting tired of her.
    She began to talk. Did he know Istanbul well? Had he been there before? Did he know Paris? And London? He was lucky. She had never been to those places. She hoped to go to them. And to Stockholm, too. Had he many friends in Istanbul? She asked because there was a gentleman who had come in just after him and his friend who seemed to know him. This gentleman kept looking at him.
    Graham had been wondering how soon he could get away. He realised suddenly that she was waiting for him to say something. His mind had caught her last remark.
    “Who keeps looking at me?”
    “We cannot see him now. The gentleman is sitting at the bar.”
    “No doubt he’s looking at you.” There seemed nothing else to say.
    But she was evidently serious. “It is in you that he is interested, Monsieur. It is the one with the handkerchief in his hand.”
    They had reached a point on the floor from which he could see the bar. The man was sitting on a stool with a glass of vermouth in front of him.
    He was a short, thin man with a stupid face: very bony with large nostrils, prominent cheekbones, and full lips pressed together as if he had sore gums or were trying to keep his temper. He was intensely pale and his small, deep-set eyes and thinning, curly hair seemed in consequence darker than they were. The hair was plastered in streaks across his skull. He wore a crumpled brown suit with lumpy padded shoulders, a soft shirt with an almost invisible collar, and a new grey tie. As Graham watched him he wiped his upper lip with the handkerchief as if the heat of the place were making him sweat.
    “He doesn’t seem to be looking at me now,” Graham said. “Anyway, I don’t know him, I’m afraid.”
    “I did not think so, Monsieur.” She pressed his arm to her side with her elbow. “But I wished to be sure. I do not know him either, but I know the type. You are a stranger here, Monsieur, and you perhaps have money in your pocket. Istanbul is not like Stockholm. When such types look at you more than once, it is advisable to be careful. You are strong, but a knife in the back is thesame for a strong man as for a small one.”
    Her solemnity was ludicrous. He laughed; but he looked again at the man by the bar. He was sipping at his vermouth; an inoffensive creature. The girl was probably trying, rather clumsily, to demonstrate that her own intentions were good.
    He said: “I don’t think that I need worry.”
    She relaxed the pressure on his arm. “Perhaps not, Monsieur.” She seemed suddenly to lose interest in the subject. The band stopped and they returned to the table.
    “She dances very nicely, doesn’t she?” said Kopeikin.
    “Very.”
    She smiled at them, sat down and finished her drink as if she were thirsty. Then she sat back. “We are three,” she said and counted round with one finger to make sure they understood; “would you like me to bring a friend of mine to have a drink with us? She is very sympathetic. She is my greatest friend.”
    “Later, perhaps,” said Kopeikin. He poured her out another drink.
    At that moment, the band played a resounding “chord-on” and most of the lights went out. A spotlight quivered on the floor in front of the platform.
    “The attractions,” said Maria. “It is very good.”
    Serge stepped into the spotlight and pattered off a long announcement in Turkish which ended in a flourish of the hand towards a door beside the platform. Two dark young men in pale blue dinner jackets promptly dashed out on to the floor and proceeded to do an energetic tap dance. They were soon breathless and their hair became