warmth of his thigh along hers. She was wondering if that was intentional or not when he shifted slightly in his seat, and moved away.
‘Do you think they’re still in Istanbul? Adkins and his friends?’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied, still smiling that faint smile.
Istanbul was dark and rainy. Streetlights dazzled, along with the lights from dozens of tiny shops, filled with everything from coffee pots to carpets – from simple kelims to ornate Persian silk rugs selling at $50,000 apiece. Everything doubled itself in reflections in the glossy, rain-slicked tarmac and cobblestones. The area in and around the grand bazaar of Kapari Carsi glittered red and gold.
They checked into the hotel near Sultan Ahmet Square, and made their way west across the European side of the city in a yellow Hyundai taxi, after the usual debilitatingargument with the driver about the fare. The impression they’d got of the Grand Bazaar had been fleeting.
Driving at the usual breakneck speed of the Istanbul cabbie, they sped through the Sehzadebasi district, and took a right up Kimyagar Dervis and Vezneciler, passing university buildings, turning left before they got as far as City Hall, to reach an unassuming street just north of the Laleli Mosque.
Letting their driver drop them not far from the address they’d been given, and making sure he’d driven off, muttering darkly for their benefit about the size of his tip, they walked back through the fine rain to a building with a plain façade and a scattering of brass plates by its forbidding street door to indicate the professions of the occupants. They sheltered under the entrance awning. A row of bell-pushes on one door-jamb were identified by numbers only. Graves pressed number five.
It didn’t take long for the buzzer to click the door open, but Marlow looked up and down the empty street while they were waiting. Just to make sure. But there was nothing to indicate that they weren’t alone out there in what had now become freezing drizzle.
A young man with a black moustache stood in the vestibule. He was dressed in the international secret service uniform – dark suit, white shirt, dark tie – and had the kind of features – regular, unexceptional – that you’d immediately forget. It had occasionally crossed Graves’s mind that a lot of her colleagues might have been recruited on the basis of such looks, so perfect were they for the job.
He greeted them gravely and led the way along a dimlylit corridor to a door at which he knocked softly before opening it immediately and gesturing them to enter. Then he melted away.
The room they found themselves in was large and bright, and a chaos of untidiness. The books that lined most of one wall were in disarray, many spilling out on to the floor, others, mingled with buff folders, tottering in uncertain piles on the fine Isfahan carpet, which they half smothered. The other walls were dotted with a collage of maps, graphs, children’s drawings and one or two reproductions of dark Rembrandt portraits. A table bore an old Dell computer, evidently not often in use and half buried by more paperwork. An ornate desk stood in front of the tall windows. A closed MacBook Air perched precariously on one corner, in danger of being shoved to the floor by another Manhattan of what looked like ledgers but might have been law books.
The man behind the desk rose to greet them. He didn’t look unlike the middle-aged Rembrandt himself. He was clean-shaven, with a plump face, and a body to match. His nose was bulbous and his greying hair wispy and unruly. The eyes were small, grey and shrewd, and his expression a mixture of humour and sadness – the face of a man who’d survived a lot by taking stuff on the chin, but never letting anything floor him. A man, thought Marlow, whose company you’d probably enjoy but whom you’d never take anything other than seriously.
‘Welcome!’ he said, in English as he bustled round the desk to shake hands
‘Do you think they’re still in Istanbul? Adkins and his friends?’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied, still smiling that faint smile.
Istanbul was dark and rainy. Streetlights dazzled, along with the lights from dozens of tiny shops, filled with everything from coffee pots to carpets – from simple kelims to ornate Persian silk rugs selling at $50,000 apiece. Everything doubled itself in reflections in the glossy, rain-slicked tarmac and cobblestones. The area in and around the grand bazaar of Kapari Carsi glittered red and gold.
They checked into the hotel near Sultan Ahmet Square, and made their way west across the European side of the city in a yellow Hyundai taxi, after the usual debilitatingargument with the driver about the fare. The impression they’d got of the Grand Bazaar had been fleeting.
Driving at the usual breakneck speed of the Istanbul cabbie, they sped through the Sehzadebasi district, and took a right up Kimyagar Dervis and Vezneciler, passing university buildings, turning left before they got as far as City Hall, to reach an unassuming street just north of the Laleli Mosque.
Letting their driver drop them not far from the address they’d been given, and making sure he’d driven off, muttering darkly for their benefit about the size of his tip, they walked back through the fine rain to a building with a plain façade and a scattering of brass plates by its forbidding street door to indicate the professions of the occupants. They sheltered under the entrance awning. A row of bell-pushes on one door-jamb were identified by numbers only. Graves pressed number five.
It didn’t take long for the buzzer to click the door open, but Marlow looked up and down the empty street while they were waiting. Just to make sure. But there was nothing to indicate that they weren’t alone out there in what had now become freezing drizzle.
A young man with a black moustache stood in the vestibule. He was dressed in the international secret service uniform – dark suit, white shirt, dark tie – and had the kind of features – regular, unexceptional – that you’d immediately forget. It had occasionally crossed Graves’s mind that a lot of her colleagues might have been recruited on the basis of such looks, so perfect were they for the job.
He greeted them gravely and led the way along a dimlylit corridor to a door at which he knocked softly before opening it immediately and gesturing them to enter. Then he melted away.
The room they found themselves in was large and bright, and a chaos of untidiness. The books that lined most of one wall were in disarray, many spilling out on to the floor, others, mingled with buff folders, tottering in uncertain piles on the fine Isfahan carpet, which they half smothered. The other walls were dotted with a collage of maps, graphs, children’s drawings and one or two reproductions of dark Rembrandt portraits. A table bore an old Dell computer, evidently not often in use and half buried by more paperwork. An ornate desk stood in front of the tall windows. A closed MacBook Air perched precariously on one corner, in danger of being shoved to the floor by another Manhattan of what looked like ledgers but might have been law books.
The man behind the desk rose to greet them. He didn’t look unlike the middle-aged Rembrandt himself. He was clean-shaven, with a plump face, and a body to match. His nose was bulbous and his greying hair wispy and unruly. The eyes were small, grey and shrewd, and his expression a mixture of humour and sadness – the face of a man who’d survived a lot by taking stuff on the chin, but never letting anything floor him. A man, thought Marlow, whose company you’d probably enjoy but whom you’d never take anything other than seriously.
‘Welcome!’ he said, in English as he bustled round the desk to shake hands
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