Chapter 17
B efore they knew it, the group had mounted their mules and were being led out of the palace and then back through the Medina. Rat’s Italian was worse than Melody’s, but he had also sensed that Fatima and Alessandro were playing out a charade to allow them to speak privately. He was on tenterhooks to hear what Alessandro had relayed to Fatima. However, finding a place where they could speak without being overheard might be a challenge.
Rat had spent some time considering Melody’s theory that there was a traitor within Fatima or Omar’s household and realised that he couldn’t entirely discount it. He was unwilling even to countenance the possibility that Fatima herself was the turncoat, and he was almost as unwilling to believe that Omar’s friendship towards Alessandro was not all it seemed. Still, there was a very real possibility that one of the Berber men who had accompanied them was not all he appeared, and they still did not know enough about Lahcen to be sure where his loyalties sat. Given this, trying to have this discussion securely in the riad seemed reckless. Yet, where else were they to go without arousing suspicion?
As they wound their way back through the chaos of the Medina, Rat considered where he, Fatima and Melody might plausibly go alone or at least with nothing more than a servant to accompany them. He was tempted to try to have the conversation then and there; they had no reason to believe that the servants leading the mules understood English. However, yelling back and forth from mules was hardly the best way to conduct a clandestine meeting.
Interspersed amongst the shops of the Medina were cafes where men sat drinking mint tea and discussing the news of the day. But “men” was the keyword. If Rat were to lead two women, even foreign women, into such a place, they would cause a stir. He didn’t want word to get back to either the riad or the palace that they had been trying to speak privately.
At some point, the alleyway widened enough that Rat was able to spur his mule on to pull alongside Fatima’s. He leaned over and said as quietly as he could while still being heard over the Medina’s noise, “We need to speak before we return to the riad. Do you have any suggestions?”
Fatima nodded in answer and shouted something to the servant leading her mule. Rat wasn’t sure what she’d said because they continued their journey for some minutes. Then, they turned down a particularly narrow alley that was barely wide enough for the mules. At the end of it, they came to a storefront with colourful fabrics and scarves hanging up outside.
“This is a Hanout An-Nassaj, or a weaving shop,” Fatima explained.
They descended from their mules, and Fatima told the servants to wait outside with the animals—or at least, Melody and Rat assumed she must have said that. Inside, the shop was much larger than it had seemed from the outside. In one corner, an old woman was using a huge loom to weave a beautiful piece of multicoloured fabric that resembled the sun setting as it moved from red to orange to yellow.
Melody was immediately drawn to the loom. The fabric looked like it was silk as it shimmered in the rays of sunlight coming through the window behind the weaver.
Seeing her interest, the savvy shopkeeper approached Melody and spoke in Arabic. She shook her head, and Fatima stepped in. “He said that he has another piece in the same colours and style and will give you a good price.”
“It is beautiful. I have never seen silk like it,” Melody said in awe.
“It is not the kind of silk that you are used to,” Fatima explained. “It is made from Saharan aloe vera cacti and is a Berber traditional fibre.” Then, seizing the moment, Fatima said something to the shopkeeper and walked towards a pile of scarves gesturing to Rat and Melody to follow her. Speaking loudly in English, she said, “Come and look at some of the other colours and patterns and choose one that you like.”
Sure of a sale, the shopkeeper left them to their perusal of the fabric. When they were confident they would not be overheard, Fatima said quickly in a low voice, “Sandro said that he recognised the murdered man. He was a rogue British operative who disappeared perhaps a year ago. That must have been how he was able to recognise Alessandro. Matthew, Sandro said that you should send a secure telegram to London asking for more information on the man. He said that you would know what secure meant. He said to mention there has been mischief from Skylark in the telegram and that the Bureau would know what that meant.”
Rat nodded. He would send a telegram to Lord Langley as soon as possible. His mentor was the only man in the Secret Service Bureau in whom he had complete faith and trust. If the man sent to attack Alessandro had been a one-time British operative, who knew what nefarious schemes might be in play?
Now that they were in the shop, Melody decided that she would need more clothes if they were to stay in Fes for any length of time. She and Fatima spent a happy hour choosing from the beautiful fabrics and ordering clothes to be made up from them.
Finally, they left the Hanout An-Nassaj with enough packages to more than explain their detour. Remounting their mules, they continued their journey back to the riad. As they rode, Rat considered how he’d accomplish his task. Sending a coded message to Lord Langley was the least of the issues. His guardian and mentor had been the one who set the young Rat on the path to cryptography and there were numerous codes that he knew the earl would immediately recognise. The more significant issue was sending the telegram. Ideally, he would like to send it via the consul in Fes; he assumed that the man had access to telegraph equipment. Though, how was he to explain the need to send one to Omar and Lahcen?
As he chewed away on the puzzle, Rat considered whether Alessandro’s revelation about the man who tried to attack him and ended up dead in Casablanca justified a reassessment of the suspicions that Melody had made him consider.
What did they know or believe they knew? The man they were referring to as Skylark had also worked for the British Government in some capacity in the Secret Service Bureau. Because of this, he knew of Alessandro’s role. Did he know about Rat’s work for the Bureau? If so, was he also in danger? It seemed unlikely that the threat had been neutralised just because Skylark was now dead.
Who had hired the rogue operative to attack Alessandro and why? And had the same person then killed the man? Perhaps then setting Alessandro up for the murder? As Rat considered all these questions, he wondered what Melody made of the explosive news that Fatima had shared.
Even as he had the thought, it also occurred to Rat that he wanted to talk to his sister about what they had learned. During the investigation in Venice, he had come to realise that she was not only a good sounding board but that she had a very logical way of dissecting an investigation. As much as he had railed against her accompanying him to Morocco and then to Fes, Rat realised that he was glad that she was there. He would have to find a way to be alone with her to talk through what they had learned.
Sitting on the mule behind Rat, Melody’s thoughts were diverted in quite another direction. As intrigued as she was about what Alessandro had told Fatima, she couldn’t get her mind off how he had told her. While it had been immediately apparent to Melody, even with her limited Italian, that the words of love were merely a smokescreen so that he might speak Italian without the guard becoming suspicious, even so, there had been something about the conversation that had pierced her heart.
Alessandro and Fatima had been very convincing as lovers. Too convincing. Melody couldn’t shake the thought that it had not been an act. Even as she thought this, Melody berated herself; what did it matter to her? Alessandro had made a fool of her in Venice, and even if the man came to her begging on his knees, Melody would never trust him again with her heart.
By the time the group had returned to the riad, Rat had decided that his best course of action was to hew as closely to the truth as possible without being explicit as to the nature of the message he wanted to send. While he was Italian, Alessandro was also a British citizen. A British citizen who was being held in a foreign jail. Rat had met and talked with him. It would only be natural to want to relay that information to the highest local British official. This was the story that he gave to Lahcen, who promised to send a servant to the consul in the morning with a request for a meeting.
Rat was eager to send the telegram as soon as possible. However, they had arrived back at the riad just before evening prayers. The sun was setting, and Rat realised that he would have to be patient and wait until the following day. While Omar, Lahcen and the other men prayed, Rat took the opportunity to make a stealth trip to Melody’s room, where she had retired to wash her hands and face before dinner.
Rat knocked lightly at her door. It was opened by a pleasantly surprised Melody, who hurried him into the room. “I am so glad you have come, Rat. I want to talk to you about what Alessandro told Fatima.” She paused, “Why did you come?”
“I want to talk to you about the same thing,” he confessed, taking a seat on the end of her bed.
There was much Melody wanted to say about this admission, but she decided that it was not the best use of their time before dinner. Instead, she asked, “What do you think is going on here? Why would a British operative, even a rogue one, try to murder Alessandro?”
“It certainly isn’t unheard of for people to be accused of working against their own governments. You were too young to remember the Dreyfus Affair and its repercussions in France, but internal betrayal is always a worry. Take Xander, for example. People become disillusioned by their governments and countries for all sorts of reasons.”
Melody then asked the next obvious question, “So, who do you think this rogue operator was working for? And more to the point, who killed him?”
Rat shook his head; he had no idea. “What I do know, or at least I believe, is that the initial attack on Alessandro must have been planned. Someone knew that we were coming to Morocco and had been watching us and waiting for an opportunity. I assume that the plan was that in the chaos of Casablanca’s Medina, the attacker would be able to come up on Alessandro, slip a knife between his ribs, and then slip away. Indeed, he might have managed this if it weren’t for Mustafa’s sharp eyes.”
The mention of Mustafa reminded Melody of the lingering doubt that had taken root and that she couldn’t shake, much as she wanted to. “It was quite a lucky coincidence that he happened to be there just as this so-called attacker was approaching Alessandro, was it not?”
Rat narrowed his eyes as he realised the full import of what Melody was saying. “Are you suggesting that Mustafa, a young child, is somehow caught up in this scheme?”
“I hate even to consider it, Rat, but you have to admit that it was awfully lucky that the young boy Alessandro saved the day before just happened to be there at the right time the following day.”
“So, what do you imagine might have happened? What would be the point of having the rogue operative try to kill Alessandro merely to be thwarted by someone who was in league with him? That all seems terribly convoluted.”
Melody sighed; sometimes Rat could be surprisingly dull-witted for such a usually intelligent man. “No. What I am suggesting is that perhaps there never was an attacker that day in the Medina and that Mustafa’s warning against the supposed attack was nothing more than a way to ingratiate himself with Alessandro and gain admission to our group. After all, look what happened: he travelled with us from Casablanca and is privy to everything we do and who knows what conversations we do not realise that he overhears.”
As her brother continued to look sceptical, Melody pointed out, “Mustafa is around the same age as you were when you first met Wolfie in Whitechapel. You were desperate for money and would have done, probably did do, whatever he asked of you without question. You were a young child; did you stop to question the morality or legality of the work he gave you? I am not suggesting that Mustafa might be anything other than what he claimed: an orphaned child who desperately needs to make money. However, that truth suggests that it is at least possible that someone else hired him to spy on us.”
Rat thought back to those desperate days on the streets of Whitechapel after their parents had died. He was trying not just to provide food and shelter for himself but also the four-year-old Melody. Would he have turned down any work offered? The truth was that he had not been in a position to be picky about how he made coin. It was just a lucky quirk of fate that brought him into contact with a decent man like Wolf rather than one of the many criminal gangs of the East End. His story might have unfolded very differently, and more to the point, Melody’s story might have, too.
Finally, acknowledging the logic behind Melody’s words, Rat asked, “So what would you have us do? Confront the boy?”
“Not at all. All I am doing is pointing out that this is one possible scenario. If it is, then perhaps our murder victim, this rogue operative, was never in the Medina that day. Perhaps Mustafa’s role was to lure Alessandro that night at the vice-consul’s party so that he might be found in an incriminating position by the Pasha’s men. I have no idea why, but it’s possible. However, it is also possible that this is not the case and that everything about Mustafa is as it seems. I believe we should be careful what we say and do around the boy, at least until we have incontrovertible evidence either way.”
Rat agreed. Now that Melody had brought this possibility to his attention, he started mentally to review every interaction with the child. He thought about the boy’s words to Melody at the caravanserai that the Pasha’s men had passed through and how it had caused Melody to voice suspicions about Fatima’s men, Omar and Aksel. Was it possible that the child was capable of such machinations? Would he have been at that age? Perhaps he would have been if an adult had been guiding his actions behind the scenes. Rat had identified so strongly with Mustafa that day in the Medina. Was it possible that he hadn’t thought deeply enough about the other similarities with Rat’s desperation all those years ago?
Shaking his head as if to dispel such thoughts, Rat said, “Yes, let us keep a closer eye on the boy, but also not discount other possibilities. This does make it even more important that I communicate with Lord Langley.” Saying this caused Rat to realise that he should hurry to dress for dinner so that he might take his time composing a telegram that would be short enough while also relaying the key information and then encrypting it.
After Rat had left her room, Melody considered their conversation. She understood her brother’s reluctance to see Mustafa as anything other than the innocent but desperate child he had presented himself as. Putting aside her concerns about the boy for a moment, Melody reconsidered her suspicions about Fatima. If her loyalties were anything other than Alessandro claimed, would she have been truthful about what he had said to her in Italian? Of course, she might have worried that either Melody or Rat knew enough Italian to catch her in a lie. Though if Melody were honest with herself, it was probably clear from their blank looks during most of the exchange in Italian that they were clueless.
As much as it satisfied her petty jealousy to imagine that the beautiful, charming Lalla Fatima might not be all that Alessandro thought she was, Melody had to acknowledge that the woman was almost certainly not their shadowy enemy.