Tangier July 1978
Tangier
Outside the Interpress building the day felt lazy; an after-school, honey-slow heat that was at odds with the fluttering in Sam’s stomach. As he walked, he imagined Norton descending into the basement, pulling out files full of old newspapers, turning their thin, yellowed pages to find …
Norton would probably find nothing; he had to be prepared for that. Still, even the vague possibility of seeing Langham’s name in fifty-year-old print made his fingers itch.
For the first time in days, his hands were empty. He’d left the writing case in his bedroom and the suitcase was safely lodged behind the reception desk at Interpress. Without it, he felt unanchored, like a piece of litter that might be whirled away on an air current at any moment.
There were a couple of hours to kill before he met Norton again.
In the Grand Socco, the streets were filling up with people returning from early afternoon prayers, with boys standing on plastic crates, yelling out their stashes of contraband – sunglasses, radios, batteries, lipstick – with kids in the white uniforms of the French Catholic School, buying glasses of buttermilk.
He found Abdelhamid at the Café Tanger, amongst a group of men who were glued to a fuzzy black and white TV that was showing the football.
‘Monsieur Hackett.’ Abdel removed himself from the group to clasp Sam’s hand. ‘Where have you been? Writing your great book?’
Sam smiled back. ‘I don’t know about great, but yeah, I’ve been writing.’
Several of the men shifted their chairs to make room for him, without taking their eyes from the game.
‘It’s good you have come by today,’ Abdel said over the noise. ‘Mouad is here to visit.’ He nodded towards a large man, hovering in his chair as a player approached the goal. ‘We can ask him about the writing case, if you are still interested?’
‘Yes.’ Sam glanced over at Mouad. ‘Yes, very interested.’
Abdel took out his sebsi pipe. Eventually a waiter came by, walking crab-wise, trying not to look away from the television. He nodded vaguely when Sam ordered coffee.
‘I – have to tell you something,’ Sam murmured, once the waiter had sidled away, ‘about the case, and about those things I found, the tag and the key.’ Abdelhamid nodded, working at the sebsi.
‘I figured out what they were,’ Sam said in a rush, feeling himself turn red.
‘It was a tag for the cloakroom, at the Hotel Continental. So I went there and I asked them if they had any old luggage, and I found—’
The waiter returned, setting down two glasses of nus-nus.
Sam stared into the soft, milky coffee. He didn’t know how to go on, how to explain that his everyday reality had been altered, ever since he opened the writing case.
How he felt possessed by the story; how writing about it was the best and most nerve-wracking thing he had ever done.
How afraid he was that it would all amount to nothing.
Around him, the café let out a wail of frustration at a missed goal.
‘You found a suitcase,’ Abdelhamid said, when the hubbub died down. He lit his pipe, and drew on it a few times before looking at Sam, smiling. ‘My friend’s boy, Mohamed works there. He told me about a visit from a mad American, who said he was a writer.’
Sam grimaced. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.’
Abdelhamid waved his words away. ‘I said to myself, if Hackett finds anything worth selling, he will bring it to me. If he does not …’ He shrugged.
‘Still, I should’ve told you.’
‘You have told me now,’ Abdel said, and drank his coffee.
Sam did the same. He began to feel at ease for the first time in days, the genial noise of the match, the kif and the coffee melting his tension like glue.
He glanced over at Abdelhamid. The man was a bit of a crook, no doubt, but he was straightforward about it; he’d never tried to fleece Sam, always charged fair prices for kif.
If anyone knew Tangier – as it was now – Abdelhamid did.
Which meant he might know of Dar Portuna.
Sam scraped the spoon through the coffee residue.
Could he trust him? That whole world seemed so secretive; Dar Portuna, Langham, even the woman, Zahrah.
He looked up to find Abdelhamid watching him, and swallowed. He had to be careful.
‘Have you …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Have you ever heard of a house called Dar Portuna?’
Abdelhamid rubbed a hand across his greying stubble. ‘Dar Portuna,’ he repeated. ‘No, I do not think so. Where is it? In the city?’
‘Yes, up in the casbah, by the old walls. Near the Bab al-Bahr.’ Abdel’s face changed, recognition replacing thoughtfulness. ‘You know it?’ Sam asked.
‘A big house, white walls all around?’
Sam nodded.
‘I know the house.’ Abdelhamid frowned. ‘But not this name, Portuna. We have always called it Dar Ngl?z. The English House.’
‘Yes.’ Sam gripped the coffee glass. ‘It belongs to an Englishman. A man called Langham?’
‘Langham.’ Abdel shook his head. ‘I don’t know that name.’ He cleared his throat. ‘People always said Dar Ngl?z was cursed. It’s a good story.’
‘Cursed?’ In the noisy, sweat-thick café, the word seemed ridiculous. ‘What do you mean?’
Abdel leaned forwards. ‘Cursed by Aicha Kandicha. People say you can hear her voice, by the Bab al-Bahr. It is the sea gate, and the sea is hers.’
‘Who’s Aicha Kandicha?’
One of the other men turned around when he heard that, looked at Sam, and said something in Darija.
‘He said,’ Abdelhamid translated, ‘that you should not say her name so loud, and never after dark, not anywhere in Tangier. Even Americans are not safe from her.’ He smiled.
‘Aicha is a djinn, a spirit. She will call your name in the night and if you turn around, you will see the most beautiful woman in the world. She likes to drive men mad. So, if someone calls your name near the Bab al-Bahr, do not turn.’
Sam tried to smile. ‘I won’t.’
‘Ah.’ Abdelhamid sat back, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘The game is finished. Now we can ask Mouad.’
Mouad was an older, broader version of Abdelhamid, in his late sixties but still bulky with muscle, dressed in a sports jacket despite the heat. He had the same quick eyes as his brother, the same easy, mocking smile that widened when Abdel asked him about the writing case.
‘You think I remember one bag?’ he said. ‘We had fifty, at the shop, a hundred!’
‘But we had this one for a long time,’ Abdel insisted, speaking English for Sam’s benefit. ‘A small case, with gold letters. We had it twenty years, perhaps. You brought it in, I am sure.’
‘It belonged to an Englishman,’ Sam added hopefully.
‘English.’ The crease between Mouad’s eyebrows deepened. ‘Maybe it came from the English police, then. When the station closed, we took many things from there.’
‘What things?’ The word police rang in Sam’s ears.
Mouad shrugged. ‘Just things. They had a lot. Bags, coats, shoes. Perhaps taken from a person who did a crime, or as evidence. I am not sure. But when the English police left in … the fifties?’ He looked to Abdel for confirmation.
‘They sold all these small things, cheap. I bought some. Maybe that is where the case came from.’
‘Was that legal?’ The minute Sam asked it, he felt stupid. The brothers laughed.
‘They were not going to pay to send it back to England,’ Mouad smiled. ‘And anyway, no one cared. The crimes were old. The things didn’t matter any more.’
Sam frowned. If the writing case had been taken as evidence, what did that mean for the suitcase, abandoned at the hotel, as if someone had just disappeared? What did it mean for Alejandro del Potro? He tried to pull his mind back to the café.
‘And have you ever heard of a place called Dar Portuna?’ he asked. ‘Dar Ngl?z, Abdel said it’s sometimes called. An Englishman lives there.’
‘Dar Ngl?z.’ Mouad nodded. ‘Up by the wall, yes. You think the case came from there?’ He glanced rapidly at Abdelhamid.
Sam turned, trying to see the other man’s face, only to find Abdel looking pointedly in the other direction.
‘No Englishman has lived at Dar Ngl?z for a long time,’ Mouad continued slowly, still looking at his brother.
‘Some others, maybe, but not an Englishman.’
‘That’s not true.’ The words were out of Sam’s mouth before he could stop them. ‘His name is Langham, Arthur Langham.’
Mouad was shaking his head. ‘There was an Englishman who lived there, many years ago. I was only a boy, but I remember the story. Shall I tell you?’ Although the question was directed at Sam, he couldn’t help but feel that Mouad was asking for permission.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw Abdelhamid give an almost imperceptible nod.
‘Yes,’ Sam said, watching both men. ‘Please.’
‘OK.’ Mouad shifted, looking a little uncertain.
‘They say that, one night, the Englishman heard Aicha Kandicha call his name from the strait. He took a boat out to look for her.’ Mouad lowered his voice.
‘Of course, the boat sank. They say there was a party that night, up at Dar Ngl?z. They say the man could see the lights of his house as he drowned.’
A shudder went down Sam’s spine.
‘That must have happened to someone else,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Not to Langham. I saw him. I spoke to him, just yesterday.’
He looked between the two brothers. This time, it was Abdelhamid who shook his head.
‘There have been many rumours about the people who live at Dar Ngl?z, but Mouad is right. There has not been an Englishman at the house since that day.’ He looked at Sam over his coffee, a hint of a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. ‘Whoever you spoke to, he must have been a ghost.’