Tangier July 1978
Tangier
Sam had heard many stories about wild times on the road during his travels; run-ins with border police in Spain and train cops in France and narcos in Italy. They were one thing. Actually waking up after a night in a Moroccan jail was quite another.
Idiot. He sat up from the thin mat, his neck cricked out of shape. Goddam idiot.
His knuckles still ached a little from the impact with Norton’s chin.
Or was it from the wall he’d collided with, as the security guard shoved him down the stairs?
He didn’t remember. It was all so messy.
Norton had yelled about police, sure, but Sam hadn’t thought he was serious until the security guard had dumped him in front of two bored-looking Moroccan cops.
When trying to explain didn’t work, he’d handed over all the money he had on him, in the hope they’d let him go.
For a minute, it looked like they would.
Then, one of them had pulled the old forged passport from his pocket and their expressions had changed.
They’d looked at each other, and shrugged, had hauled him off to the lock-up instead.
They’d given him one phone call, like they did in the movies.
His fingers had hovered above the smeared digits.
He couldn’t phone his parents, anyway, the police would never allow him an international call.
Not the American embassy – that would mean expulsion from Tangier.
As far as he knew Abdelhamid didn’t have a phone.
So he did the only thing he could think of: dialled the operator and asked, in bad French, to be put through to Dar Portuna.
The operator paused when she heard that. A moment later she told him that there was no such place. Of course. In the end, out of options, he had asked to be put through to The Hold.
Thankfully, Roger answered. He said he’d tell Bet and the others as soon as he could, that they’d all do their best to help. And if they didn’t, or couldn’t? Sam didn’t want to think about it.
The other men in the cell were waking up now, wincing and yawning.
There were four of them, all Moroccan, Sam guessed.
Three had been there when he arrived, one had been shunted in during the night, a young man with long hair, wearing jeans and a ripped t-shirt.
His nose was swollen and crusted with dried blood.
When he saw Sam was awake, he half smiled and nodded.
‘Hola,’ he said, and pointed to himself. ‘Amir.’
‘Sam.’ He shook the man’s hand. Was he meant to do that? He had no idea about prison etiquette.
‘American?’ the young man asked.
Sam nodded, rubbing at his face. His eyes felt gritty, face caked in sweat and grime from the sweltering room.
‘?Por qué …?’ Amir gestured around the cell, looking incredulous.
‘A fight.’ Sam held up his bruised knuckles. ‘You?’
Amir shook his head, as if he didn’t understand. One of the older Moroccan men said something, and the others laughed sourly.
The young man kept his gaze on the floor after that. Eventually, he took some tobacco out of his jeans pocket.
‘Do you have papers?’ Sam asked, feeling in his own pockets.
The kif dust he shook from the lining was negligible, but Amir’s face lit up when he saw it.
Carefully, they rolled it into a cigarette.
One of the other men hammered on the door.
A heated negotiation went on, until finally, a guard was passed the joint to light.
After taking the first few puffs for himself, he passed it back into the cell.
Amir smoked, then passed it to Sam. He took a drag, trying to figure out what he was going to do.
What if he was deported, before he had a chance to go back to Dar Portuna, to see Ale and Zahrah and explain?
It was unthinkable. He coughed out a little smoke, and passed the joint back to Amir, who passed it on to the next man.
He shouldn’t have let himself get so angry, he thought, watching as one of the other men accepted the joint with a nod of thanks.
And the stupid thing about it all was that Norton had been right.
Crimes had been committed in the past, and in the present too, most likely, whether he ignored them or not.
He had been charmed by Ale’s tale. He had wanted stories full of glamour and danger, rather than the grim reality of the present.
He was about to try and ask the men what would happen to them all next, when the door clanged again, and the guard stuck his head inside.
‘Vamos,’ he said to Sam.
Amir smiled and gestured as if to say there, you see.
Sam didn’t know what it meant, whether he’d be thrown back again in five minutes; nevertheless, he leaned down and shook the young man’s hand.
Then, because it seemed rude not to, he shook the hands of the other three men in the room, who looked up at him with varying degrees of amusement and confusion.
Out in the lobby, beneath the sluggish ceiling fan, a familiar figure was waiting.
‘Bet!’ He rushed forwards to hug her, though he knew he must have smelled terrible. ‘Thank god, thank you so much for coming.’
She pushed him back a little, patting his arm.
He hardly recognized her. She was dressed in a prim tweed skirt suit, a scarf tied around her head, like a little British grandmother.
Holding on to his arm, she turned and asked the officer at the desk something in Darija.
The policeman began to root around beneath the counter. Finally, he came up with the passport.
‘That’s—’ Sam started to say, but Bet cut him off, taking the document with a tight smile and tucking it into her handbag. Then she was steering Sam towards the door, her grip like iron.
‘Wait,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. There had been no paperwork, no release forms, nothing. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Shut up and walk.’
He’d never been so glad to smell the traffic fumes outside, to feel the morning sun prickle across his scalp. Bet kept marching him along the road until they turned the corner and emerged on to the Place de France. Only then did she loosen her grip, and look up at him.
‘Brawling, Samuel?’ she said with a sigh. ‘I thought you were smarter than that.’
‘So did I.’ He blinked at her. ‘Bet, I can’t thank you enough. How did …’ He waved a hand at the police station.
The sun caught on the dull gold of a tooth.
‘The station chief is a dear friend. He was very understanding. Hot-blooded young men get into scraps every day. And as for this –’ she peered down at the passport as they walked towards the Gran Café ‘– that took a little more explaining. I told him that you were a writer, with a predictable penchant for old things, and that you had probably picked it up at a junk shop. Why on earth were you carrying it around?’
He groaned. ‘It’s a long story.’
They must have made an absurd-looking pair, Bet in her tweed, he more grubby and rumpled than ever.
Wearily, he told her what had happened. How he’d located Dar Portuna, and met the person who lived there.
How he’d ill-advisedly asked Norton to check the archives, only to come up with Langham’s suspicious death.
How Zahrah had warned him that the authorities would descend on Dar Portuna if they found out it was Ale’s secret address. How he’d been trying to shut Norton up.
The smoke spiralled around them, mingling with the smell of fresh coffee and morning pastries. Only when he started talking about the fight did he remember what he’d found in Norton’s desk.
‘Bet,’ he said, hastily wiping pastry crumbs from his mouth, ‘Norton had pictures of you in his desk, with another person, Kline I think it was, taken outside The Hold. It’s part of what made me so mad. He’s obviously been sniffing about, trying to dig up dirt on you too.’
For a moment, Bet’s blue eyes were sharp. ‘Photos? What were we doing in them?’
‘Talking, that’s all, from what I could see.’
Bet grunted. ‘I’ll have to have a chat with Mister Norton some time. He’s quite the annoyance.’
She reached down for her handbag and took out a newspaper. He recognized it as Tangier Today, one of the cheaper English-language titles. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Yesterday’s evening edition. He managed to get page five, above the fold.’
BACK FROM THE GRAVE?
MYSTERY OF DROWNED
MAN RESURFACES
AFTER FIFTY YEARS
Sam felt sick. He heard Zahrah’s voice again saying, You have to do better than try.
He had promised he would try to keep Ale from danger, and here it was: proof of his failure.
He didn’t want to look at the paper, every part of him wanted to hurl it across the room, but he didn’t.
He had to see what the damage was. It was his responsibility, after all.
It was a dreadful article. Norton’s suppositions had been written up in lurid detail.
The passport was made much of: the mysterious Alejandro del Potro who existed in no records, but who was undoubtedly linked to an underworld smuggling ring, and to Langham’s disappearance. Sam forced himself to read on.
Whilst the closure of British institutions in Morocco makes it difficult to obtain accurate police reports from the era, an inside source from the embassy – who did not want to be named – revealed that before his untimely death, Mr Arthur Langham may have been wanted by the British authorities on serious charges, in an investigation which was never fully concluded.
This new information regarding Alejandro del Potro’s connection to Langham and possible involvement in his murder, as well as the location and existence to this day of a mansion safehouse in the casbah named ‘Dar Portuna’ – which was discovered by Interpress journalist Ellis Norton – has now been shared with Moroccan and Spanish authorities, as well as customs officials.
It is Tangier Today’s understanding that the police will use the information in their ongoing efforts to apprehend and prosecute the individual known as ‘Alejandro del Potro’ for contravention of customs law.
‘The bastard,’ Sam muttered, his throat tight. ‘Why did he have to do it?’
‘He’s trying to write himself out of here,’ Bet said, looking down her nose at the paper. ‘Making the news, so that he can report it.’
Sam stared down at the article, wishing he could scrub the words out of existence.
‘Zahrah, the woman I told you about who lives at Dar Portuna, she said something like this could put Ale – Alejandro – in danger. Do you think it will? Do you think the authorities will act upon it?’ He shoved the paper away. ‘It’s all my fault.’
‘No denying you had a role to play.’ Bet’s blue eyes were kind. ‘But you didn’t publish it, did you? I’ll hazard a guess that your version would be a bit more nuanced.’
He just shook his head. She let him sit in silence for a while, before tapping the paper.
‘Norton’s “embassy source” is old Giles, I’d bet my hat on it. I saw the pair of them in the El Minzah the other night, getting cosy over the Benedictine.’ She smiled darkly. ‘I’ll have to have a chat with him, too.’
Sam folded the paper over, not wanting to look at it any more. ‘What if Norton tries to use those photos of you?’ he asked quietly. ‘What if he writes something about your … past?’
‘About me?’ Bet raised her eyebrows. ‘What could he possibly write? I’m just a pensioner, spinning out her retirement in a nice warm country. And anyway –’ she slid him a look ‘– he’d never be able to prove a thing.’
Outside in the street, she re-tied the scarf over her cropped grey hair, becoming a little old woman once more.
‘Well?’ she asked briskly. ‘What are you going to do? I’d suggest a bath, for starters.’
He tried to smile. ‘I have to go to Dar Portuna to tell them about all this, try to apologize and hope that Ale can stay out of trouble. Then …’ He looked around at the heedless, blistering city.
‘I guess there’s no point in me staying.
If I’d gone home a month ago, like my parents wanted me to, none of this would have happened. ’
Bet patted his arm. ‘Well, be sure to come and say cheerio to all of us at The Hold.’
She didn’t sound overly concerned. She must have met hundreds of people like me, Sam thought bitterly, seen us all give up and go home.
‘Thank you, Bet,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
She smirked. ‘Give an old lady a kiss.’
He finally managed a weak laugh, and leaned down to kiss her weathered cheek. Before he could pull away she grabbed his collar.
‘That newspaper’s a rag, Sammy,’ she whispered rapidly in his ear. ‘Don’t let it get you down. Hacer de tripas corazón, as my old friend always says.’
She released him and he stepped back in surprise, trying to see her face, but she was already walking away, stomping through the traffic with practised ease.
He watched her disappear around a corner, half stunned, wondering whether he’d imagined what she’d said.
Only then did he realize she hadn’t given him back the passport.
He rubbed at his eyes. You’re not to be trusted with anything.
Still, he was sure she’d keep it safe. He was so tired, beat down by the long night and the awful newspaper article, he couldn’t think any more, could barely look where he was going.
When he stepped into Madame Sarah’s cool hallway, it was with relief.
All he wanted to do was wash and sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to.
He had to get to Dar Portuna and face what he had done.
The moment he set foot on the stairs, there was a shout from the kitchen and Madame Sarah appeared, pushed aside by her sister, a formidable woman in a bright orange headscarf.
‘Monsieur Hackett?’ she said.
‘Yes?’ he answered wearily. He dug his hands into his pockets, ready to give up however many dirhams he had left, only to stop – all of his money had gone to pay off the police. He felt himself turning red. ‘Ah, about the rent. I just need an hour or two before—’
‘No.’ The sister glared from the doorway. ‘Two nights you stay out, you don’t pay, and now you bring women into the house.’ She raised her chin. ‘This is a respectable place. We will not have it.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m—’ Her words caught up with him. ‘What do you mean, women? I’ve never brought anyone here.’
She let out a disbelieving laugh. ‘You tell us that, when there is one upstairs right now, one who is rude, who came in here without—’
He didn’t wait to hear more. He ran up the stairs two at a time, racing for his top floor room, knowing it could only be one person.
Zahrah was standing by the window, wearing her old djellaba. Her short hair was messy, as if she’d been running her hands through it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped, stepping through the door. ‘I’m so sorry, I tried everything. You won’t believe the night—’
She turned to face him. Her eyes were reddened, swollen from crying. The guilt froze solid in his chest.
‘What’s happened?’
She said nothing. A moment later, her face collapsed and he knew. She stepped towards him; instinctively he put his arms around her, as her breath turned into a sob.
‘Ale’s gone.’