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Authors: Michael Pearce

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‘There! See it? I don’t like that for one moment.'

The Arab nodded.

‘I will tell Sheikh Musa,’ he said.

‘He won’t like that! Someone must have missed it. Musa’s mounts are usually pretty good,’ he said to Seymour. ‘We don’t usually have any trouble. The old man’s got an eye like a hawk.'

The Arab said something.

‘He says Musa will be angry. The man at the paddock should have spotted this.'

‘Will you see to it, Ahmet? And explain to Sheikh Musa? He’ll take your word for it. Ahmet knows nearly as much about horses as Musa does,’ he said to Seymour.

The Arab obviously understood some French for there was a flash of white teeth as he grinned.

‘Musa’s right-hand man. We rely on him, absolutely rely on him, for the pig-sticking. He gets the pigs in position and then, once the chase has started, rides outrider on one side to check things keep all right. See if anyone’s fallen off.'

‘Did he see Bossu fall off?'

‘He saw he had fallen off and sent someone back for the horse. But that was later. Okay. Ahmet, let’s get moving again!'

The file of horses continued on their way. No one took any notice of them. Sights like this were evidently not uncommon in the middle of Tangier.

Macfarlane was taking him to the committee’s offices, which were in one of the big banks. A committee like the Consular Committee would normally have met in the rooms of its Chairman. The British Consulate, however, Macfarlane explained, was too small – its size an accurate reflection of the extent of Britain’s interest in Morocco – and so alternative accommodation had had to be found. The French had offered a temptingly palatial suite in the offices of the Resident-General but this was felt, reluctantly, to compromise too obviously the committee’s independence. The Germans, seeking to ingratiate themselves with the Sultan, had proposed somewhere within the Mahzen, but the Sultan did not recognize the committee and refused to have anything to do with it. In the end, the committee had had to settle for some rooms in the offices of one of the big foreign banks, which, so far as sending out signals was concerned, was probably the worst of all possible worlds.

Macfarlane took him up to the third floor and through a door marked Joint Inter-Consular Committee. Inside were three rooms: a large committee room, an even larger office (Bossu’s) and a rather smaller one which accommodated the committee’s papers and also an elderly man who rose politely from his desk when they entered.

‘Hello, Mr Bahnini,’ said Macfarlane. ‘Still here, then?

’ ‘I’m just sorting out the papers for the meeting tomorrow. You recall, I hope . . .?'

‘Ten o’clock,’ said Macfarlane. ‘I’ll be here. What we would do without Mr Bahnini, I don’t know,’ he said to Seymour. ‘Mr Bahnini, can I introduce Monsieur Seymour? You remember, I said I would be bringing him round. Seymour, this is Mr Bahnini, the mainstay of our committee. Especially now that Bossu has gone. He ran the office for him. Clerk to the clerk, you might say.'

Mr Bahnini smiled faintly.

‘And we all know what that means. The man who does all the work.'

Mr Bahnini bowed slightly in polite acknowledgement.

‘And now, for all intents and purposes, clerk. At least for the time being.'

‘Actually, sir, I wished to speak to you about that.'

‘Naturally, your extra duties will be remunerated.'

‘No, no, sir, it wasn’t that. The fact is, I was hoping to relinquish them.'

‘Well, we’re rather hoping that the committee won’t go on for too long –’

‘I was hoping to relinquish them immediately, sir.'

‘That would be a shame, Robert. Just when we need continuity.'

‘I am sorry, sir.'

‘Got something else to go to?'

‘Not exactly, sir. I was hoping to return to Casablanca.'

‘Couldn’t you delay your return? It will only be for a few months. We’d make it worth your while.'

‘I’m afraid not, sir.'

‘It would make a difference to your pension. You do have a pension, don’t you?'

‘A small one. From the Ministry. I worked there before joining Mr Bossu.'

‘A small one. There you are! We’d step it up, you know. I’m sure you could do with some more money coming in. How’s that boy of yours? Has he finished yet? Still an expense, I’ll be bound.'

‘He has just finished at university, sir.'

‘Got anything to go to? No? Well, look here, we might even be able to find something for him. He could assist you in the office. After all, you’re taking on Bossu’s work, so someone will have to take on yours.'

Mr Bahnini shook his head.

‘I don’t think he would be interested, sir.'

‘Just while he was looking around?’ said Macfarlane temptingly.

‘I’m afraid, sir, that for him it’s a matter of principle.’

‘I see. Ah, the young! Not a matter of principle for you, too, I trust?'

‘No, sir. I compromised my principles long ago,’ said Mr Bahnini quietly.

‘Haven’t we all?’ said Macfarlane, sighing. ‘Well, if you’re really sure about this –’

‘I am, sir.'

‘In that case, we’ll have to accept it. Give it another day or two to think it over, remembering what I said about the pension. And then if you still want it, I’ll take the necessary action.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Although how we shall manage without you, I don’t know. You’ve been here right from the start. Bossu brought you with him, didn’t he? We’ve always thought of you as Bossu’s man.'

‘That is just the trouble, sir,’ said Mr Bahnini.

‘Mind if I have a quick look?’ said Seymour.

Mr Bahnini showed him into Bossu’s office. It was full of potted palms. They were everywhere. There were two by the window, as if Bossu couldn’t stand the harsh daylight, two either side of his desk, and others scattered around the room. Two were hanging over a long divan, two more stood beside easy chairs, and there was one near a low coffee table.

Seymour went over to the desk and tried it. The drawers were open but there was little of interest in them. Few papers of any kind. No desk diary, as far as he could see.

‘You kept his diary?'

‘In so far as one was kept. Mr Bossu didn’t work by journal appointments. He liked to drop in on people, meet them in hotels over a drink. It was very hard to tie him down, sir.'

Beside the desk was a filing cabinet. Seymour tried it but it was locked.

‘I have the key, sir,’ said Mr Bahnini.

He went out of the office and returned with a small brown envelope.

‘The keys were on his person, sir, when he was found. Mr Macfarlane took charge of all his private belongings. The keys were among them. He brought them back and deposited them with me. The envelope has not been opened.'

When Seymour opened the filing cabinet he found it largely empty. There were just a few scraps of paper, leaves torn from a pad, with some notes scribbled on them. Seymour looked at them and then, for the moment, put them in his pocket.

Macfarlane had invited him home to dinner. When they got there his wife had just finished putting the children to bed. Macfarlane went up to kiss them goodnight and Mrs Macfarlane collapsed with a drink on the divan. She was a small, bright, birdlike woman, Scottish, like her husband.

‘Well, Mr Seymour,’ she said, ‘how do you find us?'

He took her to be referring to Morocco as a whole.

‘A strange mixture,’ he said. ‘Strange, but interesting.

’ ‘It is that,’ she said. ‘And sometimes I think it’s getting stranger.'

‘As the French move in?'

‘As the West moves in. I think I liked it more as it was. Dirty and barbarous. Often cruel. But, somehow, authentic. Itself.'

‘You liked it under the Parasol?'

She laughed.

‘Life under the Parasol was not that special,’ she said drily. ‘Especially at court. Diplomats see a lot of courts, and they’re not always the most interesting places to see. When we came out here first the Sultan was very young. Just a child, really. And he made the whole court a nursery, a kind of playroom, as my parents would have called it.

‘At one time he developed a craze for bicycle polo. Bicycles were a new thing then. He got the whole court to play, even the Viziers. Even –’ she laughed – ‘some of the Consuls. My husband, for instance. Although he quite liked it. Actually, I would like to have played, myself. We used to play it as children at home. But, of course, as a woman I wouldn’t do it here. The court became very indulgent but not quite that indulgent! This is, after all, a Muslim country.

‘And, as in many Eastern countries, the Sultan had absolute power. Even if he was just a child. And because his power was absolute, he thought he could do anything. They all had to obey his will. And if his will was to play bicycle polo all day, well, so be it.

‘He had no sense of – well, measure. For example, they were always smashing the bicycles up. Well, that was no problem. He would just order the Vizier to get new ones. And everything was like that. Money was no object. If he suddenly felt he wanted something, he would just get it. Money simply ran through his fingers. He thought it would never run out. But, of course, it did. And that enabled the French to come in. It’s always like that. It was just the same in Egypt under the old Khedive when we were there.'

‘He’s still like that, is he?'

‘Less so now. The French have hemmed him in. Controlled his expenditure. And, besides, he’s grown up a bit. But it’s too late. He’s lost all his support. His capriciousness has turned everybody against him. Even his own half-brother.’

She sighed.

‘So you see,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t always that good under the Parasol. I liked it as it was but maybe it had to change. And you could have worse people coming in than the French. I sometimes think that the French and the Moroccans have a lot in common. Their cultures are more traditional than ours, more formal, more polite, naturally courteous. When you go to a French household the children come round before going to bed to shake hands. In a Moroccan family it’s rather like that, too. Whereas with my savages . . .!' Macfarlane came downstairs and they went out into a little courtyard to dine. The house was an old Arab one, with a courtyard almost inside the house and boxed wooden windows looking down on it from above. A fountain played into a small pond and around the walls were cypresses and jasmine. As it grew darker the smell of the jasmine was joined by the scents of other flowers which opened only at night.

The meal was Arab, too, with hot, peppery soup and then various kinds of meats, served with rice and burning hot peppers. Afterwards, there was melon and iced orgeat, made of crushed almonds, milk and sugar.

Seymour was a little surprised. In his office Macfarlane had seemed so British. At home he seemed much more responsive to things Moroccan. Perhaps that was the effect of his job. More likely, thought Seymour, it was the effect of his wife.

She asked him if the hotel was comfortable.

‘Very,’ he said. ‘And the people are most helpful.’ He mentioned the receptionist.

‘Chantale,’ said Mrs Macfarlane, with a smile.

‘She seems very versatile.'

‘Aye, she is that,’ said Macfarlane.

‘She has to be,’ said Mrs Macfarlane. ‘She and her mother run that hotel between them and there can’t be a lot of money to spare.'

‘She’s a good lassie,’ Macfarlane conceded.

‘A journalist, too, you said,’ said Seymour.

‘She would like to be. But it’s not easy if you’re a woman and in an Arab country.'

‘She writes mostly for the French newspapers,’ said Mrs Macfarlane.

‘It’s still not easy.'

‘She seems to have good French contacts,’ said Seymour. ‘I saw her with the pig-sticking crowd and then again, I think, at the Resident-General’s.'

‘She would have been going to see Cecile,’ said Mrs Macfarlane.

‘Cecile?'

‘The Lamberts’ daughter. They were at school together.'

‘Not altogether happily in Chantale’s case,’ said Macfarlane.

‘She rebelled against it. It was a convent school and too strict for her. So soon after her father’s death. But what could they do? There aren’t many schools here and they wanted it to be a French one. The Lamberts were very good to her. They treated her like another daughter. She’s always been very close to them.'

‘She wanted to be independent, though.'

Mrs Macfarlane laughed.

‘She would, wouldn’t she? But it’s a good thing they got that hotel. It gives them a base of their own, and you need that if you’re a woman in Morocco.'

‘Aye, but will it do for her in the long run?'

‘Why shouldn’t it?'

‘You always feel that she’s champing at the bit.'

‘Isn’t that inevitable?'

‘She ought to go to France,’ said Macfarlane.

‘But would that work out any better? It would be the same thing only the other way round.'

‘Sorry?’ said Seymour.

‘Perhaps you’ve not understood,’ said Mrs Macfarlane. ‘Chantale is half Moroccan.'

Chapter Four

The next morning, it seemed that all Tangier was on the road: except that when they got to the Tent it seemed as if all Tangier had already got there. The space around the marquee was packed with people, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them, many of them dressed in robes of pink and blue, saffron and mauve. The Tent, too, was already full of people. A long bar ran down one side of it and there was a crush of people six feet deep pressed against it. Away from the bar it was almost as crowded.

Macfarlane took one look and said: ‘We’d better go straight to the enclosure.'

Behind the Tent was a roped-off enclosure full of horses and men, the men in brightly coloured shirts and riding breeches, and holding lances, the horses nervous and frisky. Apart from the lances it reminded Seymour of . . . What was it? A circus? That County Show again? He’d got it! He knew what it was. As part of the show there had been a gymkhana. That was it: it reminded him of a gymkhana.

What followed, though, was not at all like a gymkhana.

A bugle sounded and anyone in the enclosure who was not already on a horse began to mount. There were about a hundred riders and now they were all holding lances, their points held vertical, as in a Renaissance painting.

A rope was removed and the horses began to move round the side of the marquee and out towards the desert and scrub.

The crowd surged with them, small boys running excitedly ahead and frequently in front of the horses. The horses took no notice. They formed into a long line and began to trot.

The crowd, too, began to trot, and Seymour, willy-nilly, with them. People pressed in upon him on all sides. He very soon lost sight of Macfarlane. He found himself being carried along and began to feel anxious. Crowd control? Where was it? They were all running. If one person went down it would be a disaster.

Horses and people were making for a point in the distance where a man holding a flag stood on a large box.

Seymour fought to remain upright.

Suddenly he felt his arms grasped. Mustapha was on one side, Idris on the other. For the first time he was glad of their support.

The crowd had quietened down. Everyone, like him, was concentrating on running. It was like being in a marathon.

The horses quickened their pace and drew ahead of the runners. The small boys scattered. The man on the box raised his flag. Just as the line of riders was about to reach it, he dropped it.

The horses shot away and the crowd surged after them. Away in the distance Seymour could see shapes moving in the scrub. Around them were men in white robes on horses, Musa’s men. The pigs began to run.

Everyone was shouting excitedly. The horses were away out in front and the crowd beginning to stretch out behind them. Some of the fleetest runners were well ahead. Presumably the less fleet were already well behind. Seymour was in the middle, stumbling along, half-supported, half-carried by Idris and Mustapha.

‘Come on, come on!’ they shouted.

A few of the pigs ran off to one side and one or two of the riders went after them. Seymour tried to pull across.

‘What are you doing? This way!'

‘No, I want to –’

‘This way, Monsieur! On ahead! Look!'

‘Yes, but I don’t want to –’

‘Come on, Monsieur! What are you
doing
?’

‘This way! Straight ahead! Look, you can see –’

‘Yes, but I want to go that way!'

‘Monsieur, can’t you
see
?’

‘Come on, come on!'

The line of horsemen, too, had broken up. Some were already far in the distance. Behind them, riding in a group, were some men he recognized. The soldiers! In their headdresses! They were riding in a compact, disciplined way, their lances all at the same angle.

‘This way! Monsieur, Monsieur –’

‘No, I want to go –’

‘But, Monsieur!'

‘There they are! That way! See?'

‘No, no, it’s the others I want to go after.'

He managed to pull out of the flow and over to one side.

‘What are you
doing
?’ cried Mustapha, almost stamping in vexation.

‘Some pigs ran off this way. And a few of the riders went after them.'

‘Yes, I know. But –’

‘Just as Bossu did.'

‘Bossu?'

Mustapha stopped.

‘You know, Monsieur,’ he said, ‘you disappoint me.'

Ahead of him in the scrub he could see a group of horsemen. They had come to a stop and were arranged in a small circle.

He walked through the bushes towards them. He could see them clearly. On their horses they stood out above the scrub. They were all looking down and the points of their lances were down.

‘Its too late, Monsieur, you’ve got here too
late
,’ said Idris. ‘You’ve missed it.’

Seymour ignored him.

‘We should have stayed with the others. It’s true we’d have missed it with them, too, you always do when you’re on foot. But there would have been more of them, you’d have seen more –’

‘He’s thinking about Bossu,’ said Mustapha.

‘Why didn’t we stay with the others?’ grumbled Idris. ‘You’ve missed all the fun.’ He stopped. ‘Bossu?'

‘The Frenchman,’ said Mustapha.

‘Well, that’s not very exciting, is it? We should have stayed with –’

There was a sudden crashing in the bushes and the next moment a pig darted out.

‘Jesus!'

It rushed towards them.

Several things happened at once. There was the sound of a shot and the squeal of a pig and Seymour was sent sprawling.

When he looked up there were men coming towards him with lances at the ready. They reined in.

‘What are you doing? You’ve shot our pig!'

‘Too bloody true I’ve shot your pig!’ said Mustapha.

‘Fool!'

‘Idiot!'

‘What are you doing here? And what are
you
doing here?’ asked someone, catching sight of Seymour. ‘Don’t you know –?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Seymour. ‘The pig ran out upon us.'

‘You oughtn’t to be here. This is –’

‘I know, I know.'

‘Yes, but he shot it! He shouldn’t have done that!'

‘It was coming for us. He had to act quickly.'

‘Yes, but you don’t shoot pigs!'

‘What do you expect me to do?’ asked Mustapha. ‘Strangle it?'

‘What are you doing here, anyway? You shouldn’t be here. You’re just a –’

‘I can see one!’ shouted one of the horsemen excitedly. ‘Over there!'

‘Where? Where?'

‘This way, this way –’

They rode off.

‘Exciting enough for you now?’ asked Seymour.

They left the shot pig lying and walked over to where the men had made their kill. The stuck pig was lying on its side in a little clearing. It had been killed by a single thrust and a trickle of blood ran down into the sand from between its shoulders. Already the flies were gathering.

Seymour walked round it, trying to take in as much as he could. Later, a particular detail might become relevant. At the moment he could only stare.

Mustapha and Idris sat in the shade of a bush, bored.

‘Seen what you want, Monsieur?’ hinted Idris, after a while.

The truth was, there wasn’t much to see. A dead pig looked, well, like a dead pig.

Men were coming through the bushes on foot. They were Musa’s men and their job was to collect the pigs after they had been stuck. They had brought poles with them which they thrust between the pigs’ trotters after they had tied them together. They did this to both pigs, the shot one as well as the stabbed one. Then they hoisted the poles on to their shoulders and with the pigs slung beneath set off back to the Tent.

Quite a crowd had gathered round, Seymour suddenly realized, to watch. They were mostly the ones unable to keep up with the hunt: the old, the fat, the halt and the lame.

A thought struck him. They would have been old and fat and lame on the previous occasion, too.

He began to move among them.

‘Were you here when the Frenchman . . .? Did you see . . .?'

They looked at him blankly.

He had tried them in French. Up to now he had found that everyone in Morocco spoke French. Now, of course, it appeared that no one did.

He tried them in his less strong Arabic.

‘Pig-stuck?’ said a man helpfully, but then lapsed into silence.

‘Here?'

There was no response. He couldn’t believe that no one, absolutely no one, seemed to understand him. What he needed was an interpreter, or at least someone who could put the questions for him. Surely, among all these people, there was someone who . . .

His eye fell on Mustapha and Idris.

‘Listen,’ he said.

‘Hello!’ said Macfarlane. ‘Given up the chase?'

‘I’ve seen what I need.'

‘Already? But you’ll have missed the exciting bit at the end!'

‘So did Bossu,’ said Seymour.

At the far end of the bar he saw Madame Bossu, surrounded by men all anxious to help her make up for her loss. He had no wish to add to their numbers but the sight of her put into his mind another of Bossu’s women, the
petite amie
who lived in town. Monique, was that her name?

He saw Millet, the horse doctor, and went up to him.

‘Monique? Yes, I expect she’s here. Would you like me to introduce you?'

She was another blonde, not, this time, pouting and fluffy but thin-faced and harder, as if the sun and the wind had worn her youth away.

‘Monique, can I present Monsieur Seymour? He is from England and has come here to look into Bossu’s death.’

‘He is more likely to get somewhere than Renaud is.’ She extended her hand. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Monsieur.'

‘You have been in the country long?'

‘All my life.'

‘You will know it well, then. And, of course, you knew Bossu.'

‘Of course.'

‘Could you tell me something about him?'

‘I don’t know that I can tell you anything that will help you on this –’

‘In general, then. Tell me about him as a man.'

She laughed.

‘As a man? Well, there I could tell you a lot!'

‘I have no wish to pry, Madame, but it would help me if I could get a picture of him. As a person. I know nothing about him, you see.'

‘Where to begin!’ She thought. ‘Well, why not! Everyone else knows, so why shouldn’t you? I will begin with me. Let me tell you the story of my life. It is a very ordinary story, the old story of a rich man and a poor girl.

‘My parents were settlers. They came out here to farm. And, like most settlers, they struggled. We were poor. We came out here to make our fortune but instead we lost it. So you can understand that my parents did not dissuade a rich neighbour when he began to pay attention to me. I was beautiful then.

‘No, don’t say I am beautiful still. That is the sort of thing all men say. And it is not true. This country is hard on women. But I was beautiful then and I caught Bossu’s eye. He had bought some property nearby. He began to pay attention to me and I was flattered. No, more; I was bowled over. I was, after all, only fifteen.

‘And my parents did not dissuade him. Even when they learned that he was already married. They were poor, you understand? Desperate. And he was a rich man. Very rich, for Tangier. So they did not dissuade him. And they didn’t say anything after he bought me an apartment in Tangier and I moved into it.

‘Well, that’s it. You asked me about Bossu, Bossu, the man. Does that tell you something about Bossu, the man?’

‘Yes, it does.'

‘Since he died, I have had time to think things over. And I realize that to him I was never more than a possession. Like the farm he bought next to my parents’ farm. He liked possessions. But he never did anything with them. He never built on them. I had hoped, when he put me in that flat, that one day we might build something together. But we never did. He wasn’t that kind of man. He never built anything. Not even in business.'

‘Not even in business?'

‘He wasn’t that kind of businessman. What he did was to bring people together. He knew everybody, not just in Tangier but all over the country. If you were a business which wanted to develop the interior, build railways, say, or roads, he knew who to put you in touch with. The local Caid, local contractors, local sheikhs. Bossu would always know someone who could help you. That is important in a country like this where everything is personal. If you wanted to do something, Bossu could make it possible. He became also indispensable.

‘But, of course, things could go wrong. He worked with a lot of people, and some of them weren’t very nice people. There were people in the interior who were little better than bandits. And there were developers from the city who were ruthless. He put them together and that could lead to – as in Casablanca. You know about Casablanca?'

‘No.'

‘There was trouble there. Big trouble. About five or six years ago. It was to do with a quarry and a railway. Bossu had put the two together in some project. Things went wrong and there were riots. It was very bad. The army was sent in and they killed a lot of people.

‘But some say that that was the idea. To get the city to explode, so that the army would have to step in, and then France could take over the whole country. I don’t know if that is true, but that is what people say. And the Moroccans believe it.

‘So Casablanca and what happened there is very big to Moroccans. And Bossu was right in the middle of it. I don’t know exactly how he was involved but I know that he was involved. This was six years ago and I was still young. I did not understand these things. But I remember him coming home and saying, “This will either make me or break me.” Afterwards, he thought it had made him.'

She laughed.

‘They all trusted him, you see, after that. Trust! Bossu!'

She laughed again.

‘They used him more and more. All over the country. Whenever there was something big. Because they thought they could rely on him to look after their interests.'

‘Was that why he was put on the committee?'

‘Of course! The big businessmen all knew him and they wanted someone like him in a big position on the committee so that he could look after their interests. And the settlers, too. They thought: he is one of us, he will see that things don’t go wrong.

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