A Dead Man in Tangier

by Michael Pearce

‘And the bank statements,’ said Juliette. ‘I remember them now.'

  Chapter Five

  The next morning Seymour went up to the committee’s offices, where he found Mr Bahnini, head down, already at work.

  He took out the scraps of paper he had found in Bossu’s filing cabinet and laid them on the desk in front of him.

  ‘Could you tell me, Mr Bahnini, to what these refer?'

  ‘They are names of places. Azrou, Immauzer and Tafilalet. And, of course, Casablanca.'

  ‘Anything special about them?'

  ‘The first three are in the south. They are small towns in the interior.'

  ‘Anything else about them?'

  Mr Bahnini shook his head.

  ‘I would say there is very little to distinguish them. Apart from being the only towns in miles and miles of desert.'

  ‘Beside them are some numbers. And dates. Azrou, for instance: 5000, 2nd April. Immauzer, 7000, 20th May. What do the numbers refer to? Could they be sums of money?'

  ‘They could.'

  ‘There wouldn’t be any reference to these sums, if they are sums, in the minutes of the committee? I was just wondering if they were authorized expenditure.'

  Mr Bahnini shook his head.

  ‘They would not be,’ he said definitely. ‘The committee is not authorized to disburse funds. It has a few for expenses, of course. For stationery, my salary, and so on, but there are all minor and do not correspond to any of these sums.'

  ‘Perhaps they’re not money, then.'

  Mr Bahnini studied them.

  ‘Although what else could they be?’ he said.

  ‘Take a look at the dates. Do they correspond to anything in Bossu’s diary?'

  ‘He didn’t keep one,’ said Mr Bahnini. ‘But I did.'

  He produced a desk diary and began to go through it.

  ‘He was certainly away from the office on those dates,’ he said.

  ‘So they could be dates of meetings?'

  ‘But why would he have been having meetings in places like that? Casablanca, I could understand. But Tafilalet! Mr Bossu had business dealings all over the place, it is true, but – Tafilalet! It’s just an oasis.'

  ‘No record here, then?'

  ‘No. Of course . . .'

  ‘Yes?'

  ‘He had business dealings of his own. He only worked for the committee part time. The sums might relate to them.'

  ‘Where would I find out about them? Did he have another office somewhere?'

  ‘I don’t think so, sir.'

  ‘His bank, perhaps, might have a record of cash transactions. Do you know which bank he used?'

  ‘I am afraid not, sir. His wife, perhaps . . .'

  ‘Doesn’t know a thing. And Renaud has taken all his papers away. I could ask him, I suppose.'

  Mr Bahnini was hesitating. He cleared his throat deferentially.

  ‘I wonder, sir . . .'

  ‘Yes?'

  ‘I am not sure, sir, that, given the location of the places, he would have made much use of his bank. In the south they usually prefer money in physical form.'

  ‘Coin, you mean?'

  ‘Or bullion. Silver is much in use.'

  ‘And if Bossu was making payments there, that is what he would have used?'

  ‘There are no banks there, sir. The south is a very backward place. Not to say lawless.'

  ‘Hmm. So if he wanted money in hard form, where could he have gone to get it?'

  ‘I suspect the big moneylenders in the souk, sir. But a bank here would be able to advise you.'

  ‘Thank you. I’ll try them.'

  ‘There is one other thing, sir.'

  ‘Yes?'

  ‘Money in that form is heavy. The first part of the journey could be done by truck, but after that he would have had to use camels. And porters. Also . . .'

  ‘Yes?'

  ‘Almost certainly he would have needed bodyguards. The south is, as I have said, a lawless place.'

  Seymour asked if he could see the committee’s minutes. He settled himself at Bossu’s desk and Mr Bahnini brought them to him. Then he ploughed systematically through them. There was no mention of any of the places on the slips of paper, nor any reference to the dates or sums. He began to get, however, a sense of the committee’s preoccupations. Impressed by his display of clerical adhesiveness, Mr Bahnini warmed to him and dropped in from time to time to explain particular points.

  Much of the most recent discussion referred to a venture at Marrakesh. Mr Bahnini said that this was to do with a project to build a railway, which, it was hoped, would open up the interior. Of course, Marrakesh was a long way inland and since it did not fall within the area of the proposed Tangier zone it was, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the committee. Tangier interests would, however, be providing the money and for that reason were interested in the legal powers that the committee would be recommending. Strongly interested, judging by the frequency of the committee’s returns to the subject.

  ‘They are interested, of course, in the likely route the railway would take.'

  ‘Is that the responsibility of the committee to decide?’

  ‘No, but what they decide – the scope and nature of the legal powers they decide on – could have a considerable bearing on the route. That is terribly important, of course, because once the route has been decided on, businesses will be jostling to take appropriate action.'

  ‘Appropriate?'

  ‘Well, they would be able to plan ahead.'

  ‘Buy land, you mean?'

  ‘That sort of thing, yes, sir.'

  ‘And Bossu being close to the committee’s deliberations . . .'

  ‘I must insist, sir, that anything he did would be separate from his work on the committee. The Chairman is a stickler for propriety. But, of course, outside the committee room –’

  ‘And close as he was not just to the committee’s working but also to the interests of other parties –’

  ‘He would be well placed,’ said Mr Bahnini.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bahnini. I think I understand what you are telling me.'

  At one point Seymour heard Mr Bahnini talking to someone in his office. They kept their voices down and he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they appeared to be having an argument. The other person seemed to be a young man. After a time he went away.

  When Mr Bahnini next came in to see how Seymour was getting on, he appeared vexed.

  ‘An awkward customer?'

  ‘Very. My son.'

  ‘The one you were talking about with Macfarlane?'

  ‘The same.'

  ‘The one who has just finished his studies and is uncertain what to do?'

  ‘It is not that he is uncertain. He doesn’t appear to want to do anything. He just sits in the café all day with his friends listening to music.’

  ‘He probably finds it hard to put student life behind him.'

  ‘They all do. But it’s time they did. They can’t sit around for ever.'

  ‘You couldn’t tempt him to take up Macfarlane’s offer? As a temporary expedient?'

  ‘That’s just what I’ve been trying to do. But he will have none of it. The committee is just a cover for the French, he says, and he refuses to have anything to do with it. He won’t work for the Mahzen because he says it’s too corrupt. All right, what about business, then, I say? There are plenty of jobs there if only you could be bothered to look for them. That would be working for foreigners, he says, and he doesn’t want to do that.'

  ‘What does he want to do?'

  ‘Sit around in the cafée and chat. And his friends are just the same. They say they will only work for Morocco. Look, this is Morocco, I say: here! No, it’s not, they say. It’s France or Spain or some other rich country.

  ‘“It’s all very well for you to talk,” I say to him, “but before you start taking a high-and-mighty line about principle, you’ve got to find a way to live. At the moment you’re living on me!”

  ‘That al
ways makes him angry, and my wife says I mustn’t say things like that. But it’s true. And it’s true for the others, too.

  ‘Take young Awad. He spends all his time lolling about in the café, too, but he can do it only because his father is rich – his father is a Minister in the Mahzen, Suleiman Fazi. Did you say you had been to see him? I met him once, he’s a nice man and he’s just as worried about Awad as I am about Sadiq.

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over the young. They have chances we never had. And what do they do? Loll about and complain! Say the world’s all wrong and that it needs to change before they’ll get their hands dirty by working in it!'

  Seymour laughed.

  ‘The young have always been like that,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s different now. Here. And with the Protectorate being imposed, it’s become worse. They say such wild things!'

  ‘It’s just talk.'

  ‘So long as it stops at just talk,’ said Mr Bahnini darkly.

  When Seymour left, he saw just such a group of young men as they had been discussing sitting in a café across the road. In fact, they were the young men they had been talking about, or some of them were, for as he and Mr Bahnini came out of the bank one of them looked up and saw them and then came running across the road towards them.

  ‘Your pardon, Father,’ he said. ‘I spoke too warmly.'

  ‘Like father, like son,’ said Mr Bahnini. ‘I spoke too warmly, too.'

  The young man fell in alongside them.

  ‘This is Monsieur Seymour,’ said Mr Bahnini. ‘From England.'

  ‘Oh, from England?'

  He asked Seymour, as they all did, how he found Morocco: but he asked in a different way from the others. He asked with a fierce interest, as if the answer really mattered. Seymour, who found the question difficult to answer at any depth, replied as best he could. The young man pondered and then said:

  ‘Do you find us backward?'

  ‘Different,’ said Seymour. ‘Not backward.'

  ‘Yes, we are different,’ said the young man. He appeared relieved.

  Seymour said that he found Tangier different, too, from other places around the Mediterranean that he had been in; from Istanbul, for example, where he had been the previous year.

  ‘You have been in Istanbul?'

  ‘Briefly.'

  ‘That is somewhere where things are happening!’ said the young man enviously.

  There had been a revolution there and the Sultan had been deposed.

  ‘And how do you think it is working out?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘It’s too early to say. Things are changing, certainly. But I have a feeling that the Sultanate is not finished yet.'

  ‘They won’t go back?’ said the young man, aghast.

  ‘They might. But if they do it won’t be to quite the way things were before.'

  ‘Once change starts,’ said Mr Bahnini, ‘it is hard to stop it.'

  ‘I hope that’s true,’ his son said. ‘For Turkey’s sake, at least.’ He looked at Seymour. ‘We have a strange situation here,’ he said. ‘When the revolution started in Istanbul we all said, “Yes, yes! It is a pattern for what should happen here.” But it hasn’t worked out like that. The French have stepped in and brought all that change to a stop.'

  ‘Not all that change,’ objected his father. ‘Some of it will continue to go on.’

  ‘Instead of the Sultan we have the French. That isn’t much of an improvement.'

  Seymour called in to see Renaud but he wasn’t in his office. This was the third time Seymour had tried without success and he mentioned it to Chantale when he got back to the hotel.

  ‘Oh, he won’t be in his office!’ she said.

  ‘Where will he be, then?'

  She looked at his watch.

  ‘There’s a little bar in the Place Concorde . . .'

  And there indeed was Monsieur Renaud, perched on a stool and chatting to the patronne.

  ‘Coll`egue!’

  He jumped up.

  ‘Cher coll`egue!’

  They embraced.

  ‘Un apéritif?’

  ‘Allow me . . .'

  And, a little later, ‘Forgive me, cher coll`egue, for coming to you. It is an imposition, I know.’

  ‘An imposition? But not at all! A pleasure! A pleasure!’ Renaud repeated. He looked along the bar. The patronne, without saying anything, brought another two Pernods.

  They exchanged toasts again.

  ‘You know,’ said Seymour, as they settled back on their stools, ‘there is one thing in which I regard myself as fortunate. It is to find myself working with you.'

  ‘Ah, Monsieur –’

  ‘No, I mean it. It is not always that one finds oneself working with people who are so sympathique. Colleagues who put people first. As you so evidently do. Your solicitude for Madame Bossu! Can I say that I find it admirable? Yes, admirable. Caring, thoughtful, sensitive. One does not always find that in one’s colleagues. I consider myself fortunate.'

  ‘Ah, Monsieur, you are too kind! But you are right. For me, the human touch is all. It is not so with everybody, but for me, for me it comes first. We must not lose sight of the pain in the one who has suffered. And we must do what we can to alleviate it.'

  ‘Just so! A man dies, and it is our job as policemen to find out who has killed him. But we must remember, too, the ones he leaves behind. The man dies and so often the woman is left alone. It is then that support is needed and, thank goodness, it is exactly that you are providing for Madame Bossu.'

  ‘Poor Juliette!'

  ‘She should be grateful. And I’m sure she will be. It may take a little time to show –’

  ‘She doesn’t realize all the work I am doing for her.'

  ‘Oh, she will, she will.'

  ‘You think so?’ said Renaud, pleased.

  ‘I am sure of it. And when she does, I am sure she will be truly grateful.'

  ‘Well, well, that would be nice. All I want, you know, is a little appreciation.'

  ‘And, perhaps, some time later, as she begins to recover from this terrible experience, something more? A man is a man, after all.'

  ‘Well, yes, there is that,’ said Renaud, smiling.

  ‘Well, I wish you success! But, meanwhile there is work to be done. And a lot of it. No one knows that better than I do. Bossu was a man of so many interests. With those, there is always much to sort out.'

  ‘There is, there is!'

  ‘Business interests, too. Complex ones. That makes it particularly difficult.'

  ‘It does. It does.'

  ‘Especially as he seems to have had business interests everywhere.'

  ‘That is what I keep saying to Juliette. It’s not as if his affairs were confined to Tangier, I say.'

  ‘The business trips alone –’

  ‘Exactly! “I have a job,” I say to Juliette. “I can’t be always going off to places like Marrakesh. I have responsibilities here.” But she does not understand!'

  ‘Ah, women!'

  ‘Exactly, Monsieur: women!'

  ‘But perhaps I can help?'

  ‘Help?’ said Renaud, disconcerted.

  ‘Over the business trips at least. I have some information on them.'

  ‘You do?'

  ‘Dates, for instance.'

  ‘Dates?'

  ‘And places.'

  ‘Places?'

  ‘And sums. Do you have sums?'

  ‘Well . . .'

  ‘Perhaps we could compare notes. You show me your information and I’ll show you mine. I gather you have his papers?'

  ‘Some, yes. Well, most –’

  ‘Then we could go through them together.'

  ‘Um, ah – They are not – not all to hand.'

  ‘You do have them still?'

  ‘Oh, yes. But – some are still to be sorted.'

  ‘We can do that together.'

  ‘Um. Ah. Yes.'

  Renaud pulled himself together.

  ‘But bef
ore I could do that, I would have to . . . They are Juliette’s papers, after all. Private papers. Yes, that’s it. Private papers. I feel I ought not to –’

  ‘Naturally, I would not wish to pry into Madame Bossu’s private papers. But Bossu’s papers . . . Surely Bossu’s papers are within the scope of the public investigation?’

  ‘Um. Ah. Yes. But . . .'

  Seymour could see that he was not going to let Seymour anywhere near them.

  That evening he went to see Monique.

  ‘Well, this is a pleasure,’ she said.

  Her apartment was tucked away from the sea front but close enough to it and high up enough for him to be able to see the sea. She took him out on to a little balcony which overlooked the bay. It was dark now and the harbour was alive with lights. From the cheap Arab cafés over to their left came the throbbing and wailing of Arab music. They sat down.

  ‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘I am not so foolish as to imagine that this is just a social call. How can I help you?'

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you over something so small. But I can see no other way of finding out. It is just a very simple question.'

  ‘Simple?’ she said. Her eyebrows went up. ‘But in Tangier no questions are simple. Because they nearly always lead to difficult answers.'

  ‘This one won’t,’ said Seymour. ‘It is just to ask you if you know the name of the bank Bossu used. And I wouldn’t have troubled you if I had been able to get anything sensible out of Juliette.'

  ‘Thousands have tried before you! But I do see that that is the kind of mundane detail that might have escaped her notice.'

  ‘I had hoped, actually, that it might be in Bossu’s papers. But Renaud had taken them all away.'

  Monique was amused.

  ‘So he’s not so stupid!’ She thought. ‘Actually he’s not stupid at all. He can be quite cunning at times. When it’s in his interests.'

  ‘So I come to you.'

  ‘It’s easy.'

  She wrote the name down on a slip of paper. It was the name of the bank in which the committee had its offices.

  ‘That all? Really? Well, I’m not going to let you get away with that. At least you must have a drink.'

  Seymour found himself staying rather longer than he had intended.

  ‘So how did you get on with Monique?’ asked the receptionist when he came down the next morning.