A Dead Man in Tangier

by Michael Pearce

  He stopped.

  ‘You know?'

  ‘Of course.'

  ‘How?'

  ‘Someone saw you. And then came back and told me.'

  ‘Why did they come back and tell you?'

  ‘Cash. I like to know these things.'

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was worth paying for.'

  ‘I didn’t pay very much.'

  ‘Still . . .'

  ‘You have to cast your bread upon the waters if you’re a journalist. Usually it leads to nothing. But occasionally there is a return.'

  ‘Is this for your newspaper?'

  ‘My newspaper would certainly pay for information. If it was worth printing.'

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was.'

  ‘I don’t think so, either,’ she agreed. ‘Still, I didn’t know that until after I had paid. It was only a few coins. My informant was a small boy and he brings information rather indiscriminately.'

  Seymour laughed.

  ‘Do you use a lot of boys?’ he asked.

  ‘I find them useful. And girls, too, but they don’t get around so much.'

  ‘Do you know a lame beggar boy?'

  ‘I know several lame beggar boys.'

  ‘Something wrong with his hip.'

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Why do you want to know?'

  ‘Because this one may have seen what happened to Bossu. He was lying in the scrub when Bossu rode in after a pig.'

  ‘It may be Salah,’ she said. ‘He lives over in that direction and is just the sort of boy who would want to follow the pig-sticking.'

  ‘Where would I find him?'

  ‘You could try the Mosque Al-Baylim. He sleeps there and they give him food.'

  ‘Thank you.'

  ‘If you find out anything,’ she said, ‘tell me.'

  He nodded.

  She came to the door with him. As she opened it she saw Mustapha and Idris outside.

  ‘Are they coming with you?'

  Seymour sighed.

  ‘Almost certainly.'

  ‘Go easy with them today. It’s Ramadan and they don’t eat until after sunset. What with that and the heat, people get very exhausted. By the time they’d finished yesterday they were really knocked up.'

  ‘Look, they don’t have to come with me.'

  ‘Oh, but they do. It’s a question of honour.'

  She went across to them and spoke to them. Then she came back.

  ‘I’ve told them which mosque it is,’ she said. ‘You’ll find Salah asleep in the porch if you go there about noon.'

  The Mosque Al-Baylim was on the poor edge of Tangier, where the cheap, flat-roofed houses with tomatoes and onions spread out to dry on the top gave way to the poorer kind of workshops: potteries, consisting of trenches where the potters sat outside on planks and worked their wheels with their bare feet, tanners, where bare-chested men dipped skins into huge vats, underground flour mills in dark cellars where great wheels were driven by subterranean streams, oil presses where the ground around was damp and discoloured and the air was heavy with the sticky, slightly sugary smell of pressed sesame seed.

  The mosque itself was next to a tannery and its white stucco walls were stained brown with the effluent. But it was entered through a beautiful, old, wooden porch, all latticework and ornamentation. In the cool of its shade several ragged forms were lying. Mustapha stirred one with his foot.

  ‘Salah?’ he said.

  Another form sat up.

  ‘Who asks?’ it said.

  ‘Mustapha.'

  The form scrutinized him carefully.

  ‘I know you,’ it said.

  ‘Everybody knows me,’ said Mustapha impatiently.

  ‘Why do you want me?’ asked the boy in sudden panic.

  ‘I want to talk to you.'

  ‘If it’s about that load of kif, I don’t know anything about it!'

  ‘It’s not about the kif,’ said Mustapha, slightly uncomfortably. ‘It’s about that dead Frenchman. Look, you’d better come out here.'

  There was a sudden chorus of protests from the other forms in the porch.

  ‘What are you going to do to him?'

  ‘Leave him alone!'

  ‘He had nothing to do with it!'

  ‘Shut up!’ said Mustapha. ‘It’s not about the kif. I just want to ask him some questions, that’s all. About the Frenchman.'

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know!'

  ‘All I want you to do is tell it once again. Only this time so that my friend will hear.'

  ‘Your friend?'

  Salah took in for the first time Seymour’s presence.

  ‘Who’s he?’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘My friend. Like I said. He’s an Englishman. From the police in London.'

  ‘The police?'

  The porch went still. There was a long silence. Then – ‘Mustapha!’ the beggar boy said reproachfully.

  ‘What is it?'

  ‘Mustapha, I would never have believed this of you!'

  ‘What are you on about?'

  ‘You, whom I have always heard spoken of as a man of honour!'

  ‘What are you talking about?'

  ‘The police! Mustapha, I would never have believed this of you!'

  ‘Have you gone crazy or something!'

  ‘That you, of all men –’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ said Idris.

  ‘It must be big. Of course! I’ve got it now,’ said the beggar boy conciliatorily. ‘Really big! Something that will make your fortune. Well, Mustapha, I congratulate you.

  ’ ‘Either he’s mad or I’m mad!’ declared Mustapha.

  ‘It’s just that I’m – well, surprised, that’s all, disappointed. A little.'

  ‘It’s him!’ said Idris. ‘Definitely. He’s gone mad.'

  ‘You wouldn’t have cut them in on it if it hadn’t been really big –’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?'

  ‘The kif. You wouldn’t have sold out to the police if –’ ‘Shall I just cut his throat?’ asked Idris.

  There was another chorus from inside the porch.

  ‘Leave him alone!'

  ‘You bastards!'

  ‘Salah,’ said Mustapha dangerously, ‘I have been very patient with you. But –’

  Seymour intervened hastily. He had just about enough Arabic to get it across.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the kif,’ he said. ‘Mush kif. And there’s no deal. Mush deal. I’m interested only in the Frenchman. Tell him that, will you?'

  ‘Mush kif. Mush deal,’ said Mustapha. ‘Got that, you little bastard? My friend has hit the nail right on the head. And now you’re going to tell us, exactly and pretty quickly, just what it was that you saw when that French bastard rode out into the scrub last week.'

  ‘There were two pigs, see. And they ran off to one side. And the fat Frenchman went after them. Then he settled on one and rode after that. I could see him above the scrub, going up and down because the ground rose and fell at that point. And I thought, You’d better watch it, my fat friend, or else you’ll come off. And then you’ll be in trouble, especially if the pig turns and goes for you. And then I thought, That would be good to see. So I made haste to get there. But, Monsieur, I do not make haste very fast.'

  He looked at Seymour apologetically.

  ‘I have to go like this.'

  He showed Seymour how he ran: head down, almost touching the ground, hip up higher than his head. It was just like a hyena, Seymour thought.

  ‘And when I raised my head, I could not see him. “Lo, it has happened as I foretold,” I said to myself, and redoubled my efforts to get there. I heard the horse in the bushes and ran towards it, but not too fast in case it was the pig and not the horse.

  ‘And then I saw the lance. It was standing upright, just like this. And I thought, That is strange, but it must have fallen so. But when I went closer I saw that it was stuck through the fat Frenchman, and I thou
ght, How can that be? He cannot have fallen thus. And then it came to me that he could not have done it himself and that someone else had a hand in this! So I sat beneath a bush and waited.

  ‘And gradually men came. I heard them speak. “What is this?” they said. “He needs help,” someone said. But then someone else said, “Nothing can help him now!” And another said, “Let us not go too close, for the Sheikh will send his men and then it will be better for us if we are not near.”

  ‘So they sat down and waited. And then the Sheikh’s men came. And they said, “Right, you bastards, who has done this?” And we all said, “Not I!” And they must have believed us, for one stayed and one rode away, and eventually he came back with another Frenchman, the tall captain.

  ‘That is all, and it was thus, and as I told you the first time.'

  ‘Not all,’ said Seymour, when Mustapha had finished interpreting.

  ‘Not all?'

  ‘Was not there another horse?'

  ‘Another horse?'

  ‘Didn’t someone ride in after the Frenchman? Immediately after.'

  ‘I saw no other horse.'

  ‘Ask him to think again. Carefully. Is he sure there was no other horse?'

  Salah shook his head stubbornly.

  ‘I saw no other horse.'

  ‘Think again, Salah, for how else did the lance get there?'

  ‘That’s a good one,’ said Idris. ‘Someone stuck him, didn’t they? So someone else must have been there.'

  ‘Ah, but was he on a horse?’ asked Mustapha. ‘Well, was he, you little bastard?’ he said to the beggar boy.

  ‘I saw no one,’ repeated the beggar boy. ‘And no horse, either.'

  ‘Salah, I believe you,’ said Seymour. ‘But, then, as my friends say, there is left a riddle. Which, perhaps, you may still help us solve. Go on thinking. Think back to that day. You saw no other horse. Nor person, either. Might that not be because at the time you were running through the scrub with your head down, as you showed me?'

  ‘Well, it might, but –’

  ‘Go on thinking. Salah, you saw nothing. But you heard something. You told me. Something in the bushes. A pig, you said, or a horse. Could it not have been a horse?’

  ‘Well . . .'

  ‘You, yourself, were in doubt. Now, Salah, you heard this thing in the bushes, and you were concerned lest it might come upon you. Does that mean it was coming towards you? Or was it going away from you?'

  ‘Monsieur, I –’

  ‘Draw it in the sand. With your finger. Here is the spot where the Frenchman fell. And here is the track that he came from, where all the others were. Now, where were you? Draw it.'

  Mustapha and Idris bent down to see.

  ‘So, Salah, you were here. Beside the main track?'

  ‘Watching the horses go by, yes.'

  ‘And the Frenchman rode into the scrub here, over to your right hand as you lay?'

  ‘That is so.'

  ‘And disappeared here. And you turned and went up to where you had last seen him. And then you heard something in the bushes . . .?'

  ‘Here,’ said Salah, pointing with his finger.

  ‘Near the spot where the fat Frenchman fell, but this side of it. Which means that whoever-it-was was coming away from where he fell?'

  ‘It seems so,’ Salah agreed.

  ‘And therefore towards you?'

  Salah nodded.

  ‘Now, Salah, think hard. It did not stop, did it, or else you would have seen it when you got near the man. It must have gone on. Now, can you remember: did it pass you, or did it run away over to the left?'

  ‘Monsieur, it was I that ran away.'

  ‘And the horse – or pig?'

  ‘Carried on.'

  ‘Back down to the main track?'

  ‘I think so, Monsieur.'

  ‘Does not that make it seem as if it was a horse?'

  ‘If it was a pig,’ said Mustapha, ‘it was a very stupid one.'

  ‘But, Monsieur . . .’ said Idris.

  ‘Yes?'

  ‘You were asking Salah if there were not two horses. But Salah has been speaking only of one. Might not the horse that passed him have been the fat Frenchman’s horse?'

  ‘I didn’t hear two horses coming towards me,’ said Salah. ‘That I do know.’

  Chapter Six

  It was now well into the afternoon and the heat, as always in Tangier, had built up. Out in the bay there was a distinct haze. The sea was still, though, and not a boat was moving. Not much was moving on the land, either, and Seymour, mindful of Chantale’s injunction, looked around for a place where Mustapha and Idris might take a rest. They were not complaining but their faces were drawn and he guessed that this was the point in the day when they were missing their food.

  He suggested that they stop in a cafée, whose tables conveniently spread out into the road; but when he sat down at a table Mustapha and Idris refused to join him.

  ‘No, no,’ they said, ‘we’ll sit down over here.'

  And they sat down across the road in the shade of a big house and rested their backs against the wall.

  He tried to persuade them but they were firm.

  ‘No, no: this gives us a better view.'

  A better view? An undistinguished street with small, somnolent shops, a dog or two lying in the shade, the shutters on the houses closed and not a sign of life or a thing of interest: except that at the far end of the street there was another café, more populated than this one, with several people sitting at the tables but not much sign of action.

  ‘We can see them if they come,’ said Mustapha.

  ‘Both left and right,’ said Idris.

  If they come? What were they expecting?

  He tried again to persuade them but without success. At least, however, they were sitting down getting some respite, so he decided to leave them alone and ordered himself some mint tea. He wondered if he should order them some, too: but were they allowed to drink during the day? He knew they shouldn’t eat during Ramadan, but what about drink?

  He went across and put it to them.

  They thanked him politely but declined. A sip of water, however, would be welcomed.

  Seymour went back to the cafée and asked if some water could be provided for his friends. He half expected a brusque dismissal, which is what he would certainly have got in England, but instead they nodded approvingly and took some across in an enamel mug; just the one mug, which Mustapha and Idris shared quite happily.

  He suddenly realized that he was glad to sit down himself. Although he was in the shade, the heat was still considerable enough to make him languorous. The mint tea, though, was refreshing and he sat on for some time in an increasing doze; which seemed to be shared by everyone around him.

  Not at the other end of the street, however. Shouts roused him. People in the café looked up. There seemed to be some sort of altercation centring on the other café. Mustapha, drawn to any form of disorder, went up the street to see what was going on. There was a crowd, growing every second, and voices were raised in protest.

  Mustapha returned.

  ‘You’d better come,’ he said to Seymour. ‘It’s Chantale. And the French.'

  Seymour rose at once.

  ‘It might be better if it’s you,’ said Mustapha, ‘and not us.'

  At the centre of the crowd was a policeman holding a man and beside them was a Frenchwoman, gesticulating fiercely. Beside them, gesticulating just as fiercely, was a fired-up Chantale.

  ‘And take her in, too,’ cried the Frenchwoman angrily.

  ‘Yes, take me in, too!’ shouted Chantale, equally angry.

  She held out her wrists as if for handcuffs. ‘Take me in! And see what happens!'

  ‘This is injustice!’ cried the man the policeman was holding. He was an Arab and seemed to Seymour slightly familiar. Then he worked it out. It was one of the young men, Sadiq’s friends, who had been sitting in the café when he had come out of the committee’s room with Mr Bahnini.<
br />
  ‘He molested me!’ cried the Frenchwoman.

  ‘No, he didn’t!’ shouted Chantale. ‘He just sat next to you.'

  ‘I don’t want to sit next to a dirty Arab!'

  ‘He doesn’t want to sit next to a dirty Frenchwoman!’ shouted Chantale wrathfully.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey! You can’t say things like that!’ said the policeman. Still holding the young man, he made a grab for Chantale.

  ‘Take them both in!’ shouted the Frenchwoman furiously. ‘Arrest them! He has molested me. And she has insulted me!'

  Another policeman appeared. The first policeman handed the man over to him and tightened his grip on Chantale.

  ‘You leave her alone!’ shouted someone in the crowd. ‘It’s Chantale!'

  ‘Hands off, you bastards!’ shouted someone else.

  ‘Don’t you know how to treat a lady?’ cried a third man.

  ‘She’s not a lady!’ cried the Frenchwoman. ‘She’s a black!'

  The next moment she reeled back from a slap by Chantale.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ cried the constable.

  ‘She has insulted us!’ cried the young Arab, beside himself. ‘Me, Chantale, the whole Moroccan people!'

  ‘Why do we have to put up with this?’ called someone from the back of the crowd.

  ‘Yes, why?'

  The crowd began to press forward angrily.

  The Frenchwoman turned pale.

  It was, strictly speaking, no concern of Seymour’s. He had no authority here. But old policeman’s habits died hard.

  He pushed through the crowd.

  ‘Calm yourselves, calm yourselves, Messieurs, Mesdames!’

  ‘I am going to hit her again!’ shouted Chantale.

  ‘No, you’re not.'

  He caught the hand just in time.

  Chantale tried to wrench it free, then fell against Seymour. He grabbed her and held on to her.

  ‘Take her to the police station!’ cried the Frenchwoman. ‘She has assaulted me!'

  ‘Enough!’ said Seymour. ‘Enough!'

  ‘Enough!’ said another voice authoritatively.

  A tall man had pushed through the crowd.

  ‘Let go of her!’ he said to the policeman holding Chantale. ‘And get them away. Quickly!'

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said the policeman, releasing Chantale and snapping to attention. ‘At once, sir!'

  But then he hesitated.