A Dead Man in Tangier

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Not you, Monsieur, but, perhaps, the always slow riders, of whom you would have been aware –’

  ‘Getting in the way. That fool, Digoin! And Leblanc. Why that man bothers to turn up at all, I cannot think. His head is in the clouds, Monsieur. He rides in a dream. He does not know, Monsieur, that it is a hunt. You chase the animal, yes? But not Leblanc. He is chasing rainbows! Or something the rest of us don’t see.’

  ‘Frustrating, frustrating!’ said Seymour. ‘But, Monsieur, I wondered if there was someone else. Someone, perhaps, who was a good rider, and a real huntsman, but who had, perhaps, joined the chase late? Who overtook the slower riders, even yourself –’

  ‘He wouldn’t have, not if I’d had a proper –’

  ‘The others, perhaps, would not have been aware of it, but you, Monsieur, with your feel for the hunt and your sense of the chase as a whole, might well have noticed it. Someone coming up fast, and late . . .?'

  Ricard thought.

  ‘I think I was aware of someone doing that,’ he said. ‘Out of the corner of my eye. You understand, Monsieur, that at my age one cannot afford to take one’s eye off – But, yes, I think I did notice someone coming up late.'

  But, alas, Monsieur Ricard had few details to add. If he had seen someone, it had been only out of the corner of his eye. And that eye did not, perhaps, see as keenly these days as it once had done.

  And Monsieur Digoin, that terror with the lance, although mostly to his own side, whom they called on afterwards, saw things, sadly, even more narrowly. In fact, he confessed shame-facedly, he didn’t see much at all.

  ‘It is wrong, I know,’ he said, ‘but I do like riding. I have ridden all my life, you see, and it is hard to give up now. I keep at the back. Out of the mˆeléee. I don’t think I do any harm. The horse takes care of me. We are two old-stagers, fellow travellers, and we know each other. I rely on Agamemnon to bring me back. When he has had enough, then so have I.’

  Had Monsieur Digoin been aware of a rider joining late? Alas, he wasn’t aware of any other rider. He rode at the back, and his horse helped him from colliding with anyone else, but as for seeing them – well, Monsieur Digoin participated with enthusiasm but saw, as through a glass, darkly.

  And Monsieur Leblanc, the over-mild Monsieur Leblanc? He was a sweetie and quite charming. But, alas, the French zeal for the chase, so extolled by Monsieur L’Espinasse, seemed to have gone quite missing in his case. He did, indeed, ride in a cloud, aware of little around him save the pleasant warmth of the sun, the whisper of the wind in his ears, the satisfying surge of the horse beneath him and, far off, the excited cries of the huntsmen.

  ‘As in The Seasons,’ he said.

  The Seasons?

  ‘Haydn’s piece, you know. I’ve always thought the music very evocative.'

  Well, yes. Yes. No doubt. But had Monsieur Leblanc seen –?

  Someone joining late? Surely they had all started at the same time? He was always careful, himself, not to be late, it was such a nuisance to everyone else – True, true, but possibly someone had unavoidably –?

  Monsieur Leblanc, anxious to oblige, thought deep. And, yes, he thought he had been aware of someone coming up fast. Too fast. Going like the wind, that wind that whispered so soothingly in Monsieur Leblanc’s ears, the wind that blew the overtaking rider’s hair so straight behind him –

  What?

  Hair? Was Monsieur Leblanc saying that the rider was a woman?

  Good heavens, no! It was just that as he had passed, Monsieur Leblanc had looked up, surprised, yes, surprised, he hadn’t expected someone to be coming up so fast behind him, and he had seen – well, he might not have seen correctly but this was what had struck him, the rider’s long hair flowing back behind him –

  On reflection, yes, it was puzzling. He couldn’t think of anyone in the hunt with such long hair. He himself favoured short back and sides. And certainly the soldiers – well, they had their hair absolutely shaven! Maybe he’d got it wrong. It had all happened so quickly. The rider had come up from behind him, riding very fast. He hadn’t seen him coming and then, suddenly, there he was! Passing him. He had overtaken him ‘in a flash’ and disappeared into the distance. But he had noticed –

  Or had he noticed? It had all happened so quickly.

  Had he noticed anything else apart from this one, astonishing, feature? Something about the clothes, perhaps? Or the horse? The colour of the horse, say?

  It had all happened so quickly! The rider had passed ‘as in a dream’.

  As in a dream. Yes, knowing Monsieur Leblanc, Seymour could quite believe that!

  The next morning when Seymour left the hotel there was no Mustapha and Idris outside waiting for him. In a way he was relieved, although he was also slightly disappointed. He had grown quite attached to them. But a bodyguard was hardly necessary. True, he had been glad of their aid when that pig had rushed out: but wild pigs were unlikely to be rushing out often, certainly not in the middle of Tangier, and he could see no other pressing need for defence. Their constant presence was, indeed, slightly embarrassing. How would it look to the people back at home if Macfarlane conveyed to them that two small-time crooks and drug dealers had lovingly attached themselves to their Man in Tangiers and devotedly followed him around wherever he went? So perhaps it was best –

  But just at that moment Mustapha appeared round the corner.

  ‘I am sorry, Monsieur, but you have to wait here. Idris has business.'

  ‘Yes, well, I have business, too –’

  ‘Idris’s business,’ said Mustapha, ‘is your business.'

  ‘My business?'

  But Mustapha would say no more. They had to wait until Idris either arrived or sent a message. Mustapha sat down in the shade of the wall. Seymour stood around uncertainly for a while and then sat down on the hotel steps. He wondered if he should go inside and find somewhere more comfortable and less conspicuous to sit. Then he wondered why he was waiting, anyway. This, he couldn’t help thinking, was another thing that wouldn’t look good if word got back to the Foreign Office or Scotland Yard; their man hanging around at the behest of a couple of drug dealers!

  Chantale came out of the door, saw him, raised an eyebrow, smiled (was it pityingly?) and then went back inside. To write, no doubt. But what was she writing? Her bloody gossip column, probably. Another, alarming, thought struck him. Might he not be about to figure in it? He would imagine all sorts of barbed comments about people out from London. And, meanwhile, ought he not to be getting on with –?

  At that point a small boy appeared. He went up to Mustapha and whispered in his ear. Mustapha stood up.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ve got him!'

  Exactly who had they got, wondered Seymour with misgiving? And what, in their world, did they mean by ‘got’?

  He would see, said Mustapha confidently, and they set off across the city with the small boy.

  He led them to a large yard out of which carts were rumbling. A man was sitting glumly in the dust and Idris was standing over him ostentatiously fingering the dagger at his belt.

  A man came out of the stables.

  ‘Idris, I do this for you because you are my friend. But a cart has to be driven and –’

  Idris held up a hand.

  ‘It will be driven. Wait but a moment. My friends will be here and then – and here they are!'

  ‘Don’t worry, Mohammed!’ said Mustapha soothingly to the man who had come out of the stables. ‘This will not be forgotten.'

  ‘I shall be out of a job,’ said the man sitting on the ground. ‘And that won’t be forgotten, either.'

  ‘Ten minutes, no more!’ warned the man who had come out of the stables. ‘No more!'

  He went back inside.

  ‘So, Fazal . . .’ began Mustapha.

  Fazal, it turned out, was the man Mustapha and Idris had spoken to at the pig-sticking, the man from whom they had got most of their information on that occasion. Dutifully, they secured his name and
where he lived. And then, even more surprisingly, they had followed this up by calling on him to ‘invite’ him to come and meet their friend, who, they knew, was anxious to talk to him.

  But when they had got to the block where he had said he lived they had been unable to find him. Yes, people in the block assured them, he certainly lived there but no one seemed to have seen him lately. Further inquiries led to a lady who claimed to be his wife. Yes, she said, he hadn’t been around lately. He was a carter who worked irregular hours.

  When might they catch him in?

  Alas . . .

  Does he not eat, inquired Mustapha, mindful, perhaps, that he was forgoing his own evening meal; and reckoning that after a day such as the carter worked, and after abstaining from food since daylight, one thing he would certainly not be missing was his evening Ramadan meal.

  Well, of course . . .

  Then they would see him then.

  But when they had come again he was nowhere in sight. Nor was there much evidence of the preparation of a Ramadan meal.

  You are mucking us about, said Mustapha severely.

  No, no, no, no. That was the last thing she would do. It was just that . . . well, she had sensed, deep in her heart – she and Fazal were very close, she knew exactly what he would be thinking – and she had suddenly – belatedly, alas – realized that he would not be coming home that night.

  Where would he be spending the night, then?

  Alas, their closeness did not extend so far . . .

  Mustapha, who did not believe a word of it, was all for cutting her throat. But Idris had had a flash of inspiration.

  Could it be, he had asked sternly, that the pair were not actually married? And that Fazal had gone, as all right-thinking men should do, home to his real wife for the Ramadan evening meal?

  The lady, flustered, agreed after a while that there could be something in what Idris had said.

  So, Mustapha has asked, with rising impatience, where did Fazal and his true wife live?

  Alas . . .

  Mustapha had taken out his knife at this point, the lady had shrieked, the block had been aroused, people came swarming, and Mustapha and Idris had been obliged to beat a retreat.

  Mustapha had been inclined to abandon their efforts: but Idris had suddenly had another flash of inspiration. He had remembered that the lady had let slip that Fazal was a carter. With a zeal for the chase which threatened to rival even that of the French, he had made a tour of all the carting establishments in the vicinity. Seymour, who realized what the effort must have cost him after the lateness of the day and his fasting, felt a moment’s contrition after his earlier ruminations. Prize bloodhounds Mustapha and Idris might not be but once they got on the trail they stuck to it. And in the end Idris had got his man.

  ‘So, Fazal . . .’ said Mustapha.

  ‘I knew it meant trouble,’ said the carter resignedly, ‘when I heard that you were trying to find me.'

  ‘Why did you make it difficult for us, then?’ demanded Mustapha.

  ‘Someone told me who you were,’ said Fazal.

  ‘Who we were?'

  ‘That you were in the Business. No offence!’ he added hurriedly. ‘It was just that he thought it would be a good idea if I stayed away from you.'

  ‘Well, that’s not very friendly.'

  ‘I would have been all right,’ said the carter gloomily, ‘if it had not been for Fatima.'

  ‘Well, now we’ve found you,’ said Mustapha, ‘and it’s not all right!'

  ‘Ten minutes!’ shouted the man who had gone back into the carter’s. ‘That’s all! Then he’s back on the carts!'

  ‘Start talking!’ ordered Mustapha.

  The first part of Fazal’s story Seymour already knew. He and a friend had been following the hunt and had seen Bossu ride off away from the others into the scrub. Fazal, who was evidently a keen student of form, and who had seen Bossu riding on previous occasions, had not wanted to follow him but his friend had persuaded him.

  But then –

  ‘Suddenly he wasn’t there! “He’s come off,” I said to my friend. “I knew he was a dead loss. Let’s get back to the others.” “Perhaps he’s broken his neck?” my friend said. “That would be worth seeing! Let’s have a look.” So we ran –’

  ‘Just stop there for a moment,’ said Seymour. ‘You ran over. At once?'

  ‘Yes. We guessed he’d come off and –’

  ‘You got there pretty quickly?'

  ‘Oh, we weren’t slow.'

  ‘And what did you see?'

  ‘Him. With the lance sticking in him. And as soon as I saw that, I said, “Let’s get out of here!” But my friend wanted to have a look. Close up. So –’

  ‘Hold on. Back to the moment you first saw him. With the lance sticking in. What else did you see?'

  ‘Well, there was nothing else. Just the bushes. And the sand. And the lance.'

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve got that bit. But there must have been other things.'

  ‘I don’t think so . . .'

  ‘A horse, for instance?'

  ‘Well, of course there was a horse. His.'

  ‘What was it doing? Standing there?'

  ‘No, no, it was running away. Bolting.'

  ‘In which direction was it running?'

  ‘Away. Straight ahead. Away from . . .'

  ‘Away from the hunt? Think. Was it running back to the hunt or away from it?'

  ‘Away from it.'

  ‘You’re sure about that?'

  ‘Yes.'

  ‘Because someone else I’ve talked to has said that they saw, or heard, a horse going back to the hunt.'

  ‘If they did, that’s not the horse I saw. The horse I saw was definitely bolting. Away from the hunt. The Frenchman had just come off –’

  ‘Why? Why do you think he had come off?'

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Probably because he wasn’t very good. The horse was all right, it was him. He would have had to swerve, you see, in and out of the bushes. They’re very good, these horses, they know just what to do. They stick to the pig. Well, of course, if you’re not much good as a rider, and with all that twisting and turning, it’s no wonder if you come off –’

  ‘You didn’t see anything that might have made him come off?’

  ‘Like what?'

  ‘A snake.'

  ‘We didn’t see a snake.'

  ‘Or someone in the bushes.'

  ‘We didn’t see anyone in the bushes. Of course, plenty of people came along afterwards –’

  ‘No, no. At the moment he came off.'

  ‘We didn’t see anyone.'

  ‘Because there must have been someone there. Or else how did the lance get stuck in?'

  The carter was silent.

  ‘I see what you mean.'

  ‘There must have been a man there,’ said Seymour. ‘Very probably on a horse. You were there just afterwards. Are you sure you saw no one?'

  The carter thought, but then shook his head.

  ‘A horse is pretty big,’ he said. ‘We ought to have seen that. But we didn’t.'

  ‘Let me take you back again,’ said Seymour. ‘To the moment you suddenly realized that he’d come off. How far were you away from him at that point?'

  ‘A couple of hundred yards. Three hundred, maybe.'

  ‘Some way, then. And then you had to run, of course. So there would have been time for it all to happen. Time for a man who was following him in to get there and do it and then get away again.'

  ‘He’d have had to have been quick,’ said Idris.

  ‘Yes, he certainly would. But now, Fazal, here’s the question: there would have to have been another man following the Frenchman in. You were coming from that direction. Did you see him?'

  The carter shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I did not. Of course, I was running –’

  ‘And the ground was uneven, I know. But it seems strange that another rider could have got there and away without you seeing any
thing of him.'

  ‘Monsieur, it is strange,’ said the carter earnestly, ‘but –’

  ‘It bloody is strange,’ said Mustapha.

  ‘Monsieur, I swear –’

  ‘And I believe you,’ said Seymour soothingly.

  ‘If I could remember anything I would –’

  ‘Take your time. Just try and see it all again in your mind.'

  ‘Monsieur, I am trying, but . . .'

  ‘Nothing?'

  ‘Nothing.'

  ‘I believe you. Go on searching your mind, and if anything comes, let me know.'

  ‘Monsieur, I will. For you have spoken properly to me. Unlike some,’ he added, with a look at Mustapha.

  ‘Fazal –’

  ‘And, Monsieur, I will ask my friend. For it may be that another pair of eyes will have seen something that mine missed.'

  ‘Thank you, Fazal.'

  The carter began to get to his feet.

  ‘Fazal, there is just one other thing, a little thing, that perhaps you can help me on. When you got there, and you saw the Frenchman lying, there was a lance in his back –’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Fazal, with relish.

  ‘But was there not another lance somewhere? The Frenchman’s own?'

  ‘Are you going to be busy tonight?’ asked Seymour, as they were walking back.

  ‘Busy?'

  ‘I was wondering if you were still expecting a visit from Ali Khadr.'

  ‘No!’ said Idris disgustedly. ‘She’s fixed it. Spoiled everything!'

  ‘I tell you,’ said Mustapha, ‘when you get women and the mosque up against you, you can’t do a thing.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have thought Ali Khadr would have listened,’ grumbled Idris.

  ‘Oh, he’s very devout,’ said Mustapha. ‘Once she said she was going to the mosque, I knew there wasn’t a chance.'

  ‘Your mother must have a lot of influence,’ Seymour said to Chantale.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. She just knows a lot of people. But, then, she would, you see. She grew up in the quarter.'

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘I sometimes think there’s a women’s Mafia operating.’

  ‘I thought women didn’t have any power in Muslim countries.'