Moroccan Traffic: Send a Fax to the Kasbah

by Dorothy Dunnett

  I watched the knife rip its way through the leather and knew that whatever I invented, it would have to be brilliant. I didn’t know Johnson’s numerate capabilities, but artists, while fond of money in my experience, usually let others manage it. Two of the men who might be his were hired thugs, but the third was a professional with some education, or enough, at least, to test out the answers. And considering the value of the answers, the third man wasn’t, therefore, somebody’s bellboy.

  My face must have changed, and my captor saw it. He said, ‘You are wise. I see you are ready to speak. Then, mademoiselle, the first question is this.’

  It was about the last quarter’s results, and was lethal. I listened to what he was saying, but the corner of my eye was on Johnson behind him. Once the three faces were turned towards me, Johnson spat out his fag and shifted his bottom. Then, as the question rolled to its end, he suddenly jackknifed his body and with a slam of his two shackled feet, kicked the base of the carpet-stack nearest him.

  Arabs go in for long, heavy carpets. They fell like limp drainpipes, toppling the man with the knife. They crashed to the ground beside Ellwood who, roused, said, ‘Holy shit!’ and rolled clumsily out of the way. Dust rose and lingered in clouds, and for a moment, the carpets sprawled between the others and Johnson and me. I could do nothing for Pymm, but I owed Johnson, it seemed, another benefit. The knife had fallen: he kicked it towards me. One of the thugs appeared at my elbow.

  I applied the Ten Golden Rules When You Travel. I got him in the eye with my ballpoint and the overclothed groin with my knee, and had time to slash Johnson’s bonds before the other two scrambled over the carpets. I turned with the knife in my hand. The French-speaker had jumped to block the head of the stairs. The second man, his hands wide, stood before me. The one I had hit, growling, began to move on all fours towards us. Beyond the carpets, I could see Mr. Pymm’s terrified face.

  Johnson said, ‘Move!’ He pulled the knife from my hand and shoved me into the gallery. It was narrow, and crowded with carpets. I stumbled, his hand on my back, and he followed at a shambling run, watching over his shoulder. As he ran, he clawed and kicked at the carpet rolls, dragging down anything that would tumble behind him. The first of our captors was hardly six feet behind him, and the other two were following fast. I didn’t know if there were any more stairs. Somewhere far below, a door shuddered and opened. I thought, ‘They’ve sent for their friends. Now they’ll force me to tell, and Sir Robert will know who to blame for it.’

  A voice said in English, ‘It’s empty.’ And another voice said, ‘Let’s look, anyway.’ The first voice was that of Seb Sullivan.

  Johnson called ‘Seb!’ but it came out as a gasp. My lungs, as I’ve said, are quite good ones. I roared ‘Colonel Sullivan! Help!’ and behind us, the three robed figures slackened speed. Then the French-speaker strode to the gallery rail. It looked fragile. It was nothing really but a shop fitter’s rail, from which carpets hung to the sales floor in layers. The man looked over, and surveyed the advancing group of our rescuers. There were eight of them. Then he called down, in French.

  ‘Colonel Sullivan, whoever you are! The mademoiselle and your friends are our prisoners. Stay where you are. Do not leave the building for help. Do not climb the stairs. Otherwise your friends will suffer injury.’

  He waited, as if he had all the time in the world, for an answer. The other two waited beside him, including the man I’d attacked. One of his eyes was inflamed, the other glaring. And I saw why they had stopped, and why Johnson had stopped pushing me. Ahead the gallery ended. There was just a blank wall, with no way of getting past it.

  Johnson still had the knife. He turned, keeping me at his back, and addressed the men. ‘How can you expect to escape?’

  The leader’s veil twitched. He said, ‘You underestimate your value, monsieur. And that of mademoiselle.’

  Below, they were talking. Then someone called up. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘An impatient man,’ said our French-speaking friend. ‘Do you agree?’

  It was Sullivan who was speaking. He shouted, ‘Not on your word, you bastards. Let us hear them.’

  The man turned, his hand raised. His eyes on him, Johnson obediently spoke. ‘Seb? Do as he says.’

  ‘And Wendy?’ said Sullivan. ‘Pymm?’

  ‘Safe and well. Leave it to us,’ Johnson said. And also said, very rapidly in my direction, ‘Over the rail when I say. Done a climbing course?’

  He had had a quick look at the balustrade. It was primitive, as I said: nothing more than a rail on wood uprights. From the outer side hung layers of overlapping thick carpets with price tags. Below was a drop to the floor, from which a group of pale faces peered up at us. ‘OK. Now!’ Johnson said.

  They rushed us just as I jumped for the rail, and Johnson stood with the knife in one hand until I was safely over and then rolled himself over beside me. We had barely time to find hand-holds before the three men above half-plunged after us, their arms thrashing, their hands grasping our hair, our shoulders, our armpits. One of them clutched me hard by the wrist. I gasped at the pain of it, and felt him begin to drag my arm straight, while his other hand came to support me. Then Johnson leaned over, and the knife flashed, and there was blood which wasn’t mine all over my arm. I almost fell, the man freed me so suddenly.

  I was out of reach then, but Johnson wasn’t. He swayed about with the carpet, one hand gripping, the other making a fist with his knife. A man holding a baton of wood aimed a ferocious blow at his head. Before it connected, Johnson kicked himself hurriedly off, using his weight to swing himself and the carpet to one side. There was a cracking noise from above, and he swore. Then I saw he was swearing because he had slackened his hold on the cloth and had begun to slither rapidly down, descending two trees of life and finally brushing past a sugar-pink plush mat with camels. By that time I, too, was clambering down, having realised that there are worse things than falling. Grasping the shuddering carpet, I half slid, half handed myself to the floor, where our rescuers were at last free to act without harming us. Some of them made for the stairs. The rest, including Sullivan, stood waiting anxiously below to receive us.

  At one point, I looked up. For a moment, the veiled faces above continued to peer over the rail, then they vanished. I half-expected, after that, to hear the noise of battle from the stairs but there was nothing. Just the pounding of feet running upwards, and the sounds of Canadian voices mixed with French yelling and exclaiming from the gallery floor. They had found Ellwood Pymm, but the Arabs had gone.

  My hands cramped, my knees bruised, my joints aching, I reached the floor and stood, unaccountably shaking. Sullivan put his arms round me. Johnson, who had fallen a comfortable six feet into cushions, remained gracefully where he was. He was talking again. ‘There was another bloody way out. I thought there might be. They’ll have got clean away. Well, away.’

  He sounded more mellow than querulous. Someone, leaning down, took his arm and hauled him steadily upright. I saw it was the young man from the boat again, Oliver. Johnson, continuing without interruption said, ‘Look. Miss Helmann. Do you want to be questioned about all this? It’s fairly sensitive. Pymm will cover up, I should think, unless you want to make it all public.’

  I said, ‘What will Pymm say?’

  Oliver had removed his hand, and Johnson remained successfully standing. He said, ‘Theft – ransom – kidnap – he’ll make up some story. He’s a tipster after an exclusive – he won’t mention Kingsley’s. Anyway, you’re the one they were after.’

  ‘Kingsley’s?’ Colonel Sullivan said. ‘This had to do with Kingsley’s?’

  ‘This had to do with secret-mongering,’ said Johnson Johnson somewhat breathily. ‘And it may not stop there. Miss Helmann, my feeling is you ought to get out of public view quickly. Back to Marrakesh. Back to where they can’t easily trace you. If you like, I’ll take you now.’

  Sullivan turned, his arm round me still. He smelled of aftershave like Val Dres
den, and of sweat, which Val Dresden never did. He smelled safe. He said, ‘I’ll take her back in the Sunbeam.’

  ‘You could,’ Johnson said. Then he added, ‘No. She’d be quicker with me. Take Pymm. He’ll need cosseting. They gave him a hell of a time. And his bus has gone.’ He looked at Oliver, who was staring at him, and said, ‘All right. Come on. Let’s go.’

  I thought Sullivan would object, but he didn’t. He held my elbow as we walked out of the door into the late afternoon sunlight, and kept his arm round me all the time we hurried back to the harbour. Behind, Johnson drifted along with the muscular Oliver, who seemed to be complaining about something: perhaps that his employer was walking out on his two guests the Oppenheims. Behind that came Ellwood Pymm, proceeding feebly between two stalwart helpers.

  I found I didn’t want to talk much, even to Sullivan. I told him roughly what happened. I began to feel a little proud of it, when I heard how he took it. I was only sorry that I couldn’t make out who was behind it. It couldn’t be Johnson, after all. Johnson had helped me escape; had stopped me having to let down Sir Robert.

  ‘Then who?’ Sullivan said.

  But I didn’t know.

  At the harbour, the Sunbeam was waiting and Sullivan walked me towards it. ‘Look. Someone else can deal with Pymm. I’ll take you home.’

  As usual, the car was mobbed by boys. He tossed some coins to the youth he’d left guarding it, and I saw Johnson, somewhat hazily, was doing the same further up. It had crossed my mind to wonder how he had come so quickly from Marrakesh, and how he proposed to take me back anyway. Then I saw what he was wheeling towards me. Built like a nuclear power station, several hundredweight of custom-built Harley-Davidson motorbike. Seb said, ‘Christ.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ Johnson said, ‘I do not wish to be, but this lady is in too much demand for my liking. The quicker she’s elsewhere, the better. Miss Helmann, my favourite Executive Secretary, get on the pillion.’

  I might have refused. I changed my mind, I think, because of Oliver’s expression. Oliver said, ‘You ought to be binned.’ Johnson looked surprised. I hitched up my skirt, although it was almost brief enough anyway, and straddled the seat under the blue, annoyed gaze of Seb Sullivan. Then the Great Portrait Painter got into the saddle, turned the key, and gave a last, considering look round the harbour. His face was uniformly fawn, and his eyes were flat as old mud. Far down the quay, Dolly rocked in the water against the warm western sky. There was no sign of Muriel or her husband. Our rescuers stood on the quay, Ellwood Pymm in their midst. As I watched, they coaxed him towards the blue Sunbeam. His fine leather jacket hung about him like angel-hair pasta.

  Johnson said, ‘Hang on to my belt. There are absolutely no guarantees on this trip.’ And with a surge that made me clutch him like a carpet, he threw the Harley-Davidson forward, away from safe, sunny Essaouira and back to the workaday menace of Marrakesh.

  Chapter 9

  Night fell on Johnson and the Harley-Davidson and me almost immediately after we left Essaouira. One moment we were roaring through the oranges and the lemons and the mimosa, with the sun a flaming red disk in a wide rosy seascape behind us. Then the sky ahead became an interesting dull shade of violet; and it was hard to see the argan tree shadows, or the light and shade on the distant clay blocks that were buildings. For a moment more, the world behind us was pink, the warm scented air streamed past and, on the low hills, strings of camels stood like children’s black cut-outs.

  Then everything became dark, and a man on an old unlit bicycle wandered out of a track straight in front of us. Johnson swerved, shot off the road, scoured through a ditch of cold racing water, dashed between an unspecified number of unidentifiable trees, got back on to the road again and whined to a halt. He sat, one foot on the road and his eyes on the darkness ahead and said, ‘Should we take turn about?’

  It was the spirit, if not quite the voice, of the man in the lift at Kingsley Conglomerates. I wished I had gone in the Sunbeam. I thought I could hear, some way behind, the distinctive engine of the Sunbeam, being fast and properly driven by Seb Sullivan. Seb Sullivan’s job, as it turned out, had been to discredit Johnson, and Rita Geddes, and Reed. Johnson’s had been to cheat and lie to conceal his connection with MCG, while making waves over his portrait. Johnson had taken me to lunch at his club, and had just rescued me and Ellwood Pymm from a number of villains. The Colonel was good-looking and young and romantic and could drive really well. I said, ‘It’s your bike.’

  There was a thoughtful silence. Two cars without lights approached, shaved and passed us. He said, ‘I know. I remember buying it, and thinking it ought to go faster than a ‘26 Sunbeam. Silly, silly pride. You didn’t take a course on the Harley-Davidson?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Pity,’ he said; and turning the key in the ignition, resumed our erratic journey.

  I hadn’t noticed, until then, how he was steering. It hadn’t mattered, on an empty road lit by sunshine. On a lightless road, occupied by lightless traffic, it was dangerous. We met, fairly soon, another bicycle. We shot through a village, a skein of lamps overhead, and plunged immediately into frightening darkness. The powerful light of the bike picked up, disastrously and too late, a group of camels plodding homewards with their driver. He missed the main group, but a youngster, snorting, ran zigzagging before us for half a mile. At that point, again, it seemed to me that I could hear the vintage car engine behind us. Then the beast ran aside, and the bike resumed its thundering top speed again.

  The headlight picked up the blank red wall of an enclave, and then a row of booths half-lit by candles. Blackness, wind, the whipping of trees and, suddenly, a single lightbulb illuminating a cubicle filled with spare engine parts, and another lined with bottles and tins, and yet another filled with sacks of provender. The Electra Glide swooped and swirled, never quite hitting anything but never quite keeping straight. From time to time, when he skidded or slowed, I thought I heard the chug of the Sunbeam. I said, ‘You don’t know how to drive this thing, do you?’

  For a while, he didn’t reply. A dog dashed out and was nearly killed. A lorry approached, and we bounced into a ditch and back out of it. Eventually he said, ‘I have a slight problem. Don’t worry. Do you see something ahead?’

  I thought he was testing my eyesight. Naturally, I saw something ahead. I saw a bright rectangle of flares, and a tent illuminated from within, and a number of jack-booted men wearing breeches and helmets. I said, ‘Yes, of course. It’s a road block. Shouldn’t you be slowing down?’ And then, at last, I realised what was wrong. A fawn-coloured face and eyes which, viewed at close quarters were quite ordinary and indeed rather blank. Eyes without bifocal glasses.

  I said, ‘You can’t see where you’re going!’

  ‘The central problem facing mankind. It’s all right,’ Johnson said. ‘I have another pair in Marrakesh. Just tell me from time to time where the road is. I suppose we have to stop?’

  For a moment, I think he actually intended to crash on. If he did, he thought better of it. Already, the police were flagging him down. He slowed. He stopped. A dark, burly man stepped to his side with a dog and said, ‘Monsieur, your papers, please?’ And Johnson slowly dismounted.

  I got down too, because the dog was going crazy. In hot weather, I don’t fancy Alsatians. Johnson didn’t fancy this one either: he kept side-stepping as the dog pranced and pawed at him. The burly man said, ‘Monsieur? Perhaps monsieur would accompany me to the cabin?’

  There was a hut by the tent, with loud radio music coming from it. I said, ‘Do you want me to come too?’

  Johnson produced the hint of a smile. It was not something he did very often, and when he did, his glasses usually hid it. This time there was something about it that worried me. He said, ‘There is absolutely no need for you to disturb yourself. You are totally covered by insurance.’ Then, wandering off, he followed the man into the hut.

  There followed a wait. Traffic arrived, was stopped, and either sho
wed its papers or had its particulars taken down. A lorry found itself impounded. A flock of goats was allowed by. The air grew cooler and I began to think with increasing kindness of hotels and their minor facilities. I went to find myself a large bush, was restrained, and ended up with a pail in the comfort tent. I emerged, my view of Johnson much jaundiced. He had still not appeared. I returned to the bike and my viewpoint. A pale blue Sunbeam was standing at the road block. Seb Sullivan said, ‘Wendy! I thought you’d be home by now! Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘They’re questioning Johnson,’ I said. I didn’t feel like calling him Mister. I had stopped thinking of him as Mister some time ago.

  ‘Now, why would that be?’ Sullivan said. He looked cheerful and friendly and Irish. In the yellow light, his hair turned the shade of thick honey. Beside him, Ellwood Pymm was asleep, his crewcut lolling against the leather upholstery. I wished again that Ellwood Pymm had gone with Johnson and I’d come back with Seb, even though Pymm could never have stood all the worry.

  I didn’t know why they were questioning Johnson. Before I could say so, I saw the hut door was opening, and several people were leaving together. In the middle was Johnson, without his spectacles. A look of demure complaisance appeared to have become permanently attached to his features. The men round about him looked dazed. The dog, which had been in the hut too, suddenly bounded forward and began to make barking jumps at Seb Sullivan. Ellwood Pymm woke up and said, ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a Moroccan dog,’ Johnson said. ‘Very friendly. Offer it sugar. You will excuse us, Seb, won’t you? We have to get on to Marrakesh.’

  He had got tanked up in some way in the hut. I could hear it in his voice. I said, ‘Why don’t I go back in the Sunbeam?’

  ‘Why not?’ Johnson said. He waved a hand, and made his way to the Harley. He had found his way into the saddle when the dog, leaping into Seb’s car, went off its head. Ellwood Pymm’s small pink mouth again opened, and Sullivan started to stride about, shouting. The officer of the patrol invited them, politely, to enter the hut. I walked across to the Harley and stopped. ‘Want a lift?’ Johnson said.