Page 29 of The Last Postcard

‘Wait.’ He caught the waiter’s arm as he turned away. ‘This man, have you seen him before? Does he come here regularly?’

The waiter shrugged, freeing himself. He’s been paid, Sam realized, watching the man hurry away towards the kitchens. He’s been paid to stay quiet.

Stunned, he turned back to the table, to the impossible letter. HACKETT. Hardly daring to touch it, in case it crumbled into nothing, he eased open the envelope and peered inside.

A single sheet of paper. Not his letter at all. This paper was clean, new, covered in neat black writing.

Dear Mr Hackett,

You have something of mine. I would like it back.

Please reply, outlining how much you will take for the case. Leave your response with Khalid, the manager here. Do not try to contact me by any other mean.

Regards,

A

White Lion

Take one teaspoonful of white sugar, and the juice of half a lime, dropping the spent rind into the glass. Add one wine glass of Santa Cruz rum, one teaspoonful of Curaçao and one teaspoonful of imported grenadine. Shake well with ice, and strain. Cool and deceptively sharp.

Why do certain individuals have the power to change a person’s life, above all others? To anyone else, they might be a face in the crowd, the tip of a hat at an open door, but to that one person …

They are the branch that falls on to the track and derails the train; they are the cigarette that starts the house fire, the one drink too many that pushes a night into chaos.

That’s what he was to me. I knew it the second we locked eyes, the second before I was hit by the car.

Not badly. He was too fast for that. Our eyes met, I knew, and he acted, sending the car veering away from where I stood. Still, the running board clipped my leg and sent me spinning to the ground.

For a moment, everything was a fog of dust, the world reeling around me. The car’s wheel was five feet from my head, and in its mirror-bright hubcap, I saw a face.

A boy was looking back at me. He had ragged dark hair and a fading bruise across his nose. There were purple rings beneath his eyes and blood on his lip. I spluttered out a breath and the boy did the same, droplets spattering the ground. Blood and sand …

All around, voices were shouting, feet scuffing. My English wasn’t as good then, but nevertheless I picked up some of what was being said. The British soldiers were angry, pointing at me and shouting, their candy-coloured faces redder than usual. I heard the words beggar and lying, more than once. I was afraid they would punish me for getting in the way of the car, and tried to rise, only to feel a stab of pain in my leg. I cried out, and fell back to the dust.

That’s when he appeared. Leather shoes like browned butter, the hem of linen trousers as pale as the car itself, silver flashing from his cuffs, and finally his face: his saint’s face, brought down from its altar.

It wasn’t flawless; nothing truly beautiful is. It was tanned, not the rough, burned tan of the British soldiers, but bronzed – that’s the word, bronzed – as though burnished by an artisan. As he took off his hat I saw brown hair, slicked gold by sun and pomade. Finally, I looked into his eyes, peering over the dark lenses. They were brown as well-worn wood, like the butt of a gun, like the handle of a knife.

‘Boy,’ he said in English. ‘Are you hurt?’

Above the dust I caught his scent, musk and soap and something rich I couldn’t name, and when he reached out a hand to me, I flinched away, ashamed of my grime. The movement made me cough, and in utter horror, I saw a droplet of blood from my lip land on his shoe.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the blood is what did it. You see, when he saw it staining my lips and teeth, he was afraid that my insides had been damaged, that I might die then and there on the road, and he might be held accountable.

‘He’s badly hurt,’ he told the soldiers. ‘I am taking him to a doctor, and I don’t care to be held up about it.’

‘Sir, with all respect he’s just as likely acting,’ one of them answered. ‘He’s been here all morning, begging—’

‘Be that as it may, I won’t be easy until I’ve had a doctor look at him.’

‘There are doctors in La Atunara.’

‘Over there? Quacks and butchers. No, I have to insist. An English doctor.’

‘Has he any identification with him? Any passport?’

Even in my state, I heard that word well enough. Passport. They meant papers, and of course, I had none. I couldn’t let them search me. If they found out I was a woman, they would be suspicious. Who knew if they’d heard about the murder in Córdoba? The next time their voices turned in my direction, I coughed and gave a terrible groan of agony.