Page 50 of The Last Postcard

After what felt like an age, he nodded. ‘Very well, del Potro. I will consider your request, if you can assure me of two things. First, that you will not bring trouble to my house.’

I shook my head rapidly.

‘I will not, monsieur.’

‘Second –’ Langham paused ‘– that you will give me one thing, without question or condition.’

I swallowed, feeling a pulse beat in my throat. ‘Which is?’

He closed the passport and held it towards me.

‘Your loyalty.’

Tangier

July 1978

‘A drink?’

Sam looked up, trying to bring his thoughts back into some kind of order. He’d been staring, trying to take everything in: the expensive rug on the floor, the varnished desk, the bookshelves lined with ledgers, the small, curved bar built into one corner of the room, and the person who stood behind it …

‘Yes.’ The word stuck in his throat, and he coughed. ‘Yes, thanks.’

He watched as the man confidently took up spirit bottles and a measure, scooped ice from a bucket and shook droplets of who knew what into a measuring glass. Only when the clinking of the stirrer stopped could Sam bring himself to speak.

‘Who are you?’

It wasn’t the sort of question he should have asked, but he couldn’t help it; his thoughts were a mess of what he’d imagined and what he’d written, what he’d heard from Lillian Simcox and what he’d read in the strange exchange of notes.

There was a grunt of laughter from the bar.

‘Who do you think I am?’

He’s playing with me. Sam gripped the case. ‘You’re A. L. Arthur Langham. You’re the person who owned this case, and the suitcase I found. You’re the one who wrote—’ He stopped. He hadn’t yet said anything about the discovery of that short, desperate, pencil-written plea. The old man at the bar was watching him closely.

‘Wrote?’

‘The notes to me, at the Gran Café de Paris. And stole my letter?’

The man smiled a little, pouring the drinks. ‘Yes. I am sorry. I was rather surprised, you see. I had not seen that –’ he pointed to the writing case ‘– for fifty years. I could not believe my eyes.’ He stepped out from behind the bar. ‘I had to know who you were, why you had it.’

‘You could’ve just asked me.’ The man didn’t reply. Sam felt as though he’d said something stupid. ‘You could’ve agreed to meet me at the café,’ he ploughed on. ‘Then I wouldn’t have tried to find this place.’

The man crossed the room slowly, as if one hip was paining him. ‘Mr Hackett, I have my reasons for acting as I have. Just as you, no doubt, have yours.’ He held out a glass. In the twilight it glowed ochre-gold, beaded with ice.

Sam took the glass. ‘Thanks,’ he said, groping after some kind of normality in the charged room. ‘I’m sure all of this can be explained easily enough—’

‘Why on earth would you think that?’ The man raised his eyebrows. ‘It cannot be easily explained and you would not have come here if you wanted it to be. You’re a writer, Mr Hackett, I know that much. You don’t want something easy and plain. You want something tricky and tangled.’ He smiled. ‘You want a story.’

‘That’s not,’ Sam stammered, ‘I mean, I don’t want to pry—’

‘But you do. You want to pull up the surface of the world and see what’s underneath.’ The man took a sip of his drink. ‘You’ve come to the right place to do it. Tangiers is nothing but layers. Pull off the paper and you’ll find a dozen stories. Scratch the plaster and you’ll end up with a saga beneath your fingernails.’ The man lowered himself into a chair. ‘This city is built on stories. And right now, there is a new one being written. By you.’

‘Yes,’ Sam murmured, as if at confession.

‘And to write your story, you have to hear mine? Isn’t that so?’

‘Yes,’ he said again.