Page 55 of The Last Postcard

A,

I am sorry.

One day, I hope you’ll understand.

He sat back, uneasy. What did it mean, and why had it never been sent? Why had it remained, hidden in the writing case, when it was obviously so important?

I was there, the night it happened. I saw him. I saw them both.

Could he believe Lillian, old and ill as she was? Something had happened at the grand house, back in 1928, Sam was certain of that. His skin prickled. Alejandro del Potro’s fate was still unknown. All Sam knew was that he had left a passport behind. What if Alejandro was A, and Langham had done something terrible?

Sighing, he slid the letter back into the writing case and closed the lid. He felt as if he was chasing phantoms around the city; A. L. had become Arthur Langham, the strange figure he had pursued through the medina had become a young woman. When would Alejandro del Potro reveal himself, step from the passport photograph into life?

He itched to get back to Dar Portuna. By two o’clock in the afternoon, he couldn’t stand waiting any more, and headed towards the medina.

His feet took their usual route, past the pigeon-haunted wreck of the Cinema Rif, up towards the Place de France and the Gran Café. Outside the El Minzah, he stopped. Norton usually took a nap at his hotel before returning to work after lunch. Sam had hours yet to kill, and a cool drink in the bar wouldn’t go amiss. Maybe he could even borrow a tie …

‘Hack!’ Norton exclaimed, striding from the elevators. ‘What a nice surprise.’ His face was puffy from sleep, eyes a little reddened. They widened at the sight of the suitcase in Sam’s hand. ‘Don’t tell me you’re leaving?’

Sam smiled. ‘No. I’m just …’ He hesitated. He hadn’t told Norton about the suitcase yet, or what it contained.

‘Does that belong to your old man?’ Norton asked.

‘Yeah. How’d you know?’

‘Same leather, same initials.’ Norton pointed at the top of the case. ‘Obviously part of a set. You pick that up from your kif broker, too?’

Sam nodded slowly, unsure about why he was lying. It seemed easier than trying to explain the bizarre series of events at the Hotel Continental. That was his story, part of what he was writing, still private.

‘Anything good inside?’

‘Just clothes.’ He tried to sound casual.

‘And your old man wants them back?’

‘It’s sentimental, I think,’ Sam said, turning away. ‘Time for a quick drink?’

‘’Fraid not.’ Norton looked towards the bar mournfully. ‘But walk me to the office?’

They crossed the busy street and went along in silence for a while.

‘This old chap,’ Norton said. ‘You met him then?’

Sam nodded. ‘I worked out where he lived. A huge old place in the casbah called Dar Portuna. It looks abandoned, but it isn’t.’

‘And you’re going to take that back to him?’

‘Yes. This evening.’ He walked on, thinking about it all again. Langham had talked for hours yesterday, but he hadn’t actually answered anything. Was he hiding something? Was there another way to find out?

‘You all right?’ Norton said, when they arrived outside a modern-looking building near the American Embassy. ‘You’ve hardly said a word.’

Sam nodded vaguely. ‘I was just thinking … how long has there been an Interpress office here in Tangier? Do you know?’

Norton chucked the end of his cigarette into the gutter. ‘I do, in fact. We’ve been here since nineteen twenty-one, venerable establishment that we are. They told me that at orientation last week. Don’t say I never listen.’

1921. Sam tried to keep the excitement from his voice, but it was no good. ‘Do you have archives, in there? You must, right?’

‘Of course, in the basement.’ Norton narrowed his eyes. ‘Why, what are you after?’