Page 60 of The Last Postcard

‘Ah.’ Abdelhamid sat back, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘The game is finished. Now we can ask Mouad.’

Mouad was an older, broader version of Abdelhamid, in his late sixties but still bulky with muscle, dressed in a sports jacket despite the heat. He had the same quick eyes as his brother, the same easy, mocking smile that widened when Abdel asked him about the writing case.

‘You think I remember one bag?’ he said. ‘We had fifty, at the shop, a hundred!’

‘But we had this one for a long time,’ Abdel insisted, speaking English for Sam’s benefit. ‘A small case, with gold letters. We had it twenty years, perhaps. You brought it in, I am sure.’

‘It belonged to an Englishman,’ Sam added hopefully.

‘English.’ The crease between Mouad’s eyebrows deepened. ‘Maybe it came from the English police, then. When the station closed, we took many things from there.’

‘What things?’ The word police rang in Sam’s ears.

Mouad shrugged. ‘Just things. They had a lot. Bags, coats, shoes. Perhaps taken from a person who did a crime, or as evidence. I am not sure. But when the English police left in … the fifties?’ He looked to Abdel for confirmation. ‘They sold all these small things, cheap. I bought some. Maybe that is where the case came from.’

‘Was that legal?’ The minute Sam asked it, he felt stupid. The brothers laughed.

‘They were not going to pay to send it back to England,’ Mouad smiled. ‘And anyway, no one cared. The crimes were old. The things didn’t matter any more.’

Sam frowned. If the writing case had been taken as evidence, what did that mean for the suitcase, abandoned at the hotel, as if someone had just disappeared? What did it mean for Alejandro del Potro? He tried to pull his mind back to the café.

‘And have you ever heard of a place called Dar Portuna?’ he asked. ‘Dar Nglîz, Abdel said it’s sometimes called. An Englishman lives there.’

‘Dar Nglîz.’ Mouad nodded. ‘Up by the wall, yes. You think the case came from there?’ He glanced rapidly at Abdelhamid. Sam turned, trying to see the other man’s face, only to find Abdel looking pointedly in the other direction. ‘No Englishman has lived at Dar Nglîz for a long time,’ Mouad continued slowly, still looking at his brother. ‘Some others, maybe, but not an Englishman.’

‘That’s not true.’ The words were out of Sam’s mouth before he could stop them. ‘His name is Langham, Arthur Langham.’

Mouad was shaking his head. ‘There was an Englishman who lived there, many years ago. I was only a boy, but I remember the story. Shall I tell you?’ Although the question was directed at Sam, he couldn’t help but feel that Mouad was asking for permission. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw Abdelhamid give an almost imperceptible nod.

‘Yes,’ Sam said, watching both men. ‘Please.’

‘OK.’ Mouad shifted, looking a little uncertain. ‘They say that, one night, the Englishman heard Aicha Kandicha call his name from the strait. He took a boat out to look for her.’ Mouad lowered his voice. ‘Of course, the boat sank. They say there was a party that night, up at Dar Nglîz. They say the man could see the lights of his house as he drowned.’

A shudder went down Sam’s spine.

‘That must have happened to someone else,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Not to Langham. I saw him. I spoke to him, just yesterday.’

He looked between the two brothers. This time, it was Abdelhamid who shook his head.

‘There have been many rumours about the people who live at Dar Nglîz, but Mouad is right. There has not been an Englishman at the house since that day.’ He looked at Sam over his coffee, a hint of a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. ‘Whoever you spoke to, he must have been a ghost.’

Temptation

Take a piece of orange peel and a piece of lemon peel and twist them together. Soak them in two dashes of Dubonnet Rouge, two dashes of absinthe and two dashes of Curaçao. Pour in a jigger of Canadian Club whisky and stir until inextricably mixed.

He isn’t who he says he is.

Identity can be a slippery thing. It is easy to see a fine suit and a hat and say gentleman when you should be saying stranger or thief or liar. And yet, we are drawn to those in who we see ourselves, for better or for worse.

I was drawn to Langham, though I couldn’t begin to untangle what my attraction consisted of. So I did as I had been brought up to do at the inn: to watch, to listen, to needle out the information I needed to ensure my safety. I began to linger in corridors and doorways obsessively, hoping to catch a fragment of conversation. I dropped whatever I was doing when the telephone rang, hoping to beat Bouzid to it and hear who was calling. I never did. He was too conscientious for that. It did not stop me from trying to wrangle information from him, especially when I found out that he – for all his stoicism – had a sweet tooth. After that, I bought the best sweet pastries from the medina in an attempt to win his trust.

Much good it did me. He told me some things, true; where to find the best olives, and who Lady Bailey paid for opium, which diplomats brought their mistresses to dinner rather than their wives and who could be relied upon to cause trouble at parties. But on the subject of Langham, he was resolutely and frustratingly silent. What was it, that made him dust the sugar from his hands and leave the kitchen, whenever I asked a question about the man we worked for? Had Langham also made him swear loyalty? Perhaps Bouzid had sworn and meant it, unlike me. I still did not know whether I was capable of loyalty.

Perhaps Lady Bailey’s words had some impact on Langham after all, for I saw even less of him, and began to wonder if he was avoiding me. His absence affected me almost more than his presence. The heat from our encounter by the pool hadn’t yet left my body, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t ignore it.

Too dangerous, I thought, in an attempt to silence it. Langham thought I was a boy. If I went too far, if he found out the truth, what then? Every night, I found myself reliving the encounter on the terrace in my mind, until I had to open my eyes and read a chapter of The Gentleman’s Guide to distract myself.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it, and one day, having heard the gate close behind Langham, I crept up the stairs into his room. Even before I pulled the wardrobe door open, I knew what I would find. The bloodstained suit was gone. In its place, coiled like a snake, was the green silk tie. A taunt? An invitation? I took it up with shaking hands, and returned to the kitchen.