Page 81 of The Last Postcard

Cabrera smiled. ‘Good girl. Let’s talk business.’

Tangier

July 1978

Sam had heard many stories about wild times on the road during his travels; run-ins with border police in Spain and train cops in France and narcos in Italy. They were one thing. Actually waking up after a night in a Moroccan jail was quite another.

Idiot. He sat up from the thin mat, his neck cricked out of shape. Goddam idiot.

His knuckles still ached a little from the impact with Norton’s chin. Or was it from the wall he’d collided with, as the security guard shoved him down the stairs? He didn’t remember. It was all so messy. Norton had yelled about police, sure, but Sam hadn’t thought he was serious until the security guard had dumped him in front of two bored-looking Moroccan cops.

When trying to explain didn’t work, he’d handed over all the money he had on him, in the hope they’d let him go. For a minute, it looked like they would. Then, one of them had pulled the old forged passport from his pocket and their expressions had changed. They’d looked at each other, and shrugged, had hauled him off to the lock-up instead.

They’d given him one phone call, like they did in the movies. His fingers had hovered above the smeared digits. He couldn’t phone his parents, anyway, the police would never allow him an international call. Not the American embassy – that would mean expulsion from Tangier. As far as he knew Abdelhamid didn’t have a phone. So he did the only thing he could think of: dialled the operator and asked, in bad French, to be put through to Dar Portuna.

The operator paused when she heard that. A moment later she told him that there was no such place. Of course. In the end, out of options, he had asked to be put through to The Hold.

Thankfully, Roger answered. He said he’d tell Bet and the others as soon as he could, that they’d all do their best to help. And if they didn’t, or couldn’t? Sam didn’t want to think about it.

The other men in the cell were waking up now, wincing and yawning. There were four of them, all Moroccan, Sam guessed. Three had been there when he arrived, one had been shunted in during the night, a young man with long hair, wearing jeans and a ripped t-shirt. His nose was swollen and crusted with dried blood. When he saw Sam was awake, he half smiled and nodded.

‘Hola,’ he said, and pointed to himself. ‘Amir.’

‘Sam.’ He shook the man’s hand. Was he meant to do that? He had no idea about prison etiquette.

‘American?’ the young man asked.

Sam nodded, rubbing at his face. His eyes felt gritty, face caked in sweat and grime from the sweltering room.

‘¿Por qué …?’ Amir gestured around the cell, looking incredulous.

‘A fight.’ Sam held up his bruised knuckles. ‘You?’

Amir shook his head, as if he didn’t understand. One of the older Moroccan men said something, and the others laughed sourly.

The young man kept his gaze on the floor after that. Eventually, he took some tobacco out of his jeans pocket.

‘Do you have papers?’ Sam asked, feeling in his own pockets.

The kif dust he shook from the lining was negligible, but Amir’s face lit up when he saw it. Carefully, they rolled it into a cigarette. One of the other men hammered on the door. A heated negotiation went on, until finally, a guard was passed the joint to light. After taking the first few puffs for himself, he passed it back into the cell.

Amir smoked, then passed it to Sam. He took a drag, trying to figure out what he was going to do. What if he was deported, before he had a chance to go back to Dar Portuna, to see Ale and Zahrah and explain? It was unthinkable. He coughed out a little smoke, and passed the joint back to Amir, who passed it on to the next man.

He shouldn’t have let himself get so angry, he thought, watching as one of the other men accepted the joint with a nod of thanks. And the stupid thing about it all was that Norton had been right. Crimes had been committed in the past, and in the present too, most likely, whether he ignored them or not. He had been charmed by Ale’s tale. He had wanted stories full of glamour and danger, rather than the grim reality of the present.

He was about to try and ask the men what would happen to them all next, when the door clanged again, and the guard stuck his head inside.

‘Vamos,’ he said to Sam.

Amir smiled and gestured as if to say there, you see. Sam didn’t know what it meant, whether he’d be thrown back again in five minutes; nevertheless, he leaned down and shook the young man’s hand. Then, because it seemed rude not to, he shook the hands of the other three men in the room, who looked up at him with varying degrees of amusement and confusion.

Out in the lobby, beneath the sluggish ceiling fan, a familiar figure was waiting.

‘Bet!’ He rushed forwards to hug her, though he knew he must have smelled terrible. ‘Thank god, thank you so much for coming.’

She pushed him back a little, patting his arm. He hardly recognized her. She was dressed in a prim tweed skirt suit, a scarf tied around her head, like a little British grandmother. Holding on to his arm, she turned and asked the officer at the desk something in Darija. The policeman began to root around beneath the counter. Finally, he came up with the passport.

‘That’s—’ Sam started to say, but Bet cut him off, taking the document with a tight smile and tucking it into her handbag. Then she was steering Sam towards the door, her grip like iron.