Page 93 of The Last Postcard

‘It feels so strange without Ale,’ Zahrah whispered. When her fingers brushed his, he took her hand, squeezing it tight.

Together, they walked slowly through the entrance hall, towards the quiet, dust-filled rooms. Sam peered up the stairs as they passed, his skin prickling all over. He almost expected to hear footsteps, to see a young Alejandro come running down, hear the warble of a gramophone and Hilde calling out from the veranda, to see Langham look up from the desk as they stepped into the study.

‘This is where I found the envelopes,’ Zahrah said.

There was a strange smell in the room. Something sharp, at odds with the old leather and worm-eaten wood. Smoke, Sam realized; smoke and burned paper. In the grate, a huge pile of ash had been pushed to one side. Dropping his bag, he knelt and picked out a fragment of dull green cardboard that might have belonged to a file.

‘Ale spent all night in here.’ Zahrah was standing over him. ‘All the drawers and ledgers are empty. Everything was burned, I think, except for what she left me. And what she left you.’

Reaching into his bag, he pulled out the envelope with his name on, and shook out the pages. The rest of Ale’s story, unfinished. He sank into the creaking armchair, déjà vu shimmering across his mind.

‘Go on,’ Zahrah said. ‘Read it.’

Blinking hard, he turned the pages until he found where they’d left off.

‘“Old—”’ he began and stopped.

‘What is it?’

‘“Old Pal”,’ he said, disbelieving. ‘“Take a pony of Canadian whisky, a pony of Campari and a pony of French vermouth” … for god’s sake.’

Zahrah laughed, though her eyes were bright with tears. ‘That’s so like Ale,’ she said. ‘What does the rest say?’

He had to clear his throat before continuing. ‘“Stir into a cocktail glass and drink to friends, absent, old and new.”’

Zahrah wiped at her face. ‘I think we had better do as we’re told.’

Together, they hunted through the dozens of bottles on the bar, some of which looked decades old, perhaps even from Langham’s day, their labels torn, containing nothing but sticky residue.

Sam found himself glancing over at Zahrah. What was he doing here? A few hours before he’d been slammed in a cell, and now here he was, in a decaying villa, making drinks with a woman who … He looked down rapidly at the bottles.

Don’t go there. You have to go home.

Finally, they had two glasses of liquor before them, glowing in the afternoon sun.

‘To friends,’ Zahrah said. ‘Absent, old and new.’

They touched glasses, and drank. It was incredibly strong.

‘Ready?’ Zahrah asked, glancing at the pages.

He swallowed down the taste of the past, of what might be his last drink in Tangier.

‘Ready.’

Old Pal

Take a pony of Canadian whisky, a pony of Campari and a pony of French vermouth. Stir into a cocktail glass and drink to friends, absent, old and new.

I have cared for many people in my life, whether I have wanted to or not. That’s the trick of friendship. You can lock your doors, board up your gate, and still, some soul will find a way in, slipping through your shutters, creeping over your walls, tripping and falling face first into your life and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

I class you as a friend, Samuel, though a new one. Zahrah too, now more like family to me. Both of you came uninvited, trespassers into my life. But I am glad of it. Once, I was the person who climbed the wall. I was the one who crashed into a life unasked for. Should I have been surprised then, by what Langham did to me? Perhaps not.

But at the time … I felt as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped the insides from me, guts and heart and all. I was wretched. I was terrified. And most of all, I was furious with myself.

At the inn, I’d watched people deceive themselves over and over; the girls, the clients, Elena, even Morales. I had thought I was above it all. But of course, I was not. I had spun myself falsehoods out of jasmine and smoke, bound my hands with white flannel and silk and stepped smiling into a trap of my own making.

Langham had shown me over and again what he was – traitor, liar, charlatan – and I had chosen not to see it. I wouldn’t wish that on you, he had told me, when I said I wanted to be like him. But I hadn’t listened, and as a result I found myself in danger, facing what could have been the Spanish police, extradition, and the end.