Michael Pearce - A dead man in Tangier

‘Not you, Monsieur, but, perhaps, the always slow riders, of whom you would have been aware-’

‘Getting in the way. That fool, Digoin! And Leblanc. Why that man bothers to turn up at all, I cannot think. His head is in the clouds, Monsieur. He rides in a dream. He does not know, Monsieur, that it is a hunt. You chase the animal, yes? But not Leblanc. He is chasing rainbows! Or something the rest of us don’t see.’

‘Frustrating, frustrating!’ said Seymour. ‘But, Monsieur, I wondered if there was someone else. Someone, perhaps, who was a good rider, and a real huntsman, but who had, perhaps, joined the chase late? Who overtook the slower riders, even yourself-’

‘He wouldn’t have, not if I’d had a proper-’

‘The others, perhaps, would not have been aware of it, but you, Monsieur, with your feel for the hunt and your sense of the chase as a whole, might well have noticed it. Someone coming up fast, and late…?’

Ricard thought.

‘I think I was aware of someone doing that,’ he said. ‘Out of the corner of my eye. You understand, Monsieur, that at my age one cannot afford to take one’s eye off — But, yes, I think I did notice someone coming up late.’

But, alas, Monsieur Ricard had few details to add. If he had seen someone, it had been only out of the corner of his eye. And that eye did not, perhaps, see as keenly these days as it once had done.

And Monsieur Digoin, that terror with the lance, although mostly to his own side, whom they called on afterwards, saw things, sadly, even more narrowly. In fact, he confessed shame-facedly, he didn’t see much at all.

‘It is wrong, I know,’ he said, ‘but I do like riding. I have ridden all my life, you see, and it is hard to give up now. I keep at the back. Out of the melee. I don’t think I do any harm. The horse takes care of me. We are two old-stagers, fellow travellers, and we know each other. I rely on Agamemnon to bring me back. When he has had enough, then so have I.’

Had Monsieur Digoin been aware of a rider joining late? Alas, he wasn’t aware of any other rider. He rode at the back, and his horse helped him from colliding with anyone else, but as for seeing them — well, Monsieur Digoin participated with enthusiasm but saw, as through a glass, darkly.

And Monsieur Leblanc, the over-mild Monsieur Leblanc? He was a sweetie and quite charming. But, alas, the French zeal for the chase, so extolled by Monsieur L’Espinasse, seemed to have gone quite missing in his case. He did, indeed, ride in a cloud, aware of little around him save the pleasant warmth of the sun, the whisper of the wind in his ears, the satisfying surge of the horse beneath him and, far off, the excited cries of the huntsmen.

‘As in The Seasons,’ he said.

The Seasons?

‘Haydn’s piece, you know. I’ve always thought the music very evocative.’

Well, yes. Yes. No doubt. But had Monsieur Leblanc seen-?

Someone joining late? Surely they had all started at the same time? He was always careful, himself, not to be late, it was such a nuisance to everyone else True, true, but possibly someone had unavoidably-?

Monsieur Leblanc, anxious to oblige, thought deep. And, yes, he thought he had been aware of someone coming up fast. Too fast. Going like the wind, that wind that whispered so soothingly in Monsieur Leblanc’s ears, the wind that blew the overtaking rider’s hair so straight behind him What?

Hair? Was Monsieur Leblanc saying that the rider was a woman?

Good heavens, no! It was just that as he had passed, Monsieur Leblanc had looked up, surprised, yes, surprised, he hadn’t expected someone to be coming up so fast behind him, and he had seen — well, he might not have seen correctly but this was what had struck him, the rider’s long hair flowing back behind him On reflection, yes, it was puzzling. He couldn’t think of anyone in the hunt with such long hair. He himself favoured short back and sides. And certainly the soldiers — well, they had their hair absolutely shaven! Maybe he’d got it wrong. It had all happened so quickly. The rider had come up from behind him, riding very fast. He hadn’t seen him coming and then, suddenly, there he was! Passing him. He had overtaken him ‘in a flash’ and disappeared into the distance. But he had noticed Or had he noticed? It had all happened so quickly.

Had he noticed anything else apart from this one, astonishing, feature? Something about the clothes, perhaps? Or the horse? The colour of the horse, say?

It had all happened so quickly! The rider had passed ‘as in a dream’.

As in a dream. Yes, knowing Monsieur Leblanc, Seymour could quite believe that!

The next morning when Seymour left the hotel there was no Mustapha and Idris outside waiting for him. In a way he was relieved, although he was also slightly disappointed. He had grown quite attached to them. But a bodyguard was hardly necessary. True, he had been glad of their aid when that pig had rushed out: but wild pigs were unlikely to be rushing out often, certainly not in the middle of Tangier, and he could see no other pressing need for defence. Their constant presence was, indeed, slightly embarrassing. How would it look to the people back at home if Macfarlane conveyed to them that two small-time crooks and drug dealers had lovingly attached themselves to their Man in Tangiers and devotedly followed him around wherever he went? So perhaps it was best But just at that moment Mustapha appeared round the corner.

‘I am sorry, Monsieur, but you have to wait here. Idris has business.’

‘Yes, well, I have business, too-’

‘Idris’s business,’ said Mustapha, ‘is your business.’

‘My business?’

But Mustapha would say no more. They had to wait until Idris either arrived or sent a message. Mustapha sat down in the shade of the wall. Seymour stood around uncertainly for a while and then sat down on the hotel steps. He wondered if he should go inside and find somewhere more comfortable and less conspicuous to sit. Then he wondered why he was waiting, anyway. This, he couldn’t help thinking, was another thing that wouldn’t look good if word got back to the Foreign Office or Scotland Yard; their man hanging around at the behest of a couple of drug dealers!

Chantale came out of the door, saw him, raised an eyebrow, smiled (was it pityingly?) and then went back inside. To write, no doubt. But what was she writing? Her bloody gossip column, probably. Another, alarming, thought struck him. Might he not be about to figure in it? He would imagine all sorts of barbed comments about people out from London. And, meanwhile, ought he not to be getting on with-?

At that point a small boy appeared. He went up to Mustapha and whispered in his ear. Mustapha stood up.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ve got him!’

Exactly who had they got, wondered Seymour with misgiving? And what, in their world, did they mean by ‘got’?

He would see, said Mustapha confidently, and they set off across the city with the small boy.

He led them to a large yard out of which carts were rumbling. A man was sitting glumly in the dust and Idris was standing over him ostentatiously fingering the dagger at his belt.

A man came out of the stables.

‘Idris, I do this for you because you are my friend. But a cart has to be driven and-’

Idris held up a hand.

‘It will be driven. Wait but a moment. My friends will be here and then — and here they are!’

‘Don’t worry, Mohammed!’ said Mustapha soothingly to the man who had come out of the stables. ‘This will not be forgotten.’

‘I shall be out of a job,’ said the man sitting on the ground. ‘And that won’t be forgotten, either.’

‘Ten minutes, no more!’ warned the man who had come out of the stables. ‘No more!’