Michael Pearce - A dead man in Tangier

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t have dragged you here.’

‘Couldn’t keep him away,’ said Mustapha.

‘It takes me back,’ said Idris.

‘You know the Chleuhs?’

‘Grew up with them. In the mountains.’

He hesitated.

‘I was just wondering…’ he said.

‘Yes, Idris?’

‘If I might go and have a word with them.’

‘I think there could be one or two people trying to do that, Idris.’

‘To ask them about the village!’ said Idris indignantly.

The next morning he went to find Mr Bahnini. The cafe across the road was empty.

‘Not there yet, then?’ he said to Mr Bahnini.

‘Sadiq and his friends? They’re still in bed. They think they’re still at university.’

Seymour followed him into his office. He took out the scraps of paper he had found in Bossu’s filing cabinet and laid them before him.

‘Azrou, Immauzer and Tafilalet. Notice anything about these places?’

‘They’re all in the south.’

‘And scattered. Not in a line, as I thought at first they might be. I thought they might be along the line of the projected railway and that Bossu might be going ahead fixing things. As he should have done in Casablanca. But, no, it couldn’t be that. So what then?’

Mr Bahnini shook his head.

‘Why might you go to them?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t-’

‘People. They’re about the only places in the interior with people, aren’t they?’

‘Tafilalet is really just an oasis,’ said Mr Bahnini.

‘But you’d need to go there, wouldn’t you, if you were travelling around? And looking for people?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t see why Monsieur Bossu should be looking for-’

‘Not Bossu. Someone else. Someone who is already down in the south. And wants people on his side.’

‘You’re suggesting-?’

‘Moulay Hafiz. The Sultan’s rebellious half-brother. Going from place to place, to all the big places, anyway, trying to build up support.’

‘And Bossu?’

‘Taking him something that he would need. Money. It would fit, wouldn’t it? The dates show that Bossu visited the places at different times. Why? Because Moulay was there at different times — he was moving around. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? He would want to talk to the local chieftains. He would need to stay in each place for a time, he would need time to persuade people. And he would need money. That’s what Bossu was taking him.’

‘Money from the north?’

‘From people who sympathized with him. Or, perhaps, people who knew he would need to give something in return. Concessions, railway concessions, say, a building concession. People with a financial interest in the development of the south. And not just an interest in the south. If Moulay succeeded in gaining power, the whole of Morocco would be open to things. This was big. Big rewards, and, probably, big interests, in search of them. Whom, possibly, Bossu had been working for since Casablanca.’

Mr Bahnini considered.

‘It is possible,’ he conceded. ‘Moulay Hafiz is certainly trying to build up support.’

‘For which he would need money.’

‘For which, yes, he would need money.’

‘Which Bossu might have been taking him.’

‘He might indeed.’ Mr Bahnini hesitated. ‘But, sir…’

‘Yes?’

‘How are you going to confirm it? And — forgive me, sir — there is another thing. Even if you did confirm it — perhaps you will think it not my place to make this observation? — but, even if you did confirm it, what bearing would that have on Mr Bossu’s death? Which, I take it, sir, is what you are really interested in?’

‘It might explain why someone wanted to kill him: to stop him.’

By the time he left the committee’s offices, Sadiq and his friends had taken up their usual position in the cafe. They waved to him to join them.

‘Just for a moment, perhaps…’

But he rather enjoyed being with them. He liked the splendid conversation about ideas of the young and envied them their opportunities at university. Nothing like that for him. And in the East End, if you were at all bright, you were rather conscious of that. It was a poor area and no one from there went to Oxford or Cambridge. Yet many of the immigrants from the Continent had had some sort of education, even been to university, and they brought with them an immense interest in ideas. There was plenty of intellectual discussion in the East End, in the Working Men’s Clubs and the anarchist discussion groups.

Not so much in his own family. His grandfather had been agin the government in Russia and Poland but that had been an emotional matter rather than an intellectual one. Seymour’s mother, who had learned the hard way in Austro-Hungarian prisons what the discussion of ideas could lead to, shrank now from engaging with them too closely. His father, who had learnt the same lesson, now kept resolutely away from politics of any kind and concentrated on business. Only in Seymour’s sister did the revolutionary passion of their grandparents burn on. She was a member of every dotty organization the East End could provide, and there were many of them: feminist, socialist, trade union, teachers’ — she was a teacher herself, and had dragged Seymour as a young boy, not altogether unwillingly, from one meeting to another. And then been crushingly disappointed when he had joined the police.

Not much intellectual discussion in the Mile End police station! But Seymour’s linguistic gifts had led to him being put in the Special Branch and used principally with the East End’s many dissident groups. Frightening to some, and especially the government: but when you got to know them, frightening to no one else.

So Seymour was used to groups like the present one and not alarmed, amused by them, rather, and tender towards them as to the young.

The conversation was on lines similar to the one they had been having the last time he had met them. They questioned him eagerly about the revolution in Istanbul and were interested, and a little depressed, when he told them that his impression was that the people most instrumental in making it were the young officers in the army.

‘No chance of that happening here,’ they said dejectedly. ‘The army’s French.’

At one point he realized that they were all speaking in French. He thought at first that this might be out of consideration for him but then understood that this was how they habitually spoke. It seemed odd, a bunch of young Moroccan nationalists and yet all speaking French. Then he saw that this was part of their problem.

‘It will have to come from someone else,’ someone said.

Awad banged his hand on the table.

‘We shouldn’t be talking like this!’ he said. ‘“It will have to come.” That’s no way to talk. It’s too passive. We should be saying, “This is the way we’re going to do it!” We shouldn’t be leaving it to others. We should be doing something.’

There were mutters of agreement. Then ‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’ said someone.

There was a sudden awkward silence.

Seymour began to get up.

‘Perhaps I’d better leave you to carry on your discussion.’

‘No, no, please…’

But the discussion was ending anyway.

Sadiq got up from the table, too.

‘I’ve got to go and see Benchennouf,’ he said. ‘I promised I’d call in this morning. There are some proofs he wants me to correct.’

He went round the group shaking hands, in the French way: and then, when he came to Seymour, he hesitated, a little shyly.

‘Would you like to come with me?’ he blurted out.

‘Who is Benchennouf?’

‘He’s an editor.’