David Gilman - Ice Claw

Abdullah put Max’s passport in his personal safe and asked if he wanted to keep the pendant there as well. Max declined. He caught the look in Abdullah’s eyes. A fleeting moment when he realized that Abdullah might know of its importance.

“A charm,” the riad owner said. “It is a good-luck thing for you, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“If it is valuable, you should put it in my safe. You are going to the main square?” Abdullah asked.

“Yes. Djemaa el-Fna,” Max answered.

“The Square of the Dead,” Abdullah said matter-of-factly.

Was he trying to frighten him? Max waited a moment and held the man’s gaze.

“I’ve heard it’s pretty lively,” he said.

Abdullah nodded. “But I am ashamed to say there are thieves in my city.”

Max thought about it for a moment and reached for the pendant as the man held out his hand. But Max simply took the slack in the leather thong, gave it a turn like knotting his school tie and tightened the cord until the loop sat closer to his throat.

“It’s not valuable, just something a friend gave me,” he said nonchalantly. “There.” He put a couple of fingers between the cord and his neck, a snug fit that didn’t constrict his throat. “No one can grab it now.”

“Not unless they cut your throat,” Abdullah said, unsmiling.

Djemaa el-Fna, the huge square in the center of Marrakech, blazed with dozens of cooking fires. Colored glass lanterns added to the fires’ shadows; the shuffling crowds’ movements fractured, as in a badly lit nightclub. Voices shouted. Food was cooked over the open flames. Traditionally dressed men with small, black-faced vervet monkeys on chains posed for tourists and let the tourists stand, more or less nervously, with the monkeys chattering on their arms.

A twinge of distress caught Max’s heart. The small monkeys somersaulted, then sat cowering, staring at the higher species of primate that tossed a few coins into the upturned hat. A tug of the chain, a guttural command and the monkey would perform again. “For the monkey! For the monkey!” the handler called, urging the bystanders to throw down more coins.

Max and Sophie edged deeper into the square. It was a closeup of faces, heads and shoulders as they angled and barged. Money changed hands, stained teeth grinned. Crumpled notes were pressed into grease-slicked fingers as locals and tourists alike bought the hot lamb kebabs and roasted vegetables. This is where the locals came to eat, streaming out of the narrow alleyways. Smoke hung across the square like a blanket of cotton wool. Max’s eyes stung, but they watched everything going on around him.

Groups of four or five men, playing flutes, tin whistles and cymbals, and beating drums with curved sticks, meandered through the throng. Ganga drums and haejuj bass lutes fought for dominance. Women sat having henna tattoos daubed delicately across their faces and arms. An old man, according to his small sign a doctor, surrounded by bottles of herbs, sat cross-legged, examining a woman’s swollen hand.

Max and Sophie visited half a dozen food stalls and ate as much as they wanted. Max loved eating with his fingers-no table manners to be concerned about. Almost as good as being out on a camping weekend, except here all the food was cooked for you.

On the fringe of the square, cafes served mint tea and fruit juices.

“Everyone comes to eat here. Every night. It goes on really late,” Sophie said.

“Like a street party!” Max shouted. Conversation was always going to be a shouting match against this noise level.

“You look good,” she said. “It suits you.”

Max tugged at the cotton djellaba he wore. There had been a moment of panic when he realized that the riad’s staff had taken his clothes to be washed and left the djellaba in their place. Thankfully they had left his trainers, and these were now peeping out from beneath the long flowing robe. It had felt a bit like wearing a dress at first, but within moments of slipping it over his head he saw the practicality of the loose-fitting cotton. It was cool to wear and made movement relatively easy.

Max eased his way through a knot of people, pulling Sophie behind him. She grasped his hand tightly, as if losing contact would set her adrift in the cross-currents of this human ocean.

Max was amazed that anyone got anywhere in these crowds. Stallholders had set up their wares. Piles of oranges, heaped in pyramids, were being cut and squeezed, dancing troupes joined the musicians, and fortune-tellers waved their hands, brushing aside people’s misery.

He stopped next to a snake-charmer sitting on a faded tribal rug as he mesmerized a cobra. Rising up, its coiled body swayed languidly to the old man’s flute-playing and the gentle teasing of his hand.

The snake’s hood flared; its black eyes reflected the scattered fragments of light. It gazed into Max’s soul. Held him with an illusion of calmness. The snake made a languid, hypnotic movement, a deceptive seduction that lowered a victim’s defenses.

Then the cobra struck. Its fangs bared, its hiss-like hatred.

The gathered strength of the unfurled body propelled it straight past the old man, directly towards Max and Sophie. Max jerked back, putting a protective arm in front of her, but the wrinkled old man, who looked half blind, simply swept his hand beneath the cobra’s hood, twisted his wrist and let the snake curl about his arm. Then he raised the cobra’s flicking tongue to his own lips and kissed the snake.

Murmurs of approval sighed from the crowd, a smattering of applause, coins tinkled into his upturned hat.

Max gave an embarrassed smile. Perhaps he’d been too quick to react. Could you be too quick when it came to a cobra strike? Sophie touched his shoulder. She knew how fast Max had moved-a brave and instinctive gesture. An attacking cobra was an old snake-charmer’s trick. But Max wasn’t to know that.

But those few seconds of reaction had sharpened his senses. There was another danger. His instincts bristled, the warning insistent, demanding his attention. But what was the threat? From where? Max searched the immediate crowd. Something wasn’t right. A man’s eyes held his own for the briefest of moments and then flitted away. There were two men’s faces he had seen earlier. He had been erratic in his choice of food stalls and entertainment, so it wasn’t likely that he would spot the same faces twice.

He pointed over the heads of the crowds. “Get to the edge!” he shouted.

She nodded. As fascinated as he was by the seething mass of people in the square, he realized he could be targeted more easily here than in the wilderness. In open space you can see your enemy; here they could be a breath away. But why would Sophie bring him here to entrap him when she could have arranged an attack at any time since they left Biarritz?

Paranoia. Fear. Get rid of it, he told himself-these feelings were just crowd fever. This place was like Wembley Stadium and twice as noisy.

The stifling mass now seemed impenetrable. Max pulled Sophie closer. He wanted her right there, at his shoulder, no more than a step away. A ripple of energy shuddered through the pressed bodies; hands reached out, clawing at him. Max felt the torsion on his skin as someone twisted his wrist. Sophie was at arm’s length. Two men were between them, the back of their heads momentarily obscuring her face. Sophie’s grip still held but he could feel it slipping. Images of Zabala falling from his grasp flashed across his mind. Sophie mouthed his name. Shouted it. One of the men turned. Same face as before. Dull eyes, uncaring, probably doped up on something. The man made a sudden grab at the pendant. Max blocked the move but the action forced him to lose his grip on Sophie.