medina.
The tourist traffic became more intense. The shops were heaving with people. Brass trays glowed in the yellow light, next to mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture, camel-bone framed mirrors, silver jewellery, colourful scarves. His hood trapped the cinnamon smell from the pastilla food stalls. He dodged some mule droppings. The streets were clogging up with slow-moving gaggles of tourists. He tried not to look at his watch. Not a Moroccan thing, to be too concerned about time. He would get there. The timing would be perfect. Wood smoke shunted out the food smells. The stink of curing leather. Old men sitting out drinking tea, fingering their worry beads. A boy crouched, sweating as he fanned the flames of the fires beneath the massive blackened boilers of the hammam. The hiss of steam. The ponderous clopping of a donkey's hooves on cobbles. He turned left at the Cherabliyin mosque. The streets were darker and emptier here. He joined up with another main thoroughfare. The carpet shops. He saw his destination. His hand gripped the butt of the gun.
He stopped, took a deep breath, glanced at his watch for the first time: 20.29. Do not think. Do not engage. Two shots would be enough. He crossed the street, heading for the door to the shop, pulled the gun out of his waistband, thumbed off the safety catch under his burnous. Just as he reached the doorway a figure in a pale blue jellabah flitted in front of him, slipped over the threshold, so that they were in the shop together. What the fuck? Too late, he was committed now. The Spanish tourist was coming up off his cushion. Mustafa Barakat was standing and spreading his arms wide. He was smiling even as Falcon pulled out the gun. He was going to embrace the figure in the pale blue jellabah. Then he was not. His eyes widened over the pale blue cotton shoulders of the man, whose right arm punched in, once, twice, three times. Barakat fell back on a pile of carpets. The word on his lips never made it into the air. The killer put his foot on to the pile of carpets next to Barakat's face and drew the knife across the dying man's throat. He said something in Arabic and stood back. Barakat's white jellabah was already blossoming with a vast, shining bloom of blood. His throat gaped and gargled, blood leaked on to the carpets, the arterial pressure already gone from the ferocious stabs to the heart. Abdullah turned to Falcon, held out the knife in his bloody hand. Despite his closeness to Barakat in his death throes, his pale blue jellabah had only a small smear of blood across the arm. The CNI agent playing the tourist was in a state of shock at this development. Falcon spoke to him quickly in Spanish as he knelt down and dipped a DNA swab into Barakat's blood.
'Take the knife. Carry on as planned. Any water?'
The agent took the knife, handed over a bottle of water he'd been carrying. Falcon put the gun back in his waistband, washed Abdullah's hand. Threw the bottle to the agent and left the shop. The metal blind rolled down behind them. Abdullah led the way off the street and down into the alleyways of the medina. He was crying. His shoulders were shaking, abdomen trembling.
'Why did you do that?' asked Falcon.
Abdullah stopped, threw his back against a whitewashed wall. Tears streaked his face.
'I've loved that man all my life,' he said. 'Since I can remember, Mustafa has been a part of our family. I used to fall asleep on his chest in the back of the car. He rescued me when I nearly drowned in the sea at Asilah. He took me to Marrakech for my sixteenth birthday. He is my uncle.'
'But you knew I would kill him. You didn't have to do that.'
'He has betrayed us all. I can hardly bear to speak his name. He has disgraced us. I don't care if I go to jail for the rest of my life,' said Abdullah. 'At least I have restored some of our family honour.'
Falcon grabbed him by the arm, told him they had to keep moving, the news of Barakat's death might leak out. They jogged through the empty streets. It was no more than a few hundred metres to the house. The door was open a crack. Abdullah went in. Consuelo appeared out of the darkness wearing a headscarf, startled him.
'Is it done?' she asked.
Falcon nodded.
They left Consuelo by the main door. Abdullah led Falcon across the first patio of the house. Women's voices came from one of the upstairs rooms. In the second patio Abdullah ducked into a doorway and went down a long unlit passage to a stone spiral staircase at the end. It was only just big enough for a single person to pass.
'There's no electricity in this part of the house,' said Abdullah. 'When we get to the door at the top I will go through and leave the door ajar. You must stay behind. Nobody comes to this part of the house without being invited first.'
'Think about what you're going to say to her.'
'I'm not going to take any nonsense,' said Abdullah, determined. 'She'll know I mean business just by the fact I'm in her quarters without her invitation.'
'You mustn't give her the slightest chance.'
'There's nothing she can do, Javier.'
'Are you sure?' said Falcon. 'After all this, I don't want anything to happen to the boy.'
'She'll be on her own up here. The boy will be kept elsewhere. I'll ask her where she's keeping him and, if she doesn't tell me, I'll beat her until she does.'
Abdullah took off his shoes. They crawled up two floors in the narrow staircase. At one point the women's voices in the patio were as clear as if they were next door. Abdullah reached the door at the top. It did not appear to have a handle or a lock but he felt up and down the stone wall near the door jamb and pressed. The door sprung open silently. The room had a floor of heavy wooden planking covered with carpets. The windows had broken latticework over them and the smell of jasmine from the garden below had come in with the warm night air. A floorboard creaked as Abdullah went in. A woman's voice in Arabic asked:
'Who's there?'
'It is me, Abdullah, my great aunt,' he said, approaching her. 'I'm sorry to come here without your invitation, but I wanted to talk to you about my father's death.'
'I have already spoken to your mother,' she said.
'I was sure that you had been told, but I would like to talk to you about it as well,' said Abdullah. 'You know that your son, my uncle, and my father were very close.'
'My son?' she said.
'Mustafa and my father, they were like brothers.'
'Come here,' she said. 'Step into the light where I can see you. Why are you wearing these clothes? These are not mourning clothes. And what is that mark -?'
There was a sharp intake of breath. The silence of shock before the comprehension of pain. Falcon opened the door. The woman was dressed completely in black, which made the curved blade of the knife stand out in the oily yellow light. The sight of Falcon distracted her from Abdullah, who was holding his right arm, with blood oozing through his fingers. He grunted with pain. The woman tipped a lamp on to the wooden floor. The oil spilled, caught fire immediately and flames spread across the carpets and floorboards. The hem of Abdullah's jellabah was alight as he staggered backwards. The woman opened the door and disappeared into the darkness.
Falcon used a small rug from the floor to slap out the flames climbing up Abdullah's legs. He used one of the other larger carpets to smother the fire creeping across the floor. He ran to the door. She'd locked it. He kicked at it, once, twice, on the third savage blow it came open. No light. His sight still a wavering green from the flames. His hands found a door across the landing, a top stair to his right. The rest of the stairs could have been a lift shaft for all he could see. He went down the stairs, right hand on the wall. A landing. No door. More stairs. Another landing. Two doors. A window. Faint light coming from outside. He listened at one door. Then the other. Went back to the other door, tried it. It opened on to an empty room. He turned, ran at the other door, and shouldered through it into the room, crashing into some furniture and landing on his front. The door kicked back against the wall and slammed shut again behind him. Still no light. Movement in the darkness. A faint whimpering sound of a small animal, cowering in a dark corner. He got up on to his knees, no higher than that, he was aware of the window behind him. Didn't want to stand out. Something flew over his head with a swish, like a low flying bird. He rolled to one side. Feet in light slippers padded across the floor. Falcon crawled deeper into the room, turned, lay on his back. He could just make out some of the broken latticework across the window. His eyes searched for a silhouette. Somebody was coming down the stairs. Abdullah recovered, or the woman getting away. His eyes improving all the time. He lay still. By the door he was aware of a denser mass. There was a twitch of silver. He felt around him. A small table came to hand. He sat up, brought his knees to his chin, rocked forward and in one movement came to his feet and ran full tilt, table out in front of him, at the black mass. There was a collision. The woman cannoned backwards and hit the window frame. The rotten latticework did not hold, the window frame cut her mid-thigh, her centre of gravity toppled and she was out and into the night before Falcon could grab at anything. A shout, more of surprise,
