‘I’m okay but thank you.’
‘You are lost?’
‘No. Not lost.’
‘Maybe I can guide you? I know the streets inside out and back to front!’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Dan smiled. ‘Do you know where the Tourist Police Office is?’
‘Of course. You have been robbed?’ The boy pulled a face. ‘It happens. There are some scallywags in Marrakech. They give us honest Moroccans a bad name.’
‘Scallywags?’
‘I learned the word from an English woman.’ The boy looked proud. ‘I helped her with her travel insurance when her belongings were stolen.’
‘That was good of you.’
‘Six dirhams, to the front door of the Tourist Police Office,’ the boy announced cheerfully.
Fifty pence. Which, considering the average Moroccan earned £70 a week, was a pretty high fee.
‘Three dirhams.’
The boy’s eyes rounded in horror. ‘You’re a thief! I cannot walk to the end of the street for less than four!’
Dan tried not to smile but the boy saw it. ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘Four it is!’ He put out his hand. Dan shook. The boy’s grip was slim but strong. He was grinning.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Naziha. It means pure, honest.’ He puffed out his chest.
‘Well, Naziha. Why aren’t you in school?’
‘School finished an hour ago.’ His expression was affronted as if to say, what do you take me for?! I’d never miss school!
Dan fished out a five dirham coin. ‘Do you have change?’
‘Of course.’ The boy took the coin and ran into a Maroc Telecom shop. Returned and gravely gave Dan a coin.
Dan liked Naziha, and he seemed to respond to this because as they walked, they chatted about each other’s lives. Dan had had croissant for breakfast, but preferred eggs. Naziha had had fruit, but preferred ice cream.
‘Ice cream for breakfast?’ Dan looked mock-shocked.
‘Chocolate is my favourite,’ Naziha admitted. ‘I would like to eat it for breakfast every day.’
His family lived in a two-room apartment in the Menara district, consisting of a bedroom and living room. They shared their kitchen, laundry and bathroom with his father’s brother’s family on the same floor. Dan’s house sounded like heaven to Naziha.
‘You can have your own television,’ he said approvingly. ‘You can watch whatever you want, whenever you want. You are very lucky.’
‘Yes,’ Dan agreed. ‘I am very lucky.’
Twenty minutes later, Naziha stopped outside a single-storey peach-coloured building with sun-shaded benches beneath the windows and a red flag of Morocco flying from its rooftop. Two mopeds rested outside and a pair of dusty green olive trees flanked the building, giving it a cottagey air.
After paying Naziha for his guidance, Dan stepped inside the tiny police station. Dark and cool. Smells of incense and garlic. Two men in uniform. One was tapping on a computer keyboard at a metal desk while the other leaned against a paint-peeling wall, smoking a cigarette.
The policeman at the desk had grey hair and a weary face. He looked up at Dan without enthusiasm. ‘Can I help you?’
A little metal nameplate on the desk read SERGEANT MEHDI.
Dan decided against any small talk about why he was there. He wanted to see their response first-hand, unfiltered. He simply brought out a photograph of Kaitlyn and laid it on the table. ‘She was here two weeks ago.’
The second the sergeant’s eyes went to the photograph, a tension fell over him.
Dan put another photograph down, and another.
‘Do you recognise her?’
Mehdi began to put out a hand, maybe to touch the photographs, or pick them up, but stopped when the other policeman came over and had a look. Broom-thin with a wispy moustache, he ignored Dan. He snapped something in Arabic to the sergeant, who flinched and looked away.
The broom-thin cop swept up the photographs and shoved them at Dan. ‘No.’
Dan held up one of the photographs to face Mehdi. ‘Her name is Kaitlyn Rogers. I rescued her from flight EG220. I was on board.’
Mehdi’s eyes snapped to Dan’s. ‘You were on the flight?’
‘Yes. I saved her life. And that of her brother.’
At that Mehdi stood up. His face was filled with emotion as he came around the desk. He put out his hand. Dan was about to take it when the skinny policeman knocked his colleague’s arm aside and, at the same time, spat a stream of angry-sounding Arabic at him.
Mehdi spat something back. Colour rose in his face.
More arguing. Skinny cop flung his cigarette on the tiled floor, crowding Mehdi who refused to back down. Their voices rose until suddenly, they fell quiet.
Skinny cop studied Mehdi for a few moments. The silence dragged on.
Mehdi said maybe five words before the other cop cut him off, making a chopping motion with the edge of his hand.
Another silence fell as the two police officers stared at one another. Repressed violence filled the air. Dan tensed, preparing himself to intervene when suddenly Mehdi made a disgusted sound and spat on the floor. He returned to his desk.
‘Sorry,’ he said then, firmly, ‘good day.’
Dan was dismissed.
20
Naziha was sitting on one of the benches, throwing a stone from hand to hand, but when Dan appeared he sprang to his feet and bounded to Dan’s side.
‘You were on the aeroplane that was bombed?’ He was agog.
Dan looked down at him, then at the window above the bench, which was wide open. ‘Yes. What else did you hear?’
‘Six dirhams!’
‘You’ve already had five. Two.’
The boy’s face fell.
‘And a chocolate ice cream,’ Dan added.
‘I shall tell you everything!’ Naziha beamed. ‘If you tell me about the crash first!’
Dan gave the lad a brief overview of what had happened. Swapping information seemed only fair.
‘You were very brave.’
‘I don’t know about that. I just did what I did.’
Naziha nodded sagely. ‘It was a very bad thing. My grandmother was in the field when it happened. She remembers the tail coming away and a little girl tumbling out. She was still strapped in her seat. She was dead but she had no marks on her. My grandmother stayed with her all day and through the night while the police and doctors came. She watched over her
