controller’s voice.
The pilot read the registration number to me and it checked with the plane that had taken off from Madrid airport: Smith’s plane. It was 9.5 a.m. As soon as the identification was made the fighter returned to North Front Air port. Radar continued to plot the Cessna. I told the Group Captain to send a fast plane up to Madrid to collect me and take me to wherever the Cessna landed.
Meanwhile the Ambassador offered me breakfast.
53 Long arm
Marrakech lies coiled in the shadow of the High Atlas mountains like a cobra on a rumpled blanket. By the latter half of December the season is in full swing. Livers are being ruined in the bars of the big white hotels and limbs cracked on the ski slopes of the Middle Atlas. The call to prayer ricochets down the tortuous alleys, comes quivering through the orange and lemon trees and out across the crowded palm plantations that surround the dusty walled town. Overhead, interwoven matting squeezes sunrays like orange pips and transforms the dried mud into startling dazzle patterns. Smoky fires press dust into the sunlight beams and give them tangible dimensions. Fatty kidney slices crackle in aromatic cedar smoke. Light-skinned Berbers, ruddy-faced men from Fes, blue men and the black-enamel faces from Timbuctoo and farther south crowd together in the narrow thoroughfares.
The crowds moved as a white Land Rover came to a halt. On its door I could read the word ‘policia’. No sooner had the servant announced ‘A gentleman to see you’ than he was unceremoniously brushed aside by a short burst of Arabic. Three men entered the room. Two of them wore khaki drill, white peaked caps, Sam Browne belts and gauntlet gloves. The third man was in a white civilian suit. A soft red fez rode side-saddle on a thin brown pointed face. His moustache was sad and well cared for, and a large nose drove a wedge between his small eyes. He tapped the nose with a silver-topped cane. He looked like something dreamed up by central casting. He spoke:
‘Baix of the Surete Nationale. Let me welcome you to our beautiful country. The oranges are plump on the trees. The date is moist and the snow is crisp and firm on our mountain slopes. We hope you will stay long enough to take advantage of the wonders of our land.’
‘Yes,’ I said. I watched his two policemen. One opened the fly screen and spat into the street, the other riffled through my papers, which lay on the table.
‘You are conducting an investigation. You will be the guest of my department. Whatever you wish, it will be arranged. We hope you have a long and pleasurable habitation.’
‘You know what capitalism is like,’ I said, ‘work, work, work.’
‘The capitalism system is for what we work to preserve,’ said Baix. One policeman was looking through the clothes closet and the other was polishing his boot with a handkerchief. Overhead I heard the whine of a MIG 17 of the Maroc Air Force.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘In any narcotics investigation we are most enthusiastic that the criminal is apprehensive.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said.
‘You intend to make the arrest of persons here in Marrakech?’
‘I don’t think so, but there are a few people that might be able to assist me in my inquiries.’
‘Ah, that famous English words of Scotland Yard, “able to assist those in their inquiries”,’ said Baix. He said it again for practice. He stopped twirling his baton for a moment. He leaned close and said, ‘Before you make the arrest, which I hope is not, then you tell me because it may not be permitted.’
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said, ‘but I am employed by the World Health Organization of the United Nations. They will be unhappy if you do not permit.’
Baix looked sad.
‘So,’ he said, ‘we shall consult again.’
‘O.K.,’ I said.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Baix, ‘I have transported your colleague from the railway station. Your colleague Mr Austin Butterworth.’
Baix shouted some Arabic and one of the policemen drew a pistol. Baix shouted very loudly, using one or two very rude Anglo-Saxon words. The policeman put away the gun with a shamefaced expression and went downstairs to get Ossie out of the Land Rover.
‘Your friend is a specialist for the narcotics investigator?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I think I am recognizing his face, your friend.’ Ossie came through the door wearing a gigantic war-surplus bush shirt, a panama hat and trousers with thirty-inch cuffs.
‘Then I shall leave you to the meeting,’ said Baix.
‘Allah go with you,’ I said.
‘So long big boy,’ said Baix; he tucked a smile under his sad moustache.
The Land Rover hooted its way up the narrow street.
54 Ossie moves like double this
As Baix had said, it was a country of wonders, and the days sped by as I prepared, watched and calculated. In the market we sat wrapping skewered kidney into the rich coarse bread and swallowing the smoke. We went to the cafes for sweet tea and hid in back rooms to drink Stork Beer for fear of offending the faithful. Ossie sketched plans of the local style of house and I lectured him from my scanty knowledge of elementary radio.
On the third day I visited Herr Knobel.
He wasn’t a cheerful hooligan like H.K. or a sad fanatic like Fernie Tomas. Here was a special kind of brain, and you never know where you are with a brain of this sort.
Knobel was da Cunha’s name. He lived in the old town. The street was five feet wide. The door was a hatch in the battered white wall. Inside the courtyard, wrought-iron gates made shadow pictures on the hot tiles. A small yellow bird high on the wall sang a short cadenza about how it would like to escape from its golden cage. A golden cage, I thought. A trap for the prisoner who has everything.
Da Cunha sat on a fine antique carpet reading
Da Cunha sat in the middle of the room. He looked different, fatter. He wasn’t fatter, he wasn’t different. When I had seen him before he was trying to look like a slim, ascetic, Portuguese aristocrat. Now he was bothering no longer.
‘“Investigating”, your letter said’ — his voice was booming and plummy — ‘investigating
‘Narcotics activities at Albufeira,’ I told him. He laughed a coarse spiteful laugh that was rich with gold.
‘So that’s it,’ he said. His eyes moved behind the thick lenses like bubbles in a glass of champagne.
‘I’m going to pull you in for it,’ I said.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’ It was my turn to laugh.
‘They sound like famous last words,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘I know that it’s impossible to connect me.’
Over da Cunha’s shoulder I could see through the window across the patio. The yellow bird was singing. Over the edge of the flat roof came a foot, slowly, waving from side to side looking for a foothold.
‘I was the person who assisted you,’ said da Cunha. ‘I told the V.N.V. to contact you. I gave you the sovereign die. I gave it to you.’
‘At Smith’s suggestion?’ I asked.
