Chapter Twelve

' Perhaps,’ said Chantale, ‘I should tell you something. It is about my family; and in particular about my father. You may have heard something of this, but I want to tell you myself.

‘My father was a soldier. He came from one of those military families in which for many generations the men have been soldiers. So it was natural for him to become one too. He went to military college, the best, and did very well. He won all sorts of honours and was chosen as the best cadet of his year. All sorts of things were predicted for him.

‘When he graduated he was posted to Algeria, which he liked. It was where the action was and where there were chances to excel. Shortly after he arrived in Algeria he met my mother. They fell in love. Whatever my father did, he did passionately. And so he fell passionately in love. But there was, of course, a complication. My mother wasn’t French. She was Moroccan. Not Algerian, you understand? She just happened to be visiting. She had relations in Algiers. There were three sisters and they were all beautiful and so there were always officers visiting the house. It wasn’t common, but the family was well to do and European in its ways. And one day my mother met my father.

‘I told you that my father was passionate. He wanted to marry her. My mother’s relations were aghast, and so was his family back in France. It wasn’t done, you understand? They wanted her to marry a decent young Muslim, Moroccan, preferably, but Algerian would do. But my father persuaded them. Or perhaps he didn’t persuade them, perhaps he just went ahead and did it. He was like that. It was the way he was.

‘Of course, his family back in France did not like it and I think there was a rupture. He never spoke of his family afterwards.

‘And the army didn’t like it, either. They posted him all over the place, to the wildest parts, where there was always fighting. But it did give him the chance to excel. He was promoted and promoted. But all the time there was my mother. And then me. You have heard about all this, perhaps? People talk, I know.’

‘I have heard something, yes,’ said Seymour.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have grown used to it. But let me move on to Casablanca. And to Bossu. There came a time when French troops were sent to Morocco, and my father went with them. He was pleased because he thought he would be able to spend more time with my mother. And he hardly knew me.

‘One day he was sent to Casablanca. There had been trouble there. You probably know about this. They were developing the sea front and for the new buildings they required stone. There was a suitable quarry not far away and some businessmen built a railway line from it to where the building was going on. Unfortunately, they ran it through a Muslim cemetery. It didn’t matter to them, I suppose they thought they could buy their way out of it. But the Muslims erupted. They attacked the men working on the railway line and killed some of them.

‘The authorities sent in troops to put down what they saw as a riot. Some of the Muslims were killed and that, of course, led to more riots. The disorder spread, and more troops were sent in. Among them was my father.

‘The soldiers suppressed the rioting. Very bloodily. And one day my father objected. He said he was a soldier and that his job was to fight soldiers and not massacre civilians.

Quite a lot of the soldiers felt as he did and there was, for a time, for a day or two, a pause.

‘But then the city authorities and the businessmen complained. They asked what was the army doing? And, of course, they had influence back in Tangier, and back in France, too, so the fighting resumed.

‘But my father refused. He said that the orders were wrong and that he would not obey them. The Casablanca authorities wanted him tried for mutiny. But the army knew it couldn’t do that because so many of the officers agreed with him. And even if they didn’t agree, they respected him. He was a very good soldier and popular throughout the army.

‘In the end he was persuaded that the honourable thing to do was to resign his commission. He left the army and tried to make a life as a civilian. That wasn’t easy. He tried being a farmer but that didn’t work out. Nothing seemed to work out. And it was only slowly that we understood why.

‘The settlers hadn’t forgotten what he had done and were hostile. But it went further than that. There seemed to be some sort of campaign against him. Wherever he went, whatever he tried, things went wrong. And gradually we realized that this wasn’t an accident. Somebody was organizing it.

‘As first we couldn’t believe it. But then one day someone told us.

‘The person who was organizing it was Bossu. Again we couldn’t believe it. My father had come up against him in Casablanca and, yes, he had sensed his hostility. But he couldn’t believe that he would carry it so far. Carry it on after he had left Casablanca and so long after he had left Casablanca. But so it appeared to be.

‘And it went on. It began to colour everything we did. We realized that they wanted us out — out of Morocco altogether. But my mother was Moroccan! And my father was not the man to give in. He said that he had made up his mind to make a life here and make a life he would.

‘Well, in the end he was killed in a road accident. That was terrible. I was very young at the time and I thought the world had fallen apart. It was very hard for us, for my mother, perhaps, especially. We had to make our way alone. But we thought that at least the relentless persecution would stop.

‘But it didn’t. It seemed to pursue us, whatever we did. We tried various things and again they did not work out. And, again, people told us it was not by accident.

‘So we decided to move back to here, where we were known, and where perhaps people would protect us. Friends helped us buy the hotel. And then, the first day, the hotel was broken up! It may have been chance but, with our experience, we thought it unlikely. Friends told us that it was Bossu.

‘Well, then it stopped, and we thought that perhaps he had finally decided to make an end of it. But I did not forget it. And when he was appointed Secretary to the committee, I thought the chance had come to get my own back. I put into Benchennouf’s head the idea that now was the time to stir old memories, to remind people about Casablanca and what Bossu had done there. I even wrote some of the articles. And if it worked, if it did stir old feelings, and if, because of that, someone killed Bossu, then I am glad.’

When Seymour left the hotel to go out to dinner, usually either Mustapha or Idris was waiting there to accompany him. This time they both were, and with them were two other men who had plainly just arrived.

‘Mustapha,’ one of them said, ‘I don’t know why I come to you.’

Mustapha looked surprised.

‘Hello, Fazal,’ said Idris.

And now Seymour remembered the man. It was the elusive carter. The man with the shifting apartment and the shifting wife, whom Idris had so industriously finally tracked down to the stables.

‘Hello, Fazal,’ said Seymour.

The man gave a slight bow of acknowledgement and then looked him straight in the face.

‘It is chiefly for you, Monsieur, that I have come. For I think you are an honest man. Unlike these two.’

‘Here, watch it-’ began Mustapha and Idris together.

‘Why you should be so interested in the death of the fat Frenchman I do not know. It is said that you are a policeman. But in my experience policemen do not usually concern themselves greatly with such matters. At least in Morocco. Perhaps it is because you do not come from Tangier and do not know the way things are done.

‘And how you should have met up with Mustapha and Idris I do not know, either. It seems unexpected to me. It is said they are your bodyguard, and certainly you need one if you go on like this. But to choose Mustapha and Idris! Monsieur, let me counsel you. You could do better.’

‘Fazal, are you trying to make trouble?’

‘I am not afraid of your knife, Mustapha. At least, not when there are witnesses about. It is just that I am puzzled. Takings, I can see, must have dropped off, but-’

‘This, Fazal, is a question of honour!’

‘Oh, I see-’

‘No, you don’t, Fazal. It is not a matter of money. Our friend stood up for me when Ali Khadr came. Should I not stand for him?’

‘Unquestionably you should. But-’

‘I am hurt, Fazal, that you should question me on a point of honour.’

‘Fazal-’ began Fazal’s companion nervously.

‘And offended.’

‘Fazal-’

‘Oh, I am not questioning,’ said Fazal hastily. ‘Not on a point of honour. Not in any way. I am just surprised, that’s all.’

‘Well, just contain your surprise,’ said Idris.

‘Who is this bloke, anyway?’ demanded Mustapha, looking at Fazal’s companion.

‘He is my friend. Fuad, his name is. And I bring him to the Monsieur because I said I would. I, too, Mustapha, have a sense of honour!’

‘Ah!’ said Seymour. ‘This is the friend who was with you on the day of the pig-sticking. The day the Frenchman was killed?’

‘That is so, yes, Monsieur. I said that perhaps there were things that his eye had seen and that mine had missed.’

‘That is always possible. Thank you, Fazal, for bringing me your friend. And thank you, Fuad, for agreeing to come.’

‘I wouldn’t have come,’ said Fuad, ‘had Fazal not pressed me.’

‘I am glad that he did. And was it so? Did your eye see something that his had missed?’

The first part of the story was familiar ground but Seymour took him through it.

‘And are you sure, Fuad,’ he said at the end of Fuad’s recital, ‘that there were two horses?’

‘Positive, Monsieur. One ran off ahead of us. And that, I think, must have been the Frenchman’s horse, for it was riderless.’

‘And the other?’

‘Rode the other way, back the way we had come.’

‘To rejoin the hunt?’

‘I think so, Monsieur. For the rider was holding a lance. But, Effendi…’

‘Yes?’

‘Afterwards, I was puzzled. For I had taken the man for one of Musa’s men. But how could that be, if he was carrying a lance?’

‘Why did you take him for one of Musa’s men?’

‘I did not see him clearly, Effendi. I lost him almost at once in the scrub. But he stopped for a moment to disentangle his headdress from the thorn, so I thought-’

‘Monsieur Ricard-’

Monsieur Ricard surveyed him with a baleful but, possibly surprisingly for that hour in the morning, recognizing eye.

‘The Englishman!’

‘Just so. And, like you, I suspect, getting ready for the pig-sticking tomorrow.’

‘I don’t need to get ready,’ growled Monsieur Ricard. ‘I am always ready.’

‘A little practice, perhaps?’

‘Practice! I don’t need practice. When you’ve been pigsticking as long as I have… No, all I shall do today is see that the horse is all right. In so far as it will ever be all right! I need a new one.’

‘I think you mentioned that.’

‘One which will keep up. This one is too old. “Like you, Father,” my daughter says. The idiot! What does she know about it?’

‘You are as old as you feel, Monsieur, and you, obviously, feel in the best of health.’

‘I do. And I don’t need that idiot, Millet, telling me otherwise.’

‘You are looking forward to the event tomorrow?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I wish you well, Monsieur Ricard. It was a great pleasure to visit you the other day and benefit from your knowledge. Not just of pig-sticking but also of Tangier.’

‘I should know it. I’ve been here a long time.’

‘Then you, perhaps, are the very person who can help me over something that’s been puzzling me. When you spoke so interestingly about the young Bossu and what lay behind his marriage to the charming Juliette, you said that the marriage had nearly not come about because of one of Bossu’s previous affairs. A most unsuitable affair, you said. Certainly, from what you told me, her family appeared to view it so.’

‘He wanted to marry her. That was the unsuitable bit. As an affair, there was nothing wrong with it. Lots of young men have affairs with Moroccans. But when you start talking about marriage-’

‘She was a Moroccan?’

‘Very much so. And the family couldn’t have that. It was one of the older settler families. French through and through. It would have been a blot. Even though it was in the past. People would always have been saying that Juliette was second choice after a Moroccan! Well!’

He gave one of his old-man laughs.

‘Of course, in the end they did accept him. In the end, money talked loudest. It usually does, doesn’t it? Bossu had the money, so in the end he had the girl.’

He started to laugh again, then stopped.

‘Mind you, it didn’t work that way with the other one. She turned him down. I’ll bet that was a shock! Turned down by a Moroccan! She wouldn’t have anything to do with him.’

‘And the name of this lady was…?’

‘Do they have names?’ Ricard laughed.

The laugh turned into a frown.

‘I used to know it once. I forget everything these days. Marie, was it? Something like that. Anyway, I can tell you who she was. The mother of that…’ He had to search again. ‘… Chantale!’ he shouted triumphantly.

The barracks was on the edge of town. It was surrounded by a perimeter fence and outside the fence was a bare, sandy area where, to judge by the condition of the sand, horses were exercised. Inside the fence was a large square where men might parade and recruits be given foot drill, and, beyond that, a number of low single-storey buildings. Seymour gave his name at the gate and asked to see Captain de Grassac. An orderly was sent off and soon de Grassac himself appeared.

They shook hands.

‘You have come to see the lance? It won’t take long. There’s nothing very special about it, I’m afraid. But then you can come into the Mess and we’ll have something.’

He took Seymour behind the main building and then into another building where the officers had their quarters. He opened a door and led Seymour into a surprisingly comfortable room lined with books.

De Grassac waved a hand at them almost apologetically.

‘One gets into the way of reading out in the outposts,’ he said. ‘There is not a lot else one can do.’

He went through an inner door and emerged carrying a lance, which he gave to Seymour.

Seymour turned it over in his hands.

‘Where do people get lances from?’ he asked.

‘There’s a place in the city you can buy them from. Darquier’s. This was probably bought there, but I don’t know that will help you.’

He took the lance and turned it over almost fondly.

‘This is obviously an Old Faithful,’ he said, ‘and was bought some time ago. I doubt if their records will show anything.’

‘Mind if I keep it for a day or two?’

‘Not at all.’

He looked at his watch.

‘The bar will be open. Would you like to see our Mess?’

He took Seymour into another building where officers were gathering, and then looked at Seymour inquiringly.

‘We usually drink beer at this time,’ he said, ‘to replace the liquid we sweat out during training.’

‘Beer will do fine.’

De Grassac returned with two beers and sat down.

‘How are you getting on with your investigation?’

‘Nearly there, I think.’

De Grassac raised his eyebrows.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘You surprise me.’

‘There are still one or two things to tie up. I’m still learning things about Bossu. As a man. He doesn’t seem to have been very nice. If what Chantale says about him is true.’

‘You’ve been talking to Chantale? No, he was not a nice man.’

‘I can understand Bossu’s animosity towards de Lissac when they were in Casablanca. It was a time when feelings ran high. And Bossu had put a lot into building the railway. Of himself, I mean. It was one of his first projects and he wanted it to succeed. And he felt he hadn’t started too well, either. With all the trouble. And then de Lissac came along and made things worse. I can understand Bossu feeling angry. But what I can’t understand is why his anger should continue afterwards. If it did.’

‘Oh, it did.’

‘Why was that, do you think?’

De Grassac shrugged.

‘Maybe because of the kind of man Bossu was?’ he offered.

‘I wondered if there was some previous history between them?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘You were at the wedding, if I remember. Of de Lissac and Chantale’s mother. Was there anything there?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Involving Bossu?’

‘It seems unlikely. Wasn’t he in Tangier?’

‘I just wondered if something had come up.’

‘Not as far as I can recall. You remember it was, well, a private wedding. Rather in secret. There weren’t many people there.’

‘No, but I wondered if you had picked something up.’

‘Look,’ said de Grassac, ‘I wasn’t there long enough to pick anything up. I had been in a fort on the other side of Algeria. I had come over especially for the wedding. Because de Lissac asked me to. I had got a leave pass for fifty-six hours and then I had to be back. I spent most of the time travelling.’

‘Okay but there was something. I wondered if you had picked it up. If not then, perhaps later.’

De Grassac was silent, for quite a long time.

‘Perhaps,’ he said.

‘You see, it might account for the animosity.’

De Grassac said nothing.

‘Did it?’ said Seymour.

De Grassac was silent for quite a while. Then he said:

‘Chantale, at any rate, thought it did. She even — she thought Bossu might have had a hand in her father’s death.’

He looked at Seymour.

‘You know about this?’

‘Only that he had died. In some kind of road accident.’

‘She wondered if it was an accident. She asked me to go down and see. She couldn’t go herself, she was still at school, I think, and, anyway, a woman down there, on her own — it was out of the question. So I got leave and went down there. He had been driving a truck. Full of explosives.’

‘Explosives?’

‘Yes. It was for some contractors building a road. They needed the dynamite to blast rocks. It was quite legitimate. I checked. I talked to the contractor. The thing was, you see, that they needed someone they could rely on to deliver the dynamite. There were bandits down there and explosives are much sought after. You had to have someone you could trust. And the fact that Marcel had been an army officer was a help — he knew about explosives and wouldn’t be stupid. And Marcel, I think, needed the work.’

He shrugged.

‘Well, there was an explosion, and Marcel was killed. It seems to have been a genuine accident. I checked as much as I could. There were no eyewitnesses, unfortunately, or if there were, they made themselves scarce, as eyewitnesses do down there. I checked as much as I could but couldn’t find anything which suggested that it wasn’t an accident. And an accident was quite likely. Bumpy roads, not even a road, actually, just a track. Dynamite is always dangerous to handle. In the end I had to go back and tell Chantale that it was an accident.’

‘Was there anyone else in the truck? Killed with him?’

‘A mechanic, I think.’

‘So where are you off to?’ asked Mrs Macfarlane.

He had met her on the sea front, off, she said, to pick up her husband for lunch.

‘On my way to a tailor’s,’ said Seymour.

‘You are having something made up?’

‘A suit. He’s done one for me already and it was so good that I thought I would have another done while I was here.’

‘You couldn’t do better. The work is always so good. And the prices are very reasonable.’ She hesitated. ‘You, of course, know about prices here. And about God’s door?’

‘God’s door?’

‘Well, you know there is no such thing as a fixed price out here. To put a price on a thing without a human exchange seems to a Moroccan the height of vulgarity. It goes along with the caida, I suppose. So you have to negotiate everything. But even when you do, you always leave a little leeway so that if something doesn’t turn out as you expected, the coat needs more doing to it than you had thought, for example, you always have room to adjust. That’s God’s door. A way out. And Moroccans always like to leave it open.’

‘What is it this time, then?’ asked Idris, just before they went into the shop. ‘Another suit? Believe me, you couldn’t do better.’

Ali, the tailor, came forward anxiously.

There is no problem, I hope? It fits you well, surely?’

‘It fits me perfectly.’

Ali looked relieved.

‘A simple cleaning up? More blood, perhaps?’

‘More blood?’ said Mustapha. ‘What do you take us for? We’re looking after him.’

‘It was your blood last time,’ Ali pointed out.

‘Ah, well, that was different. It was before we were looking after him. And, anyway, it was one of Ali Khadr’s little games.’

‘I thought he was supposed to be coming round again? Last night, was it? Or is it tonight?’

‘He’s not coming,’ said Idris disgustedly.

‘Someone stopped it,’ said Mustapha.

‘Chantale’s mother,’ said Idris.

‘And very sensible of her,’ said Ali. He looked at Seymour. ‘Then what can I do for you, Monsieur?’

‘Another suit, please. Exactly like the other. The same fit. But different material.’

‘Easy!’ said Ali.

‘And some information,’ said Seymour.

‘Information?’

‘I remember that you told me once, the first time I came, I think, that Bossu had been one of your customers.’

‘That is true. But it was a long time ago. A long, long time ago. When he first arrived in Tangier. He was a poor man then. That, perhaps, was why he came to me. Also, he lived here.’

‘Here?’

‘Just around the corner. He was, as I say, a poor man then.’

‘So he knew the neighbourhood?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the people?’

‘Of course.’

‘Including Chantale’s mother?’

‘He knew the family. The father worked in the Mahzen. Not a high post but a respectable one. And the family was a respectable one, too. Well-to-do, decent. So he would not have met Chantale’s mother. Things were different in those days. She was kept hidden. And behind a veil. So he should never have seen her. But somehow he did.

‘The mother used to come to me sometimes when she wanted work done. And once she came with her daughter. Bossu must have seen them because afterwards he came to me and said, “Who is that beautiful girl?” And I said, “I do not know.” Because I had never seen her without a veil. But Bossu said, “She is with her mother.” “Well, yes,” I said, “and she should be.” “What is her mother’s name, then?” Perhaps I should not have told him, but I did.

‘He went away and I thought no more about it. But then one day I heard he had been to the father and asked for his daughter’s hand. By this time Bossu was growing wealthy and it would have been a good match. Except that he was a Frenchman! “Ill will come of this!” said the family, and they refused him.

‘But Bossu had friends in the Mahzen and someone must have spoken to the father, for he was allowed to renew his suit. But this time it was she who refused. The father might now have said, “Peace! The man has powerful friends.” But the mother said, “No, she doesn’t want him.” So they sent her away to relations in Algeria, and that should have been the end of it.

‘And so for a time it was. But then we heard that he had followed her to Algeria and importuned her there. Only things were looser there. The family allowed her to mix with people and show her face. And now there were other men who admired her and sought her hand.

‘One, in particular: a young Frenchman. And her relatives said, “This is getting serious.” And they wrote to her father and told him. And he said, “Send her back.” And she was to have gone. But she knew that she could be returning not just to her family but also to Bossu. And one day we heard that she had fled with her young officer.

‘Her family cast her out. And when she returned to Tangier, it was years later and her parents were dead. And she came as a married woman with a child. Her husband was much away and in another country But this was where she had friends and so she came back here and lived among us until her husband was sent to Morocco. But by that time Bossu was gone and we heard no more of him.’

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