Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories

Lady Luck

You would never have guessed the adviser in the job centre was Lady Luck. True, there was something other-worldly about her, like one of the strange stone heads on Easter Island staring fixedly at the horizon, except her gaze was on the clock. In front of her was the form Danny had been told to complete. She must have read it because she told him he’d been unemployed for far too long.

After several untroubled weeks of signing on, Danny had been ordered to attend for a work-search review. He didn’t need one. Unemployed by choice, he was living a contented life in a council flat in Twickenham on state handouts and burglary.

He tried his winning smile, but there was no meeting of minds. At this stage in their relationship Lady Luck’s charm eluded him.

She said a new supermarket had just opened on the edge of town and was looking for night stockers.

At first Danny thought she’d said ‘night stalkers.’ He was tempted to give that a try. It would fit in nicely with the house-breaking.

She explained that it was stacking shelves on an eight-hour shift starting at 10 p.m. Danny turned white. He didn’t fancy that at all. He needed to keep his nights clear.

He was told there was no physical reason why he couldn’t do the work and he’d better go for the interview at 3 p.m. sharp or face a cut in his jobseeker’s allowance and questions about his flat.

Lady Luck meant what she said.

Later the same day Danny went to meet the recruitment manager. The supermarket was only ten minutes from the flat. With every step he racked his brain for a get-out, something like an allergy or a phobia that would allow him to fail the interview.

A deep-rooted fear of shelving? A habit of dropping things?

Too obvious.

He could say he was affected by the moon. That might worry them. ‘I can’t help myself. I have an uncontrollable urge to howl and run about on all fours. It’s harmless — I think.’

But he didn’t need any of the excuses. The moment he stepped through the supermarket door a remarkable thing happened. A young woman dressed like a cheerleader in the shortest of bright red skirts, silver tights and a glittery top and carrying a string of balloons came from nowhere and linked her bare arm in his.

If there is such a person as Lady Luck, Danny thought, this ought to be how she looks. But deep down he knew he was here thanks to the stone-faced woman in the job centre.

A trumpet fanfare sounded from the public address followed by an announcement.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, to celebrate the opening of our brand-new Twickenham store we are presenting an amazing free gift each day this week to one of our customers randomly chosen as they step through the door. We decided today’s winner would be the first customer to come in after three o’clock and he — lucky man — receives a week’s free holiday in the wonderful city of Marrakesh with all expenses paid.’

His new friend said, ‘You’d better hold the balloons. I’m supposed to tie them to your trolley, but you didn’t bring one in.’

Danny decided it was best not to explain why. He’d forget about the night-stocking interview. Holding the balloons high, he allowed his glamorous escort to lead him past the long row of checkouts to the far end of the store where some people with champagne glasses were waiting to greet him. An important-looking man in a bow tie and suit shook his hand and handed him an envelope. Cameras flashed and there was another public announcement about his lucky win.

Within the week he was in Morocco.

He’d never been abroad except for a couple of stag-party trips to Benidorm, so this was an adventure. Finding his hotel bus was the first test. As soon as he got past immigration he was bombarded by locals offering taxi rides. With a sense of purpose he made a beeline across the terminal to the shuttle bus area.

The bombarding was to become the staple feature of his week in the city. If it wasn’t for taxis it was for Berber rugs, leather goods, spices and offers to show him belly-dancing and snake-charming. He quickly learned how to say no to these people with a firmness that would get you a punch in the eye in Twickenham.

The Marrakesh experience was all a bit much at first, the crowded streets, the noise, smells and strange sights, but as the week progressed he started to get the hang of it. Part of his prize was a pocketful of dirhams — the local currency — and he learned to haggle in the heaving souks and find places to eat and take time out from all the noise and relax with mint tea and sweetmeats.

But as a professional burglar he took an interest in the architecture. Not the Koutoubia minaret — which you could glimpse from almost any part of the city — but the private dwellings of rich Moroccans. Villas mostly, pink or ochre, nicely spaced in their own grounds in the Nakheel district just off the tourist beat. Streets wider than motorways, and almost deserted. Danny did see one Rolls-Royce glide by with a silver horseshoe tied to the front. These people believed in their good luck. They couldn’t get enough of it.

The most appealing thing about the millionaire homes was their construction. True, the exteriors appeared like fortresses, flat, unforgiving stone walls. But they had one thing in common that would appeal to any burglar.

Flat roofs.

Even better, they were limited to a couple of storeys because of some local decree that the only tall buildings in the city were minarets. Get up there and you’d be laughing. You’d be spoilt for choice. The villas were evidently planned around enclosed courtyards where the good life was enjoyed in private.

Security? The owners didn’t seem to bother. There wasn’t an alarm to be seen, or CCTV.

One residence in particular was an open invitation. This wasn’t the largest, but it had a well-kept exterior surrounded by shrubs and trees, which don’t come cheap in the desert. Among them was a handsome palm tree in a graceful curve that overhung the roof.

Danny went back to the hotel and thought long and hard about that palm and how it might be used. He’d seen film of barefoot boys shinning up palm trees with the aid of rope tied loosely around their ankles. They made it look easy.

He weighed the options.

Lady Luck had got him to Marrakesh but it was up to him to make the experience pay. This night would be his last in the city. Tomorrow he’d be back in Twickenham living on the social and the small rewards he got from burglary. These Arabs were so rich they wouldn’t know if anything was taken. Why not make the most of his luck and collect some souvenirs? He’d happily settle for small stuff like banknotes, jewellery and designer watches.

Soon after midnight he set off for Nakheel equipped with a torch and a strip of towelling, the belt of the complimentary bathrobe from his hotel room.

Climbing the tree was harder than he expected because he had to learn the knack of getting a purchase against the trunk and bracing his legs with his bare feet held in place by the flannel belt while pulling with the arms.

Eventually he scrambled on to the roof and rubbed his aching biceps. Luckily he’d made no sound. If there was a guard dog here, it was asleep — or smart enough to know it couldn’t reach him.

He crept to the edge and peered over. The heady scent of orange blossom mingled with stale cigars and cannabis wafted up to him. As he’d guessed, the moonlit courtyard was a rich man’s hideaway. Statues, a pool, sunshades and loungers strewn with empty bottles and intimate items of clothing. But no people. They would be out to the world.

All the windows of the villa were within this enclosed part and some were open. Danny had no difficulty descending from the roof to a ledge and inside.

His torch beam showed him some kind of dining room with a large oval table low to the floor and surrounded by cushions. In the centre on a tray was a gleaming silver tea set of the sort he’d seen in the souks, tall, ornate pots and small cups without handles — but too large to steal. He couldn’t take items as big as that and he’d never know where to fence them in this alien city. He wanted smaller stuff.

Move on, he told himself. Find the private rooms. The good thing about this stone-built house was that there were no creaking floorboards.

At the far end of a passage was an open door. Danny purred. He’d found some sort of boudoir, with multicoloured drapes from the ceiling and huge silk cushions. First he checked that no one was in the bed. Then he started opening drawers in an exquisitely carved sandalwood unit that stretched right across one wall.

Sexy underwear, fine to the touch, enough for an entire harem. Thongs, bras, basques, camisoles and skimpy nightdresses in profusion.

High quality makeup and perfume on open shelves under hinged mirrors.

There ought to be jewellery, but where was it? A safe?

Maybe hidden inside the wardrobe. Danny jerked open a door and almost suffered a cardiac arrest.

A pair of beautiful brown eyes was staring at him from between the hanging clothes.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said.

His luck had run out.

He had no idea whether she understood, but he started talking, as much to get control of his own shattered nerves as hers. ‘I won’t hurt you. It’s not you I’m after. I just dropped in, like. Thought the place was empty. Really, ma’am, I’m not going to touch you. I don’t do violence.’

The woman was crouching at the bottom of the vast wardrobe. As far as Danny could tell, she was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, definitely an Arab woman, but in western clothes. She, too, was alarmed. She’d started hyperventilating.

‘I’m backing off,’ Danny said, making a calming gesture and taking a step back. ‘You can come out if you like.’

She wasn’t willing to do that, but she seemed to respond because the breathing slowed a bit.

‘Okay, I’m out of here,’ Danny said.

She spoke — and in English. ‘Who are you?’

As if it made a difference.

‘Just a visitor,’ Danny said. ‘Tourist. Well,’ he added, deciding some honesty might be no bad thing, ‘everyone calls me Danny.’

‘These rooms are kept locked,’ she said. ‘How did you get in?’

‘Over the roof and through a window. Are you alone then — like a prisoner in here?’

‘It is the way my husband decides.’

Husband? A warning bell sounded in Danny’s head. ‘Is he about?’

‘He won’t come in now,’ she said.

‘Aren’t you allowed out?’

‘Please. I don’t wish to speak of this.’ As if to discourage more questions, she pulled one of the hanging garments partially over her face and Danny noticed a bruise on her forearm.

‘Does he hit you?’

She was silent.

‘That shouldn’t be allowed. That’s out of order.’ The reason she had been hiding in the wardrobe was now obvious. She was hiding from her brutal husband. ‘Listen, you don’t have to suffer this. You could escape.’

She shook her head, but her eyes showed the suggestion had some appeal.

‘I’m serious,’ Danny said — and he was. He felt genuine sympathy for this abused woman. For the moment, her situation mattered more than the burglary. ‘Listen, this is your lucky day. I can climb out of a window and unlock the door from the other side.’

‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘I have nowhere to go.’

He took his room key from his pocket. ‘Hotel Splendide in rue de la Liberty. It’s not far. Do you know it?’

She nodded. ‘Do you really mean this?’

‘Hundred per cent.’

She took the key and emerged from the wardrobe. She was larger than Danny had expected. Probably doesn’t get much exercise, he thought, walled up here. Not that her size mattered, but her eyes and voice had made him picture someone frail.

‘I can help you through the window and down to the ground,’ Danny offered, not without uncertainty whether it was physically possible. ‘Is the main door locked?’

‘Yes, but from the inside,’ she said. ‘I can open it if I get down.’

‘Let’s go for it. You’d better put a few things in a bag. Do you have money?’

She shook her head.

‘Doesn’t matter. I have some back in the room. I’ll join you later.’ He still hoped to find something of value here.

She stuffed some clothes into a backpack and Danny dropped it from the open window. ‘You next. It’s not far down.’

‘I can’t jump.’

He still had the bathrobe belt. ‘Can you hang on to this? I’ll lower you down.’

‘Are you sure?’

Easily said. Achieving it would be a challenge. She couldn’t lift her leg up to the window ledge.

‘Do you mind?’ Danny said. He put his hand under her thigh and helped.

By slow stages and a stomach-wrenching, arm-straining effort from Danny, the descent was completed. If there was a gallantry award for helping ladies in distress he would have earned it, no question.

‘On your way now,’ he gasped.

She needed no second bidding.

After recovering his breath, he got back to the main purpose of his visit. More of the villa waited to be inspected. Was Lady Luck still plotting his destiny from her control room at Twickenham job centre?

He left the boudoir, pushed open another door and got his answer.

This was a sitting room of some kind, with cushions of many colours. Face up on the floor was a dead man with a dagger in his chest. There was no question that he was dead and his murder hadn’t happened long before because the blood that had seeped from the wound was still wet. In his right hand was a phone.

Danny had never been slow to size up a situation. He’d seen for himself that this was a patriarchal society where women were subordinate to men. The so-called Arab Spring had brought many reforms and a whole new constitution, but it had not been mainly about changing the status of married women. The dead man was the jailer-husband, stabbed by the woman before Danny arrived. She had bruised her arm in the struggle. She had hidden in the wardrobe and escaped thanks to Danny’s help. He felt quite pleased with himself.

Not for long.

From outside came the heart-stopping wail of a police siren. The victim must have called them on his phone before expiring.

As Danny’s lawyer explained after the trial, ‘It could have been a whole lot worse. The cops really believed you were the killer. You were well advised to stick to your story and as you didn’t actually steal anything you aren’t technically a thief. Three years for trespass and helping a murderer escape is a light sentence.’

‘Did she really escape?’ Danny asked.

‘They believe she made her way to the Hotel Splendide and found your money and your return ticket. She knows England, I was told. When she was younger, her parents sent her to a language school in London. How she got through security posing as you is anyone’s guess, but the seat on the plane was filled.’

‘And I get three years in a sweaty Moroccan jail?’

‘It could have been life. You’ve done a year already on remand. You’re a lucky man.’

Back in Twickenham someone allowed herself a slight smile.