The Moses Stone

33

Alexander Dexter guessed he'd broken every speed limit imposed in Morocco as he drove south in his hired Citroën towards Casablanca, but even he was surprised by how short a time it had taken him to cover the sixty-odd miles to the international airport.

As he'd walked away from Rue de Sebta, he'd made an instant – and actually very easy – decision.

He'd just witnessed Zebari's murder. The man had been tracked down and killed in broad daylight in the middle of Rabat, despite whatever precautions he had taken to ensure his own safety.

But even more terrifying was the ruthlessness of the man who had killed him, the man with the milky-white eye whose frozen face he would not forget – the man, Dexter knew, who would now certainly be after him.

He had his passport, wallet and keys for the hire car in his pocket; all that he'd left in his hotel room were a few clothes and his washing kit, nothing important. Given Zebari's killer's very obvious capability, Dexter suspected that even if he went back to his hotel immediately, there was a good chance that a couple of men would already be there waiting for him.

So he'd changed his mind and told the taxi driver to drop him on a corner a short distance from the building, and had then walked straight over to the Citroën that he'd left parked on the street, got in and driven away.

When Dexter had flown out to Morocco, he'd taken an Air France flight to Rabat from Heathrow. The return half of that ticket was still in his jacket pocket, but there was no way he was going to use it. That, he guessed, would be far too obvious – and too obviously dangerous. He was sure Zebari's murderer would already have men on the way to the Rabat-Sale airport some five miles north of the city. Dexter's decision to drive to Casablanca was an attempt to put some distance between himself and his pursuers, and hopefully to throw them off the scent.

At the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, he didn't bother returning the car to the Hertz desk. He just parked it, locked the doors and tossed the keys underneath it. When – if – he got back to England, he'd tell the local Hertz office where it was, but that was the least of his concerns right then.

As soon as he walked into the departure hall, Dexter checked the boards. He rejected all Royal Air Maroc flights, irrespective of their destination, because he wanted to use a non-Moroccan carrier, but he had just enough time to catch the Air France/KLM flight to Paris. A running man in an airport – and anywhere else, for that matter – always attracts attention, so Dexter walked briskly to the Air France ticket desk and paid cash for a return flight to Paris. He wanted to avoid any credit card charges appearing in his name.

He knew enough about the threat of terrorism to realize that paying cash for an airline ticket was unusual, but buying a single ticket for cash would certainly raise eyebrows and might result in him being delayed and questioned, which he was keen to avoid. So the return ticket was essential.

The flight was due to start boarding imminently, but before he walked to the departure gate Dexter nipped into one of the airport shops and bought a cheap carry-on bag. In another he purchased half a dozen items of clothing, in a third a traveller's wash bag, then added a couple of novels. He actually needed none of the items that he'd bought, but he knew that everybody boarding an aircraft carried a bag of some sort, and he was desperate not to stand out or attract attention in any way. He now hoped he looked like a businessman just nipping up to Paris for a conference or meeting for a day or two, and not like a man on the run from a bunch of hired killers.

The Moroccan customs officers opened his bag and checked it, as they did for almost every traveller, but that was the only delay. Half an hour after arriving at the airport, Dexter was at the departure gate, standing in a line of people waiting to board the Airbus 319. Twenty minutes after that he was finally able to relax in his seat with the stiffest drink Air France could offer as the jet headed north towards Paris. And he'd seen nobody and nothing to suggest that Zebari's killer or his men had the slightest idea where he was.

In Paris, he took time out to grab a meal before he flew back to Heathrow. He'd had very little to eat that day, and he found his appetite improved dramatically once he knew he was, at least for the moment, safe. By early evening he was back at home in Petworth, the small oblong card on the desk in front of him, and a large whisky in the glass at his elbow.

He would, he decided, wait an hour or so before he called Charlie Hoxton. First, he would take several photocopies of the card and try to work out just why his client had been so desperate to get hold of the clay tablet.