The Moses Stone

1

Margaret O'Connor loved the medina, and she simply adored the souk.

She'd been told that the word 'medina' meant 'city' in Arabic but in Rabat, as in many places in Morocco, it was a generic term applied to the old town, a labyrinth of winding streets, most far too narrow to accommodate cars. Indeed, in many of them two people walking side by side would find it a bit of a squeeze. And in the souk itself, although there were large open areas surrounded by stalls and open-fronted shops, some of the passageways were even more restricted and – to Margaret – even more charming in their eccentricity. The streets meandered around ancient plastered houses, their walls cracked and crazed with age, the paint flaking and discoloured by the sun.

Every time she and Ralph visited the area, they were surrounded by hordes of people. At first, she'd been slightly disappointed that most of the locals seemed to favour Western-style clothing – jeans and T-shirts were much in evidence – rather than the traditional Arab jellabas she'd been expecting. The guide-book they'd bought from the reception desk of their hotel helped to explain why.

Although Morocco was an Islamic nation, the population of the country was only about one-quarter Arab: the bulk of the inhabitants were Berbers, more properly called Imazighen, the original non-Arab people of North Africa. The Berbers had formed the original population of Morocco and initially resisted the Arab invasion of their country, but over time most of them converted to Islam and began speaking Arabic. This gradual assimilation of the Berbers into the Arab community had resulted in a colourful mixture of dress, culture and language, with both Arabic and the Berber tongue – Tamazight – being widely spoken, as well as French, Spanish and even English.

Margaret O'Connor loved the sounds and the smells and the bustle. She could even put up with the seemingly endless numbers of small boys running through the narrow passageways, pleading for money or offering to act as guides for the obvious tourists wandering about.

It was her first visit to Morocco with her husband Ralph, who was – it has to be said – rather less enamoured with the country than his wife. He found the crowds of people that thronged the souk claustrophobic, and the myriad and unfamiliar smells bothered him. He much preferred the foreign – but infinitely more familiar – seaside resorts that lined the Spanish costas, their usual holiday destination. But this year Margaret had wanted to try something more exotic, somewhere different, and Morocco had seemed a good compromise.

It was on a different continent – Africa – but still close enough to avoid having to endure a long-haul flight. They'd rejected Casablanca, because everybody had told them it was just a typically dirty and noisy sea-port – a far cry from the classic romantic image created by Hollywood. So they'd settled on a budget flight to Casablanca and hired a car for the drive north to the midpriced hotel they'd booked in Rabat.

And early that evening, their last in Morocco, they were walking towards the souk once more, Margaret excited, Ralph with a resigned expression on his face.

'What, exactly, do you want to buy in there?'

'Nothing. Everything. I don't know.' Margaret stopped and looked at her husband. 'There's no romance in your soul, is there?' It was a statement more than a question. 'Look, we leave here tomorrow, and I just wanted to walk through the souk again and take some more photographs, something to help us remember this holiday. After all, I doubt if we'll be coming back here again, will we?'

'Not if I've got anything to do with it,' Ralph muttered, as his wife turned back towards the medina, but not quite sotto voce enough to prevent Margaret hearing him.

'Next year,' she said, 'we'll go back to Spain, OK? So just stop complaining, smile, and at least pretend you're enjoying yourself.'

As on every previous occasion since they'd arrived in Rabat, they approached the medina from the Kasbah des Oudaïas, simply because it was, for Margaret, the most attractive and picturesque route. The kasbah itself was a twelfth-century fortress erected on a cliff-top, its crenellated battlements and solid stone ramparts overlooking what was originally the pirate town of Sale, and within its walls the place was a delight. The whitewashed houses all sported a band of sky-blue paint, the colour identical on every property, that ran around their bases, from ground level up to, usually, about three feet in height, though on some it reached as high as eight or ten feet. Although the colour had clearly not been applied recently, it nevertheless gave the area the feeling of having been newly painted.

It was a strangely attractive decorative feature that neither Margaret nor her husband had ever seen before and, though they'd asked several people, nobody appeared to have any idea why it had been done. Their requests for elucidation had been met with puzzled faces and elaborate shrugs. The houses within the kasbah, it seemed, had always been decorated like that.

From the kasbah, they wound their way steadily down a wide walkway, flat sections of the sloping path broken by individual groups of three steps, obviously constructed to cope with the gradient, towards the medina. The river ran beside them on their left, while to the right lay an open grassy area, a popular spot for people who wanted to sit and admire the view, or simply to lie there and watch the world go by.

The entrance to the medina looked dark and uninviting, partly because of the brilliance of the late-afternoon sunlight outside, but mainly because of the curved metalwork that formed an elegant semicircular roof over this part of the old town. The metal panels were geometric in design and didn't seem to allow much light to penetrate, but imparted a kind of opaque and shimmering iridescence to the sky above, almost giving it the appearance of mother-of-pearl.

Once inside, the now-familiar smells reasserted themselves in the gloom – smoke, metallic dust, herbs and spices, newly cut wood, and a strange and pervasive odour that Margaret had finally identified as coming from the tanneries. The noise level rose markedly as they walked into the souk, the clatter of the metalworkers' hammers a constant counterpoint to the hum of conversation, of buyers haggling with traders, and the occasional shouts as voices were raised in excitement or anger.

And, as usual, it was full of both people and cats.

The first time Margaret had visited the medina and souk, she'd been appalled at the sheer number of feral cats they'd seen. But her concern was allayed almost immediately when she realized how healthy they looked and saw the first of several feeding areas, where noticeably well-fed cats and kittens lolled about, and where plates of food were left out for the market's feline residents. She presumed that the traders welcomed their presence because they would ensure that the number of rats and mice were kept under control, though the look of some of the larger cats sleeping in the sun suggested it had been quite a long time since they'd had to hunt for their own dinners.

The sheer range of products and skills on offer in the souk was, as always, amazing. They passed stalls selling black metal lanterns; blue and green glass bottles that could be made to order; leather goods, including chairs; exquisite boxes fashioned from cedar; shoes; clothes hanging on racks and poles that extended out into the narrow streets, forcing passers-by to duck and weave their way around them; clocks; spices sold from open sacks; carpets; blankets; and silver trinkets. Margaret always stopped at one particular stall and watched, fascinated, as sheets of silver were hammered flat and then cut, shaped, moulded and soldered to form teapots, bowls and utensils.

And everywhere she looked there were food stalls, selling everything from sandwiches to lamb cooked in traditional Moroccan tajines, the peculiarly shaped earthenware pots that look something like inverted funnels. The first time they had walked through the souk, Margaret had wanted to try some of the local 'fast food', but Ralph had cautioned her against it.

'Just look at the condition of those stalls,' he'd said. 'A British health inspector would have a fit if he saw them. These people have no idea about hygiene.'

Margaret had been tempted to point out that everybody they'd seen looked notably healthy on their diet of local food, prepared without the 'benefit' of flavourings, colourings, preservatives and all the other assorted chemical compounds that seemed increasingly essential in the British diet, but bit her lip. So they had, predictably enough, eaten every meal in their hotel since they'd arrived in the city. Ralph had even been suspicious of some of the dishes served in the hotel dining room, but they had to eat somewhere, and it seemed to him to be the safest option.

Taking pictures in the souk hadn't proved to be quite as easy as Margaret had expected, because most of the traders and shoppers appeared very reluctant to be photographed, even by a tourist. And, obviously, what she had been hoping to capture on her pocket-sized Olympus were the people there – they were what she wanted to remember.

When yet another tall Moroccan swerved away from her as she raised the camera, she muttered in irritation.

'Oh, for God's sake.'

Margaret lowered the Olympus and held it at chest height, partially concealed by her handbag. She'd altered the length of the bag's strap, looped it over her shoulder and was holding it against her body with her left hand because they were in an area where pickpockets were known to operate. She would take a scatter-gun approach to her photographic mission, she decided, and just click the shutter as they walked through the souk, not bothering to aim the camera properly. That was one advantage of digital photography – the memory card was big enough to hold well over a hundred pictures. She'd be able to delete those that were no good when she got back home to Kent, and she had a spare data card with her if she filled up the one in the camera.

'OK, Ralph,' Margaret said, 'you can walk on my right side. That'll help keep the camera out of sight. We'll go all the way through to the other end. And then,' she added, 'we'll walk back to the hotel and enjoy our last dinner here in Morocco.'

'Good idea.' Ralph O'Connor sounded relieved at the prospect of getting out of the souk. He moved across the narrow passageway to stand where his wife had instructed. Then, pursued by a small group of boys clamouring for their attention, they began to walk slowly, their progress punctuated by a succession of faint clicks as Margaret snapped away.

About halfway through the souk there was a sudden commotion at one of the stalls almost directly in front of them. Some half a dozen men, all of them wearing traditional Arab clothing, were shouting and jostling each other, their voices loud and – though Margaret understood barely a word of Arabic – clearly very angry. The focus of their attention seemed to be a small, shabbily dressed man standing beside one of the stalls. The men confronting him appeared to be gesturing towards the wares on display, which puzzled Margaret as it looked as if the stall offered only a collection of grubby clay tablets and potsherds, the kind of rubbish that could be dug up in almost any ancient site in Morocco. Perhaps, she thought, the Arabs were officials and some of the goods on display were stolen or looted from an archaeological site. Whatever the cause of the dispute, it was a lot more dramatic than anything they'd seen before in the souk.

Margaret did her best to aim the camera straight at the group and began clicking the shutter release.

'What are you doing?' Ralph hissed.

'Just getting a bit of local colour, that's all,' Margaret replied. 'Much more interesting if I can take pictures of a fight rather than some old stall-holders flogging brass coffee pots.'

'Come on. Let's go.' Ralph tugged at his wife's sleeve, urging her to leave the scene. 'I don't trust these people.'

'God, Ralph, you can be such a wimp sometimes.'

But the argument they were witnessing did seem to be turning nasty, so Margaret took a final couple of pictures and then turned away, heading back towards the entrance to the souk, her husband striding along beside her.

Before they'd gone fifty yards, the commotion behind them flared into still angrier shouts and yells, and moments later they were aware of the sound of running feet, rapidly approaching.

Quickly Ralph pulled Margaret into one of the narrow side alleys of the souk and, almost as soon as they'd moved out of the main thoroughfare, the small and shabby man they'd seen at the stall raced past. A few seconds behind him, the other men who'd been arguing followed, yelling something at their quarry.

'I wonder what he's done,' Margaret said, as she stepped out of the alley.

'Whatever it is, it's nothing to do with us,' Ralph said.

'I'll feel a lot happier when we're back inside the hotel.'

They threaded their way through the crowds, but before they reached the main gateway, as they were walking past another of the short side alleys beside a spice-seller, they heard another outburst. Moments later, the little Arab ran past them again, his breath coming in short, urgent gasps as he desperately sought sanctuary. Behind him, Margaret could clearly hear his pursuers, now much closer than they'd been before.

And as he ran past, a small beige object fell from one of the pockets of his jellaba and tumbled towards the ground, its fall interrupted by an open sack of light-coloured spice. The object landed virtually in the centre of the sack, and almost immediately became invisible, its colour blending with the spice around it.

The man clearly had no idea that he'd dropped anything, and continued in his headlong flight. Seconds later, half a dozen men pounded past, their pace increasing as they caught sight of their prey, now only about thirty yards in front of them.

Margaret glanced down at the object, then looked up at the stall-holder, who had turned in the direction of the retreating men. Swiftly, she bent down, plucked the beige object out of the bag of spice and slipped it into one of the pockets of her light jacket.

'What on earth are you doing?'

'Shut up, Ralph,' Margaret hissed, as the stall-holder looked at them. She smiled pleasantly, linked arms with her husband, and began to walk away, heading for the closest exit from the souk.

'That doesn't belong to you,' Ralph muttered, as they walked out of the souk and turned towards their hotel. 'You shouldn't have taken it.'

'It's only a bit of clay,' Margaret responded, 'and I doubt if it's worth anything. Anyway, I'm not stealing it. We know which stall that little man runs, so tomorrow I'll come back into the souk and return it to him.'

'But you don't know he was anything to do with that stall. He might just have been standing beside it. You shouldn't have got involved.'

'I'm not "involved", as you put it. If I hadn't picked it up somebody else would have, and there would be no chance of making sure it was returned to its rightful owner. I'll take it back tomorrow, I promise. And then we need never think about it again.'