Garment of Shadows (16 page)

Holmes smoked pipe after pipe. Ali drank many cups of black coffee, replenished by visits from the silent Youssef. Lyautey sat straight-backed and listened closely, interrupting from time to time with a request for some detail or other.

Some of the vocabulary the two men used was too technical for my French.

“The partner with whom I came,” Ali was saying, “could give you that information, when he returns.”

“When will that be?”

Ali’s eyes went sideways, to Holmes, who sat abruptly forward, pipe forgotten in his hands. “I don’t suppose he’s been here already?” he asked the Frenchman. “A stocky man of average height, black hair and dark eyes, a scar down the side of his face.”

Lyautey listened to this vague description with no sign of recognition, until Holmes got to the scar.

“Oh yes. Monsieur Hassan. He was here on Thursday.”

The sleepiness that had been taking over my body vanished; Ali snapped upright in his chair. All three of us started to speak, but Holmes’ voice came out on top.

“—the details of the meeting?”

“Intriguing fellow. He came here, without an appointment, just after mid-day, I think it was. That’s right, my secretary was attending a luncheon and Youssef brought the man’s card in. Mohammed Hassan, Moroccan of course, but with excellent French. Wanted to talk about setting up schools.”

“Schools?” Holmes said.

“Yes, that’s where we started, though we ended up speaking about any number of things, from the education of Moslem women to Arabic poetry to my time in Algeria. A curious conversation, all in all. He seemed quite learned and was interested in what we were doing here, how he might help. We talked for over an hour, before Youssef interrupted to remind me of an appointment at the palace.”

Ali was frowning, either in concentration or in befuddlement. “How did he seem, when he left you?”

“Seem? Well, yes, that was odd. I had the impression that something we had been saying touched on some preoccupation of his. He was most thoughtful when he left.”

“What had you been talking about?”

“As I said, all manner of things. When Youssef came in, I believe we were discussing the characteristics of Berber and Arab horses.”

Ali took out his cigarette papers, Holmes his pipe, Lyautey a cigar. The snoring boy had long since been carried off to a divan in Ali’s quarters, and at the thought of the cloud of smoke about to engulf the room, my own exhaustion tugged at my arm.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” I said, “I think I shall call it an evening.”

Lyautey stood when I rose, distractedly wished me a good night, then returned to the point under discussion before Holmes’ question about Mahmoud, namely how, lacking telegraph lines, Abd el-Krim had communicated with his men on the opposite side of the Front eighteen months before, and why he did not make use of …

I shed various garments on the floor beside the narrow bed, and barely managed to pull the covers over me before I fell asleep.

Some time later, a sound woke me. I sat up in alarm: A man stood in the doorway.

“I apologise,” he said, remaining where he was. “I should have retrieved my things earlier.” My
husband
.

“I’ve taken your room,” I said.

“This—” He stopped.

“Ah,” I said slowly. “This was intended to be
our
room.”

“If I may take some blankets from the other bed, I shall be quite comfortable on the divan.”

The divan was a foot shorter than he, and stuffed with a combination of horse-hair and rocks. “You’ll be crippled, come morning. Take the bed.”

“Are you certain?”

I was far from certain. “Of course.”

He came in, lit the lamp, and began to remove various garments. I lay with my eyes closed, following the sounds with some trepidation. How far did he intend to undress?

The answer was, not far.

At the sound of weight settling onto the other bed, I shot a quick glance sideways and saw the thinning top of his head as he bent to undo his shoes—saw, too, that he had removed his
djellaba
, but retained the trousers and long tunic he wore underneath. Once the shoes had slid beneath the bed, the sound of him standing up made me look again, but he was merely bending over the lamp. In the dark room, I listened to the vigorous rustle of bedclothes, the image of his lamp-lit profile fading before my eyes. Suddenly, the ridiculousness of the situation struck me. At the noise I made, he went still. “What?”

I turned onto my side in his direction, feeling an unaccustomed lift to my facial features. “I was reflecting how, after the business at the top of the stairs, it may be a while before you approach me without a qualm.”

“My dear Russell, never have I approached you without a qualm.”

Extraordinary, how it can hurt to laugh, yet also heal.

On Sunday morning, I woke to the thought of the onionskin pellet in the chest pocket of my shirt: a shirt long since dispatched to the laundry. But surely I had not left the scrap there? I had taken the ring from that pocket, so …

Aha: the crimson book, empty but for this torn-off corner of so-thin paper.

I carried it out to the next room, where Ali and Holmes were sitting with a collection of outdated English newspapers. Ali’s face held a peculiar sour look, and he glanced up as I approached, giving the offending paper a shake.

“
The Times
reports on Abd el-Krim taking Chaouen: ‘It will be curious to see what the Moors will make of these elements of civilisation.’ Do they imagine the Emir fights with spears and muskets? That the Rifi heal sickness with incantations and leeches?”

I thought it not the time to mention the sellers of dried lizards in the medina.

Ali flung the paper to the floor in disgust and looked at my hand.

“What is that?”

I gave him the scrap of onionskin. “Is this your young friend’s writing?”

By way of answer, he said a few words in the Berber tongue. Idir looked over from his plate (for a small child, he seemed always to be eating) and nodded. Ali switched to Arabic. “When did you give this to her?”

Then he had to get up and dig some paper and a pen from the room’s desk. Idir wiped his hands on his shirt, and began the process of transcribing his thoughts, chewing his lower lip in concentration.

“How do you feel today?” Holmes asked me.

“Better. I remember our—well, wedding, I suppose, and portions of that spring. And around the gaps, the memories seem more … substantial. Detailed.” It was as well that I now recalled events matrimonial—that glaring failure might cause even a sensible man to feel a degree of affront. However, the newfound clarity was not in all ways a good thing. The death of Dorothy Ruskin, the Holy Land archaeologist, was a fresh grief, while the reality of Mahmoud’s disappearance had taken on urgency: He was a friend, and I feared for him.

With half a dozen lines on the Dar Mnehbi stationery and ink blotches across both page and lower lip, Idir dropped the instrument (another blotch on the page) and returned to his bread.

Ali puzzled over the writing, then asked, “But why?”

This necessitated a repeat performance, even longer and messier than the first. Finally Ali sat back with the stained pages, translating for us.

“When the three of you ate in the medina on Thursday, Mahmoud said that if you were for some reason separated, you should return to that same café. He then tore the corner off a letter he carried and had the boy write the location, so you would know what to ask for.”

“Why didn’t Mahmoud write it?” I asked.

Ali looked at me as if I had said something remarkably stupid. “How will the boy become literate, if he does not practice?”

“Of course. I wonder why I kept the paper.”

“Tidiness?”

I shrugged, and put the red book away in my pocket, reaching instead for the coffee. “What now?”

“If there is to be a meeting between Abd el-Krim and Lyautey, I must return to the hills today.”

“But, Mahmoud—” I started to protest.

“—will have to wait.” Ali spoke as if it was no concern of his, but I remembered enough of the two men to see the swell of apprehension beneath the surface.

Holmes said, “As you said, there are two possibilities: that he was taken away in the motor on Thursday night, as the boy tells us, or the lad is lying, and Mahmoud left the city earlier.”

“The only thing that would have caused Mahmoud to leave on his own,” Ali said slowly, “would be an urgent message from the Emir. We may find that he has already returned to the Rif.”

“Wouldn’t he have told the boy?” I asked.

“Not if he’d wanted Idir to wait here for me. If he’d said where he was going, Idir would have followed.”

“But surely he would have left a message
somewhere
,” I objected.

“Perhaps,” Ali said pointedly, “he left the message with
you
.”

Ridiculous, to feel guilty at having been injured, yet I did. “Yes, of course.”

Holmes intervened. “In any event, unless one wishes to entertain some vastly improbable theory—such as Mahmoud Hazr being the victim of a completely random, run-of-the-mill crime, or sitting in a quiet corner of the medina eating bonbons—it points to the conclusion that some enemy knew of Mahmoud’s presence, and knew either where to find him, or how to tempt him out. The question being, What enemy? An opponent of Abd el-Krim? Another gun-runner, fighting off encroachment?”

“It could even be some old foe who recognised him from Palestine,” Ali remarked.

“The boy has no idea what Mahmoud and I were doing that night?” I asked.

“None.” Ali stood up. “I must leave the solution of this to you two. If I do not leave now, I will not reach the Emir tomorrow. We will meet you on Monday.”

“Mahmoud will turn up,” Holmes told him.

“Insh’Allah,”
Ali said, not sounding at all confident of God’s will.

In ten minutes, Ali was gone and Holmes was preparing to set off into the city. I fetched my oddly ancient boots from beneath the table and started to put them on.

“You are staying here,” Holmes said.

“Mahmoud is my friend, too,” I protested. “You’re not going in search of him without me.”

“Russell, you have had a severe head injury. A normal woman would be in hospital.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re not fine.” He finished adjusting his turban and stood, facing me. “Can you honestly say that your presence will not distract me? Will not slow me down?”

I did not answer. He retrieved a heavy burnouse from the wardrobe and dropped it over his head. “I intend to return by dark. If I’m not back by midnight, you have my full permission to ask Lyautey to turn the city inside-out. Come, Idir.”

And they were gone.

Moments later, a rap at the door heralded Youssef, come to remove the coffee things. It was the first time I’d paid much heed to the servant, an immensely dignified Moroccan of around sixty with skin like warmed chocolate and eyes that saw everything. His
djellaba
and underlying shirt were pristine, his almond finger-nails spotless. He came and went with a manner that slipped just under one’s awareness, as if one of the delicate French end tables had become diffidently animated, for the convenience of the residents.

“Does … Madame wish anything else?” he asked. I smiled at the hesitation: Since the previous night, he’d learnt that the yellow-haired guest was a woman, appearances to the contrary.

“No— Oh, but wait. Is there a library here in Dar Mnehbi?”

“But of course, Madame, there is a fine library.”

A hunt for information can, after all, take many forms.

The library opened off the grand central courtyard of the main
dar
, where an ornate expanse of tile echoed with the music of falling water and cushioned banquettes lay against the walls. The
halka
grid was directly overhead, indicating that this part of Dar Mnehbi was but a single storey high. I could see why it had been necessary to take over the adjoining
dar
—most of the doors opening onto this ornate courtyard stood open, revealing a series of formal salons. It took Youssef some time to lead me to the correct doorway, my steps being slowed by my attempts to take it all in. I goggled, frankly, at the intricate texture of the
zellij
tiles and carved plaster,
zellij
and water,
zellij
and painted wood,
zellij
and coloured glass. It was a space both intimate and intimidating: lavish to the point of majestic, yet clearly designed as a place to welcome guests.