Six

Hicham Omary fed the beige calfskin steering wheel of his limited edition Jaguar through his fingers in a turn.

His concentration was not on the road, but on the conversation that had dominated the morning’s game, the subject of endemic corruption.

Halfway between the golf club and his home, a distance of a mile, he was flagged down by a uniformed police officer. Rolling his eyes, Omary eased the car to a halt, and lowered the window.

‘Good morning sir, you made an infraction back there,’ said the officer, his accent from the Mediterranean shores of the north.

Hicham Omary groped in his pocket for a hundred-dirham note. Expertly, he used his left hand to fold it once and then again. And, in a much-practised movement, he leaned sideways so as to insert the square of paper into the policeman’s cuff – thereby avoiding his hand.

But, just before the bribe was delivered, he froze. The officer winced. He hadn’t yet received the money.

‘Look at me,’ said Omary out loud. ‘I’m as guilty as all the rest.’

‘You made an infraction, sir,’ the officer repeated.

‘So give me a ticket.’

‘But...’

‘But, what?’

‘But, sir, there’s another way to sort out the situation.’

‘And how would that be?’

The official frowned, fumbling for his pen. No one ever agreed to pay the fine. After all, the standard bribe was a quarter of the price and executed in a fraction of the time. The last thing any policeman wanted to do was paperwork. In the time it took to fill out a single form for an infraction he could bring in ten times as much in bribes – cold hard cash he got to keep.

Omary held out his wrists.

‘Let’s go to the police station,’ he said. ‘I’m all yours!’