One hundred and seven

Clinique Mogador smelled of cut-price disinfectant, the kind bought wholesale down near the port. There was a coldness inside, a sense of detachment, as though no one who worked in its fusty wards was trying very hard at all.

Monsieur Raffi was lying in bed on the fifth floor, his head partly bandaged, his arm in a sling. He shared the room with four other men, each one suffering a considerable wound.

His eyes were closed, but he was not asleep, his mind daydreaming of an afternoon half a lifetime ago – an afternoon spent up in a grotto shielded from the Mediterranean shore.

Through a great deal of hustling, Blaine had tracked the old shopkeeper to the fifth floor of Clinique Mogador.

With no one on duty, he showed himself in, a box of Turkish pralines in his hand.

At first Blaine didn’t recognize Raffi with the bandages on. But, as he drew closer, he noticed something familiar on the nightstand – the black and white studio shot of Humphrey Bogart.

It was resting against a small blue vase in which a dying rose was poised. Blaine stood there, his shadow looming over the bed, half-wondering whether to take the last step.

A draught swept through the room and Monsieur Raffi opened his eyes. He saw the American, frowned, then blinked in slow motion.

‘My dear friend,’ he said very gently, as if too fatigued to speak.

‘I brought you some chocolates. I was very sorry to hear...’

‘That I had been attacked?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the world isn’t as safe as it was. Or that’s what they say. I don’t believe them of course, because we don’t have world wars any longer, just muggings like this.’

‘Are you in pain?’

‘Find me a man as old as I am who isn’t in pain.’

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘A thug.’

‘What was he after?’

The old man let out a cough.

‘You... it would seem.’

‘Me?’

Raffi nodded.

‘He smashed up the shop. Maybe it was a sign – a sign to pack it all in.’

Blaine took a seat on a fragile chair positioned at the end of the bed.

‘I’m so extremely sorry,’ he said. ‘But if it makes it any better, they came after me as well.’

Monsieur Raffi sat upright as much as he could manage.

‘How terrible!’

Getting to his feet, Blaine walked over to the nightstand and picked up the photograph.

‘I found it,’ he said.

‘Found what?’

‘The postcard.’

He took it out of his jacket pocket and held it up, turning it to the light.

‘That’s Villa Mirador.’

‘So I was told.’

‘Did you go over there?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Then what are you waiting for?’