Fifty

There was nothing the taxi driver disliked more than going to the ritzy neighbourhood of Anfa. Everyone there owned a car, and the journey meant he would most likely be returning empty.

He disliked the people, too, regarding them as most locals did, as phoney Moroccans, the kind that were far more at home in France.

Jerking the wheel to the left after the Saudi Palace, the driver gritted his teeth. A sea of congestion stretched out in front of his car’s bumper – most of them black Range Rovers and new German cars.

‘The traffic’s always bad here,’ he said under his breath, ‘because these stupid rich people don’t know how to drive.’

Ghita wagged a finger aggressively.

‘Don’t you blame the wealthy!’ she barked. ‘They’ve got enough problems in life without fools like you giving your pathetic and unwanted opinion!’ She threw down a note. ‘This will do fine. I’ll get out and walk from here.’

A minute later she reached the curled iron gates of the Omary Mansion. They had been sealed with chains and the wax seal of the high court.

A pair of uniformed officers was standing to attention outside.

‘Open these gates at once!’ Ghita ordered.

‘You can’t go in,’ said the first officer.

‘No one can,’ added the other.

‘Well, I am Ghita Omary... I live here!’

‘I don’t care who you are,’ said the first. ‘If you don’t leave I shall arrest you!’

Freezing the officer in a poisonous stare, Ghita turned, and strode briskly down the street, passing half a dozen palatial villas. As she walked, she called Aicha on her stolen iPhone, her cheeks running with tears.

No one picked up and so she left a message:

‘Aicha, darling, it’s me. Look, I don’t know what’s happening. Baba has been arrested. The house has been seized! I’m panicking. I don’t know who else to call. Call me as soon as you get this!’

Ghita stopped at an enormous house set back from the street. She marched up to the front gate, and rang the bell. The security camera rotated clockwise, its red LED light flashing as it did so.

‘Yes?’ said a voice from a speaker on the wall.

‘This is Ghita Omary. I want to see Mustapha, at once.’

The gates clicked opened electronically, and Ghita paced purposefully across to the house. A butler opened the front door as she approached. He escorted her through into the main hallway, the walls hung in antique yellow silk, and down a long corridor adorned in Warhol’s Soup Cans.

A minute later, Ghita found herself seated in the library on a suede sofa, the wooden parquet overlaid with Persian rugs. The shelves were lined with a multitude of books, each of them bound in identical red leather, gilt lettering down the spines.

On the mantel, a clock with ormolu fittings chimed the hour and, as it did so, the door opened.

Mustapha’s father came in.

‘Ghita, my dear,’ he said, kissing her cheeks, ‘I am so happy to see you.’

‘And, I you, Mr. Harass. Please forgive my intrusion but I was hoping to find Mustapha. He’s not picking up his phone.’

‘Did he not tell you? He had to leave town on work.’

Ghita frowned.

‘No, I didn’t know. But I was unreachable myself.’ She paused, touched a hand to her lips. ‘I just found out about my father. I’m confused, and so worried.’

‘My dearest Ghita, I am sincerely sorry about what has happened,’ Harass replied. ‘I warned him that he was placing himself in terrible danger.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He embarked on a mission, a crusade, an exposé of corruption. Going on national television, and unmasking high level officials, publicly shaming them... well, it’s a hazardous sport.’

‘Is it a crime to stand up for what you believe in?’ Ghita said, her eyes welling with tears.

Harass stepped over to the window. He removed a book at random, a first edition of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, volume three. Glancing at it vacantly, he laid it down and turned to face Ghita.

‘Is it a crime?’ he asked. ‘Well, I shall tell you. A great many powerful people have been landed in hot water... boiling hot water... and they don’t like it, not one little bit. So what you see is them, and the system they control, biting back.’

‘Where have they taken my father? I want to be with him.’

‘I understand he’s been taken to a central jail, just for now. I have spoken to Driss Senbel, who’s acting for him as you would expect. But the charges are so severe he’s not been permitted to see anyone at all, not for the moment.’

Ghita crossed the carpet and moved towards the shelves. Grasping Harass’s hand in hers, she lowered her head.

‘You are our family’s oldest and most trusted friend,’ she said. ‘I am begging you to help us in our moment of need. If Baba goes to prison, he’ll be eaten alive – you know he will.’

Hamza Harass took half a step backwards, the leather sole of his right shoe intruding on the carpet’s geometric design. The shoe was handmade by Lobb of St. James’s, fashioned from indigo ostrich leather. Ghita couldn’t help but wonder why a man of such wealth should have such abysmal taste. She looked at him, and he at her, his eyes cold and his jaw clenched.

‘I am afraid that there is nothing I can do for you,’ he said.