Fifty-six

Taking the shoeshine boy’s advice, Mortimer Wu went across to Hotel Marrakech, and soon found himself installed in the room opposite Blaine’s.

Opening the window, he stared out at the flower stalls on the edge of the market. Then he lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and thought back to Hong Kong once again.

An hour or two passed and Wu didn’t move.

By remaining completely still he found that the anxiety and the fear subsided. But, as dusk fell over Casablanca he pushed back his shoulders and pulled himself off the bed.

He glanced down at the market.

The flower sellers were packing up, draining their buckets into the gutters, bundling up the roses for another day.

There were footsteps out in the corridor.

Wu put his ear to the door. He listened, and opened it a crack. A man was fumbling for his key at the room opposite.

‘Hello,’ he said, in a friendly voice – an American voice.

‘Good evening,’ Wu replied, opening the door wide.

‘You new here?’

‘Yeah. Just arrived this afternoon.’

‘How are you liking the faded grandeur of Hotel Marrakech?’

Mortimer Wu didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he asked:

‘Is there any hot water?’

‘Hot water? Are you crazy?’ said Blaine with a grin. ‘You’re lucky if you get any water at all – hot or cold.’

‘Can you direct me to the shower?’

‘Sure. It’s all the way down the hall.’

‘Thank you,’ Wu replied, before withdrawing into his room.

Shutting the door, he slid the bolt firmly into place.

Left standing there, his own door open, Blaine plodded down the corridor to relieve himself.

On the way back, he wondered whether to reach out, to invite the newcomer for a glass of café noir down at Baba Cool.

He was about to knock, when he heard a commotion down in the lobby. The front door slammed hard, and was followed by the cacophonous cry of cats.

Leaving his room open, Blaine hurried down.

The ever-present clerk wasn’t laid out on the floor in his usual state of delirium. He wasn’t there at all. Blaine peered on the floor behind the desk, but there was no sign of the clerk.

The cats seemed uneasy.

A few of them had their ears pricked up, alert, poised low as if ready for flight. One or two had leapt up to higher ground, and were perched on a high shelf. They were quite obviously spooked.

Eventually, Blaine went back upstairs, and slipped back into his room. He cursed the damp, the cold, and the stench. Then his mind turned to Ghita. Even though the thought of her made his blood churn, he wished she were there.

Pulling on his Humphrey Bogart raincoat, fedora in hand, he went out into the corridor again.

Across from his room the Chinese backpacker’s door was ajar.

Rehearsing a line of invitation in his head, Blaine knocked, pushed the door open and swung his head in.

Mortimer Wu was lying on the bed, face up. There was an odd oily, almost metallic smell, and the curtains were drawn shut. Frowning, Blaine flicked on the light.

He leapt back in terror.

The backpacker’s throat had been slashed. His clothing and the moth-eaten blanket were soaked in fresh blood.

Blaine screeched. It was a high-pitched girlie scream, the kind from Tom and Jerry cartoons, when the woman sees the mouse.

He stood there for what seemed like an eternity, his feet rooted to the bare floorboards, every nerve in his body in shock.

Then he panicked.

Something was telling him to get out, to run.

But do so and he’d be a suspect. This isn’t America, he thought. Things don’t work like that here!

So, shaking, he ran back to his room, grabbed his satchel and the bin-liner.

Sprinting down the stairs, he rushed out through the front door of Hotel Marrakech.