Sixty-eight

The slim wiry body of Mortimer Wu had been taken away by the police. His possessions and the blood-soaked bedclothes were removed too, confiscated as evidence.

After that, the clerk was arrested as a suspect, although he was later released. The only other guest at the hotel was a Slovak in search of a Sufi brotherhood. He had planned to hitch-hike eastward to Figuig to join a fraternity there, but found himself locked up in an interrogation cell instead.

The clerk had considered it strange that the American might have disappeared at the time of Wu’s death, especially when he noticed that he had left his precious poster behind.

But Blaine Williams had been friendly to the cats. And, as a cat-lover like himself, the clerk thought it unlikely that he could have committed such an act of brutality.

Late in the afternoon, he poured an extra large bowl of cream and laid it on the floor in the usual spot. Still spooked, most of the cats refused to come down from their perches.

At five minutes to five, a stout man with a Marrakchi accent, a dark complexion and heavily scarred cheeks, forced the hotel’s front door open. His voice was coarse, his eyes intensely cold. Even before he had uttered a word, the clerk had guessed who he was.

‘The body?’ the man asked, severely.

‘Taken, by the police, along with his luggage.’

‘He had something that belonged to us, something valuable.’

The clerk dared not ask what it was.

‘You can go up and check the room,’ he said.

The Marrakchi went up. He didn’t need to be told in which room to look, as though he had experience in tracking down the scent of death.

The clerk could make out the sound of floorboards being jemmied up, and the rickety furniture being torn apart.

When he came back down, the Marrakchi looked at the guest register.

‘Where is this one, this American?’

‘Which?’

‘This one... Monsieur Blaine... Blaine Williams?’

‘He left.’

‘When?’

‘Just before...’

‘When?’

‘Just before Mr. Wu did,’ the clerk said.