‘A suit?’ he repeated. His face trembled between dubiousness and hope. ‘Well …’ He glanced at his shop, the shelves almost empty of goods.

‘A suit,’ I said, firmly. ‘And shirts. Underwear. Socks. Anything else a gentleman might need.’

The tailor stood, fumbling a pair of spectacles on to his face, smoothing his wayward grey hair. ‘Of course,’ he said, ushering me closer, as if I might run out the door any moment. ‘Of course, it would be my pleasure.’ He held up a measuring tape, but hesitated. ‘Only … I am sorry to ask, monsieur, but do you have the means to pay? You see, I cannot extend credit.’

He’d noticed my suit at last then. His tailor’s eye had picked up its second-hand nature, the tiny holes where embroidery had been picked from the fabric. I gave him my best smile.

‘You may send the bill to my employer, a Monsieur Arthur Langham, of Dar Portuna. He will pay it. He wishes me to be well dressed.’

‘Dar Portuna?’ The tailor scrawled a hasty note.

‘That’s correct.’

Play the game, learn the rules. There were a hundred rules in The Gentleman’s Guide about how to dress. And if I was to be part of Langham’s world, I had to look the part, didn’t I? I swallowed and raised my chin, hoping I was right; that the book had been an invitation, of sorts. If not, I would have a lot of explaining to do. Even if he kicks me out, my old, thievish self thought, at least I’ll have a good suit.

‘Very well,’ the tailor was saying, ‘if you would please remove your jacket.’

‘There is one more thing I require,’ I said, stepping back.

I took the remaining five pesetas from my pocket, plus the coin the goat-eyed man had given me. My only money in the world. The tailor stared at it. It could keep his family fed for a week, I knew. It could buy him bottles to drown in, a dozen pipes to dull his misery.

‘Yes?’ he asked eagerly. ‘What is it?’

I shifted my chest in the bindings and placed the money in his hand.

‘Your silence.’

Tangier

July 1978

Outside, night fell as the man talked. He didn’t switch on a light. Better that way, Sam thought. In the shadows he could imagine himself back there, to the Tangiers of fifty years before: a place of French champagne and Moroccan rosewater, Indian opium and cold, dry Plymouth gin.