Norton would probably find nothing; he had to be prepared for that. Still, even the vague possibility of seeing Langham’s name in fifty-year-old print made his fingers itch.

For the first time in days, his hands were empty. He’d left the writing case in his bedroom and the suitcase was safely lodged behind the reception desk at Interpress. Without it, he felt unanchored, like a piece of litter that might be whirled away on an air current at any moment.

There were a couple of hours to kill before he met Norton again. In the Grand Socco, the streets were filling up with people returning from early afternoon prayers, with boys standing on plastic crates, yelling out their stashes of contraband – sunglasses, radios, batteries, lipstick – with kids in the white uniforms of the French Catholic School, buying glasses of buttermilk.

He found Abdelhamid at the Café Tanger, amongst a group of men who were glued to a fuzzy black and white TV that was showing the football.

‘Monsieur Hackett.’ Abdel removed himself from the group to clasp Sam’s hand. ‘Where have you been? Writing your great book?’

Sam smiled back. ‘I don’t know about great, but yeah, I’ve been writing.’

Several of the men shifted their chairs to make room for him, without taking their eyes from the game.

‘It’s good you have come by today,’ Abdel said over the noise. ‘Mouad is here to visit.’ He nodded towards a large man, hovering in his chair as a player approached the goal. ‘We can ask him about the writing case, if you are still interested?’

‘Yes.’ Sam glanced over at Mouad. ‘Yes, very interested.’

Abdel took out his sebsi pipe. Eventually a waiter came by, walking crab-wise, trying not to look away from the television. He nodded vaguely when Sam ordered coffee.

‘I – have to tell you something,’ Sam murmured, once the waiter had sidled away, ‘about the case, and about those things I found, the tag and the key.’ Abdelhamid nodded, working at the sebsi. ‘I figured out what they were,’ Sam said in a rush, feeling himself turn red. ‘It was a tag for the cloakroom, at the Hotel Continental. So I went there and I asked them if they had any old luggage, and I found—’

The waiter returned, setting down two glasses of nus-nus. Sam stared into the soft, milky coffee. He didn’t know how to go on, how to explain that his everyday reality had been altered, ever since he opened the writing case. How he felt possessed by the story; how writing about it was the best and most nerve-wracking thing he had ever done. How afraid he was that it would all amount to nothing.

Around him, the café let out a wail of frustration at a missed goal.