Langham was smiling. ‘Hilde’s right. How fine you look. You must get one of your own.’

We were almost of a height, he and I, and though the suit was too big across my shoulders and around the waist, it wasn’t a bad fit. He ran his hands through my hair, combing it back from my forehead, like his own. Quietly, Hilde let herself out.

‘There,’ Langham murmured when he was done. Our faces were next to each other, his flushed from washing, mine from his touch. ‘We could almost be the same man.’

I turned to find his mouth, the hangers in the wardrobe clattering as we leaned back against it.

Later that day, I slipped outside the back gate for the first time in days, and beckoned to one of the children who were always lingering near the Bab al-Bahr, on the make. A boy came running over. He wore rope sandals, his hands quick and grubby, his eyes appraising of my fine suit.

‘Yes señor, monsieur, yes?’ he asked.

‘You know Souissa, the tailor down near the Petit Socco?’ I asked.

He nodded rapidly, answered sí sí, his eyes on my pocket as I took out a handful of centimes. ‘Take this down to him right away.’ I handed over an envelope, one from Langham’s personalized leather case. ‘Tell him to send the bill as usual. You can remember that?’

The boy snatched the letter from my hand before I finished speaking. ‘Sí, señor, claro,’ he smiled, holding out his hand for his payment.

I watched him run off with a smile, picturing Souissa’s face when he opened the letter and found my order for a white flannel suit, and a shirt of palest saffron gold, just like Langham’s.

As I turned back towards the house my neck prickled, despite the heat. I looked about, searching for the eyes I was sure were watching me, but all I saw was a flash of movement as someone disappeared around the corner of the Bab al-Bahr.

In those hot weeks, Langham did not go out as much as he usually did. Perhaps he was feeling on edge too, or perhaps we were simply being gluttons, revelling in each other’s company. We hadn’t spoken about the night he had returned, sea-drenched and bleeding from what looked like a knife wound to the arm. Indeed, though I began to know every centimetre of his body, from the jut of his hip and the smooth gold-brown hair of his thighs, there were multiple scars across his back and chest and now his arm that eluded definition. I asked him about the wound only once on that first night, as we lay tangled in clothes and bedsheets. He had only looked at me, and smiled. ‘A scuffle, that’s all.’