He shouldn’t have let himself get so angry, he thought, watching as one of the other men accepted the joint with a nod of thanks. And the stupid thing about it all was that Norton had been right. Crimes had been committed in the past, and in the present too, most likely, whether he ignored them or not. He had been charmed by Ale’s tale. He had wanted stories full of glamour and danger, rather than the grim reality of the present.

He was about to try and ask the men what would happen to them all next, when the door clanged again, and the guard stuck his head inside.

‘Vamos,’ he said to Sam.

Amir smiled and gestured as if to say there, you see. Sam didn’t know what it meant, whether he’d be thrown back again in five minutes; nevertheless, he leaned down and shook the young man’s hand. Then, because it seemed rude not to, he shook the hands of the other three men in the room, who looked up at him with varying degrees of amusement and confusion.

Out in the lobby, beneath the sluggish ceiling fan, a familiar figure was waiting.

‘Bet!’ He rushed forwards to hug her, though he knew he must have smelled terrible. ‘Thank god, thank you so much for coming.’

She pushed him back a little, patting his arm. He hardly recognized her. She was dressed in a prim tweed skirt suit, a scarf tied around her head, like a little British grandmother. Holding on to his arm, she turned and asked the officer at the desk something in Darija. The policeman began to root around beneath the counter. Finally, he came up with the passport.

‘That’s—’ Sam started to say, but Bet cut him off, taking the document with a tight smile and tucking it into her handbag. Then she was steering Sam towards the door, her grip like iron.

‘Wait,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. There had been no paperwork, no release forms, nothing. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Shut up and walk.’

He’d never been so glad to smell the traffic fumes outside, to feel the morning sun prickle across his scalp. Bet kept marching him along the road until they turned the corner and emerged on to the Place de France. Only then did she loosen her grip, and look up at him.

‘Brawling, Samuel?’ she said with a sigh. ‘I thought you were smarter than that.’

‘So did I.’ He blinked at her. ‘Bet, I can’t thank you enough. How did …’ He waved a hand at the police station.