Together, they walked slowly through the entrance hall, towards the quiet, dust-filled rooms. Sam peered up the stairs as they passed, his skin prickling all over. He almost expected to hear footsteps, to see a young Alejandro come running down, hear the warble of a gramophone and Hilde calling out from the veranda, to see Langham look up from the desk as they stepped into the study.

‘This is where I found the envelopes,’ Zahrah said.

There was a strange smell in the room. Something sharp, at odds with the old leather and worm-eaten wood. Smoke, Sam realized; smoke and burned paper. In the grate, a huge pile of ash had been pushed to one side. Dropping his bag, he knelt and picked out a fragment of dull green cardboard that might have belonged to a file.

‘Ale spent all night in here.’ Zahrah was standing over him. ‘All the drawers and ledgers are empty. Everything was burned, I think, except for what she left me. And what she left you.’

Reaching into his bag, he pulled out the envelope with his name on, and shook out the pages. The rest of Ale’s story, unfinished. He sank into the creaking armchair, déjà vu shimmering across his mind.

‘Go on,’ Zahrah said. ‘Read it.’

Blinking hard, he turned the pages until he found where they’d left off.

‘“Old—”’ he began and stopped.

‘What is it?’

‘“Old Pal”,’ he said, disbelieving. ‘“Take a pony of Canadian whisky, a pony of Campari and a pony of French vermouth” … for god’s sake.’

Zahrah laughed, though her eyes were bright with tears. ‘That’s so like Ale,’ she said. ‘What does the rest say?’

He had to clear his throat before continuing. ‘“Stir into a cocktail glass and drink to friends, absent, old and new.”’

Zahrah wiped at her face. ‘I think we had better do as we’re told.’

Together, they hunted through the dozens of bottles on the bar, some of which looked decades old, perhaps even from Langham’s day, their labels torn, containing nothing but sticky residue.

Sam found himself glancing over at Zahrah. What was he doing here? A few hours before he’d been slammed in a cell, and now here he was, in a decaying villa, making drinks with a woman who … He looked down rapidly at the bottles.

Don’t go there. You have to go home.

Finally, they had two glasses of liquor before them, glowing in the afternoon sun.

‘To friends,’ Zahrah said. ‘Absent, old and new.’

They touched glasses, and drank. It was incredibly strong.

‘Ready?’ Zahrah asked, glancing at the pages.

He swallowed down the taste of the past, of what might be his last drink in Tangier.

‘Ready.’

Old Pal

Take a pony of Canadian whisky, a pony of Campari and a pony of French vermouth. Stir into a cocktail glass and drink to friends, absent, old and new.