The boy from earlier had returned with two bowls in his hands, and a chunk of bread stuffed in each pocket. Abdelhamid gave him a few coins.

‘Here,’ he said, passing Sam a bowl. ‘You need to eat.’

Sam looked down into the soup. Harira; the smell of tomatoes and sweet onion and spices told him so. There was chopped hard-boiled egg on top, its pale surface sprinkled with salt and cumin. He was so hungry he could have unhinged his jaw and swallowed the bowl in one.

‘How much do I owe you?’ he mumbled.

Abdelhamid shook his head, already starting on the soup. Sam followed suit. He scooped up half of the egg with the bread and for a minute or two, he forgot everything else.

‘Maybe,’ Abdelhamid said when Sam was mopping up the remaining lentils with the last mouthful of bread, ‘maybe I could offer you one hundred and ten.’

Sam swallowed. It was less than he needed, far less. And yet, what choice did he have?

‘One thirty,’ he said, wiping his mouth.

Abdelhamid gave him a look. ‘One fifteen.’

The bowl was empty. Sam sighed.

‘OK. One fifteen.’

To celebrate their deal, they smoked kif and talked, until it grew dark and the street’s vendors began to pack away, ravelling their wares into the tiny, cave-like shops that lined the Rue de Commerce. Sam helped, lazily handing in old beaten brass lanterns and jugs, paintings dark with time and baskets of metal ornaments that were mostly just shiny new ones scuffed up with boot polish until they looked suitably aged. He watched as the Hermes was tucked on to a shelf.

Abdelhamid caught the look and smiled in sympathy. ‘You are thinking of the great book this machine would write.’

Sam shrugged. ‘In someone else’s hands maybe.’

‘Inshallah. But now you have kif, you have money, you will write again?’

‘Inshallah,’ Sam said, and Abdelhamid laughed. ‘Though I’ll have to write in pencil, or on my walls in charcoal. Madame Sarah would like that.’

‘In years to come she will open your room as a museum. Here is where the great writer Hackett did his work.’ Abdel patted his shoulder, then stopped, holding up a hand. ‘Wait a moment.’

He stepped back into the shop, and began to root through the stacks of old suitcases and cracked trays and framed photographs, blooming with age spots.

‘Ah!’ He straightened his back with a wince. ‘Yes.’

In his hands was a small leather case, not much bigger than a document wallet. The corners were battered, and the clasp that held it shut was thick with rust. ‘Here,’ he said, placing it into Sam’s hands. ‘Look.’

Obediently, he peered down at the case in the fading light. He could make out the indentations of initials tooled into the leather.

A. L.

The kif made everything seem warm and unhurried. He turned the case over and heard something clunk inside. ‘What is it?’