They said other things: that Señor Ramón Vélez del Olmo was a great man, a philanthropist who had donated thousands to the Church and its reformatory. They said that I had tried to extort money from him, and had become enraged when he refused. They said he had only been at the inn to seek out a friend, in order to dissuade him from sinning. About Elena, they said nothing. Why should they? Men just like the Señor ran the newspapers, and they all had Elenas of their own. So, Señor Vélez del Olmo was a great man, and I was the venal whore who murdered him. That was the story they told themselves at their card tables and racing parties.

The truth is always less glamorous.

The truth is that I passed the hours following the Señor’s murder in terror, trying to lose myself in amongst the feria. I had no one, nothing but a knife and the clothes I stood up in – old trousers and a blouse and stained apron – unsuited to the world. My nose throbbed like the devil. When I explored it with my fingers, it felt hot and swollen but thankfully unbroken. Behind some of the tents were barrels of water for the mules where I rinsed the dried blood from my face.

In the light of the fireworks, I saw myself reflected; hair wild and straggling from the scarf, nose swollen, face gaunt with shock. By the time the second shower of light came, I had pulled the scarf from my hair and wet it so that it lay neater, I had turned the apron back to front and tied it around my waist, so that it looked almost like a skirt. While people were still distracted by the lights, I stole into the back of a tent and swiped an embroidered shawl that had been abandoned on a chair.

I crept through the people clutching drinks, staring upwards, their eyes and teeth reflecting red and orange. I sought out the most boisterous crowds, at the end of the river where the rich folk did not go. I tried to blend in by pasting a smile on to my face and clapping my hands to the music like a toy monkey.

But all the while, my mind was racing. I had to get out of Córdoba, I thought as I grinned and clapped, I had to get out before morning. It seemed impossible. I had never left the city before. My only knowledge of the world came from Ifrahim’s stories, of French jails and Portuguese shipyards, English enclaves and African souks, and they were just that: stories. Even if I did know where to go, I had no money for a bus or train ticket, no papers, no proper clothes even.

Only the knife.

Tangier

July 1978

‘I’m telling you, it just vanished.’