And yet, something whispered to him that here was a story, more brilliant than anything he could invent, just waiting to be uncovered. He had all the ingredients: the writing case and the letters, the old book, Alejandro del Potro and now this mysterious Arthur, the scent of those damn flowers and the unshakable certainty that something wild had happened, all those years ago.

Jasmine in the dark and wet roses …

If only he could step back into Lillian Simcox’s memories; if only he could stand beside her fifty years ago, a drink in his hand, and turn to find A – Arthur or Alejandro – watching him, smiling as dawn broke across the jumbled rooftops of Tangier, as the sun rose through the old sea gate.

He stopped, the cigarette halfway to his mouth.

The old sea gate. That’s what Lillian had said. Did she mean one of the old city gates in the wall that surrounded the casbah? He knew the Bab el-Fahs was the medina gate, the Bab al-Assa the gate of sinners, but the sea gate? He wracked his brain. He had a hazy memory of stumbling across an ancient archway on one of his kif-fuelled night walks, and seeing the bay through it, sparkling with lights … He threw the cigarette into the gutter, grabbed the case and began to stride down the road, towards the beach, towards the old town.

He was gasping by the time he took the steep road that led up to the edge of the casbah, where the Hotel Continental presided high above the bay. The writing case was sticking to his hand again. He should have left it in his room with the suitcase. And yet, it felt like a talisman, an enchanted object with the power to lead him onwards. It was what had started this whole thing; he knew it would help him find the way.

He sucked in air, sun-hot, stone-cold, scented with human lives, and dived into the casbah. Ordinarily he would hurry through, trying to outmarch the kids who ran after him, begging for change, or the stares that followed. Now he walked slowly, peering at every wall, every doorway. It had seemed a simple idea, in the new town, to look at all the houses near the city walls for that one name, Dar Portuna, but soon, the casbah streets began to play their confounding tricks.