That’s how things were done these days at the Central Bureau. It was the modern way: no clean policing without dirty policing. It meant you could schedule the drug seizures for the TV cameras, and have the ministers pose, looking suitably po-faced, in front of mountains of hash.

All I knew was that this sort of dodgy business allowed some traffickers to live like Saudi princes with the State’s blessing, which absolutely removed any scruples — just in case one day I should acquire some — about doing the same thing myself. But really, what a disgrace, if you stop to think about it, these cops who are paid by the taxpayer, wallowing in the lap of luxury along with the dealers.

With my current business partner, at least I could be completely confident. Sure, he dined at the local kebab joint. But it wouldn’t have occurred to anybody to recruit him for anything. Nonetheless, I kept those Tunisians in the back of my mind. Actually, I was jealous because I would have liked to do it like the cops: work with intelligent people under good conditions. Unlike the clowns with whom I was forced to do business, those guys had taste, hung out at five-star hotels, treated their girlfriends or wives with respect — women who weren’t poor illiterate girls brought up from the bled. Unlike the more half-witted type of Muslim, they did not hold the view that you could never leave the belly of a woman without child, nor her back without a rod. And that was precisely what I found so damned fishy as I listened to the Tunisians through my headphones. Because Scotch, to take just one example — and they were all alike, these dealers, with rare exceptions — was already looking for a mate, despite having barely started to attain a degree of prosperity. To this end, he had been in touch with his Moroccan family so they could find him, and I quote, “a good woman who wears the niqab and reads the Quran.”

Still, I had the partners I was able to afford, the only ones stupid enough to do business with a woman who had materialized out of nowhere. Besides, they had all worked hard over the summer and were now making contact again by SMS with a view to relieving me of a further 200 kilos on 15 October.

1 m = 2 x 40 + 20, no +, at 3.5 in 2 x

Unfortunately, even though I always ordered a taxi with a big trunk, you couldn’t ever fit more than two 40-kilo wheeled bags, plus one more with 20 kilos of loose gear.

Where to with the Tati bags? Scotch asked, paving the way for some humorous banter.

I shot back my reply: Tati store — wedding dresses, next to the change rooms, 5:15 p.m.

I was in a good mood.