‘It will have to come from someone else,’ someone said.
Awad banged his hand on the table.
‘We shouldn’t be talking like this!’ he said. ‘“It will have to come.” That’s no way to talk. It’s too passive. We should be saying, “This is the way we’re going to do it!” We shouldn’t be leaving it to others. We should be doing something.’
There were mutters of agreement. Then ‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’ said someone.
There was a sudden awkward silence.
Seymour began to get up.
‘Perhaps I’d better leave you to carry on your discussion.’
‘No, no, please…’
But the discussion was ending anyway.
Sadiq got up from the table, too.
‘I’ve got to go and see Benchennouf,’ he said. ‘I promised I’d call in this morning. There are some proofs he wants me to correct.’
He went round the group shaking hands, in the French way: and then, when he came to Seymour, he hesitated, a little shyly.
‘Would you like to come with me?’ he blurted out.
‘Who is Benchennouf?’
‘He’s an editor.’
‘He’s Sadiq’s editor!’
‘You work for a newspaper?’ said Seymour curiously.
‘Well, not exactly work — I don’t get paid, or anything. But I do things for them.’
‘And sometimes he gets a piece in!’ said someone proudly.
‘Well…’
‘Do come!’ said Sadiq. ‘You’d like Benchennouf. He’s very knowledgeable.’
‘And very interesting.’
‘Yes, do go!’ they urged.
‘He was in Casablanca,’ someone said.
‘Yes, I’d like to,’ said Seymour.
Sadiq led him through ever narrower and increasingly dingy streets.
Mustapha and Idris closed in.
‘Hey, where are you taking him?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Seymour. ‘They’re friends of mine.’
Sadiq looked at them doubtfully.
‘We’re going to a newspaper office,’ he said, however, sturdily.
‘What, here?’ said Mustapha disbelievingly.
‘That’s right. In Al-Abbassiya Street.’
‘Look, I know Al-Abbassiya Street and there aren’t any newspaper offices there.’
‘Yes, there are. New Dawn, it’s called.’
‘I know Ali’s, and Mother Mina’s and then there’s the baker at the end — but newspaper?’
‘It’s not one of those… is it?’ said Idris. ‘Hey, you’re not taking him to one of those indecent places?’
‘Certainly not!’ said Sadiq indignantly.
‘It’s not Mother Mina’s, is it?’ said Mustapha.
‘I wouldn’t have thought she was into that sort of thing,’ said Idris. ‘Plain and simple is more her line.’
‘It’s not a place like that!’ cried Sadiq furiously. ‘It’s a newspaper office. An important newspaper. New Dawn is what it’s called.’
‘ New…?’
Seymour, when they got there, could understand how Mustapha and Idris might have missed it. It was a single small room in a dilapidated building with one desk and a typewriter. Dawn, it appeared, had still some way to go.
Mustapha and Idris exchanged glances.
‘We’ll be just outside,’ they told Seymour, and took up position on either side of the door.
A man was sitting at the desk, smoking.
‘I’ve brought a friend, Benchennouf,’ said Sadiq. ‘Monsieur Seymour, from England.’
‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Seymour,’ said Benchennouf, in English, extending a hand. He seemed relieved, however, when Seymour replied in French.
Everything in the place was familiar to Seymour, the small, dingy office, the single typewriter on the desk, the political pamphlets around the walls. The East End was full of such places. Many of the people there had a background in radical politics on the Continent and not a few of them had been journalists. When they had arrived in London they had seen no reason why they should not continue their activities and had set up small presses from which they could continue the good fight.
Seymour was always being sent to such places and took a relaxed view of them. His own sister worked in about four of them. New Dawn was no different. It was, he soon worked out, a radical nationalist journaclass="underline" anti-French but also anti-Sultan. It advocated things that in other countries would be taken for granted: an elected Parliament, for instance, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment.
Benchennouf, too, he thought he had worked out. He was an educated man (educated at a French university, Sadiq told him later, with some pride) and had the interest in ideas typical of the French intellectual. Seymour could see his appeal to young, university-educated men like Sadiq.
‘So how do you come to be in Morocco, Mr Seymour?’ Benchennouf asked.
Seymour told him.
‘Police!’ said Benchennouf, looking accusingly at Sadiq.
‘The English police,’ said Seymour quickly. ‘And don’t ask me,’ he said, laughing, ‘why an Englishman should be investigating a Frenchman’s death. In a country which is neither France nor England!’
He shrugged.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it is because Bossu’s death is, in a way, an international matter, since he was Secretary of that committee. And maybe they didn’t want it investigated by a Frenchman.’
‘Nor the Mahzen,’ said Benchennouf. ‘Well, I can understand that.’
‘You know about the committee, of course?’
‘Of course. In fact, when it was set up, I wrote to it. I said that the committee was improper and illegal and that Morocco could not accept any decision that it might make. I got no reply. Naturally.’
‘Have you ever met Bossu?’
‘I didn’t meet him over this but I’d come across him earlier. But I didn’t trust him. Not after Casablanca.’
He turned to Sadiq.
‘I went for him then, you know, really went for him. Of course, a lot of people did, but I flatter myself that it was New Dawn that really made an impact. We were able to publish details, you see. Details of the contracts. Of course, by themselves they didn’t tell much but I was able to point out the understandings that lay behind them. I demanded that they be made explicit. Of course, they wouldn’t do that. They said that it was all in the contracts. It wasn’t, of course. As we pointed out. And then we told everybody what wasn’t in the contracts.
‘They didn’t like that, I can tell you. Not one little bit. We had the police round, and then some other men who weren’t exactly the police. We were never quite sure who they were. We asked, but they wouldn’t tell us. But they spoke French.
‘So in our next number we asked who were these foreigners who broke into Moroccan property and knocked people about. But then they came back and really smashed the place up and I had to get out in a hurry. I went to Rabat for a year. And by the time I got back it was all over.’
He looked at Seymour.
‘That was how I first came across Bossu. Actually, I didn’t know at the time how much he was involved. It only came out later. If I had known then, what a story it would have made! But it didn’t come out until later, years later, and then only in dribs and drabs. It never quite all came together and I could never quite make use of it.
‘But then when they announced his appointment as Secretary of that outrageous committee, then I could see how to do it. So I wrote that piece. Did you see it? No, of course you wouldn’t have done, you weren’t even in the country. I put it in New Dawn and splashed it around all over the place and I think it had quite an impact.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if — well, you should never make such claims, I know, but — if it might not have had some bearing on what happened to him. It brought it all back to people’s minds. And maybe it put it into someone’s head to…’
He gave a little, self-satisfied smile.
‘You are looking for the person who killed Bossu, Monsieur Seymour. Well,’ he leaned forward and placed his hand theatrically on his breast, ‘I think I can claim some of the credit at least for that particular service.’