‘And are you sure, Fuad,’ he said at the end of Fuad’s recital, ‘that there were two horses?’
‘Positive, Monsieur. One ran off ahead of us. And that, I think, must have been the Frenchman’s horse, for it was riderless.’
‘And the other?’
‘Rode the other way, back the way we had come.’
‘To rejoin the hunt?’
‘I think so, Monsieur. For the rider was holding a lance. But, Effendi…’
‘Yes?’
‘Afterwards, I was puzzled. For I had taken the man for one of Musa’s men. But how could that be, if he was carrying a lance?’
‘Why did you take him for one of Musa’s men?’
‘I did not see him clearly, Effendi. I lost him almost at once in the scrub. But he stopped for a moment to disentangle his headdress from the thorn, so I thought-’
‘Monsieur Ricard-’
Monsieur Ricard surveyed him with a baleful but, possibly surprisingly for that hour in the morning, recognizing eye.
‘The Englishman!’
‘Just so. And, like you, I suspect, getting ready for the pig-sticking tomorrow.’
‘I don’t need to get ready,’ growled Monsieur Ricard. ‘I am always ready.’
‘A little practice, perhaps?’
‘Practice! I don’t need practice. When you’ve been pigsticking as long as I have… No, all I shall do today is see that the horse is all right. In so far as it will ever be all right! I need a new one.’
‘I think you mentioned that.’
‘One which will keep up. This one is too old. “Like you, Father,” my daughter says. The idiot! What does she know about it?’
‘You are as old as you feel, Monsieur, and you, obviously, feel in the best of health.’
‘I do. And I don’t need that idiot, Millet, telling me otherwise.’
‘You are looking forward to the event tomorrow?’
‘Certainly.’
‘I wish you well, Monsieur Ricard. It was a great pleasure to visit you the other day and benefit from your knowledge. Not just of pig-sticking but also of Tangier.’
‘I should know it. I’ve been here a long time.’
‘Then you, perhaps, are the very person who can help me over something that’s been puzzling me. When you spoke so interestingly about the young Bossu and what lay behind his marriage to the charming Juliette, you said that the marriage had nearly not come about because of one of Bossu’s previous affairs. A most unsuitable affair, you said. Certainly, from what you told me, her family appeared to view it so.’
‘He wanted to marry her. That was the unsuitable bit. As an affair, there was nothing wrong with it. Lots of young men have affairs with Moroccans. But when you start talking about marriage-’
‘She was a Moroccan?’
‘Very much so. And the family couldn’t have that. It was one of the older settler families. French through and through. It would have been a blot. Even though it was in the past. People would always have been saying that Juliette was second choice after a Moroccan! Well!’
He gave one of his old-man laughs.
‘Of course, in the end they did accept him. In the end, money talked loudest. It usually does, doesn’t it? Bossu had the money, so in the end he had the girl.’
He started to laugh again, then stopped.
‘Mind you, it didn’t work that way with the other one. She turned him down. I’ll bet that was a shock! Turned down by a Moroccan! She wouldn’t have anything to do with him.’
‘And the name of this lady was…?’
‘Do they have names?’ Ricard laughed.
The laugh turned into a frown.
‘I used to know it once. I forget everything these days. Marie, was it? Something like that. Anyway, I can tell you who she was. The mother of that…’ He had to search again. ‘… Chantale!’ he shouted triumphantly.
The barracks was on the edge of town. It was surrounded by a perimeter fence and outside the fence was a bare, sandy area where, to judge by the condition of the sand, horses were exercised. Inside the fence was a large square where men might parade and recruits be given foot drill, and, beyond that, a number of low single-storey buildings. Seymour gave his name at the gate and asked to see Captain de Grassac. An orderly was sent off and soon de Grassac himself appeared.
They shook hands.
‘You have come to see the lance? It won’t take long. There’s nothing very special about it, I’m afraid. But then you can come into the Mess and we’ll have something.’
He took Seymour behind the main building and then into another building where the officers had their quarters. He opened a door and led Seymour into a surprisingly comfortable room lined with books.
De Grassac waved a hand at them almost apologetically.
‘One gets into the way of reading out in the outposts,’ he said. ‘There is not a lot else one can do.’
He went through an inner door and emerged carrying a lance, which he gave to Seymour.
Seymour turned it over in his hands.
‘Where do people get lances from?’ he asked.
‘There’s a place in the city you can buy them from. Darquier’s. This was probably bought there, but I don’t know that will help you.’
He took the lance and turned it over almost fondly.
‘This is obviously an Old Faithful,’ he said, ‘and was bought some time ago. I doubt if their records will show anything.’
‘Mind if I keep it for a day or two?’
‘Not at all.’
He looked at his watch.
‘The bar will be open. Would you like to see our Mess?’
He took Seymour into another building where officers were gathering, and then looked at Seymour inquiringly.
‘We usually drink beer at this time,’ he said, ‘to replace the liquid we sweat out during training.’
‘Beer will do fine.’
De Grassac returned with two beers and sat down.
‘How are you getting on with your investigation?’
‘Nearly there, I think.’
De Grassac raised his eyebrows.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘You surprise me.’
‘There are still one or two things to tie up. I’m still learning things about Bossu. As a man. He doesn’t seem to have been very nice. If what Chantale says about him is true.’
‘You’ve been talking to Chantale? No, he was not a nice man.’
‘I can understand Bossu’s animosity towards de Lissac when they were in Casablanca. It was a time when feelings ran high. And Bossu had put a lot into building the railway. Of himself, I mean. It was one of his first projects and he wanted it to succeed. And he felt he hadn’t started too well, either. With all the trouble. And then de Lissac came along and made things worse. I can understand Bossu feeling angry. But what I can’t understand is why his anger should continue afterwards. If it did.’
‘Oh, it did.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
De Grassac shrugged.
‘Maybe because of the kind of man Bossu was?’ he offered.
‘I wondered if there was some previous history between them?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘You were at the wedding, if I remember. Of de Lissac and Chantale’s mother. Was there anything there?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Involving Bossu?’
‘It seems unlikely. Wasn’t he in Tangier?’
‘I just wondered if something had come up.’
‘Not as far as I can recall. You remember it was, well, a private wedding. Rather in secret. There weren’t many people there.’
‘No, but I wondered if you had picked something up.’
‘Look,’ said de Grassac, ‘I wasn’t there long enough to pick anything up. I had been in a fort on the other side of Algeria. I had come over especially for the wedding. Because de Lissac asked me to. I had got a leave pass for fifty-six hours and then I had to be back. I spent most of the time travelling.’
‘Okay but there was something. I wondered if you had picked it up. If not then, perhaps later.’
De Grassac was silent, for quite a long time.
‘Perhaps,’ he said.
‘You see, it might account for the animosity.’
De Grassac said nothing.