But there was obviously something else, something that he hadn't found. Looking increasingly irritated, he searched the suitcases again, then the handbag and, his nose wrinkling in distaste, even checked inside the O'Connors' pockets. The glove box of the Renault had jammed shut, but after a few seconds the lock yielded to the long blade of a flick-knife that the man produced from his pocket. But even this compartment was empty.
The man slammed the glove box closed, kicked the side of the car in annoyance, and climbed back up to the road.
There, he spoke briefly to the other man before making a call on his mobile. Clambering down the slope again, he jogged back to the remains of the car, pulled Margaret's handbag out of the wreckage, searched through the contents once more and took out her driving licence. Then he tossed the handbag inside the Renault and climbed back up to the road.
Three minutes later, the Toyota had vanished, heading towards Rabat, but the old white Peugeot was still parked on the side of the road above the accident site. The driver was leaning casually against the door of his vehicle and dialling the number of the emergency services on his mobile phone.
5
'So what do you expect me to do when I get there?' Chris Bronson asked, his irritation obvious. He'd been summoned to his superior's office at the Maidstone police station as soon as he arrived that morning. 'And why do you want me to go? Surely you should be briefing one of the DIs for something like this?'
Detective Chief Inspector Reginald 'Dickie' Byrd sighed. 'Look, there are other factors to consider here, not just the rank of the officer we send. We've been tasked with this simply because the dead couple's family lives in Kent, and I've chosen you because you can do something none of the DIs here can: you speak French.'
'I speak Italian,' Bronson pointed out, 'and my French is good, but it's not fluent. And didn't you say the Moroccans were going to provide an interpreter?'
'They are, but you know as well as I do that sometimes things get lost in translation. I want a man out there who can understand what they're really saying, not just what some translator tells you they're saying. All you have to do is check that what they're claiming is accurate, then come back here and write it up.'
'Why do you think their report won't be accurate?'
Byrd closed his eyes. 'I don't. My own view is that this is just another bloody British driver forgetting which side of the road he was supposed to be on and losing it in a big way. But I need you to confirm this or see if there's any contributing factor – maybe there was a fault with the hire car, the brakes or the steering, say? Or perhaps another vehicle was involved, and the Moroccan authorities are glossing this over?
'The family – it's just the daughter and her husband – live in Canterbury. They were told about the accident first thing this morning and I understand from the local force that they'll be going out to Casablanca themselves to arrange the repatriation of the bodies. But I'd like you to get out there before them and run some checks. If they haven't left here by the time you get back, I'd also like you to go and see them, just to answer any questions they might have. I know it's a shitty job, but—'
'Yeah, I know, someone's got to do it.' Bronson looked at his watch and stood up, running his hand through his unruly dark hair. 'Right, I'll go and pack a weekend case, and I'll need to make a few phone calls.'
In fact, Bronson would only have to make one call. His plan to take his ex-wife Angela out for a meal the next evening – an event that had already been postponed twice because of the pressure of his work – would have to be put on hold yet again.
Byrd slid the file across the desk. 'The ticket is for Casablanca, because all the Rabat flights were full, andyou're flying economy.' He paused for a few seconds. 'You could always try smiling at the girl on the check-in desk, Chris. She might decide to upgrade you.'
6
'Is that it?' David Philips demanded, staring at the image on the screen of his wife's laptop. They were sitting side by side in the bedroom-cum-study in their modest semidetached in Canterbury.
Kirsty nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed and streaks of tears marred the smoothness of her cheeks.
'It doesn't look like much. Are you certain that's what your mother picked up?'
His wife nodded again, but this time she found her voice. 'That's what she found in the souk. She said that was what the man dropped.'
'It looks like a piece of junk to me.'
'Look, David, all I can tell you is what she told me. This is what fell out of the man's pocket as he ran past them.'
Philips leant back from the screen and sat in thought for a few moments. Then he stuck a blank CD into the disk drive and clicked the touchpad button a couple of times.
'What are you doing?' Kirsty asked.
'There's one easy way to find out what this tablet is,' Philips said. 'I'll give this photograph to Richard and tellhim what happened out there. He can write a story about it and do the research for us.'
'Is that really a good idea, David? We've got to get out to Rabat tomorrow morning, and I've not even packed anything yet.'
'I'll call him right now,' Philips insisted. 'It'll take me ten minutes to drop off the CD at his office. I'll pick up something for lunch while I'm out, and you can start sorting the stuff we'll need in Morocco so we're ready to leave first thing tomorrow. We should only be out there for a couple of days – can't we manage with a couple of carry-on bags?'
Kirsty dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and her husband wrapped his arms around her. 'Look, my love,' he said. 'I'll be out for maybe twenty minutes, then we'll have lunch and do our packing. We'll get to Rabat tomorrow and sort everything out. And I'm still happy to go there on my own if you'd rather stay at home. I know how hard this must be for you.'
'No.' Kirsty shook her head. 'I don't want to be left here by myself. I don't want to go to Morocco either, but I know that we have to.' She paused and her eyes filled with tears again. 'I just can't believe they've gone and that I'll never see them again. Mum seemed so happy in her email, and really excited by what she'd found. And then this happens to them. How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?'
7
'I'd like to see the vehicle, please, and the place where the accident happened.'
Bronson looked across the table at the two men facing him and spoke slowly, in English. Then he sat back and waited for the police interpreter to translate his request into French.
He was sitting in an upright and fairly uncomfortable chair in a small interview room at the police station in Rabat. The building was square, white-painted and distinguished from its neighbours only by the large parking area for police vehicles at its rear, and by the signs – in Arabic and French – that graced its façade. Bronson had arrived in Rabat about an hour earlier, having rented a car at Casablanca airport and checked into his hotel. He'd then driven straight to the police station.
The capital of Morocco was smaller than he'd expected, with lots of elegant squares and open spaces linked by generally wide roads. Stately palm trees lined many of the boulevards, and the city exuded an air of cosmopolitan sophistication and gentility. It felt, in fact, more Europeanthan Moroccan. And it was hot: a kind of dusty, dry, baking heat redolent with the unfamiliar smells of Africa.
Bronson had decided that if DCI Byrd was right, and there was something about the fatal accident that the Moroccan police were trying to conceal, the easiest way to catch them out was to pretend he spoke no French whatsoever and just listen to exactly what they said.