Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments
About the author
Hobeck Books – the home of great stories
Also by David Jarvis
This edition produced in Great Britain in 2024
by Hobeck Books Limited, Unit 14, Sugnall Business Centre, Sugnall, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST21 6NF
Copyright © David Jarvis 2022, 2024
This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or localities is entirely coincidental.
David Jarvis has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright holder.
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-915-817-56-3 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-915-817-55-6 (ebook)
Cover design by Jem Butcher
Printed and bound in Great Britain
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CHAPTER ONE
Who could ever forget that splash?
Stepping down from the coach should have been such a relief to everyone, including Tanya, the tour guide. Morocco in summer is so hot – as in, really hot. The coach had been vibrating oddly since leaving the hotel, and she had been standing at the front, shaving her chin (well, that’s what it looked like to everyone at the back as no one could hear a word she was saying). The photo opportunity had turned out to be the fish market in Essaouira, and almost everyone had regretted leaving the cool of the air conditioning the second that their feet had hit the dusty ground.
Tanya, who had a degree in Stating the Bleeding Obvious, was pointing out the boxes of silvery fish and the sharp knives. Over the previous three days, she had demonstrated her complete unsuitability for the job: speaking neither French nor Arabic, and having had a major charisma bypass. Norman – the tall, old man wearing the same pale-blue, seersucker shorts he had worn since his holiday had begun – was busy photographing some ticket office and ignoring the vibrant local scene. This meant he never saw Jessica, the railway station announcer from somewhere in London, trip over her kaftan and fall headfirst into the large concrete channel used to collect the fish guts and various foul-smelling liquids. Several people stepped forwards, but they stopped short of offering a helping hand. She clambered out with as much dignity as is possible when you have a fish head sticking out between your bum bag and your ample stomach.
Tanya pointed out helpfully that there was a footbridge across the sluice about ten yards away (as if any of her customers had the slightest desire to prolong the visit). Norman turned around to ask everyone if they would like a group photograph, only to be met with a range of stares. Jessica was standing with her arms outstretched and being given plenty of personal space.
One person standing nearby who wasn’t interested in a record of the group or, indeed, of any photograph of herself was Michaela Kingdom. She was trying to stay under the radar, having bought a mousey wig especially that now made her sweaty, bald head itch. She was glad she didn’t have to get on that coach. I’m not cut out for fieldwork, she had thought to herself as she cursed Leonard de Vries, her ex-boss, under her breath.
“Mike, look on it as a paid holiday,” he had said.
“The last two times I went into the field for you, people died. Remember?” she had replied, noting his major concession in calling her Mike.
“Third time lucky,” he had managed to say before she had killed the Zoom call.
Tanya had made the unilateral decision that Norman should swap places with Jessica so the poor woman could sit on the back row of the coach, with both side windows open and the air conditioning on maximum. Norman seemed oblivious to everything happening around him and continued taking irrelevant photographs. Jessica was using her retrieved sunhat to fan away the flies as she started up the steps of the coach.
“Ealing Broadway, Slough, Reading, Swindon next stop …” she said in her best station-announcer’s voice, trying to relieve the embarrassment.
Swindon? thought Mike, That’s one of the places where I nearly died, as she tried to push Leonard de Vries’s punchable face from her mind.
“Actually, the next stop is the spice souk. Let’s try to keep Jessica away from the piles of saffron and turmeric …” Tanya was wondering what else could go wrong. “And remember to haggle,” she added unnecessarily.
On Wednesday, 31st August, a little over a week earlier, Mike had been looking up a recipe on her phone when there had been a rap on her door. She had leapt up and, before opening it, had grabbed her handily placed baseball bat. She never got visitors – a benefit, after all, of living in the middle of a pine forest in Oxfordshire. It may have looked like a log cabin from the inside, but it was actually a very small bedsit above a garage, up a woodland track, which was home to a tractor and a rusty trailer.
“Who is it?” she enquired.
“Leonard,” a man’s voice had replied.
