A Dead Man in Tangier by Michael Pearce

not easy.'
    ‘She seems to have good French contacts,’ said Seymour. ‘I saw her with the pig-sticking crowd and then again, I think, at the Resident-General’s.'
    ‘She would have been going to see Cecile,’ said Mrs Macfarlane.
    ‘Cecile?'
    ‘The Lamberts’ daughter. They were at school together.'
    ‘Not altogether happily in Chantale’s case,’ said Macfarlane.
    ‘She rebelled against it. It was a convent school and too strict for her. So soon after her father’s death. But what could they do? There aren’t many schools here and they wanted it to be a French one. The Lamberts were very good to her. They treated her like another daughter. She’s always been very close to them.'
    ‘She wanted to be independent, though.'
    Mrs Macfarlane laughed.
    ‘She would, wouldn’t she? But it’s a good thing they got that hotel. It gives them a base of their own, and you need that if you’re a woman in Morocco.'
    ‘Aye, but will it do for her in the long run?'
    ‘Why shouldn’t it?'
    ‘You always feel that she’s champing at the bit.'
    ‘Isn’t that inevitable?'
    ‘She ought to go to France,’ said Macfarlane.
    ‘But would that work out any better? It would be the same thing only the other way round.'
    ‘Sorry?’ said Seymour.
    ‘Perhaps you’ve not understood,’ said Mrs Macfarlane. ‘Chantale is half Moroccan.'

Chapter Four
    The next morning, it seemed that all Tangier was on the road: except that when they got to the Tent it seemed as if all Tangier had already got there. The space around the marquee was packed with people, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them, many of them dressed in robes of pink and blue, saffron and mauve. The Tent, too, was already full of people. A long bar ran down one side of it and there was a crush of people six feet deep pressed against it. Away from the bar it was almost as crowded.
    Macfarlane took one look and said: ‘We’d better go straight to the enclosure.'
    Behind the Tent was a roped-off enclosure full of horses and men, the men in brightly coloured shirts and riding breeches, and holding lances, the horses nervous and frisky. Apart from the lances it reminded Seymour of . . . What was it? A circus? That County Show again? He’d got it! He knew what it was. As part of the show there had been a gymkhana. That was it: it reminded him of a gymkhana.
    What followed, though, was not at all like a gymkhana.
    A bugle sounded and anyone in the enclosure who was not already on a horse began to mount. There were about a hundred riders and now they were all holding lances, their points held vertical, as in a Renaissance painting.
    A rope was removed and the horses began to move round the side of the marquee and out towards the desert and scrub.
    The crowd surged with them, small boys running excitedly ahead and frequently in front of the horses. The horses took no notice. They formed into a long line and began to trot.
    The crowd, too, began to trot, and Seymour, willy-nilly, with them. People pressed in upon him on all sides. He very soon lost sight of Macfarlane. He found himself being carried along and began to feel anxious. Crowd control? Where was it? They were all running. If one person went down it would be a disaster.
    Horses and people were making for a point in the distance where a man holding a flag stood on a large box.
    Seymour fought to remain upright.
    Suddenly he felt his arms grasped. Mustapha was on one side, Idris on the other. For the first time he was glad of their support.
    The crowd had quietened down. Everyone, like him, was concentrating on running. It was like being in a marathon.
    The horses quickened their pace and drew ahead of the runners. The small boys scattered. The man on the box raised his flag. Just as the line of riders was about to reach it, he dropped it.
    The horses shot away and the crowd surged after them. Away in the distance Seymour could see shapes moving in the scrub. Around them were men in white robes on horses, Musa’s