The Heat of Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediately discernible.
    â€˜
Thé à la menthe
,’ Paul said. ‘
Le whisky marocain
.’
    Mint tea. Moroccan whisky.
The man smiled, offering me the tray with the two glasses. I lifted one of them. Paul took his and clinked it against mine.
    â€˜Sorry to have disappeared like that,’ he said.
    He leaned forward and placed a kiss on my lips. I accepted it, as I did his hand which he entwined with my free one. Then I took my first sip of
le whisky marocain
. The mint was palatably strong, but undercut by a certain sugary sweetness. I usually dislike anything overly sweet but this tea worked because of its aromatic strength and its honeyed undercurrent. After that horrendous flight and the wait in the sun, it was balming.
    â€˜You approve?’ Paul asked.
    â€˜I approve.’
    â€˜Our friend here loaned me his cellphone. There’s a change of plan.’
    â€˜What sort of change?’
    â€˜We’re going straight to Essaouira. There’s a bus that leaves here in twenty minutes.’
    â€˜What about Casablanca?’
    â€˜Trust me, you’re not missing much.’
    â€˜It’s still Casablanca, a place you’ve talked endlessly about from the moment we first got together.’
    â€˜It can wait.’
    â€˜But Essaouira is . . . what . . . four, five hours from here?’
    â€˜Something like that, yeah. I checked just now – the Casablanca hotel doesn’t have air con. Nor will they let us check-in until three p.m., which would mean sitting in a café for almost five hours. Why not take that time getting to Essaouira? And the guy who was selling the bus tickets told me the coach we’re taking is air conditioned.’
    â€˜So it’s a fait accompli that we’re going to Essaouira? You decided for us?’
    â€˜He told me the bus was getting full. Please don’t take this badly.’
    â€˜I’m taking nothing badly. I’m just . . .’
    I turned away, feeling beyond tired after the sit-up-all-night stint across the Atlantic, the heat and the oppressive, toxic air. A further sip of mint tea did wonders for a throat gone parched again.
    â€˜Fine, fine,’ I said. ‘Essaouira it is.’
    Twenty minutes later we were aboard a bus heading south. It was absolutely packed, but Paul slipped the guy taking tickets a 10-dirham note to find us two seats right at the back. It was not air conditioned.
    â€˜
Ça se déclenchera une fois que le bus aura démarré
,’ said the guy when Paul asked – in his rather good French – if the stifling heat inside would be alleviated by cooling air.
It’s going to start after it leaves
. But when we pulled out there was no arctic blast from the vents. The bus wasn’t very old, but it wasn’t very new either. And it was crammed with people and goods. Two women in full burqas sat opposite us with a young girl whose hands were elaborately painted with signs and symbols. Nearby was a wire-thin man well into his seventies, his eyes baffled by dark glasses, rocking back and forth in his cramped seat as he prayed semi-silently, clearly bound up in the intensity of his beseeches to a power higher than this sweat-box. Next to him was a young guy – sallow, peach-fuzz beard, don’t-mess-with-me eyes – listening to some pop Arab number on an overlarge set of headphones that leaked sound. He sang along with the lyrics, his loud, off-key drone accompanying us all the way south.
    The seats were tightly packed, allowing for little legroom, but we were on the long-benched back seat so Paul could angle himself in such a way as to stretch out. I slid in next to him. He put his arms around me and said:
    â€˜So I got it wrong about the air con.’
    â€˜We’ll survive,’ I said, though after ten minutes on the road my clothes were drenched.
    â€˜We always survive,’ he said, tightening his arms around me and kissing my head. The young guy