60

On the same day in another part of town, though his table manners may not have suited Antonia Howard, the false Youssef was not to be underestimated. In his palace in Fez he had well paid eyes and ears; eyes for the day and ears for the night, who had just called to inform him that someone with a Marrakchi accent, had been speaking with old Gamal into a tape recorder.

          Relishing these moments with a cunning sharpened by a life of deceit, his facial muscles tightened and his eyes narrowed as he contemplated revenge, shouted at the caller and berated him in the foulest of terms:  ‘stupid like a donkey... useless bowl of shit... son of a pig!  Why had no one informed him Gamal was still alive,’ Gamal his greatest enemy, the man who had abused him as a child. Something had to be done that very night to silence the old bastard!  Clicking off, he paced the pink marble floor of Madame Saadi’s double salon and tried to ignore her cloying voice calling him to bed.

©Elwyn Chamberlain 2006