Too angry to be careful, Jake flicked his attention from de Greuze to the small police officer. "Ah yes," he said, "you... The man from the station. The one who was so helpful when Celia's watch was stolen. How could I forget?" Contempt practically dripped from Jake's lips while his eyes racked up and down the policeman, finding him wanting.

Moz wanted to explain that this was Major Abbas. The son and grandson of police officers. A man feared throughout the Mellah. And the nasrani with him, the Frenchman, was more dangerous still. They were not people to whom Jake should be rude.

Only Jake was nasrani himself and the world he saw through his eyes was not the one Moz saw, no matter that he had nasrani blood himself, for only a foreigner could have showed such open anger to an officer of the Sécurité.

"Stolen?" Major Abbas said. "Didn't you sign a declaration saying it had been lost?"

Jake shrugged away the detail like the technicality it was. Lost/stolen, what difference did it make? Celia had got her gold Omega back and, if it had gone, he'd have just bought her another.

"You know exactly what I mean," said Jake.

"I very much hope," said Major Abbas, "that I don't."

The American grinned, a wolfish grin that exposed one canine and creased up his eyes until he could have been staring into the lens of a Hasselblad. It was a look Celia had seen before and she didn't like what it presaged. The only thing worse than Jake drunk or wired out of his skull was Jake self-consciously flying in the face of hidebound, bourgeois convention.

"You wouldn't believe," he told Major Abbas, "I mean, you really wouldn't believe some of the VIPs who've come to my parties." Suggestions of naked children, drugged roadies, copious hashish and doubtful politics hung in the air between them.

"Moroccan VIPs," Celia said, just in case Major Abbas had missed that point.

"And, of course," said Jake, "I've kept a diary of my time in Marrakech. A very detailed diary obviously. Names and places, dates, bribes paid... And I can tell you," he added, "most of it makes Saturday night at Studio 54 look like my first day at Montessori."

Neither Jake nor Celia had ever been to Studio 54, obviously enough. He hung out at CBGB, a club in the Bowery situated below a flop-house. He was talking, however, not just to the Arab police officer but to de Greuze and the Frenchman could be relied upon to know of Studio 54, in a way he might not of a club where at least one person was reputed to have jacked off in the chilli, the bartender often forgot to change the beer and the whole place stank of piss.

"This famous diary," Major Abbas said darkly. "You can show it to me?"

Something passed in a glance between Celia and Jake. A look that marked a point beyond which Celia had not intended to go, although she promptly went straight beyond it. Jake had always had that effect on her.

"Of course he can't," she said dismissively. "Jake writes it in weekly installments and I mail it to Jann Wenner." She named the brains behind Rolling Stone, hoping fervently that Mr. Wenner would never find out quite how liberally she'd taken his name in vain.

"Malika," Moz reminded Celia, pulling at her hand. Very carefully, the Englishwoman unpeeled his fingers.

Again that glance.

"We'll help your friend later," said Celia. "If we can. But first we need to sort this out because Mr. de Greuze says you're in trouble." Celia spoke slowly, as if to a very small child. "And we all know you didn't really do anything wrong."

"I didn't?"

"No," said Celia. "It's okay. Jake's told them the truth." There was something about the way Celia said this which told Moz more was being said than he first understood. At the same time he felt a cold certainty that something very wrong was in the process of happening and somehow he was allowing it to happen.

"Malika," Moz insisted.

"Forget her." The Major's voice was hard. "Worry about yourself." Turning to face the boy, he said, "I need you to tell me the truth. Were you here last Wednesday evening?"

"Of course he was." Jake's voice was equally sharp. "We've already been through this."

"I wasn't talking to you," said Major Abbas. Words that should have reduced Jake to frightened silence.

Jake just sighed. "I've been through it with Mr. de Greuze." He put heavy emphasis on the word "mister," so maybe the Frenchman wasn't a mister at all. He certainly behaved like an officer in the Sécurité, all sweaty skin and suspicious, watchful eyes.

"Well?" Major Abbas demanded.

"I was..." Moz knew exactly where he'd been. On the roof of Dar el Beida, the dog woman's old house opposite the entrance to Derb Yassin. Sun tightening the skin on his neck as he slowly unbuttoned the front of Malika's shirt. "I was with Malika," he said firmly. What else could he say?

The Major and the Frenchman looked at each other, then the Major glanced from Jake to where Moz sat beside Celia.

"You're certain?"

Moz nodded.

In de Greuze's pocket was a folded square of foolscap. A dark stain on one side forming a map of no country Moz could recognize, the other outlined Malika's part in planting a bomb for the Polisario. The confession used the word "I" a lot and Moz was referred to throughout as "he." It was signed in childish capitals.

"What's that?" When Jake stepped forward the Major also stepped forward, putting himself between Jake and the boy.

"Let him read it," Major Abbas said. "He's the only one who can tell us if this is true."

"Of course it isn't," Moz said, handing back the paper. "It's a lie."

"Malika didn't plant the bomb?"

Moz stared at the Major. "She was with me," he said firmly. "That's the truth. She was with me."

"And you were both where?"

"On the roof of Dar el Beida. I'm doing some painting there. An English friend of Jake's is going to buy the house." He would have told them about delivering the drugs for Caid Hammou, but then he'd have been in even worse trouble.

"Moz was not on that roof or any other," Jake said firmly. "The boy was here."

"And I'm expected to believe that?" de Greuze asked. He was looking at Jake when he said this, but it was Celia who answered. And for once her voice was matter-of-fact, no cut-glass drawl to drag her words beyond breaking.

"Moz was here," she said. "For the entire afternoon and evening. None of us even left this riad."

"That's not true..." Moz protested.

The four adults ignored him.

"You have witnesses?"

"Of course." It was Jake who answered the Frenchman. "Celia and I were both here. I say the boy never left my side and Celia is my witness."

"She's your girlfriend." A sour smile accompanied those words.

"No, she's not," said Jake, avoiding the Englishwoman's gaze. "She's my manager, and her name's Lady Celia Vere. Her uncle was British ambassador to Paris."

The look on de Greuze's face suggested this information was new to him. "And you," he said. "Should I know who you are?" His English was heavy but the sarcasm was edged with something that suggested he was reassessing.

Jake smiled. "I don't see why you should," he said. "It's not likely we've met."

The way Jake said this made Celia wince, but de Greuze barely seemed to notice. "I take it Jake Razor isn't your real name?"

"A persona," said Jake. "Nothing more."

"And your real name?" That was Major Abbas.

The name he gave meant little to Moz but de Greuze recognized it instantly and even Major Abbas blinked.

"As in...?"

Jake nodded, casually apologetic. And behind his nod were good schools, family trusts, Norland nannies and a New York bank and City of London brokerage that still bore his name. He'd been given the very best to resent and Jake had the wit to recognize that. Of all the facts stacking themselves up in the head of the elderly Frenchman, only one was really significant.