It was at the end of one of these dinners that a fellow admiral of industry, his judgement skewed by a couple of pints of claret, told Woolf about a rumour he had come across. The rumour was a fantastic one, and Woolf, of course, didn’t believe it. In fact, he found it funny. So funny, that he decided to share the laugh with one of the very important people, during one of their regular late-night phone-calls - and found that the line had gone dead before he’d reached the punch line.

The day Alexander Woolf decided to take on the military industrial complex was the day everything changed. For him, for his family, for his business. Things changed quickly, and they changed for good. Roused from its slumber, the military-industrial complex lifted a great, lazy paw, and swatted him away, as if he were no more than a human being.

They cancelled his existing contracts and withdrew possible future ones. They bankrupted his suppliers, disrupted his labour force, and investigated him for tax evasion. They bought his company’s stock in a few months and sold it in a few hours, and when that didn’t do the trick, they accused him of trading in narcotics. They even had him thrown out of the St Regis, for not replacing a fairway divot.

None of which bothered Alexander Woolf one bit, because he knew that he’d seen the light, and the light was green. But it did bother his daughter, and the beast knew this. The beast knew that Alexander Woolf had started out in life with German as his first language, andAmerica as his first religion; that at seventeen, he was selling coat-hangers out of the back of a van, living alone in one basement room inLowes,New Hampshire, with both parents dead and not ten dollars to his name. That was what Alexander Woolf had come from, and that was what he was prepared to go back to, if going back was what it took. To Alexander Woolf, poverty was not the dark, or the unknown, or a thing to be feared in any way. At any time of life.

But his daughter was different. His daughter had experienced nothing but big houses, and big swimming pools, and big cars, and big orthodontistry treatments, and poverty frightened her to death. The fear of the unknown was what made her vulnerable, and the beast knew that too.

A man had made her a proposition. ‘So,’ she said.

‘Well quite,’ I said.

Her teeth were chattering, which made me realise how long we’d been sitting there. And how much I still had left to do.

‘I’d better take you home,’ I said, getting to my feet. Instead of getting up with me, she curled tighter to the bench, her arms folded across her stomach as if she was in pain. Because she was in pain. When she spoke, her voice was incredibly quiet, and I had to squat down at her feet to hear. The lower I got, the more she bowed her head to avoid my eyes.

‘Don’t punish me,’ she said. ‘Don’t punish me for my father’s death, Thomas, because I can do that without your help.’

‘I’m not punishing you, Sarah,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to take you home, that’s all.’

She lifted her head and looked at me again, and I saw a new fear sliding into her eyes.

‘But why?’ she said. ‘I mean, we’re here, now. Together. We can do anything. Go anywhere.’

I looked down at the ground. She hadn’t got it yet. ‘And where do you want to go?’ I asked.

‘Well it doesn’t matter, does it?’ she said, her voice getting louder as the desperation grew. ‘The point is we can go. I mean, Christ, Thomas, you know… they controlled you because they threatened me, and they controlled me because they threatened you. That’s how they did it. And that’s over now. We can go. Take off.’

I shook my head.

‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple now,’ I said. ‘If it ever was.’ I stopped and thought for a moment, wondering how much I ought to tell her. Nothing, is what I really ought to tell her. But fuck it.

‘This thing isn’t just about us,’ I said. ‘If we just walk away, other people are going to die. Because of us.’

‘Other people?’ said Sarah. ‘What are you talking about? What other people?’

I smiled at her, because I wanted her to feel better, and not so scared, and also because I was remembering them all. ‘Sarah,’ I said. ‘You and I…’

I faltered. ‘What?’ she said.

I took a deep breath. There was no other way of saying it. ‘We have to do the right thing,’ I said.

Twenty-three

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Don’t go toCasablanca expecting it to be like the film.

In fact, if you’re not too busy, and your schedule allows it, don’t go toCasablanca at all.

People often refer toNigeria and its neighbouring coastal states as the armpit ofAfrica; which is unfair, because the people, culture, landscape, and beer of that part of the world are, in my experience, first rate. However, it is true that when you look at a map, through half-closed eyes, in a darkened room, in the middle of a game of What Does That Bit Of Coastline Remind You Of, you might find yourself saying yes, all right,Nigeria does have a vaguely armpitty kind of shape to it.

Bad luckNigeria.

But ifNigeria is the armpit,Morocco is the shoulder. And ifMorocco is the shoulder,Casablanca is a large, red, unsightly spot on that shoulder, of the kind that appears on the actual morning of the day that you and your intended have decided to head for the beach. The sort of spot that chafes painfully against your bra strap or braces, depending on your gender preference, and makes you promise that from now on you’re definitely going to eat more fresh vegetables.

Casablancais fat, sprawling, and industrial; a city of concrete-dust and diesel fumes, where sunlight seems to bleach out colour, instead of pouring it in. It hasn’t a sight worth seeing, unless half-a-million poor people struggling to stay alive in a shanty-town warren of cardboard and corrugated iron is what makes you want to pack a bag and jump on a plane. As far as I know, it hasn’t even got a museum.

You may be getting the idea that I don’t likeCasablanca. You may be feeling that I’m trying to talk you out of it, or make your mind up for you; but it really isn’t my place to do that. It’s just that, if you’re anything like me - and your entire life has been spent watching the door of whatever bar, cafe, pub, hotel, or dentist’s surgery you happen to be sitting in, in the hope that Ingrid Bergman will come wafting through in a cream frock, and look straight at you, and blush, and heave her bosom about the place in a way that says thank God, life does have some meaning after all - if any of that strikes a chord with you, then Casablanca is going to be a big fucking disappointment.