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clothes.”
    “I’d love a drink,” she said fiercely.
    She went into the bathroom, and David changed in the main room. He couldn’t stop shaking. Well, Richard thought, let him shake. He was dead sure this irresponsible bastard had had a drink on the road. Should he save him or let him hang? The Moroccan police would not be forgiving about a Breathalyzer test. Richard began as testily as he could.
    “I have to ask you. How did it happen? I think you should tell me before you tell the flics . So we can iron anything out.”
    “We were bowling along looking for the sign for Azna. There was a fossils seller standing by the road, like they always do. We’d seen hundreds of them since Chefchaouen. I couldn’t see. There was a lot of sand blowing across the road. Then the guy just stepped in front of us. He wanted us to stop. We thought he would carjack us. We’d heard about the carjackings.”
    “Carjackings?”
    David threw up one hand. “It’s like he wanted to bluff us. Or commit suicide. It was like he didn’t understand the speed of a car.”
    Richard didn’t know how to deal with an observation like that. A little dry irony?
    “These are simple people, David. They don’t always understand things like the speed of a car. Some of them don’t even know what cars are. They’ve only seen them in the movies. Incredible, isn’t it? In this day and age.”
    “I’m surprised they’ve seen movies.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Jo said impatiently. “The fact is, we hit him.”
    Richard relented, and he merely watched David loosen his collar and sweat it out. The doctor didn’t even feel the barb. “These sorts of accidents happen. The main thing is to come clean, cooperate with the police, and seem overwhelmingly contrite. Sometimes they will ask for a discreet bribe. We can do that, can’t we?”
    “If it’s absolutely necessary.”
    “It might be. We’ll see. The guy there now isn’t too bad. They’ll probably ask you if you knew the kid. They always ask that.”
    “How the hell could we have?”
    “It’s just their way of getting their suspicions out in the open. We have to go along with it.”
    They were both English, so there was complicity. Us and them. The “them” was especially Muslim officials who didn’t drink. The question was, did the “them” include the dead boy lying in the garage? Theydidn’t even know his name. There was no ID on him, and it was highly unusual for a Moroccan not to be carrying ID. There was nothing in his pockets at all, not even a single dirham note. Normally, one would laugh.
    David wondered if Richard was lying. There was something that made him think so. Not massively, but slightly. Lies are excusable, but it depends on what they are, and when he searched David’s boxy, hypermasculine face, he found it half open like a box that hasn’t been properly closed. The eyes were in eclipse.
    Behind them, David crept about unsurely, trying to figure a way out of this mess, and prepared to bend things a little. His face sweated and wouldn’t dry, and he rubbed his fingers frantically as if he wanted to get something off them, though he had obviously washed them thoroughly. He kicked off his expensive Oxfords in disgust and his face became petulantly enraged. Gradually he calmed down. Richard sat on the bed next to him while they listened to the woman showering in the next room. They had known each other for some time in London, but they had never seen each other elsewhere. Richard watched him gulp down the pitcher of water.
    “It’s so damn hot,” David moaned.
    “Yes, it’s the Sahara, old boy.”
    “I know. But it’s so hot.”
    His teeth chattered.
    “Have you told me everything, David? You might as well tell me everything so I can help you.”
    “I have.”
    “Have you really?”
    David tried to get up, then sat down again. “I’m very sorry for the trouble. We both are. Incredibly sorry.”
    “It’s not something to apologize for. As long as I