3

Just after ten the following morning, Margaret walked back into the souk with the clay tablet secreted in her handbag. She'd examined it carefully in their hotel room the previous evening, and taken several photographs of it.

The tablet was actually remarkably dull. Perhaps five inches by three, and maybe half an inch thick, it was a light grey-brown, almost beige, in colour. The back and sides were smooth and unblemished, and the front surface covered with a series of marks that Margaret assumed was some kind of writing, but not one that she recognized. It certainly wasn't any form of European language, and it didn't even look much like the Arabic words and characters she'd seen on various signs and in newspapers since they'd arrived in Rabat.

In exchange for her promise that she'd simply go back to the stall, hand over the object and come straight back to the hotel, Ralph had agreed not to come with her.

But when Margaret stepped into the souk and walked through the twisting passageways to the stall, there was an obvious problem. Neither the small Moroccan nor the collection of ancient relics she'd observed the previous day was there. Instead, two men she'd never seen before were standing behind a trestle table on which were displayed rows of typical tourist souvenirs – brass coffee pots, metal boxes and other ornaments.

For a few seconds she stood there, irresolute, then stepped forward and spoke to the men.

'Do you understand English?' she began, speaking slowly and clearly.

One of the men nodded.

'There was a different stall here yesterday,' she said, her words again slow and measured, 'run by a small man.' She made a gesture to indicate the approximate height of the Moroccan she'd seen previously. 'I wanted to buy some of his goods.'

The two men looked at her in silence for a few seconds before exchanging a couple of sentences in rapid-fire Arabic. Then one of them looked back at her.

'He not here today,' he said. 'You buy souvenirs from us, yes?'

'No. No, thank you.' Margaret shook her head firmly.

At least she'd tried, she thought as she walked away, but if the man who'd dropped the clay tablet wasn't there, there obviously wasn't any way she could return it to him. She'd just take it with her, back home to Kent, as a strange souvenir of their first holiday outside Europe, and a reminder of what they'd seen.

What she didn't notice, as she walked away from the stall, was one of the stall-holders taking out his mobile phone.

* * *

Margaret decided to take one last look around before she returned to the hotel. She was quite sure Ralph would never agree to return to Morocco, because he really hadn't enjoyed his time in Rabat. This would be her last opportunity to take in the sights and get a few final pictures.

She wandered through the souk, snapping away whenever she could, and then walked outside. She hadn't, she remembered, managed to persuade Ralph to visit the Chellah, and she really ought to walk around the gardens, even if she didn't visit the sanctuary itself.

But as she headed towards the old walls of the necropolis, she saw several police officers and other people milling about directly in front of her. For a moment, she wondered if she should simply call it a day and go straight back to the hotel.

Then she shrugged her shoulders – whatever the problem was that had attracted the small crowd, it had nothing to do with her – and pressed on. Curiosity had always been one of her virtues, or her faults in Ralph's view, and so as she walked past the handful of men she looked closely at what was going on.

At first, all she could see were their backs, but then a couple of them stepped slightly to one side and she could see exactly what they were all staring at. Fairly close to a large boulder, a slight figure lay on the ground, the front of his jellaba sodden with blood. That was startling enough, but what stunned Margaret was that she immediately recognized the dead man's face. She was so surprised that she stopped in her tracks.

Suddenly, she knew exactly why the small Arab wasn't behind the stall in the souk. She also guessed that the clay tablet in her bag – the object he'd dropped as he ran past them – might be more important and valuable than she'd ever thought.

One of the policemen noticed her standing there, her mouth open as she stared at the body on the ground, and irritably waved her away.

She turned back towards the souk, lost in thought. She wouldn't, she decided, follow her original plan and simply leave the clay tablet in her handbag when they left for the airport. She'd have to think of a way of getting it out of Morocco without it being detected.

And there was one obvious way to do that.