Drugged cobras, outlandishly dressed water sellers and Berber medicine men occupied a patch of dusty ground to one side of the stalls, while round the edge of the square, like wagons protecting an encampment, stood the inevitable juice stalls. Always the first thing anyone saw, whether they were local, hippies or just tourists.

"How much?" Major Abbas asked.

"To you, Excellency, nothing." The small man waved the policeman's coins away with a broad smile.

Major Abbas nodded. "Bismillah," he said, handing the glass to Moz.

"Bismillah." Moz took a gulp and then another and would have finished the glass if he hadn't suddenly caught the policeman's wry expression. "Sorry," Moz said, holding out his tumbler. "Here."

The policeman shook his head. "Sip it," he said. "Otherwise you won't taste the orange juice properly."

The juice was bitter but sweet at the same time and cloudy with fragments of pulp which had evaded the sieve. Some of these ended up stuck to his lips, like fragments of sunburn.

"How does it taste?"

"Sweet and bitter."

"Like life," said the Major. His glance at the boy was thoughtful. "Why did you come to tell someone about the body?"

"It's my duty."

Major Abbas laughed. The Interior Ministry had been running a radio campaign to remind ordinary people of their duty to the country. It was simple, even mundane. A straightforward repetition of the obvious. Obey the law and all would be well. Disobey and...

Well, everyone knew what happened to those who disobeyed.

"You want a cake?"

Moz grinned.

"It's for the policeman," he told a stallholder, pointing to a pile of sticky pastries and then nodding at the man who stood watching. In Moz's hand was a pile of small change, coins given to him by Major Abbas.

"I hope His Excellency enjoys it." Dead eyes stared at the boy, utterly emotionless; so emotionless that no emotion was necessary. Quietly and quickly, Moz made a sign with his fingers and the man blinked, his gaze flicking to the policeman who stood oblivious.

Moz had no idea what the signal meant, but he'd seen Hassan use it to an older boy who let Hassan pass without trouble. It only worked in the souk and around this edge of Djemaa el Fna. Moz had been using it a lot recently.

"Take care," said the man.

Moz nodded.

"Here's your change," Moz said, as he offered the Major a handful of tiny five-franc pieces. A hundred francs made up a dirham and everyone was meant to call them cents now but nobody did. Moz had already pocketed a third of the coins for himself, which was what he imagined the cake might cost. It was hard to tell; he'd never bought anything in Djemaa el Fna before.

"Keep it," said the policeman.

When they got to the passage behind Criée Berbere the body was gone and all that remained was the ghost of old ammonia and a treacle-like stain where the man had sat.

"He was here," Moz protested.

"I'm sure he was," Major Abbas said. "So let's find out where he's gone."

Hammering on the door of a workshop, the policeman waited a few seconds for his answer and then hammered again. Whatever the weaver intended to say got swallowed when he recognized the uniform of the man standing outside his door.

"There was a body," Major Abbas said. It was not a question.

The man nodded.

"Where did it go?"

"The dog woman took it."

Both men looked at each other.

"She insisted."

"Where was she taking it?"

"To hospital."

"She was taking a dead man to hospital?"

The carpet maker nodded and the police officer sighed.

"Who carried it?" he asked.

"I don't know," the carpet maker said. "She asked me to lend her Hamid but I refused. She's not clean."

Major Abbas wasn't sure if the man meant in a spiritual, religious or physical sense. Not that it mattered. Lady Eleanor Devona slept with spaniels on her bed, rarely washed and shared her life with Elsie Strickland, a woman ten years younger but infinitely more decrepit. Any form of uncleanness would have been appropriate.

"You know the way?" Major Abbas asked Moz. "To the dog woman's house," he added impatiently, when Moz looked blank.

"Of course."

Her door had a huge brass dolphin as its knocker. Maltese, the woman told them when she noticed them looking. A dolphin door knocker and nothing else. No handle, no visible hinges and none of the usual broad-headed nails found on Medina doors.

"Come in," she insisted. "Don't mind Molly, she doesn't bite." Nodding beyond a yapping spaniel to an elderly woman who leant on two canes, all hips and twisted pelvis, Lady Eleanor added, "That's Elsie. She doesn't bite either."

Major Abbas smiled. It was the smile of someone trying very hard to take shallow breaths.

"So," said Lady Eleanor, slamming bolts into place behind them. "You've come about the body." Being the dog woman, she said this in English and when Major Abbas spread his hands to reveal his lack of the language Lady Eleanor sighed. "Le corpse," she said loudly. "Le cadavre."

"Elle a dit vous venir au sujet du cadavre." Moz spoke quietly, tugging at the Major's sleeve for attention...

"Such a clever boy," Lady Eleanor told the Major, opening the door to show them out. "Such a pity he's only got one arm."

Moz didn't bother to translate, although he touched his hand to his heart, mouth and forehead, bowing deeply when she slipped a five-dirham note into his jellaba pocket.

"Come back sometime," she told Moz. "You can take Molly for a walk."

"Can you believe it?" The Major had to be talking to himself because Moz was five paces behind him, head down. They were getting near the boy's street. Major Abbas recognized all the signs. It wasn't fear of his parents which made the boy so jumpy but fear of being seen by his friends in the company of a policeman.

Some things were harder to live down in the Mellah than others.

"Your name?" Major Abbas demanded suddenly. The notebook he took from his pocket was regulation issue, cheap paper that tore beneath the nib of his pen. "Hurry up..."

The last was said loudly enough to be overheard by two boys watching from the entrance to a nearby alley.

"Al-Turq, sir."

"Your real name."

"I don't know, sir."

Major Abbas frowned. "You must have a name."

"Marzaq," said the boy.

"That's what your parents named you?"

"I suppose so," Moz said. "My mother anyway. I don't know about my father. She doesn't talk about him."

"And she calls you Marzaq?"

"Not often. She calls me honey." She called everyone honey; sometimes Moz suspected that anything else was just too complicated. His mother hated complications.

The Major could hear a snigger from where he stood. So he looked up from his pad and glared at the two boys still watching. One of them stared back, but when he stepped towards the alley's entrance both slid away. Small fish retreating in an aquarium gloom.

"Where do you live?"

"Near here," Moz admitted. "Just behind the old mosque. The one with the broken roof. Three doors from the tabac."

Major Abbas wrote it down exactly as given. "Your mother's a hippie?"

"She's German," said Moz.

"But she speaks Arabic?"

The boy shrugged. "A little," he agreed, "also some French, not much though."

"And your father?"

"Dead," Moz said. "At least I hope so."

Major Abbas flipped shut his cheap notebook and looked around him. The walls of the alley were peeling, scabs of plaster littering the ground. Even the feral cats were thinner than elsewhere and for the Mellah that made them almost dead. Ribs like cracked twigs and fur matted with dust. The place stank of shit, human and animal, and with the heavy taste of blood from a nearby slaughterhouse. Jewish maybe. Most of the usual slaughterhouses were on the edge of the Medina.