As I approached the table, I heard someone speaking rapidly in French and, looking around, I spotted Maïssa outside the toilet, talking to a younger man in a black leather jacket. She had her back to me so she didn’t know I was there. The man was in his twenties with long, greasy blond hair, a thin face and a wispy moustache. I suppose he could have been someone she had met by chance but there was something about their body language and the tone of her voice that told me otherwise. Maïssa was speaking very quickly, annoyed about something. I might have been wrong, but I thought I heard her
...more
Hawthorne and Horowitz were in the airport, waiting for a plane for Alderney. They come across three other of the writers going to Alderney. Marc, the food chef; Anne, the children adventure book writer and Maissa, the French Algerian poet. They all sit and chat together over coffee and Horowitz covers the check, leaving a £5 bill. He walks out but forgot his phone. Going back inside, he sees Maissa talking to someone in low tones and saying what he believed was Hawthorne’s name. And then he noticed the table was as he left it except the £5 bill was gone.
