Hash by Wensley Clarkson Read Free Book Online Page A

talks to me through Si. ‘He wants to know how much Kif costs in the UK.’ There is an awkward wall of silence as it becomes clear that Fara and Leff are listening to this exchange. Fara butts in and screams something in Arabic at Hassan. Si translates: ‘He’s just told Hassan to mind his own fucking business.’
    Hassan does yet another of his customary shrugging of the shoulders and tries to laugh it off. But then Fara yells even more angrily at Hassan. Hassan shouts back and for a moment the two men have a face-off as they try to stare each other down. Eventually, Leff intercedes and laughs while he tells them both to calm down.
    As Fara walks off down the hill towards his truck with the last bag of Kif, he looks up at Hassan, still standing outside his shack with his arms folded, glaring at the other man with a snarling expression on his face.
    Minutes later we set off ahead of the flatbed so as not to be seen driving in convoy to Ketama. I turned and looked behind me to see Fara still glaring up at Hassan in the distance.
    That’s when I decided that Fara must have been the same man who’d threatened to rape Hassan’s wife.
    *
    It’s now mid-afternoon in Ketama and there is no sign of Fara or Leff in a dusty layby on the edge of town, where we had arranged to meet them. After more than half an hour of waiting, Si walks me to the nearby souk, which is awash with dozens of traders, all pushing to sell their wares, from food to silk. Within this general market place, Si takes me to a discreet shop, where he’s quickly ushered inside. Here you can buy a ‘Caramelo’ or ‘egg’, which is a small pre-packed amount of hash, wrapped in clingfilm. Amateur smugglers can buy it, swallow it, and then travel over the border en route to Europe. People tend to buy between five and fifty at any one time. Si gives me a chilling first-hand account of how he met such Westerners in jail.
    ‘They’re fuckin’ stupid because the clingfilm is paper-thin and there is a danger it can burst inside you and then you’re in real trouble,’ explains Si. ‘I knew one guy who came here twice from Newcastle. He bought four dozen packs and then swallowed the lot with a bottle of castor oil to help them slip down more easily. First time he did it was a doddle but when he came back he got greedy and swallowed even more packs and, surprise, surprise, two of them burst as he got off the plane the other end. He was lucky there was a doctor at the airport but he ended up serving three years for smuggling. Stupid bastard, eh?’
    Just then Leff finally calls me from his mobile. As he speaks, I can tell he’s stoned because he keeps laughing and there is the sound of his associate Fara doing likewise in the background. They are clearly off their heads and I can justmake out from Leff that they are in a cafe halfway down the mountainside. I’m irritated because I have to be back in Tangier as quickly as possible to catch a ferry to Algeciras in Spain, where I have an appointment with a Costa del Sol hash baron that very same evening.
    I know that Leff is fishing for a ‘fee’ from me, even though I told him I could not afford to pay anything for their help. Suddenly, the friendly potted-out voice changes tone.
    ‘You must wait for us,’ says Leff. ‘Or there may be problems. We need to discuss the expenses.’
    I didn’t like the coldness in his voice so I ignored his comment about money and told Leff I would wait for him but he must hurry up. Keeping Leff calm seemed a sensible move.
    Si doesn’t sound in the least bit surprised when I explain what has happened. ‘Sounds like it’s the devil or the deep blue sea, mate.’
    I then remembered an anecdote Leff had told me just a few hours earlier up in the mountains about how he and Fara had to shoot a man in the leg as a warning to a rival gang not to invade their hash farm.
    ‘Yes, but what’s the point in waiting for them?’ I ask Si.
    ‘It’s up to you, old son. I told them