‘Its not mine,’ or ‘Somebody must have planted it there’.

I’d always assumed that it was a fabrication, a final and implausible plea for freedom by those facing years, decades even, in a dank, overcrowded prison thousands of miles from home.

Now, I’m not so sure.

It was Christmas Eve. I had passed security at Marrakesh Airport and was waiting my turn in an achingly slow passport queue.

Eventually, my brother overcame this hurdle, and then I presented my passport and waited in silent amicability for the requisite checks and stamps. As the official was about to conclude I was seized from behind by a Moroccan police officer, marched back to security and into a small curtained booth.

All the while, the officer spoke to me in French while I called out ‘Anglais, Anglais’ and protested that French is no longer the international language (I jest.). He did give me a funny look, though, as if to say, ‘Come on, you know what I’m saying.’

Inside the booth he presented me with two of the aforementioned condoms packed with something – hash, heroin, I don’t know. Now I’m not certain whether he did switch to English, or whether in this moment of desperation we spoke in some kind of universal language, but from here on I understood what he was saying.

‘They are yours,’ he said.
‘Non,’ I replied. Needless to say, I had not seen these items until this moment.
‘They are yours,’ he said again.
‘Non.’
He felt around my cock and balls to see if I was concealing anything. Another officer slipped through the curtain and double checked his partner’s work.
‘They are yours!’ They said in unison.
‘Non!’ I shrieked.
‘Passport.’
I handed it over and the pair scrutinised it, muttering ‘Australian’ under their breath.
‘You are here with a child. You came before with a child.’
‘Non.’
‘Yes a child.’
‘No, just my brother and he’s gone through.’
‘You were here with a child!’
‘Non!’
Clearly, the officer was stressed now that his gutsy arrest was rapidly fragmenting into a case of mistaken identity.
The two men muttered with one another, pointing at the passport and at me.
The original officer turned to me and flicked his wrist without saying a word. I was dismissed.

I could not feel the airport tiles beneath my feet.