Hakim and I walk for ten minutes or so along the outside wall of the port. The camera is running, it has been since I met him, but I know he wouldn't want me to be filming all this. I didn't ask him. Last time we met, he refused to let me film anything: his hands, his torso, his voice. But I paid him anyway. This time I decided there was no point meeting him, paying him, and risking this walk around the port with him if I couldn't film it. The camera was, as always, hidden inside my blue sports bag.

We'd walked, so far, along 200 meters of loose rocks and broken concrete breakers. I realised by this point that, if he decided to attack me, I would have no way of escaping. Sure, I could turn around and run, but the bank was steep, covered in debris, and I was carrying the camera. Maybe in a panic, I'd just drop the bag and take off. I still didn't think my chances looked good. But another thought kept me calm: if he really was planning to attack me, he would have done it by now. I was already trapped with the sea on one side and a huge wall on the other. There was no point, I reasoned, in him wasting his time, taking me further from the city, only to turn around and mug me half way along the edge of the port. He would have taken what he wanted fifteen minutes ago and fled.

I realise now (as I realised then, though at the time I probably didn't want to believe it) that I'm trying to rationalise something irrational. If crime and violence were logical, no one would ever be confronted with them (except, like myself, the illogical). But, to be honest, I didn't have time to go through all that: it was getting interesting.

We passed tents, all made of cast-off pieces: plastic sheets, cardboard, sides of metal, sack cloth, water bottles. It was a shanty town, but one built voluntarily by those desperate Moroccans trying to get into the port. Hakim explained that those who didn't have enough money to pay someone like him to help them sneak into Europe would have to live by the port. Occasionally they would wander into town, looking homeless or mad, to buy food. Then they returned to there ghetto to live out weeks, or sometimes months, waiting for a signal. Someone inside the port would work with them, keeping an eye on the ships moving in and out, until they saw a clear opportunity to get someone on board. At that point the men (they were all men) living in the tents would jump the wall and take their chances on the other side. Once inside the port, of course, you were on your own. The friend you'd been living with, eating and drinking and dreaming with, for the past six months would suddenly become a liability if things went wrong. You would be undeniably and utterly on your own. You could have no illusions about this: everyone had to expect it. You could be killed otherwise, or worse, sent back to Morocco with no chance of ever getting out again.

"What about the police?" I asked Hakim, "they must know these men are living here."

"The police sit with them, drink with them. There are no problems with the police."

Hakim didn't say, though it was obvious, that the police must be making money out of it, otherwise it would never be allowed to go on so openly. If there are clandestine being smuggled out, there must also be drugs. The two are famously linked in Morocco. It works so smoothly because the police agree to let the trade go on, they take a cut, and at the same time they assure the E.U. they're doing everything they can to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. Morocco is, believe it or not, applying to be a member of the increasingly inaccurately named "European Union." But it would be obvious to anyone who visited the port (and this is a major international port!) that the Moroccan side doesn't give a damn who gets in or out.

At the end of our walk, we've only covered perhaps 500 meters, but it's taken us around 25 minutes to weave in and out of the chaos of cats, squatters, bricks and metal. Hakim points to a wall. The wall is about four meters high. It's made of loose bricks, held together with brittle and aged cement. The bricks jut out- a series of tiny ledges. "Do you want to climb it?" he askes me.

"What is it?" "That's the port, on the other side." "There"s no police here?" "No one cares if you climb it. I do it all the time."

So we climbed. Hakim first, then I slung the camera over my shoulder, still filming, and climbed. I could see, at the corner of the wall, that small foot and hand holds had been carved into the brick. Hakim knew every placement of the grooves; I had to struggle for a few minutes to find the easiest way up. At the top of the wall, Hakim sat, looking at the view, waiting for me. I saw it finally- the port opening right below us. Some men working on a wooden fishing boat nearby looked up to see us, but no reaction. I sat facing Hakim and tried surreptitiously to point the camera at the port. Hakim noticed, and asked me if I wanted to film. I didn't want to admit that I'd been filming all along, so I said yes. I panned across the marina as a Eurolines ferry pulled out.

"You know which way Spain is?" I pointed behind Hakim "No, sorry, that's still Tangier. Spain's that way." I knew which way Spain was, I was just trying to keep Hakim's mind off the camera, which was still filming. He had told me the day before that he didn't even want me to record his voice, but now he kept talking as I filmed the scene and asked about the practicalities of getting people into the port and on to the ships.

He explained that there were essentially three ways to get into Europe. The cheapest was to live by the wall, like the men below us, and wait for your chance. Those men can't find enough money to pay a smuggler, so they do it themselves. The most direct, and most dangerous route is by zodiac: the inflatable raft often sinks, eventually washing up the bodies of anonymous, dead Africans on Spain's holiday beaches. The captains of the zodiacs are also known to stop half-way across the Mediterranean and force the clandestine to swim the last three kilometers. The safest, and often most expensive way is to get smuggled by someone like Hakim into a shipping boat or passenger ferry.

It's impossible to say how many people make it, but Hakim estimates that of the men living below us, twenty percent will eventually get into Europe. Of the people who pay a smuggler to get them across, 80 percent will succeed. That might just be his own propaganda.

By the time we make it to the beach again, I'm ready to run back to my hotel room. It's partly an urge to get out of a tense situation, but also an excitement to see the tape on my own.

As I'm paying Hakim and thanking him for the tour, he askes for one last favour. I expect he's going to ask me for more money, or arrange to meet again. He asks if he can see the tape.

Remember my first meeting with Hakim? I asked him if I could film it, he said no, but I kept the camera rolling anyway. This was the same sensation. There were options that suddenly presented themselves to me, each with their own merit, but me with only a second to decide from amongst them. Usually I would ponder a question like that and try to make sense of why things had gone so suddenly wrong for me. Hakim wasn't as dim as I'd expected.

I could just run, I thought. I didn't do that. I could show him everything and act surprised, then apologise for "accidentally" keeping the camera running. I could refuse to show him the tape: insist that since I was paying him, he could just shut up and trust me (actually, in retrosepct this is probably what I should have done. I'll keep it in mind for next time).

I didn't do any of these things. I must say, I'm quite relieved that I kept under control. I don't mean to gloat, or act calm after the fact when the event itself was anything but smooth. It wasn't dramatic at all, somewhere between strained and comical. I turned the volume down on the camera and told him I'd recorded without sound. It was cheap, and I expected him to see right through it, but he bought it. I showed him all the footage without sound. Most of it he was happy with. He never mentioned that I had filmed the entire thing without telling him. He objected, at one or two points, to me filming his hand, and at another point his adidas track suit top.

"Do you really expect anyone to identify you by your adidas track suit?" I thought of asking this, but I resisted. The compromise was for me to tape over the offending sections. So I replaced his hand with a pretty panoramic of the beach, and the incriminating track suit shot was replaced by a long view of the port. Hakim was disappointed, but seemed happy with it in the end. I eventually reasoned with him and explained that I had absolutely nothing to gain from reveaing his identity. It would add nothing to the documentary. It would only jeapordise my contact with him.

So he let it go. I left him with a handshake and a stack of dirhams. He invited me to meet again the next night, but I explained it was getting too expensive. I said if I needed anything else, I'd call him.

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