David’s fatal collision with Driss turns a roadside attempt to sell fossils into a death whose aftermath compounds the original harm: Driss is killed, and David takes his identification. The encounter is recounted by Ismael under questioning, so its details reach the reader through the testimony of a witness whom Abdellah already distrusts.

The Roadside Encounter

Driss and Ismael were waiting for passing cars with fossils to sell. When the foreigners’ car appeared, they ran toward it; it slowed, and the two boys expected its occupants to lower a window and pay far more than the fossils were worth. They held up Psychopyge trilobites, but the attempt failed: the car did not stop. Abdellah’s later account to David identifies the decisive consequence of that encounter: Driss was struck by David’s car.

The contrast between the boys’ expectation and what followed is stark. They approached the car anticipating a sale, not a collision. The evidence establishes the fatal outcome, but Ismael’s testimony does not explain exactly how the car hit Driss or whether David had an opportunity to avoid him; those details should not be supplied beyond what the account supports.

Ismael’s Account of the Aftermath

Under Abdellah’s questioning, Ismael says he ran while Driss lay on the road. He claims Driss was already dead and says he watched David turn the body over. Ismael then reports that David went through Driss’s pockets and removed his identification. The sequence makes the taking of the ID part of the collision’s immediate aftermath, rather than a later discovery.

Abdellah’s questioning frames this testimony cautiously. He regards Ismael as a habitual liar and suspects him of theft, yet listens because no one else was present besides David. Ismael’s account is therefore both crucial and compromised: it supplies the only witness’s description of what happened after the impact, while the scene makes clear that Abdellah does not accept his word without scrutiny.

The Fossil and the Collision’s Consequences

The fossil Driss was carrying at the moment David struck him was recovered by the police. Abdellah later shows it to David, identifying it as the fossil that had been with Driss on the road. David blushes and replies that he had not heard about its recovery. The object links the failed roadside sale to the later reckoning between the two men: a fossil that had been part of Driss’s attempt to earn money becomes tangible evidence of the encounter David cannot leave behind.