The Moses Stone

by James Becker

  Angela looked at him. 'Definitely,' she said. She opened her handbag, extracted a few folded sheets of paper and began looking at them.

  'Is that the Aramaic text?' Bronson asked.

  Angela nodded. 'Yes. I still can't work out how the coding system could have worked. I was so sure there were four tablets in the set, but the position of those two Aramaic words Ir-Tzadok and B'Succaca screws up that idea.'

  Bronson glanced down at the sheets of paper, then looked back at the road ahead.

  'Tell me again how you think they'd have prepared the tablets,' he suggested.

  'We've been through this, Chris.'

  'Humour me,' Bronson said. 'Tell me again.'

  Patiently, Angela explained her theory that the small diagonal line she'd observed on the pictures of each of the tablets meant there had originally been a single slab of clay that had then been cut into four quarters, and that each diagonal line was one part of a cross, cut into the clay at the centre of the slab to indicate the original positions of those quarters.

  'So you've got four tablets, each covered in Aramaic script that's always read from right to left, but on the bottom two the only way that Ir-Tzadok and B'Succaca appear in the right order is if you read the two words backwards, from left to right?'

  'Exactly,' Angela replied, 'which is why I must have got it wrong. The only thing that makes sense is that the tablets must be read in a line from right to left. But if that is the case, then what's the purpose of the diagonal lines?'

  Bronson was silent for a couple of minutes, staring at the ribbon of tarmac unrolling in front of the car, while his brain considered and then rejected possibilities. Then he smiled slightly, and then laughed aloud.

  'What?' Angela asked, looking irritated.

  'It's obvious, blindingly obvious,' he said. 'There's one simple way that you could position the tablets in a square, as you've suggested, and still read those two words in the right order. In fact,' Bronson added, 'it's so obvious I'm really surprised you didn't see it yourself.'

  Angela stared at the paper and shook her head. Then she looked across at Bronson.

  'OK, genius,' she said, 'tell me.'

  42

  Angela spread out her notes on the table in front of her and bent forwards, studying what she'd written. They were in the departure lounge of the Mohammed V airport waiting for their flight to London to be called.

  'I think your solution to the puzzle of the clay tablets has to be right. I wrote out everything we'd deciphered, but in the order you suggested, and now it does seem to make more sense. I just wish we had better pictures of the Cairo museum and the O'Connor tablets – it would be a great help if we could read a few more words of the inscriptions on those two.'

  She looked down again at the papers in front of her. Bronson's idea was so simple that she, too, was amazed it hadn't occurred to her.

  Aramaic, he'd said, was written from right to left, and they'd more or less agreed that there had originally been four tablets, arranged in a square. Why not, Bronson had proposed, read the text starting with the first word at the right-hand end of the top line of the top right tablet – which they didn't have, of course – and then read the word in the same position on the tablet at the top left of the square. Then move to the bottom left, then bottom right and back to the top right, and so on, in a kind of anticlockwise circle. That, at least, meant that the words Ir'Tzadok and B'Succaca could be read in the correct sequence.

  But even that didn't produce anything that seemed totally coherent – it just formed very short and disjointed phrases – until they tried reading one word from each line and next the word from the line directly below it, instead of the next word on the same line. Then, and only then, did a kind of sense begin to emerge.

  What they now had read:

  ----- by ----- ben ----- ----- perform the ----- task ----- the -----

  ----- ----- completed ----- ----- ----- now ----- ----- ----- last----- the

  ----- scroll ----- ----- took from ----- ----- ----- have ----- ----- -----

  cave ----- ----- ----- place ----- ----- ----- of ----- ----- -----

  settlement ----- ----- Ir-Tzadok B'Succaca ----- scroll ----- silver

  ----- ----- ----- we ----- ----- ------ cistern ----- ----- place of -----

  end ----- days ----- the tablets of ----- temple ----- Jerusalem -----

  ----- ----- the ----- ----- ----- concealed ----- ----- ----- of ----- -----

  ----- a ----- ----- four stones ----- the ----- side ----- a ----- of -----

  ----- ----- height ----- ----- cubit to ----- ----- ----- within ----- -----

  of our ----- and ----- now ----- ----- ----- we ----- ----- ----- our

  ----- ----- ----- invaders ----- our ----

  'Have you tried filling in any of the blanks?' Bronson asked.

  'Yes,' Angela nodded. 'It's not as easy as you might think, because you can easily end up tailoring the text to whatever it is you want it to say. I've tried, and a few of the missing words seem to be fairly obvious, like the end of the last line. The word "invaders" seems to stand out as being different to the rest of the inscription, so I think that's possibly a part of a political statement, something like "our fight against the invaders of our land". That would be a justification of their opposition to, most probably, the Romans, who were all over Judea during the first century AD.

  'The rest of it is more difficult, but there are a couple of things we can be certain about. These tablets do refer to Qumran: the words Ir-Tzadok B'Succaca make that quite definite. And in the same sentence, or possibly at the beginning of the next one, I'm fairly sure that those three words mean the "scroll of silver", the Silver Scroll. That's what really excites me. The problem is that, if the author of this text did possess the scroll and then hid it somewhere, presumably in a cistern, which is what I'm hoping, we still don't know exactly where to start looking, apart from Qumran, obviously. And the country, of course, was full of wells and cisterns at this period. Every settlement, from a single house right up to large villages and towns, had to have a source of water close by. I've no idea how many cisterns there were in first-century Judea, but I guess the numbers would run into the thousands, maybe even tens of thousands.'

  She looked down at the deciphered text, studying the few words they'd managed to translate. If only they could fill one or two more of the blanks, they'd have some idea where to begin their search.

  Bronson's next question echoed her thoughts. 'Assuming the museum will agree to let you go out to Israel, where do you think you should start looking?'

  Angela sighed and rubbed her eyes. 'I've no idea. But the reference we've managed to decode is the first tangible clue to a relic whose existence has been suspected for over fifty years. Half the archaeologists in the field that I've talked to have spent some time searching for the Silver Scroll, and the other half have dismissed it out of hand as a myth. But the O'Connors' clay tablet is almost certainly contemporary with the relic, and I think the reference is a strong enough piece of evidence to follow up. And there's something else.'

  'What?'

  'I don't know that much about Israel and Jewish history, so I'm going to need some specialist help from somebody who speaks Hebrew, somebody who knows the country and its history.'

  'You've got someone in mind?'

  Angela nodded and smiled. 'Oh, yes. I know exactly who to talk to. And he's actually based in Israel – in Jerusalem, in fact – so he's right on the spot.'

  43

  Bronson felt drained. He seemed to have spent all the previous day sitting in an aircraft, and the damp, grey skies were an unpleasant reminder that he was back in Britain, in stark contrast to the few hot and sunny days he'd just spent down in Morocco. He punched the address Byrd had sent him by text into the unmarked car's satnav and headed towards Canterbury.

  When he arrived at the house, there were two police vans parked in the driveway and a couple of cars on the road outside the property. The front door was standing
slightly ajar, and he slipped under the 'crime scene' tape and stepped into the hall.

  'You're Chris Bronson, right?' A beefy, red-faced man wearing a somewhat grubby grey suit greeted him.

  Bronson nodded and showed his warrant card.

  'Right, I'm Dave Robbins. Come through into the dining room to keep out of the way of the SOCOs – they're just finishing up in the lounge, and then we're out of here. Now,' he said, when they were both seated at the dining table, 'I gather from Dickie Byrd that you've had some contact with the victim?'

  'I met her and her husband a couple of times in Morocco,' Bronson agreed, and explained what had happened to Kirsty Philips's parents.

  'Do you think there's any connection between their deaths and her murder?' Robbins asked.

  Bronson paused for a few moments before he replied. He was absolutely certain that the three deaths were connected, and that the missing clay tablet was at the heart of the matter, but he didn't see how explaining all that would help Robbins find Kirsty's killer.

  'I don't know,' he said finally. 'It's a hell of a coincidence if they're unconnected, but I can't think what the connection could be. What actually happened here? How did she die?'

  In a few short sentences, Robbins explained what the police had found when they arrived at the house.

  As he listened, Bronson's mind span back to the hotel in Rabat, and to the way Kirsty had looked when he'd seen her there: bright and full of life, her natural vivacity subdued only because of the double tragedy that had decimated her family. Intellectually he accepted the truth of what Robbins had told him, but on an emotional level it was still difficult to believe what had happened.

  'Who raised the alarm?' he asked.

  'One of the neighbours thought she'd pop in and offer her condolences for the loss of her parents. She went to the side door, saw Kirsty lying dead on the floor, and ran screaming up the road to her own house to dial triple nine. We've already done a door-to-door but we haven't found anyone who saw Kirsty arriving, and only two people noticed the neighbour doing a four-minute mile and howling like a banshee.'

  'Right,' Bronson said. 'I can't think what connection this has to Morocco. My guess is she might have disturbed a burglar, one of those sick bastards who find out who's died and then target their houses. And because she was only hit once, he might not have intended to kill her. If he thought the house was empty and she suddenly stepped out in front of him, he might have just swung his jemmy as a kind of reflex action, and hit her harder than he meant to. In my opinion, I think it's most likely that you're looking at a totally unrelated crime.'

  Robbins nodded. 'Makes sense to me. And this is probably another bugger we're never going to solve. We've found no useful forensic stuff here apart from a few fingerprints that might or might not belong to the intruder. As far as we can see the killer jemmied the door, walked in, hit Kirsty Philips on the side of the head and then walked out again. There might be some more trace evidence somewhere, but if there is, we haven't found it yet. There's no sign of anything having been taken, or disturbed in any way. No forensics, no witnesses, no suspects, no motives. And that means no nothing.'

  'Yep,' Bronson agreed, 'it's every cop's worst-case scenario. Look, unless there's anything else I can tell you or help you with, I'll get out of your way.'

  'OK, Chris, thanks for that,' Robbins said and stood up. 'Leave the front door open on your way out, would you?'

  The two men shook hands and left the dining room, turning in opposite directions – Robbins right towards the back of the house where the SOCOs were still working, and Bronson left. As he stepped into the hall, Bronson glanced down at the rug just inside the front door and saw a scatter of envelopes lying there. Obviously the post had been delivered while they had been talking in the dining room, and the postman had placed everything on the mat rather than sliding it through the letterbox, simply because the door was still ajar.

  'The post's here,' Bronson called out, and automatically bent down to pick it up.

  He noticed the package immediately, one end protruding slightly from under a white junk-mail envelope. It was bulkier than everything else there, and the Moroccan stamps were extremely distinctive.

  Suddenly, he knew exactly what had to be in the small parcel, and saw clearly what the 'burglar' must have been doing in the house – he'd just broken in a couple of days too early.

  Bronson knew it was wrong, knew he was tampering with evidence, and knew that what he was doing might easily be sufficient to get him kicked off the force, but he did it anyway. As DI Robbins turned round and walked back towards him, Bronson hunched down over the mat, reached out, seized the packet and slid it into his jacket pocket with his left hand. With his right, he collected the rest of the mail, then stood up and glanced behind him.

  Robbins was approaching, his hand outstretched. Bronson gave him the post and turned to leave.

  'Typical,' the DI muttered, flicking through the envelopes. 'All bloody junk mail, by the looks of it. OK, see you around, Chris.'

  When Bronson sat down in the driving seat of his car he found that, despite the chill in the air, there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. For a few seconds he wondered if he should take the package back, leave it outside the door or maybe put it on the carpet. But he told himself that the presence or absence of a two-thousand-year-old clay tablet at a crime scene in Canterbury would have no impact whatsoever on Robbins' success or failure in solving the murder. He also knew Angela would be delighted to get her hands on it.

  Feeling a sudden jolt of pure adrenalin, he turned the key in the ignition and drove quickly away.

  44

  'I've got something for you,' Bronson said, walking into the lounge of his small house in Tunbridge Wells.

  'What?' Angela asked, as he handed her the package.

  She glanced at the unfamiliar stamps that plastered one end of it as she turned it over in her hands. 'Morocco,' she murmured, and ripped open the envelope. She peered inside it, shook out a small object covered in bubble-wrap and carefully unwrapped it.

  'My God, Chris, you found it!' Angela said, her voice high with excitement. 'This is the missing tablet.'

  'I should bloody well hope it is,' Bronson said, sitting down opposite her and looking curiously at the relic. It was much less impressive than he had expected, just a small, grubby, greyish-brown lump of fired clay, one surface covered in marks and squiggles that were completely meaningless to him.

  Angela pulled a pair of latex gloves from her handbag before she touched the tablet itself. Then she picked it up and examined it carefully, almost reverently, her eyes sparkling.

  'You were right,' she said, glancing at the address on the envelope. 'The O'Connors did post it to themselves.'

  'Yes, and I've just nicked it from a crime scene.'

  'Well, I'm really glad you did, as long as you won't get into trouble over it.'

  'It should be OK,' Bronson said, with a shrug of his shoulders. 'Nobody saw me take it, and the only people who know it exists probably think it's still somewhere in Morocco. I'll bet my pension that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, this object has simply disappeared. As long as nobody actually knows we've got it, I don't think we're in any danger – and my meagre pension should be safe as well.'

  Angela spread a towel over the coffee table and gently laid the tablet on it.

  'It doesn't look like much,' Bronson said.

  'Agreed,' she replied, 'but it's not the relic itself that's important – it's what the inscription means.' Her latexcovered fingertips lightly traced the incised markings on the face of the tablet, then she looked up at her exhusband. 'Don't forget how many people have died already. The stall-holder, the O'Connors, probably Kirsty Philips, and even Yacoub and his thugs in Rabat – the reason they're all dead is something to do with this rather dull-looking lump of two-thousand-year-old fired clay.'

  Bronson nodded. 'It's a bit different when you put it like that. So now what?'

 
Angela looked back at the tablet. 'This could be the biggest break of my career, Chris. If Yacoub was right, this inscription could lead us to the hiding place of the Silver Scroll and the Mosaic Covenant. If there's even the slightest chance of finding either relic, I'm determined to follow the trail, wherever it leads me.'

  'So what are you going to do? Suggest that the museum mounts an expedition?'

  'No way,' Angela said firmly. 'Don't forget I'm still a very junior member of staff. If I walk in and tell Roger Halliwell what I've found, he'll be absolutely delighted and no doubt he'll congratulate me. Then he'll politely push me to one side and in a couple of weeks the Halliwell–Baverstock expedition will arrive in Israel to follow the trail of the lost relics. If I managed to get involved at all, they might let me examine any bits of pottery they find.'

  Bronson looked slightly quizzical. 'I thought you were all brothers – and sisters – in arms in the halls of academe? All striving together for the advancement of knowledge and a better understanding of human history?'

  'Don't you believe it. Whenever there's a whiff of a major discovery, it's every man for himself in the scramble to be the one whose name is linked to it. All that brotherly support vanishes and the event turns into a high-class catfight. I know – I've seen it happen. I'll just tell Roger I'm taking a short-notice holiday in Israel to study some Aramaic texts and leave it at that.'

  Angela gestured towards the clay tablet lying on the coffee table in front of her. 'Now we've got this tablet, it means we can read more than half of the original text, and that has to give us a good chance of working out the meaning of the whole of the inscription. I've got about a week of holiday owing, and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't take it in Israel, do you?'