Judas Country

by Gavin Lyall

  ‘Most marriage services imply that,’ she said dryly. ‘Are you going to give it up now?’

  ‘I dunno … You’ve got young outfits coming up, now: kids who can’t believe they’ll ever land on the wrong side of the river. And past forty, you haven’t got the years to spare in jail.’

  ‘I guess I know how you feel …’

  The waiter brought our coffee. ‘Don’t tell me your best years were spent in Allentown jail?’

  ‘No. But … when a girl gets to thirty … in her thirties, she can get the feeling the train’s done gone.’

  ‘There must have been plenty of hire cars on the way.’

  She looked at me with cool blue eyes but a twitch at the sides of her mouth. Suddenly she grinned outright. ‘I guess so – but sometimes you wonder about a ride that lasts a bit longer.’

  Sometimes you do. How many café tables had I sat at, listening for the moment when I knew this conversation would last the night? But tomorrow – tomorrow there’d be a cargo for Amman or Ankara or Lagos.

  How many café tables had she been at, waiting for a spark, the moment of decision? We shared something already.

  I reached and held her hand on the table. She gripped mine.

  I said: ‘That’s what happens when you put the job first, maybe.’

  ‘Maybe. But you don’t get to work at the Met because there’s no job at Macy’s glove counter.’

  I waved for the bill. ‘D’you want to stroll a bit – first?’

  She smiled gently. ‘Sure.’

  We walked hand in hand up the wide – well, fairly – road lined with trees and bright cafés. But slower than the rest of the crowd. The young Israelis strolled with a sense of purpose, a hungry edge to their gaiety.

  Eleanor shivered and clutched my hand tighter. ‘They’re … growing up too fast.’

  ‘That’s life as lived on the edge of war. These kids have never known anything else.’

  ‘What can it do to them?’

  I shrugged. ‘Too much teenage rumpus – for a Jewish society – use of arms in crime … the way they drive, even. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Now we’re learning the price of eternal vigilance.’

  Though some people must have known before. Myself a bit.

  Just enough to know when I’m being followed – not tailed expertly, mind, but followed.

  We stopped at a lighted bookshop. A tubby gent twenty yards back put on his brakes, too.

  The window showed a book with an old sword on the cover. Eleanor said thoughtfully: ‘Did Mitzi ever say just what she plans for the sword – when and if?’

  ‘One-track mind. Let’s cross the road. There’s a dark alley I want to show you.’

  ‘This is so sudden, sir.’ But she gripped my hand and we got through a squadron of hell-diving taxis and private jeeps intact.

  So, a moment later, did my tubby non-acquaintance.

  I said: ‘She’s going to sell it, she said. And if the Met can raise the money, you’re home and dry.’

  ‘It can find the money. Where’s this dark alley?’

  ‘Men were deceivers ever. I just wanted to prove we’re being followed.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ She looked back. ‘You know, that’s the bit I’m worried about: getting the Met mixed up in an undercover deal.’

  ‘Don’t I remember something about the way they got hold of a vase from Italy a couple of years back?’

  ‘Yes. They remember it, too. They don’t want those sort of newspaper stories twice. Who’s following?’

  ‘No idea. Let’s have a beer and find out.’

  We sat down at the next café; an open-fronted Parisian place. Before we’d ordered, a face peek-a-booed in from the street. I beckoned it across. It grinned and came.

  He was dressed in an inconspicuous – for Dizengoff – shambolic way, with an open-necked shirt, a smudged lightweight jacket weighed down by too much in the pockets, thick grey trousers. It was only his chubbiness that made him noticeable; Israel isn’t a fat country.

  ‘Then you must be Captain Case. Thank you.’ He sat down. ‘I was waiting to see if you noticed me – I’m not very good at following – and I thought, if he notices, he must be him. Most people don’t notice even me.’

  I said: ‘Miss Eleanor Travis. She’s touring. And you are …?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Inspector Tamir. Attached to the Department of Antiquities at the Ministry of Education and Culture.’ He tried to shake hands with us both and show a tattered warrant card at the same time. ‘I tried at the airport, then the Avia, then I learned you’d taken a taxi to Dizengoff, so …’

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  He and I chose beer, Eleanor coffee. She asked: ‘What do you inspect, Inspector?’

  ‘Normally, normal police things. Now I’m bothered about …’ he searched his pockets and found a piece of paper; ‘…Captain Cavitt. And something about Professor Spohr. I know he’s dead. And Cavitt is in Israel.’

  ‘I don’t know where,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, we know: at Akka.’

  ‘Acre?’ What in hell was Ken doing there, nearly a hundred miles from Jerusalem?

  ‘Yes. And that was where Professor Spohr was digging.’ He routed his pockets again and stuck a wide-bowled briar pipe in his mouth. ‘You see … the Professor had, there was a story in Beit Oren prison he had, he found something. Valuable. Not reported. Ah—’ The waiter put down our drinks.

  I carefully didn’t look at Eleanor, just sipped my beer. ‘And so?’

  ‘Then we heard he was dead. The Professor, I mean. Shot.’

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘But can you be quite sure?’

  ‘Ask the Nicosia police. They proved he had terminal cancer.’

  He frowned and scratched his scalp, just a sun-blotched dome with a poor crop of long grey strands. And dandruff; a few flakes drifted down into his beer.

  ‘But cancer victims don’t …’ He stopped and sighed. ‘In Beit Oren we get people who could make the chicken seem to walk into the soup.’

  ‘I believe that. But—’ I took out my own pipe ‘—but somebody fired a gun in that hotel at around nine in the evening. It was an empty wing, so nobody was too likely to hear, but … And if it wasn’t the Prof, somebody got in and out without being noticed. Those two things needed luck; a man who could fake a suicide that well wouldn’t rely on luck to get away with it.’

  He nodded violently and scattered more dandruff. ‘Ah. Yes. You are the Captain Case I wanted. Try some of this.’ He pushed over a rubber tobacco pouch. ‘I mix it myself.’

  He mixed it coarse and dark and smelling like old armpits. ‘Thanks, but I don’t think my flying licence covers that stuff.’

  He grinned, not apologetically. Had it been a test? To see if I felt a need to flatter him? Why am I so suspicious of policemen? Why do policemen come and talk to me and never say exactly why?

  He lit his pipe, but burning that stuff didn’t improve it. ‘So perhaps, as it always is on television, it was an inside job? By your colleague Cavitt, maybe?’

  ‘Ken and I have alibis. We were out with a couple of … you might say … bar girls.’

  ‘Were you?’ Eleanor’s voice said from somewhere around the last ice age but three.

  Tamir smiled sadly. ‘Prostitutes make good witnesses. They have little shame and they dare not annoy the police too much. Lo asson, it was just an idea; to kill other people is normal – killing yourself, who can understand it?’ He gulped the last of his beer. ‘Why did the doctors tell him he had cancer? – they do not, usually.’

  ‘Probably because he had.’

  ‘You may be right.’ He stood up. ‘Are you staying in Israel long?’

  ‘No, but it depends on my company. Castle.’

  ‘Ah yes. Thank you.’ He shook hands again. ‘I hope you enjoy Israel Miss … er, yes.’

  He shambled off.

  ‘A weird one,’ Eleanor commented.

  I just grunted; I had an idea that i
nside that fat man there was a very sharp one quite able to get out. ‘What the hell’s Ken doing in Acre?’

  ‘Probably digging for bar girls.’

  ‘Look, that night, he’d just come out of jail and anyway, in the confusion I never …’ I wasn’t improving things; the evening was dead on its feet. ‘Ready to go?’

  We had to walk back to Dizengoff Circle to find a taxi, and she kept her hands to herself. The crowd had thinned as people settled in cafés or headed home for an early Monday. A few soldiers, some with weapons and all with bundles of food from mother, were beginning to hitch rides back to camp.

  After a while, she said: ‘Did that inspector think some other crooks from jail are in on this?’

  ‘There’s one Israeli racketeer involved. I think he was trying to locate the Prof with phony letters,’ I admitted. ‘He wasn’t in jail at the right time, but he’d have friends who were.’

  ‘My God. What am I getting the Met into?’ After a little longer: ‘Could he have killed Spohr?’

  ‘Same objection: he was an outsider.’

  ‘Then somebody else on the inside?’

  ‘Sergeant Papa? Or the cooks or the barman or chambermaid? Kapotas? Where’s the motive – who gained anything by his death?’

  ‘The Sergeant got those letters.’

  ‘If he’d wanted them he could have taken them anyway and sworn he’d posted them. He was a carrion bird, not a hunter.’

  ‘He’s still the best suspect,’ she persisted.

  ‘Wanna bet? The police would take Mitzi any day.’

  ‘Oh no. Her own father? But what’s her motive.’

  ‘She was related to him. That’s motive enough for most murders.’

  ‘That’s just cynicism.’

  ‘No, it’s statistics.’

  ‘Well … do you think she did?’

  ‘I’m one of the downtrodden minority who believes he actually committed suicide.’ She just shook her head, dissatisfied.

  I tried to get cosy on the back seat of the taxi, but might just as well have tried it on a Centurion tank. Some woman can get a bit uptight about where you put it last. Or maybe, as a medievalist, she just preferred older men.

  Chapter 26

  It rained in the night – the warm front coming through – but had just about stopped by the time I got up. We’d be due the cold front some time today.

  Eleanor wasn’t around the dining-room so I read the Jerusalem Post and stretched breakfast into coffee and watched the aircrews migrating in and out. Ken rang at about a quarter to eleven.

  ‘How are you doing, favourite nephew?’

  ‘Surviving. What’s your news?’

  ‘Victor Foxtrot and established on the glidepath.’ I decoded Visual Flight to mean he’d met Gadulla and things were going well; close to an end, maybe. Anyway, he couldn’t still be in Acre.

  ‘Fine. So?’

  ‘Listen: I think the Queen should go to the throne of Kings.’

  ‘The – huh?’ Then I got it: he wanted me to fly the Queen Air to Jerusalem Airport. Just a single-runway affair they’d taken over from Jordan in 1967, used mostly for tourist sightseeing jaunts. Masada and Eilat and all. But the real point was it was only thirty miles away, and you don’t use an aircraft to go thirty miles. Not in Israel.

  I said: ‘Look, dog’s-bollocks – and that’s not code – the thing’s so pointless it’s obvious. It’s not a regular customs field, either. We can’t go direct abroad from there.’

  ‘Trust your old uncle,’ he said soothingly. ‘And your own nasty tricky mind, of course. You’ll think of a way.’

  ‘But even the weather’s due to clamp for an hour or …’ My own nasty tricky mind had already got an idea. ‘Oh God. All right. Any mandatory reporting point?’

  ‘Where else?’

  That could only be the bar of the King David.

  I rang the airport Met office and confirmed that there was still a cold front tracking in. Estimated over the airport at 12.30. About. I got a different extension and told them I wanted to be clear to fly by midday; full flight plan when I got there. Then I called Eleanor’s room.

  ‘Roy,’ I said. She didn’t seem vastly enthused. ‘Ken says things are good and wants us in Jerusalem. I’m flying up, but I suggest you make your own way.’

  That suited her.

  I said: ‘Bus or sherut from the airport, or a train from Lod town, it won’t take you an hour. Contact Mitzi at the Holy Land and wait to hear from us. Okay?’

  She said it was okay. So I suppose it was.

  By 11.20 I was leaning on an airport counter filling in my flight plan when Inspector Tamir breathed in my ear. I couldn’t forget that tobacco.

  ‘Mr Case, good morning. Meet Sergeant Sharon.’

  Aircraft indent., yes, flight rules and status, yes … I turned round to meet Sergeant Sharon.

  She was small and neat, with black hair drawn back in a severe style and dark unsmiling eyes. Light blue uniform blouse with badges, dark blue miniskirt, black pistol belt. Otherwise, young and pretty, and a cop.

  I said: ‘Shalom,’ but she just jerked her head. Maybe she didn’t believe me.

  Tamir asked: ‘You are leaving?’

  I turned back to the flight plan. Aircraft type: BE 65. Comm and nav equipment … ‘Yes. Just after twelve, I hope.’ The front had moved in a little quicker than estimated. ‘But you have just come.’

  ‘Pilots are always leaving as soon as they’ve come. Drives women mad.’

  But I don’t think they got it. I filled in aerodrome of departure: LLLD for Ben Gurion and 1205 for predicted time. Tamir peered over my shoulder.

  ‘Ah, so you have forms for everything, too.’

  ‘Five copies. One gets telexed ahead to your destination.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Nicosia.’ Flight Information Region boundary point and time: LCNC at – let’s guess – 1223. Meaningless, anyway.

  ‘With passengers?’

  ‘No passengers. Company just wants me back again.’ Speed and flight level: 0170 at F080.

  Sergeant Sharon said: ‘Not even Mr Cavitt?’

  ‘Not even anybody.’ Route: B17 to LCNC.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked crisply.

  ‘I dunno.’ I didn’t know, did I? ‘What’s wrong with Acre?’

  ‘We cannot find him there.’

  I glanced at Tamir; he smiled a fat sad smile. ‘Quite true.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t want to be found,’ I suggested.

  Sharon wound up like a little cyclone. ‘Or you are planning to smuggle him out, perhaps!’

  I filled in destination and time: LCNC at – a loose guess – 1315. ‘Come out and search the aeroplane, then.’

  ‘We were going to.’ Tamir said apologetically.

  ‘For Ken? What’s to stop him leaving the country anyway?’

  ‘Why did he come back?’ he countered

  Alternate airfields: there aren’t many, for Nicosia. Put in Akrotiri RAF base – that’s LCRA – and back here, LLLD again. ‘Maybe he got homesick for Beit Oren.’

  ‘You are not being serious!’ Sharon snapped.

  I put down the operator’s name as Castle Hotels, which was about as true as the rest of the plan, then my estimated endurance. ‘I’m planning for two hundred miles in bad weather over water. To me that’s serious.’

  Tamir said: ‘You mean the weather is going to be worse?’

  ‘Much. Didn’t you bring a coat?’

  He groaned. ‘I left it somewhere last night. With my luck, I could lose my right hand and left glove in the same day.’

  I grinned at him, then crossed out most of the emergency/ survival equipment list – I only had life-jackets on board – and signed the form.

  ‘So let’s emigrate,’ I suggested, and picked up my bag and briefcase.

  The searchers gave me a proper search, despite my escort. I told them Sharon was carrying a gun but nobody smiled. Tamir routed in a pocket and took out a
revolver. ‘So am I.’ I don’t think he was talking to the searchers.

  How we could get a yard of sword past this sort of check … I suppose Jerusalem did make some sense. As a customs-only-on-request field we should be able to take off without let or hindrance provided we landed at Ben Gurion to clear customs there. By then the sword might be under the floor panels, hopefully not carving through the control wires.

  Outside, the sky was as per menu: about five-eighths lowish stratus leaking occasionally like an old dog, patches of blue showing through. Nothing serious yet, though the wind was beginning to gust nervously.

  We walked across the wet tarmac, and even there nobody was trusting us; twice snoopy sub-machine gunners stopped us to ask Tamir what was going on.

  I unlocked the Queen Air and waved them on up. Tamir put his hand in his pocket and went first. At a generous estimate, it would take one man about ten seconds to decide that nobody was hiding aboard an aeroplane that size: there’s just no place. Tamir looked hopefully at the rear bulkhead that seals off the tail cone, but it was obviously permanent. He climbed ponderously down again and stood looking sad, with the wind whipping his thin hair.

  ‘There are no other luggage compartments? I think some planes have them in the nose.’

  They do, the Queen Air doesn’t, but this was a touch of luck. I led them round to the port side of the nose and, without saying a word, started undoing the twenty-two Dzus screws holding on the electronics access panel. By the time I’d got half of them loose (four of them weren’t even holding, which shows the standard of pre-flights I’d been doing) even Sergeant Sharon had lost a little faith. But the panel’s nearly two square feet so just conceivably somebody could squeeze through.

  I lifted it out and they could see the two solidly-packed racks of electronic black boxes – these mostly grey-greenish – each about the size of a carton of 200 cigarettes.

  I called: ‘Come on out; we know you’re there!’

  Sergeant Sharon said: ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  Tamir hushed her, then: ‘All right, please close it up.’

  I fitted the panel back. ‘How did you think anybody could get on to the airfield with security like you’ve got?’ I did up only four of the screws.