by Sam Bourne
‘It’s certainly an historic event,’ said one.
‘People will be seeing this around the world,’ nodded another. Both kept open the option of adding that it was a ‘wicked act by Zionist counter-revolutionaries who must be punished at once’.
Abdel-Aziz kept sipping his tea, patting Salam’s school satchel intermittently to be sure his son’s discovery was still inside. He had been there maybe fifteen minutes when a younger man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, came in, all smiles and confidence.
‘Good afternoon, my brothers!’ he said, beaming. ‘And how is business?’ He laughed loudly. There were nods in his direction, even a couple of hands proffered for shaking. ‘Mahmoud, welcome,’ said one man, by way of greeting.
Mahmoud. Abdel-Aziz cleared his throat. This must be him. I should seize the moment, talk to him right away. Mind you, I mustn’t seem too eager.
But it was too late. The newcomer, in a black leather jacket and with some kind of bracelet around his wrist, had already spotted Abdel-Aziz, catching the look in his eye.
‘Welcome, my friend. You are looking for someone?’
‘I am looking for Mahmoud.’
‘Well, maybe I can help.’ He turned towards the door of the cafe, pretending to shout. ‘Mahmoud! Mahmoud!’ Then, turning back to Abdel-Aziz: ‘Oh look! I’m right here.’ His face disintegrating into an exaggerated, fake laugh.
‘I hear you-’
‘What did you hear?’
‘That people who have-’
‘What have they been saying about Mahmoud? Eh?’
‘Sorry. Maybe I made a mistake-’ Abdel-Aziz got up to leave but he found Mahmoud’s hand on his arm, pushing him back into his seat. He was surprisingly strong.
‘I can see you’re carrying something rather heavy in that bag of yours. Is that something you want to show Mahmoud?’
‘My son got it. Yesterday. From the-’
‘From the same place as everyone else. Don’t worry. I won’t tell. That would be bad for you, bad for me, bad for business.’ He dissolved again into the fake laugh. Then, just as suddenly, the smile died. ‘Bad for your son, too.’
Abdel-Aziz wanted to get away; he did not trust this man one bit. He glanced back at the others in the café. Most were watching the TV, live coverage of a briefing by the US military from Centcom, central command in Doha, Qatar. They were announcing their capture of yet another presidential palace.
‘So shall we do some business, yes?’
‘Is it safe? To show you, here?’
Mahmoud pulled Abdel-Aziz’s chair with a single tug, shifting him round so that their shoulders touched. Now they had their backs to the rest of the drinkers. Between them, they shielded their small, square table from view.
‘Show me.’
Abdel-Aziz unbuckled the satchel, peeled back the leather flap and offered it for Mahmoud’s inspection.
‘Take it out.’
‘I’m not sure I-’
‘If you want to do business, Mahmoud has to see the merchandise.’
Abdel-Aziz laid the satchel flat on the table and slowly eased the object out. Mahmoud’s expression did not change. Instead, he reached over and, without ceremony, unsheathed the tablet from its envelope.
‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘Yes, you can put it back now.’
‘You’re not interested?’
‘Normally, Mahmoud wouldn’t be interested in such a lump. Clay bricks like this are ten a penny.’
‘But the writing on it-’
‘Who cares about writing? Just a few squiggles. It could be a shopping list. Who cares what some old hag wanted from the fishmongers ten thousand years ago?’
‘But-’
‘But,’ Mahmoud held up a finger, to silence him. ‘But it does come in an envelope. And it’s only had the odd knock to it. I’ll give you twenty dollars for it.’
‘Twenty?’
‘You wanted more?’
‘But this is from the National Museum-’
‘Uh, uh, uh.’ The finger was up again. ‘Remember, Mahmoud doesn’t want to know too much. You say this has been in your family for many generations and given the, er, recent events, you believe now is the time to sell.’
‘But this must be very rare.’
‘I’m afraid not, Mr…?’
‘My name is Abdel-Aziz.’ Damn. Why had he given his real name?
‘There are a thousand items like this floating around Baghdad right now. I could step outside and find many like it, with a click of my fingers.’ He clicked them, as if to demonstrate. ‘If you want to do business with someone else-’ He rose to his feet.
Now it was Abdel-Aziz’s turn to extend a restraining hand. ‘Please. Maybe twenty-five dollars?’
‘I am sorry. Twenty is already too much.’
‘I have a family. A son, a daughter-’
‘I understand. Because you seem a good man, I will do you a favour. I will pay you twenty-two dollars. Mahmoud must be crazy: now he will make no money. Instead he makes you rich!’
They shook hands. Mahmoud stood up and asked the café owner to find him a plastic bag. Once he had it, he slipped the tablet inside and peeled off twenty-two American dollars from a thick, grubby wad and handed them to Abdel-Aziz who left the café immediately, his son’s school bag swung over his shoulder, now light and entirely empty.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
J ERUSALEM , T UESDAY , 10.13 PM
Maggie had seen plenty of dead bodies before. She had been part of an NGO team that tried to broker a ceasefire in the Congo, where the one commodity that was in cheap and plentiful supply was human corpses: four million killed there in just a few years. You’d find them in forests, behind bushes, at roadsides, as regular as wild flowers.
But never before had she been this close to one so…fresh. The fading warmth of the woman’s flesh as Maggie touched her back appalled and confused her. She shuddered, instinctively tugging at the woman’s arm, trying to pull her into an upright position, so that she wouldn’t just be lying here, like a, like a…corpse.
That was when she heard the creak of a footstep on the floorboards outside. Maggie wanted to cry out for help. But some reflex squeezed her throat and prevented the words from escaping.
Now the footsteps were heading nearer and Maggie was frozen. The kitchen door swung open. She looked round to see a man’s shape filling the doorframe and, in the shadow, the clear outline of a gun.
This much she had learned from roadblocks in Afghanistan: if a gun is pointed at you, you raise your hands in the air and become very still. If you have to speak, you do so very quietly.
With her arms up, Maggie stared at the barrel of the revolver that was now aimed at her. In the gloom she could see next to nothing.
The gunman’s arm made a sudden movement: Maggie braced herself for a bullet. But instead of firing, he reached to his left, his hand finding the light switch. In a flash, she saw him-and he saw the lifeless woman on the floor.
‘Eema?’
He fell to his knees, the gun falling from his hands. He began to do as Maggie had done, tugging at the arm, touching the body. Except now, kneeling beside it, he let his head sink onto the corpse’s back, his head shaking in a way Maggie had never seen before. It was as if every part of his being was crying.
‘I found her here no more than three minutes ago, I swear.’ She hoped this man recognized her as quickly as she had recognized him.
He said nothing, just remained hunched over the body of his dead mother. She tiptoed around him, getting out of his way and closer to the door.
His face stayed hidden, his head still trembling in a dry sob over the body of his mother. But his hand was moving, reaching without sight for the revolver he had dropped. Maggie stood rigid, as his arm lifted in a smooth, almost mechanical arc until, even without looking, the gun was aimed straight at her face.
She ran.
In an instant, she had yanked the door open and darted into the hall
way, making for the front door. Surely he wouldn’t have been crazy enough to fire, would he?
Which is when she heard the whizzing sound, the one she had learned to fear in her very core. It strangely came before the bang of the gun being fired, even though, she would recall later, that made no sense at all. But it was the whizz, the whoosh of air sliced by a bullet, that froze her. There, in the hallway, facing the door, she stopped dead.
‘Turn around.’
She did as she was told. Her mind raced. One thought, almost euphoric, sped fastest. Good: Now I will have a chance to explain everything! But, not far behind, was a gloomier notion. He’s out of his mind with grief! He won’t listen to a word I say!
She tried anyway. Negotiating was a reflex, even, she now discovered, when her own life was on the line. ‘I was trying to see if I could save her.’
He lifted the gun so that it was aimed at her face.
‘I came here to tell your mother something. About your father. The front door was open. And then I found her, in there.’
The gun stayed locked onto her. The man holding it seemed strangely at odds with the weapon, even though he handled it expertly. He certainly had the build for it: he was tall and she could see the muscles of his arms were taut and flexed. But his eyes were not those of a gunman. They were too curious, as if they were meant to scan the pages of a book rather than assess a target. His nose and mouth were substantial enough, but they suggested conversation, inquiry even. She guessed this was a man more prone to talking than shooting. Or not talking, so much as listening.
‘Please,’ Maggie began, gambling that she had assessed him correctly. ‘I came here to help. If I had come here to do harm, do you think I would be just standing here? Wouldn’t I be wearing a mask so that no one could see me? Wouldn’t I have a gun? Wouldn’t I have killed you the moment I saw you?’
The gun wavered, the hand now shaking ever so slightly.
‘I swear to you, someone else did this. Not me.’
Slowly, no faster than the sweep of the second hand on a wristwatch, the arm lowered. The gun steadily arcing downward, away from her. But only once he had stood with his arm at his side for what felt like a full minute did she dare to move.
She inched towards him slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Then she surprised him and herself by extending both her arms, placing them around his shoulders until, still stiff and unmoving, he was wrapped in her embrace. She held him like that for a minute, then another minute and then another, the thump of her heart gradually quietening, while he stood as still as marble.
Eventually she persuaded him to sit down, while she repeated that he had suffered a terrible shock, that he needed to give himself time to absorb what had happened, to think straight. She knew he wasn’t listening but she hoped that he would at least, like other angry men before him, be soothed by the sound of her voice. She wanted to make him a cup of sweet tea, or at least fetch a glass of water. But she knew she could suggest no such thing. That would mean going back into the kitchen.
It was he who decided to go in. ‘I want to see her again,’ he said. He had been gone perhaps five minutes, when Maggie heard an almost animal howl of pain. She ran into the kitchen, where the corpse of Rachel Guttman still lay slumped on the floor. Her son was standing over her, except where he had been pale, his face was now flushed red.
‘What is it?’
He held out his hand. In it was a single sheet of paper. She stepped forward to take it.
Ani kol kach mitsta’eret sh’ani osah l’chem et zeh.
Hebrew, typewritten. ‘I’m afraid I can’t-’
‘It says, “I am so sorry to do this to all of you.”’
‘Right.’
‘Not right. Wrong!’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘This is BULLSHIT!’
Maggie jumped back, shocked by the volume of his voice. ‘This is meant to make us think my mother killed herself. She would never, ever do such a thing. Never.’
Maggie wished they were back in the other room, sitting down. Who knew what he might do here, with his dead mother at his feet? She still hadn’t dared ask his name.
‘She gave her whole life to looking after us. And, since Saturday, she was desperate to do something, to take action. You saw it yourself. Remember how she took hold of you. She wanted your help, to finish off whatever it was my father started. Because she believed something important was at stake.’
‘A matter of life and death, she said.’ As she recalled Rachel Guttman’s words, and the way the old lady had gripped her wrist, Maggie felt a twinge of guilt: this woman had tried to enlist her as an ally and she had done nothing.
‘Yes. Does someone plead for something to be done and then do,’ he gestured down at the body on the ground, unable to look at it, ‘this?’
‘Maybe she had given up. Lost hope. Perhaps she got frustrated that nobody was listening to what she was saying.’
‘So she types a note on a computer. My mother, who does not know how to switch on the TV. And saying sorry to “all” of us. Not calling me and my sister by name, or at least leaving a note to “both” of us. Believe me, I know my mother. She did not do this.’
‘So who did?’
‘I don’t know, but someone very, very wicked-’ He stopped himself before he choked. He was standing close now, almost looming over Maggie. His head of thick dark hair was scruffier than when she had seen him here yesterday, as if he had spent the intervening twenty-four hours running his hands through it over and over again. She pictured him, hunched over, bent double with grief, his head cradled in his hands. And that was before this terrible thing had happened to his mother.
He gathered himself. ‘Wicked, but also very stupid. Imagine it: a typewritten suicide note.’
‘Why would anyone want to kill your mother?’
‘For the same reason my mother wanted to talk to you. Remember, she said that my father knew something very important, something that would change everything. Remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘So someone thought she knew this thing too. And they wanted to kill her before she told anyone else.’
‘But she insisted she didn’t know what it was. She said your father wouldn’t tell her. For her own safety.’
‘I know that. But whoever did this was not so sure.’
‘I see.’ She looked down at the floor, without meaning to. ‘Look, do you think perhaps we ought to call the police, get an ambulance maybe?’
‘First, you tell me why you came here.’
‘It…it seems ridiculous now. It’s not urgent. Really, you have so much to deal-’
‘I don’t believe someone working for the American government drives to a private home late at night unless there is a good reason. So you just tell me what business you had with my mother, OK?’
‘Perhaps I ought to go, leave you some time to be alone.’
He reached for her arm, yanking her back. The same spot on her wrist where his mother had grabbed her a day earlier. ‘You have to tell me what you know. I, I-’
Ordinarily, Maggie would have slapped a man who had dared grab her that way. But she could see this was not an act of aggression, but one of desperation. The composure, the haughtiness even, she had seen at the house yesterday had gone now. For the first time, Maggie saw the eyes of this grieving son glisten.
‘If you can trust me enough to tell me your name, I’ll tell you what I know.’
‘My name is Uri.’
‘OK, Uri. My name is Maggie. Maggie Costello. Let’s sit down and talk.’
Calmly, Maggie filled a glass with water from the tap and handed it over. Then she led him back out of the kitchen and sat him down, her body reeling from the adrenaline.
‘You think what happened tonight has something to do with this information, of your father’s.’
Uri Guttman nodded.
‘Do you think your father was killed deliberately, because of that information?’
; ‘I don’t know. Some people say so. I don’t know. But I tell you what: I will find out who did this to my family. I will find them and I will make them pay.’
She wanted to tell him that his mother’s death was almost certainly the result of horrible, intense grief. His father had been killed accidentally and now his mother had taken her own life, as simple as that. But she couldn’t say that because she wasn’t sure she believed it.
Instead, she told him what she had just discovered. That Ahmed Nour, the Palestinian archaeologist slain earlier that day, had secretly worked with his father.
At first, he refused to accept it. He sat back in his chair with the pretence of a smile, cruel and bitter. No way, he said more than once. An anagram? It was absurd. But once Maggie had explained that his father and Nour had both trained as specialists in biblical archaeology, and once she had mentioned the unusual but recurring ceramic pattern, he fell quiet. It was clear that Maggie could have come up with no more shocking fact about Shimon Guttman. A lifelong mistress, a teenage lover, a secret family-she guessed Uri could have accepted any one of those revelations more readily than that his father might have had a working partnership with a Palestinian.
‘Look, if I’m right, it means that there may indeed be something going on here. Whatever secret it was your father was carrying, it seems to bring great harm to those who know it.’
‘But my mother knew nothing.’
‘Like you said, maybe whoever did this didn’t know that-or didn’t want to risk it.’
‘You think the same people who killed this Palestinian killed my mother?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because if they did, then I know who will be the next to die.’
‘Who?’
‘Me.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APRIL 2003, BAGHDAD
Mahmoud was regretting this decision. He should be above this now, he said to himself; as he was thrown into the air yet again, his bottom landing on the hard plastic seat of the bus as it hit the thousandth bump in the road. He should be the Mr Big who hired runners, yet here he was, working as a humble courier himself. Ten hours down, five more to go on the clapped-out old charabanc they laughingly referred to as the Desert Rocket.