‘I hope you do.’
He tapped his left side. I couldn’t see his holster, it was under a brown leather jacket, but I knew it was there. ‘Do you want this?’
I shook my head. We stood, hugged.
When I got to the Jaffa Gate, three army Land Rovers were blocking the road completely. They were sand-coloured and had large black radiator grilles and orange lights flashing on their roofs. Pedestrians were being forced to go through a narrow gap to the right of the vehicles to get out of the Old City.
There was a queue of people waiting to go through the gap. In the middle of it the Israeli police were checking people. Standing in line in font of me was a monk in a rough brown robe. It was what you would have seen his ancestors wearing two thousand years ago. His face was impassive as he waited, as if he’d seen this sort of thing before, many times.
When it was my turn, I was confronted by a young female police officer. Beside her there was a male officer with close cropped black hair. There were policemen in helmets behind them.
I was asked why I was in the Old City and to show my identification. Then I was let through. It had all been relatively easy.
It was twenty minutes after Mark had text me when I finally arrived at the taxi rank. There were no taxis there and Mark wasn’t there either. I walked around in the shadow of the Old City walls. It was half past twelve now. The sky above the city was filled with dirty grey clouds. It felt cooler and it seemed as if it might rain.
My phone buzzed. It was a message from Mark. I was to go through the gate and go down the road to the left.
I walked down to a set of traffic lights. Pulled up near them, half on the verge, was a white Range Rover. It reminded me of the one belonging to the British Embassy, which Isabel had been driving in Istanbul when we met.
As I came close to it a window at the front went down.
‘Let’s go, Sean,’ Mark shouted at me.
I didn’t like his attitude, but I got in the back. He was sitting next to a driver.
‘Belt up,’ he said. ‘We’ve an idea where your friend Susan is or at least where her phone is.’ The Range Rover engine started. We turned 180 degrees and merged with the traffic heading away from the Old City.
‘Did you identify the people in those pictures?’ I asked.
‘We’re working on it,’ he said.
‘Maybe whoever has Susan has Isabel as well?’ I leaned forward between the seats.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
The driver turned, giving me a stern look.
‘Sit back, sir, put your seat belt on.’
I got the impression he wasn’t happy with me being there. Maybe it was because I was a civilian or maybe he just didn’t like the look of me. I suppose I didn’t look too smart with my creased clothes and messed up hair.
I didn’t care.
‘Why the hell didn’t you keep an eye on her?’ said Mark. He kept staring out the front, but it was obvious he was talking to me.
‘Don’t try to dump this on me.’ I pointed a finger at him.
‘I told you coming back here was a bad idea.’
I didn’t bother to respond to that. I took deep breaths. I wasn’t going to get his help by fighting with him.
He handed me a bottle of water. ‘Have you eaten?’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not hungry. The only thing I’m interested in is finding Isabel.’
I sat back and looked out the side window. It had started raining. If we did find Isabel would she be okay? Visions of the worst nightmares you could imagine came to my mind. I gripped the edge of the leather seat until I was afraid I was going to tear it. I wanted to break something. Outside, rain had started coming down, as if it was Noah’s time.
I saw a woman walking at the side of the road. She looked like the woman who had stopped me in the car park of the university a few days before. She was holding an umbrella. She glanced at me as she passed. A memory came back of Irene’s funeral in Oxford. Was that where I’d seen that woman from the car park? So many people had turned up that day.
I remembered a group had come running up the gravel drive to St. Clements, where we’d held the service. It had been raining. Most people had been holding umbrellas. I’d been standing outside, sheltering under the porch. They’d all shaken my hand, offered me condolences. I’d been in a daze. I hadn’t wanted to go in. I hadn’t wanted it all to be real, for that day to exist. A stream of memories came rushing back.
A wave of emotion rose up inside me. I hadn’t thought about Irene’s funeral in a long time.
Would we be holding a funeral for Isabel too?
I closed my eyes, said a prayer. My sweat felt cold on my skin as I stared out into the rain.
Soon after, we were on a highway with signs in Hebrew, English and Arabic. We didn’t stay on it long. We passed through a village with modern shops, bright plastic signs and old stone walls that looked straight out of the Bible.
We pulled into a petrol station. Mark had been on his phone for a while, listening mostly, but he’d also watched something on the screen of it. I couldn’t see what it was.
‘We’re going to fill up,’ he said without turning to me.
When we’d finished, the driver pulled our Land Rover into a parking bay beside a red Toyota Land Cruiser.
He parked so close you couldn’t have put a hand between the two vehicles. The window of the Land Cruiser went down.
Xena was in the driving seat. Her hair was in ridges ending in tails with black beads at their ends, which hung at the side of her face. She was wearing a high-necked puffy black jacket. She scowled when she saw me and said something quickly to Mark that I didn’t catch. He was in the seat that was nearest to her. His window was down too.
‘What’s going on?’ I said.
Mark spoke without turning.
‘We’ll leave you here, Sean. Sorry about that. We’ll be back in a few hours.’ He sounded calm, as if he knew what my reaction would be, but didn’t care.
‘No way,’ I said, my voice rising quickly. ‘You’re not dumping me here. Forget it! Don’t try that crap with me!’ I was shouting. I didn’t care.
41
There was a stone inside her chest. A stone made of fear. She was doing her best not to think about it.
It seemed as if Susan had been moaning for weeks, but it couldn’t have been more than a day since Isabel had been ordered to the top of the stairs to collect her. The trap door had only opened for a few seconds and Susan had been pushed down, clutching her head, groaning as if she was dying.
Isabel could only surmise what the bastard had done from the faint smell of burnt flesh, Susan’s moaning, and the way she held her head constantly.
She’d tried, by touch, to figure out the extent of Susan’s injury, but all she had done was to make Susan scream when her hands went near Susan’s eyes.
And then the word came out. ‘George.’
‘What about George?’ said Isabel.
‘They murdered him. The bastards. They murdered him.’ There were more sobs.
Isabel held Susan close, soothing her. After another minute she spoke again, more clearly this time.
‘He said my husband would be killed if I didn’t cooperate. He showed me a picture of George sleeping in our bed with a knife in front of his face. I did what I was asked! I did it all! I spoke the words he wanted. Everything. Then he told me George was already dead!’ She sobbed.
‘And then he came at me.’ She wailed.
It was a sickening sound. The sound of a wounded animal.
‘Shhhh,’ said Isabel. ‘Don’t bring him down on us.’
‘But I can’t see!’ wailed Susan.
‘Why is he doing this?’ Isabel’s words came out in a sob.
‘He is evil,’ said Susan emphatically.
‘You will survive,’ said Isabel, trying to find some hope for them both. ‘We’re going to get out of this.’
Hope was not easy to conjure at that moment. From
the second he’d grabbed her, pulling her into his white van as she’d fallen unconscious with that cloth over her mouth, her struggles quickly fading, everything had changed.
And now she was almost totally powerless. And that made her body shake. She couldn’t believe what had happened. Come on, Sean, she thought. Don’t leave me here.
Now it was Susan’s turn to hug Isabel.
42
‘Don’t play silly buggers, Sean. You’re staying here. There’s a coffee shop in the petrol station.’ Mark pointed at it.
‘Kick me out here.’ I waved at the petrol station, then pointed a finger at his face. ‘And I’ll call the police and report what you’re up to. I don’t care what they do to me.’
I scanned the cars around us. There weren’t any police cars, but there was a private ambulance with a blue roof sign parked by the shop.
‘I’m sure they’ve got a radio in that ambulance. They could probably get the police here in minutes. All I’ll have to do is give them your number plate and your little plan goes up in smoke.’
Mark shook his head. ‘You do know you’ll end up in a cell for months for breaking Israeli immigration laws?’
I put my hand on the door. ‘I told you, I don’t care.’
Xena’s voice interrupted from the other car. ‘Let him come.’
Mark and the driver exchanged glances. I saw a look of resignation pass between them.
‘Okay, but don’t blame me if you get your todger shot off,’ said Mark. Then he turned to Xena, leaned towards her and said something.
The windows between the two cars rolled up. We reversed off.
Ten minutes later, we were driving down a narrow road with a steep gully on one side. Xena’s car was following. We were in a valley. There was a long ridge on the left. It was covered with tall dark green cypress, pine and the occasional tall palm tree, interspersed between flat-roofed cream-coloured apartment buildings. It was still raining.
We turned, passing slowly through a rundown-looking village. One of the bare, cheap-looking cafes had a blue plastic sign above its door. It read Abu Ghosh Café.
One of the two shops in the village was closed. There were parked cars everywhere and thin metal pylons holding up wires that criss-crossed above us. There were half-built houses beyond the cafe and two dirty flatbed lorries parked outside.
We took a narrow twisting road out of the village and headed up a hill so steep I thought our vehicle wouldn’t make it. The incline had to be sixty degrees or more. There were rough sandstone walls on either side with houses beyond them. Two dogs barked at us excitedly as we passed. There was no other traffic.
The road turned a corner and flattened out. In front of us were red and white striped barrels. We drove up slowly towards the road block. To the left there was a narrow lane. We turned into it. Xena’s Land Cruiser was still behind us.
‘The prophet Jeremiah was born in this area,’ said Mark.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t care if the Queen of Sheeba’s family still lived here.
The road was no more than a lane now, with pine trees beyond.
‘I looked this place up,’ said Mark. ‘This is where King David kept the Ark of the Covenant, before he moved it to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.’
‘Do we have far to go?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Mark.
After another minute of slow driving we pulled over. The wall on our left was set back from the lane here, and there was a dusty area where we could park. Xena pulled up near us.
‘What’s the plan?’ I said.
‘We’re going to pay somebody a friendly visit.’
Before we got out of the car, Mark pointed at the GPS screen and said something to the driver that I didn’t catch. The driver didn’t reply.
Five minutes later the four of us were walking along the lane. The sandstone walls were about head height on either side. I can only assume that we had left the vehicles so we wouldn’t be heard approaching where we were going.
I wanted to walk faster, but Mark made a gesture for me to calm down. Their pace was agonisingly laid-back, almost as if we were all on a Sunday stroll.
We passed an old fashioned wooden gate, then a modern-looking one.
The rain had stopped, but the sky above was heavy with clouds. They had settled over the landscape like a blight. There was an earthy smell in the air too, as if the rain had exposed something.
Then, at a spot where the stone wall on the left was broken, our driver stepped over the wall and headed off, without any discussion. We walked on.
‘Where’s he gone?’ I asked.
‘He’ll watch the back of the target house, just in case anyone tries to make a run for it.’
‘Are you expecting trouble?’
‘We’re prepared for it, let’s just say that.’ Mark opened his jacket and turned to me. I saw a black holster. It was bigger than Simon’s and more modern-looking.
‘Do you think Susan and Isabel might be here?’
‘Maybe. This is the best lead we have.’
‘You have others?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. The Israelis have been checking security camera footage from the area Susan was taken, but they haven’t come up with anything yet. This is our best bet.’
I was getting more anxious by the second. I wanted to rush to wherever we were going, break doors down, search for Isabel.
A minute later, we came to a gap in the lane to our left where the wall was set back. In the centre of the gap there was a tall set of gates with curls of barbed wire above them. The gates had animal heads, a goat and a snake and an eagle, embossed on them.
In front of the gate was a policeman in a navy blue uniform.
Were we too late? Had the place already been raided?
As we neared the policeman Mark said, ‘Sean, meet my old friend, Ariel, from the Israeli Immigration Police.’ I held out my hand. Ariel shook it. He had a firm grip.
‘We might as well do this now, Sean.’ Mark pointed at Ariel. ‘Tell my friend about your suspicion that an illegal immigrant is holed up here.’ He pointed towards the gates.
I stared at him. ‘What?’
Mark sighed. ‘Come on, tell him you think Isabel is in here,’ he said, in an exasperated tone.
I did as I was asked. The policeman took a black leather-covered notebook out of his pocket, checked his watch, a big old fashioned steel thing, and wrote something in the notebook.
‘Under the powers invested in me by the Entry into Israel Law 5763 I will now enter these premises,’ said the policeman in a low voice, as he put his notebook back in his pocket. He went over to the wall beside the gate, it was five foot high, and pulled himself up onto it surprisingly quickly. From the top he looked back at us. ‘I’ll need some witnesses,’ he said.
He grinned at us for a moment, as if he was enjoying himself, then he dropped down to the other side.
Xena and Mark followed him over the wall. I was right behind them. On the far side it looked as if we’d gone back in time. Stretching ahead of us was a stone path with palm trees on either side. Their trunks must have been five feet thick, at least. They looked ancient. Their crowns met about fifty feet above us.
The path curved away up the hill. We were walking fast, almost running. As we came to a bend the policeman turned and said, ‘Go to the right, Mark. You others stay here, then follow me in twenty minutes if you haven’t heard any gunfire.’
I knew all about taking orders. But I also knew about bending them. The policeman was gone only a minute when I walked slowly forward, following him. Xena, who was being very quiet, walked beside me.
As we turned the corner we came into a clearing. There was a two-storey building in front of us. Its walls were made of roughly shaped stones. Ariel was at the front door of the building.
The building had small windows with rusted iron bars in a grid protecting them. Its roof was flat. Wooden beams protruded on the left side. A veranda ran beneath them. Bushes a
nd trees came close to the house, almost protectively.
A big white Toyota van sat in the driveway. It was covered in dust. We were in the right place. I could feel it. This was exactly the type of vehicle that could have been used to kidnap Isabel and Susan.
We were going to find them.
We were going to find Isabel.
Anticipation rose inside me. I walked forward quickly, half running.
I was going to find the bastard who’d taken her. If he’d done anything to her, anything at all, he was going to suffer.
A video of Isabel had been playing in my mind over and over since she’d disappeared. A memory of her smiling, laughing. I could feel the warmth from it, and a longing to see her. After the cold years grieving for Irene I wasn’t going to give her up. Ever.
I came up towards Ariel at the front door of the building. The door was wooden and had iron rivets in a circular pattern in its centre. It looked a thousand years old at least. Ariel pressed a brass bell at the side of the door as I arrived.
Then he turned to us. He didn’t look surprised. All he did was shake his head, as if only mildly disappointed.
‘I told you to wait,’ he said, softly.
‘Isabel might be in there. You can’t stop me coming.’
‘If you get shot, Mr Ryan, it’s your responsibility. Do you understand?’
I nodded. He turned back to the door. ‘And we don’t have time for any arguments.’ He knocked on the door with his knuckles and stepped to the side.
‘There’s probably a back door,’ said Xena. ‘I’ll have a look.’
Ariel had his pistol out of its holster. It was a small, black mini UZI. I waited on the other side of the door. There was a giant pot with a spiky cactus behind me.
‘To hell with this,’ I said.
I reached for the door handle, turned it, pushed at the door. It stayed closed.
‘Shoot the bloody lock off,’ I said. ‘Go on. Shoot it. Or I’m going to find something to break it with. If there’s anyone in there, they know we’re out here. They might be cutting Isabel’s throat right now, burning her.’
‘Stand back,’ he said.
The Jerusalem Puzzle Page 20